Pizza with Onion Confit

January 9, 2013May 27, 2015 ~ gfcelebration ~ 26 Comments

Here we are, with our first recipe for 2013 with Baking with Julia/Tuesdays with Dorie: Pizza with Onion Confit. Delving into making pizza probably wouldn’t have been a personal choice to make, especially so close after the holidays. But upon closer examination of the recipe, it turned out to be a much lighter version as far as calories are concerned and minus the excessive cheese. The type of pizza crust in this recipe reminded me of my travels through Northern Italy. Just out of college, and traveling with several American students, we stopped by some local restaurants in the Northern Italian Alps, and all of them served pizza with a rather crispy crust, topped with delicious herbs, fresh tomatoes and very small amounts of locally made cheese – mostly goat cheese, or some type of mozzarella. Continue reading →

Best Ever Brownies

November 21, 2012May 27, 2015 ~ gfcelebration ~ 23 Comments

Better late than never. At last, the posting for our gluten free version of the Best Ever Brownies, which we actually managed to make a couple of days ago for a birthday celebration, but didn’t have time to actually post.

Brownies have a special place in our hearts. In our own personal experience, we have been welcomed to several homes, including our current one, by some special neighbors bearing flowers and a beautiful plate of brownies. In fact, upon moving in to my very first apartment in this country, near San Francisco, my new neighbors, whom I had never met before, left a basket filled with brownies alongside a beautiful bunch of flowers by my doorstep. Continue reading →

Bagels, Part 2

October 30, 2012May 27, 2015 ~ gfcelebration ~ 14 Comments

We did it! Success at last! After several more attempts trying to perfect that perfect chewiness and flavor of “real” bagels, we finally accomplished what we set out to do. Keep in mind, by no means did we bake every single day, we just don’t have that kind of time available. In the process of developing a recipe, we always only make a small fraction of the recipe for each trial, because seriously, how many bagels can anyone eat? There is also only so much room in our financial budget for the inevitable failures. Since we committed ourselves to achieving a perfect result that everyone would be thrilled with, we tried everything, including baking them without the water bath – that was a complete failure. In that version, we set out to boil them, but the dough completely dissolved and turned into porridge in the boiling water. Continue reading →