Gluten free family time with a bit of Hakuna Matata

Have I ever told you that my house is called Camp Chaos?

 It's because of this guy. Chaotic isn't he? It's what we dubbed ourselves shortly after bringing home our first puppy, Chaos Monster in Febuary, 2005. The name's stuck and it's followed us from  Maine to Colorado and back to Maine. It's a great ode to our beloved golden retriever, Chaos who's about to celebrate his 7th birthday. Chaos was the first dog I ever had the pleasure of living with. He's taught me a lot since I brought him home as a young puppy in early 2005.  His soft golden mane is often a source of comfort and reminds me of my favorite Disney movie, The Lion King. I was in high school when the Lion King first came out and it earned it's place as my favorite all time Disney flick. I think that's why I love my golden puppies so much as Chaos often resembles a regal Mufasa and crazy little Mayhem is a young Simba. When the movie came back out on DVD this year I quickly snatched up a copy and enjoyed the movie along my memories of being a favorite babysitter to my young cousins.


This week my sister, Kim came for a visit with her husband and two kiddos- Moyer's who's almost 5 and Keturah who's 3 going on 7. Kim and Keturah are in the midst of a gluten free trial and Kim did a guest post a few weeks back about their Mighty Fine dining experience in Austin, TX. So far with this trial  they've discovered that Keturah doesn't do well with corn as well as gluten. As most of us glutards know a lot of gluten free items contain corn in one form or another so we stuck to a lot of naturally gluten free, corn free foods during their visit to camp chaos. Like Annie's Gluten Free Mac N Cheese with some hamburger and peas added in for fun.

The kids and I watched The Lion King the first morning here at Camp Chaos and the rest of the visit featured small voices singing lines of Hakuna Matata.

Hakuna Matata! It means no worries for the rest of your days

We even tried to make some corn free powdered sugar for our Chex Muddy Buddies...

Played Legos (because every good aunt and uncle should have a house with legos...)
Walked the dogs which was even better with shoulder rides from Patrick

But he wouldn't give the dogs shoulder rides- they had to walk

as did Moyer but he liked to run, jump and hop more then walk. He is a good runner.

We took time to make the donuts...gluten and corn free.
And of course I whipped up some knitted projects for the kids. You can see those over at Asiaramblin 

I've been really impressed with my dining experiences at the Rack since we've moved back to Sugarloaf and even more so after our trip with my gluten free, corn free niece. Our waitress (who's also gluten free) double checked the gluten free options for us for traces of corn and Keturah enjoyed a great safe bowl of gf, corn free noodles and marinaira.

 Don't you wish every gluten free meal could have a bit of Hakuna Matata?

time to make the donuts... dunkin munchkin style

There's some key memories that I have from growing up in New England, days at the ocean, campfires with s'mores on maple branches, the smell of a forest heavy with pine, black flies and Dunkin' Donuts. We sadly found out when we moved west of the Mississippi that America does not run on Dunkin- just the east coast. Walk around Boston and you'll find a Dunkin on every block. I get jealous while back east when others enjoy Dunkin Donuts... especially Munchkins, little balls of happiness... unless you happen to be a glutard then the little ball of happiness becomes a little ball of great pain.
We've become good at making donuts (ah donuts...see memories here) but it was more of a french crueler style all light and airy. I found a post on Going Gluten Free for Dunkin Style Donuts and we used our first lazy off season Saturday to try it out.
We stuck to the recipe with just a few tweaks. I used Almond Milk and Artisan Gluten Free Flour Blend that is my go to flour blend. We tried powdered sugar to finish them off in but found out that both Dave and I prefer a cinnamon and sugar mix.  We used a fondue pot to keep the temp steady at 375 and did small batches. We learned that we don't have a fire extinguisher so we kept the baking soda handy and kept everything out of the way of the hot oil.

Dough

 

 

Mayhem and Chaos

Make the dough then let it rest as directed. Realize the two dogs are being very cute together and snap a photo of the lovable brothers before getting the oil heated and you area prepped.

baking soda for safety...

 

 

 

a cookie dough scoop makes pretty and uniform balls

golden colored perfection

proper tools help a lot... like this fancy scooper

shake with cinnamon and sugar then enjoy!

It was a perfect off season Saturday project... for those unfamiliar with "off season" it's best defined as the time after winter and before summer while the ski area, the town and the people thaw out. Many people take this time to get out of town to warm locations. It's a very quiet time in town and can also be called mud season. Today it could be confused with winter as it's starting to snow again...

Sweet Saturdays for Christmas in July

Last Saturday we had a nice rainy day so we invited some friends over for a Sweet Saturday. We started the day with homemade OJ and gluten free donuts and watched some Christmas movies to celebrate Christmas in July. We made a homemade glaze for the donuts and used a meat injector to make jelly filled donuts.

It was a pretty sweet morning and Dave and Jess ended up in a sugar coma while Jared and I pulled out this new Whoopie Pie Book to create Mocha Flavored Whoopies. We even took it a step further when Jared made our frosting coffee flavored too. It was a great change from a "plain" whoopie and made a rainy Saturday go by much too quickly. The book is great and even has a GF whoopie reciepe but I just subbed GF flour and xanthum gum in for the Mocha Whoopies.

The jelly donut was a winner as was the bacon wrapped donut... however it was hard to touch the...

Gluten Free Oreo Filled Donut with Glaze and Sprinkles.

Life here in Telluride is pretty sweet...

Time to make the Donuts, take 2

The last time we made donuts there was snow on the ground and winter was just beginning. Now as summer is in full swing and we suffer from a heat wave of  temperatures in the high 80's

(ok, it's kind of a joke but when you live in the mountains and at 9,000 feet this is HOT)

We were home after a busy weekends of playing with the dogs and enjoying the Food Network. Kid in a Candy Store was at Kick Ass Cupcakes and they were showing decadent deep fried cupcakes and we were motivated.We were not motivated enough to make cupcakes but we did pull out the Gluten Free Gourmet and revisited the donut recipe. Doesn't everyone want to make donuts when it's hot out?

This time we cut the recipe in half and whipped the eggs in faster to create a better dough.

I also finally picked up a cookie dough scoop which rocked our donut world. It made perfect scoops and reminded me of Dunkin Donut Munchkins.

We also now have a fondue pot that doubles as a donut fryer.

(thanks Kendra, come visit and we'll make you donuts to thank you in person)

It kept the oil at a perfect 375 degrees and had a good shape for making small donuts in.

After letting them cool we shook them in a mix of Cinnamon, sugar, powdered sugar and cocoa then enjoyed. Next time I make cupcakes I may have to coat in this mix and try my hand at deep fried cupcakes but for now I was pretty happy with our second attempt at homemade donuts.

YUM!

holidaze

Living in a ski town means that the holiday week is far from a vacation... I am on day 11 straight and am not sure when I can break that streak. And by 11 days I don't mean ski days in a row... that's work days in a row. Thankfully I got ready for the holidays early and began mixing my flour blends before the madness hit.

Good thing too because I'm really messy at flour blending....

Lately I've been keeping Artisanal Flour Blend in addition to the Featherlight. I like both for different things. The artisanal makes a great pizza dough and the featherlight is great for crepes. 

I had picked up Artisanal Gluten Free Cooking and I have to say that I really liked their pizza recipe... ok they have a few but so far I've enjoyed just one.

my gluten free, dairy free, pinapple and peperoni pizza

Did I mention that? I gave up dairy for the holidays and am feeling good. The breakout on my chin as also disappeared. I had some small amounts earlier this week and it is thinking about returning. It was a lot easier to give up gluten then dairy. It once again changed my eating habits. I've been subbing in almond and soy milk. I can't have a lot of soy milk but it's great for baking.

I also tried my hand at a frosting... it was pretty good all things considered! Thanks to Marlow for the idea and to my nautral food store for having "fake people" cream cheese!

Plus here's a few shots of the donuts we made... and need to make again... these were from

The Gluten Free Gourmet as was the frosting.

I think the poor kitchenaid is going to take issue as we got an immersion blender and I'm hoping to use that when I make my next foray into the kitchen again... someday soon when the holidaze are over....

plus I got the 1,000 Gluten Free Recipes and that's a lot to go through....

Happy Gluten Free and Mostly Dairy Free 2010!