Adventures in baking: Christmas Stollen edition

I hope you all had a great Christmas!  This whole week has been a glorious week of relaxing, TV watching, and sleeping (following a not-so-fun beginning of the week where I suddenly got sick).  I didn't even workout until finally getting the strength to go for a short walk/jog this afternoon.

Baking cookies is easy enough for me, but bread....well bread is something I do less often.   Yet that didn't stop me from doing some Christmas baking because my family all loves any bread-related food...leading me to tackle a Christmas Stollen recipe.  

Keep reading for the recipe!

A Baking Conundrum - Cinnamon Sticky Buns for Father's Day

There are few things more wonderful than the smell of butter mixed into dough, slowing baking in the oven until something golden brown and delicious becomes the final product.

On another note, today was Father's Day.

On a related note, among my dad's favorite foods are desserts.  More specifically, he loves all kinds of baked goods, especially anything with raisins.  

Now since I love baking, especially when the aforementioned magic of butter and dough take place, it leaves me in a difficult spot when I can't really tolerate wheat flour...or excess amounts of butter.  And sticky buns definitely use a lot of butter.

My solution?  Bake for a crowd that can tolerate my recipes so that I get all my baking urges out of the way.  There's something about kneading dough and the scent of cinnamon and sugar and butter mixing together to create a tantalizing aroma and just an overall comforting atmosphere.  

So...to satisfy my need to bake and the need for some willing eaters, I tackled a sticky bun recipe for Father's Day.

Sticky buns aren't my own creation by any means, but after finding some recipes to reference, I set off on my own cinnamon and butter filled journey.

To see what I did, keep reading!

Gluten Free + Dairy Free Irish Soda Bread - A Successful Experiment! + Going Gluten-Free for Real?

As much as I love soda bread, and always had it in the house around St. Patrick's Day (who knew...Asians eating soda bread?), I know surprisingly little about it.  All I knew was that my parents always really liked it and we would both buy and make it.  It was actually kind of a shock that some people had never had it before - but then again, it was the only aspect of St. Patrick's Day that my family ever celebrated...or "observed" might be the better choice here.  

Alas, when it came to being asked some trivia questions about St. Patrick's Day.....here's all that I could come up with:

Well...I tried.

All I know that Irish soda bread is one of my favorite breads....but after experimenting with some more foods in my house and eating regular soda bread and my mom's pasta...I can nearly confirm that I now have a gluten-intolerance.  I was always suspicious of it, especially after coming home from Europe last summer and realizing that everytime I ate anything gluten-heavy (breads, pastas, pizzas), I would feel nauseous and get a headache after.  I didn't really quite believe that it could happen to me - especially after four months of eating some type of bread, pasta, or pastry on a daily basis in Europe.  I kept experimenting and somewhat stayed away from anything that had a lot of gluten in it, but didn't follow it really strictly.  I'd say I stuck to about a 75% gluten-free diet but wasn't picky about it at all.  

Then I went home for spring break and was surrounded by all things gluten - pasta, bread, cookies, mom's homemade noodles and buns (which were delicious!).  I didn't go crazy, but I had two main meals - noodles and these Chinese buns filled with sauteed tofu, ground pork, and chives.  These were the only times I felt nauseous for the rest of the day and night after eating, leading me to believe that the use of regular white flour was what was causing my discomfort.  

I haven't seen a nutritionist, nor can I say 100% that gluten is causing my discomfort, but I think these experiences plus my discomfort in the summer say something about my gluten intake and my stomach.  I know now that I will be much more conscious about being gluten-free, and doing some more testing to see how much gluten I can tolerate.

Anyway, explanations aside, I managed to make this:

 A total experiment on gluten free Irish Soda Bread.  

A little non-traditional, I know, but I daresay I liked it BETTER than traditional soda bread.

Variations on a Mug cake (Gluten-free and Vegan options available!)

I've kind of made a recent discovery - I love mug cakes.  They're way quicker than trying to bake an entire cake (along with the risk of me eating the entire thing), but I find that they're so much easy to play with.  I love trying out different ingredients together, and since the ingredients are in much smaller quantities, messing up ingredients is a little more forgiving.  It also allows me to have the illusion that I'm eating something completely decadent, when I really am just sneaking some healthy ingredients in there.  I've used them as a post-workout meal with oats, peanut butter, and eggs (carbs, fat, proteins!).

I've been tweaking several recipes and have come up with two variations that yield a slightly different consistency, but are both wonderfully delicious.

The first version is a bit more brownie-like. It's slightly gooier, and when a bit of peanut butter is added in the middle before microwaving it, it has something like a molten cake consistency.

Look at this.  How does this not make you run to the kitchen and start throwing ingredients together?  You would never guess that it's actually about 75% healthy..

 Read on for the ingredients (and a bonus version!)

The Opposite of Losing My Cookies and (Healthy) Addictions featuring Avocados

I'm back.  And by "back," I mean I've been finally cooking again. More time = more experimenting.

A new year means new inspiration and ideas - and a fully stocked pantry is certainly giving me motivation to do something with it!  My obsessions recently are quinoa, sweet potatoes, chickpeas, and kale..convenient that I find a recipe using all of those!  But..not convenient that I didn't take a good picture of the AMAZING salad I put together incorporating all those ingredients.  Don't worry though, it'll come up again in the very near future.  Because I'm obsessed.

In the meantime, I tried out some recipes from a handy cookbook that I found recently.  It's the Gluten Free on a Shoestring: Quick and Easy by Nicole Hunn.  I know nothing about her, but I've been enjoying the quick and easy recipes in it.  I'm also not a gluten-free eater, but like to reduce my white carb intake in any way I can.  Here is her chicken fajita recipe that I modified into a pseudo fajita bowl...ish thing.

Read more to see the recipe, more food, and COOKIES!

Leaving cookies out for Santa....

Christmas time = Christmas cookies.  Nothing gets me in the mood for baking like the holiday season does. It fills the house up with a tantalizing scent of butter and sugar, and as we all know, food brings the family together. 

Even while trying to eat clean, I took a liiitle break and took a few more liberties than normal.  Those that know me well know I almost never use butter, sugar, or flour in my baking.  This week I used all three.  What a shocker, right?  In addition to the traditional shortbread cookies that are oh so classic for Christmas, I decided to feed my addiction of peanut butter by making peanut butter cookies. 

I messed around with a few different recipes, and am extremely happy with how they came out.  They were dad AND brother approved.  It's a pretty basic peanut butter cookie recipe and absolutely loved it.  

I tried snapping some pictures while baking and afterwards, but the lighting was pretty dismal wherever I went.  I did my best though..

A warm plate of cookies for Santa!

Click after the jump to see what I did!

New (food) Obsession: Cinnamon Toasted Almonds

It is a widely known fact that I am obsessed with almonds and all almond products, so when I started experimenting with toasting almonds, I went into almond heaven.

I toasted almonds in cinnamon and honey and I've already eaten a ton of them, as seen in the almost half empty jar above.  They aren't as sugary and heavy as the candied almonds you might buy, yet they pack some great flavor and sweetness, and it's a super easy recipe to top it all off!  The hardest part by far was waiting for them to cool down before I ate all of them. ;)

 Here's what I used:

2 c. raw almonds
2 T. honey or agave nectar
1 T. olive oil (make sure it's regular, not extra virgin, or just use canola oil, or even coconut oil)
1 T. cinnamon

Preheat oven to 375 F.  In a large bowl, pour honey, oil, and cinnamon.  Mix well, then add almonds.  Mix until all the almonds are evenly coated, and then pour into either a cooking ceramic/glass dish, or straight onto a flat baking pan.

Bake for 10-12 minutes.  After 6 minutes, toss the almonds to make sure they are evenly toasted.  At this time, I usually add more cinnamon to add on some extra flavor, but if you want your almonds to be more mild tasting, feel free to skip this step!  Let the almonds cool about 20 minutes since they will be soft initially after baking.  Enjoy.  Try not to eat the whole batch.

The perfect breakfast, snack, or topping on salads and yogurts! 

Excuse me while I go grab another handful, and think of new ingredients to toast my almonds in....

Crazy for Pineapple and Some More Food

Looks like I'm getting domestic...I've been on a whirlwind of cooking and baking lately.  I think it's the boredom of being at home and having nothing better to do, but my family's certainly not complaining!

Starting with some cupcakes - we had some extra pineapple on hand and wanted to get rid of a box of cake mix so I added them together for some pineapple cupcakes.  Super simple, and no one can get boxed mix wrong.

Continue reading for some more food deliciousness!