pumpkin muffins

I was a bakin' fool today.
I made bagels again, but I'm still tweaking that recipe so that will have to wait.

But I finally made something pumpkin. And I have a lot of leftover pumpkin mash from the huge can my mom got me, so there will be others to follow.


The best thing about making these is the awesome smell. It just makes you think of crisp weather (which we do not have- grr).

This is your basic pumpkin muffin- I can't wait to expand and make tasty variations.

To make:

3/4 c. flour mix
1 T. flaxseed meal
1/4 c. brown sugar
2 T. sugar
1 t. pumpkin pie spice
1/8 t. salt
1/4 t. baking soda
1/2 t. baking powder
1/2 c. pumpkin mash... stuff. (mine was from a can... I'm not that fancy)
1 egg
2 T. water
1/4 c. applesauce
1/2 t. vanilla

walnuts to sprinkle on top if you want

Mix up the dry. Beat the egg a little bit and mix up the wet. Add the wet to the dry, and mix until it's just moistened. Put it into muffin tins. Bake it at 350 for about 20 minutes until the toothpick is clean.

A few notes:

This recipe makes 6 muffins. When I make a small batch, I evenly space out the muffins and pour water into the empty wells. I don't know why I do that, it's something I've heard.

These muffins, when eaten warm fresh out of the oven, are a tad gummy, as if too much starch has been added. But, when they've cooled, the texture is just fine. You have to just hold your horses.

I added the water because I decided to add in flaxseed meal. In my experience it tends to soak up moisture, so a little extra is needed in the recipe. I use 2 parts water to 1 part flaxseed meal.

Ashley said that these don't taste pumpkin-y enough, but I think it's fine. I guess it depends on taste, but the next time I make these I'll up the pumpkin ratio and see what happens.

I make my own pumpkin pie spice. I mix up a bunch and store it in a small container until I need it.

1 1/2 t. cinnamon
1/2 t. nutmeg
1/4 t. cloves
a little under 1/2 t. ginger

That is all for now.

My experience with Korean food

I accompanied the Man last night to a birthday dinner for one of his friends at a Korean restaurant, Seoul Garden. I was a little worried about the menu options because the research I'd done was not very helpful.

When it came time to order, you pushed a button and the waitress came. It was neat. Well, when I tried to ask questions the waitress freaked a little because she didn't speak much english. So they got a very helpful (and patient) waiter to come and talk to me.

The big thing at Korean restaurants is the grilled/ bbq meat. Pretty much every meat was marinated in soy sauce, except for some pork that you'd grill at the table. The problem with that, though, is that you had to get at least two orders of something "grillable at the table" and no one else was getting that.

Fortunately, we were with some people who knew the menu options and traditional food preparations who helped me pick something safe to eat and communicate with the waiter. They could tell me what had soy sauce and what didn't when the other foods arrived, too.

I ended up getting a bowl full of vegetables that included bean sprouts, lettuce, zuccini, and some other veggies that I can't remember the name of. It came with steamed rice that you were supposed to pour into the bowl and mix it all up. I preferred to eat them separately because there were some sprouts that were marinated or pickled in something that I did not care for at all. I just picked around them and it was all good.

The coolest part of the experience was, the huge amount of food that comes with the meals. The entire table was covered in small bowls of spicy potatoes, seaweed, spinach, fermented cabbage, pickled cabbage, and a couple other things I can't remember. It was very a colorful and festive sight, with deep greens, reds, yellows, all down the table.

They served miso soup and plates of salad, and this was all before the entree. There was hardly any table space with the huge amount of food.

Then, after the meal, they served slices of orange. I wish I had known because they looked really good but I was stuffed.

I don't think I'd go again, however, because the food wasn't "spectacular" and my options were very limited. But overall it was a cool experience and I didn't go hungry.

pasta salad again

I made a really good pasta salad for lunch the other day. I was in a study group and when I busted it out my friends, who were eating pb&j or instant soup, said, "I wish I had that!"
Ohh yeah.

The picture I took was crappy because it was with my camera phone.

This is quick & easy, and to keep my paranoid self from worrying about the dressing going bad, I just froze the salad dressing in a baggie and by lunchtime it was thawed.

I chopped up some cucumber and carrot really small, and mixed it with some brown rice pasta and red beans.

Added the dressing and mixed it up right before I ate it. Yum.

owwww

Man. I swear, the worst part about getting glutened isn't the upset stomach. That goes away within a day.

It's these damn canker sores. I used to get them constantly, then I became gluten free and noticed that they went away. Except for when I get glutened. They last for more than a week and are excruciating at times. I got glutened almost 2 weeks ago and my body's still giving me shit for it. To make it worse, it's usually two right next to each other.

The last time I got one, it was in the back of my mouth and made the entire side of my face tender, and the pain could be felt all the way down my neck.

This time, they're in the front and I can't even rest my chin in my hand without stinging pain. In fact, any time I move my lip it's uncomfortable.

So I know I should focus on the damage to the small intestine or the stomach upset when I think about avoiding gluten, but it's really all about these stupid sores.

I've tried all sorts of remedies, and none of them seems to really work any better than the others. Does anyone else experience this when they get glutened? And what do you do to make them go away?!

Apple Crisp

...and ribs, and potato salad = dinner at Dayna and Scott's.

Scott made ribs, Dayna made potato salad, and I made apple crisp for dessert. I've heard about how Scott's ribs are awesome, and I'd never tried them before. In fact, I think I've eaten a total of maybe 5 ribs in my life. So this was really my first rib experience- and they were great.

2007 Champ- gotta get the apron in the shot

potato salad love

apple crisp & ice cream

The apple crisp turned out great. Between the 5 of us we left only a humble serving in the pan. To make it, I used the same recipe that I used for the peach crisp, and cut up 6 or so granny smith apples. It's so easy and it turns out so awesome, I wonder why I don't make it more often.

Celiac Sightings

My mom grabbed a couple of cheap magazines at the checkout today: Woman's World and First. And, while I was flipping through them, they BOTH mentioned Celiac Disease in either an article or one of those Q&A sections.

Can we say awesome?

*update*

Whoa, then just now I was watching tv on Discovery Health and they had a quick little segment on it! Today is just a Celiac awareness kind of day.

what-a-burger

Whataburger's gluten list: this means that milkshakes (NOT MALTS) are ok. Sweeeeet.

*sigh* I remember the days of late-night biscuit and taquito runs.

That's ok. Mine taste better. :-p