Tour of Celestial Seasonings, gluten-free tea, & tea with stevia!

This weekend we took a free tour of Celestial Seasonings, which is just 15 minutes from our house in Longmont Colorado. We've been meaning to for a while now, since Ashley is old enough (children under five aren't allowed in the factory area).

You can sample dozens of teas in the beautiful gallery area while you enjoy the original artwork commissioned for the tea boxes.

Even if you don't take a tour, it's worth going just to see the gallery, sample teas (there are even tables and chairs for sitting a while), and browse the gift shop. No photos are allowed in the factory area.

The tour was pretty cool. They showed a quick video by the founder/president and then took us through the factory. The machinery wasn't operating since it was the weekend, which was too bad, but also good. On weekdays when the machinery is going you have to wear a hairnet, and I don't know if Ashley would have done that. She really doesn't like anything on her head. So we missed the action, but we all got to go in :-)

An interesting fact about the factory: It only takes about nine people to operate all that equipment. The entire Celestial Seasonings branch however, includes a couple hundred people. Also, I had no idea: They produce several other brands you may know such as Terra Chips, Garden of Eatin' and Alba Botanica products (at other locations).

As for the tea, I was giddy to hear they just released an iced tea sweetened with stevia! We tried it there, and it was so good we bought a box to take home :-) The tour guide told us they use whole stevia leaves, as opposed to a chemical derivative of the herb. Wow! Cool!

We tried two others that were new to me, and so good we had to buy them: Safari Spice and Sleepytime Vanilla.

The lady behind the sample counter offered to give us a list of the teas that are NOT gluten-free so I can share those with you. NON-gluten-free teas include:

Roastaroma

Detox A.M.

Ginseng Energy

Gingerbread Spice

Sugar Cookie Sleigh Ride

Sugar Plum Spice

These are all the glutenous ones on the the free tasting menu list. I don't know if they have others with gluten as well.

On another note, I want to share two of my favorite organizations with you for your consideration this Christmas:

Advent Conspiracy & Living Water.

Click to watch their video, and Happy Holidays lovelies!

♥, Kelly

Grain-Free Baked Goods & Desserts is available!

I'm very pleased to announce my second cookbook, Grain-Free Baked Goods & Desserts is now in print! As you may know, I photograph and design my own cookbooks, front to back, inside and out. I self-publish through our family press, Apidae Press, with my husband (an author and designer) Andrew. Our books are printed on demand here in the USA. This means that they are printed one at a time, as they are ordered, as opposed to a big print run of thousands of books.

Here is a sneak peak of a few spreads in Grain-Free Baked Goods & Desserts:

I want to give a big thank you to all of my readers for leading me in the grain-free and often egg-free baked goods and desserts direction. Also, thank you so much for all of your love and support! I am so grateful :-)

And a huge thanks also to my friend Ali, author of Nourishing Meals, and The Whole Life Nutrition Cookbook. Thank you for all of your help, Ali, and for giving me such a beautiful foreword!

I hope you enjoy these recipes, 30 of which are not featured online. We put a lot of time and love into both the recipes and the design :-)

You can order this cookbook from my own online store by clicking here: Grain-Free Baked Goods & Desserts or from amazon.com. I make nearly twice as much per book if you order through this link, but I appreciate your support either way!

♥, Kelly

Shauna, the Gluten-Free Girl's potluck in Boulder today

This afternoon Andy, the girls and I got to go to a gluten-free potluck for Shauna, the Gluten-Free Girl. It was also nice to see my friend Lexie, of Lexie's Kitchen, who was there too.

I brought my chocolate cake with a macadamia glaze.

Shauna is such a warm sweet person. It was so cool meeting her.

She asked if people would wear YES so Zoe and I made these crowns :-)

I love Shauna's positive affirmation of YES. Yes to living life to the fullest, even a gluten-free life. You know we never feel deprived :-) Being gluten-free isn't a bad thing. It can be just as good if not better! And being free of our symptoms from gluten is amazing. We feel so blessed. YES!

♥, Kelly

The Ancient History of Bean Cake

Image at left: A stitched depiction of two cooks on the 11th century Bayeux Tapestry.

One of my favorite gluten free baked goods made by my wife is her Vanilla Bean Cake. Making a cake with beans is an innovative way to to replicate the spongy texture of wheat. We've all seen those packaged gluten-free mixes that use garbanzo bean flour (which tastes gross if you ask me). Kelly's bean cakes and breads* use white or navy beans (which don't taste like beans at all). Such a progressive idea, right? Well, it turns out the practice of baking with beans goes back to at least the 11th century.

This month I was reading a history of daily life in Norman England when I came upon a passage describing how peasants would add beans to their bread flour when there was a poor harvest. This text inspired me to find a kids book about Medieval life to read Zoe and Ashley at bedtime. We borrowed The Luttrell Village, by Sheila Sancha, an illustrated book about a 14th century village in England. It too explains "...the villagers also made barley or rye-bread, and when their sacks were getting empty at the hungry time of year—before the next harvest—they but beans into the dough." I was surprised. Until recently I have only read about the ancient food of the Celts, Greeks, and Romans, which never mentioned bean-bread. I then checked my book about Saxon food. It doesn't offer much detail, but it says the Anglo-Saxons also added beans to their flour when ordinary bread grains were in short supply.

Kelly was fascinated to hear this. The first thing she wanted to know was whether the beans were ground into a dry flour or boiled and mashed. I knew boiling was the most common way of cooking food. There was nearly always a cauldron of something simmering over the fire in ancient households. I also knew that Medieval villagers resented grinding their grains at the lord's mill. In feudal villages it was actually against the law to own a personal size hand-mill for grinding grains into flour. Peasants were obligated to bring their wheat, barley, and oats to the village water-powered or wind-powered mill. The miller, always an unpopular member of the village, took a cut of the villager's flour as a fee. My assumption was that the beans were most likely boiled and mashed. This conclusion is supported by reading Life in Medieval Village. The authors of this text say boiling was preferred because "it required no milling and therefore escaped both the millers exaction and the natural loss of quantity in the process."

In Medieval England wheat bread was indeed the most desirable, but it tended to be eaten mostly by the upper class. Most of the wheat grown by peasants went to market or to the lord of the village. Peasant bread was made primarily from lower-gluten barley or rye. And when those grains were in short supply beans were mixed into the dough. As time went on wheat became more abundant and less expensive, so the cost-saving measure of adding beans became unnecessary and unknown to most us.

*Kelly's second cookbook, Grain-free Baked Goods & Desserts includes bread recipes using beans.

References:
1. Hagen, Ann. Anglo-Saxon Food & Drink.
2. Gies, Frances and Joseph. Life in a Medieval Village
3. Rowley, Trevor. Norman England
4. Sancha, Sheila. The Luttrell Village

Creamy Rosted Garlic Dip (dairy-free)

I love a great creamy dip for holidays and parties, don't you? This one is based on my bean dip recipe, on page 93 in my first cookbook. I made a few changes and voila, creamy roasted garlic dip :-) We never miss dairy with simple satisfying recipes like this. I didn't have any on hand today for this photo, but one of our favorite "chips" for dip is peeled, thinly sliced jicama. If you've never bought jicama, I highly recommend it.

What dips or dishes do you have planned for upcoming parties or holidays? Tell us about it and/or share your links in the comments :-)

Creamy Rosted Garlic Dip (dairy-free)

Add to Vita-Mix, Blendtec, or food processor:

1 cup cooked white beans, like navy beans or great northern beans

1/2 cup cashew, soaked at least 3 hours and strained

about 3/4 head roasted garlic* (skin removed)

1 tbsp lemon juice

2 tbsp Vegenaise Grapeseed Oil (or other mayonnaise)

1/4 tsp Herbamare seasoning

Puree till creamy and smooth.

*I roast garlic by slightly cutting the pointy top off the garlic head (so you can see the garlic inside), coating the top with coconut oil, and putting it in a greased oven-safe glass dish with a lid. Roast at 400 degrees for about an hour.

♥, Kelly

Pumpkin Spice Bread and Thanks

As promised, here is the pumpkin spice bread I made last evening :-) I made it twice because I wanted to add more spices. Also, I didn't grind the shredded coconut and quinoa flakes nearly as much the second time so I would have a grainier texture. If you prefer a finer, more cake-like texture, you can grind those more finely.

If you have my cookbook, then you've seen a photo like this before :-) Cooking your own whole pumpkin is so simple. Just put it in the oven at 400 degrees for an hour. Don't poke or cut it at all. I usually do this in the evening, and the oven makes the house nice and toasty. Then I leave it on the counter to cool overnight. In the morning the skin just peals off so nicely, as you can see. Scoop out the seeds, and puree. Easy-peasy =)

I want to give you guys another big thank you for using my Amazon (and iHerb) links, which is how I was able to get this new camera. I love it! Thank you so much! Check out the amazing flowering stevia photo I got with it! Those white flowers are less than a quarter of an inch big in real life. Eeek! It makes me so happy :-) In fact, all my photos from now on will be taken with it.

And now on to the recipe!

Grain-free Pumpkin Spice Bread:

Add to food processor:

1 cup shredded coconut

1 cup Quinoa Flakes

Process for one minute.

Note: For a finer bread texture use a professional blender, like a Vita-Mix or Blendtec to grind the shredded coconut and quinoa flakes. Or you can even use a coffee grinder. Just grind 1/4 cup at a time if you're using a coffee grinder.

Add:

1 cup walnuts

Process for a few seconds.

Add:

1 cup pumpkin puree

2 eggs

1/4 cup tapioca flour

1/4 tsp vanilla liquid stevia

1/4 cup + 2 tbsp coconut sugar

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp baking powder

1.5 tsp cinnamon

1 tsp ginger

1/4 tsp ground cloves (I grind cloves in my coffee grinder)

Combine.

Pour into bread loaf pan, lined with unbleached parchment paper on the bottom, and greased all around.

Bake at 350 degrees for about 35 minutes.

♥, Kelly

Maple Sausage & Sweet Potato Soup

I love soup. Especially on a cold day. Today it's been cold and there's even a little snow on the ground. I'm hoping we get more snow this weekend. Here is one of our favorite soups. It's one of those wonderful meals that everyone eats, and no one complains. Sigh =)

Maple Sausage & Sweet Potato Soup

Saute in oil for about 15 minutes:

1 onion, chopped

about 2 cups chopped carrots

Add:

1 large or 2 small cloves of garlic, minced

5 chopped Applegate Farms, Chicken & Maple, Breakfast Sausage*

Saute a few minutes longer.

Add:

5 washed sweet potatoes, cut into about 1" cubes (I used white sweet potatoes today)

about 6 cups of chicken broth

Bring to simmer.

Turn heat to lowest setting, cover and simmer for about 2 hours, or until the potatoes are tender.

Blend slightly with Stick Blender before serving.

*I like Applegate Farms, Chicken & Maple, Breakfast Sausage because it's gluten and casein free and it doesn't contain MSG or nitrates. Plus the chickens are treated humanely and without antibiotics.

♥, Kelly

PS I bought Agar Powder, and made a pumpkin pie that is completely vegan! It's setting up now, and I'll post it ASAP =)

Cake Decorating Party

Zoe invited a couple of neighbors over on Halloween for a cake decorating party.

I made mini bundt cakes for them using my Pumpkin Spice Cake recipe.

They piped the frosting on, and added sprinkles, walnuts, and toasted shredded coconut.

They had so much fun decorating their mini bundt cakes :-)

...and eating them wasn't too bad either ;-)

Below: Zoe, the winter fairy. She got everything second hand, except for the owl. Unfortunately, I didn't get a photo of Ashley in her costume because she didn't put it on till the last second. She was cute also, in her princess dress. =)

♥, Kelly