The Best Ever Beet Salad

One of the hazards of living under the same roof with me is you never know just what you're going to come home to. 

There is a good chance of coming home to me napping on the dog and just as fair a chance I will come running at the fella to insist he taste whatever thing it is that I'm cooking.  But every once in a while just to remind him that he lives with a crazy person he will come home to me doing something absolutely nutty with food. 

On this particular evening he came home to me yelling from the kitchen “Hey honey come in here and take a picture of this, it's awesome.”  He knows enough to enter rooms with a certain amount of trepidation when I'm talking to the food so who knows what he thought he was getting into.  It's been a while since I shaved celery so he probably thought he was safe.

“Doesn't this look like a bowl of guts?  And it's purple!”  I said with glee in my voice while thrusting at him  this giant bowl of shredded beets that did indeed look rather grotesque and bloody.  The fella took some pictures while keeping a safe distance from my mess, all the while giving me the face reserved for moments when you wonder what you've gotten yourself into and how soon you get get out of them.

The fun of making this meal however doesn't end there, the best thing about these shredded beets is they were about to get even more interesting.  Did you know that when you add tahini, yogurt and lemon juice to beets not only do you get an amazing salad but the beets turn the most unbelievable shade of magenta?  And there are few things I love more than eating purple things so you can only imagine how many times I've submitting the men in my life to this beet creation since I discovered it.  I mean what is not to love?  It is easy, very tasty and almost painfully good for you.  Thank you once Mark Bittman, master of the exciting salad!

If you don't enjoy being purple as much as I do borrow a child or a food processor attachment that will do the dirty work of beet shredding for you.  But believe me when I say this salad is worth the mess.  And it goes particularly well with some chicken thighs or bone in chicken pieces dredged in zatar seasoning and put in the oven until cooked through.  A dash of salt and pepper on the chicken and you have a richly flavored bit of chicken that took no effort.  This is my new favorite meal, I never imagined falling in love with beets like this.

What kind of wine possibly pairs with this crazy meal?  Um, who cares I was in the mood for Torrontes the Norto being a delicious but subtle tangy tropical fruit bomb with just enough bit to make it interesting but such well balanced fruit its a little to easy to drink.  And at about $10 it is a great value.  I'll save the pricey but amazing Michel Torino's Don David also known as the best Torrontes for a special occasion and gladly stick to the Norto for a weekday dinner.

These three things came together better than I could have hoped and made for a small Middle Eastern tinged food vacation.  Just what I could use in the middle of a winter that seems like it will never end. 

So don't give up on beets until you give a try to this salad or Lindsay's orzo dish up over on Forkful of News.  They are both so tasty you will forget you are eating vegetables.  And while you're over there check out my article about Argan oil, a crazy little known oil that just might change the way you cook.  It's worth clicking on especially if you're having a bad day, if only to look at the pictures of tree climbing goats.

Best Ever Beet Salad

3 large beets, peeled

1/2 cup yogurt

1/2 cup tahini

1 tablespoon lemon juice

1 tablespoon zatar seasoning

Grate the beets by hand or with a food processor and then place in a large mixing bowl.

Whisk together the yogurt and tahini in a separate small bowl.  When well combined add lemon juice and zatar seasoning and stir well.  Toss the yogurt mixture into the grated beets.  Sprinkle with salt and pepper is desired.

From Mark Bittman's 101 Salads article in the New York Times.

Gluten Free Pistachio Cake

Another day another failed soufflé  I shouldn't be surprised but I still am every time.  And yet I've been lucky enough that of my four recent unfluffy unimpressive soufflés they have all been at least tasty, making up in flavor for what they lack in beauty.  And this one worked out exactly that same way.  Le sigh.

Pistachio cake with rose water syrup sounded like a recipe too good to pass up.  And the fella is a freak for pistachios so I knew I would get points for making a dessert he would go crazy for.  Perhaps next time I cook something that requires him wash every dish in the kitchen twice he won't curse me so much.  When I told him what I was making it also got me help shelling about a pound of nuts which otherwise could have taken me hours going at it alone.

The rest of the baking didn't go so smoothly.  It was nearly impossible to fold fluffy egg whites into a sugary pistachio paste.  I'm still not quite sure how that was supposed to work out but I did the best I could and ended up with a cake that alternately had chunks of nuts or areas of egg white when it was cooked.  Which sounds kind of unattractive but you'd be surprised how good it is when covered in rose water syrup.

Also I didn't realize fructose would react so differently than sugar to being baked.  The original recipe called for baking the cake for 45 minutes but after about 20 minutes mine started smelling burnt.  So I had to do the biggest soufflé no no and open my horrible windowless oven and see what was going on in there.  Turns out I had a very very brown cake that had fallen from  fluffiness long ago.  I'm not sure what I should have done differently to prevent this failure but it tasted just fine so I'll take the hit for the sugarless team and let the world know that fructose in a soufflé is not a good idea.  If you figure out how to make this work let me know.

Regardless of what it looked like the fella and I had no problem eating this sweet, gooey creation all last week.  It was worth the work.

Pistachio Cake

SYRUP:

1/2 cup fructose (or 1 1/ 2 cups sugar)

3/4 cup water

1 tablespoon lemon juice

2 tablespoons rose water

CAKE:

5 eggs, separated

1/3 cup fructose (or 1 cup powdered sugar)

1 1/2 cups pistachios, finely ground

1/3 cup pistachios, chopped coarsely

Make the syrup first.  Bring fructose, water and lemon juice to a boil and simmer just until fructose is dissolved.  The syrup will be very thin and will not reduce.  Remove from heat and stir in rose water.  Let syrup cool to room temperature and then put in refrigerator to chill.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Grease and flour a 9 or 10 inch diameter nonstick round cake pan.

In a large bowl beat the egg yolks and the fructose until it is a pale creamy texture.  Add the finely ground pistachios and mix very well.  Beat the egg whites until stiff in a small bowl using a standing mixer(read Julia Child's advice in Mastering the Art of French Cooking on egg whites for more in depth tips on how to make it work) and then fold them gently into the pistachio mixture.

Pour the mixture into the prepared cake pan, sprinkling with the course chopped pistachios and cook for about 25 minutes (45 if using sugar.)  The cake will poof up slightly like a soufflé and will pass the toothpick test when finish.  Immediately turn the cake over onto a deep serving dish.  Using a tooth pick make holes over the top of the cake then pour the syrup over it.  The cake will taste best after 2 hours when the syrup has had time to soak into the cake.

Made Montignac friendly from a recipe by Claudia Roden in Arabesque.

Quinoa Salad with Pomegranate

Apparently the winter has finally gotten to me and I'm starting to snap.  In the midst of my Monday cooking frenzy I realized everything on my recipe list this week leaned toward Mediterranean foods.  Not that there is anything at all wrong with that.  It was just an odd moment to realize I had totally subconsciously arranged for myself to eat delicious slightly summery light foods.  You know you need a vacation when your taste buds create one for you.

The big hit of the slew of things I made today was this salad.  I've made it before but this time I played with the dressing and changed up the proportions to fit what I was in the mood for to make the salad just that much better.

I've already raved about quinoa but I'll do so again for a couple seconds in case there is still anyone that hasn't tried it.  Quinoa is similar in texture to couscous and is prepared in much the same way but is a grain from a grassy South American plant rather than processed wheat.  It has an interesting slightly bitter taste that makes it a great contrast to a bright citrusy salad like this one.  And it's perfect for the Montignac Method because at 35 it has the lowest GI of any of the grains I've looked into.

I buy mine in the bulk bins at Whole Foods where it's about $3 a pound which is a pretty great deal considering my mother said a couple ounces of it is around $5 at her local grocery store.  It's just nice to have around for quick salads, a rice substitute or as an oatmeal type breakfast with a much better texture.

Unfortunately not everything I made today came out as well as this salad.  Next time I will share with the world how I failed at my fourth soufflé in a row.  It wasn't meant to be I guess and I now know not to try again.   I'll stick to less high maintenance food thank you very much.

 

Quinoa Salad with Pomegranate

1 cup uncooked quinoa
2 cups water

1 cup pomegranate seeds
3 tablespoons olive oil
3 tablespoons lemon juice
1 lemon, zested
1 teaspoon agave nectar
1 1/2 teaspoon Dijon mustard
1/4 cup pinenuts, toasted
1/ 4 scant cup cilantro leaves, chopped

salt and pepper, to taste

Bring quinoa and water to boil in medium pot.  After allowing to cook on a rolling boil for a couple minutes, reduce heat to simmer for 10 to 15 minutes or until quinoa is al dente.  Set aside off heat to allow quinoa to cool.

Add the pomegranate seeds to the cooled quinoa in a large bowl. In a small bowl whisk the olive oil, lemon juice, lemon zest, agave nectar, and mustard until blended. Drizzle over quinoa mixture. Add the remaining ingredients and toss. Season with salt & pepper to taste. 

Modified from Enlightened Cooking blog. 

Sun Dried Tomato and Lentil Soup

After cooking this three times, I finally stopped myself from devouring it and took a picture.  Isn't it beautiful?

 

This soup was so good it never crossed my mind to take a picture of it.  I was way too busy eating it.  It's that freaking good.  And I thought it up all by myself.

See in my odd little world Monday is my day off to have the house to myself and do whatever I please unmolested.  This usually involves laying in bed until 10 or 11.  Reading in bed with the dog.  Having breakfast while watching an episode of some mindless TV show online.  Then I spend the rest of the day grocery shopping and cooking.  Usually while singing along to Goldfrappe/Lily Allen radio on Pandora.  There are are also periodic bouts of dog love throughout the day. 

And that for me is the perfect day off.  That's partly because I'm a huge food nerd who loves to cook and also because if I don't cook on Monday I won't get a chance to the next two days while working double jobs.  I learned early on that I can put up with most anything at work as long as I know I have something good to eat on my break, it keeps me from ripping out my hair and wanting to strangle co-workers.  So on Monday I make something delicious that will re-heat well to keep me sane at work the two following days. 

The fella also benefits from this situation as he doesn't have to spend his evenings alone trying to decifer whatever gibberish I've written on the weekly menu that he should be cooking that night, that almost never ended well.  I love him like crazy but one of his talents is not reading Emily-ese.    And yeah that's right I plan a menu every week so that everything that gets bought gets cooked.  I hear about people who go to the store throw things in the cart and hope for the best when they get home, I can't imagine it.  It's insanity.

So being the super planny sort it probably won't surprise you that my next weird admission is that I'm a terminal follower of recipes. I'm lost without them.  Or was until recently.  Something clicked in my brain this week and I noticed I don't need recipes much anymore, they're more of a way to come up with a concept and then I cook it the way I would like it better.  It's worked out so far. 

Then magically on Monday I closed my eyes thought “lentil sundried tomato soup” and made it happen with no recipe guidance whatsoever.  It was a big moment for me and I was rewarded with literally the best soup I've ever made.  It's big and thick and tasty.  Exactly what I want to eat when it's cold and the lack of sun is making me a bit punchy.

Something tells me this newly concocted recipe will be in heavy rotation on the menu for the rest of the winter.  And it should be on your's too because it couldn't be easier.

 

Sun Dried Tomato and Lentil Soup

2 tablespoons oil from jar of sundried tomatoes
2 small onions, diced
3 cloves garlic, minced
2 large stalks celery, chopped

1 bay leaf
2 sprigs fresh thyme
1 cup lentils
5 cups vegetable stock

8 sundried tomatoes packed in oil, rinsed and chopped
1 teaspoon red pepper flakes
salt and pepper to taste

In a soup pot over medium high heat warm the sun dried tomato oil, when oil is warm add onions, garlic and celery.  Saute the vegetables until soft but not browned, agitating them often while cooking.

Add the bay leaf, thyme, lentils and vegetable stock.  Allow to come to a boil then reduce heat to a simmer.  Let cook about 15 or 20 minutes, or until lentils are tender.  Depending on how thick you like your soups you may need to add more vegetable broth at this point.

Add the rinsed sundried tomatoes and red pepper flakes to the soup.  Stir well and cook soup just until tomatoes are heated through.  Add salt and pepper to taste if necessary.  Remove thyme sprigs and bay leaf and enjoy.

Cranberry Flax Seed Breakfast Muffins

 

Until this weekend breakfast had me stymied.

Gluten free bread is tough enough to make on it's own and calls for all sorts of esoteric ingredients like xanthan  gum or tapioca starch.  Unfortunately those celiac friendly starches that mixed together in perfect combinations emulate the dreaded but nicely sticky gluten in wheat are insanely high on the GI index and therefore a Montignac  no no.  And all the recipes for low fat, high fiber breads that would be Montignac friendly were too whole wheat dependent to modify for the gluten free.

This just wouldn't do.  So I spent a week searching the internet and all the gluten free cookbooks I could find for a solution.  It didn't exist so I gave up on bread and thought about other tasty breakfast options, something that wouldn't need yeast and would still be tasty while still being really dense.  Enter muffins.  Gluten free muffins would be much more forgiving than bread.  So I combined my original Montignac bread recipe with a vegan sorghum flour fruit muffin and hoped for the best.

I took all the fatty ingredients and most of the sweetener out of this recipe from the Whole Life Nutrition Kitchen and started adding back liquid in the form of skim yogurt, hoping that the old vegan trick of using flax seed as a binder and egg substitute would work.  And it did!

If I hadn't just told you these were healthy you would never know it.  They made the house smell amazing and it took all the will power I had to wait until breakfast to try one.  That morning the fella and I sat with our muffins, wide eyed with the tastiness of my creation.  I was so excited to have one I got out of bed at 7AM on my day off to partake in one.  I'm that big of a food nerd.  But I was not disappointed, these heavy little fruit packed chewy muffins are worth getting up early for.  The only thing that will make these muffins any better is baking them with fresh blueberries once they are back in season.

I fear however that this muffin success has gone to my head, I now have the desire to do all sorts of other combinations with this basic recipe.  Ginger pear.  Fig lemon.  Now that I know it works the fella is going to have an endless array of breakfast muffins to look forward to.  The poor guy, he has such a tough life.

Cranberry Flax Seed Breakfast Muffins

2 cups sorghum flour

2 tablespoons arrowroot

1 1/ 2 teaspoons baking soda

1 teaspoon cream of tartar

1 teaspoon xanthan gum

1/ 2 teaspoon salt

1/ 2 teaspoon cardamom

1/ 2 cup applesauce

1/ 4 cup agave nectar

3/ 4 cup yogurt

2 teaspoon vanilla

1 orange zested

2/ 3 scant cup fresh squeezed orange juice

1/ 2 cup flax meal

2 cups fresh cranberries

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Well oil a 12 cup muffin tin or line with paper muffin cups.

In a large bowl mix together well the sorghum flour, arrowroot, baking soda, cream of tartar, xanthan gum, salt and cardamom.

In a separate medium bowl whisk together the applesauce, agave nectar, yogurt, vanilla, orange zest, orange juice.  When combined stir in the flax meal and let mixture sit for a couple of minutes until the flax meal has thickened and absorbed some of the liquid. 

Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ones and mix together.  Add the cranberries and gently fold together.  The batter will be lumpy and thick, the consistency of a heavy banana bread or oatmeal, if it's too wet add a little flax meal, if too dry add a bit more orange juice.

Spoon the batter into the muffin tin, filling each cup to the top.  Bake for about 20 to 27 minutes or until slightly browned on the top and able to pass the tooth pick test.  Remove muffins from tin to cool completely.

Serve with a little sugar free jam and a small bowl of fat free yogurt with berries for a perfect low fat/high carb Montignac breakfast.

Modified and made Montignac friendly from a recipe at The Whole Life Nutrition Kitchen.

Fakey Rice Using Shirataki

There are very few times on this diet where I've actually felt deprived of anything.  Admittedly there was a huge learning curve when the fella and I first started and we spent a lot of time mourning the lost of things we could no longer eat.  After a year of eating this way however we've figured out substitutes for most of the things we could possibly want.  Almond flour has been a blessing, allowing us to make decent faux versions of things like naan and pizza crust that we would otherwise have gone crazy without. 

The one problem almond flour couldn't solve however was the rice issue.  Brown rice is fine on low fat/high carb days.  But what is a girl to do when she has just made a spectacular rich spicy curry with delicious cubes of perfectly marinated meat and veggies floating in it?  To eat it alone like a odd creamy soup seems like a waste of the subtleties of flavor I just spent an hour creating.  Or it might need some sort of carbohydrate to even out the spice level.  And a splendid stir fry is just dull without something hearty to fill out the meal and absorb the sweet but sour sauce dripping off the veggies.

This problem has stymied me until just recently.  I had  been keeping my stir fries and curries on the low fat end of the scale so I could have them with rice but that's no solution for an enterprising foodie like myself.  Enter Shirataki noodles!

A fellow food geek told me about these at a party I was at recently. She said they were her favorite no carb no fat noodle for her gluten free cooking clients. Surely I thought she was exaggerating, not thinking it possible that a food so perfect for the Montignac diet could actually exist. The fella and I went in search of them the next day and found them for around $1 for an 8 ounce bag of them in the refrigerated section of the local Asian grocery stores near the tofu. We leapt for joy, came home and ate them with a stir fry. It was amazing and everything I had been missing about not having rice on fat/no carb days.

Now that I know about Shirataki I've been seeing them everywhere.  The traditional genuinely carb free noodles from Japan I've only found in Asian markets.  They are almost completely flavorless and contain only water and water soluble dietary fiber as they are made from the konjac plant and then suspended in lime resulting in no carbs whatsoever.  (One of my science inclined friends can feel free to chime in to explain how this works, I'm talking about you Stephanie.)  They have a better consistency and hold up to being heated better than the other easier to find variety. 

The other variety, the one I stopped long enough to take a picture of for you is in the tofu section of places like Whole Foods or even in the organic health food section of the produce in chain grocery stores.  These are tofu based and so aren't totally carb free.  They also have a slightly off putting Jello like consistency and are more expensive.

It all depends on what you can find but, both versions are nice options for times when you'd like to be eating rice but they take a little getting used to.  The noodles come floating in a fishy smelling liquid to preserve them which was enough to totally turn off the fella who is no  lover of raw fish or “salted trout flakes” as he so lovingly refers to nori.  They just need some rinsing under cool water to rid them of the fishy smell.  Next I would suggest boiling them for literally one minute, just long enough to heat them through and cook off any remaining fish smell.  Drain them again and toss them with a little toasted sesame oil or hoisin sauce and you're ready to go.  You can even use kitchen scissors to cut the noodles into smaller pieces so  they are more rice like.

Shirtaki has now become my new favorite low carb obsession.  Look at it steamy and coating hoisin sauce though and can you blame me?  No carbs no guilt and tasty.  What's not to love?

Vegan Panna Cotta with Stewed Cherries

It's only a week into the new year and I've already fulfilled one of my new years goals.  I'd say that bodes pretty well for the rest of the year.

Throughout my life there have been countless attempts at very unsuccessful gelatin desserts with the panna cotta dinner party disaster almost a year ago being the latest in a long line of less than delicious runny creations.  I decided to shun gelatin all together wondering if perhaps we just weren't destined to get along and moved onto the vegan friendly variety, agar agar, a seaweed concoction so great you have to say it twice. 

I've know about this gelatinous variation for a while now, hearing that it's more user friendly and nearly impossible to screw up but the price tag was keeping me from experimenting with it.  The tiny bags of it are around $15 dollars at Whole Foods.   Which was more of a commitment than I was willing to go into for something I might only use once especially considering I just spent the same amount on xanthan gum recently to forge my way into gluten free baking.  Then on a trip through every Asian grocery store in Madison I saw huge bricks of it for less than a dollar and bought some.

So the other night when I needed a fairly quick dessert I pulled out a vegan panna cotta recipe from the goddess of those creamy little desserts and hoped for the best.  Given that it was coconut milk and agave nectar I knew it would still be tasty if it didn't set so it wouldn't be a total bust but I was really hoping for lovely little white custards to top with the left over cherry sauce from a David Lebovitz I had in the refrigerator (which is easy and works just fine with frozen cherries.) 

And that was exactly what I ended up with!  They were gorgeous.  Perfect little cups of sweet coconut custard with a creamy mouth filling texture.  They weren't too cloyingly sweet and so were divine with the stewed cherries.  I was so pleased with them and how delicious they were I had to, there wasn't a person on earth that could have kept me from the bliss that was putting coconut pan cotta in my mouth for the second time after so many failures.

So happy 2010 to me I've conquered gelatin, kind of sort of.  Now I guess I'll have to give the real thing another go.   Seeing as I could gladly eat panna cotta in all of it's variations every day this won't be a problem.

Vegan Panna Cotta

1 and 1/4 cups coconut milk
1 tablespoon agave nectar
1/2 block, crumbled or 2 teaspoons agar agar powder
1 cup soy yogurt(regular yogurt will work fine but make for a thinner consistency)

1 teaspoon vanilla

In a medium saucepan combine the coconut milk, agave nectar and agar agar. Let stand 5 minutes. Bring to a simmer. Reduce heat to low. Simmer, uncovered, 8 minutes, or until agar has mostly dissolved (there will be some flecks of translucent agar in mixture), stirring occasionally. Remove from heat.

Strain mixture through fine-mesh sieve into small pitcher or measuring cup. Whisk in yogurt and vanilla until smooth. Pour into 4 individual ramekins/custard cups.  Transfer to refrigerator. Cover and refrigerate 1 hour until set.

To serve, immerse bottom half of ramekin or custard cup in hot water about 15 seconds. Run a clean small knife around edge to loosen. Invert onto dessert plate.  Serve with David Lebovitz's amazing stewed cherries.

Original recipe from Enlightened cooking blog.

New Years Eve Gluten Free Pizza Party

I spent New Years Eve doing all of the things I liked doing most in the year that came before which is what I hear you're supposed to do for a successful new year.  Not the least of these things was spending a ridiculous and enjoyable amount of time in the kitchen cooking with the chef while the fella supervised.  We decided to do a gluten free pizza party and it was splendid.  I worked with two crust recipes I've tried before with interesting toppings and the chef to my great pleasure tried something purple.

 

 Almond Flour Zatar Pizza

The first crust was the much loved almond flour variety that the fella and I have been making off and on all year.  I found out totally accidentally that it comes out it a much better crust texture if you half the recipe and go for a mini sized thinner crust. 

Once the crust was par baked I used a pastry brush to slather it with oil from the huge jar of sun dried tomatoes I always have in the back of the fridge.  Then I sprinkled it with my newest obsession, zatar seasoning.  I added, a wee bit of feta, some grape tomatoes, and marinated artichokes.  A couple more minutes in the oven and it was amazing.  This was simple but my favorite pizza of the evening,  I will be making this again many time over.

 

Flax Seed Crust with Roasted Veggies

Next up for turning the flax seed focaccia recipe into a crust which worked out pretty well.  I halved that recipe too so it would fit into a well greased cake pan.  The only problem was once it had moist ingredients and melted cheese on it, the crust got a little too wet.  We decided it needed to cook longer or be cooked once, refrigerated, toasted in the oven and then decorated with toppings.  This situation will obviously require more experimentation.  Oh darn.

On this pizza I wanted to do something more traditional.   So I put some left over pasta sauce on it, roasted some veggies, threw on some sun dried tomatoes and covered it all with mozzarella and baby portabellas tossed in balsamic vinegar.  It was tasty but the slightly too wet texture of the crust was a bit of a turn off so it wasn't our favorite.  The crust did do a good job of imitating the taste of a hearty whole wheat type crust though so I'll continue to play with this one until I get it right. 

Purple Rice Flour Crust

The chef will have to explain to the world what he did the create the purple rice flour crust.  All I know is it was very yummy and while it was cooking it looked like the surface of the moon and he has the pictures to prove it.  So let's all bother him until he posts about that.

What I do know was that the crust had a really nice texture right out of the oven but suffered from sogginess as it cooled.  So this crust will require more experiments before it's perfect as well.  With roasted eggplant, Parmesan, fig vinegar, and a goat cheese red wine reduction sauce it was as near to perfect as I could hope for something that pretty to be. 

Leatherwood South African Cab 

The only disappointment of the evening was the wine I picked.  In my defense my boss at the wine store I work at raved about it saying it was the best Cab in the store in the $11 to $15 range.  He almost always has impeccable taste so I believed him, needing something big and tannic to hold up to a bunch of pizzas.  Sadly it was a watery very blah wine.  You know the kind of wine I'm talking about--it's fine, not bad but not good.  It just tasted like wine it had nothing going on in it. 

Happily after dinner we were off to Lindsay's to have more sparking wine cocktails than most people could possibly imagine.  That helped me to forget the very so so wine.  And we got to confuse our friends by serving them the pizza left overs.  I did have to bow out to go to bed early, having a low key ringing in the new year with the dog and my favorite guys.  But I couldn't have been happier doing it.  All in all it's been my favorite new years even so far.  If you ask me all the other holidays could be improved with pizza.  

(Forkful of) Exciting News

Photo by fellow wine lover Stephanie A Jones

Yes, Lindsay it's true.  Starting on Monday I'm going to being sharing my food blogging prowess on another site called Forkful of News  with a handful of other food loving ladies and gentlemen.  You know just in case you weren't getting enough of my gluten free, sugar free, low carb ramblings here, now you will know where to find more of them.  

It is run by Lindsay of Wasted and local theater writing fame.  I will be joined by Jacob (who is known as "the chef" around here) among others that I'm excited to get to know better or encounter for the first time.  It will be a mostly Madison WI centric blog about mostly healthy but always exciting eating with all seven of us sharing our very different perspectives on food. 

I'll mostly be posting about stuff that doesn't fit in the theme here.  Non-Montignac friendly meals, local restaurant reviews, my adventures in trying to be gluten free in the often clueless Midwest.  It will be a fun change of pace.  So come check it out, meet my fellow bloggers, and see what I'm up to over there every Monday.