Oct.4: St. Francis of Assisi

Catholic Cuisine had such an adorable idea for St. Francis' feast day, that I decided to make it even though it does most definitely contain gluten. Those who really can't have any gluten ate left-over rose cupcakes instead (see, there was an advantage in being tardy with St. Therese's feast day!) We made the wolf paw cookies and I read them the story of St. Francis and the wolf.

Catholic Cuisine also has a new idea to honor St. Francis: making a tonsure cake. Betty Crocker has a gluten-free chocolate cake mix that I think would work well for this cake. We haven't tried the new mix yet, but, if it is as good as the yellow cake mix, it will be delicious!

Oct. 2: Feast of the Guardian Angels

This was another feast day we were tardy for (it was a busy weekend, obviously). By way of make-up, we made the adorable little angels from Hershey Kisses on Our Domestic Church's site. I couldn't find the sequin wings, so we just made our wings from pipe cleaners. As we got hot glue onto the chocolate itself, these are NOT edible, at least not in our house. But they look darling!

My middle son made a priest out of a Kiss as well. He felt like a priest belonged in the army of St. Michael.

Oct. 1: St. Therese, the Little Flower

Okay, confession time. We actually missed St.Therese's feast day on the 1st. However, I read that Oct. 3 was the traditional feast day for this lovely little saint, so we had a make-up day on the 3rd. To make it up to her, we really went all out: white tablecloth, sterling silver, and a LOT of special things in honor of her day.

The main course was beef bourguignon, in which I simply used a gluten-free flour (also substituted fresh mushrooms and onions where it called for canned, and added them at the same time as the other vegetables so they'd have time to cook). With this, we had steamed asparagus and a spinach salad. To drink, we made a red-tinted fruit punch.

The piece de la resistance was the dessert: rose covered cupcakes. We got the idea from Catholiccuisine.com I used the new Betty Crocker Gluten-Free Cake Mix and it was delicious. I added 2 tsp of strawberry jello (for color and flavor), and I added a bit of orange extract the the batter as well. Honestly, we couldn't tell them apart from glutinous cup cakes. My son made a buttercream icing to go on top, and then we crafted the little roses and leaves out of fruit roll-ups. They looked even better in person than they do in the pictures.

The last treat of the day was the chocolate rose bouquet made from Hershey's Kisses (this idea also came from Catholiccuisine.com). I decided to use the bamboo cooking skewers for the stems. We just kept the roses on display as they were too pretty to eat, but if you can handle the dairy in the milk chocolate, they are completely edible.

All in all, it was a lovely feast day, even if it was a little late.

Sept. 29: Michaelmas

I have been a bad blogger. We've been so busy celebrating feast days that I haven't taken the time to write about them. It's time to play catch-up!

September 29th: Michaelmas

The feast of St. Michael is a favorite in our home, where boys are drawn to heroic figures brandishing swords. Roast goose is traditional for this feast, but we substituted roast turkey instead (it's surprisingly hard to find a goose in TX. We did find a listing for geese in the pet column, but that would have just been wrong). The turkey was supplemented with gluten-free bannock bread (or Irish Soda bread), which was a great success! I got the recipe from Karina's gluten-free site. The main act was, of course, dessert. I made a g-f, c-f blackberry cobbler with a recipe I got off the web. Unfortunately, the batter was too liquidy and never set up properly. I compensated by adding a layer of sugar on the top, which browned to a crispy crust and helped a little with the lack of texture. Next time I will try a different recipe.

Funny thing about the blackberries: I had thought they were traditionally eaten on Michaelmas, but I happened to read (as my cobbler sat in the oven, not setting up properly) that one should NOT eat them on Michaelmas because the legend is that the Devil stepped in the blackberry patch on the eve of Michaelmas and now the berries are poisoned. Well, I found a way to compensate for this: lashings of whipped cream. Pure white mounds of whipped cream enveloping the devilish berries seemed a fitting metaphor for the day!

Amazing Cakes

I just picked up the current edition of "Donna Hay Kids' Magazine" at Borders and it has a gorgeous, gluten-free cake on the cover. I'm definitely making this! This is a beautiful magazine, by the way. Although many of the recipes inside were "glutenous", I find inspiration at looking at gorgeous photographs of simple meals presented with care. Here's the link, by the way: http://www.donnahay.com.au/recipes/695-rice-crackle-cake/ Don't be daunted by the "au" in the web address. They kindly give recipe quantities in the US format as well as the Aussie style.

UPDATE: I just discovered that Rice Crispies may have gluten in them. They containly malt, which is sometimes made with wheat. As the box doesn't say "gluten-free", I think we have to assume they contain gluten. However, there are gluten-free crisped rice cereals on the market, and I also understand that Rice Chex are gluten-free and can be used whole in rice crispie treats recipes (although they probably won't work for this cake recipes as they can't be molded as well into a cake shape.)

Feast Day of St. Peter Claver: Chocolate Chip Cookies

Well, I'm only a week late with my post in honor of St. Peter Claver, whose feast day was September 9th. Sometimes it just goes that way. Anyway, I had originally thought of doing black and white cookies for his feast (he being the saint who called himself the "slave of the slaves"). But the reviews I read on black and white cookies weren't too impressive. It seems they are famous more for being a NYC/Seinfeld thing than for being delicious. So, in the end, I just made chocolate chip cookies. I find a gluten-free cookie recipe on Land O' Lakes' website (yeah for Land O'Lakes!) and it turned out really well. Here it is:

Land O'Lakes Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies (gluten-free):

Makes 3 1/2 dozen cookies.

2 1/4 cups gluten-free flour blend
1 tsp g-f baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp xanthan gum
3/4 cup Land O Lakes butter, softened
3/4 cup firmly packed brown sugar
1/2 cup sugar
2 Land O Lakes all-natural eggs
2 tsp g-f vanilla
1 (12 oz) package (2 cups) g-f semi-sweet chocolate chunks or chips (I used dark chocolate instead)

Heat oven to 375°. Combine flour blend, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and xanthan gum in medium bowl and set aside.

Combine butter, brown sugar, and sugar in large bowl. Beat at medium speed, scraping bowl often, until creamy. Add eggs and vanilla. Continue beating, scraping bowl often, until well mixed.

Reduce speed to low. Beat, gradually adding flour mixture, until well mixed. Stir in chocolate chips.

Drop dough by rounded tablespoons, 2 inches apart, onto ungreased cookie sheets. Bake for 9 to 12 minutes or until light golden brown. (Do not overbake.) Let stand 1 to 2 minutes, then remove from cookie sheets.

G-F flour blend: Combine 2 cups rice flour, 2/3 cup potato starch, 1/3 cup tapioca flour, and 1 tsp xanthan gum. Store in container with tight-fitting lid. Stir before using.


For my cookies, I made my own baking blend using 1/3 rice flour, 1/3 sweet rice flour, and 1/3 tapioca. It worked just fine.

The Navity of the Blessed Virgin Mary: Pavlovas Two Ways

In honor of our Blessed Mother's birthday, I wanted to come up with something special that would be gluten-, casein-, and nightshade-free, AND delicious. I checked out Catholic Cuisine's page for some ideas: clearly, this day called for something white and blue in honor of Mary's purity and her mantle, respectively. But a cake wouldn't fit our dietary needs. That's when a little angel whispered in my ear: blueberry pavlova. I didn't even really know exactly what a pavlova was when the idea came to me, but it turned out to be the perfect things to make for Mary's birthday: light, white, blue, and delicious.

There are many great recipes for pavlova on the web, so I won't recreate them here. I'll just say that I substituted tapioca flour for the corn starch called for in the meringue and it worked just fine.

As for the topping, I made two variations: one gluten-free, and one gluten- and casein-free. For the first, I took 2 cups of frozen blueberries, 1/2 cup sugar, 1/2 Tbsp lemon juice, a pinch of cinnamon, and 1/8 cup of minute tapioca, and cooked them in a pot over medium heat until the sauce was thickened nicely. I let this cool, and then spooned it over the cooked meringue.

For the second topping, I simply followed the tradition route of piling on whipped cream and blueberries on top of the cooked meringue.

Now the table is set, the meal is in the oven, and all that awaits is for the family to come home and enjoy this very special occasion. Happy birthday, Blessed Mother!