Now I understand that this is not anything new under the sun, but meringue cookies = additively delicate, crispy goodness!  Add chocolate chips and you get little bites of heaven. Last year I found this recipe  I do have a few suggestions though... 

• Make sure that you use gluten and dairy free cocoa powder, chocolate chips and vanilla extract and you are good to go.
  
• If you are anything like me, you may want a more uniform cookie. (I like things to be as pretty as possible).  I normally pipe these out using a tip-less piping bag. However, if you do not have a piping bag, fill a gallon sized ziplock bag halfway, snip a small section of one corner and pipe onto parchment paper. A silicon mat will probably work well too. 
• If you choose to omit the chocolate chips, a large star tip make these even more attractive looking. The reason for using a special tip when chocolate chips are not used is because the chips may get caught in the tip, if the tip is not large enough.
•  I also find that mini chocolate chips work best.  In the above picture, I only had regular sized chips, so I chopped them up into tiny pieces.

 Hope you enjoy this gluten and dairy free treat!

I'd like to start by saying that I am SOOOO sorry for not posting for the past couple of weeks.  I have been extremely busy with school, working on my portfolio, baking and developing recipes. I have quite a few new recipes that I am excited about posting this week!
When I first went gluten free, I searched the web for countless hours trying to find what I could and could not eat.  Lets not even mention how hard it is to find things that are free of both gluten and dairy. Lists of products are helpful, but I really like pictures!  Pictures of products are helpful to me, because gluten and dairy free product labels are often times small, making the product harder to find.  If I know in advance what a product looks like, I have a better chance of finding it on a shelf. Of course there is always the possibility that packaging may change. Sometimes when I see a product's picture and find out that I can have it, I feel rather dumb because many times it is a product that I have already seen, but assumed it was not safe. I have compiled some of the items that I use and enjoy. I will continue to update this periodically. So let the product picture mania begin!

Falafel- Such a fun word! Falafel is a common Middle Eastern, meatless dish made from chickpeas aka garbanzo beans.  A few weeks ago, I was really excited because we made falafel at school. Unfortunately, instead of following the recipe as directed, my class was instructed to use gluten infested bread crumbs to hold it together. Therefore... I couldn't try it. BUMMER!  This week I decided that I would make it at home.  I came across this recipe from Stephanie over at A Year of Slow Cooking. I like Stephanie's site because her family is gluten free as well, so its my go to blog when I am looking for a slow cooker meal sans gluten. So when I realized that she took a recipe that is normally deep fried and made it in a slow cooker, I had to try it!  Not only is this delicious, but it is a healthy and meat free meal that is truly satisfying.  My husband loved it so much that he had me make it again two days later!  The only changes that I made were using half of a lemon instead of a whole and I doubled the cayenne pepper like Stephanie suggests. Falafel recipe Here.

My husband, being the gluten and dairy eater that he is, had his on a pita and with Tzatziki sauce, which is traditionally made with Greek yogurt, olive oil and other seasonings.  I was curious about this interesting sounding sauce, so my husband guided me through making a dairy free version.  Instead of the olive oil and yogurt, I used light mayonnaise. I know I could have used soy yogurt, but since I did not have any on hand, I improvised.  Hope you enjoy!

Ingredients:

• 1/4 cup plus 1 tablespoon of light mayonnaise 
• 1 1/4 teaspoon lemon juice
• 1/2 teaspoon apple cider vinegar
• 1/4 teaspoon white wine
• 1/8 teaspoon of salt
• 1/2 teaspoon dill
• 1 clove of garlic minced
• 2 tablespoons of cucumber minced
• 1/8 teaspoon black pepper
• 2 teaspoons water

Directions:

1. Peel cucumber, cut it in half and using a spoon to scoop out the seeds.
2. Place the cucumber in a paper towel and squeeze to remove as much of the liquid as possible.  
3. Chop the cucumber very finely.
4. Crush and mince a clove of garlic. You may also use a teaspoon of garlic that is pre-minced. 
5. Combine the remaining ingredients and mix well. 
6. Refrigerate for at least 10 minutes and use as desired. 

If any of you out there have a different recipe, I would love to here about it! You can never have too many recipe variations in my opinion. Have a wonderful gluten and dairy free day!

Hello everyone!  Here are a couple of snap shots of the cake I made for my fourth and final class. We decorated the cakes using techniques learned throughout the course.  In the course we learned how to make ribbon roses, but I opted to use a more realistic looking rose. I totally forgot to photograph the other flowers that I made. Sorry :( !

Please excuse the crude picture. I took this during the class to capture it while it was still intact.  Cakes tend to slide around when I try to transport them!

  


I enjoyed the first course so much that I have already registered for course 2: Flowers and Cake design.  It will start next week, so please stop by again if you would like to see my progress.  After all... gluten and dairy free desserts deserve to be pretty too! :)