Local Flour for a Local Cake!

I don't know why I feared it; I have gone through re-learning how to cook oodles of times with every move to a new country.  And yet when my family decided to go gluten and dairy-free, I was intimidated.  It is one thing to look for new ingredients that can be put in place of particular ingredients in familiar recipes. It is a whole other thing to relearn the chemistry behind baking from a new angle that requires new recipes never tried.  Then I came upon gluten free all-purpose flour.  And life has never been the same.

I am pretty sure if I were trying the dairy free gluten-free thing thirty years ago, I would be pulling my hair out and running to twenty stores to find food necessities.  But one of the amazing things about living in 2015 is the easy access to alternative foods that has literally gotten ten times easier in just the last five years.  Today I am featuring two well known flour companies, both of which have alternative gluten-free options right on my average-run-of-the-mill local grocery store shelves just down the road.

Arrowhead Mills, a company manufacturing gluten-free flour in Lake Success, New York*, has been a pioneer of organic food products for over fifty years.  Started under the premise that chemicals like herbicides and pesticides pollute the food chain, Arrowhead Mills is now a passionate voice in the push for environmental commitment and an integral part of the NON-GMO project.  Though their home base is located in Texas, the company pushes local resourcing throughout the country and boasts an 80% American grown ingredients rate in their products.

Don't be fooled; the second company I am also featuring as part of this love letter to gluten free flour is just as fantastic!  King Arthur Flour, now headquartered in Norwich, Vermont after its renowned start in Boston, MA, is nothing but committed to social responsibility.  At over 220 years old, America's oldest flour company and 100% employee-owned Vermont gem knows a thing or two about environmental-footprints and local community care.  I will definitely be popping into the flagship store the next time I'm near Norwich!

SO, now that I've introduced you to two awesome companies making some great gluten-free flour, let me introduce you to one of my favorite New Englandy recipes for the fall, featuring nothing but the most local New England apples, twenty feet out my back door.  Could there possibly be anything better than New England apples in the fall?  Perhaps New England apple cake!  ...  DO try this recipe.  Gluten free or not, you will enjoy!!

This funky "Appul cace," as he spells it,
  has been decorated by my fantastic 6 year old sous chef.

New England Apple Cake

2 1/2 cups of Gluten Free All Purpose Baking Flour

3/4 cup (organic is best!) brown sugar

2 teaspoons of cinnamon

2 teaspoons of baking powder

¼ teaspoon of salt

3 eggs

1 tablespoon of lemon juice (and a bit of lemon zest if you want an extra lemon punch!)

1 cup of oil, I like either EVOO or coconut oil at room temp

3 cups of grated sweet apples (I’d say about 4-5 large apples)

1 cup of chopped pecans, or raisins/craisins if preferred

Confectioner’s sugar (optionally sprinkled on top)

Bake 350 or 375 degrees Fahrenheit for about 45 minutes until an inserted toothpick comes out clean. I have made this cake in all shapes and sizes; even muffins turn out well (though cook for a shorter time period).  The cake is dense, but super moist, and perfect with a bit of powdered sugar sprinkled on top! I like it better cooled, but who can wait?!

* Please note that although I do recognize New York is not actually part of New England, it IS local when food miles are concerned from geographical New England. For this reason, products made in New York are also featured on this blog.  (No corrections needed!)

A Local Halloween

A holiday gathering is an awesome time to celebrate what it means to value your local community.  Every geographical place does celebration a little differently, and it serves as a great reminder of some of the unique quirks that make home home.

My family enjoyed the first holiday of the fall season, Halloween, with a little extra gratitude and excitement this year for what it means to live in the Northeast.  After having resettled back after being abroad, it was our 6 year old Jonas's first Halloween. He had oodles of costume ideas running through his head, but finally settled on being poison ivy.  Do a google search of poison ivy costume, and you will see about 4,000 images of red-haired women in tight green dresses.  Good thing when Jonas' creativity gets going, it always comes with a strong vision and articulate directions!  

Jonas' idea for a homemade costume ended up being the perfect way to support local.  You may think I am ridiculous when I say that I am talking about Goodwill today on this local blog. 

"Goodwill? But that's a giant nation-wide organization!"

 

True. But one of the main tenants behind supporting local is resourcing what already exists in your region. Reusing, reducing, and recycling are easy to do when creativity and the perfect Halloween costume are involved!  I set out to Goodwill on Thursday with a list in hand for a pair of green pants, a green shirt, and a green hat, all sourced from local donations.  Fifteen minutes and eight dollars and 97 cents later, I swung by my local art store and purchased two small sheets of green paper, returning home with everything I needed to help Jonas' homemade costume visions come to life.

We were happy to enjoy a beautiful evening in the neighboring town of Windham, CT, where our child did his first ever trick-or-treating and (random local tradition) flashlight-egg-hunt at dark in the town square.  We saw oodles of fantastic costumes, happily ran into some great sets of friends, and got stopped by the local newspaper photographer who loved Jonas' locally-sourced, simply-handmade costume.  Though I have a lot of happy memories that take place behind a plastic Halloween mask from Venture or Target, my child's happy memories are not only of his first Halloween celebrations, but of our time making his costume together at home, letting him see his creativity come to fruition in his own hands.

Locally-sourced fun? Extra sweetness added to a very sweet holiday!

   

  

Meet A Local Farm: Buell's Orchard

"Autumn is a second spring, when every leaf is a flower." -Albert Camus 

I could not be happier to live in New England during this time of year. The flurries may be starting (sigh), but the landscape's colors are still better than ever.  With an enthusiastic six year old in tow, and having gone without a fall for the last three years abroad, my family has been soaking in as much of the season as we can get.

Our morning pit stop to a Connecticut family farm on Columbus Day turned into what I hope is a yearly tradition.  Known for their yearly Columbus Day bash, Buell's Orchard knows how to do fall.  Though the orchard is open much of the year for a variety of picking, touring, tasting, and shopping, their harvest festival pulls together a number of fun fall activities into a huge family event.  We arrived on a busy Columbus Day morning to fields of cars with enthusiastic locals and tourists wandering about, getting busy with hay rack rides, pumpkin picking in the pumpkin patch, free apple cider donuts and cider, face painting, apple picking, enjoying the barbecue and rolling fiddle and banjo music. As we made our way from the car, I said loudly to my husband, "We have got to know some people here. I think half the state is at Buell's this morning!" And sure enough, fifteen minutes later we were sitting down on  hay bales, gabbing away with old friends in a rustic fall paradise.

 Don't like crowds?  Buell's is known for its for garden-fresh veggies, peaches, plums, pears, strawberries, blueberries, pumpkins, and apples during their picking seasons.  They are open much of spring, summer, and fall for touring, picking, and field tripping, and I highly recommend them if you'd like to see a small family farm producing in a huge way for East Coast Consumers. Family farms that open their doors, sharing exactly where food comes from and how it makes it from the earth to the table?  They have such a piece of my heart! 

I could go on and on, but for more information on Buell's Orchard in Eastford, CT:

http://www.buellsorchard.com/