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Yes, you should have read that to the tune of the Alice Cooper song.

I took my last final today, and I’m kinda bummed. Not the bummed I thought I would be, mind you, a different kind. I was expecting to be sad that I wouldn’t be at the school anymore, sad to not see everyone, sad to have no reason to go up there again….. (Btw, I do, I have to go in the day before my graduation to make the food.) instead I was bummed because I didn’t do so well. I didn’t do THAT bad or anything, I mean, I’m still going to graduate, but now as well as I had hoped.

Here comes the part that I’m not so proud of, and the part that makes me sound like a brat: my whole life, I’ve put forth minimal effort. I mean I did the bare minimum to get by.

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My mom took the little guy to a butterfly thing at the botanical gardens the other day and I tagged along to take pictures because, well what else was I going to do?

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This is a question I’m getting a lot lately. It’s an honest question, I’m graduating is roughly one month. I have, in fact, asked others what they are doing also, but mainly in a curious “do other people actually HAVE a plan?” type of way. It’s a safe assumption that you would have some plan after school, why else would you go through all this? Culinary school is hard. It’s not taking some cooking class down at Central Market.
I never thought much about what I would do after, I wanted to go to school, but my plan for afterward was a giant question mark over my head.

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For my last semester, I have to come up with a signature recipe as well as my capstone project. I will be busy this semester, and I will learn a lot, but it will be a lot of work.

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I don’t bake. I don’t like it, and it really takes more patience than I have.

That being said, after taking my pastry class, I have a little more confidence with a whisk. Not much, but some.
I wanted something I could make for breakfasts that I could maybe get my kiddo to eat, as he would prefer to have bacon with a side of bacon. While I understand this, I cannot condone it. So I searched my favorite GF baking blog (glutenfreeonashoestring.com) and found the roasted strawberry cake.

Here is her recipe, I basically followed it, and I had some strawberries left over so I made a whipped cream to go with it.

I made a standard whipped cream with just heavy cream and powdered sugar and added a little bit of vanilla then added the mashed up left over strawberries.

Don’t add the strawberries until you have already whipped the cream, sugar, and vanilla.

Then I topped the strawberry cake with it.

I know, I know….. Amaranth AGAIN?
Yes. MORE amaranth. I really dig this texture, and it’s a really filling grain.

It’s no secret around here that I don’t care for Italian food. In fact, when I went gluten free, I was relieved in a way. I knew I had an excuse now, it never have to step one foot in an Italian restaurant. Going without spaghetti, lasagna, or any pasta dish for the rest of my life doesn’t bother me. I do, however, struggle with giving up Mexican food, I have a blood/salsa level I have to keep in balance, and you can’t do that without chips. Well I CAN, I have no problem, and have been known to eat salsa with a spoon, but in preservation of my dignity, I need to make an actual, gluten and corn free meal.

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I was never a big corn fan, be it popped, on the cob, or the dreaded, yak-worthy creamed. I don’t hate corn, and I’m not even ambivalent to it all. I love corn chips, tortillas, and cheese grits. Mmmmmmm cheese grits.
Giving up gluten was tough. Giving up corn is extremely hard. Especially when you can’t rely on wheat. I’m circling around Mexican food right now because I miss it, but I seem to get side tracked in southern comfort food right now, and I wanted grits. CHEESE GRITS.
So I made them……

Ok well sort of.

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We started the year out with a bang in our house. And by bang, I mean sick. The little one had croup, the hubs had a sore throat, and I think I may have caught the plague. The two guys have recovered, but I’m not so lucky. I’ll get there eventually, but in the mean time, I’m not cooking too much. I made some black eyed peas for New Year’s Day, but the rest of the day was spent elsewhere.
We haven’t been hit quite as hard by the cold as other places, but for Texas, it has been cold here too.
The beans I made were pretty good. I’ve played with them for a while, and almost went the ham rout this year, but with all the sickies this year, I had to improvise.

Luckily I bought some peas that had already been soaked, but you could use canned, or dry, just rinse them and soak them.
I sautéed a diced onion and diced garlic (about two cloves) in a tablespoon of butter until transparent. Then I added salt, and the beans and cooked for a little while, say 30 mins, and before serving I added the chopped fleshy part of a tomato (the part without the seeds) and cooked a couple mins.

My poor sick little guy ate three servings of these on New Year’s, so I’m hoping for excellent luck for him this year.

By popular demand, you can now subscribe to posts on The Traveling Zipperhead Blog!

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First, I want to say that I hope all y’all had a wonderful holiday. Whatever you celebrate, however you celebrate, I hope it was good.

Did you know I take requests here at TZH? I do! I’m always looking for a new challenge or new ingredient to try, so when Karen, a friend who shares my love of unprocessed food and terrible puns, asked if I was familiar with Amaranth and Sorghum, I did some research. (I’ll get to the sorghum later) it turns out, this is a fun little grain that has a lot of nutrition, and a fun little texture. Like caviar but without that salty, fishy thing it’s got going for it. So expect to see it in my rotation from now on!

Here is my first experiment:

Stuffed onions with a side of rib eye and caramelized onions. (Can we just pretend there are caramelized onions up there? Please? It wasn’t until after we had dug in that my husband asked where they were, and I didn’t want to re-plate it with the bites we had already taken.)

I start by making the aramanth. I cooked 1/2 cup in 3 cups water.

Cook them for about 20-30 mins, until they are done, then rinse them in a fine mesh strainer and set aside.

Next up cook some veg stock with a little wine and a crushed garlic clove. Take the top and bottom off three onions and slice in half, pole to pole. Discard the paper, and take the outer two or three layers and boil in the stock until they are soft.

To to fill these, I mixed the amaranth,
1/4 cup feta
Two cloves of minced garlic
Two green onions
1/4 c chopped parsley
And two tomatoes. I grated these, it’s the easiest way to get the right texture and consistency.
I also threw a ramp in there bc I found some at the farmers market Sat, and wanted to play with it too.

Mix this up.

Butter a baking dish and fill the onions.

Place seem side down and bake at 375 for about 30 mins.

While these are baking, make the caramelized onions by slicing thin, and slowly cooking in butter on low heat.
You can also cook the steak here too. I marinated it in olive oil, salt, and a couple crushed garlic cloves.

Mmmmm

We got four servings out of this 12oz steak.

Look for more amaranth to come soon, I really enjoyed this texture.
If you have an ingredient that you would like me to try, let me know!