Wow! Two cookbooks to giveaway in one week? Today we’re giving away a copy of the new Babycakes Book. You can read a full review of the book here. This book is great and chock full of delicious recipes for classic treats made gluten free and vegan! I hate having this book in my office because it positively screams deliciousness and, having tasted the creations from Babycakes, it makes me want to rush home to have a tryst with it in my kitchen.

Kidding aside, there are recipes for all of your classic treats- Whoopie Pies, Honey Buns (using Agave), S’mores, Thin Mints, Chips Ahoy and many, many more. Most recipes use our Gluten Free All Purpose Flour, Garbanzo-Fava Flour or Brown Rice Flour and the majority call for refined coconut oil and agave nectar. Pretty good stuff to make something so sinful.

How to enter? Simply tell us what your favorite gluten free treat is these days- be it sweet or savory.

UPDATE: We had an issue with the giveaway app we are using. Everyone who comments will be entered to win. Pretend there never was an app. Sorry for the confusion!

Contest ends at 11:59 pm on 11/20/11.

Winner: Natalie Gibbs! Thank you to everyone who participated. We’ll have more cookbooks to giveaway coming up later this week.

I bet you didn’t know that today is National Homemade Bread Day. Who knew homemade bread got its own day? I thought any day you made bread at home would be homemade bread day… Well, it turns out that today, November 17 is the official day to celebrate homemade bread. Instead of limiting our focus to just more bread recipes, we’re going to share some recipes for turning that loaf of delicious homemade bread into stuffing.

Stuffing made our list of intimidating items and my guess is that it’s the actual bread component that causes the stress- after all, stuffing is pretty basic. The principles of a good stuffing are the same whether you use gluten free bread or conventional bread—you want to use day-old, or oven-dried bread, so plan ahead. To really save yourself time, bake a loaf of bread this weekend and let it sit out overnight. Then dice it and freeze it until Wednesday night.

It’s hard to boil down the basics of stuffing when every region of the United States has its own way of doing things. Here are some pretty simple gluten free bread recipes that you can use in the basic gluten free stuffing recipes that follow. Want a truly simply way to make stuffing? Try our Gluten Free Homemade Wonderful Bread Mix- it’s fairly basic and a great place to start your gluten free bread baking education. We also have a great Gluten Free Cornbread Mix, if that’s more your style.

Basic Gluten Free Breads

• Delicious Gluten Free Bread from Gluten Free Goddess
• Gluten Free Multigrain Bread from Gluten Free Girl
• Basic Gluten Free Sourdough Bread from Jean Layton, the Gluten-Free Doctor
• Basic Gluten Free Bread from Celiac Chicks
• Basic Gluten Free Cornbread from Carol Fenster via Bob’s Red Mill

Stuffing Recipes (make sure you use a gluten free broth or make your own to avoid any hidden sources of gluten)

• Homemade Wonderful Stuffing: This recipe uses our Homemade Wonderful Bread Mix as a base, but you could use any gluten free bread in this recipe.
• How to Make the Best Gluten Free Stuffing from Elizabeth Barbone via Serious Eats (great step-by-step guide!)
• Basic Stuffing (Video Guide) from Gluten Free Girl
• Cornbread Stuffing Recipe with Curried Apples and Cranberries from Gluten Free Goddess

This gluten-free cranberry bread is made with yogurt instead of oil and is sweetened with honey and orange zest. Wouldn’t this make a lovely breakfast for Thanksgiving?

Ingredients:

• 1 cup Walnuts
• 1-¼ cup Bob’s Red Mill Gluten Free All Purpose Flour
• ¼ cup Bob’s Red Mill Gluten Free Almond Meal
• ¼ cup Brown Sugar
• 1 tsp Baking Powder
• ½ tsp Bob’s Red Mill Xanthan Gum
• Pinch of Sea Salt
• 2 Eggs
• ½ cup Nonfat Organic Yogurt (plain or vanilla)
• 2 Tbsp Honey (I use Sweet Caroline’s)
• 1 tsp gluten free Vanilla Extract
• 2 Tbsp finely grated Orange Zest
• 1-½ cup Cranberries (dried or fresh)

Preheat oven to 350° F.

Spread walnuts on a cookie sheet and toast in over for 8-10 minutes, or until lightly toasted. Remove; coarsely chop.

Prepare a bread pan or muffin tin*.

In a medium bowl combine flour, almond meal, brown sugar, baking powder, xanthan gum and salt. In a medium bowl or Kitchen Aid, mix (using flat beater attachment) eggs, yogurt, vanilla, orange zest; add dry ingredients. Combine. Add cranberries and toasted walnuts. Combine.

Pour the batter into prepared baking pans or muffin tin and bake for about 1 hour, until sides pull away from edges of the pans, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Remove the pan from the oven and place on a wire rack to cool for 10-15 minutes. Remove from pan. Serve warm. Share with your friends, family and training partners.

*Muffins are great real food snacks for training rides and fit perfectly in your jersey pocket.

Adapted from a recipe in Real Simple, November 2011.

As I mentioned in my post about making a good gluten free gravy, one of the keys to finding a recipe that you can trust is finding the common denominators.  What seems to come up over and over again in the recipes? When I first heard about ratios for baking and cooking, I pretty much ignored it- that stuff is for fancy cooks and people who make their own recipes. However, the more I think about it, applying mathematical thinking to recipes is pretty spectacular. Finding rules for what works and doesn’t work is pretty novel when you apply it to converting recipes to be gluten free. While I’m hesitant to take the plunge and buy the book or download the app, I’m definitely fascinated by this idea of rules to follow for successful baking.

Thanks to Gluten Free Canteen and Gluten Free Girl, I found the ratio for pie crust: three parts flour to two parts fat to one part liquid. Does it matter that you’re attempting a gluten free recipe? Not in this case. From everything I have found, a pie crust does not need xanthan or guar gum to be successful. That makes two awesome discoveries in two days! Seems more and more folks cannot tolerate xanthan or guar gum and finding recipes that don’t need one or the other is truly something special around here.

Before we get to the recipes, we’re missing one last piece of the puzzle and that piece is chilled butter and/or chilled water (or milk). If you don’t know why this is so important, let me tell you. Chilled butter is where all of the flakiness comes from in pie crust. As you cut together the flour and butter to make small pea-sized pieces, what you’re doing is creating little fat pockets in your dough. When you cook your crust, the butter melts leaving behind little tiny air pockets… at least, I’m pretty sure that’s what happens. Cold water keeps the butter from melting prematurely.

Finally, if you have a food processor—by all means, USE IT. It will make your life easier and produce pretty darn good results. Even Julia Child moved to using a food processor for pie crusts when she discovered how much easier it was.

Here are some recipes that I found for gluten free pie crust that I would stake my Thanksgiving pie on. And you want to know why? They use the same general rules of thumb as the ratio AND they’re almost all the same. We’re getting closer and closer to the big day,  if you can do a dry run this weekend I recommend it. You can do it! I know you can!

• Gluten Free Canteen: http://glutenfreecanteen.com/2011/06/22/oh-my-pie-crust/
• Gluten Free Girl: http://glutenfreegirl.com/were-having-a-pie-party/
• Simply Gluten-Free: http://simplygluten-free.com/blog/2011/10/perfect-gluten-free-pie-crust-recipe.html (this one does use xanthan gum, but looks pretty good)
• Bob’s Red Mill Easy as Pie Crust (GF): our go-to recipe, which does use xanthan gum and produces lovely results: http://www.bobsredmill.com/recipes.php?recipe=1126 (pictured above)

Want to know how to make vegan pie crusts? Check out this great post that we put together last year.

Has another racing season really come and gone already? I can’t believe that I am sitting here at my computer, looking out the window at the snow falling, while thinking back on the 2011 road racing season.

It all happened so fast – I was competing at the Cyclocross World Championships in St Wendel, Germany on Jan 30. Two and a half weeks later I was at training camp with Team TIBCO in Carpinteria, CA. Whoa. A week after camp I was in Washington DC wearing my cycling advocacy hat at the National Bike Summit. Three weeks later the racing season was underway at the Redlands Bicycle Classic.

I chuckle to myself when I think of the number of times I have raced Redlands. I smile when I think of all the different families I have stayed with and continue to look forward to seeing year after year. I think of how the race has changed from ten years ago when it was a 6-day event to the 4-day event that it is now. I can remember numerous courses that have come and gone, some that I wish were still in existence, but the two that have always remained the same are the downtown criterium and the Sunset circuit race – two of the hardest races on the calendar all year.

April was a big racing month – Redlands, Sunny King, Sea Otter and SRAM Tour of the Gila. It was a good month of racing in regards to the races themselves, but it was a tough one for the team. Several of our top riders, Ali Powers, Erinne Willock and Carmen Small, were home nursing injuries. As our team leaders, they left a big gap to fill. Luckily the rest of the team was up for the task. We raced hard. We didn’t get the results we wanted, but we didn’t give up either.

May – Joe Martin and Tour de Grove. The team got a win at Joe Martin and we cleaned up at Tour de Grove. We were happy for sure.

June was another huge month of racing. We were at the Liberty Classic in Philly, Clarendon in Washington DC, Nature Valley Grand Prix in MN, and US Road Nationals in GA. Junes was a mixed bag of emotions and results. We had good days, races that went well but didn’t yield the final result we wanted. And we had bad days. Races that just went wrong, days when we just didn’t click. But, that’s bike racing. Things don’t always go your way, but when they do it’s magic.

What I remember most about July is how little I was home. About 5 days total. It was a loooong month on the road. I was all over the place. We started with Tour de ‘Toona, a race that once had been a premier stage race and was now resurrecting itself from a three year hiatus. I was happy to be back in Altoona, PA. From there I went to Sun Valley, ID with my husband, Ben, to support him at US MTB Nationals. And maybe I snuck in a little time on my mtn bike, too. Next thing I knew I was in Bend, my home away from home, for Cascade, one of my favorite races all year. Bend is where I won road nationals. I’ve had some notable cross results there, too, so Bend has a special place in my heart. The team’s results at Cascade were good, not great. We could have done better and we knew it.

The last race of the month and the last race of the season for me was the Presbyterian Classic in Charlotte. It’s a prestigious criterium with a lot of money on the line. My teammates and I did everything we could to get that result that had been eluding us all season, that one BIG result. We didn’t get it.

We may not have gotten a big result, but we did take something meaningful home with us. The day before the race we visited the pediatric cancer ward at the Presbyterian Hospital where we visited with several inspirational, courageous and tenacious kids who may have been sick but didn’t want us to know it. They smiled when they met us. They wanted to watch the bike race. They enjoyed our company. For a little while, hopefully, their sickness was forgotten.

The road season was over. My race season was not. Cross season was a month and a half away. I had a couple weeks off the bike completely, a few weeks on the mtn bike and then before I could say ‘boo’ I was lining up for the first cross race of the season – CrossVegas. But that’s another story…

In my humble opinion, gravy is one of the best things about Thanksgiving dinner. I was a bit surprised when  gluten free gravy, was listed as one of the foods that intimidates you the most about Thanksgiving. And a quick internet search will reassure you- you are not alone. It’s been a hot topic online these days and I’ve been on the hunt for some great resources for you guys to help take the worry out of gravy. I will also be sharing some pie crust tips and stuffing how-to’s later in the week, as those were also on the most-intimidating list.

The most fool-proof way to make gravy? Follow a recipe from someone you trust and try it first. If it’s your first time or a dish that freaks you out a bit, there is always someone who has a great recipe and who knows how to avoid the pitfalls. This weekend, try your gravy recipe and make sure it works. If it’s not working, you still have time to find out why.

How do you know if a recipe is good? What I do is look at 4 or 5 recipes for something and find the common ground. In this case- almost all of the gravies I have found that are gluten free use Sweet White Rice Flour.  If you find an outlier, save it for another time. Tried and true methods are the key! Now is not the time to play around, unless you are utterly confident and have a fall back plan.

I’ve gone ahead and done that part for you- each of these recipes would be one that I would make for Thanksgiving dinner. I still urge you to find the time to try it first, no one wants Thanksgiving dinner without gravy… well, almost no one.

Gluten Free Girl has a beautiful video and offers some great insight into making a delicious gluten free gravy. Check it out here: http://glutenfreegirl.com/gluten-free-gravy/ In fact, if you click on this link, you get a whole slew of amazing gluten free Thanksgiving recipes complete with main dishes, sides, salads and baked goods.

Elizabeth Barbone via Serious Eats offers very similar advice, an easy recipe and some great tips for converting your gluten free gravy to also be dairy free.

After returning from the Czech Republic, we decided to take the following weekend off from racing to tackle the chest high laundry pile, get back to my clients and get Matt back into the lab! We had a freak snowstorm over that weekend which meant that there would be really muddy racing in New Jersey. I was torn about taking the weekend off but stuck to it and enjoyed a little downtime and some solid training without getting in a moving vehicle.

The next race I had lined up was the CycleSmart International, part of the Shimano New England Pro Cyclocross Series in Northampton, MA. Northampton had received about 20 inches of snow in the Sunday storm, but I knew by the following Saturday it would be gone. In the 21 year history of the CSI race, it has never rained and it has always been an especially fast, flat race course.

When the weekend arrived, it was sunny, warm and dry. I was ready for some very fast, dynamic pack-style racing, much like a crit, but on grass!

As expected, when we arrived on Saturday morning, all traces of snow had disappeared.  The Nor’easter that clobbered Northampton a week prior was a distant memory.  After I took my customary course inspection, we packed up the mud tires and got my go-to dry condition tires, the Challenge Griffos, ready to go.

I had a good start to the race, mixing it up with the top three riders right off the line.  Unfortunately, I ended up taking a corner a little too tight and clipped my pedal resulting in what was more of a stumble than a crash.

In doing so, I knocked the chain off of the chainring and fumbled for a while to get it back on.  This seemed to take forever. By the time I got it back on I was almost last.  The front of the race was long gone and I would really have to dig deep if I wanted to salvage my race.

The course was already super fast and a pack of five racers was on the front driving the pace. I was able to move up several spots each lap and finally made my way to 9th place by the finish.  I had used up a bit more energy than I would have liked given there was still a second day of racing ahead.

Rather than stay in Northampton for what always seems like a lousy nights’ sleep, we headed back to Boston for the launch of the 2012 Seven Cycles bicycle line.  Matt gave the Mo-Honey a quick wash and we delivered it to the party so all could gawk at it.  Seven dropped the 2012 catalog that night as well.  Like the bikes they make, the catalog is a work of art.

There are a bunch of great pictures of Matt from the Green Mountain Double Century and some of me on my Mudhoney.  You can get a catalog of your own by visiting the Ride Studio Café or by requesting one here.

I was resigned to having a better go of it on Sunday in Northampton.  Although there were some changes to the course from the previous day, it was still super fast and smooth racing. I had a strong start and sat in third place for a few laps.

By the third lap, there was a group of four of us chasing the leader. Although we all tried to pass one another and get a gap in the rideable sand sections, it came down to the last lap where the riders with the most power turned it up.

I finished in 5th place, just about where I expected but feeling a bit of fatigue from the previous days effort. That night Matt had a late time point in the lab so we headed to the lab for a few hours and grabbed dinner at a new local restaurant in the area to wrap up the weekend.

Squasherole? Try saying that five times fast. Mo the Morselist has been cooking up awesome healthy treats since early 2010. Driven by her father’s desire to enjoy a baked good while still following his restricted diet, she came up with Mac-n-Mo’s Morselicious Treats. These little cookie-like creations are high in fiber, low in sugar, low in fat, vegan, gluten free, sodium free and delicious! She has seen a big uptick in sales since starting her business and is proud to be launching an e-cookbook with even more delicious recipes. 12 days of MORSELICIOUSNESS! features 12 menus with a main dish and dessert recipe for each day. All of the recipes in the book are low sodium, low sugar, gluten free, dairy free, soy free,  and meat free (with one exception). Additionally, the book is full of great stories and fun pictures from Mo’s childhood and past experiences. You can check out a preview of the book here.

We thought this book was a perfect giveaway for Meatless Mondays, after all, the goal is to improve health by cutting back on meat and cutting back on sodium, sugar and fat seem like a natural fit for MM. See below for giveaway details. Here is Mo’s recipe for Roasted Acorn Squasherole. Enjoy!

Roasted Acorn Squasherole

• 1 Acorn Squash (cut in half with seeds scooped out)
• Seeds from Acorn Squash
• 1/4 cup Morselicious Mix*
• 2 tablespoons Hemp Protein Powder 
• 1/2 cup water
• 2 tablespoons Coconut or Hemp Oil
• 1-2 Zucchini, sliced
• 2 Scallions (green onions), chopped
• Black Pepper (to taste)
• 1 teaspoon Cayenne Pepper
• 1/2 teaspoon Tumeric (Optional)
• Fresh juice of 1/2 Lemon and/or NO Salt Seasoning
• 1 cup Crimini Mushrooms, sliced
• 1/2 cup shredded Vegan or Non-Dairy cheese

1. Preheat oven to 325°.
2. Heat a small non-stick sauté pan over medium-low heat. Rinse and dry the seeds from the squash and add to the pan, lightly toasting on both sides for 3-4 minutes each side.
3. Remove from the pan and set aside on a paper towel to cool.
4. Bake squash in glass casserole dish, cut side down, for 30 minutes or until tender.
5. Remove squash and allow to cool.
6. Add coconut or hemp oil to the casserole dish, scoop out 3/4 of the squash and spread in an even layer to cover the bottom of the dish.
7. In separate bowl, combine the Morselicious Mix, hemp protein and water until you have a “paste” consistency. Spread mixture over squash.
8. Toss the zucchini and scallions with the black pepper, cayenne pepper, turmeric.
9. Squeeze lemon juice over mixture and mix well.
10. Add to the top of the casserole and sprinkle with remaining squash, mushrooms and cheese.
11. Cover dish and bake for 20-25 minutes.
12. Top with toasted acorn seeds.

*Morselicious Mix is available for purchase at http://shop.macnmos.com/main.sc and contains: brown rice, organic unsweetened coconut, almonds, flax meal.

Among my riding friends my deep aversion to cold temperatures is well documented.  I don’t think I have ever been close to over-heating.

I like to be warm when I ride.  This of course poses a challenge come fall and winter.  So my favorite fall gear is not made of carbon fiber.  It’s made of roubaix fleece and merino wool.   Things that keep me warm and cozy as the temperatures drop.

It’s not miserable now.  But cold enough for me to worry about keeping warm especially on the longer rides.  These ¾ length bibs from Rapha rule my fall riding universe.  They’re fleecy in the legs and the bib portion comes up nice and high – giving my chest a nice extra bit of coverage.  Excellent for the cold induced asthma!  The jersey rules too…merino wool blend is the bestest for the cool temps in my book.  It keeps you toasty, it wears great and is breathes really well.  Throw on a merino hat, light gloves; windsocks and you’ve got the right gear for comfortable fall riding.

It should come as no surprise that we love our dogs here at Bob’s Red Mill. Like any other dog owners, we care that our dogs are warm, happy and well-fed. There are so many choices when it comes to what to feed a dog these days and not all of them good. When we first started getting letters from customers telling us that they use our products to make healthy dog food and treats, we were a little surprised. A few years later, we started hearing about the customers who fed their dog a gluten free diet because they, too, were gluten intolerant. Today it’s simply run of the mill to hear about the new dog treat or dog food that uses our products to create the healthiest options for allergen-sensitive pets and owners who just want to give their dog the same nutritional attention that they afford themselves.

It makes sense, doesn’t it? I put a lot of effort to be sure we eat right, why wouldn’t I do that for my dog? After all, he’s a member of my family, albeit MY pooch is a spoiled member of our family. I don’t go so far as to make my own dog food, but I do look at ingredients and make informed decisions about his diet.

Here is a list of some of our favorite dog food companies that use our products to create delicious treats for your special four-legged friend. I am sure there are many, many more companies out there- these are just three that I know about.  I think what I love about each of these is that they’re made for sensitive doggies, but they’re good for all doggies. No taste or texture compromises here.

Dog Park Barks
San Francisco, CA

The folks over at Dog Park Barks got in touch with us a couple of months ago to share their treats and their story. Driven by a desire to make healthy dog treats for their Stella, Ryan and Molly started Dog Park Barks after the soaring popularity of the homemade treats at their local dog park. These bite-size treats are made with organic coconut flour, flaxseed meal, organic chicken broth, vegetables and lots of other good stuff… essentially all ingredients that you can read and recognize.  None of this “DL-Methionine” and “Potassium Sorbate” that you find so often in big brand dog treats. Dog Park Barks are small batch treats made with love by real people. You can find these treats locally in San Francisco at Jeffrey’s Natural Pet Foods and for everyone else they’re  available for purchase through the Dog Park Barks Facebook page. DPB is currently featuring Peanut Butter and Banana as their flavor of the moment. My own dog couldn’t get enough of these!

Biscuits by Lambchop
New York, NY

Annette has been a customer of ours for years and we’ve been so pleased to see her business grow. Inspired by her rescue dog, Lambchop, Annette created her line of treats that were made with real ingredients and void of wheat. Biscuits by Lambchop offers two flavors to pick from- Starlets (apple with honey and cinnamon) and Choppers (banana with coconut and vanilla).  You can purchase these adorable treats from the Biscuits by Lambchop website. My only concern with these treats? That you’ll mistake them for human cookies, although I’ve heard that you won’t be sorry if you do!

Front Porch Pets
Waukesha, WI

Front Porch Pets creates a wide variety of treats for your pooch made from sweet potatoes. They offer “rawhide” like treats which are essentially dried slices of sweet potatoes and cookies made from different combinations of sweet potatoes, applesauce and other dog-friendly ingredients from Bob’s Red Mill like blueberries and pumpkin seeds. These treats can be found at a variety of stores using their store finder or ordered directly from the Front Porch Pets website.

 Do you know of a great dog treat that you want to share with the rest of us? Please let us know in the comments, I’m sure others will appreciate suggestions.

Finally, a post about dogs wouldn’t be complete without a dog photo. Here’s Fergus, my pooch, after enjoying his Dog Park Barks. I don’t think a camera exists that could have caught him before that treat was gone.