Carol's Culinary Cues October 2004

(c) Carol Fenster, Ph.D. - President, Savory Palate, Inc.

8174 South Holly St., #404, Centennial, CO  80122

800.741.5418

ISSN 14244


IN THIS ISSUE:

The Best Apples for Pie

New Products You'll Love

   -Low-carb Cookies

   -Tortillas

   -New Sugar Substitute Blend

Fall is Pumpkin Time

Watch Those Modifiers in Recipes


The Best Apples for Pie

One of the reasons I love fall is that the apple are SO great! For baking pies, the best apples are mainly a combination of Rome, Braeburn, and Granny Smith because they hold their shape during baking and their flavor doesn't go flat when cooked. To hold the pie filling together, add one or two apples that soften during baking and have great flavor such as McIntosh.


Use my no-fail pie crust in Wheat-Free Recipes & Menus (2004) or Gluten-Free 101 and you'll have an absolutely mouth-watering  pie.

For applesauce or apple butter, use only apples that soften during cooking such as McIntosh or Cortland. Of course, if you already have favorites go ahead and use them.


New Products You'll Love

I found some great new products at the trade shows this fall. Pamela's has a new line of low-carb cookies. Keep a box in the pantry, either for snacking or to crush in the food processor for a crumb crust pie. Or sprinkle the crumbs on top of pudding or cooked cereal for a flavorful little crunch.

 

I'm so excited about Food for Life's brand new brown rice tortillas. They have to be handled gently, but are the closest thing I've found yet to real flour tortillas. For best results, wrap them in damp paper towels and gently warm them in the microwave on low-medium power. Go to www.foodforlife.com for more information and ask your store to carry this new product. Use these tortillas in many of the southwestern recipes in my book, Gluten-Free Celebrations.

 

To improve the quality of baked goods using Splenda (sucralose), the company now offers it's new Splenda Blend for Baking. Part real sugar and part sucralose, it improves the rise, browning, and taste of baked goods. In my recent article in the Scott-Free newsletter, I noted that sucralose alone doesn't do very well in baked goods because they don't rise as well, brown as nicely, or taste as good. This new product helps solve that problem, or you can just add some real sugar (or other sweetener with sucrose in it) to the batter  for a better look and taste.


Fall is Pumpkin Time

The flavors of fall mean lots of pumpkin dishes. I make a gluten-free version of Williams Sonoma's Pumpkin Pecan Spice Bread that is out of this world. I served it in my booth at the American Dietitians Assn. trade show this month to rave reviews. Topped with pumpkin butter or apple butter, it's fabulous. Click on Recipes at my web site to get the pumpkin bread recipe. This time I added 1/2 cup of  Enjoy Life Foods' granola for extra crunch and sprinkled a little on top for garnish. Yumm!


Watch Those Modifiers in Recipes

Many cooks don't know that "1 cup rice, cooked" is not the same as "1 cup cooked rice." The placement of the modifier (cooked) is the key. In the first example, "1 cup rice, cooked" means to measure 1 cup rice, then cook it (which yields between 2 and 3 cups of cooked rice). The second example "1 cup of cooked rice" means the rice is already cooked and equals 1 cup. There is a difference of two cups in these two examples and that can make a big difference in the  recipe. This principle applies to other ingredients such as pasta, too.


Where in the World is Carol?        

On October 1-2, I exhibited at the Defeat Autism Now (DAN!) conference in Los Angeles, sponsored by the Autism Research Institute.  I also did a book-signing sponsored by York Nutritional Laboratories on Saturday. 

 

Immediately after the DAN! conference, I exhibited at the annual American Dietetics Association conference in Los Angeles, October 3-5. I demonstrated my 1-hour French Bread (from Gluten-Free 101)  in a special session for dietitians on October 4 sponsored by the Celiac Disease Foundation.

 

 I'm speaking Stanford's Celiac Conference on October 30. Register at

http://celiacsupport.stanford.edu/conference/.  I'm a speaker in the afternoon on "A Tale of Two Cooks.". Hope to see you there.