Why Gluten Free?

You may have noticed by now that even though the name of my blog doesn't indicate it at all, my blog is entirely gluten free.  Without giving away too many gory private details, I was diagnosed with Celiac Disease as a teenager (there are some lovely explanations of Celiac Disease here and here) and as a result I am on a life-long gluten free diet.  Gluten is found in wheat, rye, spelt, barley, and certain oats, and the foods that I eat and prepare for my family are 'free' of those ingredients.  

Before going gluten free, I ate a regular kosher-American diet.

Is there such a thing as a regular kosher-American diet?

Hmmm. I digress.

One of my favorite foods before I was diagnosed was a carrot ring that my mother used to bake for holidays. She would bring it to the table with peas stuck in the middle of the carrot-kugel ring and my mouth would water just staring at it.

After diagnosis, carrot kugel ring became a thing of the past.

Until recently.

My toddler is OBSESSED with carrot kugel. Since she was underweight for a long time, I did anything and everything to incorporate her favorite foods into the menu. A friend of mine gave me a recipe for carrot kugel that used jars of baby food. While my little one was little, we ALWAYS had an endless supply of baby food jars in the house. Now that she's older, when I went to make kugel, I discovered that just like poor mother Hubbard, my cupboard was bare.

So I turned to the internet.

And rediscovered carrot rings.  On a wonderful blog called Chaya's Comfy Cook Blog, I found a recipe for gluten free carrot ring that did not call for jars of outrageously expensive baby food.  And I just HAD to try it out.


  With my Cuisinart Smart Stick Blender's food processor attachment.

The results of the shredded carrots are pictured above.

Carrot Kugel Ring
 

Ingredients:
8 medium carrots, peeled and shredded
4 eggs
1/2 c. oil
1 c. dark brown sugar
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1 tsp. cinnamon
1 tsp. lemon juice
1 c. rice flour
1/2 c. cornstarch
1/2 c. tapioca starch
1/2 tsp. xanthan gum
1 tsp. baking powder

Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.  Heavily grease a bundt pan.  Shred carrots finely in smart stick food processor, and then dump into a nonreactive mixing bowl.  Add the eggs, oil, brown sugar, vanilla, and lemon juice.  In a separate bowl, mix the flours with the xanthan, cinnamon,  and baking powder. Add the flour mixture into the kugel batter.  Mix well.  Pour into the bundt pan and bake for 45 minutes.
Supposedly freezes nicely.  (You'll see why supposedly in a minute.)

RESULTS:
This is the first time that I wasn't thrilled with my Cuisinart Smart Stick.  I thought that the carrot kugel was OK.  It released easily from the pan, it didn't collapse into 2,000 crumbs like some gluten free baked goods.  But I wasn't thilled.  I thought that I should have used more vanilla or cinnamon because the kugel wasn't as spicy as my usual tastes.  Also, I felt that the carrots should have been shredded to a finer consistency (pictured above).  I cut the carrots into chunks, and the food processor attachment let me shred approximately 2 carrots at a time.  The resulting shreds were fairly evenly textured, but in retrospect they were two chunky for this particular recipe.  Maybe I merely should have whirled them for an extra minute in the processor.

I'm not sure.

But either way I was outvoted.

I made this recipe and unmolded it about an hour before Shabbos.  With all of the hustle and bustle of getting ready, I never had a chance to take a picture.

And the kugel was DEVOURED on Shabbos.  Although it wasn't too my specific tastes, DH, my toddler, the guests....they just completely demolished my picture-perfect kugel ring.

I'm going to play with this recipe and see what a little tweaking can do.