taco!

an avocado mais taco, a yummy quick snack or entree for the gluten free vegetarian among us. you'll need to gather the following ingredients:

corn tortillas
muenster cheese, thinly sliced (i like boar's head)
ground cumin
red onion, diced
1/4 of a hass avocado (1/4 sliced lengthwise makes 2 tortillas)
red leaf lettuce, cut into strips
tofutti better than sour cream

lay out a tortilla on the plate, place one slice of cheese centered and sprinkle onto it a little bit of cumin, microwave for 10 seconds. layer the diced onions, avocado slices, and strips of lettuce. top off with some dabs of tofutti sour cream. fold over and eat, me gusto!

perhaps not a fool

echo did a wee bit of posing today in front of a lovely vintage printed textile i discovered while antiquing. it is covered in blueberries and strawberries.

on other fronts, the gluten free thing isn't going half so bad as initially imagined. so far i have baked a delicious sweet cornbread, a lavender honey cake, dark chocolate brownies, and a dutch chocolate zucchini cake. there are plans on the horizon to make blueberry oat muffins and an irish soda bread. amazingly the most glorious thing about all of these scrumptious baked goods is that they are made from scratch and gluten free.

in the land of honey

one of the first gluten free baked goods i tried my hand at was a lavender honey cake. the recipe was a modified version of one posted on gluten-free girl, a lemon poppyseed cake. it came out quite yummy, but a little dense; for it rose like a souffle and fell, creating a somewhat dense but nonetheless moist cake with lovely tones of lavender. when i figured out where i had gone wrong i made the required changes to the recipe. here it goes:

gluten free lavender honey cake

3 tbs heavy cream
3 large eggs
2 tsps vanilla extract
3/4 c honey

1/2 c tapioca flour
1/2 c potato starch
1/2 c white rice flour
1/4 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp xanthan gum
1/4 tsp salt
2 tbs baking lavender

13 tbs softened butter, cubed

preheat oven to 325 degrees. butter bottom and sides of a 9" round cake pan, cut out parchment paper for the bottom so that the cake won't stick.

whisk the heavy cream, eggs, vanilla, and honey together.

blend well together the dry ingredients in a stand mixer, including the lavender.

slowly add the softened butter and half the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients, let them blend well for one minute. scrape down the sides of the bowl with a spatula. add half of the remaining wet ingredients and blend. scrape sides again. add the remaining wet ingredients and stop when blended.

softly pour the batter into the pan, smoothing the top with the spatula. bake the cake for 30 minutes to 1 hour, or until a butter knife comes out clean. let sit in pan for 10 minutes then remove to a rack and cool completely. you may frost with a sugar glaze if necessary, or just a light dusting of confectioner's sugar.

this recipe has been modified to use honey as the sweetener, if another sweetener is to be used relate back to the original recipe for lemon poppyseed cake.

something soft

after receiving a 2/3 closed eye head from narae last month, i put her on my desk and all but forgot about the little dear. in a fit of boredom, and seeing that the weather was nice, i took her out to my studio. i really wanted a soft, wisp-like face up, something a bit ethereal. i think she came out rather nice.

i suppose that the only question about changing just the face plate is, "is it now a different personality, or just a different expression of the same personality?". as her face is different, should she no longer be echo but another? hmm, perhaps a new name for this face.

in some cultures there are several names for the different aspects of a certain goddess; the crone, the maiden, the mother. perhaps echo has many aspects. or maybe she is just a nymph who appears differently when away from her source. this could be a tree dryad. lots to ponder!
there are more images of her in my flickr account.

the art of piecing together

i have always been intrigued by quilts; they keep you warm when you're wrapped up in one and when not, they are lovely laid over the foot of your bed. but somehow through the years i have not managed to acquire one. so few of them "speak" to me, at times they may even lack "soul". you've seen them, those sad mass produced ones that follow a pattern and were never touched by hands that love. lately however, i have been coming across some very lively and unique works that inspire me to perhaps work on one myself.

this is one from the tokyo international quilt festival 2008, it is absolutely astonishing in the details and variety of stitches. it is definitely what you would call a master work, i only wish i could see it in person.

here is a more detailed view so you can see the intricacies involved in something like this.

the one above is another from the tokyo international quilt festival 2008. the pastels and limited brights create a striking display of subtleties in overall color. it is warm and loved to me, something that would provide comfort when one is sad. it is like a sunburst and yet earthy at the same moment.

apparently it is stitched pojagi style-a form of korean patchwork.

one of the first quilts to show me the possibility of freedom. i like the looseness, the off-kilter appearance, and the shades of green that are reminiscent of young grass.

let's play a word game...

there's a reason i haven't posted in 12 days. it begins with a "p" and ends in an "s". give up? it's psoriasis! i've been recently diagnosed with psoriasis and i've been spending the missing time trying to figure out what i can do and what i need to change. after some research i come to find out that i may be gluten intolerant as well, and that that is what lead to the psoriasis. so i then had to research gluten intolerance and have been trying to figure out what exactly i can and can't eat. i came across a couple of blogs and some recipes i'm going to give a go when i have some free time. so for now most of my focus has been on psoriasis and also chickens. there will be further posting on that topic later.

it is beautiful!

one of my long running wants from an even longer list of wishes arrived in the mail yesterday. it is even more wonderful in person, and i have not even created any edible wonders in it yet. bask in all of its' icy glory! behold, my new kitchenaid artisan 5 qt stand mixer!