How To Make Roasted Green Chile Sauce

Fire roasted green chile, fresh from a roadside roaster.

How to make a roasted green chile sauce New Mexico style? First you start with bags of fresh roasted Hatch chiles.

The Fall Equinox is right around the corner. And in our small corner of the world that means only one thing- it's chile roasting time. New Mexicans are passionate about their state's most distinctive crop. Smoky, spicy and sweet all at once is the best way I can describe the complex flavor of New Mexican roasted chiles.

Roasters are ubiquitous now- along the roadsides and in parking lots- stoking their fires outside Whole Foods and Walmart alike, turning barrels of fresh Hatch chiles over open flames. The aroma is enough to make you weep.

With spicy chile happiness, that is.

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Crustless Quiche with Roasted Vegetables

A slice of gluten-free quiche loaded with roasted vegetables

Crustless Quiche with Roasted Vegetables Recipe

A short and sweet post today. Last night I made more roasted vegetables than we needed- just so I could use them today in a quiche. Nestled good-for-you goodies baked in a creamy, cheesy custard. What's not to love?

Lemon Yogurt Cake

A lovely gluten-free lemon cake recipe.

Ever since I saw Ilva's sumptuous Almond and Ricotta Cake I've been jonesing for something with lemon. The odd thing is- her cake doesn't even have lemon (strange the way our mind works and sweeps us away along memory traceries of scent and flavor) but I started craving a cake laced with citrus- not too sweet and not too light. A cake with character and heft.

The day I decided to bake, of course, I had no ricotta, but I did have organic plain yogurt and plenty of blanched almond flour. Inspired by Ilva's recipe, I tweaked her ingredients with those I had on hand and baked up a lovely simple cake that reminds me of a coffee cake I remember liking as a child, a bakery cake called Louisiana Ring made by Freihofer's- yet in truth, that cake featured a hint of orange rather than lemon.

There's that memory glitch again.

Some intuitive leap from taste to taste. An image, a smell can trigger a remembrance as vivid as the day you experienced it, enhanced, I imagine, by hindsight. This ability sharpens as you get older.

Time seems to condense into the senses (invoking forgotten details). You start believing the Buddha's theory about ten dimensions. You start savoring the smallest moments. Your husband hands you a mug of green tea, the steam rising in the late afternoon sun slatted through the bamboo window shade, and a loss from the past heals for a moment.

Next time I make this recipe I think I'll use oranges.

Lemon Yogurt Cake Recipe

For this recipe I used blanched almond flour which is slightly softer and more flour-like than straight almond meal processed from raw almonds. I've made cakes with both. I thought the blanched almonds worked well in this cake. The lemon peel imparts a little chewiness.

1 cup blanched almond flour

1/2 cup sweet rice flour

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

Pinch of fine sea salt

1 cup packed organic light brown sugar

5 medium free-range organic eggs

4 oz. light cream cheese (or butter or vegan margarine), softened

1/2 cup organic plain or lemon yogurt- low fat is fine

2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice

Lemon zest (fine grated peel) from 1 fresh lemon

1 teaspoon bourbon vanilla extract

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Line the bottom of a 9-inch Springform or cake pan with buttered parchment paper.

In a bowl whisk together the almond flour, sweet rice flour, baking powder, baking soda, sea salt and sugar.

Beat the eggs in separate large mixing bowl until they are light and foamy. Beat in the cream cheese and yogurt until combined.

Add in the lemon juice, lemon zest and vanilla; beat to combine.

Add in the flour mixture a bit at a time and beat on medium speed for a minute or two.

Pour the batter into the prepared cake pan. Bake in the center of a pre-heated 350 degree F. oven for about 40 minutes or until a wooden toothpick inserted into the center of the cake emerges clean.

Cool on a wire rack; and release from the pan. Dust with powdered sugar.

Makes 10 servings.

This cake freezes well. I just ate a piece warmed slightly. It's moist and tender.

Make Mine a Gluten-Free Cheese Sandwich

When food bloggers were challenged by a recent article in Food & Wine magazine to write with more verve and snap than a "boring cheese sandwich" I knew I had to head to the kitchen. Not to begin unwrapping my favorite snowy goat cheese (creamy with only a slight tang and a finish that barely flutters with August grass blowing in a southerly Aix-en-Provence wind breeze) but to bake.

Because, Dear Reader, in order to make a cheese sandwich- boring or not- you first need bread.

And bread is a rare event in my gluten-free kitchen. I bake bread perhaps twice a year, even though it's the perpetual tap-dancing Holy Mother of a Grail to the ever widening gluten-free world, the numero uno item verboten most newly minted celiacs yearn- with quasi-religious fervor- to replace.

The reason for my culinary indifference?

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Gluten-Free Frittata with Brown Rice Penne

Gluten-free pasta frittata made with brown rice penne.

Summer is officially upon us- allegedly. And by us I mean those of us calling the Northern hemisphere our home. See? I didn't forget you lovely readers from the topsy-turvy land Down Under, strapped to snowboards or skiing the snowy slopes of Victoria in need of steaming mugs of soup and plates of comfort food. I know it's winter for you. I get it. I do. I'm chilly, too. I've got Popsicle toes. And just so you know I'm not pulling your leg, Mate, I'll let you in on a little secret.

I'm not sporting a bikini these days, either.

Well, I don't actually own a bikini, so that might not be terribly shocking news (I don't think I've even touched a bikini since 1982, and for that wise choice alone, countless thousands are grateful).

I'm still layering my long sleeved tees and thick fuzzy sweatshirts, you see. Here in Redondo Beach we have the annual weather effect (grumpily or fondly) known as June Gloom. Brushed velvet fog and low slung clouds hug the coast each morning and shower us with mist that would make Ireland proud.

It's a marine layer issue, so they say.


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