In My Kitchen

Thanks so much for welcoming me here! I'm excited to join The Cooks Next Door!

Autumn is my favorite time of the year. I love pulling out the soup pot, indulging in pumpkin just about anything, eating stove-top applesauce, and relishing the warmth of food. But before I let you see the food on my table, first let me show you where I cook.

With a big south-facing window, my kitchen is the brightest room in the house (a bit toasty during the summer, but oh-so cozy throughout the winter). The room is square and somewhat small, but decently designed for an apartment. And this is where the kitchen magic experiments happen.

When I got married just over two years ago, I anticipated spending lots of time in the kitchen cooking. My mom is a fantastic cook and she trained me well. I wanted to put wholesome, homemade food on the table for Jeremy.

What I couldn't know then, was that less than a year later I'd be overhauling all my baking techniques. Gluten-free. It unnerved me. But with a lifetime of cooking gluten-free ahead of me, I plunged in. My learning curve in the kitchen has been necessarily steep since that July day we received the news. Some of my attempts have ended up in the trash. But small triumphs emerged along the way and those are what keep me going.

So, without further adieu, here's what's been cooking in my kitchen of late.

I embarked on my first gluten-free pie baking, with a pumpkin pie, and was so pleased with the results. I could seriously eat this for breakfast everyday with a glass of cold milk.

Just about every week since early October, I've made a pot of cinnamon applesauce to snack on during the week. As I don't have a photo and applesauce doesn't make a very attractive picture anyway, you'll just have to imagine the flavor tingling your taste buds, just a little bit tart, with the warmth of cinnamon.

And, in an attempt to embrace more of the seasonal food, I bought some Brussel sprouts and roasted them with onions and pumpkin seeds, following a recipe from Recipes From the Root Cellar by Andrea Chesman.