What I've Learned from Alt Summit and Great Links to Great Blogs

Last week I spent Thursday and Friday at the Altitude Design Summit for bloggers here in Salt Lake City at the fabulous Grand America Hotel, which is full of fancy things like this chandelier. I learned a lot, and I will try not to bore you with the nitty gritty, but maybe you'll find something that interests you in my travels. Get ready for some link love, because I'm full of it today.
First and foremost, holy crap...I met Kelsey Nixon from the Food Network's sister channel, the Cooking Channel! I had to control myself and not turn into a total groupie. Yes, we are both totally short and totally cute. Look how cute she is in horizontal stripes, nonetheless. Although she already has a show, she decided she needs somewhere for her fans to go to get more Kelsey, so she's starting a blog. And yep, she is just as sweet and kind in person as she is on TV. Check out her show called Kelsey's Essentials on the Cooking channel.

The next holy crap moment was getting to meet Stephanie Nielson from the Nie Nie Dialogues. Talk about your gracious and kind people. Stephanie just exudes love to people and spreads joy while triumphing over adversity with her blogging. If you've ever read her blog, I'm here to tell you she's the real deal. And if you've never heard her story, head over there for the morning. You won't be disappointed. I could go on and on just about what I learned from her, but that's a post for another day.

I got to hear Mondo from Project Runway 8 talk a little bit about how he comes up with designs for clothing and his inpirations. The best thing he said was: If you're shopping for trends, stop. Go thrift shopping. That's where the good stuff is. Yes! I've been thrifting a lot for the last 6 months and I love being validated.

I attended an awesome (read: informative, deep, and pulpy) roundtable discussion with Pam Keuber of Retro Renovation. She is one of my new faves, and her site is amazing if you are in love with vintage fixtures like toilets and faucets for mid-century houses. She even has another little website called Save the Pink Bathrooms. Too cute.

Here is a stalker-ish photo I took of Heather Armstrong of Dooce.com. Everyone loves a little dooce now and then. I felt bad because she obviously had a cold and didn't feel too well, but she was doing her duty and even singing "Welcome, welcome, Sabbath morning" to us, which is only funny if you're Mormon like me and read dooce to get the joke.

Have you heard of Swiss Miss? Apparently everyone else in the WORLD has. Her name is Tina Roth Eisenberg and she's a Swiss native who moved to Brooklyn and created your basic blog empire. If you've never seen her site and you love clean, graphic-laden euro design, check it out. She is like the Renaissance woman of blogging. She told us she reaches around 250,000 people a day with her blog. Are you kidding me? Wow. She gave a great ending keynote address that was also pulpy and helpful.

The best surprise was getting to hang out with my blog's designer, April of April Showers Blog Design. We sat and giggled and oohed and aahed and basically had a couple of girl's days out. She owns like the world's fastest laptop. She didn't even laugh at me when I pulled out my gluten free sandwich from home on the first day! True friendship, I tell you. Yeah, we're hot snot in this here photo.

But let's get to the real reason you're reading this: what did I eat at the fancy lunches? I actually had the foresight to call the hotel before and ask what the menu was. Day one they were doing sandwiches and soup and a bunch of stuff I couldn't eat, so I brought one from home. No one even noticed. Ha. Day two they had a lunch waiting for me that was mostly the same as everyone else's, and it was sooo dang good. Salad was first, and then this honey mustard chicken with warm cranberry compote and veggies. Yum-O with a capital Y. I'm going to try to replicate it for dinner sometime this week. I love how I just think I can figure out how to make something by tasting it. We'll see how good my skills are... Then dessert, and those of you who know me will be rolling your eyes at my lemon obsession here, but we had Lemon Mousse Bombe with citrus sauce and fresh berries. I was literally scouring the back tables looking for an extra one to eat because it was so tart and delicious I wanted about five more of them to satisfy my lemon-tooth. I even toyed with the idea of paying April to eat half of hers, but I thought we might not be friends after that.This is one recipe I'm going to HAVE to learn how to make, it was that good.

Every afternoon I would casually wander into the hotel's new patisserie (bakery) called La Bonne Vie and buy a $1.50 macaron for a little pick me up. They have different flavors every day, and I told them they needed to add...lemon, of course, and the manager happened to be there and he was having a V-8 moment, like, yes! Why didn't we think of that as we put our bakery menu together? I felt smart.

They had a grand display of the new ElectroLux appliances there, too. Drool.

I met a lot of great people and learned tons of tips and tricks, so hopefully my blogging will continue to improve as well as the recipes! Here's a list of my favorite new blogs from Alt:

Jenny from Little Green Notebook
Erin from Design for Mankind
Liz of Cool Mom Picks
Maggie from Mighty Girl
Karey of Mackin Ink
Marta of Marta Writes
Nicole from A Little Sussy
Brittany from One Charming Party
Victoria from The City Cradle
Cambria from Re-Nest

I didn't meet one food blogger other than Kelsey...hmm. Interesting. But I do want to know more about you, and what you'd like to see more of on Off the Wheaten Path. Recipes, product reviews, weekly menus? Less opinion and more how to? What are you interested in reading about? I hope no one says fish because it's not going to happen. Leave me a comment, I'd love to know!
Happy eating!

Happy Birthday to Me...A Gift Or Two

It's my birthday today, and I have spent the entire day doing what my friend Anna calls "being good to myself," which is actually something we frown upon because it means you are self-indulgent. However, the older I get the more I don't feel guilty about doing what I want to do one day out of the year. It's a good place to be. Tomorrow it's back to self-imposed restrictive lifestyles, but today, I'm living in the now.

One of the things I wanted to do this year was eat a delicious birthday cake, since it's been a long time since I had one of those. I usually opt for ice cream or gluten free cheesecake or something not cakey, but this year I had Eleanor's Bake Shop make me a delicious chocolate cake with cream cheese frosting. And it was divine. Look at this cake! And look at how big it is in comparison to my cute little girl waiting for a piece of it in the background. Here's how it looked when we sliced into it. A birthday gift, indeed.

The second thing I gave myself for my birthday was a trip to the Altitude Design Summit blogging conference here in Salt Lake City this weekend. I'm so excited to go and learn all kinds of new things and see what the serious bloggers are up to. I'm hoping to get some great inspiration for my blogging and finally learn how to really use my new camera. Stephanie Nielsen from the Nie Nie Dialogues is speaking, as well as Heather Armstrong and Brenda Dargen from marthastewart.com. I may die a happy death while I'm there! I'll hopefully have some fun pictures and stories when I get back to blogging on Monday. Until then, enjoy the weekend and go ahead and be jealous of my cake. Happy eating!

Delicious Gluten Free Ginger-Almond Pie Crust...Faking a Graham Cracker Crust

Over New Years Eve I realized that our family actually has some pretty odd traditions. First of all, we always have a movie marathon of some kind. Although this year was the first year that all of the kids stayed up until midnight together (scratch that...4 year old hit the hay at 11 p.m.) we usually watch a series of movies until midnight to pass the time. We've done Star Wars and Harry Potter and Ice Age and this year we did Spongebob Squarepants. It has to be something we own already and something everybody likes. Let me say that Spongebob gets funnier and funnier the later we stay up. Besides that, we always drink Key Lime Sodas in bottles and eat cheesecake. I'm not sure where this started but it's what we do. I usually make a regular cheesecake in a store bought crust for everyone else and just leave a little filling in a tupperware for me to eat by itself, but this year I went all out and tried a graham-cracker tasting crust that we all could eat.First, I added 20 of these ginger snaps from Trader Joe's that my friend Aimee gave me to my blender. I know there's not a Trader Joe's everywhere (ahem, in my own state, nonetheless), but you could probably use the Mi-Del gluten free gingersnaps, as they are available all over. They have a little bit stronger ginger flavor than the Trader Joe ones, so you might want to use fewer cookies and more almonds, you'll just have to play with it and see what you like. Then I added 1/2 cup slivered almonds and I chopped them up until they were fine crumbs. I added 1/4 cup of melted butter and mixed it all together, then pressed it into my pie plate. I added my no-bake cheesecake filling over the top and refrigerated it for about 4 hours before we sliced it. Check out my party plate! The good thing about this in contrast to some of the other crusts I've made before is that this needs no baking, no extra sugar or flavoring, and it takes about 5 minutes to put together. This delicious, easy crust will double for any graham cracker crust you might be hankering for. It has a slightly tangy, nutty flavor that complements the sweetness of a cheesecake, but I bet it would be good for one of those Jell-O pies or something. Hope you like it as much as I did!

Happy eating!

The Cody Sandwich: Gluten Free Lunch Heaven

I have this friend named Cody who has celiac disease that is my neighbor. We share treats all the time (because really, I shouldn't eat all four dozen of the batches of cookies I make and there's no way he can eat all that Joy Luck Chinese by himself) and people think we're weird at church because we stand in the hall having animated discussions about food. Anyway, one day in the summer his wife brought me over a sandwich that he makes all the time for himself and she thought I would like it. I'm never one to turn down a free lunch (you all remember the times I've said how bad I hate to make lunch...it hasn't changed.) so I gave it a go. Now I seriously wake up in the middle of the night wondering if I have the stuff to make this sandwich. It tastes great, it's simple, and it fills you up. I'd say that's a win-win right there. The best thing about it is that I actually use up a whole loaf of Pamela's Gluten Free bread before it gets hard when I eat these. So in honor of Cody turning 38 last week, here is the recipe for the Cody Sandwich:

Cody's Gluten Free Turkey Melt

2 slices of Pamela's Gluten Free bread, made from the mix (I used my breadmaker)
2 T Best Foods mayonnaise
6 slices of deli turkey, your choice (I do oven roasted...plain turkey flavor is my favorite)
1 slice of provolone, meunster, gouda, or monterey jack cheese
3-4 slices of tomato (summer homegrown are best, but we'll suffer through the winter with grocery store versions)

Toast the two slices of bread and spread with mayo. Place turkey with cheese on top on a microwave safe plate and cook until cheese is melted and meat is warm (about 30-45 seconds). Move meat over to the bread, top with tomato and close sandwich. Eat warm.

Now, Cody always toasts his bread and I never do. I think it's a personal choice. Both ways taste great if you ask me. Another simple but delicious lunch option for those of us who hate to think about lunch!
Happy eating and Happy Birthday, Cody!

I'm in Print! The Salt Lake Tribune and Me...

image courtesy of Salt Lake Tribune

The Salt Lake Tribune ran an article in the food section today all about gluten free eating and where to find local gluten free products, including this delicious-looking cheese bread made by Cheese Bread Mania, which is available at Harmon's, Rico's, and Caputo's Market and Deli. Guess what the title was? "Off the Wheaten Path!" I wonder where they came up with that one... and who should be quoted as one of their incredibly knowledgeable, tasteful sources? Why, me, of course! AAaahhh! I'm freaking out. Check it out here if you're local to find out about the products they showcased and if you're not local check it out to read a witty, insightful, two lines said by me. Back to your regularly scheduled programming!

Gluten Free Au Gratin Potatoes: The Easy Recipe

Ah, who doesn't love the humble potato? Not only are they filling and naturally gluten free, they are cheap. You can buy a bag of about a billion of them for around $3.00, and they have such versatility in so many recipes. Last Thanksgiving I posted a recipe for Au Gratin Potatoes that is pretty much the same as this one, only the way I made it is SO MUCH easier I couldn't resist posting this variation. I have made these this way three times in 10 days for a weeknight dinner, which says a lot about not only flavor but ease for me. If it's not easy, I don't make it on a weeknight unless it's a special occasion. Here's the simple version:

Gluten Free Au Gratin/Scalloped Potatoes

4 potatoes, peeled and thinly sliced with a mandoline
1 cup heavy cream
1 cup shredded gruyere cheese
1 cup shredded colby jack cheese
2 T minced onion from the pantry
pinch salt
pinch pepper

Place all ingredients in a large mixing bowl and mix well. Pour into a medium casserole dish sprayed with Pam, and spread top potato layer nicely with a spatula or spoon. (Doesn't have to be perfect, just not a total mess.) Bake for 1 hour at 350 degrees.

There's a few steps omitted from the other recipe and not as many ingredients to remember. My friend made these using all colby jack cheese and she said they were great. I hope you like it as much as we do!
Happy eating!

Gluten Free Garlic Pork Roast

I bought a pork sirloin roast the other day for a Sunday dinner. It's been a while since I've made one and when I got home I realized I had forgotten how I had ever even cooked one before. I took a chance and thought I would try to bake it similarly to the Perfect Pot Roast, but I thought that the pork would taste better with different seasonings. I guessed right! Here's how I did it:

Gluten Free Garlic Pork Roast
1 2.5-3 lb sirloin pork roast
2 T crushed garlic (the kind from a jar)
salt and pepper
2 tsp better than boullion beef flavor paste
3/4 cup water

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Spray a large dutch oven with Pam. Place pork in dutch oven and spread crushed garlic over the top of the meat. Sprinkle salt and pepper over garlic. Add boullion paste and water to bottom of pot. Cover, bake for 1 hour at 350 and then turn heat down to 250 for 4-5 hours. Makes a delicious gravy.Gravy:
Place dutch oven with drippings in bottom on stove burner and turn heat to medium high and bring to a boil (about 1 minute). When boiling, add 2 T white wine to bottom of pan and scrape drippings off with a spatula or rubber spoon. Add 1 cup water, bring to a boil, then add a roux made of 2-3 T cornstarch and 1/4 cup water. Stir until boiling and thick. Season with extra salt and pepper, if necessary.

Happy eating!