Gluten-Free Goodness | Just About Baked

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Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Bars (Gluten-Free!)

Back in August when people were posting pumpkin recipes, I was totally annoyed. Why ruin my summertime buzz? Really, people!

But then I made my first pumpkin recipe of the season and I couldn’t help it. Suddenly, I was eating tons of pumpkin. I was re-hooked. I forget every year how delicious pumpkin recipes are! How can I forget?

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Pumpkin Snack Cake

September 15, 2014
Mir
Cakes, Gluten-Free Goodness, Healthier Indulgences, Let Them Eat Cake
12 Comments

I love the idea of a cookie jar. Growing up, that wasn’t something we had in our house. We had plenty of dessert options, mind you. Just not an actual jar with cookies inside. As a result, it’s always been sort of a dream for me to have a cookie jar.

Except, well, they’re often ugly. And breakable. And most aren’t airtight, so the cookies go bad faster. And when kids get home from school (or their exhausted teacher mom), a cookie isn’t necessarily the answer. Sometimes you want cake. Amazing snack cake. No, not Little Debbie’s (though I do miss those hydrogenated suckers). Healthy, delicious, homemade pumpkin snack cake.

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Vegan Chocolate Cake

August 25, 2014
Mir
Cakes, Gluten-Free Goodness, Healthier Indulgences, Let Them Eat Cake
12 Comments

I hate epic fails.

Yep, my caramel apples, so lovingly planned to go up today for the first day at school, tanked. See, I had this massive migraine yesterday and I tried (smarty that I am) to make caramel apples while lights were flashing in my field of vision and my head was pounding.

So, yeah. Caramel apples for another day! Something to look forward to, right?

In the meantime, there’s this cake. I love this cake. It’s vegan and gluten-free, but it’s so incredibly delicious. Sounds wrong, I know, but it’s true!

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Peanut Butter Surprise Brownies (Gluten-Free!)

His job just got moved to a farther location, and there isn’t much food available for him out there. So I’m trying to be a cute little wife and bake him goodies. Plus, I like a challenge. Not all gluten-free desserts taste like their wheat-filled counterparts. But I promise you that everything I post tastes like I threw flour everywhere.

You can believe me when I say that because my husband won’t eat the desserts that don’t taste like what he remembers food should taste like. He’s picky. But I’m grateful for that, because he picked me!

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Maple-Glazed Applesauce Bread

August 20, 2014
Mir
Bread Basket, Dessert for Breakfast, Gluten-Free Goodness
18 Comments

I’m really trying here, folks. You know, to come to terms with the end of summer. It ain’t so easy.

As a warm-weather enthusiast, I greet cooler temperatures with about as much joy as a toddler greets a shot-wielding nurse. Over the past two weeks, my fellow awesome food bloggers have pulled out the pumpkin, heralding an early start to autumn. It’s still August, people! Rage against the dying of the light!

I’m going to hold out against pumpkin for a bit longer. I mean, I love pumpkin. But I want to use it when I really need it, i.e., when the long sleeves start coming out of my closet.

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Magic Twist Bars (Gluten-Free!)

Today is my first day back at work. Ah, the good ol’ grind. A week from today, my now empty classroom will be full of sleepy teenagers wondering what in the heck happened to their freedom. I will be annoyingly perky and they will hate me. Heh heh heh.

This is year 15 for me as a teacher, and every year, I love it just a little bit more. Teaching is unpredictable and active and just so much fun. I laugh a lot at work. But then, I find people funny. Kids especially. I know that my own kids get really mad when they think I’m laughing at them (i.e., all the time), so I will do a better job of hiding my smiles at work. Maybe.

To make my esteemed colleagues feel a bit better about returning, I’ve made some treats. One of my teacher buddies can’t have gluten, and guess what? She’s been teaching for over 35 years. So I think she deserves these bars!

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No Time, No Gluten Bars

Is it just me, or have women engineered our lives so that we have no time at all?

See, we have rights and we can work and vote and do all those great things. Super! I’m excited to be alive in this time, really I am. But why does having permission to be considered equal to men translate into women suddenly being superheroes?

Because I am, ya know. Sometimes I lie back against my fluffy pillows at the end of the day and just sit there, dazed at how much I could pack into a day. And I’m not bragging, because I’m not pretending to do it well or anything. But somehow, it’s totally legit for women to figure out how to pack in work, family time, exercise, errands, logistics (don’t get me started on how much we plan), general hygiene, and oh so much more in one day. Every day. Relentlessly.

I’m not necessarily complaining, mainly because I’m lazy and tired and don’t feel like opening that can of worms right now. I’ll open it next week. I’m just trying to explain how I wound up baking when I had no time. These bars, to be exact.

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Monster Cookie Dough Fudge Bars (Gluten-Free!)

My husband is very romantic, but not in the way people might consider stereotypical. He’s never stood outside my window with a giant boom box blasting “In Your Eyes,” nor has he borrowed his friend’s dad’s Ferrari to impress me as we cruise around downtown Chicago on a school day…

Wait. I’m confusing real life with John Hughes movies again.

Yesterday, my husband installed a much better spam filter for my site. You know, so I can stop getting comments like, “There are many women body types and depending on your shape, you will definitely get the best design that fits you perfectly.”

Say what? And that’s one that makes more sense than most. Most are not in English.

So yeah, my husband has filtered my Spam. And in return, I’ve made him another gluten-free treat. A really fun one, if I do say so myself!

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Loaded Peanut Butter Banana Bread

June 2, 2014
Mir
Bread Basket, Dessert for Breakfast, Gluten-Free Goodness, Let Them Eat Cake
12 Comments

You know how much I love peanut butter by now, right? Because I really, really, reallyreally need that fix every day. Preferably in some kind of peanut butter cup, but I’ll take the stuff straight up as well. Stirred, not shaken. With a spoon!

Years ago, I was part of a tour group in a foreign country. We stopped in a grocery store, and there on the shelf was a jar of Peter Pan, imported and outrageously marked up in price. I bought it immediately and without any hesitation, despite the fact that everyone in my group was mocking me for spending so much on a jar of peanut butter.

Well, folks, the laugh was on them. I sat on the tour bus, opened the jar, inhaled the sweet aroma and looked up, only to realize that the entire bus was eyeing my Peter Pan with what can only be described as mad lust. And for the rest of the trip, people kept asking if they could have a taste. They missed it so much, you see, and I was the smart one. I was also nice and shared, but not after a whole lotta “I told you so” lectures.

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Salted Oatmeal Caramel Bars

Years ago, when I was still single in the city (and pretending I could be as cool as Carrie Bradshaw), I used to go to a place called Teaism. It sold lots and lots of tea, but also really good food. One day I walked in and noticed a salted oatmeal cookie. I remember thinking, “That’s gross.”

Oh, I was so young and stupid. The salted caramel trend was still a few years away from starting and I never stopped to consider that salted baked goods were the best thing to happen to the dessert industry since peanut butter and chocolate. But like I said, I was not that clever. I was in my twenties and had perfect skin. But I was dumb.

Anyway, eventually I climbed onboard the salty dessert bandwagon. And here I stay, until long after it will be considered trendy. I’ll be one of those annoying grandmothers who still bakes salted caramel stuff while her grandchildren roll their eyes and say, “But Grandma, it’s all about sardines dipped in ganache right now.”