Cheesy Popovers - Gluten-Free!

Cheesy Popovers 3 cups tapioca flour 1 teaspoon salt 1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper 1 cup whole milk 3/4 cup oil (I like grape seed oil) 3 large eggs 1 generous cut freshly grated Romano or Parmesan cheese Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Use vegetable oil spray to grease mini-muffin tin generously. Put all the ingredients into a blender and mix until well combined. The batter will be pourable. Fill the prepared muffin tin 2/3rds full of batter. Bake for approximately 15 minutes or until almost golden brown. They should puff up nicely. Turn out of the pan and serve hot. Immediately respray the muffin tin and use up the rest of the batter. Believe me, if your family is like mine, the second batch will be ready just as they finish off the first one. The nice thing about the recipe? No wheat flour so it fits in with our gluten-free choice of diet right now. You could also try your own favorite cheese or a combination. I'm going with cheddar/Romano next time with a touch of cayenne in the batter.

Gluten-Free Brownies

Although I'm still collecting and sharing cookie recipies of the 'traditional' wheat flour variety, I have started investigating the idea of trying to cut back on the amount of wheat in my family's diet. I was very surprised to find such a variety of recipes that are close to my usual favorites yet haven't any wheat products in them. Thought it would be fun to share them here as there are always some people who are looking for a different approach to their baking or a challenge. Gluten-Free Brownies 1/2 cup almond flour 1/3 cup brown rice flour 1 cup bittersweet chocolate or chocolate chips 6 tablespoon butter 3/4 cup granulated sugar 2 teaspoons vanilla extract 1 teaspoon freshly grated orange zest 2 large eggs 1 cup chopped walnuts Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Line an approximately 8x8" baking pan with parchment paper. Combine the almond and rice flour and set aside. Melt the chocolate and butter together and let cool down a bit. Stir in the sugar, vanilla, and orange zest. Whisk in the eggs, one at a time until fully incorporated. Stir in the flour mixture until just mixed. Add the walnuts Spread the batter into the prepared pan and even it out. Bake approximately 25 minutes (but check at 15 minutes as oven do differ!) or until an inserted toothpick comes out clean with a few moist crumbs. Cool on a rack before cutting. The use of the parchment paper should enable you to lift the cooled brownies out of the pan for easier cutting. These are rich and go a long way. I served mine with a scoop of peppermint ice cream. Rice and almond flour can be found on-line or at health food stores. If you have a good blender, you can actually grind your own but make sure you get it fine enough to avoid extra 'crunch' in your final product!