Gluten Free Croutons

I've been away for far too long. Life has been pretty busy and hectic but it's time to try to start posting again and bringing back my love of food. I can't guarantee I'll update as much as I'd like, but I will do my best to record my journey with food as I go about my day to day life.

In the time I've been away, I've been busier with work and have also been diagnosed with Celiac's Disease. This means I have had to go gluten free. I'm still adjusting and learning and, well, it has been a bit frustrating most of the time. I'm still finding my way and have been obsessing and learning and freaking out and stressing and dealing - sometimes all at the same time! But I feel like I may finally be settling into this new life so I hope to be able to continue this blog but add in these new adventures in food. My main focus of this blog will still be to celebrate all foods, but I'll throw some specifically gluten free things in every now and then.

Along this new journey, I've had to reinvent some foods that I haven't been able to easily find or, to be honest, just taste awful. A lot of the meals and creations I have previously made are already naturally gluten free, but some things require a little creativity. And, in certain cases, some store-bought items...

Sugar Cookies - Plain, with Icing, or with Frosting

My grandma used to make some of the best sugar cookies in the entire world. No, I'm not being biased. I swear. When we were little, my sister, my cousins and I would look forward to these cookies every Christmas Eve. They were sweet, crunchy, and perfectly sized for little kids and adults alike. I used to get jealous because my sister would be the one who helped my grandma make them and that meant I never got to taste them until our family dinner. And, unfortunately, it also means that I have no idea how to make them. My grandma is gone now so it's been a very long time since those cookies have been around. I used to try really hard to duplicate pretty much everything she used to make, but I've realized that it just isn't possible. She was a Polish grandma. And like pretty much every other grandma out there, she had her own measuring techniques and her own ingredients and I'll never be able to go back in time to figure out what those were. I've finally come to terms with that. So the only thing I can do at this point is do my best to make an updated, albeit different, version to her classics.

Tomato and Zucchini Tart with Garlic

I originally planned for this tart to be a quick, plain tomato-style to use up some of my garden tomatoes. Instead, I just kept adding things and it turned into an awesome tart with zucchini and garlic. Those combinations are so amazing together!