Wine Popsicles

When we first started this blog we found this website that lists American Food Holidays for every day of the year. We discovered that James' birthday is Home Brew Day which is the main reason why we now own home brewing equipment (and actually use it too!). My birthday, however, is Grape Popsicle Day, and up until this year I just haven't been interested in celebrating my birthday with stupid grape popsicles. But then, sometime between my 53rd and 54th birthdays it dawned on me that wine was made from grapes, too. And so I googled "wine popsicles" and 10 recipes appeared before my very eyes. This year I was in Maryland celebrating my birthday with my extended family so my sister and I selected the Red Wine Fudgesicles to make together. We used the Zinfandel wine recommended, and then followed the simple steps to heat the wine, and add chocolate chips and milk. They tasted just like you would expect fudgesicles to taste, with just a hint of the wine flavor coming through as well

Blogger and her sister enjoying the fruits of their labor.

 

         

Lagniappe: My niece made me a Boston Cream Pie for my birthday cake!
See the recipe she used here.

Epilogue:
What started out as a steamy day (perfect for a frozen treat) in western Howard County Maryland turned ominous when the heavy rains began. The mood at the party quickly turned as we all watched the videos one of our favorite places - Main Street Ellicott City - flood for the second time in 2 years.

Coconut Cornbread

A brunch guest with gluten sensitivity pushed us out of our usual waffle routine. I know: waffles can be gluten-free, but not in our routine. Rather than taking a chance on redesigning my waffles with visitors coming, I retreated to a relatively simply solution: cornbread.

At first glance, this would be simply simple, not relatively simple. But the scrumptious cornbread that Pam often makes for us (which seems to be missing from this blog) uses some wheat flour along with the cornmeal. Information specialist that she is, she quickly found a gluten-free recipe for Southern (With a Twist) Cornbread on the Fountain Avenue Kitchen site.

Readers will see that blogger Ann has taken a great deal of care with this recipe, and has incorporated feedback from some of her readers. I prepared it almost exactly as written, with two small changes.

I heated our indispensable cast-iron skillet in the oven before adding the oil, which was simply a matter of not reading that part of the directions carefully. The pan was so hot, though, that I think the effect was exactly as intended. The recipe calls for 2T coconut oil and invites substitutions. Pam recommended chipotle-infused oil from our friends at L.O.V.E., and I decided to use one tablespoon of each -- some heat but also some extra crispiness.

The other departure from the recipe was to use a 12-inch pan instead of 10-inch. I am glad that I did not really think this through, because the resulting thinner bread should have made me check for doneness a bit early. I let it go all the way to 18 minutes, though, and the result was perfect crispitiness! (Patent pending on that Hayes-Bohism)

Penguin Christmas potholder is always in season.

Even more than perfect, in fact. We live in a crooked, circa 1885 house, which means that our oven cannot be made level. This caused a bit of the oils to accumulate on top of one side of the bread, and I greedily selected a piece from that side!

Everyone agreed that this was a delicious cornbread, and it went perfectly with the kumquat-habanero marmalade that our guest brought for us.

Lagniappe: Cornmeal

A note about the cornmeal: following the guidance in the original recipe, I selected a medium-ground cornmeal. I looked at several brands, but could not find any without a caution about the possibility of wheat contamination because of shared equipment. So I made the bread and saved the package to show our guest before serving it. This was OK in her case, but I can imagine some gluten-related conditions requiring more careful sourcing.