I wish I looked this cute throwing a gluten free tantrum + I miss overalls! I would say I generally do not have any feelings of injustice about my lot in life as a gluten free person. My motto? It could be worse, a lot worse. I could be forced to eat vegan, have a goiter, or have no arms and legs like that man I met outside a bar last week. He asked if he could take my picture because he said I was something that he wanted for Christmas. How sweet, though now that I think about it, sort of creepy as well - but the man was basically a torso!
Yet every year around the holidays I like to throw myself a good old pity party about not getting to eat all the “fun stuff". For Thanksgiving this year, I took control of the situation, and cooked everything myself. The only thing that wasn’t gluten free at my Thanksgiving dinner was a basket of rolls and the pies – both things that don’t interest me at all. The food was delicious and I don’t think anyone missed the big, bad G-monster.
However, Christmas is a whole other ordeal that tends to leave me acting like The Gluten Free Grinch Who Stole Christmas. I blame this largely on the fact that I work in an office and sit right next to a buffet like table where all the Christmas tidings get placed. Here’s a typical day at the office for me.
Vendor: (carrying a large box of donuts, cupcakes, fried chicken) Come and get it everyone! Free food because you are AWESOME.
Emily: (takes a quick glance at the free food up for grabs, realizes she can’t eat it, and goes back to emailing). Sigh, I love having celiac disease! Who’s kidding who, I’m really the AWESOME one here.
Gluten loving co-worker: Wow, I feel so bad for you. You are in the best spot for guzzling all of this gluten filled food, yet you can't eat ANY of it. I don’t know how you function in life without being able to stuff pastries in your mouth 24 hours a day!
Emily: No worries, I’m not a huge whoopie pie eater anyways. Excuse me while I go cry in my favorite bathroom stall.
Ok, so my coworkers are not that mean. I really do love them (especially the one who gave me a bottle of Cote de Rhone for Secret Santa this year. Merci beau coup!) I’ll say for the most part, things have improved. With the economy in the toilet, no one can afford to give out a bunch of free stuff anymore. So nobody gets anything, and I win! Also, the one holiday vendor lunch I did have this year, we went to a place with a gluten free menu. And even though I found a renegade wheat bow-tie in my shrimp scampi with gf pasta, to quote Bob Dylan, “times they are a changin’.”
But it still makes me sort of mad/sad that when everyone else gets this as their mid-afternoon pick me-up:
fancy schmancy cupcakes from NYC. They were probably amazing!I get to nosh on these yummmies. All I need is a bottle of Ensure and I’ll make my complete transformation into a nursing home resident – jesus, I’m only 28!
Why is fun gluten free food still totally inaccessible slash remortgage your house expensive? Why can’t they make cupcakes out of pure chocolate? Or have a gluten free spray that neutralizes all harmful gluten proteins? Why is my life so damn difficult!???
Well it is the holidays, and I'm reminded that there are some people that have no food - ever. And the fact that I can eat at least some food in this world, without any major struggle, means my life is pretty great. Cue the chorus of angels. Hallelujah! And on that note, let’s talk about CHOCOLATE!
For my work Xmas potluck this year, I decided to go the dessert route. This is an odd choice for me, as normally I loathe sweets. They just don’t do it for me. Ice cream is eh, cake is only good on birthdays, and gluten free cookies are the serious pits. However, recently I stumbled onto something that will satisfy my inner need for a 24 hour salt lick - chocolate with salt on it! Salty sweet is the way to go people. If you have not tried it you are making the biggest mistake of your life – right along with those tapered pants!
In the December issue of Bon Appetite they had their usual Yuletide smorgasbord including a recipe for Chocolate Almond Bark with Sea Salt and I thought that now is the perfect time to dust off my skills as a master chocolatier. Fun Fact: My first job at the age of 14 was actually at a chocolate shop. I prepped these amazing truffles and gained about 20 pounds doing it. Best summer of my life! For this particular recipe, I was pretty sure this was going to be just like riding a bike, with edible chocolate wheels!
For the most part this recipe was pretty easy, aside from making the caramel concoction to cover the almonds. It seemed so simple. Put some sugar in a sauce pan, add 2 T water, and then heat until the mixture turns an amber color. There was some direction about wiping the sides of the pan down with a wet pastry brush, but I sort of ignored that. This sounded like when you make simple syrup for mojitos – what could be easier????
Well my sugar mixture took forever to get to any sort of amber shade and it got so clumpy and weird. It looked nothing like caramel – more like rotten milk. So I did what any person used to cooking does when something looks lumpy or weird – I whisked the bleep out of it! And lo and behold, once I added the tablespoon of butter, I got something that resembled caramel. Be forewarned – DO NOT TRY TO TASTE THE HOT CARAMEL. That stuff was like 800 degrees and I nearly burned my thumb off. Also, don’t spill any on your extremities – who knew you could practically lose a toe from flying caramel! And........wear shoes in the kitchen!
do it yourself double boiler!The rest really was quite easy. I don’t own a double boiler (not a lot of people do) and improvised with a glass bowl over a sauce pan. I melted the chocolate added the almonds and spread it out onto a cookie sheet. I’ve learned from using several recipes from Bon Appetite to read the online reviews first. I find that fellow readers are far more likely to encounter the same hurdles as you versus the test cooks at Bon Appetite. In this case, many of the reviewers had some good pointers on the caramel sauce and had a nice tip about waiting for the chocolate to cool a bit before adding the sea salt.
oooo action shotA few hours later, I had some delicious bark. When I unveiled them at the office party, people were devouring the salty sweet goodness and I suddenly had a ton of new friends! By far my easiest and most visually appealing pot luck offering to date (the stuffed jalepenos I brought last time had seen better days after the morning commute) plus I have a ton of leftovers that I can eat in my pajamas tonight while I am enjoying my bottle of Cote de Rhone. Christmas really is full of gluten free miracles. Enjoy, Enjoy, Enjoy.
This bark will make you friends
Chocolate-Almond Bark with Sea Salt
1/2 cup sugar
1 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 1/2 cups roasted Marcona almonds (not in oil) - I couldn't find these so I just bagged, sliced almonds
1 pound good-quality dark chocolate (62%–70% cacao), finely chopped - I found 60% cacao chips that Ghirardelli sells now.
Coarse sea salt (for sprinkling)
Line a baking sheet with a silicone baking mat or foil. Combine sugar with 2 tablespoons water in a small saucepan. Stir over medium-low heat until sugar dissolves. Bring to a boil and cook, occasionally swirling pan and brushing down sides with a wet pastry brush, until caramel is dark amber, about 5 minutes. Remove from heat. Immediately add butter; whisk until melted. Add almonds; stir until well coated. Transfer to baking sheet, spreading out to separate nuts. Let cool. Break up any large clumps of nuts. Set aside 1/4 of nuts.
Stir chocolate in a medium bowl set over a saucepan of simmering water until melted. Remove from heat, add nuts from baking sheet, and stir quickly to combine. Spread chocolate-nut mixture on same baking sheet, keeping nuts in a single layer. Top with the reserved nuts; sprinkle with salt. Chill until chocolate is set, about 3 hours.
Break bark into pieces and store between layers of parchment or waxed paper. DO AHEAD: Can be made 1 week ahead. Keep chilled.
