My favorite gluten-free baked goods, yummm

 Gluten is my enemy, but cookies and cakes are my besties.  And there are some stupid good gluten-free baked goods out there these days.  Here’s a list of some of my favs.  Send me more suggestions at laurabama @ hotmail . com and I’ll try them and add them to this list! 

1. Mariposa Bakery in San Francisco – the chocolate cakes/cupcakes are amazing, and dairy-free, gluten-free, egg-free!  And they’ll ship to you! http://www.mariposabaking.com/

2. Senza in Chicago – innnnncredible cookies, donuts, and LOAVES OF BREAD.  Also a fabulous gluten-free dinner menu.  The chef of this place is the dude from Green Zebra (famous Chi vegetarian restaurant).  If you live in Chicago and you’re gluten free, you must must must check out this place.  http://www.senzachicago.com/

3. Mimi’s Cookie Bar in Mammoth Lakes has some of the best gluten-free dairy-free peanut butter chocolate chip cookies on La Planète.  http://mimiscookiebar.com/

4. Trader Joe’s Crispy Crunchy Chocolate Chip Cookies are amaze.  http://www.amazon.com/Trader-Joes-Crunchy-Chocolate-Cookies/dp/B007MEXS7E .  Beware, though, these DO contain butter.  But sometimes a girl gotta have a little butter. 

5. For store-bought bread, Udi is the only way to go (it’s in basically all grocery stores these days, often in frozen foods - http://www.udisglutensfree.com/) , and Glutino makes good crackers and Oreo knock-offs (http://www.glutino.com/products/cookies-and-wafers/cookies/chocolate-vanilla-creme-cookies/).  

6. Babycakes in NYC!  The lemon cupcake is fabuuu.  Vegan AND gluten-free.  http://www.babycakesnyc.com/

Where else what else?  Holla!

Also, in case you didn’t know, peanut butter cookies are by farrr the best dairy-free cookies, because they’re still creamy.  Now ya know.

xo

The Best Things I Saw at Bonnaroo!

Ahh, Bonnaroo.  It is the Best of times, it is the Worst(ish) of times.  But somehow the Best always outweighs the Worst(ish).  And I say Worst(ish) because it’s really not the actual Worst of times – it’s just a big pile of stress, surrounded by the best music in the world. 

And my own personal Bonnaro stress comes in various forms – first I got stressed because our tent site was a full mile from the entrance to the Grounds (which was actually a blessing because it was slightly farther away from the music that’s BLA-BLA-BLASTING ‘til 5AM), then I nearly had a panic attack because our tent/car got illegally hemmed in by other tents/cars, so we couldn’t drive out to get the LIQUOR that I so badly needed since there’s no stinkin’ liquor at Bonnaroo – only beer – and this homie don’t drink beer (but the fire marshals soon cleared fire lanes so I got my liquor), then I got stressed by the excruciating pain from the  internal organ damage I inflicted by not drinking enough water (because I didn’t want to have to be constantly going to the port-o-potty during concerts).  And of course, there are the dense crowds of 70,000 people, the concerts you get excited about where you can’t even get close enough to HEAR much less SEE (like the Lumineers, boo), the port-o-potties that are ripe with aroma by day 2…

On the flip side, there’s THE MUSIC.   Somehow, the quality of music is so f’in good that all the bad stuff is worthwhile.  Here are my five most favorite concerts, and my single least favorite concert:

1. PAUL MCCARTNEY!  Every single person at Bonnaroo was SHOCKED by the fact that he gave the best concert of the weekend.  Macca (I just learned his nickname) rocked it like a 30-year-old man.  He had a first-rate band, played mostly Beatles songs (!!!), and he was funny and charming and endlessly energetic for nearly 3 hours.  He had 70,000 people singing Eight Days A Week, Live and Let Die, and most joyously, Hey Jude.  The “nah nah nah” end of that song was such a loud exuberant sing-along that I bet you probably heard us in your dreams and started singing along too.   He also did Blackbird, which is one of my favs.  Here’s the entire, ridiculously awesome set-list: http://www.setlist.fm/setlist/paul-mccartney/2013/great-stage-park-manchester-tn-bd9d10a.html.  Oh and did I mention that we were RIGHT UP FRONT??????

2. Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeroes – just a big bucket of FUN from start to finish.  The main guy (whose name is actually Alex Ebert) looked like he had crawled out of a dumpster – his old clothes were filthy and his hair clearly hadn’t been washed in days.  He even said at one point, “I fucking hate these pants.  I’m all out of pants!”  Here’s a photo - http://cdn2-www.craveonline.com/assets/uploads/gallery/bonnaroo-2013-edward-sharpe-the-magnetic-zeros/img_9702.jpg .  Despite his dumpster-y appearance, he and his 11-piece band were faaaabulous.  They play rock music like it’s gospel music, and everyone in the audience was smiling non-stop.  Alex kept running out into the audience to sing, and at one point he was just standin’ a few feet away from me, crooning amongst the crowd.  During “Home,” Alex asked for stories from the audience and one guy said “A year ago you came and visited me in my hospital room in the cancer ward – I had a transplant that day that saved my life!”  Alex recognized him, flipped out, gave him a huge hug, and brought him up on stage to play tambourine for the rest of the song.  And that’s pretty much how the whole concert went.

3. Bjork!  This brilliant woman is from another planet, and gives a crushingly unique and memorable show.  She wore an outfit that made her look like a nebula (http://cdn1-www.craveonline.com/assets/uploads/2013/06/DANNY_CLINCH-04911.jpg) and her choir of Icelandic girl-singers danced like manic rock volcanoes.  The best song of the night was “Declare Independence,” which she screamed at us so emphatically that we all felt like she was our Inner Conscious come to life.  There is nobody like Bjork, and there never will be, even in this world of derivatives.  Oh and did I mention that I WAS IN THE FRONT ROW???? (I spent a lot of my time just waitin’ for the shows I really wanted to see so I could get the perfect vantage point)

4. Wilco. Hadn’t ever seen Wilco live even though I looove that band, and I was not disappointed.  I was somehow unaware of the virtuosity of the guitar player (Nels Cline) and drummer (Glenn Kotchke).  Fab set list, including Via Chicago and California Stars, so I felt like they were playin’ the sound track of my life.   Was also right up front for this one.  J 

5. One of the best moments of Bonnaroo: We had gone to see Portugal. The Man (that period annoys the crap out of me) during the day on Saturday but it was super crowded and we couldn’t see them except on the big video screen.  Then late that night as we were heading back to our tent, we saw the band throw down their gear in a random spot and start playing.  Like, just for us.  (And about 100 other people, but whatever).  I was literally right in front of them - when I put my drink down, I put it on one of their amps.  The event staff shut them down after a few songs, but they clearly didn’t want to stop playing so I said to the lead singer (John Gourley), “I will personally hold back the event staff if you’ll play one more song!”  So he played that awesome track, “So American,” just for moi (and 100 other people, but whatever). 

I could go on about other great shows – Rayland Baxter (singer-songwriter), John Fullbright (blues singer-songwriter), Passion Pit...  But there were also some big disappointments.  Mackelmore was boring and way too self-righteous in my opinion (but apparently tens of thousands of people disagree with me).  And my biggest disappointment was Father John Misty (also known as J. Tillman), who was ATROCIOUSLY cheesy and melodramatic.  I love his music, but he has no business dancing like he’s Jim Morrison on acid.  HE’S A FREAKING FOLK SINGER and needs to get over himself.  I walked out. 

Ok, that’s quite enough about that.  Probably, that’s more than enough.  And I still didn’t say it all.  But therein lies the nature of Bonnaroo. 

I hug you all. xo

Bonnaroo Lineup, With My Picks - Am I Missing Anyone Amazing?

Help!  I am going to Bonnaroo this weekend and I need to know if there’s anyone amazing who I am in danger of missing!  Below is the list of performers, and I’ve bolded the ones I want to see.  Am I missing anyone who will be fabulous?  If so, email me and let me know, or just put a comment here.  Thank you!!  Wheee. 

PAUL McCARTNEY  •MUMFORD & SONS  •TOM PETTY & THE HEARTBREAKERS  •BJÖRK  •WILCO *PRETTY LIGHTS  •R. KELLY  •WU-TANG CLAN  •DANIEL TOSH  •THE NATIONAL  •THE LUMINEERS *DAVID BYRNE & ST. VINCENT  •PASSION PIT  •THE XX  •NAS  •BOB SAGET  •KENDRICK LAMAR *GRIZZLY BEAR  •MACKLEMORE & RYAN LEWIS  •ANIMAL COLLECTIVE  •OF MONSTERS AND MEN *EMPIRE OF THE SUN *ROCK N' SOUL DANCE PARTY SUPERJAM FEATURING JIM JAMES, JOHN OATES, ZIGABOO MODELISTE (OF THE METERS), PRESERVATION HALL JAZZ BAND, CARL BROEMEL, BILAL, CYRO BAPTISTA, PLUS VERY SPECIAL GUEST LARRY GRAHAM AND MORE *SUPERJAM WITH RZA, DJ JAZZY JEFF, SCHOOLBOY Q, EARL SWEATSHIRT, SOLANGE AND CHAD HUGO FEATURING LETTUCE PLUS SPECIAL GUESTS ED HELMS' BLUEGRASS SITUATION SUPERJAM •BILLY IDOL  •BEACH HOUSE ZZ TOP  •DAVID CROSS  •CAT POWER  •EDWARD SHARPE AND THE MAGNETIC ZEROS  •A$AP ROCKY JIM JAMES  •"WEIRD AL" YANKOVIC  •TAME IMPALA  •WOLFGANG GARTNER  •GLEN HANSARD *GOV'T MULE  •PORTUGAL. THE MAN  •BOYS NOIZE  •SAM BUSH & DEL McCOURY  •DWIGHT YOAKAM *FOALS  •MARIA BAMFORD  •PORTER ROBINSON  •LOCAL NATIVES  •MATT & KIM  •DIRTY PROJECTORS *ALT-J  •TROMBONE SHORTY & ORLEANS AVENUE  •JOHN MCLAUGHLIN AND THE 4TH DIMENSION NOAM PIKELNY & FRIENDS  •AMADOU & MARIAM  •FATHER JOHN MISTY  •BARONESS THE TALLEST MAN ON EARTH  •A-TRAK  •WALK THE MOON  •PRESERVATION HALL JAZZ BAND THE VACCINES  •EARL SWEATSHIRT  •CONSPIRATOR  •PAPER DIAMOND  •HOLY GHOST!  •DIVINE FITS *MIKE BIRBIGLIA  •PURITY RING  •SWANS  •SOLANGE  •FRANK TURNER AND THE SLEEPING SOULS BIG K.R.I.T.  •ALLEN STONE  •ARAABMUZIK  •CULTS  •ED HELMS’ WHISKY SOUR RADIO HOUR LEE FIELDS & THE EXPRESSIONS  •FATOUMATA DIAWARA  •TWO GALLANTS  •THE SHEEPDOGS *COMEDY BANG! BANG! WITH SCOTT AUKERMAN AND REGGIE WATTS  •FOUR TET  •CALEXICO *ALO WITH SPECIAL GUESTS  •JAPANDROIDS  •DEATH GRIPS  •ERIC ANDRE  •WILD NOTHING JOHN FULLBRIGHT  •DJANGO DJANGO  •HAIM  •THE POLYPHONIC SPREE  •BUSTLE IN YOUR HEDGEROW NIKKI GLASER  •KILLER MIKE  •ARIEL PINK  •IMPROVISED SHAKESPEARE COMPANY  •ACTION BRONSON CLOCKWORK  •TWENTY ONE PILOTS  •CHRIS GETHARD  •REPTAR  •DIIV  •MICHAEL WINSLOW BLACK PRAIRIE  •MILO GREENE  •MICHAEL CHE  •LORD HURON  •FUTUREBIRDS JASON ISBELL AND THE 400 UNIT  •DELTA RAE  •CHARLI XCX  •KYLE DUNNIGAN JEFF THE BROTHERHOOD  •DREW HOLCOMB AND THE NEIGHBORS  •SEA WOLF  •JD MCPHERSON JAMES ADOMIAN  •TRIXIE WHITLEY  •DEAP VALLY  •PATRICK WATSON  •JARED LOGAN NICKI BLUHM & THE GRAMBLERS  •THE STEPKIDS  •THE RUBENS  •AOIFE O'DONOVAN  •BOMBINO JERROD CARMICHAEL  •BERNHOFT  •CRISTELA ALONZO  •ATTA UNSAR  •DJ JAZZY JEFF  •DJ KEEBZ DJ LOGIC  •DJ SAM SPIEGEL OF N.A.S.A.  •JARED DIETCH  •JONNY SANTOS CHAD HUGO + DANIEL BILTMORE = MSSL CMMND  •VACATIONER (DJ SET)  •Y LUV  •ALANNA ROYALE ALICE & THE GLASS LAKE  •ANDREW DUHON  •BEAN  •BRI HEART FT JERVY HOU  •CAPITAL CITIES CASEY CRESCENZO (OF THE DEAR HUNTER)  •CAT MARTINO  •CHRIS STAPLETON  •CLONEY DANIEL ROMANO & THE TRILLIUMS  •EX-COPS  •HE'S MY BROTHER, SHE'S MY SISTER  •HOUNDMOUTH JAMES McCARTNEY  •JILLETTE JOHNSON  •JONNY FRITZ  •KACEY MUSGRAVES  •KYNG  •LIL IFFY LITTLE RED LUNG  •LUCIUS  •LUXURY LINERS  •MAC DEMARCO  •MAPS & ATLASES  •MATRIMONY  •MILOW NAIA KETE  •NOCONA  •ON AN ON  •PEANUT BUTTER LOVESICLE  •RANCH GHOST  •RAYLAND BAXTER RI¢HIE  •ROYAL THUNDER  •RYAN MONTBLEAU BAND  •SIMO  •SONS OF FATHERS STAYING FOR THE WEEKEND  •STOP LIGHT OBSERVATIONS  •THE MOWGLI'S  •THE REVIVALISTS TINY VICTORIES  •VON GREY  •WAKE OWL  •WHITE LUNG  •WILLIAM TYLER *SPECIAL BONNAROO 365 PERFORMANCE FEATURING SOUL KHAN, JENI SUK, BLACK VIOLIN, AND KNOWER

What to eat on a Low-FODMAP diet: Chicken and Rice Casserole recipe

I’m from the South, so I love me a casserole. Also, I don’t want to cook every day, and it’s hard to eat low-FODMAP without cooking. So I make this casserole pretty frequently and eat it all week for lunch. It doesn’t hurt my stomach at all and I think it's yummz. This is a sort of improvised recipe, so let me know if you think it needs modifications.


Ingredients:
For the sauce
· 1 cup rice milk
· 1 cup chicken broth (I use free-range)
· 2 tablespoons Earth Balance butter substitute
· 2 tablespoons rice flour
· 1/4 cup Daiya cheese, or other dairy-free cheese (you can skip this if you want)
· Salt
· Freshly ground black pepper
For the casserole
· 1 tablespoon Earth Balance
· 1 tablespoon canola oil
· ¼ cup of the GREEN PARTS of green onions (the whites are high-FODMAPs)
· 4 cups cooked white or brown rice
· Freshly squeezed juice from 2 lemonss
· 1 cup chicken broth
· 3 cups cooked (skinless) chicken, cubed (I use free-range)
· bunch of fresh spinach
· one sweet potato, cubed and mostly cooked (just boil it ‘til it’s starting to soften)

· one (uncooked) zucchini, cubed
· Freshly ground black pepper
· 1/2 cup lightly toasted pine nuts (just heat them in a pan ‘til they start to brown)

Directions:
For the sauce: 
1. Combine the rice milk and broth in a large, heat-safe measuring cup. Microwave on MEDIUM just long enough to warm through (without boiling).
2. Melt the Earth Balance in a medium, heavy saucepan over medium heat. Whisk in the rice flour and cook for 2 minutes, whisking constantly.
3. Slowly pour in the warm rice milk-broth mixture, whisking, until all of the liquid is incorporated.
4. Stir in the daiya cheese; cook for 4 to 5 minutes, whisking to form a smooth sauce that has thickened enough to coat the back of a spoon.
5. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

For the casserole: 
1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
2. Combine the butter and oil in a medium skillet over medium heat. Once the butter has melted, add the green onions and stir until they’re all coated. Then add spinach, sweet potato, and zucchini; cook for about 2 minutes, ‘til everything is coated in the butter/oil, but not yet cooked through.
3. Turn off the heat, add the rice and stir to coat evenly.
4. Combine the 2 cups of sauce, lemon juice and broth in a large bowl; mix well, then add the rice mixture, chicken and vegetables, stirring to incorporate.
5. Season with salt and pepper to taste.
6. Grease the inside of an 8-by-8-inch baking dish.
7. Spread the chicken-rice mixture evenly in the baking dish. Cover with aluminum foil and bake for 30 minutes.
8. If you plan to serve the casserole right away, uncover and sprinkle the toasted pine nuts evenly over the top. Bake for 5 to 8 more minutes.

-If you plan to freeze the casserole, bypass the pine nuts step. Remove the casserole from the oven after the 30 minutes and allow it to cool. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate to chill through. (At this point, if desired, cut it into individual portions and wrap each one first in plastic wrap, then in foil.) Freeze for 6 to 8 hours, then ufmold and wrap first in plastic wrap, then in foil. Return to the freezer and store for up to 6 weeks. Right before you serve it, toast the pine nuts and sprinkle them on top.