Culinary Elegance's Latest Adventures in the Kitchen

 This past Sunday was a total Culinary Elegance day.  I took tons of leftover cranberries out of the freezer, and decided to make sugar free homemade jelly/jam.  Put cranberries in big pot with 1 cup of agave nectar and a pinch of pure powedered stevia as the natural sweeteners

Brought to a boil, and then turned heat to low stirring constantly, and popping any cranberries that didn't split from the heat..

 Added Pectin (crucial ingredient to make jelly) and continued to stir on low for about 4 minutes.  Removed from heat...let cool completely and vahlah, as shown below...yummy homemade healthy cranberry jelly!

 Needed to use up some gluten free brown rice flour that was getting old.  Decided to make a loaf of gluten free brown rice flour bread.  (I always like to say I eat gluten free b/c of being allergic to gluten, but there is nothing wrong with whole wheat, it's actually healthy as opposed to the deadly, man processed white flour, I just can't digest wheat, or any gluten, so healthy gluten free flours/breads for me it is.)   The full recipe for my gluten free bread loaf can be found in The Cookbook of Culinary Elegance for sale on Amazon.com.

 Poured mixed dough into well greased bread loaf pan.

 Vahlah...a beautiful loaf of healthy gluten free brown rice bread with no preservatives.

 Decided to turn tomatoes that were getting to what I call "that questionable point" of what is too overripe into homemade tomato paste in the oven....basically peel skin off tomatoes....discard skin....cut up meat of tomatoes...mix with olive oil, sea salt, basil, onion, and garlic....put in sauce pan over medium heat and bring to a boil....once it has come to a boil....remove and put in oven safe casserole dish.....put in oven at 350 F for several hours, mixing every now and then, until tomato juice is dissolved and you have thick tomato paste texture.  Can be used to make tomato sauce and in lasagna etc.  Yummy homemade tomato paste that's all natural!

I had to eat lunch, so pulled some organic chicken breasts out.  I always make sure the chicken I eat is truly organic....regular chicken is the worst these days with hormones pumped in it.  If it's not natural,  I always joke and say as a woman I already have enough estrogen in me .  :-)  I used brown rice flour, chopped onion, paprika, sage, garlic, pepper, and sea salt in both my flour mixture and egg mixture....If you're reading this and have never made southern fried chicken, the full recipe for the gluten free version of fried chicken can be found in "The Cookbook of Culinary Elegance."

Cane out perfect.  It's difficult to get gluten free flour to come out looking and tasting as beautiful as more commonly used flours in fried chicken.

 Wanted to make a healthy gravy for chicken, so cooked some white northern beans with seasonings of my choice.  Used organic rice milk, since I'm allergic to cows milk.

 Once cooked, poured into my power blender

 put on puree setting and pureed

 vahlah....delicious homemade gravy made from healthy beans instead of the heavy cream used in most gravy's as such!