March Menu and home experiments

Hello again!

The weather is warming up and the promise of greener days is on the horizon. We are planing our garden, starting some seeds, and making bets on when we will see the fist bit of grass under the snow as it melts.

I totally missed sending out a newsletter in February, the time was escaping me and it just felt like a lot for some reason (does February send anyone else on a existential whirlwind?). I think it also had to do with the fact that I'm pregnant! I'm past the first trimester now and I'm happy to share the news with you all. ☺️

OK, here is the March Menu

This month's new feature: Carrot muffins topped with a maple glaze and toasted pecans.

Since it's maple season I wanted to feature the wonderful work of our local sugar bush maple syrup makers! It's great to support other local businesses and the people at Salmon River Sugar Bush do a really great job.

Speaking of other local businesses, my gluten free cookies, brownies and carrot maple muffins will be available Friday through Sunday at the lovely Blue Door Bakery and Cafe.

Brownies with white chocolate drizzle and rose petals (so pretty) are back by popular demand! Since I bake these brownies in muffin tins they have a perfect crust all around and soft chewy centre.

All the regular cookie flavours are available to order as singles or as dozens (mix and match too!). New cookie since February is the Chocolate Chip Pistachio Cream Cookie. I've retired the lemon lavender until warmer weather is fully here.

Back this month and here to stay are my two gluten-free breads.

The rustic loaf is not quite a sandwich bread and not quite a baguette. This bread is great to cut diagonally and enjoy as an open sandwich or as toast (or fresh) with your favorite spreads and toppings.

My newest bread is the sandwich loaf. This bread has sent me on a sandwich journey! I'm so happy it exists! It's bigger and perfect for however you choose to eat it. Fresh with butter, grilled cheese, toasted breakfast sandwich, yumm! The bread lasts a long time in a paper or plastic bag or you can slice and freeze.

Last month I got lots of orders for the sandwich bread. Full disclosure, this was my first time making this many loaves and I had some issues with some not rising as much. Although the bread was still delicious I want my customers to get the best quality and if I felt like I didn't deliver that to everyone on that first day. I retured some money to the customers that got smaller loaves. I troubleshot and was able to figure out how to mitigate that issue. When we trip we gotta keep going, it's worth it!

I also want to take this opportunity to thank you. It's been over a year now that I started Marcela's Kitchen. I've met some great people and have lovely regular customers now. It's amazing what following an idea with action can do. I'm excited to keep growing and to keep providing my community with quality and safe gluten-free and wheat-free breads and treats. Thank you!

Last month I tried a few new things! I'll share some gluten-free recipes I tried and liked. Maybe you'd like to try them too.

Homemade Ricotta and Gluten-free Ravioli

I LOVE pasta. I've never had a good gluten-free Ravioli and I've dreamed about eating some from time to time. So I decided to take matters into my own hands (and the hands of whoever wanted to lend theirs).

1st I made ricotta. I had seen videos of Italian nonas saying why buy ricotta when it's so easy and cheaper to make at home. So, sure, let's try it out! I followed this recipe. It came out so good and it was really easy! I used a mix of fresh lemon juice and white vinegar. When making the ricotta you are left with the byproduct of whey. We used it as well, no waste here! We used the whey in a pancake mix instead of the milk (this is my favorite gluten-free pancake recipe so far). I will definitely do this again and experiment with other fresh cheeses.

We made two ravioli fillings. A spinach ricotta filling and a butternut squash sage filling. The butternut squash was made with the last squash left from our garden! We also used the eggs from our chickens.

Once it was time to make the raviolis, I needed all the helpers I could get to have a production line of sorts.

It took some trial and error to get the pasta dough just right. Pulling it through the pasta roller was just destroying it. So we ended up rolling the dough with a rolling pin, cutting the shapes out, and then passing it through the pasta roller. I think we could of gotten the dough a little thinner..we will have to try that next time.

We made LOTS! Enough ravioli to feed 6 people for dinner and freeze enough to feed us all again! We ate them with a butter garlic sauce and Salmon.

Next time I will make the pasta a bit thinner. The ravioli was yummy but had a bit to much bite to it. I’d like to try a diferent gluten-free flour blend as well.

Gluten-Free Egg Biscuits

The other successful gluten-free recipe we tried and really enjoyed where these egg biscuits. I liked that they are versatile, easy to make and can be had warm or cold on the go. They are low carb and grain free! Big plus is that my toddler likes them too. I doubled the recipe have some easy snacks/breakfast for the week.

That's all for now!

Wishing you all a great month of March. May this month bring sunshine, renewed energy, and great food!

If you have other gluten-free folks in your life please share my socials or my newsletter with them. I'd also appreciate reviews on Facebook. This helps more people see and trust what I'm up to!

Thank you!

Marcela