Flour Mix Update

I want to share again how I make my gluten free flour mix that I use for most of my general baking because I have developed a new system that is much cheaper and easier than buying flours at a health food store. These days I shop at ethnic markets.

On this journey of learning to eat gluten free in a culture that seems to think wheat is the only grain that exists we have learned that most other cultures in the world use a lot of other grains. We have always loved ethnic food. These days we eat a lot more of it and we have grown to love our local ethnic grocery stores.

For only about $1 a bag, I buy the flours for the flour mix at either the Wei Wei palace on Division Ave. near 44th St. or at Adong Asian Market also on Division near 36th st.

To make a batch of the flour mix, combine 3 16 oz bags of White Rice Flour

three 12 0z bags of Potato Starch

and 1/2 the bag of tapioca starch

stir the flours together well and store in an airtight container.

I usually mix up a double batch and it fills my BIG yellow tuperware container that I keep in the pantry and a smaller canister that I keep out on the counter.

I also buy sweet rice flour (glutinous, but don't worry, it contains no gluten) to use in cookies. Using 1/4 or maybe even less sweet rice flour of the total required flour amount for a cookie recipes makes them a little chewier. Don't use too much cause then it makes things very sticky.

We have also been shopping at the Indian market and expierimenting with Chic Pea flour. It makes the BEST batter for fried cauliflower by the way!

Hope this helps! Let me know what you bake and how it works for you!

Gluten Free Chocolate Chip Cookies, YUM!

Lily's birthday is this weekend and she wanted to bring some chocolate chip cookies to school today to share with her class so I tried the Better Homes and Garden's chocolate chip recipe because I wasn't too impressed with the gluten free recipes I have made in the past. They turned out amazing and I really don't think most people would even be able to tell that they are gluten free.

Most of my best gluten free baking recipes have come from the

Better Homes and Garden cookbook.

I think it's because they are very standard recipes using basic old fashioned baking techniques.

Here's the recipe:
Essential Chocolate Chip Cookies Recipe

and here's how I converted it to gluten free flours,
it calls for 2 1/2 cups of wheat flour so instead I used:

1 cup of the flour mix (stay tuned for an update about this)

1 cup chick pea flour (look for Ladu Beasan at the Indian Market)

1/2 cup sweet rice flour

and I added 1 tsp xanthum gum.

The end result was chewy inside and crunchy around the edges. The texture and consistency was just like good old homemade chocolate chip cookies! If you try this recipe yourself, let me know what you thought and what flours you tried!

the best sandwich ever

I am not a fan of winter...but I am surviving. Part of what is getting me thru is the food that I was able to preserve and put up in the pantry during the last growing season. I am finding so much joy in the preserved taste of summer; organic and free of high fructose corn syrup. It makes me so happy when I open my pantry and see all the beautiful colors in the clear mason jars. I have been gardening for 4 or 5 years now, but this is the first year I have really figured out how to preserve the harvest so that it lasts all year. It has opened up a whole new world for me and I can't imagine gardening any longer without doing it. We live within walking distance of a grocery store and would survive just fine without doing the work or growing and preserving our own food, but I can't even find words to explain how much our lives are enriched by the process of intentionally growing, tending, harvesting and preserving our own foods.

Here's a sandwich I made the other day from things we grew this summer:

Dehydrated tomatoes

along with dehydrated zucchini, eggplant and red peppers soaked in a little olive oil and balsamic vinaigrette with a little dried basil and kosher salt.

I added some minced garlic and made a paninni with provolone and feta cheese.

topped off with some pickled banana peppers and fresh fenugreek sprouts!

Soooooo good, I felt like I was back out at the farm eating a my picnic table!

I am beginning to dream and plan for the upcoming growing season. I can't wait to get my hands dirty again and watch the little seeds sprout and grow! I plan to begin starting seeds in the next month or so. We are planning to grow as much as we can in our very small yard and work in the midtown neighborhood community garden as a family. I hope to preserve by canning and freezing even more food than we did last year now that I know how much we eat in one winter. My goal is that every year we would become just a little more self sufficient in how we eat. How rewarding to walk out in to my yard for my lunch rather than start up the van (I am going to be honest with you, I don't really walk there, although riding my bike there more is one of my goals this summer!) and go to Family Fare!

Come back! In my next post I will share how I canned over three dozen cans of applesauce and applebutter in the outdoor kitchen while living in our camper!

Making Our New House a Home

We are begining to feel settled in here and the older girls are both in school. We have been working hard to establish our rythyms and routines. We are all very thankful that after the crazy roller coaster ride of not knowing where we were going to live, that we ended up in this house and it works so well for us.

I have been enjoying getting things moved in and set up in our new house and it's starting to feel like home. I have an amazing craft room to work in, which has allowed me to make some things for our house instead of going shopping. Luna needed a new bed and our bed needed a nice blanket both for warmth and to add some color to our room.

The blanket I made from cut up, felted wool sweaters and backed with flannel. It was pretty easy and only took me one evening and part of the next day to finish. I plan to make another one for the couch with red, orange and brown colors in an attempt to tie together our bright red couch and retro orange chair!

Another quick little project I finished this week was this new purse, just in time as my old one was really wearing out. I found the felted bag at The Outlet for only $4.50 and used some wool sweater scraps from the blanket to sew on some pockets.


I really miss being able to grow our own food in the huge garden out at the farm and collecting fresh eggs, but I figured there had to be some way to produce some of our own food still, so I decided to try sprouting.

SPROUTS

The ones on the left are Fenugreek seeds, which I am anxious to try and the ones on the right are chick peas. My first go at sprouting, last week, I tried mung beans. Because of my lack of expierience, I used way to many seeds and had sprouts coming out of everywhere! They were very good, but I had to get creative in trying to use them up which inspired trying this new recipe:

FRESH SPRING ROLLS

I found the recipe in the Moosewood Restaurant Low-Fat Favorites Cookbook and we (Rich and I anyway, the kids weren't big on them cause they were raw and not at all like the egg rolls at the Chinese restaurant that they love.) really liked them. Rich made a sweet garlic dipping sauce to go with them.

We definitely eat well round here! I love having a kitchen that is big enough to work in, a dining room to sit down together in and a dishwasher to help with all the dishes we dirty!

I am still trying to use up all of the zucchini we grew in the garden this summer so the other night I made a double batch of zucchini brownies and zucchini bread. The bread recipe came from my favorite Better Homes and Gardens cookbook and turned out great with part rice flour mix and part sorghum flour and a little xanthum gum. The Zucchini brownies are from the Simply in Season cookbook that I have been using alot for ideas about what to do with the garden's produce.

ZUCCHINI BROWNIES

Simply in Season
by Mary Beth Lind, Cathleen Hockman-Wert
Serves 18-24

• 1 cup / 250 ml flour
• 3/4 cup / 175 ml whole wheat flour
• 1/3 cup / 75 ml baking cocoa
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
Combine in large bowl.

• 2-3 cups / 500-750 ml zucchini (shredded)
Stir in.

• 1 egg
• 3/4 cup / 175 ml sugar
• 3/4 cup / 175 ml brown sugar
• 1/2 cup / 125 ml plain yogurt
• 1/2 cup / 125 ml oil
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
Combine in separate bowl and beat with fork. Stir into zucchini mixture. Spread evenly into greased 9 x 13-inch / 3.5 L pan.

• 1/2-1 cup / 125-250 ml semisweet or mint chocolate chips
• 1/2 cup / 125 ml nuts (chopped; optional)
Sprinkle on top of batter. Bake in preheated oven at 350F / 180C until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean, 35-40 minutes.

Enough room to live, friends nearby, crafts and good food!! It doesn't get any better! In my next post, I'll give you the grand tour of our new house!

Quinoa

As promised, here is everything I have learned about Quinoa thanks to Wikipedia and the Gluten Free Girl and a little time spent messing around in the kitchen.

Quinoa (pronounced /ˈkiːnoʊ.ə/ or /kwɨˈnoʊ.ə/, Spanish quinua, fromQuechua kinwa), a species of goosefoot (Chenopodium), is a grain-like crop grown primarily for its edible seeds. It is a psuedocereal rather than a true cereal, or grain, as it is not a grass. As a chenopod, quinoa is closely related to species such as beets, spinach and tumbleweeds. Its leaves are also eaten as a leaf vegetable, much like amaranth, but the commercial availability of quinoa greens is currently limited. Unlike wheat or rice, quinoa contains a balanced set of essential amino acids for humans, making it an unusually complete protein source. (from Wikipedia)

This is what the plant looks like:

and this is what whole grain Quinoa looks like when you cook it. It is cooked similarly to rice, 1 part quinoa to one part water brought to a boil, then covered and simmered for 20 minutes or until all the water is absorbed. It can also be cooked in vegetable or chicken broth for more flavor.

When I cook it, I usually make 2 cups of Quinoa at once. We eat half with one recipe that day and I save the other half in the fridge for a few days later with something else. Lily likes to eat it plain with just some Bragg's Liquid aminos on it. It tastes especially good with corn and goes well with roasted vegetables too.

Quinoa is available in many forms. We buy this Quinoa and corn pasta, which is really good. It's available at Harvest Health and even Meijer I think.

Here is a meal I have made twice now with Quinoa and we have all really liked it. It is basically black beans cooked with oinions, green chiles and lots of fresh cilantro served on top if the Quinoa and topped with cheese and chrunched up tortilla chips. The time I made gluten free corn bread and fried plantains to go with it.


Daisy likes it!

I also discovered that Quinoa is a great stand in for the cracked wheat in traditional middle eastern tabouli, from a great recipe for a Southwest Quinoa tabouli. I ate it on tortilla chips and it was awsome. To make it follow the recipe below adding black beans and corn, omitting the cucumber and replacing the parsley with cilantro. Have fun expiramenting and let me know what you make!

Here is the recipe for the traditional tabouli:

Tabouli

2 cups cooked and cooled Quinoa
1 cucumber, chopped
2 small tomatoes, chopped
1 bunch green onions, (8) sliced
1/2 cup fresh chopped mint
2 cups fresh chopped parsley
1 clove garlic, minced (optional)

*this is also extra yummy with some Feta cheese mixed in!

Dressing:
1/2 cup fresh lemon juice
3/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
1 tablespoon pepper
2 teaspoons salt, or to taste

Cook the Quinoa by boiling 2 cups water and stirring in 1 cup of rinsed Quinoa. Stir once then cover and simmer for 15 minutes or until all water is absorbed. Cool. Combine the salad ingredients, including Quinoa, in a medium bowl. Mix the dressing ingredients together and stir into the salad mixture. Serve chilled.It is best to cover the mixture and let it sit in the fridge for a hour or more so all the flavors can mix together.

Saturday Morning at Ma's Cafe

Waffles

(from the Better Homes and Gardens New Cookbook, 1962 edition)

Makes about 8 waffles.

1 3/4 cups gluten free flour mix
3 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 beaten egg yolks
1 1/3 cups milk
1/2 cup oil
2 stiff-beaten egg whites

Stir together dry ingredients. Combine egg yolks and milk; stir into dry ingredients. Stir in oil. Fold in egg whites, leaving some fluff. Bake in waffle maker.

Better Bannana Bread

I recently posted about our favorite banana bread recipe, but I have been experimenting lately with some different kinds of gluten free flours and I have modified the recipe a little so that it is a little less crumbly by using some sweet rice flour and soy flour in place of 1/2 a cup of the flour mix. Here is the new revised recipe:

Ingredients:

1 cup gf flour mix flour

1/4 cup sweet rice flour

1/4 soy flour

1 1/2 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp baking soda

1/4 tsp ground cinnamon

1/8 tsp salt

1 egg

1 cup mashed ripe bananas (3 medium)

3/4 cup sugar (or less, 1/4 cup is enough)

1/4 cup cooking oil (e.g. canola oil)

1/2 cup chopped walnuts (optional)

Preparation:

Grease the bottom and 1/2 inch up the sides of an 8x4x2-inch loaf pan; set aside. In a medium mixing bowl combine the flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, and salt. Make a well in the center of dry mixture; set aside.

In another bowl combine the egg, bananas, sugar and cooking oil. Add egg mixture all at once to dry mixture. Stir just till moistened (batter should be lumpy). Fold in nuts.

Spoon batter into the prepared pan. Bake in a 350 degree oven for 50-55 minutes or till a wooden toothpick inserted near center comes out clean. Cool in pan on a wire rack for 10 minutes. Remove loaf from pan; cool on rack. Wrap and store overnight before slicing. (I never do this. It's so good warm out of the oven! and I don't think waiting works well with Gluten Free bread really.) Makes 1 loaf (16 servings).

From Better Homes and Gardens New Cook Book

Happy Birthday Rosie!

Rosie's birthday was on Thursday and now she is 4 years old! Seems like a huge jump from 3 to 4. It makes me want to cry really, seems to me like she should still be my baby! Every one older whose been thru it tries to warn you when you have your first child about how time begins flying. But you'll never really understand until it happens to you! I am so afraid I am going to wake up one morning and they are all going to be in college. As much as I tire of the noise and the chaos that three little girls bring to this house, I can't imagine life without them. They are each a blessing, and this week we have a wonderful time celebrating the blessing that Rosie is to us!


The cake was super ooper chocolaty and Gluten Free!! You can find the recipe on the back of the Hershey's coco powder box and substitue the gluten free flour mix for the flour! It turns out very moist and no one would ever guess it's not made with wheat flour.

Here's Rosie and her cousin Kyle, can you see him? He just turned 4 a few weeks ago. They have so much fun together!


Oh, and by the way the studio is rented!! I'll let you know when we have another unit available, I think ours is next!

Banana Bread

We have been making lots of gluten free banana bread lately. For some reason no one eats the bananas I buy lately, so I just mash them up and make a loaf when they turn brown. Gluten Free Baking is always kind of inconsistent it seems, but we usually have very good results with this recipe. It's another one from the Better Homes and Gardens Cookbook and we just substitute the flower with our gluten free flour mix.

Ingredients:

1 1/2 cups flour

1 1/2 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp baking soda

1/4 tsp ground cinnamon

1/8 tsp salt

1 egg

1 cup mashed ripe bananas (3 medium)

3/4 cup sugar (or less, 1/4 cup is enough)

1/4 cup cooking oil (e.g. canola oil)

1/2 cup chopped walnuts (optional)

1/3 cup cranberries (optional)

1/3 cup chocolate chips (optional)

Preparation:

Grease the bottom and 1/2 inch up the sides of an 8x4x2-inch loaf pan; set aside. In a medium mixing bowl combine the flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, and salt. Make a well in the center of dry mixture; set aside.

In another bowl combine the egg, bananas, sugar and cooking oil. Add egg mixture all at once to dry mixture. Stir just till moistened (batter should be lumpy). Fold in nuts, cranberries and chocolate chips.

Spoon batter into the prepared pan. Bake in a 350 degree oven for 50-55 minutes or till a wooden toothpick inserted near center comes out clean. Cool in pan on a wire rack for 10 minutes. Remove loaf from pan; cool on rack. Wrap and store overnight before slicing. Makes 1 loaf (16 servings).

From Better Homes and Gardens New Cook Book

Pumpkin bread recipe

Here is the pumpkin bread recipe, as requested!

It's from my favorite cook book:

     Pumpkin Bread

1cup   gluten free flour mixture
1cup   brown sugar -- packed
1tbsp  baking powder
2tsps  cinnamon
1/2tsp nutmeg
1/4tsp baking soda
1/4tsp salt
1/4tsp cloves
1cup   pumpkin, canned
1/2cup milk
2      eggs
1/3cup shortening
1 cup  more flour
1/2cup raisins (optional)
1/2cup chopped walnuts (optional)


Preheat oven at 350.  Prepare  a 9 x 5 x 3″ loaf pan with cooking spray and
flour; set aside.

In a mixing bowl, combine flour, brown sugar, baking
powder, cinnamon, nutmeg, baking soda, ginger, and cloves.  In another
mixing bowl, combine pumpkin, skim milk, egg whites, raisins

Mix dry ingredients with wet ingredients just until moistened.  Pour
batter into prepared pan. Bake 60 minutes.

                  - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

NOTES : A recipe calling for 2 to 2 1/2 cups flour can be baked in the
following pans: 4 mini loaf pans, 12 muffin pans, 1-9 x 5″ loaf pan, 1-9 x
13″ baking pan, or 2-8 x 8″ baking pans.

Our Garden- fall update

It's been a long time since my post about the Garden this spring, I can't beleive how summer flew by! I wanted to share how the garden did this season. We ate well out of the garden most of the summer and right now we have cucumbers and tomatoes coming out our ears. If you'd like some, please drop by and pick yourself a few!

I did not have nearly the time I had hoped to maintain the garden this year, so it is incredibly overgrown, but the produce seems to have faired well.


This organic Roman Candle Tomato plant did extreemely well and produced far more yellow tomatoes than we knew what to do with. We made a huge batch of salsa for Daisy's birthday party, it was yummy! We had green pepper and jalapenos from the garden too!

Here's the salsa recipe, per Kathy's request :), but it's really all to taste, so make it how you like it:

-64 ounces (canned diced) tomatoes or however many you can pick from the garden
-1 green pepper
-1 jalapeno (or more if you like it spicy)
-3 carrots
-1 tbsp salt
-1 tbsp lemon juice
-1/2 bunch of cilantro (we like cilantro!)
- 1/2 of a big white onion

Dice up the tomatoes and place them in a bowl. Then dice the rest of the ingredients in a food processor or blender (hint: do the green stuff together last and separate from the rest so it doesn't turn the whole batch green) and then mix it all together!

I plant lots of Marigolds in the garden every year, they are my favorite flower for some reason. They are supposed to keep the pests away. I don't know if it works, but it makes the garden look real pretty! Having a garden in the yard brings me so much joy. I love looking at it and I love that the kids get to see where food comes from. I have come to feel that gardening is a very spiritual act and brings us so much closer to an understanding of creation and how we are tied directly to it.

I really need to make some pickles this week, before all of the cucumbers go soft. I am going to send some to Rosie's preschool class for a snack next week, but we will still have tons left. For some reason they are the thing that does the best in my garden every year. I made lots of tomato cucumber salad with fresh basil this year. Just mix up some sliced tomato cucumber and fresh basil with a little olive oil and salt and pepper...So goood!

One day when we were especially broke and commited to not spending any money, Rich said, "I wish that we had potatos." I rememered that we did have potatos (it was that weekend you know when it rained and rained and rained) but that they were in the dirt out side, so I went outside to harvest them. Yup in the rain. It was a moment I will never forget.

This is the rest of what I harvested that day in the rain:

If you've never tried them, you should totally try some FRIED GREEN TOMATOES!!! They are kind of an aquired taste I think. The first bite was really weird and I didn't think I liked it. Rich had the same reaction, but after eating a little more we both decided they were pretty good. The next time I made them, we liked them more than the first time.

So here's how you do it:
- Just slice the tomatoes about 1/4 of an inch thick and coat them in corn meal or fish fry mix.
-Shake on a little salt and pepper.
-fry them in oil till they are golden brown.
Enjoy! Yum!

So as the season is drawing to a close I am preparing to work on ammending my soil a bit and then to hunker down for that cold time of year and plan my garden for next year. If you've never done it before, you should think about it. Right now is the time to pick a spot and get your soil ready for spring! Here's a few books that I would recomend:

Pancakes

Ingredients

1	cup all-purpose flour
1	tbsp sugar
2	tsps baking powder
1/4	tsp salt
1	egg, beaten
1	cup milk
2	tbsps cooking oil

Directions

1. In a mixing bowl, stir together flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt. In another mixing bowl combine egg, milk, and cooking oil. Stir mixture just till blended but still slightly lumpy.
   
   
2. Pour about 1/4 cup batter onto a hot, lightly greased griddle or heavy skillet for each standard sized pancake or 1 tablespoon batter for each dollar sized pancake.
   
   
3. Cook till pancakes are golden brown, turning to cook second sides when pancakes have bubbly surfaces and slightly dry edges. Makes 8-10 standard sized or 36 dollar sized pancakes.
   

We have had a very long week and we were all battling despair Saturday morning as the rain poured down. The kids, especially Daisy have been sick and we are pretty broke and don't know what to do about it. All the stress of the week piled up until we were feeling very overwhelmed when the weekend came. I wasn't feeling much like doing anything, but I decided since we were all home together, which doesn't seem to happen very much these days, that I would make pancakes. I had just mixed up some gluten free flour, so I used the pancakes recipe from the Betty Homes and Gardens Cookbook. They turned out wonderfully! I have made them before, but I just don't seem to be ale to do it right on a consitant basis, especially now that I make them gf. They were so good that Rich said he couldn't even tell they were gluten free. That's a very big compliment, and if that wern't enough, he even said they were almost as good as his Grandma's! That's a huge compliment and it's the standard by which all pancakes are judged in our house!

Daisy liked them too!

We all sat together scarfing down pancakes and feeling much better about everything. I realized as I served my family the beautiful pancakes, that I have much to be thankful for inspite of how bad my circumstances may seem.

So thank God for good pancakes, and thank God that the Peace he offers us is bigger than our circumstances. In church on Sunday the words to the song we sang summed it all up perfectly:

"I do not ask to see the way
my feet will have to tread,
but only that my soul may feed
upon the living bread...

I may not know the way to go,
But oh, I know my Guide.

My soul is satisfied to know
His love can never fail."

GF Bread

Thank you Shari for the brown rice baking mix! The girls loved the bread. It was so good straight out of the oven with margarine and honey. So far I have only found it at harvest health, but it is only two dollars and some change and the recipe on the box works great.


We also tried the muffin recipe which was very good with cinnamon. Next time I make them, I will add some fruit, but Lily never enjoys that. Bummer.

Gluten Free Strawberry Shortcake!

My mother gave me this little recipe book with family recipes in it. The photo on the front is me when I was 4 or 5 and my Grandma Barb with her ribbon winning bread from the fair. My favorite recipe is her baking powder biscuits and we use them for strawberry shortcakes. My mom makes them often (dessert is her specialty!).
Strawberries were on sale (I road my bike to the grocery store to get them, I was really proud of myself, but that is a differant blog post!) so I decided to see if my new flour mixture was going to work by trying it out with this recipe.


They turned out great and everyone seemed to like them, including Daisy!


So if you'd like to try them for yourself, here's the recipe:

Grandma Barb's Baking Powder Bisquits

2 cups Flour (GF if you choose or wheat Flour)
2 Tbs Sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
4 teaspoon baking powder
3/4 cups margarine

Mix with a fork until crumbly. Add 1/4- 1/2 cup milk until it is JUST moist. Lay out on a floured board and pat to about 3/4 inch thick, or thicker if desired. Use a glass or round cookie cutter. Bake at 400 degrees about 12-14 minutes. Makes 6-9 biscuits.