Saturday, September 10, 2016

Oat flour

I've found that making oat flour isn't too bad if I do it in two steps.
First, I blend the flour in my small blender attachment.



Then I grind those smaller oat pieces in my wheat grinder. This tends to be easier on my grinder.

Planning meals

This is the way I have planned meals for awhile. I have cards with menus and place them on the calendar, based on ingredients and who is making the meal. If there's a recipe to refer to, the name of the book and the page it's on is also listed on the front. Main ingredients are on the back.



I've gotten lazy lately and put all of the optional cards on the bottom two rows - based on ingredients we have. Then we just plan for two weeks out based on who is cooking and what they want to make.

Oct 2015 Stocking up - food, garden and storage



In October of 2015 when I decided to do a shopping free month, I put together a few things to help out as the month progressed. I was worried about milk and fresh fruits and veggies. I made up this veggie stock, froze some milk, and got some fresh apples. That helped a lot.


Continuing a garden as long as possible was a blessing too. Herbs in a pot were nice to use.
Then I didn't have to worry about the frost getting to them. The strawberries were still producing just a little - enjoying the cooler weather.

 . 



Yes - even the candy and snacks... Gotta have a few of those around, right?

Other storage areas were stocked and ready to go.....



This is not your usual situation when you realize you have to live on food storage for awhile, but it helped us get our minds around the fact that we could go without shopping.

Things my GF guy can eat



Here is a photo of the basic things I grabbed for Dave when we found out he had to go Gluten Free. It's not as hard as it used to be to find things. It may get boring to eat the same things everyday, but he's not complaining.

Gluten Free Pancakes

I only took time to make one recipe for pancakes this week, but it was so good, I don't think I need to look elsewhere for now. If it turns out we're doing this for more than 6 weeks, then we'll have to get a variety.
We did a half of a batch to try them out. This made 10.  I put all of the dry ingredients in a container and stored that int he pantry overnight. Then I put all of the wet ingredients in my blender attachment in the fridge overnight. So much easier in the morning. I got them out, blended the wet, then added it to the dry in my 4 c. pyrex (it has an easy spout for cleaning) and cooked them up on a griddle.
The shapes (gingerbread man and cat) were made by using metal cookie cutters. After spraying them so the batter doesn't stick, pour pancake mix into each - filling about 1/6th full. You want these to be about the same thickness as the other pancakes. Flip over and gently loosen with a knife. The pancake will fall onto the griddle and you can take the cookie cutter away or make more.



Gluten Free Deep Dish Cookie Pie - with Garbanzo beans

I am trying this one next.....

Deep Dish Cookie Pie
·         2 cans white beans or garbanzos (drained and rinsed) (500g total, once drained)
·         1 cup quick oats (or certified-gf quick oats)
·         1/4 cup unsweetened applesauce
·         3 tbsp oil (canola, veg, or coconut)
·         2 tsp pure vanilla extract
·         1/2 tsp baking soda
·         2 tsp baking powder
·         1/2 tsp salt
·         1 and 1/2 cups brown sugar (click for a Sugar-Free Deep Dish Cookie Pie)
·         1 cup chocolate chips
Blend everything (except the chips) very well in a good food processor (not a blender). Mix in chips, and pour into an oiled pan (I used a 10-inch springform pan, but you can use a smaller pan if you want a really deep-dish pie.) Cook at 350F for around 35-40 minutes. Let stand at least 10 minutes before removing from the pan. (Some commenters have had success with a blender, but I did not. Try that at your own risk, and know the results will be better in a high-quality food processor such as a Cuisinart.)
I haven’t calculated the calories for this recipe, but a few of the commenters did. According to their calculations, the pie will have around 200 calories per slice, as opposed to 700 in a slice of traditional deep-dish cookie pie.

Tuesday, September 6, 2016

Going Gluten Free - for one

My husband has been told by his doctor to go gluten and dairy free for 6 weeks. AAACK!
Then we were told to just do gluten. Everything has gluten in it. Everything good that is. I went from feeling very overwhelmed to just being overwhelmed. At least there's a chance now with the dairy back in the picture to help him gain back some of the 15 pounds he's lost since May.

I did what I usually do... talk to friends and family, then look online for some simple recipes and then get some cookbooks from the library. I've found that the online recipes are good, but since the authors want your money, they post the best recipes in their cookbooks - hence the library.

One of the things I've learned is that it's a mixture of flours that helps the taste and texture of the new breads I need to make. I went to Winco's bulk food section and got a little of almost every kind of flour that is gluten free. I didn't grab almond. Time to experiment.

Here are some keepers I've found in the last little bit (date noted):

My favorite online resource..... Yum Universe  see  http://yumuniverse.com/

BREAD
http://www.cottercrunch.com/  I like this site because you can filter by diet and type

I made this one first (8/23).... http://www.cottercrunch.com/paleo-chocolate-hazelnut-bread-molasses/ and found it to be a bit dry and not sweet enough. (even though I doubled the sugar it asked for). But it was okay considering all of the ingredients I'd usually put in were missing. It took a lot longer than I thought it would. In a glass pan at 325F it took 55 minutes, not 35. If I do this over, I'll make muffins - less surface area. And I'd bake it for 15-20 min. We had a little and then ended up sticking it in the freezer to try later. I wasn't going to let it go to waste.

I then made (8/25) this bread http://lexiscleankitchen.com/2014/08/24/the-ultimate-paleo-sandwich-rolls/
Since I didn't have her bread molds, I used my muffin tins for this. It was better than I thought and reminded us of cornbread muffins. This is a keeper. I didn't have the exact flours, so I used 1/3 c. Tapioca flour, 1/3 all purpose flour (Bob's Red Mill), and 1/3 c, Brown Rice flour. The original recipe calls for 1/2 c, blanched almond flour and 1/2 c. tapioca flour. I also used regular shortening, not palm shortening.

And this one - also a keeper (8/30)
https://blog.nuts.com/gluten-free-banana-bread-recipe/
I made it exactly as it said to, and did it in my glass bread pan. At 325F for 50 min, then at 300F for another 15. It is soft and moist. We like it and  there's still a little in the fridge - not dried out at all.



SNACKS
Chocolate (8/25) 3 ingredients - so wonderful! I ate most of it, not him.
http://mywholefoodlife.com/2014/02/13/3-ingredient-chocolate-bars/
Again, I added more sweetening (even triple the maple syrup works).

Rice Pudding (8/29)
http://greatist.com/eat/recipes/healthier-rice-pudding
Very good and rich.

I then went to two standards - Fudge (9/6) and Granola by SS (9/5). This gave us more breakfast and snack stuff. These are posted already.

OTHER MEALS
We've found that a lot of things can be tweaked just a little and without much extra work. For example - we used some potato water. chicken stock instead of milk (with dill, salt and pepper, and garlic) for mashed potatoes.

Using corn tortillas, corn tortilla chips, rice, potatoes, and quinoa for starches works well. We haven't done rice noodles, but that is a great substitute too.

KEEPING IT SIMPLE
Putting out a simple meat (no breading or sauces) with a fresh fruit and veggie platter keeps everyone eating pretty much the same thing.

WARNING
There is gluten hiding everywhere. Or so it seems. Three common items we have had to avoid so far are Nalley chili, licorice and soy sauce.

Tomorrow, I'm trying two kinds of pancake recipes... I'll let you know how that goes.


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