Gluten Free Pocket Sandwich

Oh, this was GOOD. I am in love with Chebe bread. The all purpose mix makes some decent rolls and breadsticks, as well as a good thin-crust pizza. I tried making calzones yesterday. Yum! I will definitely spend a Saturday baking up a bunch of these to have on hand.

Today's calzones were pepperoni and soy cheese with very light sauce and I used the foccacia mix. I'm not big on sauce and was concerned that they'd get soggy. I made them yesterday, ate one, and froze the rest. Today I pulled out a frozen calzone, popped it (covered with foil) in a 350 degree oven for 30 minutes and had a fabulous lunch.

Next time, I think I'll try the all purpose and foccacia mixes and make: more pizza calzones, spinach & chicken pockets, philly steak & cheese pockets, Meditteranean veggie pockets. It would totally be worth baking up a bunch of these and freezing. I'm always eating on the go. Plus these would be easy to load up with veggies, thereby helping meet that daily allotment.

I had to fend off the children. They were that good. :)

Gluten Free Heaven, Part II

If you need gluten free baked goods, absolutely check out Gluten Free Creations here in Phoenix. They ship all over, too! I went to a tasting event today and all I can say is WOW! Bread that tastes like bread. Cookies that are to die for... ok, maybe not die, but you'd definitely have to hide them from the non-gluten-free people in your house and/or threaten them with bodily harm if they went near them.

Stretching the Dollar

Ok. This is so simple, I can't believe I never thought of it. I don't have time to make spaghetti sauce sometimes and I buy the jarred stuff. Tonight pizza is on the menu and I only had about 1/3 of a jar of sauce left. The thought occurred to me to open a little can of plain tomato sauce and add it to the jarred spaghetti sauce - score one for me! So my $2.50 jar of spaghetti sauce just got a $.25 addition and gave us a couple more meals. Woot!

GF Tortillas - The First Attempts

Eh. I made the first batch with a flour mix containing coconut flour and they were much too... sweet and coconutty. Oh, I ate them, make no mistake about it, but I won't make them this way again.

This batch was better... but still not quite right. They're a bit denser than I'd like, they crack a little (but not nearly as much as corn tortillas do), but they'll suffice as a vehicle for getting yummy fillings into my hungry mouth. My 8yo said that if he couldn't have real tortillas, he would totally eat these... not exactly the endorsement I am looking for, but not bad for the beginning of the GF journey.

Perpetually Behind

Who is the patron saint of the Perpetually Behind? I need to have a talk with him/her.

Chores, laundry, grading, teaching, cooking, checkbook, bills, chores, laundry, grading, teaching, cooking, checkbook, bills... it goes on and on and on. I get caught up on one and all the rest falls behind. You'd think that with me on my little Hamster Wheel of Life, I would not fit in size 16 jeans. The injustice of it all!

Which shoes should I wear today? Not the flip flops... again.

Yum! I Am Saved!

Cookies! I have cookies! Glorious, wonderful cookies!

I followed the recipe over at Flour Arrangements with only a couple minor substitutions (1- I don't have millet flour... yet; and 2- I can't have dairy, so used almond milk) and these cookies are heavenly.

Still need to tackle the bread issue.

My Dual Life

Maybe I just have multiple personalities? Somehow I've been blogging here as the Mominator... posting around as momtimesfour... and also as Shoes. They all fit (the names... not just the shoes).

Maybe I need an overhaul? A quick rinse and spin on delicate? A good shining? (Oh... now there's a scary movie: SHOES: The Shining!)

Adventures in Gluten Free Living Begin

Oh My Goodness! I had no idea baking could be... difficult.

I'm a pretty good cook. Recipes are a guide, not a precise rulebook to follow. I'm also a pretty good baker. My kolach impresses my mother-in-law (and she tells me so, too). I was working on "the perfect loaf of bread" awhile ago and looking forward to baking more again. (I find it hard to bake when I have babies/early toddlers.) I have never found cooking or baking to be the least bit intimidating or hard. Rarely have I turned out something inedible or totally "off" from what I intended to create. When people have exclaimed how hard baking is or waxed on about how precise one must be, I've scratched my head in wonder.

Until now.

This past weekend I decided to go gluten free in an effort to deal with health issues. I'd been putting it off because it's so drastic, so all-encompassing. But I'd had enough and was desperate to try.

Who knew baking was so... chemical... complex... and precise? Never, I mean NEVER, have I had to carefully pack, level or weigh anything when baking with wheat flour. But gf flours are... how did my friend put it... weird. That's it. They're WEIRD. Gritty, scratchy, powdery, stiff... unnatural. The resulting concoctions I've turned out this week are even weirder - tortillas that look like tortillas but taste like I don't even know what; pizza that tasted like an eggy savory German pancake (don't even ask... I don't understand... it was edible as long as I didn't pretend it was pizza); and now chocolate chip cookies that taste more like pecan sandies (which I like, thank goodness, but Toll House they ain't).

This is going to be interesting.