Fantastic Gluten Free Cookbook

I've now made several recipes from this book. It took awhile to find sorghum flour - I searched through at least six groceries stores before finding one that carried it.

In any case, I made some chocolate chocolate chip muffins that were divine. My camera card was missing in action thanks to the family ebayers, so thus far I have no pictures of them. I can tell you that the muffins had a wonderful consistency, had a moist crumb, and fantastically high crowns. I made the mistake of letting my kids try them. The remaining muffins are now hidden in a secret location requiring a password, keys and a retinal scan.

Tonight's dinner was a turkey tetrazzini (or however you spell it). I used some stunted bell peppers from my pathetic little garden, homemade gluten free bread crumbs (great way to use up those dumb little heels of gf bread) and some homemade turkey broth. Once again, the family loved it and there was much rejoicing. The adults in the household are looking forward to a lunch of leftovers tomorrow.

After the littles are in bed, I intend to attemp some cookies. I can't imagine they'll go wrong.

Happy eating!

Why I've Been MIA

In short: my love of the internet.

It's not always a healthy love, of that I am sure. Too much time surfing and too little time thinking and living makes for a cranky pair of Shoes.

The remedy: more living, more blogging (which means more living... because what else is there to blog about?), more doing, more reading, more baking, more cooking, more... more... MORE!

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.