Is pie, not bundt!

 I've recently discovered my new family favorite holiday tradition dessert, it started with this gluten free chocolate bundt cake recipe, which I tweaked by using homemade mayo (1 whole egg, 1 tbsp apple cider vinegar, and 1/2 cup canola oil whisked slowly together) instead of the sour cream and cut the sugar to 1 1/3 cups and then adding a sugar-lace crust to the outside by oiling and sugaring the bundt pan before adding the batter and baking.  Now it has mutated into a pie, but such a lovely pie!  When I was a kid my mother used to make a chocolate chip date cake (apparently called a West Haven cake) that had sugar and chocolate chips on top and I loved it, and wondered if I could do the same to my beloved bundt.  Instead of a bundt pan I used two 10" glass pie plates.  I coated both with canola oil and sugar then divided the batter between them, spreading it out and topped with chocolate chips and granulated sugar before baking.  The results were pretty and tasty and a new family tradition, which is saying something for a dairy free and gluten free confection!  Enjoy!

Just in time for thanksgiving!

 What better way to celebrate turkey day than to read about someone else's gut health!  Yeah, I know, nor did I ever think I'd be blogging about such a subject, but in this strange journey through chronic inflammatory disease, I've come across a few things that someone else might actually find useful or interesting that I've not found anywhere else on the internet (not that anybody will find this blog either!).  There seems to be a consensus on food sensitivity causing problems in your gut but how about food consistency or how it is processed?  I'm not talking about store bought, commercial processing here but rather stuff you can do at home.  Lately I've had two different examples in my own limited existence but I can't find any other examples on the all knowing interweb, though it is mostly because I don't know exactly what to search for, this not being a topic I've encountered in my own medical training or personal health before.

There's no doubt when feeding cows that processing makes a huge difference, especially with the size of the grain particles and the length of the forage, but lacking a rumen, I figured people might be a little different, but apparently I am part ruminant or at least my gut thinks I should be!  I've had trouble with things like pudding, ice cream, etc. for a long time, but I thought it was simply the sugar causing an osmotic diarrhea or something or maybe the dairy before I had to go off it, but it doesn't matter how much sugar is in it or if it is coconut or almond milk, I still have trouble.  I even made a smoothie the other day out of peanut butter, oatmeal, and cocoa powder with only a tablespoon of sugar in the entire thing (of which I only sampled about 1/3) and had issues, though I can eat the same exact stuff in bundt cake form and do just fine.

Then there was the hotdog incident.  I thought about making hotdogs at home, since I can't eat the store bought ones for various reasons, and saw a technique for adding water to your ground meat and processing it in your high speed blender, so I tried it just for fun.  I made my usual meatball recipe and made half into meatballs and emulsified the other half to make hotdogs, exact same ingredients, one just went through the blender and had some water added.  The meatballs were fine but the 'hotdogs' were bad news.  All I can conclude is that it is the consistency of the product and not just the ingredients.  Apparently, like the cow, I must ingest things that are as minimally processed as possible, hopefully I don't have to switch to a mostly forage diet however, hay is rather scarce this year, to say nothing of trying to consume enough of the stuff, but then I have trouble with raw carrots, lettuce, and even whole oats, so minimally processed isn't the cure either.  On that note, how do you feed a centaur?  How can a human mouth possibly consume enough forage to sate an equine stomach?

So that is my thoroughly researched case study, it isn't just the what but the how in dealing with gut issues, some food for thought (please forgive the pun, I couldn't not do it!), and I can't wait to see your paper on centaur nutrition!

Chocolate Gluten Free Bundt cake!

 I haven't made many bundt cakes (anyone else thinking Big Fat Greek Wedding right now?) and I haven't found my chocolate gluten free cake yet, but this baby is awesome!  I did substitute homemade mayo for the sour cream as I can't do dairy and have no access to non-dairy dairy products out here in the hinterlands, and it was still wonderful.  I also found a site that recommended brushing the bundt pan with a neutral refined oil (canola, vegetable, corn...) and then shaking 1/3 cup sugar around and coating the entire inner surface, so as the cake bakes it gets a crispy, lacy sugar shell which really makes it shine.  I did cut the sugar in the recipe to 1 1/3 cups too, though it is still a little rich for my 'low sugar' diet...I'll just have to try and eat a smaller piece...yeah right!  Enjoy!

The third sign of the apocalypse?

 So I was at the store the other day and came across a meat-lovers frozen pizza that boasted vegan 'meat,' 'cheese,' and a gluten free crust, and instead of rejoicing that I had found a 'pizza' I could actually eat, I was rather confused.  Just for fun I googled reviews on the thing and found it was either the best thing ever or akin to eating plastic, and at $10 for a rather dismal serving size, I wasn't going to investigate further, no matter how curious.  Looking at the ingredients it was mostly tapioca starch and pea protein (crust, cheese, pepperoni, and sausage all!).  Frozen pizza in general is rather questionable, there are a few brands that are pretty good, but this looked like an el cheapo one wherein the box is actually more tasty, to say nothing of everything on it is fake but the sauce!  You can make a good gluten free pizza crust, I've done it, but I don't know if you can combine gluten free and frozen pizza and come up with something edible, to say nothing of the 'cheese' and 'meat.'

I've tried that brand of fake cheese, desperate to make an edible dairy free pizza at home, but it just isn't the same.  It sort of melts, but doesn't brown and certainly doesn't stretch, rather all I see, and taste!, are sad globs of tapioca starch all over my sad little pizza.  And since I gave up processed meats (good bye pepperoni and sausage) there's no point in even trying to eat pizza at all, but now I can eat the pea protein equivalent, ugh!  I really don't understand the logic behind this monstrosity (assuming there is any?).  I thought we were all about less processed stuff, real food, that sort of thing, but this is like eating an organic Oreo: what's the point?!  If you want to eat vegan or must, that is your choice and you have every right to eat whatever you want, but this?!  There are some really cool things you can do to fruits and vegetables to make them even more tasty and appetizing without torturing them into a shape and nature not their own.  What cheap hotdogs do to actual meat is what this catastrophe does to vegan fare!

I understand that longing for the comfort food of your youth, really, I do, giving up cheese due to a food sensitivity is one of the hardest things I've ever done, and unlike gluten or milk, I can't find a decent substitute and must adapt and learn to live without it, including real pizza; I'd rather go without than eat a horrible, and expensive, imitation with no nutritional value.  Maybe it is just that I have to make everything at home and have grown used to homemade quality, maybe if you eat el cheapo frozen pizza regularly this isn't much different (because those aren't real either!).  I used to love Kraft Mac and Cheese and stuff like that too, before necessity made me learn to make everything myself, and now I don't find any of it appetizing, which is a good thing, as then I won't drool all over my husband's frozen pizza when next we have pizza night (a decent brand!).  How is that for ironic?  I make a homemade gluten free pizza for my son and bake a regular frozen pizza for my husband and daughter, when I used to make it from scratch, but it gets kind of crowded and busy in my kitchen to make a regular wheat pizza, a gluten free pizza with real cheese, and a batch of gluten free bread sticks (with vegan butter and nutritional yeast) for me, I was starting to feel like a pizzeria so it was easy enough to buy a good quality frozen wheat pizza for half the family and worry about making homemade what must be homemade.

Why not have a veggie pizza with real veggies instead of a pizza with fake meat and fake cheese, at least the real veggies might salvage the fake cheese?  Why this urge to eat something fake just to feel like you are eating something real?  But perhaps it is only a reflection of our larger cultural moment, social media has corrupted our vision of everything, we can edit our lives to be whatever we want them to be, at least to the world's perception, so why not our diet?  I want to eat meat and cheese and pizza and bread, no matter my dietary restrictions or preferences, so that is what I am going to do, even if it is actually none of those things!  To think a pizza might cause one to pause and consider the larger questions of life!  Who are you? Why are you here?  Are you merely a perception of those around you, is that all that matters, or are you a real, authentic person when the camera is off and no one is around?  Are you a fake pizza or the real thing?  Don't be a sad blob of soggy tapioca starch atop the pizza of life, be a pepperoni or an olive or real cheese, whatever you are called to be!

What the experts say about probiotics!

I've been dealing with gut issues for over a decade now, it is probably best described as leaky gut syndrome with secondary fibromyalgia, IBS, and chronic fatigue that flare up whenever I eat the wrong things.  I did a blood food sensitivity test a few years back and have gradually been ridding the worst malefactors from my diet (as painful as that is!) and have been doing much better, the latest to go is too much sugar (of any variety, including honey, fruit juice, whatever) and as I have a major sweet tooth and can't tolerate the artificial sweeteners, well, it's been hard, but really worth it.  That being said, I've tried all sorts of things to help my beleaguered gut over the years, but I wanted to try probiotics again, because apparently they work miracles though I had tried some a long time ago and wasn't impressed.  I did my research and found one that was reasonably priced and was supposed to get live bugs into your small intestine (instead of getting killed by stomach acid like many are) and thought I was on my way.  I read the reviews, they were either amazing and changed your life or almost killed you, so I figured I didn't have much to lose, being mostly dead anyway.

A few weeks before I ordered my little bacterial friends I began to significantly increase the fiber and other prebiotics in my diet (all those crazy substances the little buggers love).  And as I did so, I began to feel better (this coincided with my sugar purge) and couldn't wait to see if the probiotic did its thing or not.  It came and I started slowly, a half capsule twice daily (recommended serving size was two whole capsules daily).  I didn't notice any magical side effects but neither did I get sick like some of the reviewers claimed.  I gradually got up to the full serving and nothing appreciable happened, at least initially, after about a week on the full dose I started feeling lousy again.  I stopped the probiotic and was magically better.  Then I started to do a little digging.  All we hear about is how magical and wonderful probiotics are, but is it just placebo effect?  I found an article on the American Gastroenterologist's Association page and was stunned, nobody ever mentions what the experts actually say.  If you don't want to read all the medical and scientific jargon, I'll boil it down for you: they found probiotics have not proved to be significantly beneficial in most cases of gastointestinal pathology.

And why did I and seemingly a significant number of reviewers of my probiotic of choice get sick?  It was pretty much a case of self-induced SIBO (small intestinal bacterial overgrowth).  You're dumping 40 billion live bacteria into your small intestine on a daily basis and the body responds as it would to food poisoning or any other massive invasion of intestinal pathogens: fever, malaise, lethargy, diarrhea, gas, cramping.  The product does exactly what it says, so I would rate the product as excellent, but I would carefully consider if it is wise to use the product in the first place.  Technically speaking, by changing your diet (less sugar, higher fiber) your gut bugs naturally adapt to the changed environment and you get more healthy gut flora without horking down half a hundred billion bugs a day.  Even 'good' bacteria, in high doses, can be a problem.  The answer isn't a pill but rather a lifestyle change: eat more whole grains, more fruits (with the skin!) and veggies (eat the peal), and cut back on the preservatives, processed stuff, sugar (even honey and maple syrup), cut the artificial sweeteners, cut the NSAIDS, get tested for food sensitivities and cut the major malefactors, exercise sensibly and minimize other gut irritants (alcohol, certain drugs...).

I just sat through a bovine nutrition seminar at a continuing education event and they were adamant that we aren't feeding cows, we are feeding rumen bugs, and I figured if a cow doctor is talking about leaky gut and managing gastorintestinal health, it most definitely applies to people as well!  It isn't easy, it isn't quick, it isn't fun, but it sure beats being sick all the time!  The answer isn't another supplement or drug or essential oil or certain diet or exercise or avoiding certain things, it's just plain old hard work and common sense, and in an age where we just hit a button and have the world at our fingertips, that is very difficult indeed.  I really miss pizza and brownies and a thousand other things, but it just isn't worth it.  And don't try changing everything overnight, pick one thing and work on that, gradually work it into your lifestyle, and instead of focusing on what you can't have, pick something good that you can!

Hope for those without pierced ears!

 I have one of my grandmother's clip on ear rings in a box in the basement, she never would/could (not sure which) get her ears pierced and though a little clumsy looking, it reminds me of her, but I only have one and wouldn't ever wear something like that so it has never been worn since she died.  I've had my ears pierced since I was a teenager but can't wear anything, literally anything, gold, surgical steel, silver, nope, my ears blow up and it just isn't worth it and when I think of clip-ons I think of grandma and smile wistfully but don't think any more about wearing such things myself.  Then I got a text from a friend with some weird twisted wire contraption that looks really elegant and makes you look like you have elf ears to boot.  I don't want to wear something like that for everyday, but it would be fun for those rare occasions when you can actually dress up as an adult.  But it also got me curious as to other, similar options.  It is called an ear wrap or an ear cuff, basically its a piece of jewelry that can stay in/on your ears without piercings to hold them in place.  There are a variety of options available on etsy, eBay, and amazon, so have fun!  I ordered several and have found they both stay in and are not uncomfortable and look great!

Everything I learned about life I learned from a Disney movie?

 We went to Yellowstone a few years back and I was rather distressed at what people would do for a picture: jumping over guard rails to stand on the edge of a frosty gorge, sticking their camera in the face of a buffalo with a week old calf, bathing in a hot spring...no wonder people get killed out there!  I'm afraid the only thing most people know about the world in general and wildlife/places in particular comes from either the internet, the discovery channel, or a Disney movie.  Sorry to say that dancing/singing mice are kind of rare and won't help you out of your current predicament!  Cows kill people, and buffalo are their psycho jumpy unsocialized cousins!

This last week we spent in the Bighorn Mountains of Wyoming, and overall it was a wonderful experience, but I met someone who probably is the reason for warnings like 'do not iron clothes on body' or 'cattle chute is not for human use.'  I had a list of sights, drives, and hikes I wanted do, and on this particular day it was a hike out to a waterfall.  First the thing was very poorly marked and I was basically just guessing where the parking area was located based on several different internet maps and hiking apps, but we found what looked to be the right spot and set off.  The temp plunged from 60 to 45 and it started spitting rain, progressing to a steady drizzle at the falls.  The day before had been in the mid-nineties and we had endured a rather hot, thirsty hike so no one really thought to pack along their sweatshirt, assuming it would warm as the day progressed, gotta love mountain weather!  We huddled together under the trees until the worst of the rain abated and were moving enough that we didn't get too cold, but we came out on an area completely covered in rock, now extremely slick with the rain.  I was also half-dragging/half-pushing an unhappy four year old, who can trip in a grocery aisle, along with us.

We were on top of the falls, that plunged straight down a rocky face into the stream below, and it was super slippery, so much so that I didn't even let the little one anywhere near the most scenic spot.  Theoretically you can get down to the base of the falls but I didn't really want to die so we were about ready to turn around and head back to the car when I met the person of interest.  They too were packing younger kids along, not quite as young as mine, but not much older either.  I mentioned they might want to go up and around through the woods to get to the head of the falls as it was far less slippery than the bare rock, but the lady at the head of the party started demanding why I hadn't been to the base of the falls as the internet assured her it was possible, I tried to explain the slippery rocks and thought the angry toddler was rather obvious but all she could seem to understand was that the internet said it was possible and therefor she was going to do it.  I wished her well and portaged my whiny toddler back to the car, hoping for her kids' sake that she might actually believe her waking eyes rather than some review online!

What's Wrong with the World

 The title of this article is stolen from a collection of essays from G.K. Chesterton, which is quoted in this intriguing article which is what this writing is all about, and I highly recommend both, Chesterton's writings can be found for free on project Gutenberg, think of him as a comic, Catholic C.S. Lewis.  Now back to the topic at hand, assuming you have read your homework?  If you haven't, here's a recap: covid forced many women out of the workforce back into the role of primary care providers of their own children and then it jumps from there to discuss the barrenness of the modern home from society, productivity, and purpose: just a place to eat and sleep and no wonder stay at home moms are bored!  It's a phenomenon I've noticed personally and was delighted to find a thoughtful look at the problem with some potential solutions thereto.

I'm an expert in this topic by the way: professional woman forced out of the workforce by health issues and trying to make a new life without a full time career.  And strangely, that was the best day of my life when I lost my job, my apartment, and every measure of success in my former life (though I certainly didn't appreciate it at the time!).  I finally found what I had always been looking for: a life, a home, a family, peace and joy and hope.  Prior to that I grew up chasing success thinking it might induce my parents to love me (nope!) and then was left chasing it as a means to my own survival.  I got married at some point but had so much school debt to pay off that I had to work 60 hours weeks just to maintain our scant lifestyle.  We worked and slept in our apartment but that was about it.  When our son was one my health was at a crisis point, as was my job, thankfully the job gave out first and we moved in with the in-laws for a bit, moved to another state, and reversed roles: my husband was now the professional and I was the caregiver to our son.

But instead of a miserable little apartment with no natural light and no outdoor space (and very little indoor) that I only saw briefly for meals and sleep, I had a house, yard, and garden to care for and enjoy.  I also had a congregation and community to encourage and assist as needed (everything from toilet repair to emergency babysitting and organizing meals for 50+ to website maintenance).  I worked a few hours in my original profession and developed all sorts of interests and hobbies (particularly writing).  I finally had leisure to learn who I was and wasn't and start the healing process from past abuse and neglect.  We were actually making less money but as individuals and a family we are far more content.  During all this, many well meaning friend and relations and most strangers were appalled that I could be content at home while possessed of a doctorate.  I was confused, when I was a kid, it was considered a negative necessity to be stuck in daycare (like I was) but now your kids are deprived if they aren't?!  I'm supposed to work full time so I can afford to pay someone else to watch my kids?  I hated daycare.  I really like my kids.  Give up being the CEO of my own home and family to be a mere cog in someone else's wheel?

From my empty years as an unloved child and the blur that was my indentured servitude (working 7 years to pay off my school debt whilst living on next to nothing) I can understand many women's frustration or horror at being stuck at home.  There is literally nothing to do in an urban setting when the home has been emptied of all the people, productivities, purpose, fun, and meaning it once had as the center of industry and society.  You can only walk around Target so many hours a week before becoming suicidal!  And if your kids are more used to school and daycare where there can be little individual discipline, no wonder they are not companions one would like to spend an hour, let alone a week, with!  But if we can find a way to reinvest our homes with community and service and productivity and leisure and society and purpose, we would no longer dread spending the majority of our hours there.  Who can you invite over for a meal or a lifetime?  How can you help others?  How can you improve your leisure hours without the help of a screen?  What interests and activities can you do as a family?  How can you give your living space a heart transplant?

We spend our whole lives looking for it, it is called Home, the revolution must start in our hearts and work its way out into our wider lives.

Another consideration for gluten free bread

 I miss the simplicity of wheat bread, five common ingredients and you had fail proof bread!  I'm getting pretty good at making decent non-wheat bread but it sure is picky sometimes.  Lately I've been playing with mixing and its effect on the bread.  I found a bread machine at the local thrift store that I decided to devote to my vile machinations (hee hee!) and see what difference it makes to the final product.  I've been mixing by hand with a danish dough whisk and the results have been acceptable, but all the recipes I've surveyed want you to mix the sticky, stiff dough with a heavy duty mixer, which I sold about a week before I discovered I needed one!  So I compared a hand whisked loaf with a bread machine loaf to find that the most obvious difference was rise time.  The bread machine loaf rose much faster but otherwise taste, texture, airiness and final height really wasn't affected.  Then I mixed on loaf in the bread machine for five minutes and the other I let mix for about half an hour.  I then let them both rise and baked them side by side.  The over-mixed loaf actually collapsed and was a rather sorry sight, but I don't know if it was over-mixing or over-rising, maybe both, but the five minute loaf rose beautifully and was the closest thing to bread I've made yet.  So in general, you can get by with a hand mixed loaf (at least with a dough whisk!) but a mixer or bread machine makes things a little nicer, just don't over do it!

A novel ingredient for better gluten-free bread!

 My last post was about another novel ingredient, which made great fake cheese, but sadly after further sampling, it doesn't like me any better than the real thing.  But so far novel ingredient number two is proving to both revolutionary to my gluten free baking and agreeable to my digestive tract.  I finally broke down and bought some 'fun' stuff a while back to experiment in the kitchen with and see what would happen, I actually turned my kitchen into a high school science lab for a little bit, trying 10 mini batches of 'cheese' to see what effect changing the various ingredients had on the final project.  Kappa carrageenan works great but can be hard on a sensitive digestive system, but so far expandex (modified tapioca starch) is gut approved and really improves your gluten free bread results.  I've been using regular tapioca starch for over a year with no issues and had been reading about this product on various gluten free recipe sites but had never tried it, as it was usually paired with whey protein isolate (and I am as sensitive to whey (hence my sad dairy aversion) as I am to wheat) to get seemingly miraculous results.  I did buy some egg white protein powder to try instead but in my trial with that, I really wasn't impressed.  I divided my regular bread recipe into 4 batches, one normal, one with expandex, one with egg protein isolate, and one with both.  There really wasn't a difference between the expandex bread with or without the protein and the protein and normal loaf were indistinguishable, save perhaps slightly drier for the former.

But the expandex looked promising so I have played with the same basic recipe but for various purposes: dinner rolls, French bread, a regular loaf of toasting bread and all were amazing.  I have grown used to smaller, denser, uglier bread in the past year, quite edible and tasty, but still lackluster compared to regular bread.  I can't wait to try it for cinnamon rolls (my original gluten free project, and still only partially successful) and pizza crust (which isn't quite so exciting since I still can't eat cheese, real or otherwise!).  I made a pan of dinner rolls last night, real, soft, fluffy, buttery rolls!  The recipes I have tried previously are either too spongy (too much tapioca starch!) and look more like a popover than a dinner roll or too dense.  I ate half the pan already and besides for being a little ugly (the dough is still a batter) and the size (I know 12 came from 3 cups of flour but they might be from a wheat recipe that made twice the many) I would be hard pressed to tell that they weren't wheat.  I tried to find recipes with expandex in it but most contain dairy, so I pulled out my own favorite recipes and substituted 1/4 c of the modified starch for the same amount of regular.  My sulky loaf bread that would hardly rise above the rim of the pan jumped up like a regular wheat loaf and will require a slit down the middle hence forth lest it crack in an awkward spot!  Comparing slices of my last loaf to the expandex loaf, there is a 35% increase in rise, the air pockets are larger, and it browns much more charmingly.

I love having a 'basic bread' recipe again that I can make everything from a loaf to cinnamon rolls to pizza crust with.  I used to add 1/2 tsp baking powder but I've started leaving that out, not noticing any effect on rise and wondering what it did to taste/texture and now with the expandex I certainly don't need it!  I've also finally started using apple cider vinegar instead of white, only to find it much more mild in flavor which certainly isn't a bad thing!  Somehow I thought adding the expandex would transform my batter into a dough and make it behave more like real bread dough, but nothing has changed in that aspect, you'll still need wet hands to shape it and some sort of mold or container to give it shape and structure (some aluminum foil and a little creativity can go a long way!).  I guess I looked at the final results of the other recipes and thought it changed the entire process and not just the results!  So it is still a sticky, gummy mess but the results are as close to real bread as I may ever get, well worth it!  Here's my basic bread recipe as a starting point for your own kitchen experiments!

Basic Bread Recipe:

1 cup corn starch

3/4 cup tapioca starch

1/4 cup expandex modified tapioca starch

1/3 cup each oat flour, millet flour, and brown rice flour

2 tsp xanthin gum

3/4 tsp salt

1/4 cup sugar (if using honey or brown sugar, add to wet ingredients)

1 tsp instant yeast (combine all dry ingredients in one bowl, whisk together)

1/4 cup oil

1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar

3/4 cup warm water (or milk)

2 eggs or 3 egg whites (whip the whites until stiff peaks form in a separate container, add yolks to wet ingredients and mix well)

Using a high power mixer or a danish dough whisk, combine the egg whites, dry, and wet ingredients and mix until fairly smooth and well combined, will be a sticky batter.  Cover with plastic wrap and allow to sit in a warm moist place for 15-20 minutes.  Using a silicon spatula and moistened hands, shape/pour dough into desired container or shape.  Allow to rise until double (keep covered!) and then bake until golden brown and cooked through.  Allow to cool thoroughly on a wire rack, covered in a towel.  Freeze anything you won't use right away and either microwave or toast before serving leftovers.  Can be used for anything from sweet rolls to loaf bread to pizza crust.  Use egg yolks and milk for a richer bread, honey or brown sugar add a nice depth of flavor to sweet breads; add garlic, parmesan or nutritional yeast to savory breads.  Spray container thoroughly with cooking spray before adding batter!  Works well in silicon molds or you can fashion a makeshift shape out of aluminum foil.

Neither flesh nor fowl nor good red herring!

I had come to think finding a decent replacement for dairy cheese was like lassoing a unicorn, I need something that melts, shreds, stretches and browns but my homemade stuff and store bought stuff just isn't cheesish, it is more like sodden tapioca starch morosely littering the top of my would-be pizza and highly unappetizing.  Then I found the secret ingredient: kappa carrageenan, a seaweed derivative that stretches, melts, and shreds no matter what you do to it.  And yes, it will kill you, at least according to a few terrified commentators, but then so will everything else if you read enough food blogs, yet these same people then complain that everything tastes like rocks and it is nothing like a cookie, but a cookie needs fat and sugar and grain to be, well, a cookie.  But making fake cheese is much easier than turning a zucchini into a delectable baked good, come to think of it, catching a unicorn might be easier as well!  So read up on the dangers of this strange ingredient and decide for yourself, but as far as I can tell, everything else you might replace it with is a poor second, you may get a block of something, but it doesn't melt, stretch, or brown, and is in nowise 'cheesish.'  

I actually made 10 batches of 'cheese' yesterday, and you really can't screw it up.  I found recipes using cashews as a base, tofu, and one with straight almond milk.  I used cashews and oats and tried the straight almond milk one.  I varied lemon juice and white vinegar and no acid.  I used vegetable shortening instead of coconut oil and wonder if lard might be a good choice to get a firmer 'cheese?'  I used both water and almond milk.  I even fermented one batch of oats overnight (like a sourdough starter).  And the result?  They all taste about the same and melt and shred and stretch.  Most recipes out there have you pouring boiling water in your blender, which is about as much fun as it sounds, rather mix everything (room temp water!) in your high speed blender (a ninja or bullet work great for small batches like mine!) and then transfer to a sauce pan and heat at medium, stirring constantly until the thing rolls around in a squishy ball before pouring into a bowl to set.  I want it to brown a little more, and according to google, browning in cheese is a reaction between the protein and the sugar, I wonder if I added some protein powder and a little sugar if it would help?  I made cheese sticks with the stuff and a pizza, even my skeptical husband enjoyed the 'cheese' sticks.  I still have work to do to perfect the recipe but it is very versatile and very close to real cheese, at least the closest you can get without real milk!

These aren't the breads you're looking for...

 I found a new website to haunt for gluten free baking, I saw a picture on Pinterest that actually looked like an edible dinner roll and I followed the rabbit down the hole and ended up making four different gluten free recipes yesterday, most turned out rather well, the tortillas were a disaster, sort of.  The website is artofglutenfreebaking.com and a great resource for anyone who wants ideas, new recipes, or a place to start.  I really appreciate that the recommended flours are cheap and widely available, even if I'm not a huge rice flour fan personally, I substituted my own blend of oats, millet, corn, brown rice, and tapioca and it worked well for everything but the tortillas (the fault is mine, not the recipe).  The only time I have successfully made gluten free tortillas was with white rice flour and I didn't use that this time so it is not surprising it didn't turn out, but rather I ended up with something that looked a little like naan, that wonderful Indian flatbread which I gave up on making gluten free as all the recipes seem to call for yogurt and I can't find a good substitute.  They tasted like baking powder and were nowhere near a tortilla, but the kids liked them so they didn't go to waste, and I had an idea.

I tried it this morning with a little leftover flour blend (equal parts oat flour, tapioca starch, corn starch, millet and brown rice flour) from yesterday and for the first time in years, I got to experience the joy that is naan, or as close to it as someone can get who has never been to India or an Indian restaurant.  I adapted the tortilla recipe to my old wheat flour naan recipe and got something fairly close, and rather tasty too!  The following recipe is still in its primordial phase, feel free to try it, but it is still more an idea than a fact:

Gluten Free Naan:

2 cups flour

1 tsp xanthin gum

1 tsp salt

1 tsp garlic powder

1 tsp nutritional yeast

3/4 tsp baking powder

1 tsp instant yeast

1 tablespoon sugar

2 tablespoons butter flavored shortening (or real butter)

1 egg

warm water as needed (1/3-1/2 cup or so)

Whisk together dry ingredients, cut in shortening with a fork or pastry blender, then mix in the egg and enough water to make a thick, wet, sticky batter.  Cover and set in a warm moist place for at least 45 minutes and allow to rise.  Heat a cast iron skillet on the stove top over medium high heat until very hot.  With wet hands, separate the dough into 8 balls, keeping covered and moist until ready to cook.  One at a time, flatten each ball into a disk about 1/4 inch thick and transfer to the hot pan, flip after thirty seconds or so and cook on both sides, flipping again as needed to cook through.  Transfer to a towel set on a wire rack and cover.  To make the disks, I sprayed a plate with cooking spray, placed the dough on top and used wet hands to flatten it and then used my hands and a fork to transfer to the pan, respraying with oil after each disk.  Enjoy! 

Stewed Rocks, an ancient recipe for disaster

 Jesus used some of His strongest and most rebuking language not for prostitutes or the soldiers who nailed Him to the cross or swindling tax collectors but rather for the social elite of His day and their strict adherence to nit-picky laws, rules, and traditions.  They were quick to tithe their 'mint and dill and cumin' and to chew out the disciples for not washing their hands or fasting and to decry the horrifying fact that someone's grievous disease or disability had been healed on the Sabbath but neglected the 'weightier' matters of the law, namely to 'love justice, seek mercy, and walk humbly with your God.'  And some things haven't changed all that much, or rather things have cycled back to the senseless asceticism of those days, wherein Men thought a list of rules could save them, but rather made them 'white-washed tombs,' pretty without but inside full of filth and rottenness.  Our morals have atrophied in all things save our menu.

Sadly I've been haunting gluten and dairy free recipe blogs searching for alternatives to old favorites, due to severe dietary sensitivities, I can't consume them anymore.  What fascinates and horrifies me is the comments section.  It is hard enough getting edible results leaving out the wheat, butter, cheese...but the list of dietary sins or no-nos is staggering and I'm left wondering what can I eat?  Just look at your salt container or any random food container in your fridge or cupboard, it lists proudly what it doesn't contain but who cares that my salt is gluten free, I want to know what it does contain!  By that reasoning, jelly beans are healthy because they are fat free, vegan, cholesterol free...and maybe even a vegetable.  I still love the concept of organic Oreos, as if that somehow makes them even remotely healthy!  But everyone in the comments has their own ideas of what you cannot eat: fat, sugar, carbs, starch, animal products, cholesterol, salt, genetically modified, non-organic, grains, tree nuts, coconut, vegetable oils, hydrogenated fats, artificial anything, preservatives...and then they change the recipe and complain it doesn't turn out.  What are we left with but soggy rocks when we won't allow the neighbors to put the wrong things in our stone soup!

And why the moral outrage over a disagreement on food?  I will admit I get a little annoyed with people who choose to eat a certain way and then complain that they miss whatever they are intentionally abstaining from, especially when they are being rude to others about it.  I feel rather embarrassed going out to eat, at potlucks, and friends' houses because there are so few things I can eat 'out' though at home I can make almost anything (except stuffed crust pizza, fake cheese just doesn't right that grievous wrong!).  Then to hear someone making a big deal out of the fact that they can't eat X because it is their fad diet of the month and ruining everyone else's dinner/enjoyment of the event thereby really gets my proverbial goat.  If you want to be a vegan, by all means do so, but don't write scathing reviews on a recipe that heartlessly includes eggs as a necessary ingredient or make your hostess miserable by telling her how horrible she is to not center the entire menu around you and your preferences.  A little kindness, or at least tact, would do far more to improve the world than eliminating X, Y, or Z from our cultural menu.  We do not differ in the least from the Pharisees who were so put out that a crippled man was made to walk on the wrong day of the week.  We hear much about justice nowadays, which in itself is no bad thing, but we cannot have justice without kindness (aka mercy) and humility, but it seems we are still determined to crucify anyone and everyone who disagrees with us, especially over dietary matters, or is so overbold as to tell us that perhaps our feelings and opinions are not the most important thing in the world or beyond it.  Jesus tried to tell us in His day, but even two millennia later, will anybody listen?

Tastes great but yeah...

 So I really wanted ice cream and cake for my birthday, but since dairy and wheat are no-nos I had to get creative.  The cake part was fairly simple at this point in my gluten-free career but I haven't perfected the dairy-free ice cream yet, especially vanilla, fruit and chocolate I can attempt, but what do you use for a vanilla base?  I found a recipe using cashews and oats, and I tossed out the cashews and added extra oats to make something that almost was ice cream, except it was a little slimy.  Then liquid coffee creamer was on sale and I found a recipe that used straight coffee creamer so why not try that.  One commenter remarked that it gave their family rather drastic gastric upset but I thought it might be okay.  Well it tasted great, but yeah...not a recipe for the delicately stomached!