It's not simple to say
Entering into the second calendar month of allergy life, things seem to be getting more confusing. While we try to traverse the world of allergen free foods, the first thing we are discovering is how cost prohibitive everything is. Two gluten free pizza crusts cost $8.00. A loaf of bread, with six slices, is $5.00. Plus, living in California, everything is taxed.
The obvious answer is to bake our own. We have already started some baking with our previous Sunflower Butter Cookies. With those cookies, we purposely avoided flour. Gluten-free, wheat-free, definitely not stress-free flour! First off, gluten-free flours costs 10 billion dollars. AND, comes in bags the size of a thimble!
Weeks in, we still haven't sorted through the many different types of flour in order to actually bake anything with gluten-free flour. Having bought bananas to make banana bread, this is the second time they are ready to either be used or thrown. Since we have a random selection of rice and coconut and other flours, none of which add up to 'All Purpose'' gluten-free flour, I tried another flourless recipe I found on google.
The banana-oat cookies with chocolate chips, pictured below, are just awful.* Even after 15 minutes in a 350 degree oven, they just taste like mushed up banana and oats mixed together. The semi-sweet chocolate chips just made them bitter. So far, I am failing in my quest for great recipes, or foods, for that matter.
*It is a 100% consensus, nobody likes these cookies. Even my husband, who,eats anything, took one bite and put the cookie down. Where do people come up with these recipes? I swear, just because it is gluten-free or dairy free, doesn't suddenly mean you can call it tasty or delicious, thinking 'health food people' don't care what it tastes like! Blah.
Weeks in, we still haven't sorted through the many different types of flour in order to actually bake anything with gluten-free flour. Having bought bananas to make banana bread, this is the second time they are ready to either be used or thrown. Since we have a random selection of rice and coconut and other flours, none of which add up to 'All Purpose'' gluten-free flour, I tried another flourless recipe I found on google.
The banana-oat cookies with chocolate chips, pictured below, are just awful.* Even after 15 minutes in a 350 degree oven, they just taste like mushed up banana and oats mixed together. The semi-sweet chocolate chips just made them bitter. So far, I am failing in my quest for great recipes, or foods, for that matter.
*It is a 100% consensus, nobody likes these cookies. Even my husband, who,eats anything, took one bite and put the cookie down. Where do people come up with these recipes? I swear, just because it is gluten-free or dairy free, doesn't suddenly mean you can call it tasty or delicious, thinking 'health food people' don't care what it tastes like! Blah.
She's imperfect
December 2015
We have found many different flours. Right now I have oat flour, barley flour, white rice and brown rice flour and coconut flour. Many of these flours we found at a local store: Honeyville Farms. They also have a blog, In the Kitchen with Honeyville, which I definitely have to start following.
When we chose the flours, we decided to buy the coconut flour instead of almond flour because it was $12.99 instead of $31.99 a bag. I should have paid a lot more attention to the recipes I was looking at before we went shopping.
Apparently, almond flour can be swapped at a one to one ratio in most recipes, where as coconut flour is a strange entity that absorbs all moisture from recipes. Thus, though it doesn't need much flour, it requires eggs, many eggs, for each recipe. I found one recipe that called for 12 eggs for one dozen biscuits. Since, I can only use egg yolks, we have been using 2 egg yolks for every egg in the recipes. The means, the biscuit recipe would require us to use up two dozen eggs!
the girl that I knew
Mostly though, the recipes just ask for All Purpose Gluten Free Flour. I have found many recipes to create my own from the multiple flours I already have. What I can't find is tapioca flour/starch. Every single blend I have found, no matter which different flours, whether almond flour, oat or bean, always includes tapioca. Honeyville Farms does have potato flour, another starch included in most of these all purpose blends. I just have to buy fifty pounds. FIFTY POUNDS! That is the same size bags we used to buy for whole kernel corn to feed my father's cows!
So many of our lifelong memories wind themselves around food. The traditions of Holiday meals, family recipes passed from generation to generation. Perhaps it is just me, but it is hard not feel as if a part of who I am is disappearing.
I am very fortunate to have my daughter here helping me frustrate through this process. Today, we are looking for success, so we are baking Betty Crocker Gluten Free cookies. Like everything else, we have to adjust the recipe by removing the egg white and adding an extra egg yolk and replacing the butter. We used Smart Balance with extra virgin olive oil.
Since we are still testing things out, we split the box in half and made the other half with coconut oil. We also doubled the vanilla, putting a full teaspoon into each half. This was accidental, but it ended up being a happy accident. These cookies are still a bit grittier than full gluten cookies, but they held together well and the ones made with butter alternative Smart Balance had a very pleasant taste. We would definitely make them again.
With the coconut oil, we should have used the hardened oil from the refrigerator, instead of the melted oil from the cabinet. The cookies did not hold together well for the baking process. We added an extra yolk and a bit more oil but still not great. Next time we will stick with the Smart Balance for all of the cookies. We only tried both because of $$$$.
August 2016
As we head into the Labor Day weekend, we are supposed to be preparing for Laborgiving, an annual tradition we began years ago, when the children started school the day after Labor Day. We would create a full Thanksgiving style meal early in the weekend, and then eat off the leftovers, as we got ready for the upcoming school year.
Now, I just get sad thinking about it. I know it will get better than this. Once we work through most of the frustrations. All in all, of things that can go wrong, this barely make a blip.
Used to be mine
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