Archive for the ‘Cooking Tips’ Category

I found this really good article that better sums up what I could about the common gluten-free diet  vs.  a healthy gluten free diet.

I’ve been working towards making bread again. The whole family misses them. I found a couple of good recipes! SO good, in fact that we over indulged with 4 loaves in 5 days. (guilty!) By the 5th day I’ve gained weight, started bloating again, and have terrible headaches and stomach cramps. also… a foul mood to boot.

I put off soaking the grains b/c I was busy, but now I realize this isn’t optional and I should have known better. Because I use so few grains the last several months I never soaked them and I did just fine that way. But, I also was having issues with not enough easy foods to fill my family up. We all have blood sugar problems, celiac, 1 is allergic to milk and 3 of us have lactose intolerance. Add to that Eli and myself have serious trouble digesting fructose (fruits, raw veggies and a raw honey) this leaves out diet VERY slim… and TERRIBLY expensive! the bulk of our meals are meat and a handful of the same veggies cooked in a variety of different ways to disguise the fact that they are the same old veggies year round. Frankly, it’s boring at best.

I was attempting to broaden our horizons and lower our grocery bull by introducing bread again. I’m heart broken it wasn’t as easy as I though it was going to be. Even use the best of ingredients I could find and staying away from things like corn flour an soy products…. our health still took a plunge (mostly mine, actually). and seeing my scale suddenly rise in weight instead of continuing to lower certainly did NOT make me feel very good about myself. Feeling my skirts suddenly become tighter in all the wrong places didn’t help either! I have continually, albeit slowly, been losing weight and getting to a very normal healthy place. It’s the best I have felt in AGES… if ever. and now suddenly it’s like I’m headed right back there. no thanks! I am not anxious to head back into that. I’ve worked WAY too hard for that. Seriously, I really have put copious amounts of work, study, and cooking hours into eating in a way that helps me and the family feel healthy. I’m not willing to destroy that for a few bites of bread here and there.

We are moving in a couple of days… then it will take me a few more days/weeks after that to get settled us to the new place. After that I’m aiming to investigate how to properly soak, sprout and store gluten-free grains and nuts for breads and treats. I’m hoping i can still be able to make some form of edible yummy bread in this manner. the kids (and Sean!) were totally thrilled to have sandwiches again Until then bread will be on the backburner (if at all) in our home. I can only imagine how much weight I would gain and how bad I would feel on 4 more weeks of improperly soaked grains!

I was so excited the other day. I came to my inbox to see a comment from another blogger saying (paraphrashing here) how much she loved my blog. she gushed about about how great it was. Being that this blog and new and not teribbly interesting (and it seems not many people actually read it) it brought a big smile to my face. Finally! My recipes mean something to someone out there. I puffed up a bit feeling good about myself. Maybe this project isn’t a complete flop after all!

But, as I re-read her comment to soak in it’s glory, I realized  something in her comment seemed odd. She thanked me for making such an “important post” and that it really ”meant something to her”. Odd, I thought…w hat could “cranberry flax bread” really mean to her? Maybe it was some emotional food thing I couldn’t quite understand. Some people realy LOVE their food…. so, I started to write her back asking what she meant…

….and that’s when I realized it was spam.

I really should have known better!

When frying up anything in hot oil be sure to lay the food down carefully into the oil. Start with the surface closest to you and work you’re way back. DON’T (I repeat, DON’T) just drop it in there quickly because you’re afraid your hand will be burned by a little pop of oil. If you drop it into the hot hot oil it will splash oil up at your arms and face which, let me tell you, burns a lot more than a tiny little popping oil bubble on your hand!

::ahem:: even seasoned cooks need reminded of this every now and again…

also, you might want to consider not wearing headphones and listening to your favorite Rich Mullins song while cooking with hot oil because it seems to cause temporary loss of common cooking sense.

..that’s all