What a Difference a Year Makes

When we first became gluten free everything seemed so daunting, especially baking!  I remember checking out books from the library and shaking my head when I came across recipes that used flours I had never heard of or recipes that used a long list of ingredients.  I resigned myself to the fact that I was probably going to have to use packaged mixes that seemed very expensive.

I did try to adapt some of my favorite recipes into gluten free versions.  The problem was that I was at the beginning of that learning curve and some of my attempts were not so great.  A good case in point was my adaptation of a French bread recipe that I had made for 18 years and my family loved. 

Yep!  You are right.  It did not turn out so well.  Actually, it tasted fine, but it was incredibly dense and had relatively no color.  It was pretty pathetic.

Over the past year and half, I have studied cookbooks and ingredients.  I have tried to learn the ins and outs of gluten free cooking and baking.  I still have a lot to learn, but I hope this will give all of you who are new to the GF life a reason to keep on trying. 

Tonight I made gluten free French bread using one of those recipes with a long list of ingredients!  I used the French bread recipe found in Bette Hagman's book The Gluten Free Gourmet Bakes Bread and had very different results!

It was delicious!  Definitely better than a year ago, don't ya think?

Waste Not....Want Not

Our house has a saying, "Waste not, want not."  When ever there is something that is in need of being used up, Dan is particularly adept at throwing out this phrase which usually brings about a response of eye rolling and aggravated sighs.  It made me think twice the other day when I was blown away by the statistic that people waste 160 billion pounds of food each year.  That is a lot of food.  That is a lot of money spent on food.

In a gluten free household there is absolutely no room in a budget for waste, but what exactly do you do with the heels of gf bread or the two slices of cornbread that sat out on the counter and is too dry and crumbly to eat.  Make croutons and meatloaf, of course!

I keep a plastic ziplock bag in the freezer to collect my gf bread heels.  When I have enough, 8-12 slices, I make croutons.  They are simple, delicious, and definitely cheaper than buying gf croutons.

Gluten Free Croutons:

8-12 slices of gf bread (I use the heels)
Olive oil
Italian Seasonings
Garlic Salt

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees

Cut your bread into one inch squares and place in a medium sized mixing bowl.  Drizzle with enough olive oil to coat the bread well.  Add Italian seasonings and stir adding more if needed.  You want all the pieces to looks like they have seasonings on them.  Sprinkle with garlic salt.  Stir and then pour out onto a cookie sheet.  Sprinkle again with garlic salt. 

Bake in a 350 degree oven 25-30 minutes or until the bread is golden brown and toasted through.

Cool completely and store your croutons in an air tight container and continue collecting bread heels for later!  You can try a variety of seasonings for different flavors.  Have fun with it!

So, what about meatloaf?  The other night I made chili and cornbread.  I use Bob's Red Mill Gluten Free Cornbread mix.  I buy mine through Amazon's Subscribe and Save for the best price of  $2.38 a bag.  My family loves this cornbread, but there is always a couple of hunks left.  After a day or so on the counter, the cornbread is very crumbly and perfect for meatloaf.

Meatloaf:

1 pound of lean ground beef
1 1/2 cups of leftover cornbread crumbs (I just crumble the hunks until it is the consistency of bread crumbs)
1 egg
1/2 cup of soy milk or regular milk
2 T minced dry onion
1/2 tsp salt
1 1/2 tsp Italian Seasonings
2 T ketchup
1 T brown sugar

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. 

Mix all the ingredients in a large mixing bowl until it is combined.  Spoon into a loaf pan and top with ketchup or try this topping which has more of a barbecue flavor:

1/4 cup of ketchup
1/4 heaping tsp of mustard (prepared)
1/4 cup of brown sugar

Mix together and pour over the top of your meatloaf.  Bake at 375 degrees for 45-50 minutes or until the meatloaf is cooked through.

I make two batches when I make meatloaf.  The first, I place in a regular loaf pan.  The second, I divide between 12 muffin tins.  I bake them at the same time.  You will have to watch the muffin tin meatloaves because they will cook faster and will need to be removed first.  We eat the loaf for dinner and the mini meatloaves are placed in a ziplock bag and placed in the freezer to use later.  This is a very budget friendly meal.  Add steamed corn and a side salad for a meal which costs around $5.00.

Enjoy!

The Hard Way

Sometimes it seems you just have to learn the hard way.  There is no "easy button" for life.  I sometimes wish there was such a button, but then again, I would miss out on those ah-ha moments or the sweet sense of victory after overcoming obstacles.  It reminds me of Robert Frost's poem The Road Not Taken.  I love the last three lines:

Two roads diverged in a wood and I--

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.

Sometimes choosing that road is hard, but often it is worth the rough patches, steep inclines, and challenges.  Homeschooling was one such road; a road I am blessed to have taken.  Another such road is our gluten free lifestyle.  It is a blessing to be sure, but it is not without challenges!  We have had to learn a lot of things the hard way.

This week that "hard way" lesson was definitely evident in our house.  Cinnamon, after the big bail a little over a week ago, discovered she really does need to be on a gluten free diet.  I am not sure if it was the fatigue, the mental fog, or the canker sores that convinced her, but she is back on the gf trail....happily, I might add.

I also ventured out to try something new.  I really wanted to see if I could make bread cheaper by buying different flours and combining my own mix.  I decided to try Bette Hagman's Four Flour mix found in this cookbook.  A little intimidating at first using weird flours like sorghum and garfava flour, but this was going to be an adventure!

The bread turned out lovely and it was good!  A nice springy texture, fluffy, soft, and it tasted like bread.  Not much of a bean taste either.

Everyone loved it.  The only problem was that I ended up with a stomach ache.  I read how you sometimes have to adjust to bean flours, so the next day I tried another slice.  I ended up with another stomach ache, this one slightly worse.  So, what did I do?  Naturally, I made these delicious cinnamon rolls using the flour.

Of course I had to eat one, even though my stomach still hurt from the bread I had earlier.  Wow!  Big mistake.  Here was the epitome of having to learn something the hard way.  I apparently cannot handle fava bean flour!  Who knew. 

Today, I started over.  I made a new batch of flour, this time avoiding any and all bean flours!  I made the Featherlight Rice Bread from the same book.  It was springy and fluffy, not grainy at all, and had that yummy homemade bread taste.  

 

This one I will make again.  I was able to make it for $5.23 a loaf which is better than the $6.92 it was costing me for the other bread I was making.  I can cut the cost even further by buying the flours and a few other ingredients in bulk.  My family all loved it.  Best of all, no stomach ache! 

So, sometimes I guess we do have to learn things the hard way.  Cinnamon learned she needs to be gluten free and I learned to stay far away from strange sounding beans.  Taking the road less traveled can be an adventure, but do you ever stop and wonder, where the heck you are?

The Wrap on Sandwiches

As a homeschooling mom of three teenagers, lunch is a big deal at our house.  What happens when that iconic staple, the sandwich, becomes a challenge, especially for the budget?  Bread is a big gf cost.  When we first became gluten free, we gravitated toward the gf bread you had to toast in order for it to be palatable.  We were new, we didn't know any better, and let's face it, it made lunch a less than pleasing experience.

Months passed and we ventured out of our comfort zone and tried new things like bread mixes.  Out of all the mixes I tried, my favorite was King Arthur Flour Gluten Free Bread Mix.  The cheapest place I found it was at Amazon: three boxes of mix for $19.98.  The bread tastes good and it is pretty simple to make.  A loaf is still over $6.50 though.

We also tried bread out of the freezer section.  They too are expensive.  A loaf, the cheapest I could find and one we thought tasted good, was $5.69, but I could find it on sale for $3.99 and stock up.  Each loaf contains approximately 12 slices which makes each slice of bread 33 cents when it is on sale, 47 cents when it is not.   The slices are also about half the size of a normal slice of bread.  We can blast through a loaf in no time which is not good for the budget!

Next I tried making bread from scratch.  My favorite bread recipe can be found in Gluten Free Mama's Best Baking Recipes.  The Honey Sandwich Bread is absolutely delicious!  Even my non gf eaters think this bread is wonderful.  Cost: $6.92 a loaf.  I cut mine into approximately 20 slices and freeze it.  That still makes it 35 cents a slice.  So you are starting out a sandwich at seventy cents with nothing on it.  If the three gf eaters ate 5 sandwiches a week, 10% of my new budget would be spend in bread alone.  That is not going to work!

Enter the new star on the gf stage:  the wrap!  The sky is the limit when it comes to wraps.  We use basic white corn tortillas which I keep in the freezer.  I take out about 15 at a time to place in the fridge in an air-tight container.  This keeps them fresh.

We have made all kinds of wraps.  Chicken Salad Wraps, Bacon-Lettuce-Tomato & Avocado, Tuna, Pulled Pork, Turkey-Bacon-Cheese, Grilled Ham & Cheese, Roast Beef, Italian Sausage & Grilled Onion, Pepperoni Pizza, not to mention the quesadilla and taco.  Today, Cinnamon toasted her tortilla (yes, you can toast them in the toaster), added cream cheese mixed with a sprinkle of Simply Organic Creamy Dill Dip mix and added sliced grape tomatoes.  Delicious!

Tomato and  Cream Cheese with Dill Wrap

We had these wraps today using leftover pork roast from last night's dinner!

So, what is the bottom line?  Remember the earlier scenario of three people eating 5 sandwiches a week for a month?  Is there a big difference if you simply switch sandwiches for wraps?  Take a look.  A package of 100 wraps purchased at Costco cost $3.85.  That is four cents a wrap.  Let's assume the cost of the ingredients that you put on a wrap or a sandwich are the same and that we are using either two slices of bread or two tortillas.  Using  bread would cost me around $40.00 compared to $4.62 for tortillas.  That is a huge difference!  A $35.00 difference each month or a savings of $420.00 a year.

I am not saying I won't use bread any more, but I will definitely make wraps my lunch of choice!

CHICKEN SALAD:

1 can of chicken or leftover cooked chicken
1/3 cup of craisins
3 stalks of celery sliced
1/4 cup sliced or slivered almonds
2 large heaping spoonfuls of mayo
     (or enough to make it creamy)
1 tsp of mustard (or more if you like)
Garlic and Herb Mrs. Dash (to taste)

Mix all ingredients together and serve with lettuce on a tortilla.

I hope you enjoy!!!