Corn thins and Ener-G bread

I have had to resort to buying products. I have enjoyed trying to make tasty baked goods that I can tolerate, but you know what...I am quite happy with the products I recently purchased.

Corn Thins are a nice treat. They are multigrain. I spread peanut butter on a couple of them and had them for breakfast. I highly recommend this product.

I tried Energy yeast free brown rice bread again and this time I toasted it twice so it was a nice brown shade and made a sandwich with it and am quite pleased.

I am still completely infatuated with my bowl of Rice Dream icecream...I never want to run out of that goodie in my freezer section.

I had a wonderful weekend with family and friends camped out all over the place...the band played and the grandkids played games with grandma...it was wonderful.

Day two of the no fructose routine...

Well, I did very well during the day and then I went to my son's last tennis match and on the way home I was out in the stix and the only place to stop was a convenience store...ugh...I grabbed a pack of ham lunch meat, and a bag of Lay's potato chips and ... I know, I was ashamed of myself ... a bag of Swedish Fish...AND a french vanilla capuccino from a machine...is there no hope? Well, today is another day and I tossed and turned in the night so there...more proof...I am starting my day with 2 cups of decaf white tea and flat bread spread thinly with peanut butter...I feel good...but the day is young...wish me luck.

More bad but good news...

I have been bloated all the time lately and frustrated...I went on this food elimination journey several years ago because of the bloatedness and a ton of other undesireable symptoms so I wondered why in the world I was bloated again...well, all these baked goods I've been baking again with sugar, could it be? I think so...So yesterday I did not have any sugar and did not have fruit and voila...I was fine...so alas I am back to not using sugar and limiting my fruit intake. I suspect fructose malabsorption..OH NO! More unfriendly substances...sounds bad, but it feels good to know so I can do something about it. I remember when I had a kidney stone that was too large to pass so I had to have it lithotripsied and I was nervous when I went to have a CTSCAN and was eating hard candy after hard candy and one thing the DR said was that the amount of stomach gas was huge and they could barely read my xray and he wanted to look into that...well, I had the stone smashed and was on to other things and other Drs so the looking into that was forgotten but I never forgot what he said about it being a problem and I had consumed an awful lot of hard candy SO...these are my findings...bad (who doesn't like sugary things???) but GOOD...I would rather feel good and skip the excessive bloating.

So I made flat bread and spread a thin layer of peanut butter on it and it was delightfully delish!

Here is my adapted recipe. I tweaked The Pratt Family's recipe.

Heat a frying pan and spray with Pam.
Mix 1 cup of rice flour
1/2 cup corn flour
2 tsp. Xanthan gum
2 tsp. baking powder
4 TB oil
1 cup rice milk
1 cup water

Plop on about 1/3 cup batter onto heated oiled pan and spread it out by jiggling pan or with a untensil. Flip over after a while. Cool on wire rack. Can be used for sandwich bread or toasted or not toasted and if you do eat sugary things pour on syrup or honey or slap on jelly...make it a pancake, for flatbread's sake. ENJOY!

Do I feel sad? Not really. When I eat sugary things and fruit, if I am honest, I have to admit I don't feel that great so no no... no no more for me. HAPPY DAY!

Cashew cheesy rice and flop flop...

I made two flops over the weekend and was feeling a little gun shy about working in the kitchen but this dish came out delish so I decided to post it.

Made cashew cheese (recipe posted in a past post) and added rice milk, dry mustard, and pepper...mixed well... and then added this to leftover rice and then baked the mixture in a 350 deg. oven for 25 min. It is tasty and filling.

Okay so I had two flops...I don't want to talk about it...okay...twist my arm.

Saturday I decided to make something that was similar to the sloppy jo recipe handed down from my mother-in-law that everyone loves, but I used carrots instead of tomato for the sauce. I ground up carrots and added celery and onion and garlic (there is no garlic in mother-in-law's recipe) and added rice flour to thicken and cooked ground beef and a little mustard and vinegar and sugar, but no no no it was not like mother-in-law made or anyone else's sloppy jo recipe for that matter...so is that a bad thing? When you eat it and can't decide if you like it, it's bad...I kept telling myself that everything in it is good for me so I should love it...but it ended up in the garbage can...then on Sunday I was feeling ambitious and tried to make soba noodles...noodles made from buckwheat flour and water. Well, I mixed up buckwheat flour and water and rolled it out and cut it up into strips and boiled them in water and drained them and there I had a colander filled with homemade brownish black noodles and I tasted one and said "Blech!" They tasted to me like dirt, smelled musty...okay...no go with soba...at least my homemade version of soba...BUT did I leave it alone? NO...I added cashew cheese and spread it in a pan to bake...even topped with crushed up Frito Lay chips...after it baked for a half hour I tried it and again, I could not tell if I liked it... but the thought of eating anymore of it made me nauseous, so needless to say my garbage can was full (burp) this weekend. Chow...

Pumping words...

I keep talking about my food issues and posting recipes but today I am pumping words. I am at that 45,000 word count spot in my current novel and the words are coming fast. I am at that want to know what is going to happen and don't want it to end juncture.
It is difficult to explain at times why I am writing or why I like to write. This is the sixth novel I have worked on in my lifetime and it is a wonderful accomplishment, I think, but it takes time and I wonder at times if I should be doing it since I have not made money at it, but then again I would write no matter what so I keep pumping words. Perhaps it will amount to being a satisfying hobby when I take my last breath of life, and if that is the case I salute the times I have spent laboring over... words...SALUTE!

Carob GF CF EF brownies

I was in the mood for eating brownies. I have not baked for me with recipes with a lot of sugar so it had been a while. But I succumbed and made some. Yum...I don't miss chocolate any more. Carob is delish and who needs chocolate...I don't.

I adapted Sandy Wifey's recipe for Vegan Brownies at Allrecipes.com.

Preheat oven to 350 deg.

Mix
2 cups white rice flour
2 tsp. Xanthan Gum
2 cups sugar
3/4 cups carob
1 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. salt

Add
1 cup water
1 cup oil
1 tsp. vanilla

Spread evenly into a 13 X 9 pan and bake until top is no longer shiny, 25-30 min. Cool ten min. on a wire rack before cutting into squares.

This week we had some wild asparagus hubby picked that was growing out in the yard. Oh my goodness, it doesn' get any fresher than that.

GF CF EF Banana Cornbread

There were two bananas on the counter so I thought about making some banana bread. And since I am using cornmeal in recipes lately I googled banana cornbread to see what I could find and sure enough I found something. I adapted a recipe for Banana Walnut Cornbread by Dakota Kelly on the allrecipes.com site.

GF CF EF Banana Cornbread

Preheat oven to 350 deg.

Puree the following (I used a pastry cutter) 2 TBs sugar, 2 bananas, 1/4 cup oil, 1/2cup rice milk, 2 tsps. vanilla

Add 1 cup white cornmeal, 1 cup white rice flour, 1 tsp. Xanthan gum, 1 TBs. baking powder, 1 tsp. baking soda

Mix completely and spread out into an 8X8 pan. Bake for 40-50 minutes or until brown on top.

This is a tasty bread, full of flavor.

75 minutes on the bike and then a treat of CF EF rice pudding

I took another bike ride today and was gone for 75 minutes. Maybe one of these days I will just keep riding...and never turn around, like Forrest Gump...I felt like Dupree...the "ness" ness...LOL.

I made some rice pudding with 2 cups of Minute Rice and 2 cups of rice milk and a conservative toss in of sugar and a jigger of vanilla and sprinkling of sea salt and a handful of seedless sulfite free raisins. I covered the big bowl and nuked it for 8min. It was a yummy treat after my pedaling.

Mom's Day

I had a wonderful Mom's Day with my Mom and my youngest. Brad and I went to see my mom and dad. Dad is still in the rehab facility for his leg bypass recovery and I just wanted to be with my Mom. It struck me that she is going to be 80 this year and while she is healthy and active it was super important to me to spend time with her. My 16 year old was wonderful...we went to church with Mom and I realized I missed my Episcopalian worshipping roots...so it was good. The Holy Spirit came into me appropriately. Zap! And my son got a taste of my Sunday mornings growing up. He has not been churched much, since we had the diner and were at the diner Sundays and I have just not been pushing myself to attend any church for quite some time and ironically, my son whispered to me, "Now this is a real church"...you never know about teens...here I thought he would squirm and complain.
There was a breakfast afterwards and most were concerned because I sat there with my plate with three sausage links on it and a cup of applejuice. I passed on the eggs and toast and pancakes. It didn't bother me one bit. I seldom feel sorry for myself anymore...a week ago I tore off a chunk of a Tim Horton's donut, since I hadn't had one in years, and soon afterwards I had a headache...this only reaffirms my eliminations are working...no going back...Zap!

Pic
My mom and me

We had tacos...

Hubby wanted tacos and since I have been doing okay with pop corn, we bought some soft corn taco shells. It might very well be that it is corn syrup and kernel corn that bother me and perhaps not the popped variety and the corn meal recipes. Any way...it was fun making the tacos and I simply passed on the tomatoes and salsa and cheese and sour cream...so this time I ate a taco and didn't get any kind stomach gumbling like I used to before I saw the food intolerant light...YIPPEE!

Warm the taco shells in a pan and then layer them with cooked ground beef and then whatever you want to after that. I had chopped onion, gr. pepper, lettuce, and bl. olives. I think next time I will spread refried beans on the shell and that will stick everything together like good tasting glue.

I have heard of fish tacos and may attempt that next. Fish and coleslaw in a taco shell...yes, I will definitely try that next time.

Sweet sixteen boy is off to the prom tonight...ah...then he plays in a sectional tournament for tennis tomorrow. Fun times.

Going to visit my mom Sunday...Happy Mom's Day to you blogger mamas. You can see in the pic that I am happy in May.

Buckwheat can't be beat

I was reading somewhere about a place where they eat fish and vegetables and buckwheat and they live long healthier lives...but I forget about buckwheat much of the time and then when I use it again I get back into it.
So this morning I took a bowl and dumped some buckwheat flour in it and some rice flour and some sorghum flour, a little salt, some baking powder, some oil, some blackstrap molasses, and as much rice milk as it took to get the batter the consistency I like for pancakes...I sprayed the pan with PAM and had me some pancakes with real maple syrup. There were yummy. Then I put wax paper between the remaining pancakes and put them in the fridge for another morning. Ah...buckwheat. Breakfast of long livers...gee that is funny...long livers...and short kidneys?...ok...I know ... ENOUGH! LOL Have a good one.

GF CF Mac N Cheese

Inspired after going to www.aglutenfreeguide.com I set out to make some kind of mac n cheese I could tolerate. I have tried in the past, couldn't remember what I did so I started fresh...I first made a batch of cashew cheese (see blog entry below), and then boiled up some Tinkayada elbow noodles. I cooked up a cup of rice milk with 2 tsp. of rice flour, whisking away, and added that to the cashew cheese, as well as 1 tsp. of dry mustard and some pepper. I coated the noodles, mixing well, with the cashew cheese mix, in a 13 X9 pan and topped it off with crunched up Lay's potato chips. I baked it uncovered for 30 min. It is good. If you want to adapt this, you can add other spices, tunafish, more milk and rice flour...it is fun to fiddle and make it your own. I bagged up portions and froze them so I can pull them out and warm when I am in the mood for mac n cheese my way. I used to love mac n cheese but always felt like crap after eating it due to the gluten and casein...after adapting this comfort food recipe to suit my needs...now I don't.