A Quick Hint

I have found, in all my baking experiments, that it's extremely difficult to get a light texture in your wheat-free baked goods.  Especially, as in my case, when you can't use rice flour.  A few weeks ago it hit me-what about club soda?  So first I used it in place of milk for some cupcakes, which were pretty successful, and last night I used it in biscuits.  They were very good!  The thing you have to do with non-gluten flours is cut back a bit on the liquid, since there's no gluten to hold the dough together.  The recipe called for 2/3 cups of milk and I put in 1/2 cup of club soda instead.  It worked perfectly and the biscuits even held together better than they have in my other experiments!  And don't worry if the club soda isn't the freshest-I used some that barely has any fizz and it worked fine.  Next on my agenda is scones-if it works for biscuits it should work for them!

Chocolate Chip Snack Cookies

First, let me apologize for not having posted recently.  I went back to work, and I work in the linens department of a major department store.  It's very physically demanding, so I am beat beyond my expectations when I get home.  Thank goodness my sweet hubby has stepped up and taken over some of the household chores in his retirement!  I've been cooking still, and have a couple new things to share with you.  The first is a snack cookie.  I had been making a similar recipe into waffles, but I have less and less time to bake, and waffles are very time consuming.  They were great, though, because I could take two squares, spread some slightly sweetened cream cheese on and make a yummy sandwich.  Then I could have a nice sweet, probably better for me, while everybody else is eating vending machine cookies and coffeehouse desserts.  So I set out to turn them into cookies that I could bake en masse on a big sheet and be done in about half the time.  Soooo here it is:

Chocolate Chocolate Chip Snack Cookies

2 eggs
1 1/2 C milk
3/4 cooking oil (whatever you're not allergic to)
3/4 C sugar (not much, but enough to fool myself into thinking I'm indulging)
3 1/4 C flour (my current mix is equal parts sorghum, tapioca and potato starch)
4 tsp baking powder (cornstarch free, of course-I use Hain)
1/2 tsp salt
2 C chocolate chips
1/2 C DRY instant mashed potatoes (I always use Honest Earth because it thickens fast and has no strange ingredients)

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.  Beat eggs, oil, sugar and milk.  Stir together dry ingredients, except chips and potatoes.  Stir into egg mixture.  Stir in potato powder and chips.  This will start to thicken-wait for it.  Using a large cookie scoop, place on a greased baking sheet and bake for about 10 minutes.  Cool.  I spread them with the sweetened cream cheese, put two together sandwich-style and wrap individually.  I store them in the freezer.  I love hardened chocolate chips so I like to keep the cookies cold.  They stick to your ribs better than the average cookie, too!

I think I have perfected a pasta recipe!  Most recipes contain corn or rice, which I cannot have, so I set out to make one up with my safe flours.  I want to make it one more time before unveiling it-hopefully not months from now-sorry fellow bloggers for the dry spell.

A Nice Fall Soup

Hubby and I were thinking a nice hearty soup would be tasty at this time of year. I said we needed to use some of the cabbage left from the garden, but didn't know what to put with it. We started hauling things out of the freezer and the garden and this is what we came up with. The pork roast I used was left from a huge one we had cut up to barbecue and serve for my DIL's 40th birthday. (It was raw when we started the soup process.)

1 1/2 pounds pork roast, any kind, cubed
Salt and Pepper
1/2 tsp celery seed
2 Tablespoons olive oil
1/2 pound Applegate Farms organic smoked pork sausage, cubed
6 big carrots, diced
2 stalks celery, diced
1/2 head of cabbage, chopped
3 medium potatoes, cubed

Coat pork in salt, pepper and celery seed. Heat a big soup pot with olive oil, add pork and brown. Cook it until the liquid boils off and the meat really starts to brown and coats the bottom of the pan. (This is where you get all the good flavor, since I can't use most of the meat flavor enhancers.) Add 2 quarts of water and a bit more salt to taste. Bring to a boil, turn heat down to a simmer and cook for 3-4 hours, adding more water if necessary.

Add the rest of the ingredients and cook til tender, adding more water if needed. I cooked mine early in the day and put it back on the stove to warm while the biscuits baked. I thickened it with a small amount of instant potatoes-just enough so that the soup wasn't really runny.

Enjoy!

Pancakes

Up until now my wheatless pancakes have been a bit heavy and dry, but when I added sorghum to the equation and took out the Bob's all-purpose flour, they improved immensely. They're very tender, light and fluffy. Lovely Saturday breakfast:

Wheat-free Hotcakes

3/4 Cup sorghum flour
1/4 Cup potato starch
1/4 Cup tapioca flour
3 teaspoons baking powder (I use Hain, it doesn't have cornstarch in it)
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 egg (1 tablespoon ground flax mixed with 3 tablespoons water can be substituted)
1 Cup milk (soy milk would be fine)
2 tablespoons cooking oil (whatever is safe for you)

Stir dry ingredients together. Beat egg, milk and oil, stir into flour mixture. Cook on a hot lightly greased griddle. When the bubbles on top break, flip pancakes and finish cooking.

I love mine with real maple syrup!

Sugar Cookies-Yay!

Baking without wheat, rice or corn is a pain in the neck. You really need the qualities of these flours to have a successful turnout. I can't tell you how many failures I've had. I have a Tupper full of failed chocolate chip cookies on my counter right now waiting for me to make them into crumbs for cheesecake.

I don't ever have enough snacks-if you knew me, you'd think I didn't need any more snacks, but I get REALLY sick of the short list I can eat, and I have low blood sugar so I need to be able to grab something quick. I eat a lot of protein, but sometimes that blood sugar drops anyway.

This morning I decided to try my hand at sugar cookies. Hubs is not fond of chocolate but he is willing to eat my "safe" foods if they taste good. I had to add the coconut flour, after I did my test bake, to keep the cookies from spreading. I think they are delicious!

Wheat and Rice-Free Sugar Cookies

Preheat oven to 350 degrees

Cream:
1 Cup butter
1 Cup sugar

Add:
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla

Beat until smooth.

Stir together:
1 Cup millet flour
1/2 Cup potato starch
1/2 Cup tapioca flour
1/4 Cup coconut flour
1/2 tsp soda
1/2 tsp cream of tarter
1/4 tsp salt

Stir into butter mixture. Roll into 1" balls and dip in sugar. Place on cookie sheet and flatten slightly. Bake at 350 for 9 minutes, turning pan partway through if needed for even browning. Remove from oven and let cool on pan for a couple of minutes before taking off cookie sheet.

Enjoy!

You will notice, and I've probably mentioned it, but I use no xanthan gum. Xanthan gum is grown on corn and is not very compatible with my digestion, so I avoid it.

Crops Are Coming In!

This is the third strawberry picking, but definitely the largest. Got a gallon today. What I do to preserve them is wash and hull them, lay them out on a cookie sheet and freeze. After they are frozen, I put them in zipper-type bags and back into the freezer. All I have to do is measure out what I need. Love having these to look forward to in the winter!

Wendy's

As promised:

http://www.wendys.com/food/pdf/us/nutrition.pdf