While my husband is away for a business trip this week, all meals are being dictated by a five-year-old pallet. š So tonight we had some carrots & cucumber slices with hummus (we use Sabra Original. While I like the flavored, I have more success with my DS when it’s a “boring” as possible – meaning nothing mixed in), melon and a new Mac and “Cheese” dish: Road’s End Organics Dairy Free Mac & “Chreese” Alfredo Style. And it was actually very good! After trying so many different “cheese” substitues, it was a very pleasant surprise to find this pleasant, easy dish. null It’s a pale, brown rice elbow macaroni. So it’s a familiar size and shape which made my DS predisposed to give it more of a fair shake. (He often objects to new GFCF dishes on sight because they’re so dissimilar to his familiar faves.) The cheese sauce powder was a bit disconcerting when I poured it into the pot – it’s a light brown, so I thought for sure it wouldn’t fly with the little man. (But in serving it to him, I stacked the decks and put it on a blue plate, rather than our usual white, so it looked less brown and more pale contrasted against the dark rather than white dish.) But I used Rice Dream “milk”Ā (vanilla)Ā and a heaping teaspoon of Earth Balance buttery spread (original) to make the cheese sauce. When the pasta was added to the sauce over a medium heat, the sauce thickened up very nicely and even made a sort of “stringy, cheesy” texture! I was very excited to...
Our friendly neighborhood FedEx dude (I can’t call him a guy or man… this is a *Dude*) delivered my eagerly awaited Amazon treasures today: my bread machine and cookbook. I can’t wait to start enjoying GFCF bread that’s not frozen or tastes or feels like cardboard. But alas, wait I must. First I have to read the book: there’s a few chapters of info on the do’s and don’ts and whys of GF breadmaking… And since I’ve never made any bread to begin with, I figure if I’m going to do this then I’m going to do it right. I really don’t want to have my first loaf come out crappy and be totally disheartened and not want to follow up, so I’m going to do it by the book. (hehe) I started reading it today in carline (isn’t it funny how “car” and “line” must be one word when it comes to picking up kids at school? Every document I’ve read from the school itself – the very school teaching my child spelling and grammar – calls it “Carline.” I’m just sayin’…!) So I’m excitedly reading the first chapter when I stop short. I realize I may have made a poor decision in my machine purchase: I ordered the mini loaf (1 pound) machine and all the recipes are for the full size (2 lb) machine. The author, Analise Roberts, makes a very big point of saying that this book is specifically for the Zojirushi 2 pound machine and the settings and measurements are very precise and deviationĀ from them may result in subpar bread. Who wants that?! So...
Okay, I have to admit this: I don’t really like spending time in the kitchen. So the whole GFCF food thing can really wear on me some days. ‘Cause more and more I’m finding that I just can’t get around making all of my own food. Otherwise I suffer the symptomatic consequences. And while I’m not much of a cook or baker, I still enjoy… love… ADORE bread. And while most GFCF breads are horrible (that’s a rant for another post sometime…), there are a few that are passable. But they’re still all frozen – even the ones I get from my local GFCF bakery. (I must admit I’m lucky to live in a place where there are GFCF bakeries and pizza places… and for that I’m grateful. But it’s a 35 minute drive to the bakery and you have to order 3-4 days in advance and I just never seem to get myself organized enough to do that! But I digress…) So when I realized that there are state of the art, time saving, automatic bread making machines where you just whisk together wet ingredients, whisk together dry ingredients, throw it in a machine, hit a few buttons and a couple of hours later you could have fresh, hot bread, I not only said “Heck yea! I want that!” but also “Hey, why didn’t I do that sooner?!” I headed right over to my computer to do my comparative shopping. After three hours of pouring over reviews and reading other people’s blogs, I headed over to Amazon and promptly ordered a GF Bread book and a Zojirushi Mini...
Happy happy joy joy…. Sunday I was visited by a GFCF Easter Bunny! Woohoo! With my new GFCF status, I wanted to make sure that I didn’t feel left out of the chocolate treat part of this holiday. ‘Cause even tho it’s been many years since the Easter Bunny left a basket for me, I’ve always found a way to indulge in more than my share of chocolate! And now that our son is now 5, there are always plenty of events and holiday get-togethers that provide ample opportunity for a chocoholic like myself to snag a little bit of chocolate. So to think of a chocolate-less Easter, well, that was just too depression for words. To be sure I could join in the sugar surge this Easter I placed a large order of gluten-free, casein-free chocolate from a wonderful site called Chocolate Decadence. They specialize in dairy free chocolate – which I’m coming to learn is difficult to find (every kind of dairy free chocolate I’ve tried has been processed in the same facilities or same lines as milk chocolate and I’ve had to deal with CC… but that’s a topic for another post). This was my first time ordering from Chocolate Decadence and it was an all around pleasant experience. Expensive, but pleasant. I spent $74 USD (including shipping) to get the GFCF treats you see in my picture to the right. It’s all yummy dark chocolate: a solid bunny, one bag of Ā solid chocolate Buttons (not pictured – I couldn’t wait to try them!!), one bag of peanut butter buttons (small bag with red label on...
