Endings and Beginnings

Life is returning to a measure of stability.  Where I have currently ended up is eliminating everything that is in the plant family that contains grains.  This means all grains, all pseudo-grains, sugar cane, and molasses.  The jury is still out on how much I can tolerate nuts and seeds.  Dairy is also gone.

Consequently, baking is pretty much non-existent since my diet is mostly composed of fruits, vegetables, meat, and eggs.  That being the case, I am no longer going to post to this blog.  Instead I am starting a new blog called Elzbee's Place (a more generic name in order to be more flexible in this journey).  http://elzbeesplace.blogspot.com/

My hope is to offer recipes within my diet limitations so that those who share those limitations might find it helpful as I have been helped by others' blogs through these changes. 

A Baker's Demise

It is amazing how quickly one's plans can be completely overturned.  Last week I had a strong reaction to some of my gluten free bread.  What!?  And then later in the week to some wild rice.  Okay, this is getting out of hand and I need some help, so on Thursday I am going to see my doctor.  I haven't done this before now because I didn't want to go the medication route which, to me, would be just trading one set of problems for another.  The other factor was that I didn't really have anything concrete to tell her.  Now I can say that when I eat such and so, this is what is happening.  I am still not interested in pursuing medication, but I hope to get some direction to see if there might be another underlying issue that is causing me to continue reacting.  That, and possibly get a referral to a good nutritionist who can give me some dietary direction.  

That being said, baking is going on the back burner for a while.  Hopefully not permanently, but we shall see.  

A Relative Peace

Well, the white bean flour was not so great for my baking, but it does work very well as a base for soup.  My husband had some dental surgery this week and needed to be on a liquid diet for one week and then a soft diet for six weeks.  That means a lot of soups on the menu in the days ahead.

White Bean Flour Soup
  
1/2 cup white bean flour

1 boneless, skinless chicken thigh

1 large carrot, peeled and cut into 1 inch lengths

1/4 of a medium/large onion, chopped

1 cup chicken broth

Salt

Sage

Cumin

Cooked rice

Note:  I often don't measure my spices, but am guessing that I used about 1/2 teaspoon each.  Adjust according to taste.

Place chicken thigh, carrot, and onion in a sauce pan.  Add enough water to cover.  Bring to a boil and then simmer until chicken is cooked.  Place chicken and vegetables on a plate.  Pour broth into a measuring cup and add water to make 2 cups.  Return liquid to sauce pan and add 1 cup chicken broth.  Bring to a boil.  When broth is boiling, whisk in the white bean flour.  Reduce heat and simmer for 2 minutes, stirring with the whisk.  Pour broth into a blender and blend for 1 minute.  Cut chicken into cubes and add it, the vegetables, and the seasonings to the broth in the blender.  Puree.   Return soup to sauce pan and keep on low heat until ready to serve.  Spoon soup into bowls and add rice. 

I my last round of baking I used the following combination:

1/2 cup sorghum flour

1/2 cup oat flour

1/4 cup sweet rice flour

1 Tablespoon flaxseed meal

I stopped using the guar gum since I didn't like the results, and I want to see what I can do without using additives.  I used two eggs instead of one in my muffin recipes and was pleased with the results.  Biscuits are still a work in progress.  Otherwise I made granola, with some minor adjustment.  I will write out the adjusted recipes in my next post.

I am still have some reactions, but they are minor.  I am not going to do any other adjustments to my diet for a while, but am keeping a food diary and noting reactions.  Cooking doesn't seem so overwhelming, and I have determined for the most part what ingredients are safe for me to use.  Ahh, hopefully a peace that will last for a while.

Healthy?

"Think, think, think...", to quote Pooh-bear.  

Currently I am reading The Omnivore's Delimma by Michael Pollan--a fascinating read that has at least given me some consolation on giving up foods with corn and soy as additives.  With that in mind, though, I have been giving a lot of thought to my flour issues.  There was a definite difference in texture in my baking without the soy flour, so I do need to find an alternative. 

When I first began looking into baking gluten-free, I saw that the most common blend of flours were rice and starches.  A few initial experiments that got thrown into the trash can caused me to pursue other flour options, leading me to the sorghum, oat, and soy.  As I have looked into starch side of the equation, I have realized that it is not an ingredient I really want to make a regular part of my baking.  Creating starches, whether corn or potato and I assume others as well, is a pretty complex chemical process, so the original food has been broken down way beyond its natural form.  Using it as an occasional thickener is great, but it isn't something I want to be consuming all the time.  Plus, I seriously doubt my system would handle it well.  Even in eating potatoes, a little goes a long way with me.

So, I began to consider soy and what kind of flour might have similar properties.  Soy is a bean, so that gave me some clue as to where to start.  I have tried a mix using garbanzo flour, and it, along with whatever I had baked, went straight into the trash.  Yuk!  However, I have discovered it is not the only bean flour out there.  There is fava bean, garfava bean (a blend of garbanzo and fava), and even green pea flour, but the one I decided to try is white bean flour.  The flavor is supposed to be very mild, and I hope it will have the same affect texture-wise that the soy flour did.  I ordered some this past Friday, and it should arrive in time for me to do some baking before my next post.  I will give my review next time I write. 

 

Onward Through the Fog

Last Tuesday evening, after blogging that morning, I hit the wall so hard it knocked me down and made me cry.  I discovered yet another expensive ingredient I was using wasn't safe, and I had tried to make myself some pancakes substituting brown rice flour for the soy flour.  They pretty much flopped.  The rice flours are just not my thing.

Anyway, the next day I got up and dusted myself off, and because I didn't have any leftovers for lunch, decided to try pancakes again.  This time I went back to my resources on different flours and thought perhaps potato starch might be workable.  Sure enough!  They had good texture and good flavor--better than the blend with soy, and I had hope again. So my new flour blend is as follows:

Equal parts of sorghum flour, GF oat flour, and potato starch.

A few other changes I have made helped as well.  Hot cereal everyday is hard on the digestive system, so I made a small batch of granola again with the new blend.  Waiting to have my morning tea after breakfast instead of before is easier on the tummy as well.  And as much for my mental sanity as my physical, I am not going to focus on anything else besides getting gluten, soy, and corn out of my diet.  I need to give my body time to adjust to the current changes.

Experiments with thickeners, soy sauce substitutes, and more baking still ahead. 

Edit:  Made biscuits tonight.  Equal proportions of the above flours don't always work well.  Worked for pancakes, not for biscuits.  Back to the drawing board.

Back to the Beginning

I feel like I have returned to the days when I first married and knew so little about cooking.  As more and more of the basic ingredients I cook with fall away, I am having to work with new ingredients and figure out how they work.  

Soy bit the dust this past week in my diet.  The irony of it is that I had just received four 20 ounce bottles of traditionally brewed soy sauce I had ordered on-line to be able to deal with the corn issue.  My husband opened one to help out some soy-free sweet and sour chicken I made.  He said it was very good soy sauce.  Glad to hear that at least.  (BTW, adding a little extra salt and sugar to the leftovers helped a lot, so I don't have to slog my way through eating rest of it.)

At this point I figure that once I get through testing out foods, I will make a list of what I can eat.  To keep writing about another food that I have to drop is getting a little depressing.  Even though my diet is restricted, it is a lot more positive to go at it from the challenge of "what good recipes can I come up with using only these ingredients".

This week I am planning to play around with sweet rice flour and potato starch to determine the proportions of water to thickener.  Building block # 1.  

Two Contrary Tummys

I have lost my culinary mojo.  My rhythm has fallen apart.  My recipes are dying like flies.  Why?  Because my hubby's stomach and mine have decided to take diverging paths and don't want to share.  He cannot eat dairy and has other diet restrictions because of IBS.  I am off gluten and corn.  He can't eat butter.  Margarine is out for me.  Apple vinegar is now a mainstay for me.  He can't eat apples.  That wonderful soy cream cheese and sour cream that was the answer to several recipe challenges is off the list for me.  Argh!  When I am putting together a meal, I am constantly forgetting to get all the parts and pieces going at the right time so that the meal is ready on time.  

Sometimes lately I feel like my conversation with my digestive system goes something like this:

Me:  "What?  Are you really going to be particular about this, too?"

Tummy:  "Yes, I believe I am."

Me:  "You have been rather a pain lately--literally.  And you are starting to cost me a lot of money."

Tummy:  "Sounds like a personal problem to me."

Me:  "No kidding."

My goal at this point is to go a week without a reaction to anything.  Once I go a month, I will feel like can finally get my grocery list settled.  Maybe one day I will have a post entitled "How Elzbee Got Her Groove Back."