Baking wheat-less bread - my first loaf!

Although I hadn't yet received my order for the required flours needed for this recipe, I did have the whole ingredients on hand so ground them up in my super blender. The flour wasn't exactly right but close enough.

It smelled amazing while it was baking and even though my loaf pan was a bit too big, it still rose nicely and I have a teen son anxiously waiting to slather some butter on it and try it out.

Very productive afternoon researching gluten-free recipes for some of our favorite foods. Found some great ones and will post them or their links after I give them a try.

Christmas isn't over!

 I love our neighbor across the street from us. He doesn't follow the modern norm of putting up Christmas decorations the minute the leftover Thanksgiving turkey is put away. No, he decorates his yard and home a day or two before Christmas and they stay up until the Feast of the Three Kings or there about. It is so sad that all of December is spent celebrating Christmas and just when the Octave of Christmas begins, so many people end it and the Valentine cards show up in the stores and people start planning for that.

Christmas begins the day Jesus was born and how much we and our children would miss if that was it as far as it went. There is so much more than just the Bethlehem scene to consider. What about the murder of the Holy Innocents? Herod's worry about a possible claim to his earthly throne? The Three Kings, their meeting with Herod, and their vision about not returning to Herod after their visit with Jesus and His family? Too many parts of an important history are left out.

To me, the saddest part of Christmas is all the trees dumped by the curb for trash pick up before the end of Christmas Day. Mothers sigh with relief that all this fuss is done for another year. Holiday visitors have long gone. All many have is leftover Christmas treats and forgotten reasons for the season. If Christmas lasted as long as our frantic shopping for it, we'd certainly be a happier people.

Happy New Year!

Well, 2013 has successfully dawned and I have neither broken nor started my resolution for this year yet. I will claim to be ahead of the game at this point!

The last couple of weeks got us all off schedule and I'm looking forward to resuming my projects and having a generally predictable time plan. I know, we make our plans but God makes it happen . . . or not. I'm sort of learning to be flexible!

Although I did pretty well on making Christmas gifts ahead of time in 2012, I'm starting even earlier so I don't sit there the night before Christmas and hurriedly finish up quilting and crocheting projects.

Lots of prayer required to see us through the coming year. While the government unsuccessfully deals with massive monatery math problems, we will see our taxes rise and the onset of obamacare hit our paychecks. More cost and less care as the math never has worked on that agenda.

We are praying for a change in the economy as two of my three college graduates still haven't found work. One of my children has to live and work in another country in order to even have a job.

We are trying to keep an optimistic view point but are cutting back on spending and making do. I wonder when the politicians will realize that when taxes go up, buying tends to go down which, basically, leaves things pretty much the same with no real improvement.

Anyway, we are starting the New Year, dressed in our Sunday best and attending Mass. No matter what the outcome of the year, God has blessed us with a new year to try and make better.

Wheat-Less New Year's Resolution?

Happy New Year to those of the world who are already into 2013 and an early one to the people who are still in expectation of the arrival of 2013.

I've never made a New Year's Resolution that I've kept for more than a week but am going for another try for the soon-to-be-here 2013 - a change in diet and how I provide for my family's meals. Right now, I am doing pretty well on that score as eating out is a treat and my children actually prefer eating at home. I watch the fats and every dinner plate sports a protein, carb, and fresh vegetable.

As I posted last week, I recently picked up and had to purchase Wheat Belly Cookbook by William Davis, MD. I was not so much fascinated with the idea of giving up wheat but the fact that this book provided recipes that were not 'weird' or overly healthy and 'green'.  I was treated to a plate of 'health' cookies when people started making changes in their diet and they were not tasty and didn't look like anything a person should voluntarily eat. Needless to say, I opened this book with some apprehension. Much to my surprise, the recipes were appealing with the only thing missing from them being wheat products.

The book begins with a history of wheat and the 'whys' of omitting them from our diet. Many of the problems listed, were happening in my family to one degree or another. My husband has always had digestive issues and a lot of what I was reading hit home. We decided to slowly start replacing wheat in our diets with thoughts of eventually going totally no wheat and see how things go.

Needless to say, I already have some of the suggested 'flours' on order and was delighted to discover that they weren't overly expensive. I did my research and according to my finds, Nuts.com seems to fit the bill for us. Just Google it on-line if you want to check it out. I was impressed with both their inventory and the fact that an e-mailed question was responded to within half a day.

The food item that gets eaten the most in households is bread. I decided to start there and incorporate that into our meals first of all. It was a win/win for me as I enjoy baking and love trying out new challenges. This is the recipe from the book.

Basic Bread
1 1/4 cups blanched almond flour
1/4 cup + 2 tablespoons garbanzo bean aka chickpea flour
1/4 cup ground golden flax seeds
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon cinnamon (optional)
1/4 teaspoon sea salt
5 eggs, separated
1/4 cup butter, melted
1 tablespoon buttermilk
1 tablespoon xylitol or 4 drops liquid stevia or to desired sweetness

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease an 8 1/2" x 4 1/2" loaf pan.

In a food processor, combine the almond flour, garbanzo bean flour, ground flax seeds, baking soda, cinnamon (if using), and salt. Pulse until well blended. Add the egg yolks, butter, buttermilk, and sweetener and pulse until just blended.

In a large bowl and using an electric mixer on high, beat the egg whites until soft peaks form. Pour into the flour mixture and pulse until the egg whites are evenly distributed but do not run the machine at a constant speed. Spread into the prepared pan and bake for 40 minutes, or until a wooded pick inserted in the center comes out clean.

Cool in the pan for 10 minutes. Remove and cool completely on a rack.

Per slice: 158 calories, 7 grams protein, 7 grams carbohydrates, 12 grams total fat, 2 grams saturated fat, 3 grams fiber, 200 mg sodium.

Recipe from Wheat Belly Cookbook by William Davis, MD., page 225

Easy Beer Bread . . .

I may have posted this before, but it is a good reminder for using up a spare can of beer you might find lurking in the depths of your refrigerator. You can impress your family and put some warm bread on the table with a bowl of hot soup to celebrate the cold, rainy and/or snowy days of Winter.

Beer Bread

A quick, easy, and tasty loaf of bread!
3 cups all-purpose flour

3 teaspoons baking powder

1 ½ teaspoons salt

3 tablespoons granulated sugar

1 12-ounce can of beer

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Lightly grease a 9 x 5 x 3-inch loaf pan. Combine all ingredients, mixing well. Pour into prepared pan and bake for one hour our until golden.

The Holy Innocents . . .

One of our assistant pastors gave a very moving sermon this morning about the sacrifice the mothers made when the Holy Innocents were slaughtered in essence to insure Jesus lived. Father said that the death of these babies was, in a way, an offering to the beginning of our Christian faith. Father said the families lost  their future and happiness because of this. Even though we can assume that God took these innocent babies into his Heavenly arms, the earthly arms of the bereaved parents ached and future generations were changed for these families.

During the election, this same pastor was a supporter of the re-elected president. I had to wonder how he could deliver such a remarkable sermon and not see the contradiction in his heart?  After Mass, I complimented him on his sermon and remarked that 'holy innocents' were still being murdered today. He looked very startled and I added, 'through abortion'. He quickly agreed but said things were getting better.

Yes, there have been some changes in the mind set of people over abortion. Some clinics have closed. Even some abortion doctors and advocates have changed their mind on the procedure. These are great changes in the babies that will not die through these hands but the large picture is still too huge for the safety of the unborn. We had a chance, with a change of admininistrtion to initiate some changes but 50% of the Catholic vote decided to overlook this possibility.

Father isn't the only one of the 50% in our parish, unfortunately. One young man offered to debate anyone on the issue of re-electing the incumbant and voting in a more kindly administration when it came to the unborn. Well, we know how that turned out.

History repeats itself . . . Moses survived to take his place in Biblical history. Jesus survived to bring us Salvation. Who among the millions of unborn murdered each year had the potential from change for us? Have we already and will be be throwing away that person, too?

Wheat problems? Would never have thought this . . .

I was browsing the books at our local Costco Store and one in particular caught my attention - The Wheat Belly Diet! Naturally, I had to pick it up and see what in the world it was all about. Seems that over the years, the wheat crop has gone through a lot of evolution with crossbreeding and such and the wheat we have today isn't anything like the wheat that was grown even fifty years ago. Many people attribute a lot of the health problems to the consumption of wheat.

Now, most diets tell us to incorporate more grains into our diet for reasons of health but I read in this book that wheat products actually increase the surge of insulin in our systems and cause us to experience hunger  sooner than later. This is why the book refers to the 'wheat belly' because even with what is considered a healthy diet, today, wheat will still put on weight where we want it the least . . . in the stomach area.

Although I am not totally sold on the concept, it did make some sense to, perhaps, cut back on wheat products. Just a check of the products at the grocery store revealed that wheat byproducts show up in foods you wouldn't consider in need of wheat.

The book had a lot of interesting recipes and they weren't weird or odd, they just left out wheat. In fact, many of them incorporated a lot more good stuff which makes sense in any diet. Many times, I've checked into 'healthy eating' recipes and books and it usually starts with spending money on a lot of speciality items or appliances to make it all 'work'. These recipes were pretty common sense. My only hurdle is the family but I'm thinking that if I add one, new item to our usual diets, it may become a regular part of our diets. I was also amazed in that it didn't substitute this, that, and the other with soy products. In fact, I didn't note any use of soy in the recipes.

So, there is a very minor New Year's Resolution for my kitchen . . . trying to incorporate better, healthier food into our meals without scaring the family off and into the arms of the nearest fast food establishment.