Another Catch Up

I feel like I dropped off the planet for a while with all my diet issues, but life has reached a more sane level, so time to do a little catch up.

Knitting:

A recent trip enlightened me to what great travel projects small hats can be.  Easy to pack and nice to pick up in quiet moments, a hat in progress will definitely be a good thing to have on hand for future travels.

Here are pictures (finally!) of two that I completed earlier in year.

The first hat was fun to make until the decreases at the top.  Knitting four stitches together at once was a trying process.  However, I did see some projects where the knitter did a different pattern for the crown, so may give it another go sometime.  The second hat was just a pleasure all the way around.  It will definitely be one I make again.


Quilting:


I had a grouping of fabrics in my stash that were green and purple with the feature fabric having a pattern of grapes on it.  While I really like the fabrics, the colors were not something I would use in my house, so I decided to make a giveaway quilt.  

Here is "My Father's Vineyard":

My camera did not capture the colors as well as I would like, so it is hard to tell how well the fabrics work together. (something to work on)  This quilt had several firsts for me.  It is the largest quilt I have made so far, and the first time I have done a pieced backing.  It is also the first time I have done an all over quilting design, and I find that I am not a fan.  I will probably stick with motifs and fill designs that work within the parameters of the block pattern in most of my quilts, but I will not rule out giving all over quilting a try again.  

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. 

Adjustments

A few months ago I started an experiment with my diet to see if I could find the source to some health problems I have been having.  As a result, there have been major changes in what I can eat, and also how I eat.  One change that has helped is not having my tea first thing in the morning, but rather after breakfast.  Though I drink herbal teas, having them on an empty stomach was not working well.  With that change in schedule, I decided to also make part of that time my time to knit.  Knitting has been rather hit and miss the last few weeks, and I really need to be making better progress.  

Yesterday, during my tea time, I bound off a shawl and worked on another I had started but laid aside.  I find I do best with one project going at a time--one personal quilt, one quilt for my quilt group, and one knitting project.  Each has its time slot in my day or week, so I know that I will get to it--well, in theory, at least.  


I realized that I need to get some pictures of a couple of hats I finished some months ago, so will hopefully do that this weekend at my parents.  They have some lovely outdoor areas which make for good photo settings.  If all goes as planned, I will post those pictures next week.


Until then!

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.