Kneading Some Gluten free Bread

My beautiful kids..Isaac, Bella, and Zaya

Some life events that have occurred since my last post....We've decided to work on preparing our luxurious home to sell...it is our dream home, but the idea of finding some land, building a much more modest home (our current home is really big :0) and having it be completely self sustaining appeals to us...I am a reformed city girl (I loved my fashion, parties, and make-up), so this is a pretty big redirection of my life, than what I imagined...to say the least. We want several acres to mostly farm...and feed a lot of people. Be more involved with WOOFing (google it). To be able to travel is a big desire I have. To live completely debt free. A better plan, than the current path we're on.

Our beloved Great Dane died, early January. I was completely devastated by the whole awful experience. I learned how much our 4 legged companions can teach us about unconditional love. He was completely kind and faithful, even though i was not. We got a new puppy, Lexi. And she is reaping from the lessons I learned from Wasgo, and am not going to repeat, with her. Btw, she is an incredible dog that I have become very attached to....I can't imagine our family without her.

We are pursuing adoption....I have yet to know for certain when, or how we will be finding out beloved little girl, but it will happen. We are going through the foster care system locally...and we are looking into international adoption....we'll see, I will keep you posted!

Confession: out of all the kitchen creations that I make, my passion is bread. Now I went a month of basically eating raw, and it was nice to know that I am capable of preparing food in that state, but I get excited when the perfect loaf of bread comes out of an oven. Maybe it's because I remember my mother baking bread when I was very little, I'm not sure exactly why, but i get a thrill, baking bread. Since I now eat Gluten free, the challenge of finding a good bread recipe still persists, and the hope it will come out good (oh soooo many have not) still leaves me in suspense. The quest I've been on is to find a bread recipe without any starch. Gluten free bread mixes and recipes do an awful lot of starch flours. Starch is broken by the body as sugar...sugar elevates our blood levels and taxes our body's system, if in the constant elevated state (as in, eating sugar often, and lots, which is quite typical in America) your body stops burning fat....and starts storing it, among many, many, many other issues that sugar brings to our health....sooo, all that to say, I don't want starch flours in my bread.

I am not sure I will ever have a gluten free recipe that I like more than this recipe I am gonna share. It may be possible, things change all the time (I'm learning this can be exciting, not scary), but I doubt it.

I can't take credit for this recipe. It is the lovely Ali's creation. I plan on making cinnamon rolls with this recipe because you actually need to kneed it. (Pretty cool, eh?) This bread rises wonderfully, and tastes very much like whole wheat bread......YUMM-0

Kneading GF bread
preheat oven with bread pan inside the oven at 350

mix
2 /2 c of pretty warm water with:
2 1/4 t of yeast (or a packet)
2 t of maple syrup (or whatever sweetener
SET ASIDE ABOUT 10-15 MINUTES...you'll see bubble form on top, it means the yeast is activated...mix dry ingredients while you wait....once you see the bubbles are formed add:
1/3 c of ground chia seeds (I use my coffee grinder)
1/3 c of whole psyllium husk
let stand 2-3 minutes...no longer....then mix with dry ingredients (I use my kitchen aid) with your hands works just fine, also.

Dry ingredients:
1 c teff flour (Ethiopian grass seed, I grind it in my vita mix, it is super small already)
1 c sorghum flour (make sure it's organic, this is a gmo product otherwise)
1/2 c of brown rice flour (I used sweet brown rice)
1/2 c of cornmeal (this is a must organic product, I buy organic popcorn and grind it...you guessed it, in my vita mix, because corn is sooo heavily genetically modified, organic is the only way to go)
1t salt (mix together)

Once the ingredients are mixed well (you may need to add a little more water) bring out the loaf pan and gently place dough in pan, smoothing out corners till it lays evenly flat....cover with kitchen towel and let rise 20-30 minutes....it should be nice and doubled....place in oven for 50-60 minutes....the center should be 180 degrees....I have forgotten to pull my bread out, and not burned it....So it is very forgiving bread.

Once you get your bread out of the oven wrap with another kitchen towel and let cool for an hour or so.....cut and serve or cut and stick in freezer.....toast later. It will be a delish experience...

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AHHH!!!! It has taken me days, nay! Weeks to finally be able to acsess this account and resume my blogging!!! oh, I am thrilled, but still feeling the unending frustration to simply log on! *big sigh of relief*

My computer decided to not work on me, then there was paying for it to be fixed......so it has finally returned back to me, and now that I am able to do this. I will post some of the recipes for what I have been up to in the kitchen. Not long now... Pin It Now!

Raw Chocolate and Banana Mousse

I am trying to have a more correct blog. By correct I mean that there are complete sentences and appropriate capitalization, spelling, and grammar. This is not easy for me. I think I could have been a great writer in some life. A life without all the things I just mentioned in the previous sentences. I hate the boundaries and constraints that are placed on writing! I am perfectly happy to add ...... in between every new thought. I would be happy in a world without capitalization, paragraphs, correct sentences, and all the rest of it. I do like commas, like, a lot. So feel free to help me move to a more correctly written blog.

I am almost through the holiday season. Eating well, and making healthier choices during this time of year can get tricky. I think the support, or lack of, makes a difference. I bring dishes and desserts to family gatherings, which makes it easier for me, and for my kids, to eat what is more suitable for our eating habits. It can still get a little tricky explaining to my children why they cannot have the processed sweets/foods that the other kids are eating, but overall my kids get over it, and eat the sweets and foods that they CAN have. Such is the way of parenting, trying to guide them make the healthier choices. My greatest challenge with my kids is trying to show them that real food is more important for them (how food makes them feel) than what "tastes" (aka chemically tricking their brains) good. It gets confusing to little ones. How can it be not good for me, if it "tastes" good? My son's are better about eating well. My daughter sees it as the "forbidden fruit". Sigh. It is a journey for our household, I'll let you know how the different steps come along.

My house continues to go through an obnoxious amount of banana's. I made raw banana creme pie last night for dinner. It came out soooo amazing, that i can't seem to stop myself from eating it. I'll have to share the recipe sometime. Speaking of raw desserts. I have been eating them for dinner a couple of times in the past week. I don't even feel guilty.

I made this dessert weeks ago for dinner (it's taken me a long time to post, i will get better about this). It filled Toby and I up! I was satisfied and it left a smile on my face. Confession: I am not a fan of chocolate. Anyone who knows me, knows this oddity about me. Since cutting out processed food, I occasionally enjoy a little here or there. In fact, if my chocolate doesn't come with a berry or fruit, I will pass on the treat. So this came with Alaskan blueberries....and bananas!

I used my vita-mix to blend the following ingredients....but since bananas and avocados are pretty mushy, I bet a regular blender would work just fine


Raw Chocolate/Banana Mousse

1 large avocado
1 large banana
1/4 raw cocoa powder
pinch of himalayan salt
1/2 c of agave syrup

Blend....and enjoy!

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Vegan Coconut Curry Delight

It has become habit for me to oversleep on the weekends. I am trying to remedy this by getting out of bed after 8 hours of sleep. Ever since i cut out alcohol and coffee from my diet, i can sleep within 5-10 minutes of laying my head down. Having struggled with insomnia most of my life, I am very surprised and elated that i no longer have to (it's been a year now). Who knew, that is all my body needed? But weekends i don't have to get up early to send the kids off, so i have been oversleeping. Let me tell you, I wake up feeling terrible and cranky when I've slept too long. It will take me an hour, at least, to get focused.

I got up today and cleaned! Talk about being a hero. i have 3 floors in my home, it makes cleaning my whole house in a day, not ideal. So i take out a floor at a time. Truth be told, i do not enjoy cleaning, at all!!! I always feel like it's taking from time I'd rather be in the kitchen. I did it, though. I cleaned the basement/first floor, tomorrow is the 3rd floor.  Then i will be ready for the holidays. I can spend it in the kitchen and not feel guilty, lol.

Whenever i want to whip up something quick and that tastes amazing, I think curry! Ethnic food is pretty creative, full of flavor, and typically will not have animal ingredients. On the extremely rare occasions that we go out to eat, and they are pretty rare, we go to Thai restaurants. Since i live in the coldest place (recently, i read an article that gave Fairbanks the #1 ranking) it has honestly been very difficult to find good restaurants.  The food is rarely fresh and the prices never match the quality.
So this recipe is a great way to have a Thai restaurant experience. Get your rice cooking and prepared. You can use whatever Thai curry paste you want, I used this tonight.  You can also use whatever vegetables you want to flavor with. It is very versatile to your preference. Here's what you need:

Vegan Coconut Curry

1/2 a large onion cubed
2T of olive oil
1 bunch of fresh thyme
1bay leaf
1-2 garlic cloves
a few small pieces of fresh ginger (i store mine in the freezer, and grate it whenever i need it)
1/4c of tamari
1/4c of curry paste
2 cans of coconut milk
whatever veggies you have in your fridge...for this I used
1 carrots
1 zucchini
1 red bell pepper
1 head of broccoli

(I have used potatoes, blanched kale, and even fresh spinach....I bet frozen peas are perfect, as well)
In a pan heat your onions in the olive oil. Put fresh thyme, and bay leaves in the pan. Once the onions are cooking, add the curry paste and tamari. Blend well, add the rest of the veggies you have prepared. Add your coconut milk and let the ingredients simmer for 15 minutes...

You can put the curry on top of the rice (my favorite with this recipe is brown basamati, YUM!)

I would've had a much prettier picture for you to see, but i ate it before i took the picture :)
Enjoy!



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