Flours and granola

I did it ! I finally had my blood taken. It was certainly not easy, there were buckets for tears involved, But the relief of actually doing it and being that much closer to figuring things out, felt great.

So I decided that I am going to start creating that cookbook again. This time though, there will be obvious changes. No gluten, no dairy, and minimal refined sugars. I have been throwing myself into the world of gluten free living. There are so many little changes that have to be made when baking so that you don't end up with a foul tasting brick at the end. I never knew that you had to add different starches and flours together to some what replicate the texture/consistancy of glutenous flours. I was always under the assumption that brown rice flour would cut it every time... I was so wrong. I have a drawer full of these starches and flours now! White and Brown flours, Sweet sorghum flour, tapioca starch, potato starch and flour, millet flour, oat flour...

Speaking of oats... They are on the fence with many people with Gluten intolerance. They themselves are not usually the culprit, but the chances of them being cross contaminated with wheat and barley is fairly high. I tried out gluten free oats and they were great, no reaction... But I thought I would give it a shot with Quaker Oats, just to see if I was that small percent that doesnt have a bad reaction. For the first little while, they were okay. Then slowly everytime I ate them, I could feel my stomach not sitting right. I attempted yesturday, and that will be my last bowl of regular oats. I was half way through the bowl and my stomach ballooned up and I had stomach cramps. So I went out today and picked up some certified Gluten free oats. I have been craving Granola and yogurt (soy) for a long time, so I created this recipe...

Oat and buckwheat Granola

2 cups GF Oats
1/3 cup Buckwheat
1 1.5 Tbsp Brown Sugar ( I used Demerara sugar)
1/2 tsp salt
1/8 cup Agave nectar
2 Tbsp Water
1 Tbsp Coconut oil

Preheat oven to 275

It a large bowl, mix together oats, buckwheat, sugar, and salt.
In a small saucepan, mix together agave, water and coconut oil. Warm through and pour into the oat mixture. Mix well and pour onto a cookie sheet.
Bake for 25 mins

While oats are baking, mix together 1/3 cup unsweetened coconut, 1/3 cup raisins, 1/2 cut slivered almonds and 1/2 tsp cinnamon.

After the 25 mins are up, Mix in the "extras" and continue to bake for another 10-15 mins.
Cool completely before storing in an air tight conatiner.

( you can use a variety of different dried fruit and nuts for the "extras". This is just my personal favorite)

steps.

Where to start.

I finally went to the doctors this morning to get a referal to a nutritionist or a dietician to start figuring out why most food hurts me. I have spent probably 95% of my time awake, searching for answers and testing out food. I finally broke yesterday when I ate a golden delicious apple and experienced sharp stomach pains. An apple! I have always been able to eat apples and not feel like that. It just feels like it is getting worse.
The doctor sent me on my way with a sheet of paper. The paper is for a blood test. I hate(fear) blood tests. But, I am going tomorrow morning, because as much as I cant stand them, the idea of living with this frustration is far worse.
Through my own trail and error, I do know that wheat makes me ill. Right after eating it I usually have very painful stomach cramps, but notice it more the next day when I have zero energy, muscle aches, headache, and more recently I have noticed it severely effecting my mood. Before It was just the stomach ache, now I start to feel really depressed and quiet. Scary to think how fast things went from bad to the worst.
I have known I had lactose intolerance my whole life. When I was little, after I had dairy, my stomach would get really bloated and rock hard. So I have been drinking rice, soy and almond milk since then. I had still been eating butter and cheese though, which does not make any sense, so I have cut that out recently.
Alas, the search continues for a pain free life...

You can't eat that...

Hello!

It has been so long since my last post, But that does not mean I have not been busy in the kitchen! I have still been making bread, despite the heat wave we have been having... Trying my hand at spelt bread lately. I found a recipe on breadtopia.com which has worked out really well! I always find that when I bake with spelt, it turns out to be a dense disappointment. But the rise and texture of this bread is great! I am going to be testing out different flours and rising agents in the next little while, as I am finding that I just dont think my body can tolerate wheat. My intolerances to food drive me crazy! I can't have milk or soft cheeses ( my favorite!), sugar of any sort makes my skin flare up, wheat, coffee, fruit, blah blah blah... seriously. If I eat a diet of strictly fish and greens, I will be set. But my love of food usually comes first and I pay the price...

Oh well! Pictures will come soon...

Jam

I went strawberry picking with my sister Amanda a few days ago, and came home with 13lbs of strawberries... that is a lot of berries! So, naturally, I made jam. I made the basic strawberry, then in the second batch, I added some raspberries and lime. I really love the combination. I am really looking forward to making straight raspberry jam, and blackberry too!

Summer is here! I can't wait to get some more of these gems from the farmers market Sunday!

Banana Bread

Bananas. I found a whole bunch of organic bananas for 50 cents/pound and could not resist. Banana bread was their future, as well as the freezer. And let me tell you, this recipe is hands down the best I have ever had. I am never really satisfied with my baking, there is always something to adjust, but I messed around with some recipes and came up with this one. It is a winner. When I make banana bread I add nuts, either pecans or walnuts and if the mood strikes, chocolate chips. Although that is very rare. Not a huge fan of chocolate chip laden foods. It has to be either full blown chocolate, or none at all... usually. This bread is really the base.

My Banana Bread.

2 eggs
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup white sugar
4 medium bananas (1 1/3 cups mashed)
1/3 cup whole milk
1 Tbsp vanilla
1 Tbsp melted butter
1 cup all-purpose flour
3/4 whole wheat flour
2 1/4 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt

Preheat oven to 325 f. Butter and lightly flour loaf pan.
In a large bowl, mix together eggs and sugars. Add mashed bananas, milk, vanilla and melted butter. Add white and whole wheat flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Mix until just combined. Pour into prepared loaf pan and bake for 1 hour. Let rest 10 minutes, then remove from pan to cooling rack.

Enjoy!

In the last two days.

Hello. It has been a long stretch of time since I have posted. I have tried many times to post pictures but It took to long for them to load, I became frustrated and went on to other projects. So as I was sitting in bed at 3:30 this morning ( I woke hungry and needed a piece of cake) I decided that I would just write about my cooking and projects, and the pictures will come later.
I have been busy. I tried my hand making a sachertorte yesturday, this was a long time coming ( http://www.gastronomersguide.com/2009/05/sachertorte.html) a friend requested it for Easter, but I made cupcakes instead. It seemed too daunting a task to be made for a group I was still quite shy around. Delicious, especially at 3:30am. There are a few tweeks here and there that I will do when I make it again. I really like trying to perfect a recipe. I have spent days making a peticular dish or dessert over and over, hopefully improving it with time and experience.
I went to the farmers market on sunday and picked up some young zucchini and a glorious bunch of purple kale. Last night, I made dinner for katrina and jenn. I have fond memories of this hardy meal, sitting in the cafe after close with nathan and alistair, digging into it with our fingers and a fork ( and cold beer of course). It is a one pan meal of sausages from oyama, onions, tomatoes, zucchini, olive oil and salt and pepper. After all those flavours marry together, you soak up the juices with handfuls of crusty bread. It is surly one of my favorite comfort foods. simple and full of good memories. Like comfort food should be.
Tuesdays being my usual day off, I woke up, put on some music, made some coffee, and started looking for recipes to fill my day. I was lucky enough to find some beautifully spotted bananas on the counter and still having some zucchinis, I made a bread out of the two. It is still cooling on the counter, so I can not comment on the flavour, but the smell that fills my house is very promising.
Oh and there is more... I have been looking for different ways to use my sourdough starters ( I have one apple starter and one "regular" starter that I have been feeding and using for months) other than the usual suspect, bread, and I found a recipe for pancakes. You use one cup of starter for them, and they turned out alright. Needs some tweeking ;) But there seem to be an abundance of different starters. You can essencially make a starter out of any fruit that will ferment. My next project is a potato starter. Yum, potato bread...

chicks and snakes

Okay, I have two chicks. I have had them for a week now and am starting to loose my mind. If I have another sleepless night from their constant chirping, I'm going to loose it. snap. They are terribly cute, and If I hold out a few weeks longer, they will find a nice home in Richmond...
And holy shit! Midge laid 12 eggs. I did not see this coming. I just thought she was a really big girl. haha. She is a very protective mother, as she coiled and hissed as I removed the lone egg she disregarded. I opened that egg, curiosity got the best of me and I really wanted to know if the eggs were fertilized. Turns out they are and I will be expecting 10-11 baby snakes in 50-60 days. If anyone is interested in having one, feel free to contact me about it...
This is moments before I cut it in half. I definitly cringed apon seeing the yogurt-like fluid come spilling out. There was a little snake fetus inside, probably the size of a nickle. The shell was not soft and not hard, more like leather, and the dents in the egg are from lack of humidity. crazy.

Little things

I wanted to make something labor intensive yesterday, so I decided on braised oxtail ravioli. I have been wanting to make this for some time. The filling was delicious! Oxtail, swiss chard, and parmesan cheese. That was certainly the easy part... I tried my hand at homemade pasta. I am pretty sure I pulled a muscle in my back kneading and rolling out the dough. I highly recommend a pasta maker if you ever have the desire to take this on. It was... okay, I just could not roll it out thin enough. My brother was here to help with the whole ordeal. He is currently attending a culinary program, (same one that I will be attending come fall) and he is no weakling... but struggled as well to roll it out sufficiently. Oh well... This just means that I will soon own more appliances. I LOVE appliances. Currently in my collection - ice cream maker, dehydrator, kitchen aid stand mixer, juicer, food processor, pop corn popper, bread machine ( although this has not been used in years ), crock pot, rice cooker, waffle iron, sandwich press, blender and small food processor. I have been dying for a meat grinder... this will come soon.

It has been far too long, But yesterday I finally bought some plants and played in the dirt for awhile. There are some cucumbers, thyme, oregano, basil,chives,rosemary,beans, strawberries ,garlic, beets, carrots and I found a pumpkin plant for those HUGE pumpkins. You know the ones... where you can probably fit inside... oh man! I grabbed a lavender plant too, which was pretty cheap considering the others I have looked at are upwards for $20. This little gem was $6. I cant wait to reap the benefits of my little garden.

I have decided to take a hiatus from baking, for a few days at least, to work on developing a greater strength at cooking. I ended on a pretty amazing note though, last night I made cinnamon buns with cream cheese icing. Hands down the best I have ever made, although I made a stupid mistake at the beginning and had to remake the batch... the end result was worth the redo. Any ideas where I should start?

Sleep well...

I woke up this morning thinking and dreaming of food. It has actually taken over full force. I have been baking everyday, and though goes into the preparation of dinner. I have always been a stronger baker than I have a cook, but hopefully that will change with time and knowledge.
I do have to come to terms with the fact that I will have to start moving more, i.e. running and biking. I can feel myself getting softer. Not okay. I will have to find some balance between the two. I live pretty close to kits pool, and would love to start swimming again. I can't wait for summer to come alive, although we have had some beautiful days this spring so far...



This is the dream I had last night and I jumped up to write it all down. I forget them very quickly and wanted to keep this one... Unedited, raw morning jumble...

-I just had the most amazing dream! I was walking through what seemed like gas town and I was surrounded by food. people were carrying huge loaves of bread, and it was super busy. I went looking for the creamiest piece of brie cheese I could find. I went into this enormous shop which was run by all this sweet little ladies. And the owner came in who is actually a customer at the cafe I work at now. I asked the lady to help me find this cheese that I was dying for and she was a little flaky, always forgetting things, so she showed me one and I knew it was going to be the best. So I said I would take some, and she said okay, Ill go grab you a piece and came back with the wrong one, and I reminded her of which one, and in the mean time, I saw Donna there. She thought it was funny that I was there since my tolerance to dairy is so poor. I held up little jars of rennet to show her and let her know that I would be soon making my own cheese. The lady came back with a blue cheese. not al all what I want. again she went back and came out with it. it was like custard. the next thing I know, I was in a kitchen with a baguette with brie, fresh figs and drizzling honey on it. yum.-

Time and crafts.

It has been a really nice day today. I lounged around the house until the early afternoon, went over to Timothy's place to cut his hair and load up my iphone with some much needed new music. I have a terrible habit of "killing songs", as Katrina likes to call it. I get obsessed with a few and play them on repeat until I can't stand them anymore. Not a good system.
I have been practicing my hand sewing. It is so frustrating to have an idea in your head, and know exatly what you want it to look like but the steps to get there are not as smooth of a process. I will get the hang of it...
Started knitting a pair of socks today. I have a bunch of sock yarn, but never followed through with the projects. They are quite time consuming and intricate. Although, all I seem to have right now is time. I will be working more next week and hopefully get back into a working routine. I have also been thinking about going to culinary school in July. The plan was for september, but I would really like to throw myself into it and I am pretty excited about it. I should have been cooking and baking all along. Speaking of baking, I made a very delicious bread tonight. Whole wheat honey bread. This one will be a staple around here for awhile...

smoky salt.

My legs are going to hurt tomorrow. I went on an lengthy bike ride this afternoon with Eric. It was really nice to see him. We have talked about going to Go-Fish for what seems like years, and we finally got around to it today. Delicious.


Tonight for dinner, I made a celery root soup. I have never cooked with celery root in the past, but look forward to creating more with it. Its a rather ugly root vegetable but smells so fresh and clean when you shave away the outer layer. The taste is very subtle and delicate. There were leeks in it as well, so overall, a very light soup.

I sprinkled some olive oil and french salt at the end, which had a smoky flavor and complimented the soup very well.
I am off now to mix up some bread for baking tomorrow. I have not strayed far from the "no-"knead" version, just interchanging yeast and sour dough starter. I like them both. I have an idea for a pretty elaborate bread. I want to make a braided bread, and in each of the three pieces, fill them with something. I have yet to figure that part out... probably sweet. maybe some nuts and dried fruit. hmm...

No Stress.

It has been quite an insightful past few days. I have decided to withdraw from the vet assistant program I was in and pursue another career. I was up at 4:00 am this morning, tossing and turning, and the more I thought of my choices, the more it was not the right path for me. I have not made this decision lightly, in fact I was second guessing it from week two. I feel good now.

Busy weekend. I am really going to take the "no stress" approach to life for the next little while. I went on a walk tonight, something I have not done in some time. It was great. I felt like I was the only one in the world. The air was warm and the sun was gone and the music in my ears was calming. It is starting to feel really nice to be alone. I have not felt this way in ages because I have not been alone for ages. Embrace It.

A days worth.

Breakfast... I am amazed how versatile eggs are. They are perfect. I made a quiche yesterday morning, then used up some egg whites in the afternoon with a pavlova. I have been dying for some chickens. I would love nothing more than to be able to go out in the morning and collect the eggs and plan my days baking around how many I have gathered. Until then, I will have to make another trip to the store...

I brought "her" home tonight after picking up a rather large aquarium. Which seems inadequate when she is inside, although I don't think she will be in there too often when I am home.
(sorry the photos are not clear, she was moving quite a bit)



I was able to wrap a few skeins today and start some over due projects that have been on my mind for some time now. I go to school with a girl who just so happens to work at a wool shop and will be able to supply me with an abundance of wool for half the price. I am thrilled with this idea. My next project will be a sweater and I was thinking cashmere... or maybe baby alpaca?


Today has passed by incredibly fast and I seem to have completed only a fraction of what I set out to do. Don't get me wrong, today has had many wonderful adventures, But there is always an abundance of small tasks left. Oh well, tomorrow is only a sleep away.

Walk down more alleys.

Life and Snakes

This is the fourth day of sickness. Having a lung infection is brutal. I have coughed so much, I can actually see abdominal muscles forming.I'm starting to feel much better though and tomorrow will return to school. I have really enjoyed the time alone. I am going to miss it.
Although I should have been resting, I have been puttering around the house, keeping busy with organizing and still setting up the new place. It will take some time to actually feel settled, But it's coming along.

I have been thinking about getting another ball python for some time, and came across this reptile refuge in Richmond. It is actually run by a lady I knew years ago. weird. I went by and checked out all the snakes ( there are so many) and decided on Monty. She is 14 years old and 4 - 4.5 feet long. She was rescued by a lady from this younger guy who used to burn her with cigarettes. What a loser. I want to change her name as I have already had Monty, the hedgehog. But what would I call her. I already have a one year old ball, Mojo. hmm.

Inevitable.

I have wanted to start a blog for some time now. I tend to procrastinate. A lot. While I write this, I know that I should be doing school work. This could be detrimental to my learning. There just does not seem to be enough hours in a day. Although, I think those who say that, just do not prioritize well. I just rather be baking or knitting instead of studying cat and dog anatomy.