Another goodbye

I have been fighting an inside battle with myself lately about our gluten free, milk free diet. I haven't been able to decide whether it is a good or had choice. Yes gluten is not great, but the more research I do, the more I find that the gluten in our wheat is at least better than the extra fats and sodium in gluten free flours. 

  What we have decided is to switch to whole grain, avoid bleached flours and grains, and to consider our intake of grains. 

  There is so much information and opinions out there on the Internet and its hard to say which is the right path to follow. I'd say if you are not gluten intolerant, there is no need to cut it back. But if you are, I would suggest sorghum flour as your choice. I did some research on it and it is almost wheats perfect substitute as far as nutrition. 

Blueberry syrup

I wanted to try out these gluten free pancakes I had seen on a blog the other day but I didn't want to ruin them with a super sweet and unhealthy maple syrup. I found a recipe for a blueberry sauce in Elana Amsterdams The Gluten-Free Almond Flour Cookbook. Her recipe although good was a little too bitter and runny so I changed it a bit to fit my fancy.

Wonderful pancakes. I will have to share this recipe also sometime. 

 Blueberry syrup over my breakfast oatmeal.

For my version of blueberry syrup:

1 cup blueberries, frozen or fresh

Pinch of nutmeg

Cornstarch slurry (1:1 ratio of cornstarch and water)

1/4 cup water 

1-2 tsp agave nectar

 Heat blueberries and nutmeg in saucepan till soft. Add water and slurry.

 Cook 1 minute or so. Add nectar. 

Use immediately or let cool. 

Keeps in fridge for about 3 days.

Out With The Old, In With The New: Part II

 Along with changing our body care products and what not into healthy homemade and all natural, we also thought: "we cant just change the one thing without the other". Why worry about what's going on me if I'm not going to worry about what is going in my body also? 

 I did a little research and came to the conclusion that my body is super unhealthy. There is a lot of junk I have consumed and it is time to start eating healthy. We decided to go with a gluten free dairy free lifestyle. We still eat meat and eggs for the sake of our sanity.  I won't go into a nutrition lesson about gluten or dairy today but I will start off with saying: just because its gluten and dairy free doesn't mean it can't be yummy. 

Last night we were all craving a little sweetness and we chose brownies. I pulled the recipe from king Arthur's all purpose gluten free flour brownies recipe. I changed the flour to what I had which was white rice flour instead of a blend or brown rice. I would try to use brown rice flour to make this recipe to add extra health benefits to it but the white turned out delicious. I also used coconut oil instead of butter. 

 

Gluten Free Brownies

ingredients

1 1/2 cups sugar. ( try to find an organic sugar. I had white sugar on hand so I used that)

1/2 cup coconut oil 

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 tsp. homemade vanilla extract

3/4 cup (2 1/2 ounces) Dutch-process cocoa 

3 large eggs

3/4 cup bobs red mill stoneground white rice flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 cup chocolate chips, optional

1 cup chopped nuts, optional

1) Preheat the oven to 350°F. Grease an 8" square pan or 9" round pan; either should be at least 2" deep.

2) Place the sugar, oil, and salt in a microwave-safe bowl or saucepan. Heat over medium heat, stirring with a heatproof spatula until the butter melts and the mixture lightens in color. This step helps melt the sugar, which will give the brownies a shiny crust.

3) If you've heated the sugar and butter in a saucepan, transfer the mixture to a bowl; otherwise, just leave the hot ingredients right in their microwave-safe bowl. Blend in the vanilla and cocoa, then add the eggs and mix until shiny.

4) Blend in the flour or flour blend and the baking powder. Stir in the chips and/or nuts, if you're using them.

5) Pour the batter into the prepared pan, spreading it to the edges.

6) Bake the brownies for 33 to 38 minutes, until the top is set; and a cake tester or toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean or nearly so, with perhaps a few wet crumbs, or a tiny touch of chocolate at the tip of the tester. ( mine only took about 27 minutes or so. Be careful not to burn. They will become overly gritty and rice flour has a gritty enough texture of its own)

7) Remove from the oven and cool for about 15 minutes before cutting. Once the brownies are cool, cover tightly with plastic.

Yield: 16 brownies.

Out With The Old, In With The New: Part I

  The other day i was, well again, browsing the Internet when I came across wellnessmama.com. Wellness mama is a nutritionist and a journalist mother that took health to the next level. She makes all sorts of homemade treasures anywhere from food to body products to cleaning and so forth. She mentioned that people today are starting to recognize their health, or lack there of rather, and are caring more so now what it was they are putting into their bodies. However, no one is really worried about what they are putting onto their bodies. It was then that it occurred to me that our bodies absorb anything we place on it. After all, that is the soul purpose of lotions and topical creams and such right? I am 31 weeks pregnant with my third child and i hadn't thought the creams and lotions and body sprays could affect my growing baby. i decided there are plenty of alternatives that can benefit me, my husband and my kids that are healthy and safe for our bodies.

 We unconsciously damage our bodies by rubbing harmful chemicals and unnatural products on our bodies. We ruin our skin cells and sure these products can create a quick fix, but ten or fifteen years down the road all that anti aging cream and foundation you plastered all over yourself is going to have its long term affect that no one thinks about. You will have broken down your body with the stuff.

 So, the big question, for my family any way: what are we going to do about it?

    /Out with the old, in with the new/

 I will be the first one to say however, that just because something says "all natural" doesn't mean it is all natural. You need to read the labels and ingredients and do your research. These all natural products can also get kind of expensive to buy all prepared and ready for use and that is why I have decided to make all of our body care, and cleaning products. Heck, I'm even going to make my own baby products! We are throwing out all of our old unhealthy products and replacing them with healthy and all natural. Good bye old!

These are just some of the products we threw out. The others I have already tossed:)

  So, follow me on our journey to a healthier and all natural life style. I will be posting recipes I find that work best for my family and hopefully they can become a part of yours. Enjoy!

Cream Cheese

 In this house we eat a lot of cream cheese when we have it. It's so expensive for so little an amount so we get pretty greedy with it. But the other day I was having some me time while the kids were napping and I found a recipe from a blog for cream cheese. Naturally, I had to try it, so here it is. I will say it turned out nice and creamy. I'd prefer a little more tang but this is a perfect recipe to try. 

Cream cheese

4 cups heavy cream

2 cups half and half

2 cups whole milk

1 tsp salt

3 tbsp white vinegar

You will also need

Two pieces cheese cloth

Two strainers

Two bowls

Directions

In a large pot (I used a 6 qt pot) combine cream, half and half, milk and salt. Heat on medium high.

Let it come to a boil.

 Meanwhile, place each piece of cloth into strainer and put in a bowl big enough to hold drained liquids but leaving space between liquids and curd.

 Once boiling, turn to medium low and simmer. Add vinegar and stir until curds begin to appear (when the cream mixture separates).

 Note: the curds are small and a little hard to see so keep an eye on it. 

Remove from heat and strain mixture dividing into the two prepared bowls. 

Let sit in cheesecloth and drain until all the liquid is strained and curds look like room temp cream cheese, about 4 hours at least. 

I took an extra step and hung the cloth to help the cooling process.

Once cooled place in air tight container and refrigerate. Will keep for up to two weeks.

Makes about three to three and a half cups.

Mayonnaise

A while back I had run out of mayo and it was that one week out of never that we needed it. I decided I would look it up just for the fun of it to see how hard it would be and how expensive. Surprisingly enough I found a very simple and fairly inexpensive recipe by Alton brown. I tweaked it a little bit to my own liking(more so on accident because I was only suppose to add half the vinegar and lemon juice mixture in and I dumped it all in at once). So my version of his recipe is like so:

 Mayo 

1 1/2 cups canola oil

2 egg yolks

1 tbsp white wine vinegar( my pic shows red, but it doesn't matter)

2 tsp lemon juice

Pinch of sugar

1/2 tsp salt. 

So what you do, is put the yolks, salt and sugar in a mixing bowl. Using a whisk attachment mix together til combined, about 15 seconds. Then in a measuring cup or small bowl mix together vinegar and lemon juice. Turn mixer back on and pour in half of the lemon mixture into the yolk. Mix til combined, about 15 seconds.

Leaving mixer on medium high speed, drip( and I mean little drops, like seriously) oil into yolk mixture. Only add a few drops at a time. If you add too many at once it will become runny and the emulsion process will not take place. After about 5 to 7 minutes it should start to thicken.

At this point you can start a very slow, and steady stream of oil into the mix. Again very slow and thin stream. I even let it mix for a bit without pouring in oil.

It should look somewhat like this. And don't worry, the color lightens. At this stage you can slowly and thinly pour in the remaining lemon/ vinegar mix, and then continue with the oil until all of it is incorporated, about 20 minutes total. 

Scrape mayo into a sealable container and leave out for about an hour or two before storing in the fridge. Will keep about a week. 

Homemade Butter

This is probably the easiest thing I have ever done! All you need is heavy cream. You can make as much as you want or as little. A quart of cream makes about a pound or so I think. I always forget to measure. 

You can pour it in a mason jar and shake it, you can put it in a blender or a food processor. I used my kitchen aid and felt like it came out nice and solid.