My new year's resolution is to keep up with this blog. In keeping with that goal, I realized I have to expand my topics beyond gluten-free cooking. I'm going to post recipes/substitutions when I find a good one, but will also post topics on the general concept of frugality.
In addition to raising a 4 year old and a 5 month old (already!), I am also working with my husband on renovating a house we bought last summer. We moved in 16 months ago but I have been a little busy for...umm...the last 14 months to really do any contributions to this time-consuming project.
Our current office/guest room was apparently done in a Hawaiian motif, complete with orange and blue walls and rust colored outdoor carpet. Anyone who knows me can guess this isn't exactly my taste; also, part of the wall was damaged. We are going more with neutrals (gray walls, wood print vinyl floors), with the color coming in the form of yellow curtains to replace the broken closet doors. For the last two weeks, we have spent several evenings after the kids go to bed removing the old flooring and patching the holes and other wall damage.
Which brings me to the frugal aspect of my post: custom $12.50 paint. I have long been a fan of the mis-tint paint section at most hardware and home improvement stores. Often, though, quantity is limited, hence my oldest daughter has a two color room: half dark purple, half light purple. I really don't want to do the patchwork look on all my walls, though, so I have been scouring the clearance section for good neutrals. I found two slightly different shades of gray. They were the same sheen and were close enough that I thought they would mix well. I dumped both cans into a bucket, stirred really well with a paint stick, and poured them back into the cans. Ta da--two gallons of paint for $5 each, plus a $2.50 bucket=custom paint for less than a quarter of the cost. Besides the savings, it's just fun to mix paint!
Thursday, December 13, 2012
Thursday, May 24, 2012
If you give a mouse a rice flour cookie...
The other day, a good friend bought a mix and made me some chocolate chip cookies for small group Bible study. I love friends like that. :-) Anyway, after I went home, I was hungry for more chocolate chip cookies. Being a few days away from a grocery shopping trip to pick up a mix, however, I decided to look through my pantry and see what I could concoct.
The recipe on the back of the Ener-G potato starch flour sounded easy and I had all the ingredients. I ground up some rice flour (1 1/2 cups), dumped it into my wet ingredients, THEN read the instructions. Add 1 c potato flour and 1/2 c rice flour. Oops. For some reason I didn't question the fact that the recipe came on the back of the potato starch flour and yet didn't account for adding any of that particular ingredient.
Not being in a position ingredient-wise to triple the recipe, I decided just to go with it and give it a shot with 100% rice flour and no potato flour. I did, however, throw in some walnuts. I figured it might help the taste and if not, I was only out 25 cents worth of walnuts.
Here is the visual:
Apparently using the called-for ingredients is essential to them looking like cookies and not pancakes. They tasted decent, although a little gritty. Plus, they crumbled to dust when I tried to peel them off the foil, a situation I remedied by purchasing upon my next shopping trip a quart of vanilla ice cream and making my own wheat-free chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream.
I'm looking forward to attempting these again with the right flour mix and hoping for more cookie-like results. I have been very pleased with the Ener-G brand (and the recipes printed on the back of the box are great too!)
The recipe on the back of the Ener-G potato starch flour sounded easy and I had all the ingredients. I ground up some rice flour (1 1/2 cups), dumped it into my wet ingredients, THEN read the instructions. Add 1 c potato flour and 1/2 c rice flour. Oops. For some reason I didn't question the fact that the recipe came on the back of the potato starch flour and yet didn't account for adding any of that particular ingredient.
Not being in a position ingredient-wise to triple the recipe, I decided just to go with it and give it a shot with 100% rice flour and no potato flour. I did, however, throw in some walnuts. I figured it might help the taste and if not, I was only out 25 cents worth of walnuts.
Here is the visual:
Apparently using the called-for ingredients is essential to them looking like cookies and not pancakes. They tasted decent, although a little gritty. Plus, they crumbled to dust when I tried to peel them off the foil, a situation I remedied by purchasing upon my next shopping trip a quart of vanilla ice cream and making my own wheat-free chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream.
I'm looking forward to attempting these again with the right flour mix and hoping for more cookie-like results. I have been very pleased with the Ener-G brand (and the recipes printed on the back of the box are great too!)
Monday, January 23, 2012
My three-year old's vocabulary
Despite our absence of a television (we own them, but haven't gotten around to setting them up since our move six months ago) our three-year-old has managed to pick up enough about the popular characters to be able to hold an intelligent conversation about Dora, Thomas, etc. What amazes me, though, is her understanding of a gluten-free lifestyle. Whenever I turn down a particular food, she asks me "Is that because it has wheat in it?" or "Will it make your tummy hurt?"
The other day, we were discussing cornmeal and she said, "Oh, that's kind of like cornstarch!" There is nothing like carrying on a conversation about gluten-free grains with someone not yet old enough to go to school.
On another tangent: I have been craving fish sticks for the last few months, and discovered that crushed GF Rice Chex makes an excellent substitute for the breading. Being cooked in oil, I'm not entirely sure where this dinner option falls on the health scale, but if you, like me, miss eating a fish stick now and then, I'm glad to know that there is a decent tasting substitute for bread crumbs.
The other day, we were discussing cornmeal and she said, "Oh, that's kind of like cornstarch!" There is nothing like carrying on a conversation about gluten-free grains with someone not yet old enough to go to school.
On another tangent: I have been craving fish sticks for the last few months, and discovered that crushed GF Rice Chex makes an excellent substitute for the breading. Being cooked in oil, I'm not entirely sure where this dinner option falls on the health scale, but if you, like me, miss eating a fish stick now and then, I'm glad to know that there is a decent tasting substitute for bread crumbs.
Thursday, January 5, 2012
I'm back with further rice flour experimentation
So after a long absence related to morning/all day sickness, here I am at 13 1/2 weeks feeling much better and much more up to baking. I made some bread the other day using a recipe from Bette Hagman's book "More From the Gluten-Free Gourmet." I picked up this copy second hand from a thrift store, and it's the only one of this series that I own, but I'm seriously considering adding the rest of these books to my birthday wish list.
Anyway, my bread was delicious and I would highly recommend this recipe to anyone looking for a basic white bread without wheat flour. I think I prefer it to wheat bread, despite its taking 3 hours from start to finish and being a little more expensive than $1.19 a loaf. It's just wonderful to be able to eat an actual sandwich again.
Update on my rice flour experiment: apparently the tiny bit of moisture I had to add to my rice to enable my food processor to grind it was a bad idea. When I went to use it, I found out it had molded. So, undeterred, I did some more research and learned that a coffee grinder might be helpful in my endeavors. I asked for and received one for Christmas and so far, it has been amazing. It's a quick enough process that I can grind just enough flour at a time for my baking needs without having to store the rest.
Now that I have conquered rice flour (I hope!) I am wondering how best to go about making flour from beans...stay tuned!
Anyway, my bread was delicious and I would highly recommend this recipe to anyone looking for a basic white bread without wheat flour. I think I prefer it to wheat bread, despite its taking 3 hours from start to finish and being a little more expensive than $1.19 a loaf. It's just wonderful to be able to eat an actual sandwich again.
Update on my rice flour experiment: apparently the tiny bit of moisture I had to add to my rice to enable my food processor to grind it was a bad idea. When I went to use it, I found out it had molded. So, undeterred, I did some more research and learned that a coffee grinder might be helpful in my endeavors. I asked for and received one for Christmas and so far, it has been amazing. It's a quick enough process that I can grind just enough flour at a time for my baking needs without having to store the rest.
Now that I have conquered rice flour (I hope!) I am wondering how best to go about making flour from beans...stay tuned!
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