Why I never get 'round to ficcing these days...

[feng_shui_house]

1) call a gluten-free food comp to complain (I'd ordered stuff from them last night & had a $10 gift card for doing an on-line survey for them but there was no place on the on-line ordering to redeem the gift card- which had come with a paper saying you *could* redeem it on-line)... tried 4 times, their phone was either off the hook or busy, so I went to the site & filled out a 'contact me' form.

2) Do laundry. (this actually went well, I only forgot it once)

3) Make gluten-free corn muffins (this worked out ok, too even tho I had to guess at the time & temp in the convection oven & give one pan full 5 more min than the others and they are kinda dry and gritty.) GF baking is not easy.

4) Fix the noisy ceiling fan in my computer room. This was... a 5 hour nightmare. Bro had thought the blades needed balancing so I tried the balancing kit - no change. So I googled & found rattle/click noise usually is 1) fan blade(s) not tightly screwed to the mounting. 2) Blade mountings not tightly screwed to the motor. 3) motor mount not tightly screwed to the ceiling. I tested them in order from easiest to hardest. Hardest was it. Had to take it all apart in order to tighten two of the three ceiling bolts. And then I couldn't get it together! Bro finally looked it over & found a mount had the wrong angle so he bent it with pliers. Finally get the whole thing together-- it's quiet, runs good... and one of the hard-to-get special size light bulbs is dead. WAAh... Fortunately ceiling fan in the little used living room is the same kind so bro suggested I steal one from it.

(Along the line I lost a washer, lost a screw, found a replacement washer, had to go through 3 flashlights before I found one that would work well enough to help me find the screw, found the screw, missed a step on the ladder-- that was fun going from 2 steps up to the floor...etc.)

Now am thinking to eat a couple more corn muffins and soak in the tub. Calgon, take me away!

Comments

[executrix.livejournal.com]

A lot of people use apple butter or prune butter in specialty baking--that should help with the dry-and-gritty problem, and of course they don't add any gluten.

[entropy-house.livejournal.com]

I'll have to remember to look for apple butter. Have to read the label even on something like that- 'modified food starch' is often used as a thickener & *might* be wheat-based. I've got to the point I'm leery of practically any processed food.

[mistraltoes.livejournal.com]

GF baking is not easy.

Seriously, do check the coconut flour. That's one thing I forgot to mention, how easy it is. You don't have to combine three different flours or add xanthan gum or guar gum or whatever. The cookies I made were just like making normal cookies. Also, it's high fiber & low carb; a nice health bonus.

[entropy-house.livejournal.com]

I checked out the link you gave me, and reviews of the coconut flour book told me the guy used *absurd* amounts of eggs- like 8-12 eggs to make a cake- because he wasn't using anything else to take the place of the gluten, so I didn't get the book.

I did order some coconut flour, but for anything other than cookies all the on-line recipes I found used small quantities of coconut flour mixed with other flours & the couple of books I have recommend using it like--umm..don't recall something like 1/4 cup per cup of total flour.

There's a *lot* of nice-sounding recipes here- with a pretty good search engine. http://www.bobsredmill.com/recipe/

[mistraltoes.livejournal.com]

It's true that the 2-layer cakes use a dozen eggs, yes--which is still only one egg per serving, but I can see that some people might find that a problem--but some of the other recipes are more moderate. For example, three eggs for a half-dozen muffins or three dozen cookies. And there are no eggs at all in some of the recipes, such as pie crust, a few of the cookies, fried chicken, tamale pie.

These recipes are all coconut flour except for a very few which add cornmeal or almond flour because they're supposed to be cornmeal- or almond-flavored. Would you like me to send you some of the recipes so that you can try them without buying the book? Recipes are not copyrightable, so that should be perfectly all right.

[entropy-house.livejournal.com]

If you have a favorite recipe or two that you could stick in a comment or email me without too much trouble, that would be great & I'd appreciate it. I did buy a couple GF cookbooks to cover the basics & have found *lots* of recipes on line, but of course, I don't know how good they are until I try them.

I just googled 'gluten free coconut flour' and found this recipe, which sounds awfully good to me. This website looks good,too, you can change the recipe to metric & make notes, & save a 'cookbook' etc.

http://www.recipezaar.com/192406

Gluten-Free Coconut Blueberry Muffins
Recipe #192406

6 muffins
time to make 25 min 10 min prep

1/4 cup coconut flour
2 tablespoons coconut flour (additional)
3 eggs
2 tablespoons canola oil or melted butter
2 tablespoons coconut milk
3 tablespoons honey
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 cup frozen blueberries


1. Whisk eggs, butter, coconut milk, honey, salt and vanilla until thoroughly blended.
2. Sift all coconut flour (1/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons). Stir sifted coconut flour and baking powder into the batter and stir until there are no lumps.
3. Fold in frozen blueberries, stirring gently. Pour batter into greased muffin tin.
4. Bake at 400 F for 15-18 minutes.