Gluten Free Cooking

I know I know, I said I wouldn't be around much, but what can I say, I just can't stay away! Still haven't caught up in NaNo, but DH is reading DD a bedtime story, so I have a spare few minutes.

We found out that DH was gluten intolerant about 6 or 7 years ago, after seeing the doctor because he was tired all the time. Finding out he couldn't eat gluten, which is in wheat, barley, rye and oats (although oats is disputed, mainly the problems there are caused by cross contamination) was quite a shock, as at the time most of our food was based on convenience foods. Once we got hold of a booklet from the Coeliac society showing what contained gluten and what didn't, and started reading the labels, we found out that wheat was in just about everything! At the time, there were very few gluten free foods available, and most of what was was pretty horrible. So we had to learn to make our own. We had quite a few adventures with trying to make our own gluten free spaghetti (thankfully there is now a decent commercial brand!), and eventually pretty much gave up on gluten free bread. I scored a couple of gluten free cookbooks from a very nice lady on a forum, who had been sent them by mistake from Amazons, which helped immensely, although since they were American, many of the ingredients were hard to find here in Australia.

It was a very stressful time, meaning we had to change our whole way of eating, and several times (when DD was first born being a notable one) we gave up all together for a time, but overall I think the advantages we've had have far outweighed the disadvantages. It was, in some ways, one of the starting points for our simple living journey. We learned about reading labels carefully, we learnt how to cook many things from scratch, and I'm sure we began eating healthier. Our household is about 80% gluten free these days. Almost all of my baking is gluten free, the only exceptions are bread that DD and I eat, and porridge (with wheat germ) that I have for breakfast each morning. DD also eats dry weet-bix for breakfast most days.

Thankfully there are far more products for gluten free diets these days. We buy a very nice gluten free pasta, and rice crumbs taste almost identical to breadcrumbs, if 3 times the price! We still make most of our foods from scratch, including biscuits and cakes, and in most cases these are pretty similar to their gluten containing counterparts. In fact, I find that I prefer the gluten free varieties. I taste regular cupcakes, and they just taste wrong to me! Our taste buds have actually changed to suit our new diet. The old adage of you like what you eat rather than eating what you like rings pretty true.

We are on a campaign to have some snack foods on hand for DH to take for work so that he can avoid the temptation of chocolate and soft-drink. We've finally found a gluten free bread DH likes, although I think that's mainly because it's been so long since he's tasted wheat bread he can't remember what it tastes like, but it's best eaten toasted, which DH can't do at work since all the toasters have had wheat bread in them. So recently I tried this cheese and bacon roll variation, which is a big hit. We made a dozen today for DH to take to work next week, only somehow there are only 6 left! Even I enjoy them.

Gluten free bread is actually easier to make than normal bread, as it only needs to rise once, and there is no kneeding. Following the hints on the packet, I set the bread to rise over a sink full of hot water, which works beautifully.

We use the Laucke bread mix, which is mixed by hand really easily. So to make these I just followed the directions on the packet to mix up the dough (which is more like a runny cake mix, and can easily be mixed with a normal electric mixer). I then spooned half of the mix into a greased muffin tin, put some bacon (still frozen) and cheese in, spooned the other half on top, then added more bacon and cheese. Yummy! I'm going to try some cinnamon fruit rolls next, as soon as I buy some cinnamon.

Growing Taller

The peas along the front fence are dying off in the heat. I did get a few tastes of peas from them, but not much. I don't usually bother saving seeds from peas, I'd much rather be eating them, but these few got beyond good eating age while I was away visiting my mum, so I left them on until they dried out, and have put them away for next year's crop. I really like the sugarsnap climbing peas, they taste oh so yum, and the vines seem to produce far more prolifically than the bush types.

I've been working steadily on mulching the trees in the orchard. This is the second bale of lucerne that has gone up there, and I will probably need one more to get them all done. Before I mulched each tree, I gave it a drink of diluted juice from my sister's new bokashi bucket. It's been raining here, so DH asked why I was bothering to water them, but I explained that I was fertilising them, and apparently it's best to fertilise after the plants have had a good water, so that they don't overdose on the fertiliser by trying to take up the water. So perfect timing.

I was a little disappointed initially when my fruit trees just didn't seem to be growing. Of course, it was winter, but I guess I still expected something. I was actually feeling pretty downhearted by the time spring hit, but not anymore. They've just taken off. This mulberry tree was tiny when it was planted back in July, and just look at it now! It's taller and skinnier than my black mulberry, which is how I actually remember white mulberry trees being. I just hope I can reach the fruit when it fruits next year!

This apricot was planted not long after the mulberry, and at the time was a bare rooted, bare stemmed branch about up to my waist! I'm thrilled that it's growing so well, although I have heard that it's too cold around here for apricots to set fruit. I'm still hopeful though.

We've spent today clearing up around the garage, taking an entire load of rubbish to the tip. Another one to cross off my 100 things to declutter. Up to 21 now. We also found lots of things we will donate, but since we haven't done that yet, I cant add them to the total!

I'll probably be a bit quiet over the next few days. I'm a day behind on NaNo, and since nighttime is the only time I can write while DH is at work, my evenings will be spent doing that rather than typing blog posts. I'm sure I'll catch up, I've missed days before, but I just need to spend a little more time on it until I do.

Things are Growing

Well, the front garden transformation is moving along slowly. We've gone from this, to the photo above (which I will point out is taken from the other end of the garden), in less than two months. I posted my plan here, in case you want to have a look, although I have made a few modifications, which I shall comment on throughout this post.

Firstly though, here are the tiny corn seedlings I planted a month ago, haven't they grown? I really really need to plant the next lot, don't I? The bush off to the left is a golden nugget pumpkin, can't wait to get some of those coming along. My mum has one that's already fruiting (do vegetables fruit?), and it certainly has an overload of pumpkins, although they're not quite as flavourful as the old Jap's that I usually plant. They are, however, decidedly smaller!

Beside that garden I've prepared two more no dig beds so far. There is room for one more that I still need to build. Basically, for these, I've put down a layer of lucerne mulch (about half a bale), covered it in some freshly cut green grass, covered that in a variety of manures/bought compost (I just can't produce my own fast enough!), then another layer of lucerne (other half of the bale) over the top. I'm giving these a few weeks (or until I get around to planting them) for the initial breakdown to start, then I'll be planting them out, probably with some more corn!

I've also managed to fit in (and find bales for) two raised strawbale beds rather than just one. The second one is filled with everything I could find, from lucerne, manure, compost, grass clippings etc etc. It's full right to the top now, but I expect it will settle quite a bit over the next few weeks. Not sure exactly what I'm going to plant here yet, but I'm sure it will be something good!

The watermelons planted in the first strawbale bed are certainly doing great! They're growing pretty fast, and starting to try to escape from the bed. Looking forward to getting some watermelons from these, yum!

While I'm waiting for the new beds to settle, I've been planting out some seeds into old punnets I had lying around. The ones on the right are rosella's, ready to go into one of the beds along the fence (which all need serious work!), the top middle are cotton plants, for down the side fence, and the one on the left is a pigeon pea. I haven't had much success so far with the pigeon peas, although I have to admit that some of the seeds I was using were older. Will have to give it another go as soon as I get organised, because they will hopefully form the bulk of our hedging at the front and sides. I really should try to get these planted out soon.

The carrot seeds I planted in the planter box next to the raspberries were a dismal failure. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn't get them to come up, so instead I planted out that whole side with beans. I haven't had much success with beans here, despite them usually being one of the easiest plants to grow. I suspect that the soil is lacking in something, so I'm trying it to see if they do better here, where it is all compost and bought soil. So far they seem to be.

The potatoes in the strawbale potato cages are still growing like wildfire. You can see from the link how much they have grown in just a week! However, I discovered 3 of the dreaded 28 spot ladybeetle, the enemy of all attempted potato growers, and war had to be declared before this crop was curtailed as the last lots were.

Hopefully that should do the trick! Note, nothing new was bought to do this. The netting is from the mosquito nets that hung over our bed in the shed (that we no longer need now that we have screens on the windows), held up with some garden stakes I had lying around from my last lot of tomatoes.

As I write, there is a nice steady drizzle outside. It's been going on all day. Great for the garden, waters far better than I can ever manage with the hose. Hopefully it will soak right into the ground, and get those no dig beds really breaking down. If it lets up for a bit tomorrow, I might go out and poke some seeds in somewhere, best seed sprouting weather around.

For now, though, I still have 500 words to write before I go to bed.

Blog List

Since I've been talking to a few people about this recently, I've just added links to all my favourite blogs that I read on a regular basis. It's on the right, down the bottom of all. In many cases, I don't agree with everything said on the pages, but I do enjoy reading them, and it's fascinating to hear a different perspective on something. Hope you all enjoy them too.

Procrastination

What do you do when you should be writing your 1667 words for the day? Why make a skirt of course! I seriously just don't know how to do one thing at a time, do I? Still, I had some good story related ideas while sewing.

The skirt is made from a tutorial here, although if you're going to give it a go, I'd add a few inches to your waist measurement before running it through the pattern calculator. I was reasonably generous, and though it fits, it could stand to be a little looser around the hips. The pockets were my addition. I just can't stand wearing anything without a pocket. I just need somewhere handy to put my keys and hanky when I go out, I never can seem to find them in my purse, so I add pockets to everything I make.

The purple material is from two separate sheets I bought while visiting my mum, but I think they contrast pretty well. They don't even look like sheets in this pattern I don't think? I have plenty of material left (although the flowery sheet is quite worn in the middle), so will probably try something else in these colours as well. It's trimmed with some cotton lace that I acquired from my mum's stash while I was visiting. I'm pretty happy with how it turned out, and will definitely try this pattern again.

The photo was taken when we came back from dropping the latest lot of decluttering off at Lifeline. Nearly a whole car full, bringing the decluttering total to 18. My mum thinks I'm being too hard on myself, counting each bag of clothes or toys as 1, instead of each item, but if I did that, I'd already be at 100, and I've barely even scratched the surface! Lots more to go yet.

Now, seeing as I've already made my word count today, I have a nice evening of relaxing with DH planned.

Seed Raiders

DH called out to me today to come and look at these thieves, eating the seeds out of my sunflowers! There were two of them, and they were so beautiful I didn't have the heart to get upset at them. Unfortunately the pictures aren't the greatest, as I didn't have time to get the settings right on my camera, and was taking pics from indoors in DD's room, but aren't they magnificent? I think though, that I might have to cover the sunflowers with something, or we aren't going to get any seeds for ourselves!

And while I'm posting, here are the pictures from yesterday's harvest. Half a bucket of potatoes from the second potato patch (I planted 16), a bowl of cherry tomatoes from the bushes that self seeded and have received absolutely no care up in the old garden, and one almost perfect nectarine.

Decluttering and writing are still happening here, although we also mowed the lawn (all 3/4 of an acre of it, minus house/shed/gardens etc) with DH's dad's help. I have found heaps more things to get rid of, and the car is full right now of the playgym DD outgrew a year ago, the baby swing, and a box of toys. Can't count them though, until they are completely off the property! I'm almost on track for NaNo, just under 400 words to go today to make the quota. So I guess I'd better go get writing!

Nothing New November

Well, I guess I've started November off with a bang. I got stuck into the decluttering this morning with gusto, and have so far taken 12 items to the donation bins (they don't count until they're OUT of the house!). A couple of bags of toys, several bags of outgrown or not worn clothing, and various kitchen items.

I had a few dilemma's this morning wondering exactly how to count things. I went through my cutlery draw, and got rid of the remains of the old cutlery set, but should I count each individual knife, fork and spoon, or count them all as one? Clothes were the same. There were so many that it seemed cheating to count them all individually, yet too much to count them all as one. I've settled on counting sets (such as cutlery) as one, and for larger things, like clothes and toys, to count each bag as one. Either way, I've removed nearly a (hatchback) boot full of things, and still plenty more to go!

NaNo is going slightly less well. At 1,465 words, I'm slightly under the daily quota of 1,667 words, but still off to a good start. I'm hoping to catch up the shortfall next week, when DH has 4 days off mid-week.