Gluten-Free Experimenting and Gardening

Hello Everyone. The motivation to write hit tonight! I hope everyone has survived the heat wave that came through. Our hottest day in the cities was 103° and our conditioner is currently broken. I somehow managed to survive!

Sooo, the past 3 or 4 weeks, no matter where you see me in my home, this book is sitting close by because I either just sat down to read it or I just set it down from reading it!

I've been experimenting.

This next photo is of rice and potato flour bread machine bread. It IS HEAVY! I didn't get the recipe from the book titled above though. I got it from the AiA cookbook, which I ordered. Soooo, the bread.

Heavy.
Slightly flavorless.
Biscuit-like.
Excellent with peanut butter and honey!!

It just needed a little more salt and sweetner. Oh, and butter. Next time I'll add an egg, lighter flour and more salt with butter instead of oil. You can totally tell how heavy it turned out. Brick similarities.

This next loaf - Flax Seed - turned out much better.

Fluffy. Just look at the photo!
Light.
Flavorful.

I added pumpkin seeds and that was good, but I used Bob's Red Mill all purpose gluten-free flour. I'll never use that again. They used two bean flours in their flour mix and it left and under-taste that I couldn't get over.  I gave the loaf and the flour to my mom. She seemed to like it. :)

I plan to keep experimenting. I have to. I can't give up my breads and muffins.

I've been eating gluten-free for a while now and started to experiment with eating foods that contain gluten. Most recently, I ate some split pea and ham soup from Campbell's. I ate about 1/2 cup and I started getting the worst stomach cramps. I used to think this was from MILK! I will still experiment, however. I haven't had any cramps from milk, I'll mention.

I woke up at 4:15 AM this morning and couldn't get back to sleep for some reason.

So I did a little gardening bright and early - musta been before 8 am. Yup, I was shovelin' rock. Do I care about my neighbors? Ummm...no.

I added 4 new plants.        

My gardens in the back yard are doing nicely. They survived the heat. I took this photo before the hot heat though. My Lupine is too cute when it is just a baby! It looks like baby corns or asparagus.

That's about all for food and gardening. Nothing too strenuous. I'll be starting a second part time job soon but I still plan to keep writing on the blog. That's what I seem to do - keep on keepin' on! The sewing bug will come around again, I just know it.  It's part of my nature. :)

Until next time... happy days!

Vitamins and Garden Vegatables

Greetings everyone!

I have great news: my energy has been up for two days! My results came back at the beginning of the week on my vitamin levels and other blood tests. I'm low on vitamin D, which so many are around this time of year - especially in Minnesota and Wisconsin. Something funky is going on with the proteins in my blood also, which might point to the gluten sensitivity but I am not going to pursue that further unless something else changes. For now, I made a daily food serving chart to mark off to help insure me that I am getting my nutrients. I never want to be caught in that fatigue state again! Here's my easy-peasy chart.

We made it to Fleet Farm to pick out our veggie plants for the 2011 garden. We chose tons of peppers and tomatoes. I picked out large grape tomatoes and La Romas for bruschetta. We like planting marigolds around the garden too. Last year, our marigolds grew like crazy and they were even a miniature variety.

I love the alyssum honey scent. I had to have some of that too. They grow into a bush with tons of fertilizer.

We're going to extend our garden by 100 square feet. The shape of the garden will be like an "L".

We worked on it a little bit last night - well, Ed did. I helped a tiny bit with the posts. He actually started in on the dirt and shaking the sod while I started supper. We plan on getting compost, black dirt, and manure. Ed also got a gigantor box of Miracle-Gro fertilizer to use this summer. We're going to have crazy veggies. He told me that he's taking over the garden this year. He told me that it's too hard for him to help me when he's not in a routine. Besides, he's the one who loves the food more from the garden. I mostly think it's cool to watch plants grow. :)  

It was fun watching my herb garden plants come up. My yarrow is going crazy and my lupine looks great - although I don't think it's a plant that people should eat. I just put it in the herb garden because it's such a cool shaped bloom. I'll post photos of that when they bloom.

I have 4 chive plants. This one is in the front in a pot that is sinking into the soil. It looks so neat so I left the pot sinking. I can't believe the chives are ready to bloom! It seems like the snow just melted. We're having such cold weather still. I had a sweatshirt on again yesterday even. Well, when I wasn't mowing the lawn. I took it off to get some sun. I got a little pink, but that's it.

Today we need to finish what we can in the garden. Hopefully we will be able to plant our vegetables and seeds. I know, we're late for seeds. Such is life. We'll just harvest later in the season. I suppose I should get my garden clothes on and head out. We have to take the dogs to Petco to get their rabies shots before 11 am, so we need to move! :)

Have a great weekend!

Gluten-Free Bars & The Abbey Bag

Hello again Friends and Family. :)

I thought I would try and get a post before 7 days have passed, but it didn't work out that way this time. But I did better than 12 days! Thanks for coming back!!!

I'll just mention that my time at the doctor on Friday was a good meeting. I feel like she paid attention to my plight. She sent me to the lab to draw several viles of blood. We're starting with checking my vitamin levels and cholesterol and other stuff. After I get results back, we go from there.

In the meantime, she's encouraged me to venture into the gluten-free diet. I've been as gluten-free as I can get for 4 days. I still learn a little more each day. I have even made a trip of the health food store to get ingredients for a new way of baking. I stopped at the library and got some gluten-free cookbooks. I browsed my personal collection first and tried a recipe. This is my first purposefully gluten-free baked dish - Pecan Shortbread Bars. My husband LOVED them. Directly out of the oven, they crumbled as I cut them. I put the lid on after they cooled and about an hour or so later, they cut nicely. Ed thought they needed to "rest" a little before cutting. Perhaps so. Here's the recipe I used:

Gluten-Free Home Made Pecan Shortbread Bars

• 1 cup softened butter
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 egg
• 1 cup fine white rice flour {(next time I'll try the brown rice flour, as it is more nutritious.}
• 1 cup tapioca flour
• 3/4 tsp almond extract {I ran out of vanilla}
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 1 tsp salt
• 4 tsp xanthum gum
• 1 cup chopped pecans {I used 1 and 1/2 cups. :)}

Directions: Heat oven to 350°. Grease 9"x13" pan. Cream butter and sugar. Beat in egg. Add flour, cinnamon, salt, and vanilla. Mix well. Stir in 1/2 cup pecans {I added the entire cup}. Press dough in bottom of pan. Sprinkle last of pecans over the bars and press lightly. Bake 30 to 35 minutes. Makes 32 bars.

Here's how mine turned out. Delicious! They were great with ice cream too! :) Okay, enough of baking.

On to sewing! Here's the wallet I made to match my tote. I added a pearl snap closure. I took the photo before I added that though... isn't it cutsie?! {I just realized that I haven't photographed my tote yet!}

Of course I have to share a picture of my new used sewing machine. It sews a little to the left of the foot, so I have to pay attention when I follow a drawn line. I do like the clanking of the mechanical machines. I'm thinking about decorating it with some glittery beads or something. I didn't spend a ton of money on it and I feel like I have a license to DECORATE now! :)

And you might remember that I am making a Sunbonnet Sue quilt with my mom. Here are some of my blocks.  I plan on appliquéing other cutsie stuff on the blocks with her, for example, stars, hearts and little critters. That's why some of their heads and hands are placed differently.   My favorite Sue is the one with the dark pink hat on.

I'm also working on a "Thread Catcher". This pattern is The Abbey Bag.

I found some emery sand at Northern Tool and Equipment. It's not called emery sand for sand-blasters. They call it Aluminium-oxide. :) It's mostly made from the material called Corundum {a stone?} and other particles are added. It's actually quite expensive. It's more expensive than I had originally planned for, but I wanted it badly, so I purchased it. Now I can make gifts with it. 

Here's the bag part. I'm practicing my blanket stitch for my Sunbonnets. =D

I'll finish this up tonight, I think. It was fun to make. I feel like I can tackle more time consuming projects if I work on them in mini-sessions. I've been working on this pin cushion for two weeks, maybe...? I see the light at the end of the tunnel!

Well, that's all I have for today. Thanks for hanging in there with me! More Sunbonnets to come later. I'm also working on a different owl pin cushion with fabrics that are similar colors to my Abbey Bag. Oh, and I suppose I will be sharing a little more gluten-free recipes as I experience new ones. If you know of great gluten-free links, please leave them for me. I like the "tried and true" links. :)

Have a wonderful rest of the week everyone. See you again soon!