Kittens, Road Trips, and Stubborn Husbands

Ok, me lovies, sorry to freak some people out by my absence, but I have not expired due to a nasty bout of the Swine Flu. (In fact, our family has been surprising healthy whist paddling in a veritable sea of the virus. Perhaps the Swine somehow have sensed our love of All Things Porcine and spared us?? Who knows...)

Nope, I have been absent due to a combination of things. One, I've been playing with the new kitty, who is thus far living up to the quirks of his breed. The Maine Coon is supposed to love the water, and he does. He made the beginner's mistake of somehow rolling in shit in his litter box, and was happy as a clam as we held him under the tap and scrubbed the mess out of his fur. Additionally, he loves to flop over on his back and have his belly rubbed, which in my experience is unusual for a cat.

Also, much like a dog he seems to be most contented when he is with his people. Not necessarily on top of them, but near. Every time I spend more than 60 seconds at the computer, he crawls up my leg and makes himself comfortable.

Next, I've been essentially pouting a little as my gluten-free dreams came to a screeching halt. Hubby Bob basically rebelled after two weeks on the plan, citing an intense desire for toast, veggie bacon and various sauces and condiments that I had declared off limits. (The very fact that this food-loving dude ever had the fortitude to give up meat still amazes me. He is VERY grumpy when denied his favourite treats. ) ~Sigh~ I guess I need to regroup and figure out what to do with all this sorghum. I was just getting my groove on.

Lastly, I JUST CAME BACK FROM MAINE, and boy, did I ever buy a lot of groceries! About $500 worth, to be exact. I didn't mention the fact that I was going away this weekend cuz I didn't want any of you creepers coming to my house and stealing my underwear or some such sick shit like that. But I'm home and tripping over boxes and bags, and I had an amazing time. So I will definitely be telling you all about what I bought, and what I thought!

For now though, I think I'll pour myself a wee snort of Duty-Free Gentleman Jack and join my hubby on the sofa to watch the last Nascar race of the year. (I get so excited when I get to look forward to race-free Sundays.....!)

Until tomorrow then? This girl is beat. Hope you all find it in your hearts to forgive me for an inexcusable absence.

Peace!

I NEED THIS NOOOOOOWWWWW....

OK, if I can't have this for Christmas, I will simply die....

On Day Six, I Totally Fall Apart...and New Challenges

Hello all!

Yup, I'll get right to the point. As predicted, my weekend totally derailed my gluten-free efforts (although Hubby is hanging tough.) I forgot my shopping bag full of gluten-free goodies at home, and when I got up Saturday AM for a mess-hall breakfast on my course, and discovered that a green banana was basically my only breakfast option, I totally caved and ate a bagel.

Well.

And, not gonna lie, the bagel was followed later by a course pizza-and-beer party, and I'm afraid that take-out pizza is one my nemesis. Anyhoo....to add a weird PS to that, my odd rash totally went away within hours of eating the bagel. Curiouser and curiouser....

I still plan on following a gluten-free plan for a while yet here at home, cuz I still think my husband will benefit, plus I've got that second mortgage I took out on my home to buy all those quirky flours. Hell, I haven't even touched the sorghum yet! So I'll be keeping you posted.

My husband also warned me today that my bank account is getting dangerously low and I need to lay off the shopping for a while. So meals in the next little bit are also going to have to be cheap. Beans, beans, musical fruit, here we come baby!

At any rate, when I came home last night and checked my email, I had a comment on this here widdle blog that honestly confused me for a minute, cuz I didn't understand what the hell this gal "Heather" was talking about at first:

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"Your husband realizes this is a living creature and not a pair of shoes right? Jesus christ, what an idiotic rationalization."

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Maybe it's because I was tired, but it took me a few beats to figure out that she was talking about our soon-to-be Maine Coon kitty. Well, Heather, I can first of all most definitely tell you that my husband DOES in fact realize that we are getting an animal and not a pair of Jimmy Choo slingbacks. He is not, after all, a drooling vegetable. I guarantee you that he won't try to wear the cat to his upcoming Christmas party.

Also, unless I missed something, I never tried to rationalize the fact that the man wants a purebred and not another shelter cat. If I were rationalizing, it would go something like this:

"OK, so I'm really not a bad person because if I buy a purebred cat, that means someone else won't get that cat and will instead have to go to the SPCA for a cat, so really, it's all the same thing in the end, right??

That, my dear, is what we call in the English language a rationalization.

Nope, no rationalizing here. Just stating the facts. See, in my household, all four members are what I like to call "free", meaning the opposite of robotic slaves, meaning all four of us get to have different opinions on things. Imagine that! My husband is a vegetarian for health reasons. Although sympathetic to animal suffering, it will never be one of his main concerns when it comes to our lifestyle. He comes from a long line of hunters, something he graciously gave up for life because he knows it upsets me.

Furthermore, he is an incredibly hardworking, patient and tolerant man who puts up with a helluva a lot of weird shit on my behalf without complaint and with a wry smile on his face. So, if the man wants to buy a cat this time (our last two were shelter cats) because said breed of cat grows to be enormous and loves to play fetch, than it would be decidedly ungracious (not to mention rather dictatorial) to tell him he can't. As they say in Third Grade, I ain't the boss of him.

Furthermore, I just want to repeat something I've said on a number of occasions: No two people in this world are ever going to agree on everything, and that includes the lengths we feel are necessary to go to in order to life a kind lifestyle. No one ever changed another person's core beliefs by scribbling hateful comments on another person's blog. So grow up, buy yourself a life and get over yourself.

Tomorrow: I have no idea. I'll just have to go now and bake some shit. And oh, I have some comment requests I want to get to. But now I gotta go!

On Day Four, I Have my WTF !!??? Moment....

I can officially tell you all that the glow is beginning to wear off this little experiment of mine. I have a fair bit of ego when it comes to my fab-you-less baking skills (I learned from the best, eh Mom?) but it seems that getting the hang of this gluten-free baking thing is harder (not to mention pricier) than I ever expected.

Yesterday, I was in the mood for something sweet, and I had found what appeared to be a fabulously easy recipe for gluten-free chocolate brownies. Sure, the recipe required eggs, but I've been working around that little issue for years. I figured if I went with flax "eggs" instead I'd be good to go. And since I was already feeling so clever, I also had the idea to make the brownies in my mini-muffin pan and make them "two-bite" brownies.

The batter certainly looked perfect....

It was supposed to take 30 minutes to bake, but I set the timer for fifteen minutes instead, just to check up on my little fudgy babies. I went about my business, and when I heard the bell ding and returned to the oven, WTF???? THIS is what I found:

All eighteen of my brownies-to-be ejaculated out of their muffin tins and flooded the entire pan (and my oven too, of course) with hot molten chocolate lava. As soon as the pan hit the cool air, it started to immediately solidify into something resembling a cross between Laffy Taffy and concrete. As I type this, the whole damn pan is out of my veranda in a giant bucket full of water, as I attempt to loosen this godforsaken slop off my brand- new pan. Later, I get to experience even more thrills as I scrub this shit off the bottom of my oven.

Talk about dejected. That seemed to be the perfect time to help myself to a little treat I'd been saving for just such a low moment: Gluten-Free beer!

It's called Glutaner, and it's made from sorghum, whatever the hell that is. (The word "sorghum" for some reason makes me thinks of greasy fat guys in overalls driving battered pick up trucks. No idea why....) I had been excited for a couple of days to give these puppies a try, because if I ever were to be diagnosed with celiac disease, I think I would miss beer the most.

So I popped open a cold one and gave it a whirl. According to The Beer Advocate website, this beer gives a " Fair hint of apple cider on the nose with an unpleasant sour, almost meaty character hidden at the back. Fairly sweet with not much hoppiness, also fairly weak."

Another dude states that Glutaner "Smell is grainy and somewhat oily, it reminds me of a rye beer. There is a herbal and spicy smell which is probably due to the grains which make the beer smell pretty fresh and inviting. Taste is cider-like with all of it's characteristics, dry, slightly tart with apple notes and grape-like dryness. There is some oiliness of the grains. I find the body to be too light, even for a pilsener. Aftertaste is dry and stops after swallowing. "

And me: I just thought it tasted like beer. Clearly, I will not be embarking on a second career as a beer taster.

Supper was delicious, though, so at least the day ended on a high note. We had oven baked potatoes, vegetables, and some tofu wingz, breaded with rice flour, cornstarch and cornmeal. Delish.

Alas, I will not be able to update again until Sunday night, as I am headed to CFB Shearwater for the last weekend in the course I've been taking to be promoted to a Lieutenant. There's supposed to be a big party tomorrow night, plus I'll be eating in the Officer's Mess, which has a very limited menu and seems to be averse to vegetarians. Mostly I've been eating french fries and peanut butter sandwiches. We'll see how the gluten-free thing works out for me. I'm notoriously weak in these kinds of situations, so I'll see you all Sunday and fill you in. In the meantime, have fun and don't do anything I wouldn't do.

Peace!

On Day Three, I want to Rip My Arms off and Beat My Husband Over the Head with Them...

Yesterday, my husband pissed me off. (Sorry Hun, but you know it's true.) It started with breakfast. Nothing we had seemed to please him, and he stomped around the kitchen with a perma-pout. He didn't want gluten free toast, he didn't want Cream of Rice cereal (too much like gruel, he claims) and he didn't want waffles. He ended up eating Thai Kitchen curry noodles (weird, but he likes shit like that in the AM) but proclaimed them "bland." Then, he moved on to a bowl of gluten-free Cheerio imposters....

He ate a whole bowl of them, put down his spoon and then stated, "Well, I'll never do THAT again." Oh, that was sooooo helpful, my dear.

Clearly he was just sour at not being to choose from his usual plethora of breakfast foods. I'll also have to blame detox irritability, because otherwise he was just being a jerk. I then tried these Whole-O's, as did my son, and I have to say that they pretty damn good. They even stay super crunchy in milk. A very acceptable substitute, methinks.

I casually mentioned that we were having pasta for supper, and he made a face that looked like a cross between constipation and getting a flu shot. When I insisted that he explain his sour look, he announced that he was quite certain that the gluten-free pasta I bought would taste like shit. I then forced to go to work before I killed him stone dead right in the middle of my kitchen mat.

As it turned out, he mellowed as the day went on, and also, he was wrong about the pasta. We all agreed that it was very good.

I meant to take a picture of the entire meal but we were all so damn hungry (and in a deep philosophical discussion about what to wear for Hallowe'en) that I plumb forgot. You'll get over it.

Yesterday I also regret to report that I experienced a colossal failure in the kitchen. I attempted to make the French Bread recipe from The Gluten-Free Gourmet Bakes Bread. I followed the recipe exactly, except for the fact that I left out the gelatin and subbed a flax seed "egg" for the two egg whites the recipe called for. Should have been OK, right?

WRONG.

This bread has the consistency of a tubular beige cinder block. I could probably keep these around the house for a while in case I need to beat off an intruder. And see the little white spot on the corner where I tore of a taste-test nibble? It tastes about as yummy as a goat's ballsac. Absolutely vile. Sour, with a weird aftertaste that for some reason makes me think of those disinfectant cakes in public urinals.

So, no more of that book for me. I think I'll look elsewhere for some simpler recipes.

Also, the rash on my arms has gotten worse. Itchy as a bitch and gross looking too. I've racked my brain to come up with might be causing it, other than a detox reaction, but I'm coming up with nada. I'm using the same soaps, same cleaning products, and I'm not baking with anything I haven't baked with before. I'm baffled. I popped one of my husband's allergy pills this morning in an attempt to get some relief, because scratching it is definitely not making it better. Any suggestions??

Today, I think I may just attempt some brownies. And also attempt to fine someone to give me a decent haircut for a change. Wish me luck...

Peace!

Day Two Starts with a Bang, Ends with a Rash...

No really, it really did start with a bang. Not that that is in any way your business, however.

Yesterday, as I had predicted, I felt the need to make crackers. Not just any crackers, but a nice slew of cheez and jalapeno crakcers. My daughter has been nagging me to make some, so I figured maybe I'd oblige but force her to enjoy them gluten-free.

Unfortunately, I could not seem to find any one recipe that seemed to match what I wanted and also what I had on hand. Because here's what I've discovered already: Gluten-free recipes seem to involve an astronomical amount of different flours, potions and ground up thingies, most of which seem to require a hunting expedition at the supermarket, many of which cost more than my last dental appointment, and a lot of which seem to be absolutely integral to one, (but only one) recipe that I'm desperate to make. And even those ingrediants I WAS lucky enough to posess were usually required in an amount that staggered me sideways and rendered my little stash of said item all but useless.

Check out this by-no means exhaustive static display I just ran out in the kitchen and created:

This does not even include all the flours I have in unattractive, unphotogenic plastic bags from the Bulk Barn.

So I cheated a little. Although I know about as much about gluten-free baking as say, my cat Stanley, I've never let ignorance stop me before! So I decided to combine this cracker recipe from the Vegan Lunchbox along with some basic tips from this cookbook:

This is a lovely book, obviously well written and well researched. I am sure that this lady has done her homework. I'm also equally sure that she was a Trust Fund baby, because I am so not lying when I say it would cost you thousands of dollars to whip up the breads in this here book. And again, most recipes involve a laundry list of pricey, hard to find shit along with a heaping dose of animal products. (Most recipes involve eggs and/or gelatin. Uh-Uh. Not gonna go there, gelatin....

So I took a deep breath, surveyed what I had and plunged in. And it turned out OK!

Now, I could tell you what I put in these, but I hate to repeat a recipe that involved a whole bunch of alien powders that I suspect you don't have and will never use again. Not only that, although they turned out just fine, I suspect that there's nothing all that sponge-worthy about them.

I used my handy-dandy new fish cookie cutter to make some widdle fishies....(although actually, once I really looked at it I realized that it was actually a whale...)

I had a hard time getting the fluke to stay on, so halfway through I decided to go with the much easier flower.... They looked so tempting in the sunlight that I couldn't help but have a nibble..

So, yes, methinks that this recipe was a success despite the fact they have more of a sugar-cookie-esque texture than a crispy one. I may rework my formula to be a helluva a lot simpler and post it someday. In the meantime, at least I have something to dunk in my soup for the next few days!

And speaking of soup....I used a can of Hominy (yes, I bought Hominy again) and used it to make a biggish pot of chili for supper. It was, as they say, divine. Sure, I could have plated it nicely and made it look oh-so alluring in the fading fall sunset...but I said fuck it, it's been a long day. I slopped it in plastic containers and moved on.

SOOOO, is the gluten-free thing having any effect at all?? Well, I did develop a very itchy rash last evening up and down my arms. It feels like a brigade of fire ants are having their annual picnic up my sleeves. Could be a detox effect, could be that I'm about to die from some tragic and unusual disease. Only time will tell...in the meantime I soldier on.

BTW..In response to all your comments, no, I don't salt my beans when I cook 'em, and yes, I am actually somewhat deathly afraid of pressure cookers. I keep imagining them malfunctioning and blowing my eyeballs out the back of my head. I think perhaps I'll maintain the status quo for now....But thanks for the tips everyone!

Peace!

On Day One, I Found Out That Headcheese is Gluten-Free...

So, day one of my great gluten-free experiment is now over, and I'm happy to report that I didn't have any further near-vomiting episodes. I did however get intensely queasy when I sat down to browse for supper ideas in this delightful cookbook I borrowed from Ye Olde Public Library:

This little gem originated in the year 1983, and was so damn popular that this was a third edition. The flyleaf states that the recipes within contain "simple, everyday ingredients." I was of course excited, as I am a Simple Everyday Girl.

I'm browsing along, snuggled up on my sofa with a steaming mug of gluten free, caffeine free, sugar free (and taste free) green tea, when I spy this little number:

This makes me wonder if every homemaker in the early 80's just "happened" to have pigs feet and pork hocks just lying around. Perhaps our family was just unusual for the time period.

So, as tempting as this recipe was, I decided that I'd go for something a little more appropriate and less-nausea producing for supper. I decided to go with......wait for it......CHICKPEAS!! Yay! I sure does love me some chick peas.

In fact, I have a feeling that I could spend an entire year making shit out of chickpeas and never make the same thing twice. The only thing I DON'T ever do is eat them as-is. (You know, like, whole.) While I admire their flavour, their nutrition, and the fact that you can get fifty pounds of them for less than the price of a paperback, I sure do despise the fact that the little fuckers NEVER, EVER GET SOFT. (I mean jeez, even my husbands equipment gets soft once in a while!) They crunch between my teeth in a most unpleasant way, so you'll never find me throwing them in a soup. So, the chickpea shall be as meat for moi and the rest of the Fam.

My other difficulty with the chickpea is the fact that you need to be a planner when they're involved. I can't tell you how many times I've wanted to process some chickpeas into something resembling a meal, only to realize that I neglected to soak them first. Or conversely, how many bowls of chickpeas I've soaked to the point of rotten because I changed my mind about the menu at the last minute. Chickpeas are tricky for a spur-of-the-moment gal like me. And don't even get me started on canned chickpeas....not the same at all.

Anyway, here we go. I remembered the soak the dry chickpeas overnight, (1 1/2 cups dried) rinsed and drained them, and processed them in my trusty food processor. Not alone, mind you...they shared the space with 3 Tbsp ketchup, 3 Tbsp gluten-free soya sauce, 2 Tbsp water, and a small diced onion.

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What I then had was a bowl of glop that looked kinda like head cheese of another kind. Gross, but with so darn much potential! I soon perked it up by adding 1/3 cup ground flax seeds, 1/8 cup chickpea flour, 1/4 cup brown rice flour, 1 tsp pepper, 2 tsp salt, 1 tsp garlic powder, 1 tsp onion powder, 1 Tbsp dried chives, 1 Tbsp gluten free vegan chicken bouillon, and 1/2 tsp poultry seasoning.

I rolled them into small balls and baked them at 375 degrees on an oiled pan, and presto! A gluten free, fat free, protein packed addition to our evening repast that didn't involve cutting the legs off Porky.

Don't they look beautiful sitting there in the afternoon sun, my two balls on a platter? Very evocative.

Today, I plan to tackle crackers, as I yeared all day for something salty and crunchy. Tune in tomorrow, same time, same channel, for a Day Two update.

Peace!