New Gluten Free Adventure

I finally convinced the kids to give gluten free a try for two weeks.  I explained it the best I could, no flour, no bread, no cereal or anything that contains these ingredients for two weeks unless Mommy says it's ok.  Gulp!  I am mostly doing it for Shaylee's benefit but I have a feeling everyone has some degree of gluten intolerance, just with different symptoms.  I'm not sure if Mark is playing along but I hope so as I know it would help him.

We will be starting on Monday, so I'll have a few days to get ready.  They "liked" the banana bread but Ethan was convinced there was something pink in it.  It was just banana that wasn't fully mushed in but he wouldn't eat any more.  I think the muffins would go over better overall so I'll just make them in muffins for the kids from now on and maybe try some variations (like cinnamon, blueberry and/or other fruit, ect...).  I will also get some gluten free cereal since I won't make them go low carb, just lower (as in I am not shelling out a fortune for a bunch of fake foods but a few things are ok if it will make life more tolerable ;) ).

On the homefront, I finally decided something else.  Not as life changing.  I bought two crockpots as gifts for relatives this Christmas, only $10 each!  They weren't as big as I thought they were and I lost the sales slip so I couldn't bring them back.  I was going to save them for future gifts, like a wedding gift or something (I think crockpots are awesome!) but I decided that even though I have one, I would really like to have a second one.  So I opened one up and I have both on the go today.  I have a chicken roasting in the big one and scalloped turnip in the other.  If the turnip comes out, I'll share the recipe because it's different from anything I've seen online.  The smaller crockpot is the perfect size for vegetable dishes and desserts so I have a feeling I'll use it quite a bit.

Bread FAIL!

So I wanted to get back into the swing of regular bread making again. I made a few good loaves with home ground flour with the addition of some regular flour in the bread machine. I had a bad one but the next day I realized it was because I did not have warm water to activate the yeast since I had it soaking overnight. I knew for next time.

Today I wanted to make some bread. I put it on the sandwich setting, which is a 3 hour setting. It rose beautifully. I had to leave and when I got home, it looked bad. It is the loaf on the far left. After cutting into it, it totally sunk. I used half regular flour and half sprouted wheat flour. I tried to figure out what was wrong. Apparently it rose too much and didn't have enough flour to create a solid loaf, so it sunk when it started baking. Boo hiss. Tastes good though, although it didn't fully cook in the middle (which I didn't realize until later). Sprouted wheat flour acts as an enhancer for dough which makes the bread rise more so I probably added too much yeast causing the collapse.

So after the bread machine cooled down, I thought I would try another loaf, my regular way with only half a cup of the sprouted wheat flour. I did the quick setting, which is one hour, start to finish. That is the bottom right loaf. I don't think it cooked all the way through. It is pretty short and solid and not done on the top. After taking it out, it sunk a lot in the middle. It hasn't been cut into but I suspect it isn't baked through. Sigh.

My banana bread came out great! I made it in the crockpot in a silicone loaf pan. I should of packed some foil around it to keep the loaf shape as it spread out in the middle. Still, otherwise really good!

So what I may have to start doing is baking it in the oven. If I have to do that, I will bake more than one loaf at a time and also do buns and rolls. If my bread maker isn't cooking all the way through, it's pointless to keep using it. It is still good for mixing and kneading the bread. It is hard for me to do it manually so it will still serve a good purpose. I need to start having a baking day each week.