Friday, February 25, 2011

Buckwheat SOUR DOUGH - EGG Free Bread


How do you make Sour Dough Starter? Here it is, short and sweet:
(Taken from Tamara Clark and the blog site “SimplyAlaskan.com”)

1. Find a crock
2. Wash the crock and find a top for it (any plastic lid that fits lightly on top will work fine).
3. Dilute 2 Tablespoons of commercial yeast in 2 cups of warm water. Put 2 cups of brown rice flour into your crock and pour in your warm water mix. Add 2 Tablespoons of sugar (white, brown, honey, molasses) and mix well. Let your covered crock sit in a warm place for 24 hours. You can start using it the next day, if you'd like, or you can repeat the feeding process by adding some more sugar and letting it sit another day or so before using it. Usually, we start using ours the next day and watch in amazement as our sourdough's (flapjacks) get better and better each day after, as we use and replenish our starter.
4. If you use your starter, replace what you used. If you use a cup of starter, for instance, for flapjacks in the morning, replenish your starter with 1 cup of rice flour, 1 cup of warm water and 1-2 T of sugar. Pretty easy. (I usually make my starter the consistency of pancake batter.)
*Note: you don't have to use your starter every day but if it's at room temperature it's best to feed it daily. (flour/water/sugar)
That's it.

Now, take one 13 oz package of Arnel’s Originals Bread Mix.
Add 9 oz of water, 3 Tablespoons oil, ½ teaspoon apple cider vinegar
Mix till smooth and stretchy. Add 8.7oz sour dough starter. Mix again.
Let it rise in a warm place until it rises (Maybe a couple of hours)

Bake on 350* oven for 35 minutes and viola ENJOY your Whole Grain, Organic, Gluten Free, Sour Dough Bread.

(Egg free, Soy free, Corn free, Dairy free, Gluten Free!)

Tuesday, February 8, 2011

LEMON BARS

Absolutely delicious!

CRUST
1 cup Arnel's Originals Gluten Free All Purpose Flour and Pie Crust Mix 
1/2 cup Earth Balance Margarine
1/4 cup sugar

  Mix flour, margarine, and sugar and press in bottom of square pan 8 x 8". Bake in 350º for 20 minutes. Prepare the mixture below: 

LEMON MIXTURE
2 eggs
3 Tablespoons lemon juice + zest
1 cup sugar
2 Tablespoons AO All Purpose Flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon sea salt


Beat eggs and lemon juice and zest for 2 minutes until light and fluffy. Add dry ingredients, beat for another minutes, and pour mixture over the hot crust. Bake 25 minutes longer in a 350º oven. 
Dust with powdered sugar while hot out of the oven and cut into squares


Elimination Diet for the top 11 food allergies


FOOD ELIMINATION DIET
Over the years I have encountered many people who quietly live with chronic maladies like rashes, hay fever, and digestive disorders, and they wonder if food might be a contributing factor. Some of them have heard about food elimination diets but have no idea how to successfully go on one. Well, here’s my plan for an easy FOOD ELIMINATION DIET to try. Keep in mind that if you are very diligent, you will only have to do this once. Also, the actual diet is easier than you think. Just plan well and focus on all the things you CAN eat, rather than all the foods you CAN’T eat.
This experiment will take approximately one month, two weeks for your body to expel the irritating foods, and two weeks to slowly add them back in. It will be easier to have the whole family go on the same diet but if you have someone who is digging their heels in the sand, just tell them to eat whatever they would like OUTSIDE the house but at home, these are their only choices.
First, a little allergy background: There are four general categories of irritants to the body: food, animal dander, chemical smells (bleach, formaldehyde in clothing, nail polish, etc.), and environmental particles (dust mites, mold spores, pollens, etc.). Most sensitive people are challenged with more than one of these categories but it’s the food irritants that are the easiest to control. Let’s dive right in.
The 11 most common food irritants in their purest forms are:
dairy products – milk, cottage cheese
gluten – wheat, barley, rye, malt (pasta, grape nuts cereal, rye crisps)
sugar – sugar cubes
eggs – usually it’s the yolks that are more of a problem
cocoa – chocolate powder
red and yellow food dyes – Jell-O, unsweetened Kool-Aid (sweeten with honey)
corn – corn on the cob, popcorn, corn chips
citrus – oranges, pineapple, lemons, tomatoes
soy – tofu, soy nuts, edamame
peanuts – natural peanut butter, peanuts
preservatives – BHT (in most chewing gum), sodium benzoate (flavored drinks), potassium sorbate (frozen otter pops)
(Although there are countless preservatives in our foods, for some reason these three are the most common irritants.)
These are the foods you will be eliminating for 2 weeks!
STEP 1: Go through your cupboards, refrigerator, freezer, and pantry, and bag up all of the foods that contain these ingredients. If you have been eating a traditional American diet, you should have about 80% of your food in bags. Put them somewhere out of eye sight (perhaps the garage,) and head to the store to stock up your next two weeks of acceptable foods.
STEP 2: Go food shopping. Here are lists of acceptable foods by category. BE CREATIVE and take your positive attitude to the store with you. Basically, you will be eating simple foods with a few ingredients in a non-processed form.
OILS – all cold pressed oils are safe (except corn oil).
PROTEINS – all nuts (except peanuts), seeds, meats, poultry, nitrate-free sausages, and beans, are safe. Season with salt, garlic, onions, or anything else that’s pure.
VEGETABLES – all veggies (except corn)
FRUITS – all fruits (except oranges, lemons, pineapple, limes, tomatoes, anything citrus)
DRINKS – non-citrus juices, non-caffeinated teas, club soda
CARBOHYDRATES – anything with rice, potatoes, tapioca, buckwheat, millet, quinoa, amaranth
Here are some meal and snack suggestions:
Breakfast – rice cereal with almond milk, homemade home fries, fruit, beans and rice
Lunch – rice crackers with almond butter and fruit sweetened jelly, turkey, chicken, roast beef, rice pasta with garlic and oil, salad, tuna or salmon with Best Foods Mayo, baked potato with broccoli, homemade potato salad, rice cakes topped with tuna
Dinner – meats, poultry, fish, or beans, brown rice, rice pasta, quinoa, millet, buckwheat, healthy oil potato chips, homemade cole-slaw, homemade potato pancakes thickened with rice flour
Snacks – dry roasted nuts, celery and carrot sticks, cucumbers with salt, potato chips, fruit (melons, blueberries, and peaches), smoothies with almond milk, non-citrus fruits, and honey, apple sauce, jicama, avocado dip (just mash it with water and salt.)
STEP 3: Start the diet. One very important thing to keep in mind is that food which you are sensitive to, can act like a drug. There might be withdrawal symptoms. On day three, my six year old daughter had a screaming tantrum for almost an hour in front of the refrigerator begging, I mean desperately begging for a piece of bread. I almost gave in but something told me to stand firm. Boy am I glad I did because from this diet we found out how intolerant she was to gluten products. It was my homemade organic whole wheat bread sweetened with honey that caused her to have the most violent reactions.
STEP 4: Add one category of food at a time back into your diet every other day. It a small amount in the morning, and if you do not have any violent reactions, eat lots of that food for lunch and dinner. Make sure the food consists of one or two ingredients. For instance, on the day you eat dairy, don’t eat ice cream which also has sugar and eggs. Drink milk and/or eat cottage cheese instead. Keep a journal of how you sleep, how you feel emotionally, and what your body does physically (rashes, irritability, tension, gas, sneezing, itchy nose, palette, or skin, joint aches, respiratory congestion, stomach cramps, nausea, etc.) If there are no negative reactions, you now can add that food back into your diet. If you are not sure if you reacted, keep the food out and test it again later. If you have a reaction, stay away from that food. Often times, you can handle certain foods in moderation but not in excess. In that case, you could probably rotate a small amount of that questionable food in your diet every 4 days or just eat a small amount once in a while when you are eating out and do ok. That’s what I do with dairy products.
Well, my friends. Good luck with the diet and stay healthy!
Arnel McAtee
2/2011