Substituting bread ingredients

I have started making bread from Pamela's Gluten-Free Bread Mix.  On Amazon.com, I can buy 3 bags of 4-lb. bread mix for a little more than $35, which equals out to less than $4/loaf.  It's a rather easy mix, when you use the listed ingredients.  However, I am not an ingredient follower and I wanted to substitute the eggs with ground flax seed and the oil with applesauce.  For two eggs I used a half cup of water with 2 tsp. of flax seeds.  I did equal measurement for the oil with the applesauce.  I decided to make the switches in ingredients because I wanted to add more fiber to my bread, and lower the calories and cholesterol content. 

I have never used an egg substitute in the past with this mix, so I was a little shocked when the bread come out almost as it would have if I had followed the listed ingredients.  The dough still rose, and the house had that lovely baked-bread smell all day.  The bread came out looking beautiful, but it also came out sticky.  The slices are a little tough to pull apart without breaking the bread.  The taste, however, is nice and sweet.  I think the applesauce helped overshadow the flax seeds, because the only way I can tell they are in there is by looking at the bread.  

The bread does toast nicely, which tells me the next time I try making the bread this way I will cook it for 80 minutes - instead of the 70 minutes that is on the directions.  The bread is also still tough enough to handle butter being spread on it without tearing.  All in all, I have to say I will try making the bread this way again, but adding a little more time to the baking process. 

Kettle Corn, Any One?

I love baking, but I find that the more I bake the more sugar I consume.  And the more sugar I consume, the bigger my belly becomes.  :-) So I came across sucanat sugar and blonde coconut sugar at my local health food store, which I, of course, bought immediately.  The blonde coconut sugar is supposed to be interchangeable with white sugar, and the sucanat sugar is supposed to be interchangeable with brown sugar.  Plus, I did a little research, and both sugars have a lower glycemic level than white sugar.  Awesome!

I was excited to get started in the kitchen and test drive these new sugars.  Last night I made a batch of chocolate chip cookies with my new sugars.  Surprise!  Surprise!  The cookies actually came out tasting great!  I had a cookie fresh out of the over, and the sucanat sugar provided a molasses taste to the cookies, which makes me believe this type of sugar would be great with ginger bread cookies.  However, when the cookies were completely cooled there was no molasses after-taste. 

So tonight I thought I would try to make kettle corn with the sucanat and blonde coconut sugars, since the cookies turned out amazingly.  I figured the popcorn would have more of a carmel taste to it, due to the color of the sugar and the nature of how the sugars melts.  Haha!  Both batches tasted like burnt popcorn.  Neither batch had the carmalized sweet taste I was expecting.  In the past I've tried using brown sugar and stevia; again, the results were horrible. 

The conclusion in this experiment is that if I'm going to be making kettle corn, I will be using real white sugar.  If anyone out there has mastered making kettle corn with alternative sugars, please let me know your secret. 

Kettle Corn Recipe:
Ingredients -
- 1/4c. oil (I use either canola or coconut oil,olive oil will leave an olive taste)
- 1/4c. sugar
- 1/2c. popcorn kernels
- 4 qt. sauce pan with lid

Directions -
- Put oil in sauce pan on medium heat and let oil heat up
- Add sugar to oil and mix until sugar is dissolved
- Add kernels to sugar/oil combination and close lid
- Wait until you hear popping and then start shaking sauce pan over heat (**Be sure to shake every 30 seconds or sooner.  This will keep popcorn from burning.**)
- Once popping starts slowing down immediately put popcorn into bowl (**Popcorn will burn if you do not take popcorn off heat right away**)

Happy New Year!

New Year's Eve was a very nice, low-key evening with my family.  I had dinner with my sister at the Wild Tuna in Naperville - I didn't take my husband because he isn't a fan of sushi.  If you live in the Naperville area, I strongly suggest going to the Wild Tuna at least once.  The restaurant is South on Rt. 59, closer to Plainfied.  It's a strip-mall restaurant, but it has the best sushi I have ever tasted.  My sister and I ordered five rolls, and each one was amazing!  However, the only complaint I have is that Wild Tuna did not put in the roll description whether anything was "fried" - to be honest, I may not have been looking at the menu's description all that closely.  I ordered the B-52 roll, which was yummy, but had a breaded, crunchy taste to it.  Whoops!  I had no idea this roll wasn't gluten free.  Needless to say, my sister ate the remainder of the roll.  I ate the piece of sushi - even though I could taste the breading- because once wheat has entered my mouth I'm already in trouble.  I didn't finish the roll because I didn't want to get super sick.  I spent the rest of the night being able to breath and my stomach wasn't knotting up, so I thought I had dodged a bullet.

On New Year's morning I woke up with my right ear throbbing. At first I thought I slept on it wrong; I completely forgot about the B-52 roll.  I was irritable, sluggish and I was starting to get a sinus headache.  For anyone with allergies, I'm sure you can relate to these symptoms.  I was also pooping more than usual (I apologize for the bluntness, but unusual bowel movements is a symptom of gluten intolerance.  I promise, I will write about bowel movements in a future post.).  It wasn't until later on in the evening that I realized my body has been reacting the little amount of wheat I ingested from the B-52 roll.  At this point it was too late to go the pharmacy to get some decongestant medication.  This morning I woke up with my eyes a little sticky, my throat is scratchy, and I'm coughing.  Plus, my ear has gone from throbbing to feeling clogged, which makes me a little deaf. 

So, now what?  If I wait too long to treat my symptoms, it will become a sinus infection and I will need to take antibiotics to get better.  However, today I will be going to the pharmacy to pick up the generic version of Claritin-D 24-hour medication.  I will also be sucking on cough drops to help with my chest cold.  Thankfully, most cough drops state gluten free on the packaging.  Since my immune system is in overdrive, I'm going to feed my body as much fresh fruits and vegetables to help myself get better faster.  I'm also going to try to stay away from dairy, because dairy helps your body produce flem.  Outside of a piece of cake today, since yesterday was my birthday and today is when my husband was able to make me a birthday cake (He's so sweet!), I'm going to cut sugar from my diet since I find eating sweets while I'm sick only keeps me sick.  Plus, a chiropractor once told me I should drink V-8 when I'm sick, not orange juice, because bacteria grows in sugar and that will make me sick longer. 

Now for the fun news.  It's not just food you have to worry about being gluten free.  It's also your medication and beauty products.  Since I'm talking about medications today, I'll write about beauty products later.  Wait?!  What?!  I have to worry about medication being gluten free, too?!  Unfortunately, yes.  Everything that you ingest has to be gluten free.  Here is a list of the latest gluten-free medication.  You need to check this list every time you get a new medication.  Also, you need to tell your doctor and pharmacist you have gluten intolerance.  Both may be able to check your prescription is gluten free - I say "may be able" because I cannot speak with authority on this statement.

I hope you had an amazing New Year's Eve and were able to have a relaxing New Year's day.