Gluten-Free Maui

I’m trying something new and changing things in my diet and household a wee bit.

A few months ago The Nerd’s step-mom gave me a copy of “Nourishing Traditions” (“N.T.”). While I haven’t read the whole thing through (can you blame me, it’s over 600 page, has gobs of recipes and can be quite dry) it seems to be about changing the way we think about food and nutrition. The authors quote Weston A. Price and his studies a lot throughout the book, and even Michael Pollan has quoted shared Price’s findings in “In Defense of Food.” Price, a dentist, studied the traditional and aboriginal cultures and diets in many countries around the world. He found that the people who ate diets different from the standard Western Diet (A.K.A. American Diet) lived longer lives, had healthier bones and teeth, and had better health over all. The book also discusses studies of people who were put back onto their ancestral diets only to quickly see changes in their health for the better.

I tend to be a skeptic, and I didn’t want to trust this one book. But, when I read “In Defense of Food” I went back to “Nourishing Traditions” to give it another look. In the past couple of days I have run across numerous blogs supporting what is stated in “N.T.” including Kitchen Stewardship and Small Notebook. Three fabulous things about both blogs are the focus on healthier and more mindful eating, being mindful of our impact on the planet, and being able to do all of it fabulously on a budget.

One of the major key topics for debate in “Nourishing Traditions” is the debate on wether saturated fats are good or not. People around the world lived on diets which included saturated fats for thousands of years. The oil to cook food in often came from tallow (beef fat, or fat from other ruminants) or lard (fat from pork) or fat from chicken. The fat from animals can be rendered down to a useful source of fat for cooking every type of food you can imagine with. Yes, even sweet baked goods can be made with lard or tallow.

But, there came a point when it was in the best interest of certain agricultural players to say that these other types of fats weren’t good for humans to eat. Suddenly saturated fat was a horrific food to eat, and along came margarine and other oils. It turns out though that margarine has trans fats which are a lot worse than saturated fats. Companies are now proudly displaying labels reading “Trans Fat Free” (even when products still have trans fats but at a percent that is less than 1%).

So, now I am moving back toward allowing full fat foods into our diets (but of course ALWAYS in moderation). This doesn’t mean I will weigh 300 pounds or more by the end of the year. It is still the best policy to be mindful of our food and how much of it we consume. I believe when people eat “fat free yogurt” and similar products their minds stop thinking about how much they are eating because they don’t have to worry because “IT’S FAT FREE!”

Studies have shown that people drink more diet soda than they would regular soda because they assume it’s better for them, but they still gain weight. The same can be said about potato chips that are lower in fat or other products with decreased fat and/or sugar.

So, what does all this mean? While I mostly eat whole foods in their natural form already, I am going to be doing even more from scratch cooking around here as well as eating full fat foods. I want to eat foods that the earth presented to us, not “food like substances” that man presented to us.

I may also try out lacto-fermentation on some gluten free baking to see how it reacts (this is a practice used on wheat and other grains in “Nourishing Traditions” to lower the stomach upsetting, and nutrient absorption blocking, levels of phytic acids found in the grains).

Please, check out the book and the other blogs for an idea of what this could do for you, your friends, and your families too. Those ladies are rocking it out on their blogs almost daily. I’ve already added them to my feed reader!

Here’s what my meal plan for the coming week looks like:

Thursday Dinner: Wild Salmon Patties with Quinoa and Salad
Friday Dinner: Warm Quinoa Salad with Shrimp and Broccoli
Saturday: Leftovers
Sunday: Meatloaf with Mashed Potatoes and Salad
Monday: Spaghetti with Meatballs and Salad
Tuesday: Bacon Potato Pancakes with Homemade Apple Sauce and Berries with Whole Milk Yogurt
Wednesday: Lasagne Two Ways [Dairy (Full Fat) and Non-Dairy (Sprouted Organic Tofu and Vegan Mozzarella)]

The only obstacles this week were the vegan mozzarella and the shrimp. Unfortunately I couldn’t get non-farmed non-imported shrimp from Mana. I’ll check out Whole Foods for better shrimp in the future. We just needed it to finish out the elimination diet. Also, the canned salmon was pricier than I wanted it to be, but that’s okay I’m going to bulk it out with other goodies anyway so it will go farther! The ground turkey was frozen and a little more expensive at Mana, but I’ll get the fresh next time at Whole Foods.

The beef is grass fed and local. The salad fixings are local (except the carrots which are organic), and I got a 5 pound bag of organic potatoes at Mana for $6.00. Even the Tinkyada gluten free lasagne noodles are organic and only a couple dimes more than the same brand’s non-organic. The milk I bought this week is actually one that I’ve not been able to find until I went to Mana. It is organic and pasteurized instead of ultra pasteurized. The ultra pasteurization may kill off some of the stuff in milk that’s beneficial. Ultra pasteurized milk also doesn’t work well for making yogurt from scratch either. Since it’s so special you might think it was expensive, but it was actually less expensive than the organic ultra pasteurized milks I see everywhere else.

See, it can be done! I’m also going to try my hand at making yogurt this week in the crockpot. You can try too if you’d like!

There’s really not much to say when you have a picture like that. Okay, my thing to say is, “I want another one! Now!”

It’s been a while since I’ve had a hamburger on a bun. And, since I’ve been partially on the elimination diet with R. over the last couple months I’ve not eaten a ton of beef. So, when it was time to try out tomatoes again I went full force and had hamburgers.

This isn’t some piss poor beef either. This beef is Maui Cattle Company beef. It’s mostly grass fed and free range. I see these cows almost every day happily grinding (local term for serious eating) on the beautiful and lush Haleakala grasses. I filled the beef with horseradish, and oh man was that good. The only other seasoning was simple salt and pepper. It couldn’t get much simpler than that.

The bun recipe came from The Super Allergy Girl Cookbook. Her daughter has a series of various allergies, and you can find a news story about her on youtube and her baking videos as well.

While the smell was a little odd when the buns were hot, it dissipated as they cooled. The smell was most likely from the garbanzo bean flour. The flavor was fine. There wasn’t a lot of flavor to them at all really. However, they were the best texture I’ve had so far in a gluten-free bun. I made them a little thin this time, but I think that if I just increase the amount of batter in each one, then they’ll be right. It was really cool seeing them all puffed up in the oven. After removing them from the oven they shrink and develop the bun look.

I haven’t used the book a lot yet, but I am impressed by the ease of the making of her rolls and buns. One problem is that the binding is wanting to let the pages loose.

I will make these buns again. Check out the videos for the recipe.

Gluten Free Girl, Shauna Ahern, is asking everyone about the first food they cooked.

Well, honestly it was probably hamburger helper. We were the typical American family who subsisted on a lot of those box meals and canned vegetables. When your parents have full time jobs it can be hard for them to make a meal from scratch. My step-mom often told me that she wished she could have been home baking me chocolate chip cookies and making dinner from scratch. She wished she could have been at the door when I got home from school to hand me a cookie and ask me about my day. But, I know she and my dad had to work to keep things running the way we liked them. When I went to my mom’s for the weekends we would make Sunday dinner from scratch. We’d often have pot roast and vegetables with a nice salad and a crusty loaf of bread from the store. I miss that pot roast. Maybe she’ll make me one while I’m visiting. Yummmmm. My dad would grill out on the weekends, or hook up the deep fryer (we lived in the South so you had to have a stand alone outdoor deep fryer to do it right). I loved eating out at the picnic table. The long wait for the grilled chicken and vegetables, or the first bite of a perfectly good hush puppy were like heaven. Another of my favorites from my dad was my grandfather’s Corn Meal Mush. You could eat it savory or sweet. Such good memories are made around food.

But really, none of it was ever truly about the food. It was about the time spent together. I’m so glad we ate boxed meals because we had more time to spend together outside of the kitchen.

It is good to get into the kitchen and teach your kids to cook, especially these days when everyone grows up and continues to live off of the boxed meals. Thankfully I had enough skills under my belt from helping out on the nights we did make things from scratch to know how to pull off a good dinner. Now I cook from scratch every day!

When I first moved out the first dish I cooked completely from scratch for The Nerd was lasagna. He’s like Garfield, a true lasagna connoisseur. I boiled the noodles in a tiny pot (all we had) and laid them out in the casserole dish (thank god he had a nice Pyrex one), and sauced, cheesed, and layer upon layer it came together. It ended up slightly watery from the liquid in the ricotta, but it was lasagna. I was so proud. Well, okay, I didn’t make the sauce from scratch but I didn’t make the cheese from scratch either. It was close enough, and it was the first real food I could say I was proud of. Ironically, I haven’t made a lasagna since, and I keep promising him that I will now that there are gluten-free lasagna noodles. I guess I really need to keep that promise sometime soon. You never know what may happen before you get to keep your promises…

Even now, every day holds good memories of family, food, and that first lasagna.

I’ve never tried anything from The French Meadow Bakery, but one of their representatives contacted me and told me about their contest. Even if you’ve never had their products you could still look through their product list and come up with a recipe featuring one of their products.

Here is the short of their official play rules:

“We’re searching for the best Gluten-Free recipes and need your help. Simply send us your favorite Gluten-Free dishes featuring French Meadow Gluten-Free products for a chance to win one of many great prizes.
Entries will be judged by French Meadow Bakery’s chief culinarian, Chef Mark. The contest will be judged in two categories: sweet and savory, with recipe scoring based on taste, nutritional value, ease of preparation and originality.
Grand Prizes (2): a one-year supply of French Meadow Gluten-Free products and $250 grocery gift card.
Runners Up Prizes (2): a $100 grocery gift card.”

Have fun! Let me know if you win!

I like to figure out how much the various meals I make actually cost me. This lets me know if I am actually making something that is more expensive than I think it is. If it turns out that the meal is more expensive than previously thought I generally remove it from the meal cycle and prepare it less regularly.

This week I decided to figure out how much it is to make one cup of the gluten free flour mix from Artisanal Gluten Free Cooking.

I rounded to the nearest dollar for the cost of the different flours (using Maui pricing), divided the cost per bag by the number of servings per bag in the measurement the recipe uses, then I added up how much the measured amount cost.

In the end I found that I spend around $1.20 per cup of gluten free flour on this blend.

That’s quite a lot when you think about it. Going gluten free does drive your costs up if you buy prepared foods and substitute gluten free products for gluten filled products. This is why I usually avoid the substitutes and go for whole foods like vegetables, grains, and meats. I rarely bake a loaf of bread, but I know some gluten free families bake one to two loaves a week (depending on family size).

Wanting to know how my $1.20 compared to regular wheat flour I googled the cost of one cup of non organic, white all purpose flour. According to the writer at Grocery Cart Challenge one cup of flour costs about $0.24 cents. A mere quarter!

Then, comparing the blend to ready made blends was the next step. Bob’s Red Mill’s Gluten Free All Purpose Flour (on their website, not on Maui) costs $1.12 per cup. It most likely costs more on Maui as most things do.

Unfortunately The Pure Pantry doesn’t list serving size in cups or spoons. They measure their servings in number of pancakes per serving on the mixes. So, all I can say is that they run about $9.00 on Maui per 1.4 pounds. Reminder: This Product is Organic. The Bob’s Red Mill is about the same weight but is not organic. The Artisanal Blend price will vary based on whether your ingredients are organic or not. Mine are not, and are usually the Bob’s Red Mill brand.

King Arthur’s new blend is $8.00 for a 1.5 pound box.

Shocking isn’t it? Now you know why I don’t tend to put up a lot of cakes, breads, sweets, muffins, etc. It’s simply not economical. In these times most people are looking to lower their bills, including the grocery bill. One way to do that is to simply remove the substitutes, the snacks, and the sweets. My tip is for you to eat all natural, nutrient dense foods. Your wallet, and your body will thank you.