Few Friday Things

Apparently today is Celiac Awareness Day. I didn't know we had a day. I knew we had a month but I missed it, wasn't diagnosed yet. I'm not quite sure what I'm supposed to do for this day of a Celiac Awareness. Everyone I know already knows I have it and I'm quite sure at times, are sick of hearing me talk about it when I'm in a bad place and need to vent. I suppose another thing I have to learn, how to celebrate Celiac Awareness!

I'd been feeling quite tired this week and feeling very foggy. Yesterday it all kind of hit me...headache, tummy trouble and extreme exhaustion. I did what I had to do, get the other people in my house on their way and did some errands. Then I came home and slept for 3 hours. Do you know what it feels like to admit that?  I had gone to bed early (for me) the night before and got 8 hours of sleep. I should not have been tired. However, I sat down when I got home and it was O-V-E-R. I found a great blog shortly after being diagnosed called Gluten Dude. It's my favorite by far as I find myself relating to so many of his posts. One of the first of his I read was a list of "You know you have celiac when" and one was something like "you nap more than a pre-schooler". Yep. I'd been sneaking naps for a longtime. I was a closet napper, too ashamed to let anyone know I'd been sleeping during the day prior to being diagnosed. It's something I'm now more comfortable admitting knowing that my body is fighting an auto-immune disease. I still don't like that I do it but now I feel more validated because now I know there is a reason I'm tired.

More food happened. 

I made focaccia with my Pamela's bread mix. I'm not thrilled with it. It's not "spummy" like the coffee cake I made but I'm still not loving the texture of the breads this mix makes. This did not have eggs in it like the sandwich bread I made with the mix so I was hopeful for a positive change in texture but it was remarkably the same. I did, however, make something with the leftovers the next night that was much better. I topped it with Italian seasoning and garlic powder and warmed it through in the oven which also toasted it. Then, I topped it with shredded asiago cheese and broiled it until melted. Much better. It definitely needs toasting and something on it to counter what I don't like about it. 

A note also on textures. I don't like a lot of foods because of textures but it's never been breads and cake, usually vegetables and fruits. I have serious oral texture issues. I learned they were called this when my son was diagnosed with sensory integration dysfunction when he was a toddler. We worked through his issues and I'm guessing my pickiness has a lot to do with the fact that my own issues were never dealt with. Oral texture issues or not, GF breads and baked goods are usually different. With that being said, my husband and son both liked the coffee cake and focaccia and had no problems with the texture of either of them. I think I just like good, crusty, artisan bread and that's a tough task when you're dealing with alternative flours.  As for cakes, I love a good, homemade, buttery cake...something even regular Bisquick cannot deliver. I will now drop the coffee cake, I'm officially over it. 

I made crisped rice treats today. Notice that I did not make Rice Krispie Treats. Do you want to know why? Because they have malt flavor in them. Do you know what malt flavor has in it? Yeah, gluten. You're getting good at this! I thought Rice Krispie Treats would be a good snack back in the summer when we were going somewhere I needed to bring a dessert. I made a regular dessert and thought this would be good for me and would not scream "GLUTEN FREE" but found I was wrong when I spotted malt in the ingredients. I've made them since with Nature's Path cocoa type of crisped rice cereal but it's not my favorite. I recently found Erewhon Crispy Brown Rice and it's gluten free. However, in keeping with the original intent of this blog, I hate pairing it with the marshmallows that although are gluten free and say so right on the package, also contain all kinds of junk. Right above the words "gluten free" on the marshmallows is the junky ingredient list. Who knew WHITE marshmallows had blue food coloring in them? I'm still trying desperately to find my balance with eating more wholesomely with my limitations, my pickiness, my budget and desire to get this 15 pounds off I've been carrying for far too long.

This makes 3 whole blog posts this week. I will try to keep going. I feel that this is an outlet for what's in my head without holding anyone hostage in face to face conversation. I thank those of you who are following along. Have a happy weekend!

Spummy

Is that a word? Well, I am making it one.

Introducing, "Spummy", the combination of spongey and gummy that describes a fair amount of gluten free baked goods. 

If you read my post from yesterday, yes...that does make 2 blog posts in a row...don't get used to it though, I had a gluten free Bisquick coffee cake in the oven. It smelled wonderful as I typed away. My son came home from school, smelled it and exclaimed, "apple crisp?". I made him keep guessing, since he was wrong, and then told him it was coffee cake when he guessed every other fall dessert. There was excitement in the air, I tell you. I'd been craving cinnamon something for a while now. A couple days ago it was cinnamon rolls. Then, after I saw this recipe, I wanted coffee cake. In between it was all the fall recipes starting to float around that all inevitably have cinnamon in them. It was finally THE day. The day I was going to have a cinnamon baked good.

One reason I made it was for dessert. I was going to make a nice dinner for the family since my husband had been traveling since late last week. He'd had a nightmare of an ordeal at the airport and there was now no way he was making it home for dinner. Now, I had to figure when was appropriate to dig in. Did I wait until he came home later and have some with him for a snack? As the day went on it seemed more and more it'd be a midnight snack if I waited, his 1 hour layover ended up turning into about 7 hours. My son and I decided to just dig in...we wait for no one when it comes to cake.

It looked lovely. Nice streusel topping. I cut into it and the cake had risen nicely, had a good looking crumb and color. The texture looked good. It did not crumble to pieces when I cut it or tried to get that first piece out that can be troublesome. You know what this is all leading up to, right?

Spummy. 

How can something that looks so much like the real thing taste so much not like the real thing? Oh dear. Where do I begin?

To start off, many of the reviewers on the official Bisquick website indicated that this cake needed moisture. I took their word for it. That Betty Crocker yellow cake I mentioned in yesterday's post was so terribly dry, I knew they were onto something. A majority of the reviewers added oil and sour cream to the cake and some substituted agave for the sugar. I did not have agave so I couldn't do that. I thought about maple syrup instead but decided to just use my regular sugar. I did add additional oil and sour cream. I read through the posts and decided on an amount based on what most were saying, a quarter cup of each. I baked it an additional 10 minutes or so as some indicated it would need and mine did, it was jiggly at the end of the recipe's stated bake time range. Are these modifications where I went wrong? It could be, but everyone who did this gave it 4 and 5 stars.  

My son took the first bite and said that the "cinnamon stuff" was good. Well, yeah...cinnamon stuff is always good. My first bite consisted mostly of cake. Um, not so good. It's so indescribable. There was no taste and again with the vanilla that it called for and again using Nielsen Massey and a little extra that I let splash over the measuring spoon like the yellow cake I had made. The texture seemed like it wanted to be normal. It almost was and then you realize it isn't the more you chew. You keep wanting it to be because as you are chewing this flavorless, spummy cake, you are looking at the piece of it on your plate and it's inconceivable as to how something that looks like "that" can possibly taste and feel like it does in your mouth.

I think the Bisquick I've been hoarding will be kept strictly for pancakes and garlic cheddar biscuits. This girl is done experimenting with things that I would have never used Bisquick for before I went gluten free. It's time to start using from scratch recipes for things like coffee cake. It's really not much more work in the end and I'm hopeful that it will taste better. I never really used Bisquick for too much before because the end product was never very pleasing to me so I'm not really sure why I was expecting something spectacular out of it gluten free.

Summer's End

Well, I made it through my first summer gluten free.  Also, blog free.  My intention, of course, was to blog more frequently but with all the summer goings on, it didn't happen since I'm not yet back in the habit of getting on here and getting it done.

Over the summer I started to do a little baking so I'm building my confidence with that.  It's been nothing complicated and a lot of it has started with a mix or pre blended flour but it's a start. Can I tell you I have 5 boxes of gluten free Bisquick in my house right now?  I'm kinda hoarding it because it helps me. This is not my preferred method of baking AT ALL but it fulfills my need to whip up some pancakes that taste like pancakes, especially when you use buttermilk in the recipe.  Currently, as I type this, I have the gluten free Bisquick coffee cake recipe in the oven with a bazillion tweaks that I mixed and matched off of the recipe reviews. We'll see what happens with that.  Some of the other things I've played with this summer are:

-The first thing I made with the gluten free Bisquick was their garlic cheddar biscuits. They turned out so nicely. A little tiny bit gritty but there was so much flavor otherwise, it was easy to overlook the small flaw in the texture. 

 -I bought Pamela's Bread Mix and made a loaf of bread. It turned out pretty decently. I think it needs something though...can't quite put my finger on what bothered me about it after eating a couple slices of it.  I love Pamela's website. The recipes are broken down by flour blend/mix and you can make a lot of things with each type they make. I'm looking forward to playing with this blend/mix more. 

  

-I love King Arthur's brownie mix.  A lot.  Enough said.

-I made a Betty Crocker yellow cake mix.  It was very dry.  It was flavorless...even though it was a yellow cake mix and you still had to add your own vanilla to it.  I use Nielsen Massey vanilla so it's real vanilla and it's good quality and I always splash a bit extra over the measuring spoon and it still had no flavor. (That's a lot of and's)

-I made biscuits using the Bakewell Cream biscuit recipe with Trader Joe's all-purpose gluten free flour. This definitely needs some work but it was edible. As I'm learning, gluten free baked goods tend to be very dry. Lots of oil and eggs seem to be used to help counter this. I'd like to play more with this because I love the Bakewell Cream recipe for biscuits.

-I did also make a recipe from Gluten Free on a Shoestring website at the beginning of the summer and had posted it here. I took it off when I noticed the font was screwed up.  I never got back to fixing it, I was having a lot of difficulty with it and was aggravated with the thought of doing it completely over. It was for a copycat of Against the Grain rolls.  They were pretty good and I've made them again since.  I will probably make them again. The only thing I don't like is the amount of fat in them but you can't have it all, right?!?

I managed to not gluten myself too much this summer. I did get sick a few times and I'm pretty sure I figured out the culprits each time. It's a hard thing because gluten hides in the trickiest of places. Restaurants are well meaning having gluten free items on their menus yet do not fully understand the major impact cross contamination can have on someone who has celiac disease.  Different varieties of the same food can have different gluten statuses. Do you know how confusing Milky Ways are?  Don't eat the original, but the the caramel and dark are okay. I can't figure out why but I sure learned there is a difference after I did some more thorough research AFTER eating the original. I thought I had it right BEFORE but it never hurts to double check again before you eat.  Lesson learned. 

I had an endoscopy in August to follow up the blood work which showed the antigens that indicated I have celiac. Seems at one time an endoscopy was the "gold standard" for celiac diagnosis but from what I've been reading, more doctors are not leaning towards that school of thought as much anymore.  My doctor was going back and forth on whether or not to do one, we did already have it scheduled before the blood results came in so she said we might as well go ahead. She was able to see "blunting" of the villi during the scope, indicating celiac damage.  She also found minor esophagitis. This was a surprise to me as I've never had a problem with heartburn. The biopsies she took did come back showing celiac so I guess that I am totally and completely official. Gold standard and all. 

I successfully went on vacation. We had planned this trip prior to my diagnosis and to be honest with you, had I known I was going to have this, I probably would not have planned to go. I was so worried I would not find anything I could eat for a reasonable price. I'm super picky too, on top of everything. A lot of challenges. I brought tons of gluten free bars with me and had a few on me at all times but only found a few instances in which I had to use them instead of a meal. I ate a lot of baked potatoes at Wendy's during the week for quick lunches and I will forever be grateful that there was a Wendy's about a mile each way out of our hotel so no matter which direction we headed out, we were not far from one. (We went to Vegas and stayed on the strip) I found a lot of the staff were super helpful at the places that were not Wendy's.  I don't think I got sick.  I know, how could I not know.  Well, there is a thing called TMI so I will keep it to myself but what did happen, I don't think could really be attributed to what I ate since it was early in the trip and before too much restaurant food that could be suspect.  This trip really boosted my confidence with eating out. It did require a lot of planning and also, a lot of patience from my family but we made it happen without too much inconvenience. I had pizza, pasta, burgers, fries and a lot of baked potatoes...one every day!

That's a quick summary of my summer. I won't promise too much here as to when I'll blog again but do know that my intention is that there will be less time in between blogs this time around. Fall is here and the baking bug has bit me but so has the "I need to lose some weight" bug.  Perfect timing. I'll see what I can come up with for the next blog, somehow these two worlds have to collide!