I am not kidding you.  Just with this one blog entry I may never have to scratch my head over this again.  Should you somehow need more than 175 week at a glance plans, take heart. They apparently do this EVERY MONDAY.  I am so never going to make another food list. 

Tell me though.  Am I the only one who puzzles over the 5 days of meals?  Do people fast the other two? Not that this would be a bad idea… Just wondering who shops for 5 days?  Not to worry though. We will cobble two lists per week if need be. Just seems odd.

I am not kidding you.  Just with this one blog entry I may never have to scratch my head over this again.  Should you somehow need more than 175 week at a glance plans, take heart. They apparently do this EVERY MONDAY.  I am so never going to make another food list. 

Tell me though.  Am I the only one who puzzles over the 5 days of meals?  Do people fast the other two? Not that this would be a bad idea… Just wondering who shops for 5 days?  Not to worry though. We will cobble two lists per week if need be. Just seems odd.

If you scoot on over to the Homemaker’s Cottage before the 9th of Sept (thats day after next y’all) you can download Volume 1 of Meals for a Month free.  I think I have mentioned how grateful I am to anyone who can tell me what to cook. <g>  These look quite good, though this plan will go over better if your family is fond of tortillas.  Just sayin’….  ; )

I am back from our trip and have so much to share and so little time to do so. : /  Forgive me for the late emails etc.  I am offering up this site in the meantime. I was reading a Woman’s Day magazine at the doctor’s office and noticed that the only part of it I tend to love is online free – the monthly menu planner.  Enjoy!

The Urban Homemaker newsletter had some nifty food fixin’ ideas this week.  For starters there was a July 4th planner download with a full seasonal menu. What really made me smile was the popsicle article from Living on a Dime however. She had directions for your basic fruit juice pop but then several great ideas I hadn’t thought of like the homemade go-gurts and freezing the leftover canned fruit juice. Check it out!

For more 4th recipes try this red, white, and blue trifle.

Can’t go wrong with Jello and Kool Whip.  What holiday is complete without red dye after all? ; o

Or a Flag Cake?  This one I actually have made many many times. You can use real food for this one.

Ok I am seriously hungry now so better run. : )

We made these Pumpkin Spice Muffins.  Well, sort of.  We made them with leftover mashed sweet potatoes instead of pumpkin and minus the glaze. But hey. ; )  I am doing something I NEVER do.  I am reading a food blog. And liking it. Honestly I am not a ‘foodie’.  Probably has to do with food allergies. I get bummed out when I get two thirds down the recipe list and discover foods I can neither eat nor substitute. Still this site is SO pretty. It makes me hungry just browsing. Never mind its chock full of nightshades. : P  Nor that the banter, honest and unpretentious as it may be, is a bit raunchier than most of us here would like to make a steady diet of. It is, never the less, a reeeeeally good distraction from conference planning. <g> Particularly distracting if you stare hard enough at the mango at the top and try to figure out how he got his features superimposed….. (or is it a papaya?  I told you, I am no foodie)

Oh and the muffins were darn tasty. We served them with "cream of green" soup for lunch. (leftover cauliflower, broc, and spinach in a white sauce base) You will have to take our word for it because the head cowhand here doesn’t do muffins.  His loss.

We had mashed potatoes last night which meant we had potato cooking water left over.  The starch makes for very soft whole grain bread.  After dinner we added yeast, salt, oil, and flour to the  water and were able to set some nice whole wheat potato bread dough in the fridge for today’s tuna/egg salad sandwiches. We are so happy to have fresh eggs once again since the hens have begun to lay. 

Cheryl is hosting the Loveliness of Baking fair this week which was good motivation for me to gather my thoughts on low gluten and gluten free flours. When I got sick in my mid-20’s I went on an elimination diet.  At the time I was reacting to just about everything, but particularly glutinous flours. Wheat and oats made me break out in a rash. Corn triggered migraines. My diet was pretty sparse while my health was rebuilding but it introduced to us grains that we may never have tried. These have remained staples in our diet even though I am able to enjoy a wide variety of foods again.

Americans in particular tend to have a pretty limited grain repertoire. We stick to wheat bread and crackers, corn chips and tortillas, and oatmeal. If you haven’t branched out too far from those three I have jotted down some things you might find helpful to know.

Gluten is the protein in grains that causes them to stick together and form long fibers in the dough. This is critical for yeast breads and helps to hold up the loaves as they rise and bake. It is also imperative when making things like tortillas. (These two items were very difficult to simulate. The Gluten Free Gourmet series of cookbooks are a help here. ) Those proteins also cause problems in the gut for a lot of people. Gluten has been linked to MS and Rheumatoid Arthritis and autism as well as celiac disease. Aside from that overloading on a particular grain can cause sensitivities. Lots of reasons to try some others.

I use my electric grain mill to grind whole grains into flours. Since low and no-gluten flours have varying qualities and textures here is a primer of sorts to help you get started:

brown rice – it has a gritty texture when ground into flour so it is best mixed with a smoother substance

millet – this is GOOD! It has a similar taste to corn meal but a much finer texture. Makes very light cake like baked goods. My kids prefer my mock cornbread to the real deal now.

buckwheat – not really a wheat at all. Strong flavor.  Good for pancakes or mixed in with other grains. A gummy texture so it works with rice flour. The white buckwheat is particularly nice.

barley – I use this for my all purpose flour in cookies, pancakes, muffins etc. Its light but has enough gluten to hold together by itself.

oats – heavy and clumpy. I add them in small amts to pancake batter or muffins. Obviously cookies <g>

Spelt – a cousin to wheat and lots more gluten than the rest.

amaranth – teensy grains with a bit of a strong flavor. Good mixed in small amts. Lots of protein.

tapioca, arrowroot, and potato starch – all kinda gummy and good to use as binders for rice or millet bases.  Arrowroot is the best of the list for making gravies.

Fwiw, I substitute barley one for one for wheat flour in recipes. Use the gluten free mix linked below if you want to use rice flour instead. Some links:

Blueberry Muffin recipe

Gluten free mix and recipes

wheat free recipes

Today is Ash Wednesday marking the first day of lent for Catholics.  I have done a bit of surfing for inspiration while making my menus and found some good vegetarian menu links:

One month veg menu

One week menu – Hyvee

OAMC veg plan  (more soy than I would be comfortable with)

Flickr lunch ideas and more FLickr

The Veggie Table a collection of easy recipes and I am all about ‘easy’

more easy recipes

  Here is the rest of the follow up on the freezer cooking. A mixed bag to be sure as I wrote earlier. Some things have worked out rather well however. Best move – getting back to processing food upon bringing it in the door from the van. We got away from that after Tess because the kids were unloading food and it ended up going straight to the fridge in original store bags. Problem there is that every time you need a vegetable you must wash and peel and trim. There was a lot of waste and mess in the fridge too. With this many people in and out of it we had to clear it out and wash it weekly which was a bit demoralizing. This way we take the food out of the grocery bag, wash, peel, trim and store it in plastic or glass container.  I would prefer more glass since I am a bit of a plasti-phobe but will take what we can get for now. The fridge looks sooooo much better and is staying much tidier even at week’s end.

An interesting side note – it seems every few years all of a sudden nothing seems to be working well logistically. It occurred to me about ten years ago it was because while our family was growing our stuff wasn’t. The result was growing pains which I hadn’t really planned for – the pancake griddle’s size was slowing down breakfast prep, the serving bowls no longer held all of the prepared dish, etc. Then there is the perennial problem of staying stocked up in flatware and glasses. ; )  Up side was I realized it wasn’t me being disorganized, it was a practical problem that could be solved by scaling up. We are in that place again so a trip to the kitchen ware section is on order.

alright, Miss Tess is hungry on that note.  : )