Mushrooms, Anyone?

Our family loves mushrooms in any shape or form. No, we don't grow them ourselves, or forage for them in the woods, but they are tasty when obtained from reputable sources. Well, we have a local mushroom farm, near the worm farm we frequent. I purchased some mushrooms from them at wholesale price and made some marinated mushrooms. This was a new undertaking for me, since it entailed canning of sorts. I think I did it right because all the lids are sunken down, not popping up if pressed on with a finger. It was a little time consuming to make them up, but not difficult. The first batch I made produced 5 quart jars full. I bought 10 lbs. of mushrooms for the batch. After giving away a couple jars, and snarfing down the rest, I had to make more. The second time, I purchased 20 lbs. of mushrooms wholesale, and got 10 quart jars. Yes, a little math lesson for you kiddos reading along.

Here is a picture of the first batch before it disappeared overnight. And I have to tell you: the second batch turned out much better than the first. I tweaked the recipe. Now, if only, I can replicate it again when need be. Why do I always do that? I am forever changing a recipe and then forgetting what I did to make it better.

If there is any interest, I will post the recipe. For all you locals, email me behind the scenes, and I will give you the low-down on obtaining the mushrooms at wholesale pricing. It is a mite tricky, but not illegal. I don't want you to be frustrated. And I don't think you want to buy 10# of mushrooms at full-price. It's expensive!

Now I'm off to sneak a few mushrooms under the cover of darkness. I have to take the fly swatter to the sneaky hands of my hubby and kids, or they'll eat them all up in a day or two.

Food Rut Progress

Well, there wasn't another new recipe the last couple of days, but we're staying out of our food rut. Yesterday we stopped at a local produce market, and found several things "in season", or at least close enough to being in season that lots of stuff was affordable. We came home with tons of fresh goodies:

• Corn on the cob, a whole case of it!
• Watermelon
• Peaches
• Black grapes
• Limes
• Bananas
• Mangoes
• Red & luscious tomatoes
• Green beans
• Potatoes
• Vidalia (sweet) onions
• Spinach
• Cucumber
• Carrots
• Red bell pepper
• Yellow crook-neck squash
• Zucchini
• Purple cabbage
• White cabbage
• Cilantro
• Napa cabbage (for more Asian salad)
• Ginger root

Wow! I guess we really loaded up. But it all came to under $50.00. I love that produce stand.

Gaudo-Gaudo

Here is the new recipe I tried tonight. It's really just a peanut sauce served over rice and veges. We liked it very much. My friend used to make it for me when we were in college together in TN. She went as a student missionary to Taiwan for a year before I met her, and she learned all kinds of tasty foreign dishes. I think this one might come from Micronesia. (It's pronounced like "god-oo" I think. I hope you like it!

Please feel free to half this sauce recipe. It makes quite a bit.

1 large onion, chopped finely
4 cloves garlic, pressed
2 to 3 C water
1 can coconut milk
1/4 C hot sauce "Louisiana" brand or similar (I used half that for the kids)
1/2 C soy sauce
1/2 C brown sugar
3 - 4 Tbsp. lemon jc.
2 C peanut butter (use less brown sugar if using sweetened PB like Jif, Peter Pan, etc.)

Cook the onion and garlic in the water until soft. Add the rest of the ingredients and stir until warmed.

Serve over cooked rice and steamed potato and carrot chunks (we like baby carrots).

Asian Noodle Salad

Well, so far, so good. I've made 4 new recipes in 4 days. I hope I can keep it up, just maybe not at such a tedious pace.

Here's the recipe (site link) to the salad I made tonight. I appreciate my blogging buddy posting it on her blog the other day. Thanks, SK. I will give you a couple cautions about this recipe though. It makes a huge salad. You are forewarned. Also, I used about 1/2 the hot pepper she calls for. Aren't serano hotter than jalapeno? I used 1/2 a jalapeno. I didn't find it too spicy, though it might have been if I'd used more. I thought it was delicious. The kids ate it, although it is not their favorite. I think it's good to stretch their comfort zone a little bit, even if they are good eaters for kids. I think variety is the spice of life. Hubby on the other hand, is always in a food rut, but he doesn't mind one bit.

First Venture into Thai Food

I tried my friend Tif's recipe for Pad Thai tonight. I had to adjust it a bit to fit our vegetarian needs. (I used some vege broth for the fish sauce, and omitted the shrimp. I was also lacking bean sprouts, so I used some of the fresh bok choy, thinly sliced, that I had left from last night's Chinese.) I did use the peanut butter, and it was pretty good! I would even say very good. At first the kids liked it, but then after they ate it a while, they changed their minds. I may try again in a couple weeks with this recipe that I found on a GFCF recipe group that I visit often. It is quite different than the recipe I followed today.

If any of you non-local readers want my friend's recipe, email me privately and I will get it for you. (You know who you are: all the lurkers I write to all the time! I mean, all my old friends and family that don't comment.)

And it looks like I'll have plenty of time to try a few more recipes in the next couple weeks. I had to take my sewing machine in for a check-up. I may not get it back for a couple weeks. :-( Just when I was getting going really good, too.

Food, Quilting, and More

I have GOT to get us out of our little food rut. I have not been doing good enough providing a wider variety of GFCF meals for my family. We eat the same things over and over again. Fresh blueberries are ready, so I made blueberry muffins, TWICE. First batch very dry and lumpy. We ate them anyway. But I thought I could do better, so on the second time, more liquid. They puffed up nicely, but fell when I took them out, even though they were cooked throughout. We ate them too, and they were better, but I felt really let down. A friend of mine and I were chatting about this briefly at the park. Part of the reason I don't try much GFCF baking (as I have more success with cooking than baking) is because it's so deflating to my ego when it doesn't go well. I am a perfectionist by nature, and it doesn't sit well with me to fail time and time again with anything. But the only way I can experience baking success is to try, so I am *trying* to try more things. That is my wimpy pledge. I will hereby experiment more often with my baking. I guess I should pledge a certain frequency, but alas, I can't bring myself to go that far, yet! (Wink, wink....) Can you see in this picture how much the muffins shrank once they had cooled? It's because they rose so high and then shrank about 40%. I might try again with less baking powder.

Along the experimenting theme, I got stuff to make Chinese food at home tonight. I made it alright, and boy! I really tip my hat to any so-so Chinese chef, let alone a great one. It's hard to co-ordinate the different dishes and keep everything going all at once. It felt like a three-ring circus, even without the kids' help tonight! I think that a large part of the problem was that I wasn't using any recipes. I cook a lot just by "winging it" and can do it pretty well (I know, just not the baking!) I guess that's not going to work very well for me with Chinese food. But it was so cute. C and H were eating their supper tonight, and they both relayed to me that the egg foo yong was very good, but the other "dish" wasn't my best. But...."I'm sure you'll do better next time. This was a learning experience for you tonight that you can learn from." If there's one thing the GFCF business has done for my kids other than the out-and-out healing of symptoms, they are getting very flexible with what they'll eat. They've been so patient with it all.

I've been meaning to do it, and finally did. I started our juice keifer up again today. It wasn't hard; why did I put it off? We haven't been making it since I broke my keifer jar about a year ago. This jar is still pretty small, and I have to get a bigger one. I know we felt better when we were drinking it on a regular basis.

C seems to have a much better appetite lately, and I believe it's due to the 5HTP he's started. Whatever the reason, it's wonderful. He's actually starting to gain some weight on his skinny little bod. He surprised us all today when not too long after dinner, he vomited up what seemed to be his entire supper. No sooner was he done bringing it up, he asked for something to eat because he was really hungry. He had no symptoms whatsoever, and neither do the rest of us. Just so you don't go blaming his trouble on my Chinese cooking, I recalled that he had a massively large glass of water with his meal. I think it was all just too much volume for him.

I found a full-grown green tree frog sitting on the window sill of our master bathroom this evening. I have no idea how he got in there, but it must not have been too long ago because he was quite moist. (Come on. We've all found dried frogs or lizards in our Florida homes, haven't we?) Our windows have not been open and the bathroom's not near any doors that open to the outside. I quickly rescued him and put him outside where he can find more bugs and water.

We had to feed the snakes today. The mice the pet shop sold us must have been bigger than usual. Both the snakes took much longer to swallow them than usual. This fascinated the kids. Sorry to be so graphic, but that was part of our day.

I was excited to find a praying mantis on the ceiling of our garage today. I told the kids about it, but they had already seen it too. Tif--what can we house him in if we capture him for another pet? He's bigger than a baby, but no where near as big as an adult.

And my last prominent recollection from today: I finally received the walking foot in the mail today that I ordered before we left for our trip. My sewing machine is about 18 yrs. old, and it was very inexpensive (or should I say cheap??) The quilting phase of my quilts were not going very well and I was told that a walking foot would feed the top layer through the machine like the feed dogs feed the bottom layer through. So I tried it out tonight. It was like learning to sew all over again!! I think I need an adjustment or two on the machine. The presser foot does not want to lift off the floor of the machine now. Maybe because the walking foot is heavier than the other presser foot? Anybody know of a local sewing machine repair shop? I'm sure it's just a minor adjustment that is required.

My Little Baker

All 3 kids have been in the kitchen with me more lately, which I keep reminding myself is a good thing. It is admittedly so much easier to make stuff quicker by myself, but I do understand that they really should learn sometime. No time like the present! Yes, no time like the present. No time like the present. I'm still telling myself that over and over again. In fact, I welcome one in the kitchen with me at a time. I think it is just 3 at a time that it's harder for me to deal with. But if one sees another one helping, they all want to help at the same time. I so badly want even my boys to learn how to cook, but it's very trying on my nerves at times. I am not the most patient person in the world. I try, but sometimes come up a little short. Praying for more patience is quite routine for me.

Well, it was just B in the kitchen with me this last time since the boys were outside working with their dad. It was serene enough I was able to snap a couple pictures. She's so into cooking and baking. It just warms my heart. She even looks like she knows what she's doing! By the way, we made a new recipe. Gluten free pumpkin spice blondies. They tasted pretty good, and the family ate up the whole double-batch! Even dad had a couple pieces, which is saying something because he's the only one in the family that doesn't eat gluten-free.

More Simple Pleasures

Oranges are in season, and we have been picking in our neighbor's grove. The juice is fabulous. B likes to help squeeze the orange juice from the fruit. The boys have always liked to squeeze the juice in years past, but maybe they figure it's time to turn it over to their sister now. I am so glad for fresh juice, vs. frozen that we buy in the grocery store. And with cold and flu season upon us, it's perfect timing!


We have also been enjoying this cute little guy. We picked him up when we were in GA earlier this month. He fits right in among our other moose hanging around the place. We have bags of shelled nuts in the freezer, which we eat from almost daily. But it's more fun for Mom to crack the nuts for the kids! It's even more fun to have to pick up the pieces that go flying around the room as they are cracked (kidding!) It's not so fun to step on a piece of nutshell that got missed on the floor. Picture bare feet since it's hot in FL.

Homemade bread is always a simple pleasure. I have found a pretty tasty gluten-free version that we like. It cooks up nice and tall and is very moist (at least for the first day!) I have made it before, but for some reason I could not get it out of the pan this time! No, I didn't forget to grease the pan. It was well oiled. Lest you think I am a perfect cook and baker, I will share this photo with you. We still ate it right up but our sandwiches were quite misshapen! This photo does NOT very clearly display the gaping hole in it's bottom, but it was huge.

And in our quest to incorporate more fresh produce into our diet, I have been asking the kids what kind of veges they want to see more of on the dinner table. My kids can't be normal! They have to like something expensive like fresh asparagus. I used to buy it so infrequently that I can only think of a couple times it ever graced our table. But now, with trying to enjoy more simple pleasures, it's been on the menu several times in the last month or two. Good thing I like it too! I am also glad to have found a fresh produce store in E which has much better prices than Publix.

The Best Pinto Beans I Have Ever Made

Okay, guys. You all know that we eat a lot of beans in our family. I will try to write down the ingredients for what I did today. It worked very well, and I was quite pleased with myself. Maybe you will want to try them too.

1 large onion chopped fine
2 large cloves garlic, minced fine
2 jalapeno peppers (seeded) chopped fine
1 can petite diced tomatoes
2-3 cups water
1 large can (53 oz. family-size) prepared pinto beans
1 tsp. cumin
1/4 tsp. Mexican chili powder (hot variety)
3/4 to 1 tsp. salt? Maybe less. Sorry I didn't measure. Do it to your taste preference.

Put the water and veggies in a pan and boil them until most of the water has evaporated. This water allows your veggies to cook well without scorching them. (Use more water if necessary.) I chop the veggies very fine so the kids have a harder time knowing they are in there! Add your beans, and mash somewhat with a potato masher until desired consistency. Add your spices, and stir.

Yes, I used canned beans for this. I am clearing them out of my pantry. I will start cooking more of my own beans in future. Thanks M, for the heads-up on the frugality of such! My kids all raved about these beans, even my "picky" eater.

Stuffed Acorn Squash for Dinner

I found a new recipe, and for my normal repertoire, it's pretty gourmet! I made this stuffed acorn squash a couple weeks ago, and it was so good, I made it again last night. Hubby loved it, but the kids liked the stuffing better than the squash. I found it superb. It's definitely a keeper. I found this recipe on another blog, that of the "Gluten-free Goddess". The only thing I did different from her was to replace the ground beef with a mix of cooked brown rice, millet, and quinoa because we are vegetarian. http://glutenfreegoddess.blogspot.com/2007/09/stuffed-acorn-squash.html