I thought I would share a favorite recipe. It is gluten free so long as you select a GF soy sauce.

Sweet Chicken Stir Fry

prepared rice, served hot at meal time

cooked chicken, cubed about 1inch X 1 inch

4 bell peppers, slivered

1 large onion, slivered

1/2 pound peeled baby carrots, cut into 1/4s lengthwise

olive oil (to saute the vegetables in)

1 20oz. can pineapple chunks or tidbits w/juice

1 18oz. jar pineapple appricot preserves

1/2 of an 18oz. jar of orange marmalade

2 Tbsp cornstarch

2 Tbsp Soy Sauce (If you are sensitive to wheat get gluten free)

Saute the vegetables and keep warm. While the vegetables are sauteing, prepare the sweet sauce in a saucepan. To make the sweet sauce, pour the juice from the pineapple chunks into a cup and set aside for a moment. Add the pineapple chunks to the pan. Add the preserves, marmalade, and soy sauce. Stir the cornstarch into the pineapple juice until it is dissolved. Add this mixture into the saucepan and stir it until smooth. Heat over a medium flame until it comes to a good boil, boil 1 minute then turn down to low/simmer, stirring often at each stage of cooking. Serve hot with the rice on the bottom, then vegetables, chicken and topped with the sweet sauce.

About two or three weeks ago, I read a post at the celiac forum from someone who needed advice on wheat/gluten free dog food. The family pet was always licking her celiac son and she was concerned that he might get an accidental gluten reaction.

It had never occured to me to think about pet food. I actually thought it a bit of an over reaction when I read it, but I also felt compelled to look into it with our own family. We have one indoor pet, Peaches. You may remember her from previous posts. She is the cat we brought in because she had spay surgery then let her stay out of pity because she is arthritic. The more I thought about it the more I thought that getting gluten free cat food was a good idea. Afterall, after ever meal, she immediately heads toward her sleeping spot and spends at least 15 minutes preening herself for a nap. All that preening right after eating could potentially coat her fur with gluten only to have it picked up on hands when she is petted and carried to the mouth. Mmmm. How much gluten could cat food have in it? Afterall, cats are completely carniverous animals, unlike dogs. Surely, cat food is primarily meat and meat by-products. I was shocked when I began looking through the labels. Gluten itself was the 3rd and 4th ingredient on many of the canned catfood labels - as well as wheat listed on down the way. Dry cat food was not much better. Wow! That was an eye opener. Well, as dutiful protector of my husband's and daughter's health, we switched the kittys' food.

It wasn't too hard to find varieties that did not contain gluten or wheat, so we put all the cats on a GF diet. It has been two or three weeks now, and I have realized something that I didn't expect. Peaches arthritis is completely gone! She was so gimped up before the GF switch that she never walked anywhere without limping. Getting up and laying down was a slow motion ordeal that had all of us wincing just watching her. Now she is like a kitten. She plays all the time. I mean fast movement kind of playing, chasing string, little balls, ruuning after us when we walk to pat our ankles. It has been amazing! There is no sign of limp at all.

She has actually started being a bit of a nuisance. LOL. She now hops up on the tall chair that Tim is using with my art desk for his computer and our bed for nap time. She is hopping up on counters. Last night, she woke John and I up with her hopping up on the dresser. Before, she would try to get on our bed or the couch every now and again, but it was by standing up to get her front claws in to the top and literally pulling herself up, with great struggle, by her front legs only. Her back legs were almost useless. Now she is found napping on the off-limits furniture regularly.

Could it be true? Could we have a celiac cat? LOL. The change is so dramatic that it cannot be just our imagination. Maybe it is just coincidence and there is some other cause at work, but the coincidence is rather striking. Are there others of you out there with arthritic pets? Would you be willing to also give it a try and tell me if you see any changes?

Over the weekend I have been working on getting my gluten free baking notes organized and in a useful form. I wanted to use the computer in particular so that I could esaily add, modify, and pass along a copy to Melody for when she leaves home to prepare her own gluten free meals herself.

Here are the pages that I have so far. You can see the full sized page by clicking on the thumbnaiils.

Starches: One thisng that I have learned over the last few weeks is how useful starches are to making a bread like product. You don't need them so much for cakes and cookies, but boy do they ever make the difference for buns and rolls. On this page I have summaraized the different ones.

Make Your Own Starch from a potato: This page should look familiar. It is one of the entries here on my blog, but it is reformated a bit for the e-notebook.

Flour From Tubers: Potato starch and potato flours are my current favorite for GF baking. You cannot use 100% of them without getting a bit too much of a potato flavor, but the lightness and texture are fantastic. As far as GF flours go, the staling (firming of the texture upon cooling) rate is about as low as you can get.

Flour From Grains: Rice has been our primary staple in the past because I can easily mill it here at home with our Whisper Mill and grocery store rice bought in bulk. But there are others as well. I was surprised at how much more nutritious corn was compared to rice. I think that I will run some corn meal through the Whisper Mill and make it a smoother texture and see how it does for GF cooking - more than just cornbread.

Rise: I found the research into different leavening agents to be quite fascinating. There is a recipe for making your own baking powder too. I think that I am going to make my own as I need it. I have two big jars of cream of tartar from science labs that need to be used up.

Faux Gluten: This has been the newest area of study for me. I have really been amazed by the guar gum, and I want to try the xanthan gum. When I used the counter top mixer to make the honey buns the other day, the guar gum actually made a texture so like gluten in the dough that if I hadn't been so careful, I would have suspected I had contaminated the mix. This stuff is so neat. It does give a after-effect mouth feel. Like you get after eating a fat rich food. Not the thick coating of a shortening based product. Smoother like an oil. I can see why they use it in the diet industry. They can replace some of the oil and reduce the calories, yet the feel to the mouth is as if all the fat is there. I tried it in the pizza crust tonight and was able to make a thin crust pizza that held together just like a wheat one. No crumbling at all and nice and thin.

Texture: What do all those other ingredients do? Here is a bit on that.

Trouble-Shooting: I am sure that I will have pages on this topic over time. LOL. When something doesn't turn out, here is where I will put my 'how to fix it' the next go round.

There are more pages that are yet unfinished as you can see from the tabs. I will add them in as they are fifnished and post updates as I add to the current ones. I like doing this as a notebook that I can continues to add to over time.

I have edited the Nov 21, 2005 entry for the Honey Bun recipe. For Thanksgiving dinner, I tried using my counter top mixer instead of doing it by hand. The mixer incorporated more air into the batter and made the texture even lighter yet.  That change is in the recipe now. I also bumped the baking powder up from 2 tsp to 1 tbsp.

Looky, looky hope for oats that are free of wheat contamination. Go to http://glutenfreeoats.com/research.aspx

For those homeschoolers on farms out there that want to launch a business venture, consider meeting the needs of gluten intolerant and wheat allergy sufferers by providing gluten free grains and products. There are family businesses thriving on marketing GF grains (gluten free sorhum, quinoa, rice, and now oats), bread products, skin & hair care, etc. Read the article in my last post to see that it looks to be the next 'hot' market in the US. If big name manufacturers get on the bandwagon like the article suggests will happen, can you imagine how busy this young farmer will be? Both celiacs directly and manufacturers are going to be wanting wheat free oats for granola bars, cold and hot cereal, fruit crisp toppings, etc.

This article was in the Wall Street Journal on Nov. 1, 2005. Go to http://brain.hastypastry.net/forums/showthread.php?t=110080 to read it.

Now, when I can do my normal weekly grocery shopping and pick up a tasty and reasonably priced GF pizza, loaf bread, hamburger buns, crackers, and cookies that will be a great day!!! According to the article, that may be in the near future.

I just discovered that you can take that first liquid that you get when making the starch (before the rinsing of the starch step) and boil it down to a syrup. You can do this with many of the alternative flour liquids. I will give it a try next time I make the sweet potato starch and flour and let you know what it tastes like. If it tastes great that would mean that there will be almost no waste of the sweet potato. :0)

Reason:

Since the family favorite GF bread recipe depends on potato starch which I cannot buy locally, I decided I would try George W. Carver's instructions on making my own. It was lots of fun. Even if you never want to make this for a bread recipe it would be a great hands on way to study George Washington Carver. I posted quite a bit from his book related to how to use the sweet potato just a few days ago.

Goal:

I wanted to learn specifically how to isolate the potato starch, but I also wanted to know how to make the flour too.

How To Isolate Potato Starch from White or Sweet Potato:

I have now made both white and sweet potato starch and flour. I am going to use the sweet potato for the pictures because the distinctive orange color makes the white starch so obvious in the final stages. I used only one sweet potato for the demonstartion so that it would be easy to see how much of the starch and flour to expect per potato that you process.

Step 1 -

Grate the potato very finely and place the wet pulp into a clean cloth that you have sitting in a bowl.

Step 2 -

In this step you will be rinsing the starch out of the pulp by sqeezing the bag of pulp then adding clean water and sweezing again until the water runs clear when you squeeze. In this picture you can see the orange liquid that results. For white potatoes, you can use the pulp to make fried hashbrowns by adding some salt and pepper with an egg to hold it all together. In this instance though, I saved the pulp for making sweet potato flour - more on that later.

Step 3 -

Settling out and rinsing the starch is next. At this point you will need to place the orange liquid into the refrigerator (to keep the liquid from oxidizing or fermenting). Let it sit in there for at least 4 hours. Take it out as carefully as you can so as not to stir up the starch that has settled to the bottom. Pour off as much of the orange liquid as you can without loosing all the white starch at the bottom. No add some clean water and stir up the starch. I used a turner which worked really well to loosen the starch from the bottom. Then place back in the refrigerator for at least an hour. The starch will have settled again. Pour off the rinse water being careful not to loose the starch. Allow what water does remain to evaporate until you have dry starch. Collect this and store it once you are sure it is dry. I have not tried using heat/dehydrator at this phase. I do not know if the addition of low heat would change the starch or not. One sweet potato made almost 1/4 cup starch.

Here is a picture of the rinsing stage:

OK, Now. How to Make Potato Flour:

If all you are after is the flour and not any separate starch you can skip the steps above and merely dry the pulp with the starch in it. All you need to do is let the pulp dry out.

Here is the amount of dehydrated pulp you can get from one sweet potato.

I have a grain mill, so I processed the dried pulp in my Whisper Mill. Here is a picture of the flour. One sweet potato made 1/4 heaping cup of sweet potato flour without the starch. I would assume that you would end up with 1/2 cup flour if you did not remove the starch like I did.

I have been doing lots of internet research trying to understand how GF breads work. I figure that the more I understand what each ingredient is doing the better I can modify recipes to get the results I desire for any particular product. Here are some things I have come across that I wanted to pass along.

In a university study, the researchers used sorgum flour (a popular wheat alternative for non-gluten bread) and varied the ratio of starch to protien. They discovered that when they increased the ratio of starch the volume (fluff) of the bread increase. The more protein that the bread had the heavier that it was.

Now lightness is an incredible gift if you have ever tried to create a wheat bread-like texture in a flour that doesn't contain gluten. The disadvantage with going for that starchy lightness though would be a bread with less nutritional value. Many commercial non-gluten bread sources have been grinding up various beans to add to the flour to improve its nutrition (protein). Sunflour Baking Company makes delicious cookies with pinto bean flour as the only flour source. They have a secret way to do the beans so that the green flavor that typically is associated with beans is eliminated. I want to play around with beans and my grain mill to see if I can figure that one out. I bet the greenness comes from the beans jacket. If I can get rid of that, maybe it will taste more nuetral and give a good protein source that will not weight the bread.

Staling. Staling is a word bakers use to describe what happens to bread after it has stood for a while - on counter or refrigeration. One thing that you will notice with non-gluten flour is that the texture changes by the next day. What comes out of the oven all soft and springy will seem significantly more dense and firm next day. This happens with wheat products too, but GF ones do so at a much faster rate. From what I have been able to figure out so far, the flour that has the best capability of retaining the texture is potata flour. On a molecular level, the molecules involved are somewhat curly in shape. When warm the curls are relaxed giving the softer yet 'elastic-like' spring. When the bread cools, these molecules get tighter curls which makes the texture denser. Rewarming the bread will make the curls relax again. We have found that warming the bread covered with a well squeezed out wet cloth for 10 seconds (depending on the amount of bread being warmed) will bring back most of the texture. For the extreme gluten sensitive individual, make sure that you are using laundry detergent that is GF in the cloth that you use for reheating this way.

I tried this bread recipe that was posted in the Silly Yaks forum yesterday. Ohhh, it was sooooo good. It reminds me of the honey rolls that you get at Ryans Steakhouse but these are even lighter! Here is a picture, a link to a Quicktime movie (about 2.4 mb) that we made of the texture, and the recipe we did.

The Quicktime video:

To see how tender and bread-like it is, go to http://s47.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=1WDCCGJWMMDVD0YNW3X5S8PBLG to download the Quicktime movie we made. You Send It is a free file hosting service but they will keep a file for only 35 downloads or 7 days whichever comes first. So, if you want to see it but the file is gone, just e-mail me. The quicktime is small enough to attach it as in an e-mail.

Here is a picture of the internal texture:

My image host is lagging a bit for some reason. Probably a lot of uploads at the moment. If you cannot see it yet but want to, check back a bit later. Image Shack should be caught up by then - sorry:

Recipe:

The recipe was originally called Egg Bread Loaf. I titled ours as Honey Rolls because they taste so much like Ryans Honey Rolls. I will list the recipe with the modifications I made to the original recipe -

Honey Rolls

1/4 cup softened butter (not hot and melted because guar gum needs cool liquid)

3 Tbsp honey

2 eggs

1 c plain yougurt

1/2 c potato starch (buy it or make it using instructions from Carver in earlier post)

1 1/2 cup cornstarch

1/2 tsp baking soda

1 Tbsp baking powder

2 tsp guar gum (can get at Amazon.com or Gluten Free supplier - neat stuff)

3/4 tsp salt

1 tsp vinegar (any kind - used to activate the baking soda)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Begin mixing the liquid ingredients in stand up mixer on lowest setting while combining the dry well to blend thoroughly. Add the dry into the mixer bowl. Keep on low until the dry ingredients are incorporated in then increase speed to medium to incorporate air into the thick batter. Scrape beater and pour into loaf pan or 4 to 6 mini (hamburger bun sized, 4.5 inch) springform pans. The 4.5 inch pans will give you a bun about 2.5 inches tall after baking when you use 4 pans. If that is too tall for your needs, use up to 6 bun sized pans. Smooth the tops of the thick batter using a wet finger. Bake until golden and knife inserted comes out clean.

In the picture below, three have been smoothed. One (top right) has not and will give you a good idea of the texture of the batter as it comes out from the mixer. When you smoot the tops with a wet finger, the idea is to smooth it without desproying the air pockets below.

Modifications:

For a yeasty flavor add 1 pkg of dry yeast.

For hamburger buns, cut back on the honey a bit.

For a sweet bread, try adding sugar, cinnamon, and raisins

If you have xanthan instead of guar gum, you can use it instead - same measure

If the tops of the buns seem to 'bumpy' try adding a bit more of the liquids (yogurt, egg, honey) to smooth out the texture netx time.

**** I have removed the pineapple juice addition idea for Hawaiin bread - tried it. Major bigtime didn't do well. I don't know if it changed the pH or if it was the enzymes in the fresh pineapple juice. Flavor yucky and texture altered.

Want to know where to get mini (hamburger sized) springform pans?

I found our 4 last week at WalMart. I went back yesterday to buy more but they were all gone. :0(  Once I got home I tried walmart.com but there weren't any there either. We ended up ordering 2 sets (8 in total) more that are made by a company in Germany at amazon.com (you can order guar gum from them at the same time). About $20 for 4 pans. Well worth it if you are trying to make GF hamburger buns! Though my WalMart finds last week were only $2.50 each. I guess I will count my blessings for the Walmart ones and not grumble about the German one's higher price. LOL. Just glad to be able to get some more.

Guar Gum is some neat stuff:

I researched a bit on this stuff last night. It thickens 8 times better than cornstarch. It is the ground up endosperm of the guar bean grown in India. I found a mention of it making a neat gel when mixed with wet borax. We will have to try that when I feel we have enough extra to not hoard it for baking.  It is used in many store bought products as a texture enhancer such as for ice cream and beverages (many dairy oriented ones). It is used in many diet foods and drinks because you can get 'bulk' without a lot of calories. It dissolves best in a room temp (cool) liquid. That is why I mentioned not to use hot melted butter in the recipe. Lots of health food stores sell pure guar gum powder as a health aid to lower cholesterol, help with diabetes, weight loss, and to help IBS sufferers. As a medicinal you add it to water and drink it. This was interesting stuff to learn about. I found several places online to order it.  We will probably do so from amazon.com's associated sellers just because they have so many different sizes and we deal with Amazon a good bit. Here is the webpage: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/search-handle-url/index%3Dblended%2526field-keywords%3Dguar%2520gum%2526results-process%3Ddefault%2526dispatch%3Dsearch/ref%3Dpd%5Fsl%5Fov%5Ftops-1%5Fblended%5F8852355%5F1/103-8989917-9732602. Generally you can buy a whole pound of guar gum for about $7 to $8 before shipping. That can make a lot of bread and homemade ice cream.

You can also use xanthan gum instead of guar gum. I haven't researched it as much. All I know about it is that it is made from fermented corn sugar.

The Egg Bread Loaf (Honey Roll) Recipe was originally posted to USASillyYaks by Marina Shuler. It is based on a recipe by Roben Ryberg. Here is the original recipe:

Egg Bread Loaf

1/4 cup shortening

3 Tbsp honey

2 eggs

1 pkg of yeast

1 cup plain yogurt

1/2 cup potato starch

1 1/2 cup cornstarch

1/2 tsp baking soda

1 Tbsp baking powder

2 tsp xanthan gum

3/4 tsp salt

1 tsp vinegar

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Mix first 5 ingredients ingredients. Add the rest of the ingredients and stri until there are no lumps. Pour into greased loaf pan and smooth the top with a wet finger. Bake until golden.

 I really think that I am on to something here! This is the very best bread I have ever tasted and the texture is amazing - even counting wheat bread. I have tried all kinds of recipes and bought premade GF bread, but none of them have had a springy, bendable texture like this. All of the others are crumbly and too firn to the touch. I have uploaded a quicktime movie to show the texture - link near the bottom. It isn't crumbly!

Now I need to go back through the two days worth of experiments to find out what were the KEY things that made for the great texture and get two days worth of experimenting into one streamlined recipe.

There is an excellent website to find out information about specific foods. You will get LOTS more data than a typical nutrition box on a box or package forund in the grocery store.

I am going to give you a link to the page on white rice flour instead of the homepage, because you can see immediately what type of information the website can give on any food item. Here is the link:

http://www.nutritiondata.com/facts-A00001-01c01UM.html

You can jump from this page to any other food item by entering the food name in the search box up in the top right. This website will help everyone. Celiacs, who can get so focused on how to replace glutenous foods can sometimes forget to think about the nutrition of the flours they use. Diesters can learn what foods are not only have nutrition density but what ones rank high on being filling at the same time. Homeschoolers looking for a great tool to teach nutrition can use it as part of their studies.

I made a master chart based on their charting methods. I liked the square charting style that you find near the bottom of the page better than the triangle one that they list near the top. I just copy pasted a jpeg of the chart and enlarged it to fill a full page. Then I added titles for the foods right onto it to make a master chart of the foods we used a lot and foods I wanted us to use more of after discovering how nutritious they are. For instance, in the quadrant (quadrant 3) that represents foods that rank high in nutrition density and fill factor, I have cataloupe, lettuse, brocoli, and green beans as the ones closest to the priveledged top right corner. Toward the middle of that quadrant are skim milk, carrots, chicken, and tuna. Toward the lower half of that ideal quadrant are pineapple, lean beef, corn, red kidney beans, white and sweet potato. Since I am bringing you in on the rice page, I will mention that white rice flour is in the poorest quadrant for nutrient density and fill factor. Brown rice flour fares no better on fill factor, but it is in the nutrition dense right half of the chart.

Now that eggnog is going to start popping up at the grocery store, I am looking forward to making one of our favorite holiday recipes, Eggnog Quick Bread.

The original recipe was gotten from the Allrecipes website, but I have made minor adjustments to make it gluten free.

2 eggs separated

1 cup eggnog

1 cup sugar

1 tsp vanilla extract

1/2 cup butter, softened

2 1/4 flour (we have used milled rice quite successfully)

2 tsp baking powder 1/2 tsp salt

1/4 tsp ground nutmeg

Preheat oven to 350 and grease the bottom only of a 9X5 inch glass loaf pan.

Add all the dry ingredients together and mix well. Separate the egg and whip the whites to stiff peaks. Add the yolks and wet ingredients into the dry. Stir until well blended. Fold in the egg whites. Pour into glass baking dish and bake until a butter knife inserted into the center comes out clean. Rice flour products are highly perishable so do not leave out on a counter for more than two days before transfering to a refrigerator or freezer.

If you have homeschooled for very long, it is quite likely that you will study George W. Carver. This industrious fellow rose from the struggles of slavery and gave the world peanut butter among many other things. He is a fascinating fellow to study!

For those of us with family members that cannot consume wheat or gluten, he is a fantastic source for how to make our own homemade flours. Here is what he wrote about sweet potato flour. The smae process will work for any potato.

HOW TO MAKE SWEET POTATO FLOUR

There are several grades of this product and quite as many ways to manufacture them. Each one of these flours or meals (as most millers insist upon calling them) has a particular character of its own and is therefore, adapted to certain uses the other products are not.

These sweet potato flours are generally speaking of three kinds.

First: Those made from the uncooked potato.

Second: Those made from the cooked potato.

Third: Those made from a careful system of roasting, or from the starch making process. The first two will interest the housewife most so, therefore, I will dwell almost or quite exclusively on these.

Here, all that is necessary is to wash, peel and slice the potatoes real thin, dry in the sun, oven or dryer until the pieces are quite brittle, grind very fine in a clean coffee mill, spice mill, or any type of mill that will make wheat flour or corn meal; bolt through fine cloth in the same way as for other flours.

The fine flour-like particles will pass through and the coarse granular meal left on the bolting cloths.

This kind of flour is fine for making mock rye bread, ginger snaps, wafers, waffles, battercakes, custards, pies, etc. Bread can be made with it, but it makes a dough deficient in elasticity, bread dark in color and a loaf which dries out quickly.

The coarser meals can be cooked in a. great variety of ways and make very palatable dishes, they Are to be soaked in warm liquid (whatever is desired. to cook them in) when soft, proceed as for grated potatoes.

For the making of this flour the potatoes are broiled, or steamed (preferably the latter) until done, sliced or granulated by mashing or running through a food chopper and dried until they become very brittle, they are made into flour and meal exactly the same as given for Flour No. 1.

This kind of flour is especially fine for bread, cakes, pies, puddings, sauce, gravies, custards, etc.

Indeed, most people consider a loaf made in the proportion of one-third sweet potato flour to two-thirds wheat flour, superior in flavor and appearance to all wheat flour.

Many experiments have proven that either the mashed sweet potato or the sweet potato flour may be used in bread up to as high as 50%, but at this point it becomes decidedly potato-like in texture and flavor but not unplatable or unwholesome.

The sugar and starch has been greatly reduced. This flour is made from the pulp after the starch has been removed, it is dried without cooking, ground and bolted exactly the same as recommended for the other flours.

When made into puddings, pies, blancmange, etc., the same as shredded cocoanut, it resembles it very much in taste and texture and is very palatable, and is a most welcome addition to the dietary.

It can also be used in the baking of bread and is especially valuable where people object to a loaf with the least bit of a sweet taste, also where they wish one with as little starch and sugar as possible.

This is very easily made, all that is necessary is to grate the potato, the finer the better, put into a cheese cloth or thin muslin bag and dip up and down, in a vessel of water, squeezing occasionally, continue washing as long as the washings are very milky.

Allow it to settle five or six hours or until the water becomes clear, pour off; rewash the starch, which will be in the bottom of the vessel, stir up well, allow to settle again, pour off the water and let dry, keep the same as any ordinary starch.

Use exactly the same as cornstarch in cooking; I am confident you will find it superior to cornstarch; it makes a very fine quality of library paste, and has very powerful adhesive qualities.

In certain arts and trades it is almost indispensable.

By saving the water which the pulp was washed in first, in the starch making process and boiling down, the same as for any syrup, a very palatable, non-crystalline sugar will be the result; this sugar or syrup can be used in many ways.

Here in the South and other sections of the country where fresh sweet potatoes can be had almost or quite the year round, the flour is not a necessity for bread-making; but for commercial purposes there are almost unlimited possibilities, and is destined to become more popular as fast as the public finds out what a delicious, appetizing and wholesome product these flours are.

Our method of using follows with the hope that thousands of housewives will try out this most satisfactory way to add something new, wholesome, attractive and economical to the menu.

Take:

1 cup finely mashed sweet potatoes

2 tablespoons warm water

1/2 yeast cake

1 teaspoon salt

Two and 3/4cups flour, or sufficient to make a soft dough.

Add the salt to the potatoes, and the yeast; pour in the water; add flour enough to make a smooth sponge (about a cupful); cover and set in a warm place to rise.

When light add the remainder of the flour or whatever is needed to make a smooth elastic dough. Cover and let rise until light; mould; shape into loaves or rolls; let rise and bake.

Many variations of the above bread can be made by adding sugar, butter, lard, nuts, spices, etc.

Take:

1/2 cupful mashed sweet potatoes

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 cupful flour

4 teaspoons baking powder

2 tablespoons butter or lard

Milk sufficient to make a soft dough. Sift the flour , salt and baking powder together several times; add these to the potatoes, mixing in with a knife.

Now work the fat into the mixture lightly; add the milk; work quickly and lightly until a soft dough is formed; turn out on a floured board; pat and roll out lightly until about one-half inch thick; cut into biscuits; place on buttered or greased pans, and bake twelve or fifteen minutes in a quick oven.

Take:

1 cup boiled and finely mashed sweet potatoes

2 eggs, well beaten

2 cups flour

2 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon salt

2 scant tablespoons melted butter or lard

1 tablespoon sugar (if desired)

2 cups milk.

Mix together all the dry ingredients and stir into the milk, beaten eggs and potato.

If too soft, add more flour, sufficient to make a soft dough. Roll out lightly; cut with a biscuit cutter; bake in a quick oven.

This recipe was given me by Mr. J. M. Colter, who had charge of the Institute's Bakery.

Take.

70 pounds of wheat flour

30 pounds of finely mashed sweet potatoes

40 pounds of water

1 1/2pounds of salt

1 pound of sugar

1 pound of lard

1 pound of compressed yeast.

Every other operation is exactly the same as for bread or rolls made from all wheat flour.

Mr. W. T. Shehee, former steward of the Boarding Department, says it not only gives universal satisfaction, but is preferred by many to bread or rolls made from all wheat flour.

I have very briefly and imperfectly touched upon the many possibilities of the sweet potato. I trust that Macon County will take the lead in developing the almost limitless possibilities of this splendid crop and show its relation to the dairy industry, beef production, starch mills and that it is the most important and useful of all our root crops for the feeding of farms animals.

The lasagne was a great success! I used brown rice lasagne noodles from Grandma Ferdon's. With rice noodles you definitely have to watch the pot. The window of perfect texture is tighter that with wheat noodles. For use in a baked item, definitely do not overcook. Someone who didn't know that the noodles were rice instead of wheat would never have known the difference. Yummy!

My experiments with poato bread last night resulted in a good sturdy dense bread. This stuff is definitely not crumbly and it is moist inside. You actually have to pull it apart to get it to break nextday. That will be fantastic for day trips in the car. I want to perfect the seasoning a little before I post the recipe. I added colby Jack cheese, lots of Mrs. Dash Original seasonings, and salt -  and yet the seasonings still seemed weaker than what I was aiming for. I have noticed that before with potatoes. They seem to absorb seasonings like a black hole. LOL  The addition of the cheese gave the bread a wonderful crust. Fresh out of the oven it 'tapped'. 'Next day cooled' it is giving the bread that sturdy construction. The potatoes I think are what is giving it the nice moistness inside. It is a dense bread, almost akin to a cornbread stuffing in density and moisture.

This is the best tasting and best textured GF biscuit recipe we have found. You can mill your own rice flour using a grain mill (we love our Whisper Mill), get the GF flour at a health food store, or order it online.

2 c rice flour

2 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp salt

2 tsp sugar

1 packet unflavored gelatin (Look for Knox brand in the Jello section)

1/3 c butter (softened to melted works well)

1 c milk

Mix the dry ingredient well before adding the liquid ones. I just form mine in my hand instead of trying to roll them out and biscuit cut them. They stay more moist that way. I also have found that when I use a round pan intead of square, they cook more evenly. I use an 8" round cake tin. Bake at 400 degrees until done.

Here is a picture of this recipe's results - click on the thumbnail to see it larger ...

Yay! The gluten free hamburger buns arrived this afternoon. John and Melody had hamburgers with buns with us all for the first time in years. What fun! Before, Melody would just eat hers like a steak with A1 Sauce and John would use corn tortillas as buns.

These were from Grandma Ferdon's (  http://www.grandmaferdons.com/catalog/index.php?cPath=26&sort=2a&page=2 ) and are made primarily with cornstarch and potato flour (no rice flour). These non-wheat buns were pretty good. The texture was between biscuit density and traditional wheat buns and held together very nicely. Great flavor with no aftertaste. Very slightly on the dry side.

For you celiacs and non-celiacs alike, see if your local grocer carries Smiles (made by McCain). These are tasty and soooo cute. They are somewhat like tatertots but the texture is very smooth and they look like smiley faces. They are gluten free. The same company makes several types of seasoned fries that use rice, not wheat flour. To see if they might sell these near you, go to http://www.mccainusaretail.com/Retail/locatorStates.asp?section=3&subSect=15&id=1275 and click the link for your state. Please note that McCains is not a dedicated GF facility and it is possible to have cross-contamination. Thus far, we have not had any problem with the smiles or their GF seasoned fries. THere is one flavor that is not GF, so read the label!

In addition, we tried blueberry herbal tea for the first time. Oh, now that was gooood. It is a new favorite, replacing our old favorite flavor of cranberry.

Here is a quick picture to show the GF buns and the cute Smiles that make for novel fries. I wish now that I had grabbed the picture after all the hamburger condiments were on, but I had my hands full with finishing up dinner.

Over the last three weeks, my husband's shop has made grilled burgers for the employees several times and a friend offered John grilled venison too. Each of these times he reacted with celiac symptoms shortly after eating. Yet, he was baffled as to where the gluten was slipping in. The spices added were ones he had used at home successfully. The grill was cleaned before use. Of course he seleceted a burger untoughed by a bun. So he couldn't figure out why he was having a problem.

Last night, I was doing some general celiac research. I discovered that Kingsford charcoal uses wheat gluten as a binder for their charcoal briquets. The company says that the gluten burns up during grilling and shouldn't impact the digestion. I think that it is a very highly likely culprit for John's recent flare ups though. He is back to having joint and bone pain again and of course had digestive complaints each round. If we can keep him gluten free for two to three weeks though, he will be fine again. It can be a constant challenge to maintain a vigil against gluten. Actually, I am grateful that John is so sensitive to it. Some Celiacs are far less so and because of that they often go unaware of low level sources. Their body is being damaged still, but not enough to create obvious signs. John's reactions are not ignorable, nor are they subtle when they hit.

I just discovered a celiac testing center that specializes in intestinal disorders. It is at https://www.enterolab.com/Tests/Orders/. The price for the genetic test is much more reasonable than the other lab I have posted in the past. This one is only about $150 as apposed to about $350 for the other one It also uses new patent pending antobody tests as well. No blood draw needed (cheek swab for the genetics test and stool sample for the antibody tests). You deal directly with them and do not even need a doctor's appoitment or in-town lab involvement.

I have also discovered a really busy celiac forum at http://www.glutenfreeforum.com/index.php?. Mmm. if that link doesn't work, try to copy/paste to your browser. The '?' is included in the link.

If you live in Arkansas, there is a celiac support group in the Little Rock area. The web pages are http://www.uams.edu/celiac/ and http://www.gigbranches.org/centralarkansas/  If you do not live in Arkansas, keep at trying to find a state or local support group. I have watched for a long time to find one here in Arkansas. As more and more people are being diagnosed or are suspicious of having a gluten problem these groups are begining to form more and more often. There are even gluten free summer camps for kids and celiac specific bed and breakfasts. It is getting easier all the time to be GF.

Melody is our second born and only daughter. Oh how I imagined what it would be like with a daughter. I had a terrifically close and warm relationship with my son, but I imagined that special connection that mom and daughter have to be a lifelong epitome of closeness. Yet, as the months went by she was not a cuddler. She made it quite apparent that she would rather just lie down with her bottle alone than be in my arms for a pre-nap visit. There were times when I fretted that maybe she was mildly autistic because she just didn't seem very people oriented; except with Darrell, a brother in law, who she seemed very warm with on family visits.

She had the most terrible stretch of colic every night for months on end during that first year. John and I tried to take shifts, but we soon learned first hand what the symptoms of exhaustion were - the bed moves with your heartbeat when you lie on the bed, leg cramps are a constant danger, and you suddenly realize you are behind the steeringwheel of the car only to not remember where you are going or have the foggiest what had occured over the last few miles. Scary!. At one of my Melody's well baby checkups, I showed I wasn't so well when the docter merely asked, "How are things going?". I started balling. John couldn't rest during the weekdays because he worked two jobs and I had a two year old son to keep track of during the day as well as a little one, so mommy naps were few and far between. Not too long after the colic subsided, Melody took a stretch of digestive trouble and between the diarrea and vomiting she became dehydrated. I called the doctor all through that day asking what to do and begging them to give her a shot of something to stop the nausea. Finally, as office hours where about to end for the day, I broke into tears of desperation. Everything that they had said to try wasn't working. She was desperately thirsty but couldn't keep the water down. They said to go ahead and bring her in. I could tell it was more of a 'let's humor the woman' attitude. John took her in while I stayed home to watch our firstborn. John called about an hour latter. He was calling from the hospital. He described how her breathing changed on the drive to the pediatrician and as soon as they saw her they didn't even take the time to touch her but told John to immediately take her to the emergency room while they called ahead for them to expect her. Apparently the dehydration had thrown her blood chemistry dangerously off. The nurses let it slip that if she had been any longer in getting in and getting an IV started she would have died. I felt so angry that I was put off by the staff of the pediatrician's office. I learned through that that I was never again going to beg for an appointment. If I thought my child was dangerously ill, they would have us there whether they had a convenient opening or not!

As she grew older she continued to be very prone to vomiting. Dozens of times we left church after arriving because she would become ill. The only thing we could figure was that it was a combination of a trigger-happy vomiting reflex, a tendency toward motion sickness, and large tonsils that kept the back of the throat 'jumpy'. When she would have doctor's visits, even well check-ups, the doctors always commented on the size of her tonsils.

Another thing I noticed was that she never seemed to have the energy of other children. I remember being at one of the homeschool co-op get togethers when she was about 6. I could see that she was enjoying being with the other kids and at first she kept up with them. But soon she began to trail behind. Then she walked off and found something to look at alone. One of the moms commented that it seemed as if she didn't have much energy. Seeing her side by side with age mates and another mom, more objective than I, commenting really made me accept that something was not quite right. By 1997, when John was reaching his most severe symptoms and finally a diagnosis, Melody seemed to be doing better.

I often wondered if Melody had celiac too, but her symptoms were so much milder than John's that I was diverted by the fact that she didn't have joint and bone pain, the skin rash, etc. She did have similarities to John's symptoms though. She had a very sensitive digestion and occassionally mentioned that she still threw up often while in the bathroom, but primarily she felt that that was private and didn't report it every time she did. Like John, she had that unussually low body temperature, about two degrees below normal (John typically ran 3 to 4 degrees low). She also seemed to always hover near depression. That is hard for parents to accept especially when a child is young. But we knew it was there. The kids were going through a particularly intense food-picky stage, so that a non-gluten test diet would have brought such a fight that we didn't pursue it for a long time after feeling a need to do it.

It was getting on the internet in 2000 and getting new information on celiac that prompted me to push past the struggle that would ensue for a one month gluten free diet test for her. I can tell you that I knew we were going to have a mule-stubborn fight on our hands with her. She is quiet but stubborn when she doesn't agree with something. Yet, her relief was so dramatic that by the third day she was not only cooperating but commenting that she felt much better. She began to smile and laugh. She wanted to be with her family more. Her school work improved tremendously. She was happy, even bouncy and giddy. By the end of the month, she was the most certain of all of us that gluten made her sick. We tried a wheat challenge week just to verify and she lost all the ground that she gained. She has pretty much been on the gluten-free diet ever since.

She is less sensitive to gluten than John is. When a *small* occassional gluten infraction has occurred she typically only gets intestinal 'bubbles' as she puts it. More sound than anything uncomfortable. While John would shift from being trapped in the bathroom to being bedridden. Larger infractions will take her down though. The last intentional infraction occurred at a homeschool get together when there where no non-gluten snack options available, she was hungry, and she just wanted to be like her friends. She ate a cookie and withinn 20 minutes she indicate that she was sick and we needed to leave. She was sick the rest of the day and felt that celiac sadness off and on through the next week which we kept dosing her with vitamin B12 to fight off. I felt so sorry for her beacause she had so looked forward to getting to visit with friends. Now, at age 15, I think she would rather starve to death than intentionally eat something with gluten.

I have pretty much decided that she would never be able to go the boarding route in college. I have read about other celiacs that have gone and though the college claimed they could accomodate, it just didn't work. She desperately want to go and visit some European countries with an international student organization  that contacted us, but I am worried that she will not be able to stay well without careful food preparations. Many of the European countries though are well ahead of the US as far as celiac support though, perhaps there would be enough care in preparation to accomodate.

A bit off of Melody's story, I will mention Timothy, now age 11. He has always had the darkest of circles under his eyes. He has almost constant diarhea. We did a non-gluten month with him too just last year. Unlike Melody though he insisted that he didn't have trouble with gluten. John and I are not so sure. We suspect that he had hidden his symptoms. But we felt that we wouldn't go further at this point with him. Non-gluten is life-long. We can force a non-gluten regime while he is here at home, but out on his own he will need to be convinced in his own heart. Perhaps his symptoms are milder or his determination to be able to continue to eat wheat is more intense than any relief of symptoms. Until he is ready to test again, we are going to back off. If he still seems so certain that he is free of celiac by the time he approaches age 18, we are going to go for the genetic celiac test just to be sure in our own hearts. The other two kids seem to be completely symptom free. I think that they have not inherited any celiac tendencies.

My hubby is one of those busy men that do not feel that they have a right to relax unless everything if fixed and neat - which means never. LOL. He would work himself to exhaustion on a regular basis if it were not for his more relaxed and fun loving wife of almost 19 years who presses him to consider his health as important as his surroundings and to do list.

With all this said, you will understand why we were so alarmed in 1997 when he began to feel so ill that just walking out to the mailbox on Saturday morning would have him near exhausted and he would come back in an lay down on the bed.

He began making comments about how he wasn't sure if he would be alive in another year. That was scary because he just doesn't say those kinds of things. We bagan the process, or maybe I should say ordeal, of going from one doctor to another to find the answers. His symptoms were so varied that we figured that it was several different things going on and the doctors seemed to take that approach too - each according to his own speciality. 

John had suffered from joint pain for years and so it was assumed that he had arthritis. The doctor's test showed that it was not rhumatoid. Funny thing was how it moved around from one joint to another and sometime it seemed that the pain was in the bone itself.

He never had a very quiet digestive system and often said that he thought he would feel better if he just didn't need to eat. On 4 occasions he became acutely ill after eating pizza, each from different places and once it was homemade - collapsing into a cold sweat, with not knowing which end to attend to first if you catch my drift. It was as if he was going into shock each time this happened. Yet other times he could eat pizza without a problem.

He had an incredibly itchy rash on his ankles that about drove him nuts which we attributed to his years around chemicals when he was a diesel mechanic. The dermatologist just gave him the lazy diagnosis of eczema and John applied cremes that eased the itching somewhat but never got to the root of what was causing it.

He never had a normal body temp. If a thermometer registered him at a degree below normal body temp we knew he was running a fever. Actually, he commented a time or two that when he ran a fever he somehow felt better than he did normally. LOL.

But in all, it was the extreme fatigue that brought him to a near breaking point. After a family practitioner, cardiologist, dermatologist, and internist/GI doctor, had exhausted all avenues to finding a cause we were left with the last doctor (the GI one) who sent him away with a slip of paper - a referal to a psychologist. John arrived home a completely broken man from that appointment. The referal to a psycholgist just smacked too much of 'it's all in your head' to me. I got my dander up after that!

I went out the next day to a health foord store. I had never set foot in one before. I bought a big book of healing that listed conditions, symptoms, and natural remedies. I scrutinized every entry and marked each one that had matching symptoms. I had a small handful of possibilities - food allergy, celiac, hypothyroidism, fibromyalgia, and irritable bowel syndrome. T

he timing was pretty intense as we were caught up in a whirlwind 2 week notice kind of move to a new state 780 miles away. Yet, despite the difficulties of trying to do a gluten free and allergy detecting rotation diet we did it. He improved dramatically. Now if it was all in his head (aka stress induced illness) a move like that, a new job, and the recent death of his mom from intestinal cancer should have done him in. But no, he actually was feeling better, a lot better. After a few months of the allergy rotation diet we found that indeed wheat was the primary culprit. Though at that time, we didn't really know if it was allergy or celiac we were content so long as we could control the trigger.

It wasn't until spring of 2000 when we got on the internet that I could get more information on celiac. Everything fell into place then. We discovered that celiacs quite often have a skin condition that is specific to celiac that was identical to what John had had before going off wheat. The low body temperature was another celiac related trait as often celiacs have thyroid problems. The thyroid regulates body temperature. Even the joint and bone pain is common in celiacs. It all fit perfectly together into a whole picture. We also learned about many hidden forms of gluten and had an explanation as to why the oat flour that we used as a wheat substitute seemed to be fine most of the time, but occassionally provoked a reaction. It was so wonderful to feel like we finally had a definitive answer.

My husband has been on a gluten free diet for 8 years now and his health has been very good. The skin rash is gone. His energy is typical for his age. He has normal digestion. He still has low body temp so I guess maybe that is not so much a response to gluten as it is just a coincidental trait that runs alongside celiac.

Occassionally gluten slips in by accident. Symptoms would return and I would double check an ingredient list and sure enough something slipped by me or a manufacturer changed their formulation. On one of those early Thanksgivings, I had been so careful. I didn't make a single wheat based dish even for the other members in the family. Even the pies had gluten free shells. Yet he had a terrible reaction. I went digging through the trash. Yuck! But I just had to know the source. I finally found it. It was the turkey. I absolutely never would have guessed the turkey. It should just be a big frozen bird! But alas it had been injected with "chicken broth and GLUTEN". There it was; not even the typical word 'wheat'. It said G-L-U-T-E-N in all its pure form. Argh! I felt like such a terrible wife.

This is a terrific, quick-to-fix snack that could even be used as a light meal.

Mission Brand Corn Chips (gluten free and not overly salty)

Grated Colby Jack cheese

Salsa (We like the WalMart brand salsas)

Layer your plate with the Mission corn chips. Sprinkle with a layer of the colby jack cheese. Microwave for 40 seconds on high. Dip the cheese covered chips into the salsa and enjoy.

These are a family favorite any time of the day. The rice waffles come out nice and light. For the non-gluten flour, I will mill up some rice. I sometime will replace up to 1/3 of the flour a recipe calls for with corn starch for an even lighter texture.

2 cups of non-gluten flour

3/4 cup sugar

3- 1/2 tsp baking powder

2 eggs, separated

1- 1/2 cups milk (substitute if you are still in the dairy sensitive stage)

1 cup of melted butter

1 tsp vanilla extract

syrup, fruit, powdered sugar, or dream whip topping

Add all the ingredients together except the egg whites and stir well. Beat the egg whites into stiff peaks then fold into batter. Bake in pre-heated waffle iron according to manufacturer's directions. These are awesome served fresh and warm from the waffle iron. We typically don't even add any toppings. They are sweet enough without it.

What is and where do I get non-gluten flour? We used to buy ours online from a company on Oregon, but it was so expensive. It was no less expensive to buy it from our local health food store. We eventually purchased a Whisper Mill so we could mill our own rice flour. It was the best investment we could have made, especially considering that we have two of six family members with celiac (gluten intolerance). We typically just mill up some rice that we buy in bulk at WalMart (about $6 for a huge 20 lb bag). By the way, the recipe is tasty with wheat flour too, so you can make a batch for the wheat eaters as well.

This is a pan-style cake verses a stacking type.

2 cups of non-gluten flour

2 cups of sugar

2 tsp baking soda

2 tsp ground cinnamon

1 tsp ground nutmeg

1/2 tsp salt

4 eggs

1 can of pumpkin 1 cup of melted butter

Basically, just mix it all until smooth and spoon into a greased glass 13X9X2 inch baking  pan. Bake at 350 degrees for 35 to 40 minutes are until a toothepick or butterknife inserted into the middle comes out clean.

We serve this one often for family birthdays. As a birthday cake it tastes good with the addition of a gluten-free butter cream frosting. It is just as tasty plain though too.

It seems that right and left I am hearing of people being diagnosed with fibromyalgia and irritable bowel syndrome. Doctors have become familiar with these conditions. What I am wondering is, how many of these people actually have celiac? Celiac was once thought to be extremely rare and doctors where taught that. Thus most doctors do not think to check for the possibility of celiac. When patients arrive that have complaints of tiredness and irritable digestion celiac is not the first, second, or even 50th thing they consider. However, recent studies have confirmed that 1 in 100 to 1 in 133 Americans have this condition. Not rare at all! In fact it is extremely common. That means that there may be as many as 30 moms here on Homeschoolblogger that have it personally and many more will have members in their immediate family with it. That is significant enough that I want to create a category on my blog for it.

John (my husband) and Melody (my daughter) have Celiac Disease. This is an autoimmune disease triggered by the ingestion of a grain protein called gluten. Gluten is in wheat and barley grains. The ingestion of gluten causes the body to mount an immune response that damages the brush villi in the small intestine. Brush villi are responsible for absorbtion of nutrients as well as providing digestive enzymes that break down dairy products. Thus the digestive complaints. When the body cannot absorb nutrients a chain reaction of problems and symptoms results: initially tiredness, later an itchy skin condition specific to celiacs, if diagnosis continues to be delayed there may be bone and joint pain, long-term serious complications such as type 1 diabetes and intestinal cancer can result.

Fortunately, once diagnosed, it is very treatable. No expensive medicines or invasive treatments needed. All that is needed is a lifelong elimination of gluten containing products. This can seem intimidating at first. John has been on a gluten free diet since 1997 and my daughter has been on a gluten free diet since about 2000. It is second nature now to shop, prepare, and serve gluten free meals.

I want to help others who are undiagnosed to consider the possibility that their condition might be celiac and provide a glimpse into what life is like in a family that has two of six members who are celiac. I will post recipees, kitchen helps, shopping tips, what to look for, tests for the condition, and more. To make it easy to track the entries that are specific to celiac, I will add a link in the categories list in the side bar (see the right side of this page). Click on it as you visit my blog in the furure and you will be able to sort out only the celiac posts.

If you or someone you know has been diagnosed or you suspect celiac, please post a comment and tell me about it.