Good question.

I have not been writing of late, because I do not have a complete or final answer to share; however, I thought I would shed light on a bit of what I have been up to for the last 30 days.

I have officially joined the ranks of the gluten free gals in this world. This means that my kitchen know-how has gone swiftly out with the compost. Or the trash. Depending on if you are a half cup full or empty type of person. Personally, I see the world through rose colored glasses, so I think my baking knowledge went out with compost.

I had a few weeks of inedible compost bound baking disasters. I’ll rank those with the stinky stage of compost. You know the kind of compost that is ripe for maggot growth and your dad secretly tosses the muffins you sent without mentioning a word.

Next I decide to go with pre-made mixes. Bob’s, Pamela’s, and a few lesser known brands entered my mixing bowl and out came some decent grubs. I mean grub. The hummus is rich and my confidence is building and so I have thus entered the next stage. Combining my own flours and playing with recipes the way I like to do things.

So far this week my gluten free baking and cooking has been coming up roses. On Monday I made a delicious vegan and gluten free lasagna. Mr. Green Me’s only complaint was what he claimed to be a “prodigious amount of zucchini.” I love zucchini, so I told him tough chicken poop (it is great for the compost after all).

On Wednesday I whipped up a divine meal of butternut squash sauce over baked pasta (Tinkyada) and gluten free meatballs. If Mr. Green Me was the fighting sorta guy, he would have fought me for the leftovers. Thankfully, he is a pacifist and so my own good conscience convinced me into sharing two of the remaining six meat balls. (I further shared the remaining four meatballs with Little Green Me).

Two successful gluten free main courses resulted in a bit of courage and so yesterday I dove into my first from scratch and from instinct (meaning I did not follow a pre-tested recipe) experiment with gluten free bread. I made sort of a rustic bread boule and I am quite pleased. Not enough to share the recipe, but enough to be encouraged!

And lastly, because last night my Dad teasingly asked if I would be bringing any cookies tonight, I decided to surprise him with some “Cowboy Cookies” made gluten free from the new cookbook Vegan CookiesInvade Your Cookie-Jar. The first batch is out of the oven and they are very GOOD!

My current challenge and the primary flaw with yesterday’s bread baking experience is that I bought a case of OrgraN Gluten Substitute. The Gluten Substitute does do an excellent job of adding a better texture and structure to gluten free baked goods, but so far it has a fatal flaw. To be blunt, it gives my bake goods the slightest hint that they might have spent the day in a fish market. In other words, the flavor, as I swallow, hints of a fish market. Not baked or broiled or teriyaki fish, but DEAD fish.

So far I’ve adjusted to eating this deliciously textured gluten free bread by muting the dead fish taste with real fish — turning it into tuna salad sandwich. On most days, however, I just like to eat plain bread with a little earth balance, jam or nut butter and dead fish is just not a flavor that I find to complement jam or butter. In the Cowboy Cookie recipe I mostly masked the flavor by tripling the vanilla and adding a teaspoon of almond extract, but I can still taste the tiniest hint of dead fish (we’ll see what my dad has to say).

Anyone ever baked with Orgran Gluten Substitute and have a solution to this dilemma?

In my first Eat from the Pantry Challenge Post last week I announced our goal to spend $25 per week on groceries and use up the stores of our pantry for the majority of our meals. My biggest concern was that we might have to compromise on the quality of our produce. For both ethical and health reasons I strongly prefer to by organic fruits and vegetables. And so, I was quite pleased to find good prices on the items that I was buying and on my first two grocery runs it all worked out.

Groceries:

$17.79: 1 gallon 2% milk, apples, clementines, eggs, celery, carrots (all organic, excepting eggs)

$26.01: broccoli, bananas, red peppers, vegan cheese, eggs, bath soap for Little Boy Green (all organic)

$8.35: 6 Pack Dales Pale Ale beer for Mr. Green Me.

Total for week one and two: $52.15

At this point you may be wondering what we have been eating. Frankly, we’ve been eating like kings! The treasures that can be found in our freezer continue to astound me. Last Sunday we had a  most delicious meal of sauerkraut, potato dumplings and bratwurst. The entire meal was local. The sausage was from a small scale sausage maker here in town (they only produce in the summer and sell at the Farmers Market). The sauerkraut, apples, potatoes, carrots and onions all came from either Farmers Market or a CSA and were prepared and frozen by me in the fall. I cooked the meal and served it in my new cast iron skillet (thank you Santa!) and we practically licked our plates clean.

On Monday night we had a vegetarian pasta dish with a side of roasted acorn squash and sauteed mushrooms, garlic and onions. This meal was again quite gourmet and enjoyed by all. Little Boy Green even went so far as to say of the sauteed mushroom mix “this is delicious Mommy!”

On Tuesday we had a meatloaf made from frozen beef and various pantry items. This dinner was served with a side of roasted Brussel sprouts and purple mashed potatoes (the potatoes I have left are all purple).

Wednesday we finished off the meat loaf and started on a vegetable soup that I’d made from canned tomato paste, CSA vegetables (carrots, beets, turnips and onions) and rice. The soup ended up too hot without a lot of flavor, so Wednesdays dinner was not so well received.

Thursday, I had the clever idea to mix sauteed garlic cloves, sliced dates and some Earth Balance in with the soup from Wednesday. Served over rice it gave it a distinctive Morrocan flavor and was quite delicious. We’ll be having that again for dinner tonight.

Meals for the weekend will probably included roasted sesame broccoli, brown rice and winter squash. Breakfasts will be pancakes and eggs. Lunch will likely continue to be left overs from the previous night’s dinner.

The hardest part of this has been going to the grocery store. I am quite familiar with how to handle cravings for sweets and it is pretty easy for me (although not for many people) to just eat a square of chocolate and return the rest to the cupboard. However, it is amazingly difficult for me to walk by a little yellow sale tag at the grocery store and not stock up. A fact that just might explain my pantry that is bursting at the seems!

Have a wonderful weekend and may you eat well!

Mr. Green Me loves to eat cereal for breakfast in the morning; however, in our Eat from the Pantry Challenge, cereal is not permitted on the grocery list. I may be okay with scavenging from the cupboards for breakfast, but I want to send my husband off to work with a full and happy belly. And so, I last night I invented my own granola recipe, based on ingredients that we have in our pantry. Mr. Green me had two servings for breakfast and proclaimed it “Not too sweet, not too complicated, but just right!” And, then he went so far as to say it was in his top a contender for best granola ever (the other contender is homemade granola we had at a B&B on our honey moon).

4 Cups Oats*
1 cup chopped walnuts
2 Tbsp peanut butter
2 Tbsp canola oil
1/4 cup honey
1.5 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp orange extract
1 tsp vanilla
1/4 cup dried cranberries

Preheat your oven to 350F degrees, while collecting all of your ingredients. Next toast the oats on a cookie sheet or in a casserole pan in the oven at 350F for about 20 minutes. Stir them every 5 minutes to achieve even browning. Remove oats from oven and pour into a large mixing bowl. Combine peanut butter, canola oil, honey, cinnamon, vanilla and orange extract in a microwave safe bowl and nuke for about 20 seconds until warm, but not bubbling. Pour mixture over toasted oats and stir well to coat. Spread oat mixture back into toasting pan and bake at 350F for 10 minutes. Remove pan, flip, stir or toss oats and return pan to the oven for 10 minutes. Remove oats from the oven just as they begin to turn golden brown. Let cool completely (at least an hour) before pouring into a food safe glass container. Leave lid off for 4 to 8 hours (or over night) to prevent moisture condensation and keep the granola nice and crunchy. Add in 1/4 cup dried berries, mix well and the granola is ready to serve!

*If you have a gluten intolerance make sure to buy certified gluten free oats, such as Bob’s Red Mill Gluten Free Rolled Oats.

How much do you think your family spends on food each year? Family Green Me spent 2009 tracking our spending in Mint and we were shocked by the reality of our food spending.  I knew that we spent a decent amount on food and my estimate was pretty accurate for our dining out expenses, but my grocery estimate was about 1/3 of our actual expenses!!! (I’ll let you in on how much we spent at the end of this post.)

I’d like to attribute part of my massive grocery expense to the fact that I like to stock the pantry. In fact, if I didn’t look so human, you might think I was part squirrel (and or I watched the Crash Course one too many times) as I’ve accordingly acquired a huge amount of bulk, frozen and pantry goods since the summer months. With this in mind and I had already decided in December that we need to eat more from the pantry and buy fewer impulse foods or meal ingredients at the grocery store. And so, I was ready to bite when I saw a friend post a link to the Eat from the Pantry Challenge for January, which is being co-hosted by MoneySavingMom and Life as Mom.

We were actually pretty successful with our food budget and eating from the pantry for December and so I am quite excited at the challenge to really batten down the hatches and eat primarily from the pantry this month. The meal I made tonight was absolutely delicious and rescued multiple food items that normally would have been snugging up in my compost pail rather than my belly! It truly is immensely satisfying to have combined both left overs, frozen veggies and old veggies to make a delicious vegetarian meal!

Tex-Mex Bi Bim Bop Casserole (Food Fusion at its best!)

4 cups pre-cooked white rice

1.5 cups pre-cooked black beans (previously seasoned with cumin, allspice, bay and paprika)

1 small napa cabbage, chopped

1 small red onion, chopped

1 cup corn kernels

1/3 cup Veganaise

6 tortillas (I used homemade, gluten free)

12 oz tomato sauce (unseasoned or fire roasted)

1 tsp Kosher (or coarse) salt

1 tsp cumin

1 tsp onion powder

1 tsp paprika

1 to 2 cups grated cheese (vegan or dairy)

Directions: pre-heat oven to 350F and pour 1/2 of the tomato sauce in the bottom of a 9×13 casserole pan. Next, dump your rice, beans, corn, chopped cabbage and onions, and spices all into a big mixing bowl. Measure out 1/3 cup Vegenaise and stir all ingredients together until coated and evenly distributed. Lay 3 tortillas in bottom of casserole pan (you may have to break one in pieces to get full coverage). Spread mixture into pan and top with remaining 3 tortillas. Sprinkle grated cheese on top. Cover with tinfoil or a cookie sheet and bake for 30 minutes. Remove foil or cookie sheet and bake uncovered for 20 minutes. Remove from oven and let sit for 10 minutes. Cut and serve like you would a lasagna and enjoy!

I realize that this recipe sounds totally nutty; however, it was really, truly, delicious. Mr. Green Me even went back for seconds, a rare event in our household! Another bonus? This was a mostly local meal! The beans, corn, cabbage, tomatoes and onions were all grown in CO and either stored, frozen or canned before use in this meal! If you don’t have identical ingredients on hand you should be able to keep spices, tomato sauce, rice and Vegenaise (I prefer the grapeseed variety) the same, but substitute celery, carrots, potatoes or any other kind of vegetable in place of the cabbage and the corn, and achieve similar results. I served ours with a side of turnips au gratin (left overs from the previous night).

This month we have already spent $126 on grocery stores and $54 dollars on dining out. However, for the rest of the month the goal is to spend $25 per week on groceries, netting out at $250 for the entire month. We are going to leave our dining out budget at $150 per month as that is generally not a problem and still brings our total Food Budget for the month to a very reasonable (IMHO) $400.

Goals:

1. Spend $25.00 or less per week to purchase milk for Little Boy Green; some cheese; and, our weekly eggs. Green veggies or fruit may be included on an as needed basis.
2. Eat and use leftovers until they are gone versus ignoring leftovers until they are fated to be reborn in the compost.
3. Eat meat two times or less per week. Eat vegan or vegetarian 5 days per week.
4. Use frozen vegetables, remaining vegetables from our CSA winter share (still have beets, squash, an onion and potatoes), and frozen fruit before buying new fresh fruit and veggies.
5. Make bread or pasta from scratch with my vast bulk reserves rather than buying the pre-packaged kind.
6. Use dried rice and beans until I start to make a dent in our bulk stores. I think we might have enough to get us through March on simply rice and beans!
7. Send Mr. Green Me to work with leftovers for lunch rather than buying him stand alone lunch packing items.

Hopefully this post has inspired you to both join the Eat from the Pantry Challenge and also to take a look at your food expenses. Who knows, if you are like us, you very well might be able to afford that dream vacation (or solar panels or new windows or preschool for your kid) if you could reign in your food spending!

Don’t believe me? While reviewing our year we discovered that we spent nearly 14% of our income on food (groceries, eating out, wine and beer, etc.) in 2009. Now, if you believe statistics, this percentage is on the high end of “average.” However, that would assume that our family income is also “average,” which it is not, so I am pretty sure that we spend way more on food than the “average” American. According to statistics our household income definitely puts us in the category of folks who live a pretty comfy life. My food goal thus for the year 2010 is to cut our food budget in half, while also donating to our local food bank on a more regular basis! I’ll let you know how that is going as the year progresses!

Last week my family and I (Mama and Daddy Green Me plus Little Boy Green) took a little stay-cation right here in Colorful Colorado. We drove south about an hour from the north Metro Denver area and stayed in the Park Meadows and Tech Center area. On Wednesday night we enjoyed a delicious Gluten Free dinner at PF Changs followed by an early night (we slept from 9 PM to 8 AM) in a very comfy over-sized King Room room at the Marriott Denver South for $52.80 (plus tax). The next morning we got up and headed to the Wildlife Experience followed by lunch and a gluten free shopping expedition at Deby’s Bakery & Cafe.

We bought a full selection of items at Deby’s from prepared baked goods to her pastry flour mix. One of the extra bonuses of the Deby’s bakery is that nearly all the goods sold there are also dairy free and many are either vegan and or avoid what they call the “allergenic 8.” The 8 allergens that many of their products avoid include: gluten, transFat, dairy, caesin, corn, soy, peanut and tree nut.

I thought this was kind of neat although I was disappointed to find that 4 of the 10 products that we bought were mislabeled in some fashion. For example, my pecan pie claimed to be a cherry pie on top and an apple pie on the bottom, a dangerous mistake if someone was allergic to tree nuts! My cinnamon rolls were delicious, but the label said they contained 4 and yet we only found 3 inside and so on.

Nevertheless, everything we bought tasted delicious and upheld the Deby’s tagline: “Gluten Free Food So Good You Will Want to Eat It!” If you’ve ventured very far into the frozen gluten free goods case at any grocery store, you will know that most gluten free baked goods taste like goat feed. Or worse.

My most exciting purchase, since I generally prefer to make my own baked goods rather than buy them, was a 5lb bag of her pastry flour mix. The mix is somewhat similar to Bob’s, but clearly has some variation as the taste was very “pure” and wheat flour like. And, most importantly to this post, it made wonderful pancakes!  If you do not have access to Deby’s flour (you can do mail order) you can likely substitute your own gluten free flour mix.

Dry Ingredients (sift together):

• 1 1/2 cups gluten free flour mix*
• 1 Tbsp baking powder
• 2 Tbsp flax meal
• 2 Tbsp sugar
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 tsp cinnamon

Wet Ingredients (stir together well):

• 2 eggs, beaten
• 1/4 cup canola oil
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1 1/4 cups soy milk (or your favorite milk product)

1. Sift together the dry ingredients

2. Beat together wet ingredients

3. Combine wet with dry and stir vigorously for about 1 minute. Make sure that everything has combined well. Stir again for another minute. Batter should be very thick, but spreadable. Similar to cake batter. Set aside.

4. Prepare your griddle or pan, while letting batter sit for about 5 minutes. You will see the leavening starting to react and make the batter kind of puffy.

5. Scoop 1/4 cup of batter (plus a little) onto your seasoned hot griddle (or your frying pan). Spread it out a bit if needed. Cook 1 to 2 minutes until firm enough to flip. Cook another few minutes until golden. My batch made exactly 11 pancakes about 4 inches in diameter.

6. Serve warm with fried eggs or your favorite breakfast sides! Delicious, light, fluffy with just the right amount of crisp on the outside!

*Deby’s Gluten Free Pastry Flour ingredients are listed as: Rice flour, Potato starch, Tapioca flour, xantham gum. If your were to mix up your own you might try 3/4 cup Rice Flour, 1/4 cup each Potato Starch and Tapioca flour, plus 1/4 tsp xantham gum.

P.s. I will eventually post a picture, but I took it with our back up camera, before realizing that its memory card does not plug into my lap top.