Home-baked goodness

I seem to have reignited my love of baking this weekend.

Saturday night, on the way home from a friend's house, we decided we wanted biscuits and gravy for breakfast on Sunday morning. One of the more upsetting parts about not having gluten in my life is not being able to have biscuits and gravy. Yeah, I know they're not the healthiest thing in the world, but they remind me of being a kid, and I just love them. So to have biscuits and gravy now, I have to make the whole thing from scratch.

Step one, shopping. I know from experience that Bob's Red Mill GF Biscuit and Baking Mix biscuits are my preferred type. We had to go to two grocery stores to find the mix.

Step two, bake! I made the biscuits when I got home, which kept me up a little later than I wanted, but was well worth it come breakfast on Sunday. I follow the recipe on the back of the package, and the biscuits are yummy. They're not very fluffy, which is kind of sad, but they're perfect for being soaked in gravy.

Step three, on Sunday morning, make the gravy. I used the non-gf recipe found at Mama's Southern Cooking, and substituted the biscuit mix flour. I also used less sausage, since the sausage package had 12 oz. And for the milk, I used 1%, because that's what we had.

Step four, devour. It was so good! I restrained myself (and Mike!) and we saved some so that we could have biscuits and gravy for breakfast this morning also. So yummy.

This morning, since I woke up stupid early, I decided to try my hand at gluten free bagels. I used to make bagels a lot when I was living in the land of gluten, but I haven't attempted them since going gf. I did a bit of searching on the internet, and landed on The Gluten Free Cook's recipe. I was bound and determined not to leave the house, though, so this special gluten free flour blend the recipe calls for just wasn't going to happen. To try to stick as close to her recipe as possible, I used the King Arthur's gf blend, which doesn't have xanthan gum already in it, and added the xanthan gum called for in the recipe.

However, when I was measuring out the flour, I discovered I only had about two cups of flour, rather than the 3 1/4 she called for. I figured I'd approximately halve the recipe, and forged onward. Forgetting that the xanthan gum and salt I already measured out were not halved. I realized after pouring everything in together what mistake I had made, but I figured I'd just keep going and hope for the best.

I topped the bagels with garlic powder, dried chopped onions, poppy seeds, and sesame seeds. Everything Bagels FTW! They just came out of the oven, so I can't tell yet if they're any good, but they look like bagels! I'll be crossing my fingers that they turn out well, and looking for other recipes in the meantime.

Update: A Long Time Coming

I have been remiss with blogging lately, in part because of the end of school, in part because of just finishing school and becoming lazy. :) But that doesn't mean I haven't been living the gluten-free life, so here's a couple quick things to check out!

www.yummly.com - My friend (and bridesmaid!) J. pointed me to this website. It's kind of social networking meets recipes. The awesome part? You can make a profile with your food allergy (or likes/dislikes/dietary preferences) that you can set to apply every time you do a food search! Now, I was pointed to this website all of five minutes ago, so I'll be sure to review once I do some future dabbling.

Wild Willy's Burgers of Worcester - I can not say enough good things about this place. This burger joint not only carries gluten-free buns, but also gluten-free french fries AND (wait for it...) gluten free ONION RINGS!!! Not good for my diet, but awesome for my taste buds. If you have one near you, call and see if they offer these options, I get the idea that they are independently owned, and thus might not all have the same food.

Glutino Gluten Free Crackers (original flavor) - My future in-laws bought these the last time they were up, and I had a couple with some peanut butter on them yesterday. They were great! They taste like regular crackers, and the calorie count isn't terrible.

So for now, dear readers, I'll leave you, with promises of more updates to come. Unemployment does have its benefits, after all.