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Round 2: Wheat-free Muffins

The next project in the Martha Stewart Baking Handbook that I thought I would attempt would be muffins.  The pictures in the book and the recipe seemed fairly straight forward, and I figured it would be a good recipe to try to adapt to a wheat-free recipe.  The recipe is Blueberry Muffins (click here to get the recipe), though I revised the recipe to be blueberry-less as there were no good local blueberries at the market in the middle of winter-time (I try to limit the distance my groceries travel from to a 250km/155 mile radius when I have the chance).  I revised the recipe to be pumpkin oatmeal muffins instead, using pumpkin puree, oatmeal, molasses and cinnamon in place of blueberries.

Here is what I substituted:

- Instead of regular flour: 1 cup white rice flour and 1 cup corn flour

- Gluten-free Baking Powder (instead of regular baking powder)

- Instead of blueberries: 1/2 cup of pumpkin puree, 1 tsp of cinnamon, 1 cup of oatmeal, 1/4 cup of molasses

As noted in my previous posts, instead of butter to grease my muffin tins, I use extra virgin olive oil and then dust my tins with white rice flour.  Of course you can use butter if you choose, but it is just my personal preference to use olive oil (less cholesterol and seems to work better with gluten-free flours).

When mixing the ingredients in the electric mixer, you may find that mixing for an extra 10 minutes or so will help blend the chunks of oatmeal and accommodate the thickness of the molasses.

Batter and my awesome electric mixing paddle

I found that when cooking the muffins, I needed to cook them for an extra 5-7 minutes to accommodate the extra ingredients. Of course, as with any wheat-free cooking, you will want to keep an eye on your baking in the oven, as dependent on your oven you may need less cooking time.

Upon trying the cooked version of the muffins, they were fluffy and moist, and due to the oatmeal, corn flour and molasses, they had a unique texture.  Keep in mind that these muffins will be a slightly browner color than in the cookbook, as the corn flour and molasses will brown the batter and make it a bit denser.

Muffins Baking in the Oven

All in all, this was a successful baking adventure.  If you decide to make a wheat-free version of these muffins with the blueberries included, I would love to hear about how it went. Hopefully my substitutions and wheat-free trials have been helpful.  See the picture below for my final muffin batch:

Yummy Finished Pumpkin Muffins

Next on Wheat-free baking with the Martha Stewart Baking Handbook… Gingerbread Cookies!

Ciao!

Deanna

Round 1: Wheat-free, Chocolate-free, & Healthier Version of Martha Stewart Baking

The first recipe I tested out in the Martha Stewart  was the Chocolate-Glazed Gingerbread Cakes (found on page 191).  While the recipe seems straight forward I had to reassess how I would tackle it in a wheat-free and chocolate-free way.  As noted in my previous post, I not only have to make food that is wheat-free but also chocolate-free and MSG-free (Don’t want to cause anaphylactic allergies for any loved-ones).  Since I was already adjusting flour and chocolate within this recipe, I didn’t dare attempt to make it vegan too, though I plan in the future to try it out with vegan butter and eggs.

These little fluffy cakes looked absolutely delicious in the cookbook, covered in a chocolate ganache. I assessed the needed ingredients, placed them all out on the counter, and began substituting.  Here are my three substitutions (not bad really):

- gluten-free baking powder (replacing regular baking powder)

- white rice flour (replacing the regular flour)

- carob flour (replacing the chocolate/cocoa in the ganache – p. 387)

Pouring the batter into the tins

In mixing and preparing this recipe, I found that the rice flour needed a bit more mixing than regular flour, which when using an electric mixing bowl is really a piece of cake (mind the pun!). For the sake of using the least amount of dairy as possible in this recipe (as it uses butter), I greased each of the muffin tins using extra virgin olive oil.  This has proved to be a successful form of greasing pans when using rice flour, as butter or non-stick spray seem to be useless on gluten-free products.

Baking time: add 3-5 extra minutes to your baking time, as it will help cook the cakes more thoroughly.

Upon pulling out the muffin tins with the gingerbread cakes fully cooked inside, they smelled amazing.  The only visual difference from the “Martha” cakes was that these little cakes have an indentation in their centres, which once they are flipped over is not noticeable in the least.  Since I planned on putting a warm ganache over these cakes, I figure having a well to hold the yummy sauce could be advantageous.

Fresh Out of the Oven - Had to eat one (oops!)

When making the ganache, I found it useful to heat my carob flour and heavy cream in the microwave beforehand, since organic carob flour doesn’t easily mix with the milk. I found that microwaving for 15 second intervals and then stirring until it was bubbling made it thick and gooey.  (The standard heating it over a stovetop would work just fine too, but will take a little longer.  I tried both ways). I made two batches of ganache: one with the ingredients from the book, and the other one I added a cup of Sweetened Condensed Milk to help thicken and sweeten up the sauce.  Both versions were delicious, but I found the one with condensed milk to be tastier.

Gingerbread Mini-Cake Awaiting Ganache

So all-in-all, the “de-wheatifying” of these gingerbread cakes worked out fantastically.  As for substituting the chocolate for carob – When @nachoman (the guy that is allergic to chocolate) tried out these little morsels fresh out of the oven, he stated “how dare you feed me something so delicious! now I know what I have been missing”.  When a chocolate loving friend ate one, she noted that it was extremely tasty and moist.  So I have to conclude that Round 1 of baking without wheat or chocolate was an absolute success.

Next time on Wheat-free baking from the Martha Stewart Handbook is . . . Muffins!

Ciao!

Deanna

Over the past year,  I have spent more than my fair share of waiting in doctor’s offices and medical waiting rooms.  While it is one of the most tedious things (waiting for an appointment), it is a necessary evil of the medical world.  When visiting a specialist, they typically book their initial appointments into 20-30 minute time blocks (or so I presume from the receptionist’s little scheduling book). Somehow though, either due to chatty patients or patients with too many problems (I am guilty of both of these things), the doctor is always behind schedule.

What makes  my visit to the doctor less tiring and frustrating tends to be the doctor’s office waiting room.  There are different little details that all make a difference in my “waiting” experience. I have noticed something in these doctor’s offices and medical waiting rooms, there seems to be four distinct types of waiting rooms.  I have listed them in order of peacefulness and making my day a little better.

The Kid & Senior Friendly:

There is a giant area or box of toys for the children to play with, there are kids books everywhere.  A tonka truck sits in the middle of the aisles where you are trying to walk, and you nearly every time step right on it and go tripping and falling (well at least that always happens to me).  There are sniffling, crying, screaming children everywhere (the poor things are sick, and just dont know why! Its heartbreaking).  While there are various ages of adults also waiting in the sitting area with you, you will notice the abundance of seniors, with canes, walkers or scooters.  Unfortunately since it is usually a cramped waiting room, the poor unsuspecting seniors have to finagle their way through the maze of children on the ground and the children’s toys that get stuck underneath their mobilty scooter or walker. 

While many of the seniors are happy to see the cheerful smiling faces of children, I am pretty sure that they don’t appreciate it when that same giggling child sneezes in their face. I have watched this happen time and time again.  Mixed in with all of this, is an assortment of people of all ages and illnesses.  The magazines are typically family oriented or child oriented, with tattered pages and at least 2 years out of date. All in all, these waiting rooms are not half bad, though I always feel like I walk out of there with a new flu or cold and a headache.

The Communal:

The interesting thing about many new specialists and medical professionals is that when starting up their practice, they need a space to place their office.  Likely due to the budgetary aspects, what ends up happening is they set up their practice in a communal office or room. This type of waiting room serves as a holding area for multiple doctors, dentists, and other medical practitioners.  I have also seen a variety of acupuncturists, tanning salons, immunization clinics and travel centers sharing their waiting room with a doctor.  This makes for an eclectic mix of individuals waiting for their appointments.  It becomes a game of guessing who is waiting for what office, and what illness, problem or need they have. The seats are never comfortable, and it always smells like a brand new waiting room for some reason, sterile and lacking books and magazines.  The depletion of magazines is most likely due to visitors leaving with the magazine they were reading, as there is no receptionist close by to notice their misdemeanor.

The communal waiting room typically has a bit more room than a regular medical practice, though I always end up sitting beside the coughing patient and thinking to myself, “I wonder what they are here for. . . ? Should I move over a couple seats?” and lo-and-behold they get called into the Immunization and TB testing clinic. . .

The “Has Not Changed Since the 70’s”:

We all know this type of waiting room, most of our own family doctors waiting rooms are like this.  The orange coloured chairs that seem to have been bought in the 1960’s, the oak table with various issues of Highlights for Kids (from 10 years ago), the pile of disheveled magazines that haven’t been replaced since you first started going to this doctor 20 years ago, and of course the “piece de résistance” the complete collection of Readers Digests scattered throughout the office.  This type of waiting room has a comfortable familiar feel to it, as you know the 70 year old receptionist “Blanche” by name, the walls have the same patterned faded wall-paper from the 70’s and you know that you may even recognize some of the other patients in the office from visit to visit.

This type of office, while not that entertaining or boisterous, gives you a welcoming expectation of the “traditional doctor with stethoscope and white lab coat” calling you into his office to talk to you about your family (which of course he knows everyone’s name).  The waiting room that feels like it is stuck in the 70’s never really changes, it just gets the occasional new (2 year old) magazine every once in a while.

The High-Brow Spa-like Fancy:

Ah! This is by far my favourite type of waiting room.  There is a spa-like feel when you open the door to this office, it feels like you have walked in to a Amazon rainforest with chirping birds, waterfalls and peaceful harp music being plucked by angels.  The receptionist is always young and attractive, with a headset glowing blue on her head, she gives you an acknowledging nod that almost seems to say “Welcome and Namaste”.  There are comfortable chairs to sit on, with ample room separating you from other patients. There is a watercooler carefully disguised as a rock fountain in the corner, where fresh purified, ionized etc. chilled water pours out of the tap.  The receptionist will offer you a cup of that cold fresh water with a slice of lemon (of course giving you an actual wine glass of water) or offers you a cup of freshly brewed green-rooibos tea picked from the hilltops of somewhere in Nepal.

You sit down to sip your water or tea, and look down at the beautifully hand carved table beside you to find this month’s issue of every magazine under the sun.  There are fresh white and yellow flowers carefully placed throughout the office.  This peaceful and serene waiting room almost seems like a little piece of heaven, you almost are sad to have to get up for your appointment. The waiting room never seems packed, and no one talks above a gentle soothing whisper it seems.  This waiting room style seems perfect and serene, until a mother comes in with a screaming child, you feel sorry for her as her poor child seems in pain with some illness, yet the soothing calming sounds of the room and the comfortable chairs seem to calm the child’s cries to a gentle whimper, and by the time it is their turn for their appointment, the child is asleep.  Ah, this waiting room is the dream. I wish they were all this peaceful.

I am still refining my opinion of the four styles of waiting rooms, but so far it seems that these are the categories I have run into. If only every doctor’s office I went to had the soothing peaceful tranquility feel, though I am just happy these days to actually have an appointment within the next 3 months at all, so I will take what I can get.

Ciao

Deanna

For the past 4 months, I have been waiting for my appointment for an MRI at the Peace Arch Hospital.  From talking to numerous people over the past few months, I have realized that 4 months is not really that long to be waiting for a scan of my head.  Several patients I know have been waiting for 6 – 8 months or longer for their MRI at St. Paul’s or Surrey Memorial.  Now, for anyone who has been waiting for a MRI, CAT scan or other procedure that will help figure out what is wrong with them, the waiting game is absolutely frustrating.

I know that the hospitals and MRI machines are overloaded with people on wait lists, and that emergency scans take precedence (as they should), but after waiting this long, I am actually excited about going in for my MRI. Yes, I am looking forward to being shoved into a large claustrophobic machine and listening to a noisy racket while magnetic fields penetrate my skull.

After my 4 month wait, and fingers crossed that everything is okay, I am going for my MRI tomorrow morning. Hooray!

As many people know, my stomach and I are never really on the same page.  I have gone most of my life having my stomach get angry at me for pretty much everything; from wheat, to meat to even water.  Yes, you heard me, water – be it cold or warm, it gives my stomach cramps and pain.  Doctors, Naturopaths, Acupuncturists, Medical Specialists, and all sorts of “healing” professionals have tried to figure out to no avail. I have tried eliminating wheat, dairy, meat, sugar, fruit, gluten, chemicals, preservatives, caffeine, chocolate, alcohol, you-name-it from my diet, and while I now am able to live a bit more normal of a life not rushing to find a washroom all the time, that living off of chamomile tea, rice & chick peas really does suck.

My quest to figure out which foods I can eat has taken me the past 9 years of testing and trying.  I have narrowed down my main problem foods, and try to keep on a certain list of foods that I know wont hurt (too much), mainly some sort of rice, corn, fish, bean concoction, and non-alcoholic beer.  Now here is the thing, I LOVE to go out for dinner to a restaurant and enjoy a meal that a someone else has made, relax with friends or family, in an environment that isn’t my own kitchen.  The problem is, I can never just order something directly from the menu and be able to eat it, without having my stomach rebel at the excessive wheat or dairy used in North American cooking.

When I pick up a menu at an Earls, Milestones or a local restaurant or pub, I look at the yummy appetizers that likely are loaded with wheat filler of some sort, and quickly disregard the ever common chicken wings, calamari, nachos, or some sort of flat bread with a tapenade.  Scroll right past the salads and soups section, since I haven’t found a salad anywhere on the West Coast that tastes as good as the price I get charged for it ($15 for a couple pieces of lettuce with oil, vinegar and a few pine nuts & goat’s cheese. Really?)  Then typically there is a Pasta, Pizza and Burger section, which for someone who cant eat wheat without having extreme stomach pain and ramifications for several days later, is literally a section that I avoid like the plague.  My friends and colleagues who have Celiac’s Disease, IBS, Crohn’s Disease or gluten allergies have the same stance it seems, there is no section of restaurant menus (other than the salad section) that has a wheat-free or gluten-free option. If I want to pay $25 for one of the non-red meat entrée items, that consists of a piece of fish, potatoes and some veggies covered in cream sauce, I could fork out my hard earned cash for a meal that is completely too filling and likely will still hurt my stomach because of the dairy and potatoes.

You may ask – How do I end up finding something to eat with options like that?  Well, I end up ordering a side of fish, a side of rice, and a side of corn tortilla chips.  I ask nicely for the kitchen to make the meal interesting, but I end up ordering a side of Frank’s Red Hot Sauce to give my meal some flavour.  Oh well, at least I was able to enjoy some plain non-stomach-hurting food while visiting friends or family & listen to fun music at the restaurant. But Wait! The bill still will arrive at the end of dinner, and lo-and-behold, my simple, plain, dietary meal that held no real ingenuity from the kitchen costs me double what anyone else at the table is paying – and that includes the guy who ordered the 12 ounce steak!  How is this fair? Well it is NOT, but it is how things go in the world of someone who needs a customized meal.  Why is my meal so expensive? Alas, here is the usual breakdown.  The server has charged me $18 for the small “side” piece of fish (keep in mind if I had ordered a salad with a “side” of fish, the piece of fish would have only cost $6),  the rice gets billed $7 or $8, and my tortilla chips have been rung into the server’s ordering system as “Chips and Salsa” at a whopping $10 to $12 (though I only got 12 chips on a bread plate).  All in all that meal has now cost me about $36,  but wait, that little side dish that held my Frank’s Red Hot Sauce to make my bland rice taste better also cost $2.  So the grande total is $38 for my food, and I find that just ridiculous! Don’t you? On top of that I end up tipping way more than anyone else, as my waitress or waiter has likely gone out of their way to take the time to deal with the kitchen to request these substitutions, so my meal ends up costing the same as 2 people’s.

I have asked numerous waiters and waitresses for different wheat-free options for a meal, and they typically will point at the $25 fish dish on the menu.  As one would assume that that meals can have some substitutions, my request for Corn Tortilla Chips, Hot Sauce etc. instead of potatoes and vegetables will get billed on top of the actual meal price, thus making my meal once again über expensive and lacking any creativity from the kitchen.

Why is it that I pay more than anyone else at my table for my meal, just because I have stomach problems? Is making a nice wheat and dairy free meal really that hard? I can prove that making delicious meals that don’t have wheat, dairy and red-meat is actually quite easy and fun, yet most restaurant kitchens are unable or unwilling to try to accommodate that request.  I have asked many a server to just tell the kitchen to surprise me with something meatless, wheat and dairy free, only to get a bowl of edamame soy beans and a baked potato.  It’s not their fault, they just aren’t used to the request I guess, yet everywhere I turn these days I am running into people who are vegan, or Celiac, or are avoiding wheat for weight loss, so there must be some demand.

I am looking forward to the day where I can go out for dinner, go to the menu and see more than one item I can order carté blanche from the menu without having to change a thing.

I can dream, can’t I? Or is that going to cost me too?