Valentine's Day, New Hope and potato starch

Conversations about food and life.

I have been fairly sick for quite awhile. I've taken prednisone two times, and just discovered that a lot of the staples I've been eating were made in a facility containing gluten. So, I've given away the spices, sesame seeds, gluten free cookies, almond butter, and himalayan salt crystals. Which one was making me sick I don't know. Maybe all together. I don't feel well, rebound from the prednisone most likely, but I'm hopeful.

Yes, it's boring, but it seemed important to me to explain why I disappeared and to encourage any of you trying to figure out why your gluten free diet doesn't entirely work to keep investigating, keep calling the companies and asking "Is there any gluten in the facility." In my experience, if it's in the building, even if they swear the line is sterilized, the gluten will find it's way into my mouth and I will be sick.

The food is lemon filled crepes which are superb. And sweet potato dumplings with the old stand by pork chop and applesauce from a jar which photographed very nicely.

My pototo starch from Kinnikinnick finally got here. The box spent some months in my mom's garage in LA due to my poor planning. But it's here in Baja and I'm using it a lot.

Lemon filled crepes:

1. 2 large eggs beaten to mix

2. Juice of one lemon - I used a meyer lemon because they are sweet and juicy.

3. Half a cup of potato starch

4. Mix it with a whisk. It needs to be a little thinner than heavy cream, so if it's too thick, add liquid, water, not milk because it will curdle, coconut milk, anything.

5. Make lemon filling. Mix a quarter cup of maple syrup, the juice of one meyer lemon (if you have it, if not try a regular lemon) and 2 tablespoons of potato starch. Put it a little non stick pan and heat. Stir it right along as it will try to turn into a pancake itself. Keep mixing. It will not look attractive. It will get thick and gel like and just not very appealing. Don't worry. Set the pan aside.

6. Heat some butter or good margarine in a non stick pan. When it's hot, but not burning, pour in a third of the crepe batter. Immediately swirl the pan to spread the batter around in a more or less even coating in the pan. Let it sit for a minute over a medium to low heat. Using a spatula carefully turn it over when you see it's getting firm. You're aiming for slightly brown and buttery on each side.

7. After you have turned it, begin to spread one third of the lemon gel down the center line of the crepe. I aim for about a half inch line running down the midway. Work fast.

8. When the gel is in place, use the spatula to fold one side into the center. You want the fold to be at about the one third line. Then fold the other side in. The goal is to fold the gel into the center of the crepe. Make sense? Like a baby in swaddling.

9. I'm telling you it was delicious. I felt sophisticated and comforted.

Sweet Potato Dumpling

1. two small to medium well baked sweet potatoes

2. one egg

3. Two to three tablespoons of potato starch.

4. Salt is nice

5. Heat olive oil in a non stick pan. Form little cakes, fry till browning and firm through. Quite good.

You're on your own for the pork chops, and any applesauce that you think isn't from a gluten environment is fine.

I am so hopeful that I will feel better soon and that my strength and health will be restored. I am hoping to do this more often. Hope you're all well and taking good care of yourselves. Happy spring. Barb

Holiday-ish ideas

Conversations about food and life.

This is cubed pork chops, floured and sauteed, my basic food prep. So it's not really suitable for Thanksgiving or Christmas, but the other two items on the plate, fresh,hot cranberry sauce, and mashed potatoes and turnips definitely are just right for the holidays.

Fresh hot cranberry sauce, so easy, so nouveau, and possibly impressive



1. Half a cup of fresh raw cranberries per person, more or less
2. One tablespoon of real maple syrup per serving of cranberries.



The smaller berries in my creation cooked more and tasted better, so I recommend cutting the cranberries in half. Put the berries into a hot, slightly oiled non stick pan. Swirl them around as they sizzle and get hot. Add the tablespoon of maple syrup for each 1/2 cup of berries, stir steadily until its hot, soft and the maple syrup and juice is making a thickened sauce. Serve. It is pretty, sour and sweet, and as tasty as any cranberry sauce I've ever eaten except it's better because you just made it. It was great with the pork chop cubes.



Mashed potatoes and Turnips
I don't think I care for turnips. But peeled and cubed and boiled and mashed with margarine and potatoes and salt, they are quite good. Very holiday feeling.



1. Wash and peel any bad spots on one potato per person. Chop or slice it into pieces
2. Wash and peel one large turnip for each two people. Chop or slice it into pieces
3. Put the pieces into a pot, cover with good water.
4. Boil it on a simmer for a while - twenty to thirty minutes. Don't let the water boil away so the food burns, as I almost always do.
5. Mash it all together, assuming the water's gone. (If there's still water, pour it into a glass in hopes someone will drink all the wonderful vitamins and it won't go to waste.) I advise not to puree it in a blender or processor. The minor lumps are good. So mash it together with a potato masher, add salt and margarine (or butter if you use it. It's better than margarine for you but I'm allergic to dairy.) The color is a little more beige than we are used to for mashed potatoes, or that could be the carmelization in mine because - I burned it a little. Very tasty.



The small picture is pears and spinach. Wow, new and worth trying.
I got a bag of small pears at Trader Joes for two something the bag. Small, juicy, sweet, delectable. I also bought already washed spinach leaves so this is easy peasy.

1. Wash the pears, one per person, peel the bad spots
2. Don't wash the spinach if it says "already washed." I believe them, don't you?
3. Slice the pears away from the core and cube them into 1/2 inch pieces.
4. Heat a little margarine or butter in a non stick pan, saute the pear cubes. Add salt.
5. Add the spinach leaves, a good size heap for each person. It will cook away to almost nothing.
6. Stir until the spinach is limp and dark and well mixed with the pear pieces. Serve. Hmmm. Just wait.

Yes, I'm into fruit. I'm trying to be healthy, or healthier. I wanted to tell you that I cut out rice, most potatoes, deserts, sugar and I'm steadily losing weight. I wish it were true. But it simply doesn't seem to be. I'm pretty careful. In the last month, I ran amok only once when I ate a pint of chocolate soy sorbet. And some gluten free potato chips. On the same day. But otherwise I've eaten two sensible meals a day and not much else.

So while I was really hoping that sauteeing everything I eat and eating meat almost every day would not be a problem if I did well in some other areas, I was wrong. I hoped to lose ten or fifteen pounds, but not this way, ladies and gentlemen. I haven't gained, and I am much healthier. Out 'a bed at 7:30 a.m., and more or less productive most of the day, every day. This is a change for the better. But I'm not getting any thinner. Oh, well. Can't have everything.

Sorry I've been gone a month. Life, you know, presses in. Take care, eat well, trust God. Love, Barb

Life is so good, fried rice and Right Now! gluten free chocolate cookies

Today's long over due blog is going to be fast and dirty. After 4 plus weeks of pain and immobility I feel great. I walked on the beach. I have plans and projects all over the house. The living room curtains are in the washer and soon will be dried, ironed, and blowing fresh and clean in the windows. I hope. The left over sofa fabric is hanging on a chair back ready to recover the stained cushion. The little sewing machine is most optimistically sitting on the dining table as though any second I will be stitching seams and making fabric order.

Right Now Gluten Free Chocolate cookies first, guess why? So easy. Mine are little over baked.

1. About a teaspoon of excellent unsweetened chocolate, (I used the new discs of bitter chocolate from Trader Joe's because I believe them, mostly. If they say gluten free it probably is.) 2 tablespoons of maple syrup and about 3 tablespoons of a gluten free baking mix, I don't think it matters which kind.

2. It will look as though it will not integrate, but persist. No egg, no oil, no nothing else. Mix it till it's gloppy and moistly stiff. Or stiffly moist.

3. By half teaspoons put it on a little margarined, or buttered heat proof dish. I did mine in a toaster oven. It seems less considered and therefore lower calories that way. However long I set my timer, about 9 minutes, was too long, but they, all five of them, were hit the spot delicious.

Hashbrowns, pork cubes and fried eggs. This is mostly for inspiration but here goes.

1. Hashbrowns: Wash, grate and cook a potato in oil and a hot pan. Let it set and brown before turning the "patty" over. Cook it well because it's better browned and a little crispy.

2. Pork cubes: Buy a pork roast and cut it up and freeze chunks or slices for later use. Mine was too small to fill me up, hence the addition of eggs.

Wash it, cut it into cubes, flour it with whatever you like to use that's gluten free with spices. Saute it until it's hot and firm, but not hard and dry. Shove it over and cook some eggs in marg or butter for better flavor, cook 'em fast and low because I hate over cooked hard eggs. Serve and feel lots better about life and your future. Add a little salt.

3.

I've been very into fried rice. I almost said, 'Half a cup of used brown rice" but that's wrong.

Half a cup of cooked brown rice and onion and whatever vegies you have. Cook the vegies first, well, crispy is best, add the rice and cook it hot and well. Mix it up. Add the tomatoes at the last second, as they're better just warm, not mushy. Spices, salt and peper.

Shoe string potatoes and asparagus is just delicious. One potato washed and cut into skinny strips. Fry them till they're getting a little browned and soft, add asparagus cut into 1 and a half inch lengths. Cook till they're all soft and you're ready to eat. Salt. So good. Make lots.

The fish is beer battered sea bass. Unfortunately it wasn't too fresh when I bought it, and I kept it two days, so it smelled like amonia and was not edible. Oh, well.

1. Beer batter: old flat gluten free beer, (Green's to be exact from Whole Foods) about a quarter cup. Half a cup of spiced gluten free flour mix. Two eggs. Beat it well, dip the pieces or slices of fish, coat well, and drop carefully into a hot oiled pan, cook on both sides for a couple of minutes each. Throw away.

Or if you've done this better than me, make a nice sauce and enjoy with the asparagus potato dish.

It's so good to be back. Lots of love, Barb

Old stuff, left over and useless or good memory?

From time to time when I'm searching the back recesses of the old black files in the closet for a warranty, I realize that I have nice, clean, new looking instruction booklets and warranties for equipment I haven't had for a long time. Sometimes it's small appliances I don't even remember owning. Like a real nice looking juicer. Naturally I couldn't find the warranty for the 3 month old water pump that just broke.

On the other hand, my daughter told me she was pleased that after I'm gone she will have these blog pictures so she can see my food and my dishes. So some rememberances are dear.

What's my point? I don't remember. There probably is one.

One of my favorite things to eat is some spontaneous mixture of two or more leftovers in the frig. This morning I took the last of the menudo. You remember, the recipe for cow innards nobody made? A very nice woman who came last week to help me when my back was out made it and it was excellent. I had eaten almost all the meat (or something like meat) and had mostly broth left.

I also had some cooked rice shell noodles, (Tinkyada - reliably gluten free) and just a little pesto made to go on top of the noodles. The pesto would have been better balanced if my basil plants weren't dying. I gathered every usable leaf, and eight garlic cloves, a teaspoon of coarse seat salt, olive oil, (about a quarter cup), and pine nuts, (three quarters cup). I pureed it in the cuisinart food processor, a wonderful tool. It turned out to be mostly garlic. I enjoyed it on the noodles. Three bowls full. Not a real balanced meal, but twice a year won't hurt.

This morning I heated the last of the menudo soup and added the bowl of noodles and the glop of pesto. When it was hot, I squeezed in the juice of one lime, and poured in a quarter cup of coconut milk. Sorry no pictures. I was too hungry to wait, and you couldn't really see anything except creamy beige liquid.

Wow, it was great. In my experience any left over soup and any carbohydrate will work well. Chicken soup with rice! Tomato soup with rice or noodles. Pesto is so good, it's hard not to like it in any food. On top of cooked eggplant. On toast. In almost any soup. Cauliflower and potato soup doesn't lend itself to many additions except cheese, which is always welcome.

The photos are pork (like a chop, but no bone) and sauteed brocholli and plantain. And for the day I really didn't feel like eating anything, yummy margarine toasted Kinnikinick gluten free bread, two fried eggs, and tiny slivers of nitrate free ham from Trader Joe's.

Pork chop:

1. rinse it, pat it dry with a paper towel

2. "flour" it with a mix of fine cornmeal, from Kinnikinick, and rice flour and all the spices you can bear.

3. saute it in olive oil till it's cooked through but not dry

4. wash the brocholli, cut it off at the florets.

a. peel the stems and eat them raw, or give them to the kids

b. separate the florets and saute in olive oil, not too much

5. Peel and slice the plantain, saute it next to the brocholli, they don't mind sharing

My mom taught me that pork chops are always good with applesauce, so if you have some, try it.

Eggs:

1. put some good tasting non-hydrogenated margarine in a non stick pan

2. cut the bread into thirds in both directions

3. toast the cubes in the marg.

4. slice some slivers off the ham slice which I keep in the freezer. It will slice frozen.

5. put the few ham bits in the pan to warm. They are for flavor and elegance.

6. break the eggs into the pan, either on top of the bread, or scoot them over and put the eggs right on the pan. Stir them till they're gently firm and cooked but not hard and dry.

Looks like fall is here, at least in southern California. It's cool at night in Baja. It never even got hot this year.

I want to hear from someone. Try commenting. It took mine. Send me an email if you have a request for a recipe. If you know anyone with Celiac disease or gluten intolerance, please ask them if they would like to get this blog. barbara.keller3@gmail.com

My high school 50th reunion is next Saturday evening. I'm concentrating hard on being younger and thinner. (I can't imagine why I bother. In high school I was younger and thinner. Was I a success? Absolutely not.) I'll let you know how it goes.

Failure, hunger and satiety

Most of the people reading this so far don't have celiac disease, so they may not understand the difficulties. I haven't written because I feel like a failure. While I was doing a favor, and taking an old friend to dinner in a restaurant I shouldn't have been in. It was late afternoon and I was hungry. It was a nervous afternoon, and what I forgot is when I'm hungry and nervous I can't remember why I shouldn't eat in an environment where gluten is served.

I tried hard, asked the waitress to rinse the plate and silver, explained so carefully in English and it was translated into Spanish, that any wheat would make me sick, so please please be careful. I ordered and ate a small portion of beans and a small portion of red rice, and two corn totillas. In my house it would probably have been just fine. But there, in a kitchen full of gluten and prepared by people who don't know any better, it was a recipe for disaster. It wasn't even good or filling.

By the evening I was sick, nauseated, stomach ache, tired. And it continued escalating all week. It is now one week later. My muscles are tender, prone to cramping. I'm slow witted, a nice way of saying "stupid", tired no matter how much I try to sleep.

I had hoped to lead my readers with excellent and sensible behavior and choices. And here I am sick, for no good reason what so ever except I was hungry and lost the thread of my self care.

For those of you with celiac disease maybe you will understand. This seems to be part of the disease. Maybe somewhere there is a person with gluten intolerance who always makes the right decisions, who never is surprised to be sick after some small risk carelessly taken.

So that was the failure. The hunger comes after the gluten. Maybe because I'm not digesting well. I am hungry and it's hard to get full while eating healthy foods. At this point it's not gluten that's the danger, it's too much fat and sugar. And I don't want to gain weight. So I eat lots of vegetables and try not to eat carbs, and wait (no pun intended) for the hunger to pass.

Satiety is a word I learned twenty five years ago in a weight loss program at Cedar Sinai. Along with the liquid diet we were given lessons to help us keep the weight off. (Statistically almost no one in the program kept the weight off, but it was a good concept.) Satiety refers to how satisfying food is. So, if you have 500 calories to spend, what will make you feel the most full and content?

When possible, when I'm cooking or choosing food, I listen to the voice in my head. One afternoon I wanted a lot of cole slaw, and I ate an entire small cabbage with chopped tomato. One morning I yearned for hot and sour spinach soup, so I made it and ate it all, because, well, it's mostly water with spices and spinach. No harm there. And the afternoon I was worn out and sad and dying for potato pancakes because they remind me of my grandma and safe old times at home, I made some.

Yes, I bet I'm a pound heavier, the pants are a little tighter, but over all not a big deal. I wish I were smart enough, strong enough to never fall into the "oops I got gluten, again." trap. But as I did, and it's hard on the body and soul, I feel OK about rolling with the food longings. When I recover, my appetite goes back to normal, and I can eat to lose weight. But I've learned, for me at least, it's not possible to lose weight when I'm in a gluten flare. (In some other diet program, maybe weight watchers, I was told that a body struggling with illness will not let go of fat. You just have to wait.)

So, listen to your cravings, and do your best to accomodate them. As long as there's no real harm. I didn't pay attention to the "I want a hot fudge sundae" request.

The food is chicken soup with brown rice cooked in it. Wonderful for consolation, as well as very nourishing. Hot and sour spinach soup, sauteed chicken strips and sauteed zucchini from my garden, potato pancakes and tiny crab salad. Crab bits on chopped lettuce, tomatoes and onion. With home made dressing of the week: Mayo, marinara sauce, a little olive oil, juice of one lemon, bit of maple syrup, and some spices. It worked on the giant cole slaw, the crab salad, and just sliced tomato and onions.

Two things. One, I hear back that the site doesn't seem to allow you to leave comments. I'm sorry. I would like to hear your comments. I don't know what to do about this. And two, I didn't write any recipes because I don't think anyone is cooking this food. I would be so very happy to give you the recipes so if you're interested, just send me an email at barbara.keller3@gmail.com.

Check out the website too: http://www.glutenfreeforyouandme.com/.

Since you can't leave comments, send them by email. I would love to hear from you. Do good - eat carefully. Tell me how it's going.

Cooking and Love: It's not science, just do your best

This is the birthday cake my granddaughter Sarah made for me in St. Louis. My birthday was in March, but I didn't mind celebrating late. The cake was so good, completely gluten free, light and delicious. They sang happy birthday and I was happy. The next photo is three of the kids next to the cake.

My grandson Aaron cooked eggplant cubes according to a recipe you already have. The sad thing is I put cayenne pepper in the potato starch and it was too hot for him to eat. Cooking is an imperfect science.

Today's photo is familiar - scallops with microwaved potatoes and spinach. I put it here for inspiration. In fact it's a little out of focus and so maybe not so inspiring. The point is you can feed yourself well even if it's out of focus, and you're really tired from traveling 2000 miles and back and sleeping in a strange bed. Food and cooking go on, and can be lovely and delicious and healthy in the middle of a lot of other stuff. Remember the line from Psalm 23? "He prepares a table for me in the midst of my enemies." I love that and take it literally. Although I was just with my darling family, not in the midst of my enemies, you know what I mean. Life is hard, everywhere, for everyone. But you can still cook. I rarely cook lengthy dishes. I'm a fast and easy girl.

I put the little washed potatoes in the microwave for 6 minutes, and cooked the rest in that time. Wash, dry, flour the scallops, (defrosted in their little baggy), sauteed them, washed the spinach, (organic from Costco - goes far) and put it in the pan when I took out the scallops, cooked it on high for a minute or two. Took the potatoes out, sliced and squished them, added a little margarine, and Voila! done.

My point, over and over, is you can do it, your kids can do it, your grandchildren can do it.

Sarah's yellow cake is a recipe from Mireille on the Delphi Forums celiac support group. And the frosting was powdered sugar, butter and cocoa powder. It was so good I ate two pieces, not tiny ones either, and then had some blood sugar problems, but I wouldn't have missed it for the world.

I was glad to see my daughter. She was kind and gracious and I felt like visiting royalty. They're gluten free, and it was a treat to be able to eat someone else's cooking. Summer at the lake in rural St. Louis was green, forested, lush, beautiful, warm and somehow like traveling back in time.

What a strange summer this has been in Baja. I wore shorts once. Once! and now summer is officially over. Eat well and love each other. What could be better?

A commitment to health

That's the thing about a blog, life just keeps going on and seems to take up all the time. Sorry for no postings for many days. I have lots of photos of food, I did keep taking pictures of everything I cooked, but either I didn't have time or energy to write to you, or I wrote and it disappeared leaving an error message, "oops, sorry, it's gone." No it doesn't say that, but it might as well.

Here is the psychic, physical and psychological summary of my last two weeks: I decided I had to make a commitment to my health, which means putting it first. So, like Kinsey Milhone, the famous private eye from Sue Grafton, I roll out of bed and go to the beach first thing in the morning. I don't jog. I walk. And I take my sweet but possibly scary looking dog with me for protection from some imagined danger.

Then I come home and cook my main meal of the day, very healthy and low carb, and I listen to my current favorite bible teacher on the internet. This is my spiritual food and I do feel better for hearing it.

Then, if I still have the get up and go, I clean the kitchen and do the things on the Franklyn list for that day.

It's working, but the blog keeps slipping over the edge at the end of the list. The pictures accumulate and I feel bad, but they don't get posted.

Two other things of note. I was promoted to Editor in Chief of the Baja News which makes me happy and sounds a lot more glorious than it really is. Also I came to an inner decision that my bouts with the blues are going to come around regularly and there is no point in twisting my self into a pretzel trying to figure out why, who's to blame, and what the solution is. The blues go as fast as they come, and are most likely physiological in origin. I intend to stop blaming others or myself for that sorrow. I intend to just wait it out and not fret more than necessary.

Today's meal is scallops and sauteed vegetables. I wash the scallops and pat them dry with a paper towel. Then I coat them lightly in potato starch in which I mix chili flakes, turmeric, salt, pepper, and cumin. (I put this mix in a shallow dish with a flat bottom, and I turn the scallops gently with a fork.) I saute them in enough olive oil to cover the pan. Fast, real fast, maybe a minute on each side. Then I cover them with lime juice, from one lime, and turn the heat back on for a minute to steam the little guys with the lime juice.

The vegetables are: One round zucchini, half a sweet onion, chopped, 7 cloves of garlic chopped fine, three tomatoes, one only half ripe from the garden (half green doesn't matter, still tastes good, still nutritious,) and one half inch slice of eggplant cut in little squares. I browned the onions lightly, added everything else and stirred it till it was soft and smelled good.

Serve and eat.

It's finally warm here. Summer seems to be starting very late. I read somewhere that work is not exercise. Exercise is the rhythmic contraction and release of muscles. I read somewhere else, in a sequel to The Artist's Way, that one should go outside and walk on the ground for 30 minutes a day, that it does something that exercising inside can't do. I think about that as I walk on the beach. The air is fresh and I like banging my feet down on the earth. I know you can't all walk on the beach, but I bet you can walk someplace nice? Someplace with green stuff growing and air that smells good? I challenge you to walk and eat well, gluten free and high protein, for a week and see how much better you feel.

Hopefully, you will hear from me soon.