We started eating before I could get the picture (oops!)

1 cup of butter
Roughly 4 large eggs (I had 5 mediums)
4 teaspoons of vanilla
3 cups of the gluten-free flour
I let it bake in a breadpan lined with parchment paper and then let it cool.  I noticed that I probably set the pan a bit too high in the oven since part of the top was a little burnt.

(At the same time, I used some leftover rice, eggs, sugar, vanilla and lemon zest to make a rice pudding that I tossed into a pyrex bowl and stuck into a water filled pot to steam in the oven.)

The next day, I made a simple lemon glaze from about a cup of powdered sugar, a few spoons of water (a little at a time) and some lemon juice.  I drizzled this over the top of the pound cake and served it up.


Lessons learned?  To use a larger pan for the pound cake since the center turned out a little crumbly (but still good) or two pans.  To make the glaze slightly thinner since it was pretty solid when it hardened, possibly adding a little milk or more water (probably milk), and to actually measure and mix the rice pudding a bit more.

Until the past few years, people with gluten problems, (celiacs and intolerantcies), had wine, liquors and hard ciders to drink.  Beer was off limits.  Now the thing about beers is that it's nice on a day when you don't want something too strong, and beer has enough water content to balance out the hydration where wine and liquor based drinks don't tend to do this.  Personally, I've always been a fan of mixed drinks that had quite a bit more liquid than liquor, but most people wouldn't even think of such a thing.



The Golden Manatee Bellipago. I had to have two since I forgot to take a  picture of the first one.  That's my story and I'm sticking to it.


That same day I found out I had just missed trying out the second gluten free beer, I had made the decision to try making my own.  I had already picked up a few books about normal brewing and the year prior, had talked to the brewing employee at a small, local home brewing store named Beer Depot. (LHBS for short).  In fact, I had already purchased some of the equipment I would need before sitting down at the Jolly Pumpkin. 

Reading through the books, there was an overload of information.  I also read online from several sources about brewing basics and gluten free brewing.  Some of it seemed simple enough.  I'd boil the sorghum syrup with water and hops, let it cool and add yeast.  The questions, however, became what hops, what yeast, what were some of these ingredients that I could substitute?  I wanted something simple and basic for now, and I'd progress and learn as I went along.  I went with the suggestion of the brewer at the LHBS and went with a WGV hop, (called Whitbread Goldings Variety), but couldn't find a yeast called Safbrew T-58 so instead went with a White Labs Yeast for english ales.  This unfortunately meant that my first attempt was not 100% gluten free since White Labs liquid vials of yeast uses gluten to grow the yeast.  The expectations however was to be under 2ppm when it was finished, enough to qualify as gluten free in certain areas.

After many trips to the LHBS which was thankfully close, I finally had what I needed to make a gallon batch of beer.  I had my 5 quart stockpot, 2 gallon jugs, a funnel, a filter for the funnel, two pound of sorghum syrup, one one-ounce packet of WGV hops and the vial of yeast.  I also had two rubber stoppers that I stuck airlocks into.  [I need 5 pictures]. 

I sanitized everything and started heating my gallon of water.  I added one pound of syrup and let it come to a boil again, then added half an ounce of the hop pellets and let it boil for 60 minutes.  I then let this cool in a sink filled with cold water.  
Once it finally cooled down, I poured it through the filter, into the jug so that I could get most of the gunk, mostly hops, out while keeping the sugary liquid in.  The gunk is known as trub.  I put on a cap and shook the jug of liquid to incorporate air, which apparently is necessary, then I added 1/4 of the vial of yeast and shook again.  It seems that the yeast needs air to grow.  I then removed the cap and put on the airlock, putting the jug into the closet where it was cooler and dark. 

I set up the next batch, which was done exactly the same except for one ounce of molasses was added for color and flavor.

I let these sit for a week, where the yeast would multiply and eat the sugars, leaving alcohol behind.  Carbon dioxide is produced and to prevent the bottle from exploding, would leak out through water filled airlocks.   This block also prevented oxygen and bad bacteria from invading into the bottle causing the beer to get strange flavors and/or spoil completely.  This would also mean that the only thing growing should be the yeast I chose.  It's very possible to use a wild yeast, rather than deciding on a  yeast but this is more difficult when it comes to consistency and I wanted to figure this out using something by choice, rather than chance.

One week later, I looked at the bottles.  The bottom was filled with more gunk that had settled.  This gunk, known as trub, is the sediment from the hops that didn't get filtered, as well as dead yeast that clumped up and settled.  Using a plastic autosiphon from the LHBS and a tube, (picture needed), I drained each bottle into a new clean bottle and left behind the trub.  This was then re-airlocked and left for another week. This process is known as "racking" into a "secondary" which lets it continue to ferment without gaining possible flavors from the dead yeast.

After another week, I took the bottle, which now had a layer of yeast that had settled to the bottom of the jug, and drained the liquid into another empty bottle that contained a sugary solution of water and dextrose in the form of corn sugar, a sweet powder that has used this name for several decades (not the new name for corn syrup).  This extra sugar will be food for the yeast to produce just a little bit more CO2.  Before it could really do that, however, I drained the flat beer into bottles and secured bottle caps on top using a hand lever system that closed and crimped the metal caps.  This would create a seal on the bottle and the yeast would eat the sugar, releasing carbon dioxide.  The CO2 would have nowhere to go, except for a tiny air pocket in the bottle and the pressure would build up.  Too much, and the bottle would explode.  If it was just right, the CO2 would merge with the beer, giving the liquid and air equal pressure.  This is one of the ways beer can be carbonated.   This however takes about three weeks before it's ready. 

The other way beer can be carbonated is to force CO2 into the liquid.  This is usually done in a metal cylinder called a keg.  The beer is put into the keg and CO2 is sent in from an air tank.  There isn't a chemical difference between this CO2 and yeasts CO2, but there are many who say that there is a difference somehow.  Personally, I think the extra aging is what does it.  I believe that it could be potentially possible to carbonate it, the way carbonated water is created, in a smaller container with smaller amounts of CO2. 

In any case, the beer is ready to be chilled and served, and the next batch is ready to start anew.
I'll be trying things out and describing the process in more detail as I go along.  I'm just starting out so there's a good chance I'll come up with some odd and possibly undrinkable things, but on an equal level, I'll come up with drinkable and new things.  That's the fun part about experimentation.  I'll describe the process that I go through and give the results from here on. 

Some time ago, I was once again reading about the cultivation of mushrooms.  There are many mushroom types, each with their own growing conditions and sprouting conditions.  Some grow in total darkness, some grow where theres some light.  Some grow in wood or sawdust, straw, used coffee grounds, others require other materials.
I go through coffee quite often, both french press and espresso shots, so the grounds have a potential of piling up.  I thought that I might be able to use them to grow mushrooms. 

This is a small, very basic overview of a process and I encourage people to go to either to http://www.oystermushrooms.net/ and check out their pdf guide on growing oyster mushrooms or the website http://www.mykoweb.com/.  There are many places that offer kits and because I wasn't sure I wanted to start on my own, I picked up a kit at the local farmers market.

The main process requires somewhat sterile material.  This could include boiling straw, or having coffee that's been used.  This would also saturate the material with water to create moisture needed for growth.  Mold growth is bad, since it means that something else is devouring the nutrients needed for the mushrooms.  The problem with coffee is that I don't have quite enough to do all at once, and the way I've been dumping it into a container, it grows mold.  The material is then innoculated with the spawn of the mushroom.  Usually, this can be done by alternating layers of material and spores to get an even growth. 

Oyster mushrooms, on a small personal scale, can be grown in a plastic bag that has a few holes, that was filled with the material.  The material will have a strange white substance (the main body of the mushroom, called the mycelium) which will eventually fruit.  These will poke out through the bag's holes and develop into the oyster mushroom most people see at a store.

I had the bag all over the place.  In the kitchen, in the bathroom, in my normal plant growing room and even outside.  I just couldn't figure out how to get it to start fruiting.  Oyster mushrooms don't need a cold snap to start fruiting, just light.  Some mushrooms do require a chilling period, but from what I had read, this was not one of them. It wasn't until this weekend when it finally burst into mushrooms.  I'll have to make sure to harvest them before they start releasing spores and are past their prime.  It generally takes about a week before this happens, so I have a few days before I have to harvest. 

When I create my own, from start to finish, I'll detail what I do in a Part 2.

Was this possibly it? 

I pulled it down and read the ingredients, it was like the bottles I looked at before except one ingredient was missing.  Wheat flour.  This might be it.  I couldn't just look it up, so I bought it, along with a few gluten free gains that I plan on testing out for my beer.

A moment of explanation for people who are not familiar with this asian food staple.  Oyster sauce is a product of Lee Kum Kee, a company known for sauces.  My family has used oyster sauce for ages and we always got a bottle that had a boat and a child on it.  This was known as the premium brand.  The other brand, which we thought wasn't quite as good, was their panda brand.  To my family, it lacked the depth of flavor that the main bottle had.  The sauce is like a demiglace, the product of oyster stew that cooked for too long and reduced itself to a salty, slightly sweet, slightly tangy glaze that had a full, savory flavor that worked well as a finishing sauce for noodles, vegetables and would lend a special flavor to ribs and chicken.  Oyster sauce fits one of the asian tastes known Umami. 

Once I got home, I looked up the sauce on their website.  I had checked several times this year but found the new entry, it was of this very same bottle.  I even looked up their section on gluten free sauces and it was in the list!  I was excited so I popped it open and poured it onto my plate and ate it with plain rice and chicken finally getting to taste a sauce I had missed for years.  It was everything I remembered.  It brought back years of having Sapporo Ichiban noodles with an egg dropped in, drizzled with sauce.  Gai lon, or common broccoli, lightly stir fried with ginger and garlic, finished with this very sauce.  Green beans with ginger and garlic and this sauce.  Oh, so many recipies I had to cut away from because I could not eat this. 

For a while, I've been using a storebought stock reduction that didn't contain wheat flour, it wasn't quite enough.  I was attempting to make my own, using a combination of chickenstock, vegetable stock, or mushroom stock reduced to a glaze.  I had just started with a reduced chickenstock that even now sits in my freezer, waiting for me to figure out what steps to do next, but it's no longer needed for it's original purpose. 

Gluten free fans of asian foods rejoice, there's another sauce that's made the list and we're a step closer to authentic asian food free of gluten.   This is surprisingly difficult when some people don't know about gluten allergies.  I've found a few who do, but even they couldn't guarantee anything.   I'm crossing my fingers for Hoisin sauce next and perhaps a good version of Pearl River Bridge mushroom soy sauce.  I know that San-J does a geat gluten free tamari soy sauce, and I use it quite often, but to me, it's thinner than the syrupy dark mushroom soy sauce that I love.  Gluten-free, we're getting there.

Hello everyone,   I'm Kevin.  I've been mostly gluten free for three years now, and I've decided to start up this blog in order to review products I taste, items I bake, and perhaps a large range of other gluten-free related things that I might do.  I also may try some thing that have absolutely nothing to do with gluten-free topics, but most likely, they won't be gluten related either.

As I said, I've been mostly gluten free for at least three years now.  Before that, for about twenty-some years, I was living a lifestyle without concern for allergies.  As a child, I had seasonal allergies that I took an allergy pill for, and I eventually, around the age of 8-12, found that I had some problems with dairy.  It was minor in that the symptoms lasted for only a day and were only gastrointestinal (if you don't know what it means, look it up, but make sure you're not about to eat a meal). 

I had trouble figuring out why my digestive system was acting up.  I thought that I wasn't getting enough fiber.  I then started baking.  Heavily.  I would bake using whole wheat, and white whole wheat.   Baking bread every other day, cakes every other week.  They would be loaded with high protein, high fiber wheats.  My digestive system got worse.  I soon looked up symptoms and cures and found bits and pieces of the disorder called celiacs.  I wasn't totally sure if I was just intolerant, or fully allergic, but I though that it was probably a bad idea to eat whole wheat each and every other day.  For several months, I went without gluten.  I lost some weight, felt less bloated and more energetic.  My digestive system got better.  Not 100% I think, but better. 

Despite this, I feared.  I was afraid that I would no longer be able to have bread, cake, beer.  All the fun dessert type items that I wanted to travel the world for.  For a year I would sit there, reading about gluten free products, the increasingly abundant. What was worthwhile, what was nutritious?  What was empty carbohydrates that were far worse than ordinary flour?

People think that the gluten-free lifestyle is healthier.  That is half true, and half false.  It's true if you look only at eating vegetables, legumes/beans, rice and animal protein (meat).  However, the baked goods that we eat, usually sparingly, consist of rice, processed potato, tapioca and maybe beans.  This means that the potential whole grain ability for baking is pretty hard to come by, and that our blood sugar is a little more volitile.  Eventually, people found that there were other high protein, gluten-free grains, like millet, quinoa and buckwheat.  These have been food staples for people, but they never got full recognition until the necessity for gluten free.  Some people, those who may not even be allergic, choose gluten free as a dietary path.  As for me, I'd love not to have to do it, but, until there is a cure, I'm happy with the substitutes, and I'm more than willing to share what they are, and my opinion of thm is, here, right on this website.   There are times when I may go off on  tangent, but I'll always come back to gluten free, and I hope to share all that I've experienced with you, dear reader.