Preheat To 375 Degrees

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I was going to have something awesome to show you today.  A cute crochet elephant for dolls to hold.  It was coming along and I was going to spend the whole afternoon finishing it.  But before I was going to do that, I wanted to try another recipe from my gluten free cookbook.  I made bread yesterday, and it turned out good, if just a little dense.  So today I wanted to make the Coffee Cake Muffins.  Mixed them.  Put them in the oven. Sat talking for a while to my sister.  Timer goes off.  Grab oven mitts.  Reach into oven.  Grabbed hot pan that has been in a 375 degree oven for almost half an hour.  Suddenly feel pain.  Really hot searing pain that almost feels cold.  Realize something’s wrong and toss pan back into oven.  Take mitt off and realize skin on thumb has puckered and turned white and gotten hard.  Chaos ensues.

Yes ladies and gents, I have been inducted into the burn club.  Sure I’ve burned my hand before on something hot but those were surface burns.  This burn is like none I’ve ever felt before.  It went straight through all skin to the very core of my thumb.  What happened?  The oven mitt stitching had come loose.  And I was SO lucky it was just my thumb that got the pain.  The stitching came loose from the thumb to the palm.  So it could have been oh so worse.  I’m glad the bulk of the pan went into my left hand that had the good mitt on.  We had no idea the other one had come unraveled like that.  So I spent the afternoon in pain and freaking out.  Note to others who go through this, if the pain is bad, take a nap.  When I woke up the pain was all but gone. I can actually type fairly well, but I don’t know about doing crochet.  I’ll try it out, but I am not holding my breath. I taught myself how to do it right handed even though I’m a lefty. I just felt it would be easier learning the craft in a “righties world”.  Hehe, jokes on me then.

So yeah, I did have something great in the works to show you. But things got changed.  Maybe tomorrow.  Maybe next week.    Until then I guess I will work on my novel.  I’m off for now guys.  Talk to you all soon.  Be good until then.  Bye for now.

Oh yeah, the muffins turned out good…if just a little dense. *sigh*

Loves ya,
Mouse

Yo no hablo español.

So today I was talking to my boyfriend “A”, still need to see if he’s ok with me saying his name online, anywho, I was talking to him about dinner he had tonight.  He had Ropa Vieja.  My first response was “Uh, what?”.  Then after a good giggle he spelled it out for me.  The picture on Wikipedia is not what he had, so I went in search of other pictures.  This is what I found.

 

Gluten-free Bisquick review.

Hello ladies and gents, and welcome to a segment of the blog I will now lovingly refer to as “Adventures in Gluten-free Cooking”.  Let me catch you up  a little before I go into this week’s adventure.

My first adventure into gluten-free cooking was breakfast on day one.  I’d decided that two fried eggs and two small microwavable sausages would fit the bill.  Except one problem…I didn’t know how to fry an egg.  Yes, I’ll admit it, I don’t know how to cook.  I always figured that if I needed to do it one day that I’d just google the directions and do it.  Umm…yeah…about that…well let’s just say right after waking up looking up a recipe is the last thing I want to go.  So I asked for suggestions in the household on it, and got several points of view, but mostly to just spray the pan, break the egg, when the white gets firm flip it, when the yoke is how you want it take it out.  But you see I like my yoke runny.  But I surely didn’t want it raw and I didn’t know how long I should leave it in before it started to get solid.

Everyone kept telling me to take it out but I didn’t because it still looked “raw”.  Finally I took it out and the eggs were barely runny.  :-(  Next time I’ll listen to advice given and I will look up a recipe to see how long I should leave it.  No one here really gave me a time to wait they just said wait a few seconds.  Nope people, I need a time darn it.   Well after the eggs I thought the sausages would go better.  I mean all you do is nuke them right?  Wrong.  It gave me varying times and I just left it in for the full amount.  Yep I ended up with barely runny eggs and almost miniature brinks for sausages.  :-(  Yeah, let’s move on to dinner.

So for dinner I felt that homemade mashed potatoes and fish would be nice.  I’ve mentioned it here before about that.  While the potato cooking went ok, the mushing was subpar.  I still have lumps, but just barely.  It’s the fish that was a mess.  I didn’t want to bake it because it would take 20 minutes.  But it would only take 9 in the microwave.  So into Mikey…my mom’s name for the microwave, it went.  But once again the package gave varying times.  5-9 minutes…umm…I’ll try 5.  At 5 it just didn’t seem done so I figure I’ll leave it in for 9 then.  Yeah let’s just say at 9 I still didn’t think it looked done even thought the plate was browned with the juices that had cooked out and the fish looked very very veryyyy dry.  Humm.

So I asked when fish was done and was told when it was flakey.  Well mine wasn’t flakey, it was…well I don’t know what it was.  I was told it was done so I decided to try a bite.  Gummie Bears have nothing on the fish I’d just pulled out of the microwave.  Like seriously, it was chewy and just not good.  *sigh*  Oh well, it filled the empty spot I suppose.

So finally, on to today’s food, Gluten-free Bisquick.  So first off when I opened the very small box I noticed that the powered inside looked very much like corn starch.  Pouring it out of the package you could tell it was very light.  The powder flew around like crazy.  You have about two uses out of the box.  To make pancakes you needed to use a cup and it looks like there are about two cups in the package.  At 5 dollars a box roughly this kind of sucks, but you really have no choice if you want to eat gluten-free which totally sucks.

Anyway, so once I got everything mixed which was an adventure.  I must have used 3 or 4 bowls to mix the 4 ingredients called for.  I wasn’t sure if one measuring cup was right so I had to pour it into a big one to see, but then I had another measuring cup I wasn’t sure was right so I had to pour the one thing into another bowl so I could pour the other item into it to see if that measuring cup was right.  They both were.  *sigh*  At least I know for next time, right?  Well, once I got that all ready to go I got to the skillet and realized I didn’t know how to use it really.  Well not for pancakes.  So I asked how high to turn it up and got the response well just turn it up some and when it gets hot turn it down.  Umm, if I don’t turn it up high enough it won’t get hot enough to cook the dough so how high do I turn it up?  Response?  I don’t know, just turn it up.  Grrrrr!!!

Finally I got the help needed, but I STILL don’t know how high I was suppose to turn it up.  People, if you don’t know how to cook, learn now because it won’t get easier later.  *sigh*  So ok, the pan is hot, but how do I know it’s ready to cook on?  LOL!  Yes, I am this bad.  I need minute details people.  I was told to just pour some on and see if it sizzled.  It sizzled, thank everything.  So I poured on four round blobs and waited.  I had an idea how to know if it was cooked but I just didn’t trust myself so of course I went searching for help again.  I’m so pathetic by now.  LOL!  It’s freaking pancakes people!!!  Ughhhh!!!  Well after the first batch I caught on.  But it’s funny, I have actually made pancakes before, but this time it just seemed different.  I was worried I wouldn’t do it right and would be eating raw dough or something.  But I pressed on.

I had trouble flipping for some reason.  I am left-handed and just couldn’t flip with my hand.  Everyone here is right-handed and kept telling me I was doing it with the wrong hand.  I quickly corrected them in letting them know I was left-handed.  Me and my brother were the only lefties in a rightie family, which I was told is rare to happen so I’m thinking one of my rents is really a leftie that was forced into rightiehood.  But I digress.  So getting fed up with getting dough everywhere when I flipped I tried with my right hand.  It flipped perfectly.  This is the point where I made an evil slit-eyed face at the pancakes.  But I pressed on.

I finished cooking them and grabbed a couple to eat with Log Cabin organic syrup that I found out is gluten-free.  Woo hoo!!!  So on first taste it was ok.  Kind of reminded me of butter cookies my mom makes for some reason.  It wasn’t bad, just tasted kind of salty, which I am guessing came from the baking soda or baking powder.  By the time I’d finished two I felt kind of icky but I wanted to eat a little more because since going gluten-free I have not felt hungry any more so I will go the whole day and not eat at all.   So in case I don’t eat tonight at least I ate something.  By the time I was done I didn’t feel so good.  I don’t know if it will take getting used to the taste or if I simply can’t handle it.  I’ve heard other people love it so don’t go completely by my thought.

I’m going to see if there is enough left to try biscuits tomorrow or maybe tonight and save them for tomorrow.  I have pancakes left over for tomorrow’s breakfast as well.  My family thought they tasted good.  Different from the original for sure, but good.  The main thing is that it’s been an hour and I don’t feel bad and it filled the empty spot.  I think it caused a wee bit of acid, but that I can deal with.  So hopefully I will get used to the taste and it can remain a mainstay in my diet.  I’m not really seeing food as enjoyable any more but as fuel and that’s ok because it’ll be better for me and my weight loss in the end.  After eating the pancakes today I thought to myself that I don’t really miss bread/breaded food any more.  So that’s good.  On occassion bread would be nice but I don’t need it as a bulk item in my diet any more.  This coming from a girl who LOVED bread, cakes, cookies, and crackers.  I’m sure I still love them but I don’t crave them as much as I did.  Now I still love chocolate, and found out M&Ms are gluten-free, so I can still be a little naughty.  :-)

So yeah, that was my adventure for this week.  I tend to not worry about cooking much, because like I said, I’m just not hungry any more.  I eat frozen yogurt like crazy though, which I need to stop doing.  I’m not sure if that or the Sprite caused the serious acid attack from last night.  I’m sure it was a mix of both and it caused me so much pain and stress last night.  But I woke up feeling all better so it’s all good I suppose.  I hope to try these cooking experiments once a week and post about it.  Next week’s post won’t be as drawn out, I promise.  I have no idea what to try next week.  I have some pasta that gluten-free I’ve yet to try.  Maybe I will try that.  If I try it sooner than next week then I will just do next week’s post sooner than expected.  LOL!  Ok, I’m off people.  I’m going to do some sewing before I get busy online doing some things I still have yet to do.  Talk to you all soon.  Bye for now.  :-)

Loves ya,
Mouse