Lessons To Learn

For an uneventful day, it’s been a very nice Saturday.  I had a good 9 mile run this morning and then ran a couple of errands while Dave and his best friend cheered on Georgetown.  I came home to find Rudy sleeping under the covers in our bedroom…..  I guess the boys were making too much noise.  Poor baby.  He got over the trauma when I returned with $60 worth of cat food.  The big bag was quickly wisked away to the highest shelf in the laundry room….left unattended, there would quickly be a cat-sized hole in the bag!

I was all set to use the elliptical this morning instead of running, but after my frustration with my new Garmin foot pod on the elliptical machine, I did a quick google search this morning.  It turns out that the devise only works for impact activities, like running or walking on a treadmill.  I feel stupid now for asking for it as a gift!  Why would I want my Garmin to tell me my pace or distance on a treadmill?  The machine will tell me that.  I want to know my pace and distance on the elliptical.  I think I’ll see if I can return it.  Boo!  But without the excitement of playing with my new toy, I ran instead, and after a day off of exercise yesterday, my legs felt much better!

One of my errands was the grocery store.  I restocked my gluten free flour and also bought some more brown sugar.  My mom had made me some gluten free banana bread that I really liked, so I wanted to recreate it.  But I am getting ahead of myself.  Let me back up to yesterday’s creation…

I had read on Deb’s blog about her methods for making smoothies and how she uses Xanthan Gum and Guar Gum to make them thicker.  Since I have Xanthan Gum, an essential ingredient in gluten free baking, I thought I would try using it in a smoothie.  Into my Magic Bullet went a scoop of vanilla whey protein powder, 1/4 cup of pumpkin, a sprinkling of pumpkin pie spice, a cup of water, and a teaspoon of Xanthan Gum.  THIS IS TOO MUCH!  I will use half as much Xanthan Gum next time.  But even though I used a bit too much, I could see the effect!  It was so thick and airy!  It’s amazing what this stuff does.  I came out almost as thick as pudding!

It was really good, but it would be even better with less of the gum.  Xanthan Gum and Guar gum are used in gluten free baking to hold together the flour.  Regular flour has gluten in it which holds it all together.  Without the gluten, you need a binding agent, and these gums fit the bill.  It also has a good amount of fiber in it which is an added benefit.

Dinner last night wasn’t a new creation.  You’ve all seen my polenta pizza by now, but it is a favorite of mine.  It is a satisfying subsitute for regular pizza crust.  Even though I’ve shown you pictures before, I couldn’t help snapping more.  This one was particularly pretty, topped with peppers, artichokes, spinach, and fat free mozzerella.  So good!

Ready to bake...

And fresh from the oven!

Okay…that brings us up to today and my run to the grocery store.  I needed to get some more gluten-free flour.  A lot of recipes call for several kinds of flours that you combine in particular ratios for a recipe.  Bob’s Red Mill has a flour that is pre-mixed that I am hoping to use in a lot of baking.  Instead of spending money stocking my pantry with all kinds of flours, I wanted to try using just this one.  This package I found at Shaw’s.

Without having much experience yet with this flour, I can say that I like that there is a substantial amount of fiber in it, and I like that the calories are comprable to regular flour.  It is also very nice that all of the different flours are pre-mixed so I don’t have to track down each individual one!  Now….. Does it work???

My mom had made some delicious banana bread that she adapted right from the package of Bob’s Red Mill Gluten Free flour.  She made some changes and sent me her recipe:

I didn’t have overly ripe bananas, but had some pumpkin already opened, so I substitutes 1 cup of pumpkin for the bananas.  I also dereased the cinnamon a bit, and added some pumpkin pie spice to support the pumpkin flavor, and omitted the nuts because I don’t like nuts in my bread. Last thing…I have a real weakness for baked goods.  So instead of baking this in loaf form, I made nice portion-controlled muffins.  Make sure to watch these in the oven…the muffins will cook much faster!

And the verdict?

Delicious!  they were so moist from the pumpkin and the apple sauce, they didn’t need the oil at all.  I did a quick calorie count and the enite recipe was about 1650 Calories, so each muffin is about 135.  These are very low in fat because they contain no oil or butter, and with about 33 grams of fiber in the entire recipe, there is almost 3 grams of fiber in each muffin.

So there you have it.  My first healthy gluten-free success.  If you can tolerate gluten, go ahead and use regular flour…just omit the Xanthan Gum!  But my gluten-loving husband gave these a thumbs up, so you can make these gluten-free and they will pass the test!  Later in the week, I will try making a blueberry cake that my mom also adapted to be gluten-free.

It’s time to go work on tonight’s dinner.  I am making an eggplant parmesan variation with gluten-free “breading.”  Before I go, I want to send you over to Katie at Faith Food and Fitness to check out her Chobani giveaway!

Have a wonderful Saturday night!