{"id":1942,"date":"2012-02-06T01:08:27","date_gmt":"2012-02-06T06:08:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thisishappystuff.com\/?p=1942"},"modified":"2012-02-06T01:08:27","modified_gmt":"2012-02-06T06:08:27","slug":"clean-day-10-in-which-i-try-my-hand-at-gf-baking","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.thisishappystuff.com\/?p=1942","title":{"rendered":"clean: day 10, in which i try my hand at gf baking"},"content":{"rendered":"

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purple breakfast smoothie included pear, frozen blueberries, almond milk, nutmeg, dates, almond butter and a little bit of ground flaxseed.<\/p>\n

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i was thrilled to find these sausages at the co-op last time i was there.\u00c2\u00a0 check out the ingredient list:<\/p>\n

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(in case that’s too small to read, it says, “organic chicken, organic turkey, sodium lactate (from beets) and contains less than 2% of the following:\u00c2\u00a0 sea salt, organic spices, organic fennel, organic garlic.”)\u00c2\u00a0 now, i have to say that i’m not 100% sure about the “sodium lactate”, but the fact that it says it’s “from beets” makes me think it’s probably “clean enough.”\u00c2\u00a0 so i sliced and sauteed the sausages with some white beans and spinach for lunch and served it over black bean spaghetti (that’s right.\u00c2\u00a0 spaghetti made from black beans.\u00c2\u00a0 it has only two ingredients:\u00c2\u00a0 black beans and water.).<\/p>\n

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the happy toddler looooooooooooved the sausages.\u00c2\u00a0 as in, he ate at least 1.5 links by himself.\u00c2\u00a0 i snuck in a few of the beans and even one piece of the spinach while he was playing with some cars at the table, but the black bean spaghetti was a no-go.\u00c2\u00a0 (it’s pasta!\u00c2\u00a0 it’s black beans!\u00c2\u00a0 how could he not love it?)\u00c2\u00a0 actually, i’d say the adults also ranked the components of this meal in the same order.\u00c2\u00a0 the sausage was excellent, buy-it-again, we’d eat it even if we didn’t have to, quality.\u00c2\u00a0 the beans and spinach were okay, but needed…. something.\u00c2\u00a0 maybe if the spinach had been cooked in a little chicken broth??\u00c2\u00a0 the spaghetti, while a lovely texture for a gluten-free option, seemed to have almost no flavor at all.\u00c2\u00a0 mr. happy stuff asked if it were possible for something to have “negative salt” since i’d liberally salted the cooking water and yet the pasta still seemed to suck all of the saltiness out of the rest of the meal.\u00c2\u00a0 maybe it needs more of a sauce that will stick to the noodles?\u00c2\u00a0 either way, it was such a refreshing change to be able to enjoy lunch, sitting down all together as a family, all three of us eating at the same time.\u00c2\u00a0 that is one thing that hasn’t seemed to happen consistently while we’ve been on this cleanse and i miss it.\u00c2\u00a0 i think the boy does too.\u00c2\u00a0 we sang grace twice.\u00c2\u00a0 (have i mentioned lately that he’s been singing along to the whole song now? soooo freakin’ adorable.)<\/p>\n

this afternoon, i was browsing through some “clean” recipe lists and saw a recipe for “chocolate walnut scones<\/a>” that was described as melt-in-your-mouth perfection, and since yesterday’s cookie cravings were still ringing around in my head, i thought i’d try my hand at some gluten-free baking.\u00c2\u00a0 luckily, i had most of the ingredients on hand (okay, not so much the clean chocolate, but the recipe author said that was optional), so i mixed them up.\u00c2\u00a0 i had some serious doubts when the final batter was so sloppy that it couldn’t even hold on to all the coconut oil (it was pooling around the top edge–definitely not a dough i could “cut into wedges”), but it said i could also drop them by spoonfuls onto a baking sheet, so i tried that.\u00c2\u00a0 et voila, scones!<\/p>\n

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riiiiiiight.\u00c2\u00a0 more like the most fragile cookie on earth.\u00c2\u00a0 as in, you can’t hardly pick them up without them crumbling.\u00c2\u00a0 of course they melt in your mouth–they practically melt in your hand!\u00c2\u00a0 granted, if you like the flavor of coconut, these are rich and taste amazing, just don’t eat them over your keyboard.\u00c2\u00a0 in retrospect, i have a hunch that any recipe that calls for 3\/4 c. of coconut oil and only 1 c. of gluten-free flour is unlikely to ever behave like a scone, and i confirmed that hunch when i poked around on the internets and found someone else who’d tried this recipe and recommended using two<\/em> cups of flour instead, so… maybe i’ll try that next time.\u00c2\u00a0 i might also take a note from my non-gf baking skills and try cutting the oil into the flour to make “pea-sized lumps” while the oil is still in its solid form, rather than melting it.\u00c2\u00a0 i don’t really see the logic in melting it first.\u00c2\u00a0 but maybe i’ll experiment with a tiny half-batch first.\u00c2\u00a0 and maybe i’ll invest in some “clean” chocolate.<\/p>\n

supper smoothies tonight:<\/p>\n

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the darker smoothie was for mr. happy stuff and contained unpasteurized cider, frozen peaches and frozen raspberries.\u00c2\u00a0 he deemed it a bit tart, but tasty.<\/p>\n

the lighter smoothie was for me and started from the same ingredients as his, but i added some almond milk, some hazelnuts and some ground flaxseed to mine.\u00c2\u00a0 it tamed the edge of the tartness, made it a bit creamier, and added some protein.\u00c2\u00a0 raspberry + peach is a very nice combo.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

purple breakfast smoothie included pear, frozen blueberries, almond milk, nutmeg, dates, almond butter and a little bit of ground flaxseed. i was thrilled to find these sausages at the co-op last time i was there.\u00c2\u00a0 check out the ingredient list: … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1942","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-clean","category-yum"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thisishappystuff.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1942","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thisishappystuff.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thisishappystuff.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thisishappystuff.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thisishappystuff.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1942"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/www.thisishappystuff.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1942\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1952,"href":"http:\/\/www.thisishappystuff.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1942\/revisions\/1952"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thisishappystuff.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1942"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thisishappystuff.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1942"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thisishappystuff.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1942"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}