Gluten Free English Muffins

I don’t normally eat gluten free, but I agreed to try an acceleration diet with Fit Yummy Mummy for 12 days. Part of the diet is gluten free and uncultured diary free, so I’m experimenting. These English Muffins turned out good, but next time I will roll them thinner (about 1/2 inch instead of 1 inch thick so they can cook all the way through.) I used what I had on hand, but you can make substitutions as you wish.

I get frustrated when searching for gluten free recipes because many of them contain ingredients such as tapioca starch, potato flour, and corn flour. These are non-nutritive starches that congeal well, but are basically garbage for your body. So you won’t find any of those things in my recipes.

Xanthan gum is the odd ingredient here.  It is an investment to start with (about $21 for a  1lb bag) but is essential to helping the dough hold together in the absence of gluten.

Gluten Free English Muffins

1 cup whey (leftover from Greek yogurt making–or substitute milk, or buttermilk)
1 cup warm water
3 Tablespoons butter (or coconut oil), melted
1 teaspoon salt
2 Tablespoons honey (or brown sugar)
1 Tablespoon yeast (or 1 packet which is slightly less)
2 cups brown rice flour (I ground long grain brown rice in my grain mill)
1 cup teff flour
1 cup quinoa flour
2 Tablespoons xanthan gum (I bought mine at Amazon.com)

I didn’t want to heat my whey because it’s full of probiotics that will work for good on the flours while the dough rests.  It would be nice to bring it to room temperature naturally if yo have time for that.  Mix the whey, warm water, butter, salt and honey (or sugar) in a bowl.  In your mixer bowl combine the flours, xanthan gum, and yeast.  While the mixer runs slowly, pour the liquid ingredients in with the flours and stir until just combined.  Press into a ball and let rest covered with a towel for 1 hour or until doubled.

With moist hands, pat the dough 1/2 in thick (without punching dough down.)  Dough will feel more like biscuit dough than bread dough.  Cut with a 3 inch biscuit cutter and place on a cookie sheet sprinkled with cornmeal to rest. (About 18 rounds) Let the rounds rise for 30 minutes to an hour.  Place the rounds on a skillet or griddle preheated to 300 degrees.  Cook for 10 minutes on one side, then flip and cook for 10 minutes on the other side.  Split with a fork and eat with butter and jam.

Straining Yogurt

Here’s a quick video I filmed of straining the yogurt I made in my slow cooker. Since I made the yogurt during the day. I refrigerated it overnight. It still strained, but slower and a lot less whey came off then when I strained it warm. You can click here to get the slow cooker yogurt instructions.

Amazon Price Watching

I love it when you ask questions!  That  helps me write a post I know you can use :).   The answer is Yes!  I price watch on Amazon by filling my cart with what I’m interested in and just not buying it.  Amazon saves my cart if I’m logged in.  I can log in every day and if the price has changed there will be a big yellow box at the top of my shopping cart screen with all the price changes in it.  Sometimes the price goes up and sometimes down.

Waiting hasn’t always worked out great.  I once found green twin size duvets for $11, thought about it for a few minutes.  Price checked other discount stores online.  Found out it was the deal of the century and went back to buy and the price had increased to $35.  All my checking took maybe 30 minutes.  I bought plain white ones on sale a little later at a local store for $14, so all in all, it worked out okay. 

I do the swag buck thing too and earn a $50 gift card once a month or so.  When I’m ready to buy at Amazon, I click buy later on any item I’m not ready to pay for yet, and then check out.

The beauty of this watching game is often I decide I can live without the item after all.  That is the biggest money saver of all :).

Boy Duvet’s

I haven’t had a sewing post for awhile.  Dub and Brandon have new twin beds with drawers in the bottom.  I finally gave up on ever building the lovely storage beds from Anna White and put these in my shopping cart at Amazon.  And waited. And waited.  And then one day the price dropped down to $135 a bed with free shipping and I snagged them.  The price had gone as high as $239 each while I was watching them.  What a surprise!  I’m now very patient with buying items on Amazon and watch the price fluctuations and buy at the bottom. 

South Shore Furniture, Cakao Collection, Twin Mates Bed 39", Chocolate

Darren put together the frames and I built all the drawers.  It was very satisfying.  I’ve decided I like to build when it’s all precut, presanded, prefinished and predrilled, lol.  Ana would be disappointed to hear that.

Now the boy’s have a tidy room, with floor space to play, but no curtains and no bed covers. 

I purchased a gray flat sheet and a white sheet from Wal-mart for $5 each and have cut them into wide strips that I am piecing together to make horizontal striped tap top curtains.  While I sew I am chanting, “Please don’t look like jail curtains….please don’t look like jail curtains….”

I also purchased some fun fabrics on sale at fabric.com to piece duvet covers.  I’ve come up with two different designs, patterned and random.  I’m leaning towards the patterned one–what do you think?

I used a virtual quilting method I figured out with power point–fun and less messy than sewing.  But nothing real to show for it when I’m done.

Where there’s a will…

…anything is possible.  God’s will that is.  And I think that God wants us to be smart with our money–stretch it, be generous with it, but not waste it. 

I did run to Costco yesterday and bought 2 gallons of milk and a 5 dozen pack of eggs. I used the money that I made selling Mary Kay products.  By delivering them on the way, I collected cash for the trip.  One gallon is for the kids to drink and one gallon is in my slow cooker right now becoming yogurt. 

I have a bunch of lovely posts all written in my head–with no photos and no time.  They include how to make Spanish rice (for a dear reader who asked the difference between Spanish rice and just plain brown rice.) And my before and during pictures of my journey with Fit Yummy Mummy, plus more details about how it works so well, and hopefully answer your questions about whether it is worth the $$.

But for now, here’s a little inspiration for you and for me to come back and read when I’m feeling burnt out:

I have been completely overwhelmed since Grant was born, but this week, facing a budget and food crisis I took a deep breath, pushed back my sleeves and took action.  I ground brown rice to use instead of white flour (ran out) in our chicken puffs tonight.  You can’t taste the difference, but I know they are healthier.  I have yogurt forming in my slow cooker that will be ready to strain in 30 minutes and I cooked large batches of brown rice and quinoa and then divided them into serving size portions for my Fit Yummy Mummy diet.  I also stirred up a batch of 5 minute whole grain bread and baked it all up.  (The kids weren’t too impressed but are eating it since there is nothing else, lol.)  Part of the problem with the bread is we are out of white wheat berries and I’ve had to use red.  It shows me how coarse the bran is in red wheat compared to white wheat.  It cuts the gluten strands in my bread dough all to shreds and makes it quite coarse. 

Digression:  I’ve recommended CLNF.org in the past and still think they are a fine company, but recently I was introduced to Azure Standard.  Their delivery schedule is more convenient for me and I’m planning to order from them next.  They have many of the same products at similar prices.

Ok, I’ve decided I had no business blogging tonight.  This is a bunch of blah blah blah, but I was really tired of seeing the big black  I Messed Up on my screen every time I tried to work and wanted to put a new one up there :).

I messed up

I teach the way I teach because it’s the right way to do things, and because I need to hear it too :P.  I messed up this week and now I’m out of grocery money and out of milk, bread, eggs, and hamburger. Produce will run out soon too. How does this happen?!!!  I know I gave some of my grocery money in the church basket when Darren preached out of town, and I might have used a few dollars at a garage sale.  (If you’ve been to my live seminar you know I warn you to never take money out of one envelope for another category.  It’s like the fish out of water story, “Something may happen and now I know what.”  )

Thankfully I have dry milk and egg powder to bake with. Plenty of wheat berries to grind or cook up.  I had previously purchased boneless skinless chicken breasts when they were on sale for $.99 a lb and will thaw and grind them to use like ground turkey in my recipes.  I will be making English mufins to have for breakfasts this week (my kids are addicted to whole grain toast for breakfast.) And I’m going to throw together a large batch of dough from the HealthyBread in 5 minutes a day cookbook. I started a new batch of clover sprouts tonight so that we would have some fresh food to eat.  They would be lovely on some pitas with tuna or chicken slices.

I’m a little overwhelmed at the thought of cooking this week, but I’ve done it before and I can do it again.  It’s not panic time, it’s think outside the box time and plan ahead and work a little harder time.  Tonight I served multi-grain blender waffles from Sue Gregg’s cookbook (google Sue Gregg blender waffles adn get a free recipe) with homemade syrup.  And tomorrow I will make pot roast from the freezer and use the leftovers for beef stew on Monday. 

I write this post because I want you to know that I mess up too.  (More than I publish for the world to see.)  But that doesn’t mean I’m willing to give up and throw in the towel.  Since I’m in a special contest with Fit Yummy Mummy, I may go out with my sales job and sell enough to buy produce to allow me to stick to my program.  But if I don’t, it will still be okay.

Crowning Renee Queen of Frugal!

Queen of Frugal 1

Renee won our Frugal Activity contest with her 33 tallies!  Here’s her intervew:

What is the “single thing” that saves your family the most money?
 I have to say it is educate myself.  If I’m not educated on how to handle the funds, make good and responsible choices, and make money work for us, well then I can’t contribute positively to our goals and needs.  I can say that I’ve always had money sense, which was passed down from my mother.  But even then, I knew there was more.  I found Dave Ramsey, and that was all it took.  All the pieces that I had gathered over the years started to come together in a comprehensive way that really helped me get a focus and pursue it with the intensity I needed to not only survive but succeed.
How do you do frugal?  
*Firstly, I never look at being frugal as being deprived.  I am making my own choices and am in control of my life when I put what I know into practice.
*Communication is very important.  If you and your spouse, children, partner aren’t on the same page you can be frugal but you’ll never realize the fullness of success in your efforts.  (i.e., you save gobs of cash by making your own cleaners, but then your spouse sees that extra money in the bank as “free” money and starts eating out every day for lunch.  Now instead of seeing the fruits of your efforts, the spending was redirected in a way you didn’t agree to and trouble begins.)
*I believe in being ‘pro-active’ instead of ‘re-active’.  I want to be in control of what, when, and how much I spend on something.  (Plan for regular care and maintenance on things: cars, appliances, yourself! – it’s cheaper to take care of something than replace it or pay doctor, pharmacy, and hospital bills)
* I truly believe that the ‘little” things add up to big savings.  I was a single mom for a very long time, and we lived in some not so great places.  But we made the best of it, and I did things like used candles to supplement the heat in whatever room we were in, converted to energy saving light bulbs,  turned off lights and tv/radios in rooms we weren’t using and unplugged chargers when they weren’t charging something.
*I consider everything from donations at the cash register to appliance purchases and I make sure that I am willing to accept whatever consequence there is from making the purchase.  (did I have money available in my charitable donation fund for that donation or will I deduct that donation from my food fund for that month)
*I communicate frequently with the family on changes and setting short term and long term goals – I get the little kids involved now.  My 4 year old gets to make the choice of his favorite treat or a small toy when we go out to celebrate an achievement.  My 8 year old was given the choice to purchase a new book bag for school or a new lunch bag and I gave her a dollar amount.  She assessed her current stock of book bags (she still has her book bag from Kindergarten and she’s now in third grade) and the condition of her lunch bags and made the choice of a lunch bag.  Then, taking in consideration the budgeted amount and the cost of the lunch bag, she chose a less expensive bag and used the extra money for savings!!  
*I make it frugal FUN!!  I love to come home and show my husband how much money I saved on a shopping trip!  And I challenge myself to do better the next time out.
*I challenge myself and my kids to find alternative options to things that cost money.  We take advantage of our local parks for outings, and spend time playing games and reading instead of going out to the movies or costly amusement parks.  I’ve also been known to make a seemingly mundane car ride turn into a serious adventure!
How does frugal fit into your busy schedule without overwhelming you?  
Frugal to me is a way of life.  I make conscious choices and am in control of our finances so that we can determine what is important to us and then we commit to making it happen.  Almost three years ago, I was diagnosed with a gluten allergy.  It turned my whole way of living upside down.  I had to change how being frugal fit into my life and my shopping.  I could no longer go to our local Amish Market and purchase prepackaged foods for cut rate prices and still feed myself.  I had to discipline myself in a whole new way.  I started researching on the internet and in the library and sought to find the people who had similar experiences.  Anyone and everyone I could read about who had to manage life with special needs was of interest to me.  I applied what I already knew from Financial Peace University, and had to creatively find a way to make this new challenge fit into our already tight budget.  I can honestly say I’m still working it out, but it is getting better and better each day.  Finding your site while watching a CBN broadcast was an answer to prayer and it helped me renew my drive and encouraged me that I could make it through this and come out even better!
Lovely Readers be prepare to enter our next Frugal Queen contest, TBA!

New! Centsable Style Ebook

Hooray!  I worked through the learning curve and my new ebook is now available.  I tried something new this time and embedded some how-to video files in it.  This ebook takes the Grocery Shrink method from the first ebook about food and shows you how to use the same principles to shrink your clothing budget, all without compromising your style. This book is vital this time of year as we switch from warm weather to cool weather clothes. Let me show you how to make that change as painless as possible.

It is 50 pages long and includes printable pages to help you plan clothing menus for every member of your family.  This ebook shows you how to eliminate waste, maximize your dollars, and keep it organized at the same time.  For a larger view of the contents click on the photo below:

Until September 22nd, this e-book is available for half price  $10  $5!

Add to CartView Cart

 Please note this is a ditigal file and nothing will come in the mail.  As soon as your payment is received download instructions will be emailed to you.  Sometimes these are sent to to the spam folder by accident.  If you have any trouble, please email me and I’ll fix it for you.

Add to CartView Cart
 

What’s Your FAT Today?

A mountain is climbed step by step.  The most beautiful cathedral was built stone by stone. 

Our daily actions–the consistent choices, bring us to where we are today.

So what’s your FAT?

Frugal

Activity

Tally

If you want to make a difference in your budget, and reach your goals, it’s the little things you do every day that make the biggest difference.  And often those little things are overlooked and underappreciated.

I’m going to start recognizing it for you!  So write down your FAT today and post it in your comment below.  Here’s an example:

Prepared a brown bag lunch

Used cloth diapers

Used a cloth napkin

Used a homemade cleaning product

Cooked dinner from scratch

Used my Slow Cooker

Combined errends to save gas

Reused a baggie

Used the clothesline

Total:  9

When we read what other frugal activities people are doing, we are inspired, motivated and peer pressured into stepping it up.  And one of you lovely ladies will be chosen Queen of frugal activities for the day. (And NO, that won’t EVER be called the FAT queen, lol.) The Queen will be recognized in a blog post and be chosen to give more words of wisdom to the rest of us–and will get a PRIZE, tba.  So you have until Friday, to write down a FAT from one day in the comments–any day you choose this week.   FACEBOOK coments now count.  I have a lovely plug-in that will grab your facebook comments and post them right here too, yay.

I can’t wait to read about what you do that makes a difference for your family.

Technical difficulties….

I want to check in and let you know that lack of posting doesn’t mean lack of activity :).  I finished my ebook last weekend and the file size is 1.5 Gig!  I have a lot of embedded videos in there and I’m working on shrinking everything so it can be useable.  I’m not very techy, so this involves a lot of research and study and trial and error.  But I’m hoping to have it all finished soon.

I’ve started a brand new newsletter program also and could only mail out to half the group this week while the new host is getting used to our HUGE list.  Thanks, friends, for all your support–and making it huge.  Those of you who get the new newsletter, I’d love your feedback on the content and what you’d like to see there.  I’m still working out the bugs on the template, it should get better and better every week.