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EZ GFCF | A Gluten Free Recipes Blog
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11.21.2007
Pumpkin spice cake
Ingredients
1 cup sorghum flour
1/4 cup tapioca flour
1/4 cup brown rice flour
2 tsp xanthan gum
1 tbsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1 tbsp cinnamon
¼ tsp ginger
¼ tsp nutmeg
Dash of ground cloves
1 tbsp carob or cocoa powder
3 flax eggs
1¼ cups sugar
½ cup oil
1/2 tsp vanilla
1 cup canned pumpkin (Libby's is gluten free)
1 Tbsp powdered sugar (reserved for later to sprinkle over cooled cake)
Directions
In large bowl, combine flours, Xanthan Gum, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, clove, and carob/cocoa. Mix. Set aside.
Place flax eggs (1 tbsp ground flax seed mixed with 3 tbsp water - microwave 30 secs., let sit 5 mins), sugar and oil in mixing bowl and beat until blended. Add vanilla and pumpkin, mix another minute. Add mixed dry ingredients and mix until combined.
Pour batter into 10 cup capacity Bundt Pan which has been greased. I use Spectrum organic shortening. Sprinkle pan with sugar (approximately 1 tablespoon sugar). Bake in 350° oven for up to 40 minutes, checking after 30. Turn Bundt out onto serving tray and allow to cool. Once cool, sprinkle with powdered sugar, if desired. Domino sugar is gluten free. Or, try a Wholesome Sweeteners product.
Forced vaccinations? What's going on in Maryland?
Maryland County Gets Tough On Vaccinations
For the parents that converged on a courthouse in Prince George's County, Md., on Saturday morning, the choice seemed clear: Vaccinate your kids or go to jail.
In fact, there are exemptions for medical or religious reasons in the state of Maryland. But few parents standing in lines that stretched down the sidewalk outside the county courthouse said they were aware of them.
Flanked by protesters and television crews, parents said they just wanted to sort out immunizations, so their kids could go back to school - and they could avoid penalties of up to 10 days in jail and $50 a day in fines.
"I've got too many children to raise to go to jail," says Remy Durham, who cares for her nephew, Lamonte Hyter, along with seven other children.
All states require that children be immunized from some childhood diseases, but the crackdown in Prince George's County has attracted international attention.
"We've had calls and e-mail from all over the country, especially the Midwest, as well as England, Germany, and Poland," says Glenn Ivey, state's attorney in Prince George's County, in a phone interview.
A lot of the uproar over the county's new approach to this issue was fueled by misinformation, he said - especially Web sites that said "we were going to start arresting people." One critic "called me a jackbooted representative of a United Nations, international pharmaceutical conspiracy," he says.
In fact, no decision has been made yet on what steps to take next, and it was never intended to scare people, he says. He's boiled his answer to critics down to one line: "It's about getting kids back in school, not to put parents in jail," he said.
By the start of the 2007 school year, more than 2,800 children in Prince George's County were not in compliance with state mandates on immunizations. The school board asked the courts to help by setting up a date for parents to either have their children vaccinated on site or provide evidence that they were in compliance with the law.
11.20.2007
A Thanksgiving experiment
- Roast chicken
- Sausage stuffing
- Mashed potatoes
- Pumpkin cake
- Carrots
And if we don't connect again until later, Happy Thanksgiving.
11.18.2007
Pizza omelet - GFCF style
Ingredients
---------------
2 medium potatoes, peeled and diced fine
1/4 medium onion, diced
sliced pepperoni (or, alternatively, bacon or sausage -- see below)
sea salt
4 eggs
oil - I use canola
Now, heat a little oil in a pan. I really only use enough to coat the bottom, if that. Once hot, toss in the potatoes. In 5 mins, add the onion. In another 5 mins, add the pepperoni.
When the pepperoni starts to look cooked through, crack the eggs over the potato mix. You can make these scrambled, if desired, or keep the yolks intact. Let cook through on one side, then flip with a spatula. Season with sea salt, and if desired, pepper.
Now, this is good. It looks fun too. The pepperoni circles resemble a pizza and the yolks help that look also. Plus, it tastes great.
You can buy GFCF pepperoni at your local supermarket -- I believe Hormel makes a GF brand. Also, our local Giant Eagle started selling GF pepperoni (and it's marked with a real GF symbol now -- they finally realized there's a market for this stuff -- yeah!). Or, you can buy Wellshire Farms pizza pepperoni. If not, use an alternative, like Applegate Farms sausage, or Applegate Farms bacon. All healthy stuff -- and it tastes great. Also, remember, not all traditional breakfast foods have to be just for breakfast. This can be a good dinner too, especially if you're in need of more dinner ideas.
Fried potatoes
11.16.2007
Banning hormone-free labels?
USA Today
Pa. bars hormone-free milk labels
Synthetic hormones have been used to improve milk production in cows for more than a decade. The chemical has not been detected in milk, so there is no way to test for its use, but a growing number of retailers have been selling and promoting hormone-free products in response to consumer demand.
State Agriculture Secretary Dennis C. Wolff said advertising one brand of milk as free from artificial hormones implies that competitors' milk is not safe, and it often comes with what he said is an unjustified higher price.
"It's kind of like a nuclear arms race," Wolff said. "One dairy does it and the next tries to outdo them. It's absolutely crazy."
Agricultural regulators in New Jersey and Ohio are considering following suit, the latest battle in a long-standing dispute over whether injecting cows with bovine growth hormone affects milk.
Effective Jan. 1, dairies selling milk in Pennsylvania, the nation's fifth-largest dairy state, will be banned from advertising that their product comes from cows that have never been treated with rBST, or recombinant bovine somatotropin.
The product, sold by St. Louis-based Monsanto Co. under the brand name Posilac, is the country's largest-selling dairy pharmaceutical. It is also known as recombinant bovine growth hormone, or rBGH.
It has been approved for use in the U.S. since 1994, although safety concerns have spurred an increase in rBST-free product sales. The hormone is banned in the European Union, Canada, Australia and Japan, largely out of concern that it may be harmful to herd health.
Monsanto spokesman Michael Doane said the hormone-free label "implies to consumers, who may or may not be informed on these issues, that there's a health-and-safety difference between these two milks, that there's 'good' milk and 'bad' milk, and we know that's not the case."
Rick North of the Oregon Physicians for Social Responsibility, a leading critic of the artificial growth hormone, said the Pennsylvania rules amounted to censorship.
"This is a clear example of Monsanto's influence," he said. "They're getting clobbered in the marketplace by consumers everywhere wanting rBGH-free products."
Acting on a recommendation of an advisory panel, the Pennsylvania Agriculture Department has notified 16 dairies in Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey, Connecticut and Massachusetts that their labels were false or misleading and had to be changed by the end of December.
"There's absolutely no way to certify whether the milk is from cattle treated or not treated" with rBST, Wolff said. "Some of the dairies that have enforced this, it's absolutely the honor system."
Rutter's Dairy Inc., a central Pennsylvania company that sells about 300,000 gallons a week, began promoting its milk as free of artificial hormones this summer. It has fired back at the state decision with full-page newspaper ads and a lobbying campaign. It is also urging customers to protest.
"We just think the consumers are more keenly aware in today's world about where their food comes from and how their food is manufactured or handled," said Rutter's President Todd Rutter.
Rutter's sells its milk at the state's minimum price, but a national spot check of prices by the American Farm Bureau last month found "rBST-free" milk typically costs about 25% more.