Sorghum Bread (a la Cornbread)

What goes better with Chili than cornbread? Sorghum Bread, of course! Sorghum is a grain that has a sweet corn-like taste to it. If you can tolerate cornmeal, sorghum mixes very well with it for GF muffins, breads and crusts. The secret to successful GF, in my experience, is to focus on sweets and quick breads (i.e. ones that don't need to rise, thus don't need gluten to hold them together). This Sorghum Bread is sweet and fluffy. It may crumble apart when you try to put honey & butter-substitute (coconut oil!), but it will taste great in doing so. It may also force you to go ahead and mix the bread right into the chili. Yum!

INGREDIENTS:

• 2 cups sorghum flour
• 2 tsp GF baking powder*
  
• 1/2 tsp sea salt
• 1 - 2 Tbsp honey, maple syrup or agave
• 1/4 cup palm oil shortening
• 1 egg, slightly beaten
• 1/2 cup rice milk

* or make your own: 2 parts cream of tartar to 1 part baking soda

DIRECTIONS:

1. Mix flour, baking powder & salt.
   
2. In a separate bowl, mix shortening, honey. Add egg.
   
3. Stir dry ingredients into wet.
   
4. Very lightly stir in rice milk.
   
5. If batter seems too wet, add more flour; if too dry, add more rice milk.
6. Spoon batter into a single-layer cake pan, lightly greased & floured
   
7. Bake @ 400*F for roughly 20 minutes, or until edges are golden brown and a toothpick or knife tip comes out clean when inserted into the middle.
   

We slice ours up and eat with coconut oil and honey. Or crumbled into chili. Or sometimes both at the same meal.

Yield: 1 single-layer cake. Enough for 8 people, when served as a side to a main dish.

ALTERNATIVES:

• (Vegan): Use flaxmeal gel instead of egg (1 Tbsp flax meal to 3 Tbsp water, heated in microwave)
• If you can tolerate corn, substitute one cup of cornmeal for one cup of the sorghum flour.
  
• Instead of shortening, try olive, coconut or safflower oil.
  
• For a spicy version, omit honey and add one or two jalapenos, minced
• Bake in muffin tins for "sorghum bread" muffins
  

What to eat for breakfast (when all you can think of contains dairy, wheat and eggs)

Breakfast is our trickiest, head-achiest, carb-loadiest meal of the day. But it's also when we take all of our supplements, so it evens out, right? Right! Seriously, though, breakfast is tough. Especially when you've been roused out of a sound sleep by one child incessantly flopping and the other potty-dancing in her sleep. At some variation of the 6 or 7 o'clock hour. But, that is why I go to bed at 10 or 11. And I digress.

The breakfast market seems to be aimed at those among us who are addicted to wheat and/or dairy. Traditional breakfast items include:

• wheat-based cereal with cow's milk
• cow's milk yogurt
• oatmeal (unless GF oats are usually wheat-contaminated)
  
• granola (with wheat-contaminated oats & wheat flour)
• smoothies (with cow's milk yogurt)
• eggs & wheat toast
• wheaty bagels with cream cheese
• wheat toast and butter
• wheaty, buttery pastries & danishes
• wheaty pancakes & waffles with butter
• fruit
  

Of that entire list, the only thing we can safely consume right now is fruit. Or oats if they are GF, but 2lbs of GF oats costs $7, so we only splurge every now and again - say for oatmeal-chocolate chip (sorghum flour and palm oil shortening) cookies! Speaking of: I know what recipe I'm posting tomorrow. These things are outrageously good and you would never guess they are allergy-friendly.

My point is, it took me a really long time to widen my breakfast repetoire beyond rice puffs with fruit and rice milk. But, now that we've been on our fully restricted diet for almost nine months (aside: wow), I think I have some good suggestions.

What to eat for breakfast when everyone else is eating eggs, wheat and dairy:

• The obvious: GF cereal with milk substitute.
  
• Hot cereal: GF oatmeal, cream of rice, or cream of buckwheat with maple syrup & coconut oil
• Homemade granola (recipe to come)
• Pancakes with GF flour (see: cherry pancakes - can easily omit eggs)
• Muffins with GF flour (see: cherry muffins - can easily omit xanthan gum & sub flax meal gel)
• Hashbrowns (or other potatoes) in oil with greens
• Coconut milk & tapioca "pudding" (porridge really) with jam stirred in
  
• Dairy-free Smoothies (future post dedicated to smoothies soon to come)
• Breakfast burritos (recipe/filling ideas to come)
  
• Blended soups - as the weather gets cooler, I will start posting lots of yummy soup recipes
• Dinner leftovers

In the last few days (i.e. as far back as I can recall) we have had: cream of buckwheat with maple syrup & coconut oil; rice puffs with rice milk & blueberries (2 days in a row); cream of buckwheat with honey & coconut milk; "breakfast fries" with ketchup & sauteed kolrabi greens plus raisins on the side. Once you get used to having to actually work for breakfast, it's automatic. Especially if you remember to soak your grains or flours the night before. (Or if you keep your house fully stocked with GF cereals and dairy-free milks. Haha. Although, remember: convenience comes at a price. Those prepacked allergy-friendly foods are not cheap.)

"Free" Cherry Muffins

We live in northern Michigan, on the outskirts of Traverse City - the Cherry Capitol, as it were. Naturally summer = fresh, juicy cherries. Yesterday, the girls and I picked cherries with their grandma. We had a great time eating cherries straight off the tree. I think Lily got more cherries in (and on) her than in her bucket. Aevryn was in the sling and started snagging some cherries for herself. She managed to get two cherries (including pits) before we decided perhaps she could sit on a blanket and hang out with some toys for awhile. Surprisingly, this worked out okay - but there were lots of interesting wildflowers all around to grab at and sniff.

At any rate, I have 17lbs of cherries in my house right now, so I am embarking an a Very Cherry culinary journey over the next few weeks. I am hoping to make cherry salsa, cherry jam, cherry preserves, cherry muffins and breads, dried cherries and frozen cherries.

Here is my recipe for our Cherry Breakfast Muffins

INGREDIENTS:

• 2 cups gluten free flour of your choice (I like to mix and match: today's muffins were sorghum and brown rice)
• 1 tsp xanthan gum
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp sea salt
• 1/3 cup brown sugar
  
• 1/3 cup safflower oil
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 cup rice milk
  
• 1 cup fresh, pitted sweet cherries

DIRECTIONS:

1. Preheat oven to 350*F (don't leave door ajar like I did today, somehow? Yikes!)
2. Mix flour(s), xanthan gum, soda & salt.
3. Add brown sugar, making sure it is mixed in very well.
4. Stir in oil, vanilla and rice milk.
5. Add fresh cherries and mix until evenly distributed.
6. Pour batter into greased muffin tins (we greased ours with coconut oil, yum!). For extra cherry goodness, put a pitted cherry on top of each muffin.
7. Bake for 30-40 minutes, or until muffins are golden around edges and feel set on top.
   

We like to cut ours in half and spread with coconut oil.

Yield: one dozen delicious muffins.

Alternatives:

• You can sub two eggs for the xanthan gum.
  
• Instead of rice milk & vanilla extract, you could use almond milk & almond extract.
  
• Instead of sugar, you can use honey or brown rice syrup or agave syrup (use 1/2 as much) or maple syrup.