Gluten free graham crackers

Last week I made gluten free graham crackers using the recipe found in Easy Gluten-Free Baking by Elizabeth Barbone. 

They didn't taste exactly like graham crackers, which is too be expected, but the edges definitely had a nice cracker-y crunch. I hadn't realized how much I missed that. I didn't roll them out as evenly as I should have, so I need to work on that next time for more even cooking.

I sprinkled some cinnamon sugar on top right after I pulled them out of the oven, which added a nice touch. LMS loved them. I think she ended up eating most of them while I was busy doing something else. She keeps asking for more graham crackers. Guess I'm going to have to make them on a regular basis. They're pretty easy, so that won't be a problem.

Store-bought gluten free crackers are expensive and rarely taste good enough to justify the money spent on them. While gluten free flours aren't cheap, I'm much more willing to to bake a cracker that I know will taste good than waste money buying a cracker that tastes like grainy cardboard.

I've only made a few of the recipes in this cookbook, but I've had good results with all of them and look forward to trying more of the recipes. It's nice to be able to eat 'normal' food again :)  As I searched for a link for the cookbook, I found that Elizabeth has a blog- I'm so excited! I can't wait to go through her past posts and try the recipes she's posted.

Easy Summer Pasta Salad

My first year of college I bought a boxed pasta salad mix. After I mixed it all up, I realized I could easily replicate it, and it would taste better and have bigger chunks of vegetables and meat.

The ingredients:

ranch dressing (I mixed mine from the powder base)
pasta shells (I used gluten free pasta shells)
carrots, cut into small pieces
frozen peas
ham or bacon, cut or crumbled into small pieces
cheese, cut into small pieces (I used colby jack)

After cooking the noodles, rinse them well, making sure they don't stick to each other. Drain and cool. Once cool, throw in the carrots, peas, ham or bacon, and cheese. Mix together, then drizzle dressing over it all. Stir together, adding more dressing if needed. You can always add more, but you don't want so much that it's a sloppy mess. The pasta will absorb some of it, but not a lot. When it looks good, cover and refrigerate for a few hours so the flavors can meld.

The great thing about this recipe is that you don't actually have to measure anything- just add what you have till it looks right. So much better than rehydrated bits of carrots and peas.

Great for hot summer days when you don't want to eat something hot. I like having it on hand for lunches.

Storage Cubby Progress

Two stacks of wood, ready to be put together into drawers and cubbies.

What's in my freezer right now:

Lots of yummy stuff for our smoothies!

It's free entrance weekend at the national parks again

Which one will you go to?

There's one I'd really like to go to this weekend, but we're still on a tight budget and can't afford the gas and hotel stay that would be necessary for Assateague Island National Seashore. It looks like a lot of fun! We'll go there in the fall instead.

I was thinking about going back to Shenandoah for a day hike on the AT, but then I remembered the stack of wood on our back porch. Monday I made good progress on cutting out the wood for the storage cubbies, but I haven't had time since then to work on them. I'd really like to get the cubbies finished so I can move on to my next project, so I think we'll be staying home this weekend.

U-Pick Cherries

About a month ago we picked our own strawberries. This week we picked some cherries. Yum!

These pictures aren't great, because I took them with my cell phone (forgot my camera), but the countryside surrounding the cherry orchard was quite pretty.

Eating out

We don't eat out that often, but because of some activities we had planned, we ended up eating in sit-down restaurants twice last week.

The two experiences were quite different, with the first one definitely being the worst. The lesson we took home from it: Don't be afraid to mention that the food was not up-to-snuff. Now, I'm a very non-confrontational person, and hate doing that type of thing, but there are occasions where it's necessary.

It took forever to receive our food, the potatoes tasted weird, the steamed veggies were practically raw (and I like lightly steamed veggies- these tasted like they'd only been shown the steam), and Mr S's potatoes were stone cold. The only saving grace was that the steaks were pretty good.

When the manager made his rounds, asking if everything was ok, instead of the standard 'sure, it's fine', we told him no, and explained what hadn't been good. He immediately offered to take our bill and bring us a new one. I think he gave us a 10 or 15% discount.

Now, it did help that others had complained before us, and he seemed to be in damage control mode. So it wasn't like we were complaining just to get a discount. Apparently they were short on kitchen staff that night, and the food showed it.

Like I mentioned earlier, I'm normally very non-confrontational, but I had had very little to eat all day, was very hungry, and was not in the mood to be generous and let things slide. We were polite when explaining the problem and made sure to thank the manager when he brought us our discounted check.

I wouldn't make a practice of asking for discounts for frivolous reasons, but if the food was not up to expectations, don't be afraid to say something. Restaurants are a service industry, after all- here to serve us.