Gluten & Wheat Free Bread

My birthday in May came and went almost 6 months ago. Although I've used the wheels for my kayak, see our kayak blog Kayakyak I have yet to use the Black and Decker B2300 bread machine my partner, John, gave me along with the wheels and other items. The B2300 has a lot of settings for loaf size and crust colour as well as 10 settings for basic, rapid bake I, rapid bake II, sandwich, whole grain, sweet, quick bread, dough, french and preserves.



This Saturday afternoon wasn't booked, which made it a perfect day to unpack the bread machine and use the bag of Pamelas Products wheat free bread mix I'd purchased last weekend at Planet Organic.

I put all the ingredients into the loaf pan, punched the buttons and after 15 minutes the machine started to mix it all together. I washed and dried some dishes by which time the machine was kneading the dough. Then I turned on my computer to check email and the bread started to bake. After 2-1/2 hours John and I checked the bread which was rising and baking just fine. We left to walk over to the mall to run some errands which took an hour. We returned home to the smell of freshly baked bread. I pulled the loaf pan out of the machine, let it cool for a while and began slicing it. One thing I'd read about some bread machines is the bread bakes with the kneading paddles in it and from online comments can create holes in the loaf and trouble getting the paddles out. Yes, the paddles did bake into the loaf and were easily located on the underside. All I had to do was slice the loaf around each end where the paddles were located and gently pull them out of the loaf. This allowed me to slice these ends into about two to three pieces without any damage to the overall slice shape.

The directions for a loaf of bread are very simple to follow. A bag will also make two 12 inch pizza crusts or approximately 7 bagels or two 9 inch pie crusts. The bag costs between $7.00-$8.00, a bit pricey for a loaf of bread maybe. A better deal if one is making the bagels, pizza dough or pie crusts. A product I would certainly use again.

Processing

8 Foods You Think Are Healthy ... But Aren't is a fascinating look at "healthy alternative" processed foods by Sarah Irani.
An example:

2. Annie’s Organic Alfredo Shells and Cheddar is one of my all-time comfort foods, but with 670 mg sodium per serving I should reconsider my definition of comfort!


3. GardenBurger’s Flame Grilled Soy Burger, though vegan, contains 500 mg sodium per serving.

It really seems to be that processing is what's killing us--not even whether something is organic or not. When food gets processed, the economic requirements of processing it impose large economic incentives on the processors to adulterate the food. When you have to sell millions of units, you have to do what it takes to sell those units, and that seems to be the addition of sugar, salt, HFCS, etc. All those things that our palates have come to know, love, and expect in our food. So if they're not there, we won't buy multiple units.
The lesson? Work to minimize your consumption of processed foods--do your own processing. Cut, chop, peel, fry, bake, etc all on your own. When it comes to health and the environment, we really don't have a choice.

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Turkey Madness - EAT Magazine

As Thanksgiving approaches I'm glad my family tradition is to forego the turkey and wait until Christmas. Luckily my partner John told me his family wasn't big on Thanksgiving so the turkey will not be missed by him either. I'm glad we've made this decision, for one it will be less expensive according to EAT Magazine's article.

Turkey Madness - EAT Magazine - Celebrating the Food and Drink of British Columbia

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