Corn-free 'Cornbread?'

Have you ever watch a show called, Red Green? Click here for a segment.

I love his line. If a woman don't find you handsome, she should at least find you handy.

I have the blessing of a man I find both handsome and handy.

My husband and I had dated about a month when we decided to get married and did so five months later. A relationship moving that fast leaves a lot, let me repeat, a lot of room for getting to know each other after you're married. Which of course is the worst way to get to know each other, but it can also be filled with wonderful surprises.

One of those surprises came about a month after our wedding. We had decided no one would buy anything over thirty dollars, it was big money back then. As we were walking through Sears he spotted a $40 guitar and beg me to let him buy it. I was a bit stunned. Why would he “suddenly” want one of those. It turned out he had taken guitar lesson and he was actually kind of good at it. I didn't regret that purchase. I didn't even regret it when a couple of years later he took two unemployment checks to buy a Takamine, and then played the same song for 10 hours a day over the next week. It wore my patience a bit, but now, he plays classical and finger style. And, one of the classical songs he plays sounds like two guitars and a bell ringing. It like so cool.

No one is perfect

When it came to my cooking his compliments came with one word adjectives, dinner was remarkable, or incredible, filling. He was analytical about food. He would tell me it wasn't right, and then refuse to tell how it was wrong, for fear I would try to fix it. When my daughter and I had to go gluten-free he remained quiet and patient as I learned this new way of cooking. For a person who can eat gluten, gluten-free food just isn't the same, yet, he remains mostly quiet. As far as I'm concerned his patience and kindness in the matter made him a saint.

Not everything can be fixed with duct tape

Five years ago the cost of gluten-free flours seemed to be so high. He immediately bought me a mill attachment for my Kitchenaide. When my Kitchenaide broke, a few months ago, he rigged the mill to allow me to continue to grind, until we bought a new Kitchenaide. It's a fairly simple mount. If you're interested in making one of your own do a little online research, as a number of people have done similar things and posted their how-to.

Making Your home Feel Like a Hug

These are the things that add up and bring to life a richness which goes beyond our troubles. Placing within us the perceptive that together we can do anything. Bless your spouse by remembering the goods things and keep their heart warm by keeping the kitchen warm with home cooking.

One of our family's favorite foods which brought the comfort and warmth of home was cornbread. I posted a recipe here. Since corn is, now, ruled out I make millet bread. While like all mock recipes it is only reminiscent of cornbread. It has the hearty, homeyness cornbread brings to the table.

Millet Bread

Preheat oven to 400

Grease and flour a 9'x9' pan. (either flour will work, rice will provide a grittiness)

1 c brown rice flour

¾ c millet flour

¼ c course ground millet flour (Don't have course ground? Replace it with a 1/4 cup of millet flour.)

1 tsp guar gum

¼ sugar*

1 Tbs baking powder

½ tsp sea salt

¼ c fat (melted palm shortening)

1 c hot milk (quick almond**)

1 slightly beaten egg

Mix dry ingredients in a medium sized bowl. Place in wet additions and mix until all dry ingredients are moist. Pour into the baking pan. The batter should be thick, maybe even spongy. Gently spread batter to the corners of the pan a spatula. Bake for 35 minutes or until golden brown. You should see cracks in the surface of the bread, just as you would with a good cornbread.

*if you prefer agave or honey, change the recipe to 2 Tbs of sweetener and 2 Tbs of fat.
**Quick Almond milk is 1/3 c almonds ground in the blender. 1 c of water. First grind the almond into a meal, and then with blender on low/whip let blend for 1 minute. For this millet bread recipe use boiling water.

For a Vegan Version

Omit the egg and whip 2Tbs flax seed meal and 1 Tbs starch with your choice of the hot substitute milk.

Almond Meal

Update: I broke my Kitchenaide. It took 4 years, but it finally happened. So the method works, just be very careful.

Bob's Red Mill Gluten-free flours and Arrowhead Mills are higher quality companies. The problem is the cost. Not that I believe they are being unreasonable. I have been involved with health food for 30 years. I'm aware that foods with higher nutritional value and specialty foods always carry a higher price.

It's my present low income and allergy difficulties that necessitates cooking from scratch. Despite the tax break given in the U.S. to those diagnosed with Celiac disease I find the high cost of these food items a hard expenditure to meet. With flours as the main ingredient in baking it's important to know how to use the various different kinds, and where to get the better prices.

Naturally low fat grains like rice, millet, quinoa, and teff are easily milled through my Kitchenaid grain mill. I grind 5 lbs. of millet and 10 lbs. of brown rice about every other week.

However, almonds are a trickier business. Because the grain mill is not made for nuts, I use my Kitchenaid food grinder instead.But,simply dumping the nuts into the hopper will cause the machine to bind-up. While the process is tedious, it is well worth the cost savings. The difference of $14 a pound for almond meal over buying Now brand almonds at $5.58 for 1 lbs. at my local health food store I'm willing to patiently make my own almond meal.

One big difference between home-ground almonds and the meal you receive from Bob's Red Mill is his almonds are blanched; the skins are removed. This makes a prettier flour for use in dishes which need a clean looking presentation, such as a yellow cake. Removing the skins is more work than I am willing to do for everyday use in such as bread or pancakes.

Here are my

Step-by-step instructions for grinding almonds

1. Attach food grinder with the course grind disk and turn Kitchenaid to speed level 4.
2. Drop one or two almonds at a time into the hopper. See video below. Out comes out will be *chunky.
3. To make a finer almond meal switch to the finer grind disk, and then pour meal, in small amounts, back through the grinder.
4. Store in a glass jar in the refrigerator until ready for use.

*Chunky almond meal is good in bread, pancakes, cookies, and muffins.

It a boring video, but you see how slowly I push the almonds through the hopper.