This is the best recipe I’ve found yet for gluten steaks. I have tried making gluten several different ways, including the laborious process of washing the starch out of flour until I had gluten. That was too much work, and with small children I don’t like to be tied down for too long. Plus it seems like a waste of water. So I went about searching for a recipe that uses gluten flour, and found this. I especially like it because it has soy flour, which makes the protein more complete. I imagine that if you are allergic to soy or wish to avoid it, you could use garbanzo flour, though I have never tried it.

2 cups gluten flour (also known as do pep and vital wheat gluten)
¾ cup soy flour
1 ¾ cups water

Mix together and kneed for about 3 minutes or until the gluten is formed. You will know when it is, because it will resist your efforts to properly kneed it. Divide it into two pieces. Wet breadboard and hands, and roll out two logs. Slice off sections (I do about 3/8” thick) and drop them in boiling broth (see recipe below). Set at medium heat with lid on for about 10 minutes, then take the lid off and simmer for about an hour or maybe less. I like to make sure they are nice and done, so I usually do at least an hour.

Once done, they can be eaten a number of ways. I sometimes bread and pan fry mine. When a recipe calls for fry chick, I dice up my gluten and toss it in. They are delicious in a casserole dish with cream of mushroom soup over them. I have even chopped it up fairly fine and used it in place of ground beef.

They freeze well, so I always make a full batch and freeze whatever I don’t use. I freeze them on a cookie sheet, then bag them once they are hard—makes it easier to take out a few as needed.

Broth:

Water (enough to more than cover the steaks)
Lots of soy sauce or Bragg’s Aminos
A whole onion, chopped
Several cloves of fresh garlic, coarsely chopped
Some nutritional Yeast
Chicken or Beef Seasoning (I usually use beef)
2 or 3 stalks of celery, cut in 3-4” long sections
A couple of carrots
Any old or wilted veggies that are still edible
A beet helps give the steaks a darker color
Vegex or miso would also add color or flavor

All of this should be in the pot before adding the steaks. You will cook a lot of the water out, concentrating the broth. It should be tasty but not too salty when you start. When you’re done with the steaks, remove them, strain the chunks of veggies out, and save the broth. I usually freeze it in an ice cube tray, then bag it in a gallon freezer bag. Then when I want to sauté onions without oil, I can grab 2 or 3 cubes of broth, and it won’t spoil that way.

That concludes my veggie meat series for the month of October. Next month I’m going to talk about Tofu and share a few of my favorite recipes for fixing tofu—if you can call them recipes. I never measure anything for my tofu, but maybe I can give you some idea of how I do things!

I just read this post on another blog, and I must say it summarizes my thoughts on the topic perfectly–probably better than I could do. I would encourage you to take a look at it!

Halloween – Trick or Treat?

Have you ever decided to make a recipe, only to discover that you don’t have any breadcrumbs on hand—or not enough bread available with which to make some? I have, more than once. Especially when the recipe calls for fresh breadcrumbs. But now I almost always have extra bread for breadcrumbs, and I usually have some dried bread available too.

Growing up, my mom loved the heels of the bread best. My brother and I were glad to let her have them. Even now I don’t much care for the ends of the bread, but I also don’t want to waste them. If I let them sit around until I have enough to fill a cookie sheet to dry for breadcrumbs, they’ll get moldy. And I hate heating up the oven for only 2 or 4 slices—and heels and regular slices take different lengths of time to dry anyway. So whenever I finish a loaf of bread, I put the heels in a bag in the freezer.

It only takes a couple of minutes to thaw out the slice or two I will need to make my soufflé (which uses fresh breadcrumbs). And when the bag starts to get full, or when I get low on dry bread, I will fill a cookie sheet and put them in the oven at 250, checking them every 30-40 minutes (less as they get closer to being done). Once dry, I can blend them in the blender for breadcrumbs and store them in a jar, or I can put them in a corner of the breadbox in a ziplock storage bag for use however whenever. If my son could eat wheat, I would let him gnaw on them for teething. Though I would probably use the middle of the bread for that, not the ends.

So if you don’t care for the ends of the bread, don’t throw them away. Save them for a rainy day!

Works for me!

After I quit buying the Morningstar Chicken Nuggets (to save money), I began keeping my eye open for a homemade alternative. Then one day a friend of mine posted this recipe on Facebook. She had found it on a forum, and when I asked her for the source, she did some digging and found out it was from the Veganomicon cookbook. Though it isn’t even close to the texture and taste of the Morningstar ones, these are so tasty and have a very nice texture, so they make me not miss the more expensive ones! I imagine that if I were to dip them in egg and breading and fry them like the store bought ones, they would be even better—but less healthier!

I must also give you fair warning that these never last very long on the table. My daughter always wants more long after the last one has disappeared! So if you have more than 4 in your family, you might want to double the recipe. And you can make them soy free by using a little salt instead of soy sauce.

Blend in blender:

1 cup garbanzos (cooked)
2 Tbsp olive oil

Mix in bowl:

½ cup gluten flour
½ cup dry breadcrumbs
¼ cup veggie broth or water (I make a broth with chicken seasoning and water)
2 cloves finely chopped/pressed/grated garlic
2 Tbsp soy sauce
½ tsp lemon zest (when I don’t have fresh lemon, a dash of lemon flavoring works fine)
½ tsp thyme
½ tsp paprika
¼ tsp sage

Add garbanzo mixture to bowl and stir together. Kneed until strings of gluten form. Shape into nuggets (or patties if you wish). Pan fry (I spray in some Pam to keep the oil to a minimum, but you could put as much or little oil as you want) 6-7 minutes on each side on medium low, covered. You will know when they are done when they lose the doughy texture inside. If you cook them too high, they will burn before the inside is done; using a lid helps.

Be sure your breadcrumbs are truly dry, or it won’t turn out as well. You could use blended oats instead of breadcrumbs if you are out of breadcrumbs.

Next week I’m going to share my recipe for gluten steaks. It’s the best one I have found so far, though I suppose if I asked the lady at the Estacada church who made gluten steaks last week for her recipe I would have a better one. But I like this one for a number of reasons, so I’m going to share that next week. In the mean time, watch for my post about breadcrumbs coming up in the next day or two.

Okay, maybe the title of this post should be, “One Thing Is Here and the Other Is Almost Here,” but that would be too long. What is here is my iPod Touch, and what is almost here is Internet.

IPod Touch? Well, KeyBank does these promotional deals where if you open an account and meet certain qualifications, you can get a new gadget. Last summer it was the iPod Touch; now it’s something else. Anyhow, I thought it would be neat to have one, so I convinced my husband to sign up for an account. He did, and really likes the bank. He gets free checks and can transfer from one bank to another for free (which is good, because he has accounts at at least 2 other banks). No, this is not a commercial, but it is kind of exciting to have a new $200ish piece of equipment free. Of course, until we get Internet, it’s not going to be very useful, but I’ve already been taking advantage of the calendar and note-taking and timer features, and think I might start keeping my shopping list on it—at least, once I get a belt clip or some kind of case for it!

But more exciting than that is the fact that in less than a week we will have Internet in our house. I’m almost scared of it. Sure, this is going to mean I don’t have to run to the library to check my email, and if I want to look up a recipe or find out some other bit of information, it will only take a walk down the hall. And maybe I can do a bit more with this blog than I’ve been able to do over the past few months.

But what scares me is that it will suddenly start wasting my time. I haven’t missed it as much as I thought I would. If I wanted to research something, I wrote it down and researched it as fast as I could the next time I was at the library. Because I had to get home after an hour or so, I found it easy to resist the urge to surf from one link to the next. I didn’t delete much out of my inbox—mostly just read the important emails and ignored the rest. But then I only spent about 15-20 minutes max per week on email. With another 5-10 minutes a week, I could delete and unsubscribe from all the unimportant emails and still have time left to watch the videos my friends forwarded but that I couldn’t watch because I never took headphones to the library! Now with  Internet at home, I won’t have the pressure to finish quickly. That concerns me.

But I’m determined not to let the computer run my life like it used to. First, it is no longer in the living room. I know some families like to have the computer where everyone can see it, because it helps the user avoid temptation. But that kind of temptation is not an issue for me; instead, the computer itself becomes a temptation every time I see it. Having it in the office at the end of the hall is a much better idea. The only reasons one would have to walk that far down the hall would be to either go in the office (which is also the sewing room) or to answer the door. So in the normal course of a day I would have little reason to go down there. Out of sight, out of mind—that’s what I’m figuring will be helpful for us. And the office doors are glass, so there’s really no privacy for the other kind of temptation anyway.

Beyond that, though, I have decided I need limits. My husband doesn’t want me online every day, and I agree. There’s no reason to get on every day. I’m not sure if I’m going to pick days, or if I’m going to just use it as the need arises. I may pick days not to use it—like Thursday, which is my cleaning day, and maybe Sunday, since my husband will be home and I can spend the time with him instead. I will also try to not use it often when the kids are awake. Occasionally it might be nice to show Gislaine a video on it, but then, if we set up the wireless she could watch Youtube videos on my iPod. Though I think I’m going to keep the wireless off most of the time—otherwise my iPod could become a problem, too!

And when I do get on, I am going to use some kind of add-on to Firefox that will limit my time online. I am not online as I write this, so I can’t remember the name of the one that I heard about last April or May, but I’m sure I can find it once we’re back online again. I’m going to set up a number of limits. I heard you can limit your time overall, as well as time on certain sites. For instance, I might want to spend no more than an hour and a half on any given day. On the other hand, I don’t want to spend that whole hour and a half on Facebook! So I could limit Facebook to 15 minutes. I think I spent 3 minutes last time, reading a couple of messages and responding. In 15 minutes, I could post a status update, check on my friends, post about my latest blog update, and be done with it. Other sites I might not limit—like my blog admin—but rather let the overall time limit be my limit for the day.

I really liked the efficiency I have at the library. I prioritize. I check email first, responding only where necessary and not reading forwards. Then if I need to do anything with my finances (pay off my credit card, which I use for online purchases of things for our household that I have cash for but not in my bank, or to see if a deposit or withdrawal has cleared, or to move money from one account to another), I do that next. Then I do research that I had planned on, then focus on my blog. I usually am running out of time by then, and sometimes don’t get to post everything I had planned on posting, but I have never spent more than an hour and a half on any given day at the library, and I like that.

So once we have Internet, I’m still going to write things down (probably in a note on my iPod instead of on paper), and wait until the next time I get online to research them, rather than running off to the computer every time I feel like researching something. It is much easier to control my time online this way! Plus, it helps to avoid the instant-gratification syndrome that is becoming so common in the world today.

Also, I’m going to do my best to continue to put exercise before computer. I say continue, because in the last couple of weeks I have been going out for walks while the kids napped (thanks to the Indian summer), and I think this will help me a lot with staying healthy. I’ve been sick too much this summer, and I think lack of exercise was at least partly to blame. I am on a roll now, though. Not sure how many miles I’ve walked so far this week, but I will probably hit 10 before the week is out if I keep up the rate I’m going. That and when I get to the gym, I can do other things besides walk. But this has nothing to do with the Internet, so maybe I should tell you about the gym another time.

Now it’s your turn. Tell me what you do to tame the Internet in your life.

This recipe makes a very tasty roast or loaf that is high in protein and very cheap to make—especially in contrast to the veggie roasts you can buy. It’s one of the ways I can get my husband to eat garbanzos—because it doesn’t taste anything like them. It would be very easy to make soy-free as well—just add more salt in place of the soy sauce and use a soy-free beef seasoning.

2 cups soaked garbanzos (about 1 cup dried)
1 ½ cup bran water (or water or broth or whatever)
2 Tbsp soy sauce
1 Tbsp oil
1 tsp salt
1/8 tsp garlic powder
2-3 tsp beef seasoning (I use Bill’s Best Beaf Seasoning)
½ cup gluten flour
1 cup chopped onion (may be sauted first, but I never bother)
1 cup chopped celery
2/3 cup chopped Brazil nuts or cashews
2 Tbsp wheat germ

Soak garbanzos until fully soaked (at least 4 hours, overnight best). Drain and blend with oil, 1 cup of the water, soy sauce, and all seasonings on high until fine. Pour into bowl, and rinse blender with remaining ½ cup of water, adding to mixture. Add onion, celery, nuts, and wheat germ and mix.

Stir in gluten flour and beat until gluten develops. This will take several minutes. You will notice the mixture becoming stringy—that is when the gluten is ready. It won’t get stiff until it bakes. The garbanzos thicken as they cook.

Put into greased glass loaf pan or medium sized baking dish, cover with foil, and bake for 1 hour at 350°. Remove foil for last 15 minutes to allow roast to brown on top. Serve hot. Reheats well.

Doesn't that look good?

How about a close-up?

This is a great potluck dish. Or if we’re eating it at home, I will serve it with rice—wild rice is my favorite—and a vegetable. It is very satisfying. It could be sliced and served with gravy, though it has plenty of flavor on its own. The pieces of nuts add interest, though they could be ground with the garbanzos for a smoother texture. The original recipe didn’t call for beef seasoning, but I found the recipe needed a little more seasoning than it called for—at least, for our family.

Before trying this recipe, I had never tried making anything with raw soaked garbanzos. I was surprised how wet the mixture was—nearly pourable, nothing like any roast I had ever made before. But then I saw in the book that you can use raw soaked garbanzos blended up to thicken things. I actually thickened pumpkin pie with them once! They can be blended and frozen ahead of time as well. Just a tip that you might find handy some day.

Next week I’m going to share the recipe I love for chicken nuggets. A friend of mine posted the recipe on Facebook, and it was the end of my quest for a good chicken nugget recipe! Watch for it!

This recipe is my slightly modified version of the recipe found in the Oats, Peas, Beans, and Barley cookbook.

By Planetc1 on Flickr

I have scoliosis. It’s not very bad, and doesn’t give me a lot of problems, but it can be a source of annoying discomfort from time to time—especially when I’m pregnant. Basically it’s a good idea for me to visit a chiropractor every month or so. But in the last year I haven’t been very many times. When I discovered a chiropractor less than a mile from our house, I was very excited. Now maybe I’d be able to get in that monthly visit.

But after my first visit, my husband went to the emergency room on a Sunday with bronchitis and a migraine (because he had both, the advice line nurse said he should probably go to the hospital as opposed to an urgent care center), and that indebted the medical fund for the next two or three months. I knew that this month there would be enough for me to be able to go, so I made an appointment and was really looking forward to it.

When I got there, though, the chiropractor informed me that he was no longer accepting my insurance. They had not actually been paid for my last visit, other than my co-pay. To pay cash for the visit would use up the whole month’s allowance, which needed to cover my son’s medications and the upcoming visit to the allergist. So he let me cancel without penalty. I asked him if I could still use the gym, and he said sure, as long as I paid for it. That was a relief, because the gym is available 24/7 and is the answer to my exercise needs in the winter, when it’s too dark to walk by the time my husband gets home (not to mention it will be too cold to take the kids out during the day for an extended walk).

But it had been at least 3 months since my last adjustment, and I really needed one. I didn’t have a lot on my plate for the day, so I decided to try to find another chiropractor. Sure, it would be a half-hour drive, but maybe it would be worth it.

So I grabbed the local phone book, which listed many businesses in Sandy. I started with the first one, but no one answered. Fine. I called the second one. They answered. Yes, they took my insurance. Yes, they could see me today. How did 2:30 sound? That would give me time to eat lunch and do some of the preparation I needed to do before leaving, and get me back with plenty of time to make Sabbath lunch and mop the kitchen before sundown.

To make a long story short, I found the chiropractor I have been searching for ever since I moved to Oregon. He’s the 5^th one I’ve seen in the 2 years we have lived here. The first one was very efficient. She would make adjustments, take my payment, and that was it. In and out in a hurry. Granted, she made the difference between me being able to walk all through my pregnancy and being forced to use a walker, but I never really developed a rapport with her. This guy took time to explain in detail exactly what he was doing and why. He was also very thorough, checking the adjustments after he finished to be sure he had gotten everything—turns out he had missed a hard spot, which I have a feeling some has been missed many times in the past. So he fixed it.

He also spent a good deal of time talking with me about orthodics. You know, those shoe inserts that provide support for your feet, which are like the foundation of a house. Many chiropractors now have scanners that will scan your feet, then they send the scan to a company that makes a special shoe insert. They can even make custom sandals (which looked like flip-flops to me) and such. The chiropractor here in Estacada promotes them, but he charges $200-300 for them. This chiropractor found a company that makes them for much less. I can get a set for only $135. And the best part is, my insurance will cover up to $200 for orthodics per year, so I can actually get them free! When I found that out, it wasn’t hard for me to decide to do it. Even if I have to buy some new shoes to wear them with and wear them all day around the house (where I spend most of my time on my feet) and for exercise, it will be worth it, especially if it supports my back better so that I don’t need to see the chiropractor as often!

And to think, if the chiropractor were still accepting my insurance, none of this would have happened! I wouldn’t even know that insurance could cover orthodics. God is so good!

This month I’m starting a new series of recipes. The theme is veggie meat. I don’t know about you, but I don’t like paying through the nose for the stuff they sell at the grocery store or the ABC. But finding recipes that taste as good as the commercial stuff isn’t easy.

I have, however, found a few that our whole family likes. I hope you will enjoy them too. Knowing that many people have problems with or allergies to certain foods, I’m including a couple without soy, and this one is gluten free.

1 cup soaked soy beans, ground (may use rather moist soy fiber leftover from making soy milk)
1 cup tomatoes
4 Tbsp peanut butter
1 Tbsp oil
4 Tbsp soy sauce
½ cup bread crumbs or dry oatmeal
3 tsp onion powder
1 tsp salt or less (I find a scant teaspoon is best)

Blend tomatoes, peanut butter, oil, soysauce, and seasonings. Add to ground soybeans. (When using soaked soybeans, I ground them in the blender, though I had to stop and stir them a lot. A meat grinder might work.) Add bread crumbs, mix well. Fill 2 greased tin cans. Cover (I use aluminum foil with a rubber band to hold it on), place on a rack in a tall kettle, and steam for 2 ½ hours.

These freeze well. I usually freeze one in the can and take it out later. The meat doesn’t set very firmly, so it usually ends up being more of a thick spread, which is fine with me—I can make it fit the bread.

My husband doesn’t like spreads based on peanut butter, but this one has enough seasonings and other things in it that he does like it, though he’d rather have my veggie patties. Unfortunately, I won’t have room this month to share the recipe for them, but I’ll hopefully get it posted sometime. If you are my personal friend on Facebook (not just following my blog), you can find an older version of the recipe in my notes.

Because of how long it takes to cook this recipe, I plan on making a double batch next time. One can’s worth seems to be enough for my husband, daughter, and me for a meal, so that would give us almost a month’s worth. Then I’ll probably freeze most of it and use it as something to break the monotony of veggie patties for sandwiches.

Next week I’ll be sharing my recipe for Gluten Garbanzo Roast. In spite of my husband’s strong dislike for garbanzos, this is one of our favorite recipes! I made it for last Sabbath, so I’ll be posting a picture or two. In the mean time, why not share your favorite sandwich spread? Post it in a comment or in your blog with a link here.

This recipe is my variation of the recipe in the Ten Talents cookbook. You can buy it from Amazon using the link below:

I know I haven’t posted much about my life lately. So here goes.

This morning when I went to get Manny, he was standing up in the crib and acting very serious. I smiled and offered him his sippy cup. He took it, but before diving in as he usually does, he pointed down to where his diaper was should be and said something like “buh boo”. Closer examination revealed a very full (disposable) diaper down at his ankles! I got a good laugh out of that! At least it wasn’t messy!

He’s also been making great progess with words. Right now he’s into balls. Anything round is a “Bah.” At first I thought he had an uncanny knack for picking out balls in pictures. Then he pointed to the eyes of the cat on my sweatshirt and said “bah.” Then the golf-sized polkadots on his pajamas were “bah, bah, bah,” pointing at each one as he said it. The berries in the decorations on the table at potluck yesterday were balls, too. It’s so cute! He is so boy! At this age, his sister was into shoes and cell phones.

I recently found a crayon in the dryer. Now seafoam green spots are to be found on several pairs of pants and a couple of my skirts. I googled today to find a solution. Now if I can just remember to buy the things I’ll need… and hope it works!!!

I learned how to knit at the age of 7. And crochet. For a year or two I preferred knitting. Then I discovered how much faster crocheting was, and over time forgot how to knit. I tried knitting again in my teens, but it was too boring. Probably because I made a scarf, and by the time I was done with that, I was really bored of knit one side, purl the other…

But recently I decided I should learn how to knit again. One can’t really crochet good socks, after all, and sweaters look better knitted. I found a bag of quality yarns at the Goodwill for $12.95, including two skeins of Marino wool, which more than paid for the whole bag! One partial skein of gray acrylic and wool has nearly been transformed into legwarmers for my son. they were nearly done, then I decided to lengthen them. He’s growing, after all, and the pattern was for a baby. But since it’s so simple it’s easy to modify. And much easier than socks, since there is no heel or toe in legwarmers. I just hope he likes them! My mom went through her set of needles and took out all the duplicates for me, and bought a couple sets to make an almost complete set. So I hope this being serious about knitting will last! Not that I have to knit every day, but it’s some thing I should do now and again, just like I do my sewing.

We’ve been going to the Estacada church lately, instead of where our membership is. The Estacada church is exactly 1 mile from our house. We could walk there in nice weather! We have church offices at the other church, so we can’t just quit going there, but I really like Estacada.

A friend of mine who plays the violin used to bring it every week and stand by the piano and play along with the singing. I was on the tail end of a cold yesterday and didn’t feel like singing, so I brought my 5 string violin and played along. I haven’t played much in the last year, but it felt good. I’m going to try to play several times a week. I found a place to keep my violin in the living room but out of reach of little fingers, so at least I’ll see it more–instead of top shelf of my closet where I never notice!

Well, I have a lot of shopping to do, so it’s time to go. We’ll be getting Internet in just a few weeks, so maybe I’ll post here a little more often. I would like to put more regular features here. If you have any ideas of things you’d like to see, please let me know!