Jan 21, 2009

KISS Method

Keep It Simple, Silly! I learned this tip from my husband. I'm always trying to make things harder than they have to be. Why? I don't know. Drives my husband nuts, though! LOL So, this tip is for me as much as anyone else.
I think one of the reasons I'm so dopey in the kitchen is because I look at an ingredient list that has twenty items, and I get overwhelmed. That's part of the reason I got SOOOO freaked out when I had to switch to gluten free. Don't take away my ONE wheat and replace it with fifty others! I don't have the time, space, energy, or brain power to deal with it. I've got a one-track mind. Maybe I'm a little ADD? I guess anything's possible.
Anyway, in keeping with that tip...Take a look at your flours/starches. Are 37 different ones REALLY necessary to your culinary happiness or survival? Or, can you pick a favorite or two and be done? Do remember that you have to mix at least two flours (with one of them being a lighter rice-type one) to keep it edible, though.
I know, for ME, sorghum flour (for example) is WAY out of the budget. Same goes with Mesquite flour. Living roughly $10,000 below the poverty line, I really don't have the funds to play around with more exotic stuff. Would it be FUN to play with it? Sure, I'd like to try new things. (Just don't make me put it all together!)
But, until I find a money tree, I'm going to have to rely on my rice and plain ol' bean flours and rather cheapo potato starch. Nutritionally, roughly the same. Probably not a big enough difference, though, to consider selling my children off for the fancier stuff.
I don't know, though. My preteen is on one this morning - give me a day or two - I may consider selling that one! LOL

4 comments:

  1. I really recommend Elizabeth Barbones's book Easy Gluten Free Baking. She uses basic white/brown rice flour. We have not had a bad recipe yet from her collection.
    We too live very low-income and this has kept our sanity from having a million containers of flour in the cupboard. We do grind our own rice flour for 48 cents/lb vs almost $4/lb ground at grocer. We were able to get a large pail of whole sorghum to grind for $15 and it should last us the year easily.
    Love new blog on frugal GF living. There are many good frugal blogs but very few are GF : ). Thanks : )...

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  2. Oooh! I'll have to check it out, Anne! Thanks!! I've never seen whole sorghum. Will have to research it out and see if I can't find some to grind. I do grind my own beans, but find that the rice doesn't grind fine enough for my tastes (have to use a hand cranked one). So, I'm willing to splurge a little for already ground rice flour. Thanks again!

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  3. I ordered mine from Twin Valley Mills in Nebraska. You can buy it pre-ground or whole. We splurged on an electric grain mill when we found out our entire family was gluten-intolerant and recouped the cost ($170) in a month. We make all breads, crackers, desserts, etc from scratch as the price in our closest stores of GF products are terrible at best.
    If you live near any Amish places that have bulk food stores, you can find some things cheap. We buy potato/tapioca starch for $1/lb there. Beans, spices, xantahn gum, etc are usually a really good deal.

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  4. I am also grinding my own rice flour and millet flour. I also use oats, but of course you have to be careful of that. I have a cheap source for potato flakes, so I can use that in place of potato flour. Tapioca starch is pretty cheap at the Asian market, but I would like to find it in bulk if I could. Other frugal gf'rs use cornstarch, but that is out for us. Bean flours are out too (and what am I going to do with the bean, pea, and lentil flours that I already have???) I have scaled down and only use arrowroot for thickening sauces now, rather than by the cupful in gf recipes.

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