Wheat Belly, Bread and Granola

I read most of the Wheat Belly book and have gotten some input from the Wheat Belly blog as well, enough to convince me that I should leave out all wheat from my diet. Unfortunately, my family loves gluten and bread. And I have two and a half 5-gallon buckets of wheat to use up.

So, I made gluten on Friday, took half of it to potluck on Sabbath and have been feeding it to my hubby in his lunches this week. 

Monday, the kids and I made the equivalent of 6 loaves of whole wheat bread (yum, except I didn't eat any).  I say equivalent, because 2 of the loaves I made 'special' by flattening them and spreading them with peanut butter and jelly, then folding them over so the pbj was inside. The kids loved that. 

I didn't get pictures of the 'special' loaves because the kids ate them before I took pictures. 

To try to satisfy my taste buds, I tried a recipe for gluten free bread that turned out flat, a little crumbly, but oh so yummy when toasted with vegan cheese on top and a slice of tomato. The recipe is here on this cool blog: 

Gluten free Bread Recipe from the Gluten Free Goddess.  The next one I'm going to try is this one here: Sandwich gluten-free bread 

Before it was baked.  

After lunch, I was going to have the kids help me make granola, but they were so happy outside, making whirlpools in a bucket, the result of watching a Mythbusters  episode.

So I just went ahead and did it myself. I have this problem with making granola, though. I can never get it to be flaky and light and crunchy. It always comes out dark, kind of chewy and in big chunks floating in crumbs. Ugh. It tastes alright, though Victor always adds honey. He likes it really sweet and I don't put sugar in. Sure, I add lots of sweeteners: honey, dates, bananas. . . just not as sweet as sugar I guess. 

Ready for the liquids 

Ready to bake

I know part of my problem is I don't stir it enough while before and during cooking. But another problem is I don't add oil. I am an impatient cook, so I follow the recipe(s) only so far as to get an idea of what to put in and the basic ratios and then just add what I want. I combine several recipes this way. So, next time, hopefully tomorrow, I'm going to follow a recipe and only that one to the letter and see what happens. It will be one of the many I have that is oil-free and sugar-free, of course, and I'm keeping my fingers crossed that it will be a success! 

Anyway, back to the wheat free thing. I am noticing a difference in my allergies, although part of that could be the rag weed is dying off. The main thing I noticed is that after I left off the dairy completely, my gall bladder problem is now almost non-existent, except for a daily bout with acid reflux. That, I believe, is going away now that I'm not eating wheat. Yay! 

The other difference is my cold is easing up faster than normal, the yucky coughing up phlegm part has shortened. Wheat is a mucus forming food, so that makes alot of sense to me. 

All these cool discoveries in the wheat department has bolstered my enthusiasm to stick with it. 

On to perfecting the wheat free bread products!!