How to make Almond or Rice Flour in a Coffee Grinder

Making your own flour is cheap and it's easy. I've been making mine in a coffee grinder because I don't have a Vita Mix or a good food processor, which is what is typically used. My coffee grinder is not big so I have to process in several batches - this is no big deal, once I get going, it gets done quickly. Coffee grinders are often sold cheaply at thrift stores (that's where I bought mine), if you buy one from there, clean it real well. If you wash it with soap and water, dry it upside down on a rack so water won't get in the motor and there won't be any chance of electrocution. 

You will need: a coffee grinder (one that will never grind coffee again)

                     slivered almonds

                     2 medium sized bowls

                     fine mesh sieve

                     large zip top baggie

It's best to buy your ingredients in bulk as this will save you money. For the almond flour, it's best to use blanched (skins removed) almonds. You could buy whole, raw almonds and put them in boiling water for about a minute then squeeze the nut between your finger to remove the skins, BUT I found slivered almonds in the bulk section, already blanched, and it cost only 10 cents more than the whole almonds. Regular almond flour is pretty pricey (I paid $11 for a 16 oz. bag! It was my first time using it). For 10 ounces of almonds, I got just over 3 cups of flour.

 Put about a handful of almonds in your grinder and pulse about 15 times. 

Next, you may need to pick up your grinder and shake or bang with your hand it to loosen some clumping (I use my thumb or finger to remove any flour that has stuck to the inside of the grinder) then dump it into a sieve that's over a bowl and shake the flour into the bowl - what you want is a very fine meal. 

You will have some small chunks leftover which can get re-grinded or eaten - I keep processing the chunks until there's less than a tablespoon left. 

Pour the newly processed almond flour into a large zip top baggie and use as desired. Store your almond flour in the freezer for best results, in fact, all nuts should be store in the freezer.

I use both bowls for processing and holding the flour.

For grinding rice flour, just buy yourself some brown rice (white is ok too, but you know that brown is better for you) and process it as you would like the blanched almonds. In the end, I had some pieces that were the size of quinoa and I just left it, after baking those made my bread crunchier.

Both almond and rice flours are great substitutions for making gluten free foods. They can be used together or individually. There are tons of recipes on the Internet that use both of these flours - do a search and see what delicious recipes come up. Although it takes a little bit of work, making your own almond and rice flour is easy, gratifying, and very economical.

Happy Grinding!!

Comments or questions are always welcomed. I would love to hear what you think of this tutorial or any of my other posts. Thanks!

Laughing Cow Mac n Cheese Recipe

Most of us know about The Laughing Cow cheese (TLCC) and  how creamy and tasty they are. Did you know they are lower in calorie than most other cheese spreads?

Lisa Lillen, aka Hungry Girl, who has been featured on the Rachael Ray show numerous times has an innovative way of creating lower fat foods and has figured out how to shop for lower fat foods in our supermarkets. She has come up with great, healthy substitutions for many of our favorite foods. One of those subs is with cheese. She uses TLCC in many of her recipes. This cheese has only 35 calories per wedge and comes in a variety of flavors - you get 8 wedges per container, and it's very reasonable at just over $4 a container.

I wanted to make macaroni and cheese and thought of trying to use TLCC since it's already creamy, and I just had to incorporate it into a sauce. Here's how I did it -

Ingredients:

1/2 c. chicken stock
1 c. milk of choice
2 c. gluten free pasta
olive oil
brown rice flour
3 wedges of Laughing Cow cheese
salt/pepper
nutmeg

I first boiled some gluten free penne brown rice pasta for the allotted time and set it aside.

I took a large sauce pan and put in 1/2 cup of chicken stock and 1 cup of almond milk and let it heat up (I used the same pan I boiled the pasta in).

I then took a large skillet, on medium heat, and put in a fair amount of olive oil and added about 2 tablespoons of brown rice flour and I whisked the 2 together.

Next, I threw in 3 wedges of the light garlic and herb cheese.

I proceeded to whisk the cheese into the oil/flour mixture. At first it will seem grainy and like it won't want to incorporate, but KEEP WHISKING!

After the cheese is mixed in, pour in the heated milk mixture and add a little salt, some pepper and a few grates of nutmeg - whisk until heated through. **Tip - see the line on the back of my wooden spoon, then you can do that with your sauce, it's the perfect consistency.**

Add your pasta and mix to incorporate.

Serve hot with desired main course (or not). We had ours with roasted veggies.

Happy Whisking!!

Comments or questions are always welcomed. I would love to hear what you think of this recipe or any of my other posts. Thanks!

Risotto Cakes

Risotto is basically a creamy rice recipe that is made with arborio rice, wine, onion, garlic, chicken stock or broth, and cheese (usually parmigiana cheese) - I used nutritional yeast. Here is a recipe to make your basic risotto. My ratio is 1 cup rice to about 3 cups of warmed stock. I've used either a wide, deep skillet or a large sauce pan - it doesn't matter. If you want to have risotto one night, then make the cakes another night, I suggest doubling the recipe so there is enough.

Usually with leftover risotto, aranchini is made. You basically form the rice into balls, stuff cheese in the middle - then you flour, egg, bread and fry them. I've always wanted to try this, but didn't want to go through the hassle of rolling into balls and doing the whole flour, egg, breading, then frying them (I don't like frying round things).

We had risotto last night and I made extras with the intention of making these patties. The risotto needs to be chilled before you can make the cakes, the chilling helps bind the cakes when they are cold.

First I put some brown rice flour into a pie pan and added some garlic and onion powder and some pepper. I wet my hands, then scooped a fair amount of risotto into my hands and shaped it into a patty. I coated the patty well on both sides with the flour mixture and placed in a non stick skillet with heated olive oil. I let it fry for about 2-3 minutes on each side till it was nicely brown. I made 3 patties to try and only ate 2, I'll save the other for later, toasting to crisp up again.

The risotto cakes were crunchy on the outside and soft in the middle. The only thing I would do next time is add some more nutritional yeast before forming into patties, you could add your cheese of choice. This was very yummy, I love the crunchy/soft texture and I plan to make this again - real soon, tho I am plan on making risotto cakes out of the entire batch of risotto.

So next time you make risotto and have some leftover, try and make some risotto cakes, I bet you'll love them as much as I do.

Happy frying!!

Comments or questions are always welcomed. I would love to hear what you think of this recipe. Thanks!

Port Townsend

Ok, everything's put away and back in their place. We just came back from a camping trip to Port Townsend. We had a great time and Heather was able to come and enjoy some time with us. We like to stay at Point Hudson, it's a marina that's right at the end of town and is a wonderful place to stay. We've been there now about 6 times and each time is better than the last. We love that the RV park is right in town and right on the water. Our RV spot was right by the water - literally 20 feet from the Pacific Ocean, it was great to hear the water lapping on the rocks. Because it's fall, we really weren't sure what the weather was going to be like. We were hoping for very little rain and that's what we got. Apparently, we just missed a small rain and wind storm the night before. The weather for the rest of the days were perfect, and of course, the humidity was high.

There is an awesome restaurant right at the park called T's Restaurant - it's become a favorite for us whenever we are in town. It is casual, fine dining at it's best. The menu is great and because it's right there at the park, you don't really have to dress up. A lot of the patrons are campers, but there are many who come eat there because the food is great - customer service is great too.

You know when you go camping, sometimes, it's either the place that's interesting or the people that are interesting? This time, it was the people. Out of the entire RV park, our side of the park ended up with 4 RV's in one spot. Our neighbors were very nice. Soon after we got settled, we got a neighbor. It was a couple who had 2 cute little pugs. The man's name was Mike and I am sorry to say that we forgot his wife's name. They were very nice people and it turns out that they were on there way back from Oregon. They went to pickup the motor home they were it. We thought they were from Oregon because of the license plate, but they're from Sequim!

We thought this was so cool - after dinner on Tuesday, we went for a walk on the beach. As we're coming back, we meet the campers that are in the 2nd spot next to ours - next to Mike's motor home. Their names are Patty and John. We start chatting about camping, when Patty asked if we were there in May (we were actually, with our oldest daughter Dawn). We told her yes and she said she remembered talking to one of our daughters (it was Dawn). In May, they had a spot that was across from us - this time, they were 2 spots away from us. Turns out Patty and John are from California and they love to come up here, they were going through Oregon after leaving Washington. When they do come here, they don't make a reservation, they just show up and take what they get - how ironic that they were in a spot by us and it May we were both there at the same time also. I didn't remember them, but Jim did - I bet Dawn would remember them. Isn't that neat? We've met so many nice people camping.

On Wednesday, we went to do some downtown shopping. I love going to Wynwood Beads, they have an awesome array of beads and charms - many of my creations have come from this fabulous store. While at Wynwood Beads, Jim starts chatting with the owner. That day, there was a strong odor of sewage permeating the town and Jim was asking what might be causing that odor. The owner said that it was coming from the sea gulls. The sea gulls are a huge problem in town and it get exacerbated by the food businesses who throw out leftover food for the birds to eat, and what goes in has to come out and it causes a large problem, so the food businesses have been told to not throw out their leftover food.

We also found out that back in the day, Port Townsend was designated to be the original Seattle. There is an underground, but not the kind of underground that we think of. Port Townsend is one of several towns on the Pacific Northwest to have Shanghai Tunnels. Now I've heard of the term "shanghai" and I've known it to mean to get taken by someone. Well it's true, it was called shanghaiing back in the 1800's where men were "taken" from saloons forcefully and forced to work on ships. That's why a lot of saloons back then had trap doors. These doors led to tunnels built to take kidnapped men to ships and they were forced to become part of the ship's crew. Here is a pic and history of shanghai tunnels. Here is a another pic of a larger tunnel in Tacoma.

Apparently, the tunnels under Port Townsend flood frequently and river otters travel through them to come and land and have their babies. River otters are said to be the the size of a medium-sized dog and can be seen coming onto land.

So, that was our adventure in Port Townsend. We go every year and we always learn something new - this time, we learned about some of its past history. Next time you go vacationing, ask about the area you are visiting and you might learn something you never knew before.

Thanks for reading!!



Peppers Casserole Recipe

Stuffed Peppers is a great dish that Jim and I both love to eat, but I didn't like that the stuffing fell out each time I went to cut the pepper - I like a mix of everything in one bite. Then I thought, "why not put the peppers in the casserole, then there's no problem of the stuffing falling out." I still get peppers in my meal and nothing falls out - genius!

Peppers Casserole

2 large green or red bell peppers, sliced thin. I've been using frozen peppers in a  
        bag, it's cheaper, plus you get 3 colors in the bag - very colorful
Extra-virgin olive oil
1 medium yellow onion, sliced thin
1 clove of garlic, chopped
1 lb. of lean ground beef
1 cup of cooked rice
1 cup chopped tomatoes, fresh, canned or roasted
1 tbsp. chopped fresh oregano or 1 tsp of dried oregano
Salt & pepper
1/2 cup ketchup
1/2 tsp of worcestershire sauce
Dash of tabasco sauce or other hot sauce
Cheddar cheese (optional)

Sauté ground beef in oil, drain and remove to pie pan or plate.

In the same pan, sauté peppers and onions in oil for several minutes till slightly soft, but still crunchy. Add cooked ground beef then salt, pepper, rice, tomatoes and oregano - mix well. Cook until heated thru.

Combine ketchup, worcestershire sauce, hot sauce and pour on top of meat mixture. Can mix sauce in or leave as a topping (the original recipe uses it as a topping, but I mix it in as the flavors mixed together is very yummy). Sprinkle on cheese, cover and let sit for 5 minutes. Serve with a nice green salad.

Enjoy!!