A Variation on Loztnausten's Rice Sourdough Bread

So the new stove is in. It's minimal but works quite well. The refrigerator is great. Also minimal, but works. That's all we needed. Since I last posted (it was a while ago...sorry!) I've had a terrible reaction to a batch of pecans that had been dried for a while...then Snackboy went and turned off the light in the oven, which is what keeps it at 115 degrees...yeasty nuts! I had no idea until I tried them and a try was all it took. HUGE allergy attack, including allergic conjunctivitis. I was high on Benedryl all of yesterday when nothing else worked. I even went to get my eyes checked for infection, but it was just a reaction. My hands are a mess, as is my face, still. The hives are back...every night.

Okay, so there needs to be a bit of background on this.

The company that makes the rice sourdough bread, Food For Life, mysteriously stopped making it. I'm guessing that the wild-yeasted thing hit home and they had to reconsider their label. Anyway, that bread went down incredibly well with me and the yeast made very little impact. I found a lonely two loaves left at the co-op the other day and bought them.

So I continued to cut out rice, although I was less careful, since shaking by 5 is not my speed, especially since Little Moo is still nursing (and nonstop for these last molars...ack). I started cooking with coconut flour, which agrees with me.

I also tested crispy pecans, which appeared to be FINE...just so long as the light stays on all night!

So I had an enormous setback. I'm also finding that the BioKult doesn't kick the little yeasties like my old Klaire Labs Complete Powder. So I'm going back and forth between the two. Not what the doctor ordered, but triage must occur. I've put the old grapefruit seed extract into water again. I'll do that for a few days. Started on the butter oil...who knew that a supplement oil could taste wonderful on food? Waiting for the non-steroid herbal cream to come. Meanwhile I'm using the cortisones again at night so I can sleep.

I always get like this right after an attack, though. I think, well, now it's back and it won't go away, then a few weeks later, I'm clear and clean and feel better and wonder how I could have doubted the body's healing powers.

Okay, so I've been meaning to post this amazing recipe for ages. I have no idea if it's giving me problems, especially because I'm back to reacting constantly without knowing if anything is a trigger, but I think it is perhaps somewhat okay when I'm baseline.

Loztnausten is a blogger who is also a homeschooling mom of three. I've never met her, but her kids, me and Little Moo have a lot in common as far as our allergies go and she's done some amazing research on foods and cooking. Here's a variation on her sourdough bread recipe that has turned out an amazing loaf:

Sourdough Rice Bread

Starter:

Mix 2 cups of brown rice flour with 2 cups of coconut milk kefir
Let stand 24 hours. If you don't make the bread immediately, feed it daily with 1 or 2 tbs each kefir and flour.

Measure
1/2 c tapioca starch
1/2 c coconut flour
1 t celtic sea salt
4 t guar gum

whip 6 egg whites until frothy (but not peaked)

into the meringue pour:
1/3 c olive oil
3 egg yolks
1 tb maple syrup
2 c starter

Mix in dry ingredients

Pour into loaf pan. It should be spreadable, but not hard like wheat bread dough. Loztnausten describes it as like "toothpaste." Refrigerate 8 hours. Loztnausten suggests "or overnight," but it clearly didn't rise as well for me then.

Rise in warm oven 1-2 hours until the top is cracked and the bottom is slightly liquid. Bake at 350 degrees for 1 hour or until done.

Well, I have a grumpy 2-year old demanding "a boobie," pulling on my leg and there's dinner that needs to be put on the table...

So much for our new stove...

The handyman for our apartment is the worst flake. He says he'll be there at 11 and please call if there are any questions. He shows up at 3 demanding to know why I never called to confirm.

Today we had an appointment for 5:30. I busted a gut to get home and almost immediately cleared the path and took down the safety gate, took out all the recycling and made sure that everything he requested was in place to get the stove into our kitchen and our old stove out. At 5:40...nothing. The sitter looked out the door and found a little note saying that he left at 5:15 and that he'd be around tomorrow. I immediately called him, because we'll be out at a birthday party. He insists that he "knocked" but the sitter says she heard nothing and she was sitting in the next room within easy hearing of the door and what happens on the other side.

Now he wants the building manager to let him in. He says that we can just leave everything the way it is...he obviously doesn't have kids. So I told him that the gate goes back up and the storage furniture has to return to the hallway where it started and if he wants to come in tomorrow, it's up to him to clear it all and put it back the way he found it. If it's not, I'm complaining to the manager.

And no bread for him.

I was going to bake another loaf of that lovely kefir-sourdough rice bread, and it's now rising (hopefully) in our barely-functional old stove. (I figure I'll do it until I make the GAPS break...and that has to be after introducing nuts.) I'd better get back to (finally) pulling dinner together.

The Rice Canary in a Disaccharide Coal Mine

Well, it's not a definite, objective, proven thing yet, but yesterday's flirtation with not eating rice yielded some interesting observations.

At about 1 pm I had chicken broth, a bit of meat, fruit, a slice of sourdough bread with a hunk of raw butter. The bread was Food For Life's "yeast-free" brown rice bread (the fact that it is probably a wild-yeasted sourdough hasn't hit their marketing department yet?), but I'm guessing that the disaccharide problem may be at least partly solved by the fermentation. I wasn't being a purist, just trying something new. At any rate, it felt different.

I got hungry again quickly and there were no snacks in sight. I haven't tried nuts since Little Moo was about 4 months old, so NT "crispy nuts" were out. The only portable food left were rice crackers which I decided to leave at home. I was shaking by the time I finished my workout and headed home at 6. When I got home I scoured the refrigerator for something I could eat quickly that wasn't just simple rice. The second slice of bread was frustratingly close to plain rice, but still felt different. Dinner included rice pasta, but it was still a day with an entire midday break from the stuff.

Last night I had no hives at all. Nothing even vaguely resembling them. Usually I get a tingle here or there by about 9 pm, even if no hives show up. I usually get rashes on the backs of my knees by then too, but they were also gone.

I'm wondering if I can get Little Moo squared away with some kind of nuts and start her on nut snacks instead of rice if those little rashes on the backs of her poor little knees will go away.

Unfortunately, if I find that nuts are not a possibility for us, the GAPS diet will not work in our case. There's just not enough on the menu that I can make that can be stored well at room temperature and taken out of the house for lunches or snacks. I've tried squash and other starchy veggies with her and she simply won't touch them no matter what the incarnation. I'm also afraid that Dr. Cowan simply prescribes this diet for everyone who comes into his office and isn't really looking that closely or thinking about options for the truly eating-impaired.

GAPS Diet

Well, the fun is over...for now. I have to put my rice away and eat other things. It's time for GAPS...at least it will be after I make my next big grocery run. It's not so different from my normal diet, actually, except for the lack of rice, which is a major staple for me. Just to try it, I went this afternoon without rice, just broth, fruit. I was super-hungry by 5 and not yet home. Meat is so expensive that actually having a piece with each meal will be pretty cost-prohibitive. Sigh. And coconut flour is also kinda pricey. On the other hand, the food is so much BETTER! It would be supercostly to buy it premade, even if that were possible. 

The GAPS diet page

Two starters later....and other bits.

I don't have pictures this time, but I got the bread to work. It's not a true sourdough, though. The soured rice flour was so strong that anything I made out of it tasted off. Someone named Loztnausten made a meringue-based cold-fermented (?) "Almost Anything-Free Sourdough Bread" with kefired flour. So that's what I did. She used kefired apple juice, which would be off-limits to us, so I used our tried-and-true starter-based coconut milk kefir. The resulting bread is light and yeasty tasting, almost sweet. It has a texture and taste that reminds me a bit of one of those cheese danishes that I couldn't dream of eating any more. I think in a gas oven, it would have risen much better, but even a bit heavy, it's delicious! 

I was so excited with her blog that I actually e-mailed her. She never answered, of course, but then, she might have noticed all the links that hook up with my name that have to do with San Francisco dance and theater and decided that I might be sent from the devil. Her profile indicates that she's a homeschooling Christian mother of 3. I am refusing to make any assumptions that she'd hate me simply because I live in a city where a same-sex couple holding hands walking down the street is a normal sight, or that I'm a Jew, or worse perhaps, a dancer. Or maybe I am and I'm completely paranoid. So perhaps she's just busy with her three children and her kitchen, and why do I think everyone responds to e-mails? 

Loztnausten's a terrific writer, appears to like speculative fiction - with a religious Christian twist, of course, but then, I like some of that stuff, too.

She takes great photos of her kitchen masterpieces that have been adapted brilliantly for a house full of gluten-, dairy-, soy-, corn-, grain-, and as she says, "everything-free" eaters. She also talks about how she feels her family's inability to eat comes from their use of antibiotics at some point, and many other things. I have a terrific respect for the amount of research and experimentation she's done. Her latest is an injera recipe. For real!

So now I have a nice...er...4 cup measure...taken up with a fine starter that makes the house smell heavenly and also makes delicious pancakes. 

...and requires me to constantly be making kefired coconut milk, which is a bit expensive, but you know, probably less expensive than keeping us constantly stocked in rice-based baked goods. 

So I did the hardcore thing and ordered real water kefir grains from Dom, who is the guy in Australia who knows everything about kefir and is the main source, I believe, for many of the WAPF folks here. Then I won't have to keep buying starter and will also be able to make kefired sodas.

Speaking of kefired sodas, the Hibiscus-Rosehip drink didn't culture correctly, although it did become a strong and sweet brew that is quite tasty, so I strained it and put it in the fridge. It gave me a big fat hive on my left cheek, so I know it's chock-full of vitamin C. (Feh.) I gave it to the sitter since Little Moo has been blowing big wads of snot these last few days and Snackboy is 3000 miles away visiting his family for a week. (Which is why this blog hasn't been touched in a while.) 
This is the first cold she or any of us have had, for that matter, since we added extra vitamin D plus our off-the-grid diet. That's shy on a year now.

I could get bummed. I am. Single mothers do something incredible, especially those with no family around. Little Moo is so off her patterns right now. I think she's mad at her daddy since she doesn't yet understand comings and goings entirely.  She takes one look at the sitter, who has been here every day since Snackboy left, and simply says "No (sitter's name inserted here) today." Then the day is an uphill battle until the sitter leaves. I'm thinking of dismissing her for the rest of the time, but I honestly need her help since I really am alone here. 

Also, news from the itty bitty kitchen. We have a new-used refrigerator! While it's fridge section is smaller, the freezer is bigger and lower so I can actually see inside and can reach in all the way. Woohoo! The building manager has told me that we're going to get a new stove, too, although the way he works, it will be another few years before that happens, and at that point, it will be because I remind him during one of his many alcoholic funks at which point he tells me that he remembers not at all. Sigh. I think of all the things I could actually make if the oven actually worked. The baking element on this hunk of junk has what looks like boils on the rear left side and heats not at all back there. I broil all kinds of things on low with the grate down simply because I can't bake and have anything come out. Then I could also give true directions on this blog! Hah!

A quick and yummy soup dinner for two tired parents

Little Moo fell asleep in the car at 6pm after a napless day, so Snackboy and I dug into the fridge and made something up.

Tasty chicken miso soup with noodles

leftover rice noodles

2 cups of chicken bone broth and two mugs

2 or three snips from a bunch of chives

1 ts garbanzo miso per cup of soup.

Boil the soup for a moment and lower the heat. 

Add a handful of noodles to each cup

Add a spoonful of miso to each cup

Pour soup over noodles and miso

Snip chives over the tasty soup.

Yum!

Velvet Coconut Cupcakes - 

They're actually based on the rice bread recipe, believe it or not. 

I substituted 4 tbs of coconut flour for rice flour and used coconut kefir as a liquid base with just a little coconut oil added, then added, as usual, a bit less maple syrup than the recipe calls for. I completely forgot the vanilla, so add that if you like (about 1 ts or so). It seems to taste fine without.

1 1/2 c coarse rice flour minus 4 tb

4 tb sweet coconut flour

1/4 c rice flour

1/4 c - 1 ts tapioca starch

1 ts arrowroot starch

1/2 ts guar gum

1 tb baking powder

1/2 c coconut milk kefir

about 2 tb coconut oil, melted but not hot

fill up the rest of a cup measure containing the kefir and oil with maple syrup (that's what, about 1/3 cup?)

1 cup tepid water

Blend all dry ingredients.

Blend all wet ingredients except water.

Add wet to dry, mix well. Add water. Mix well.

Pour into muffin cups lined with paper liners. Check at 20 minutes. They may need another 5 or so. They were just barely brown on top and done in the middle, although the crumb is very soft. Little Moo prefers things soft, but you and yours might like a bit of a crust on it. 

Enjoy! Dip in custard.