Cicadas & Gluten Free Baking

  Happy Sunday, It's been a hot one here with high humidity-feels like a July day here instead of a May day.

  I finished up my shopping early this morning-left the house at 6 am and it was already very humid. Larry sleeps later these days so I set him up with his coffee in a thermos mug, and his greek yogurt-fruit-granola in a small wide mouth thermos so he would be all set up for the morning. I got back home around 8:30 and he had just started his breakfast so that worked out perfect.

  Here at the lake home we have been listening to the sounds of the cicadas. I think they hang out in the trees. Today they are very loud. When I went into  town I didn't hear them at all. I do see a few dead ones around our driveway. Back 15 years ago I think it was when we were living at the woods house-this cicada event was quite something. We could see the swarms of them and the noise was much louder than here at the lake.  

  Do you have the cicadas where you are living? I am thinking this event is mostly in rural areas, as they come out of the ground.

  I am changing my gluten free baking flour. 

     I had figured out on my own, probably back in the 80's that I had celiac disease. Back then the doctors had no clue what was wrong with me, one even insisted I had mono-ahh nope don't think so. When the test came back negative he didn't know how to help me.

    I figured it out  on my own with food elimination to see what was making me sick  If you don't know you have a gluten intolerance the gluten foods will destroy your digestive system and you continue to lose weight. When they hadn't figured out what this was in the past it was called wasting disease as you get thinner and thinner. That was happening to me until I figured.it out 

 So back in my younger days, there were no labels on store bought foods for gluten ingredients, so it was quite the process and research to figure out what to eat-and wheat is in soooo many store bought foods Don't remember what year the govt decided gluten in foods needed to be labeled. 

   I had started out mixing up my own flour blends for baking learning as I went a long back then. I did totally give up on trying to make yeast breads. I tried so many recipes and nothing gave me good results. Now I have found a really good  gluten free bread that most grocery stores carry now. 

    Over time Bob's red mill came out with their 1-1 gluten free flour blend and I have mostly been baking with that now, however doesn't work for yeasted breads. Most things like cookies, brownies, biscuits, quick breads and my pizza crust come out pretty good with that flour-and it is easy.

That flour blend has a lot of carbs in it though both white and brown rice plus other starches and xanth, gum.  I am not all the crazy about the xanth. gum but seems to be needed in gluten free baking--or not

Scrolling on Instagram last week,  I ran into a gluten free site and she has changed my mind to go back to mixing up my own gluten free flour blend again. She has figured out if you use a sweet brown or white rice or mochi we don't need xanth. gum . She says this will bake well for cakes, cookies etc but not breads. I haven't gotten into her site all the way to discover how she is baking breads.

  This site I found is From the Larder  she also has a Facebook group. She shares a lot of information and also recipes. If I had a chemistry type aptitude it would be easier to understand how she has combined flours to work for different things.  She shares  downloadable pages explaining all the different flours make from grains, nuts, etc.

  I don't know if I have any followers that need gluten free but I wanted to share her site as it is very informative. She is based in England and insists better accuracy to weigh by grams and not cups. I cans see why when I was mixing up the flour blend as some were more heavier than others.  

  I did set up my flour grinder on my kitchenaid mixer to grind the rice-I used to grind most of my flour and this set up does a good job and it's fun too  smiles

That's it for me, hope I didn't bore my readers too much.

  Happy new week ahead

Pretty Day Today

   Happy Friday and upcoming weekend,

      I got myself up and out of the house early this morning. Needed to do an amazon return at the ups drop off at our bank, and I went to the small local grocery store for fresh produce.  Since this store was bought by a company that picks up these smaller family stores-their produce has really improved. Most items are priced well so I would rather buy from them then everything at Wal Mart. I have not been happy with this small Wal Mart since our move to the lake house, and lately their produce goes bad really fast. and I have gotten bad meat-so I will be buying meat at this family store too.

   I was home by 9 am and we had the perfect day-partial sun, less humidity and in the high 70's F so perfect to work outdoors.

    When I got home and got everything put away I tackled the big task of collecting rocks around our property to fill up the big tubs 2/3 full. I had  my friend bring them  over from the woods house  These are perfect for growing plants in, and hard to come by. The ranchers get cattle feed in these and then they reuse them.  She brought  me 5 of them, but I am going to ask her to bring me the rest of them.

   We drilled lots of drainage holes in the bottoms, I added the rocks, and then I save bubble wrap and cut those up and add to the top of the rocks and then the soil. Once set up they are good for a long time, just need to add some fertilizer to them over the years.

  We have had soooo much rain here that I didn't realize it was drowning out my seeds in the bottles. Only seeds growing is my brown cotton-so I planted them in 3 of the tubs. The rest of the seeds were just too water logged and we have had cold nights as well. Also this side doesn't get full sun all day do to the trees. 

  My husband gave me his old camera that still takes good photos and much better than mine.. He was using it to sell on ebay but no longer is doing that. My newest camera is terrible, at my age I didn't want to spend a lot of money on a camera, and I don't have a cell phone.

 This one needs more rocks, but I had to stop working. I took a break for our 2 pm meal and then went back out to see if I could finish these two tubs.

This is the other one that needs more  rocks-I will work on that tomorrow

 I am going to plant indigo seeds in one of these and borage seeds in the other one. I read that I can dry the indigo leaves to dye with later-so I am going to try that.  I don't make an indigo vat but have dyed in the past with fresh leaves. Still a little tricky but I did get a few lovely colors on fabrics.

  The other side-the right side looking at the steps is a total mess, lots of weeds, and since Larry's fall prevented him from finishing the water project-that side is holding tons of water-a real mess. I need to tackle that next week for sure. I may dig up some of the perennials before I lose them and plant over on this side near the tubs til that water issue gets fixed.

  That's it for me,  I have the KC Royals baseball game on they are playing much better this year. The weather shows the next 3 days will be  near 90 F  typical Missouri weather haha

A Few Blooms To Share and T

    We are continuing to get rain and warmer temps, so all of my grass needs cut again-sigh. It is spring so I need to get back to it tomorrow.

   This morning I tackled de frosting the large chest freezer-as  I get older this is quite the chore now, and we need to buy a new one as this one is over 20 years old now and freezes up again on the sides as soon as I plug it back in.

   I grabbed my camera as the peonies are blooming now. I brought the pink ones with us from Illinois when we retired to Missouri in 2003. The white peonies were here already. The lovely water iris are now budding and starting to bloom-one of our favorites. As you can see the lake is still low with all the spring rains they keep the lake low, by Memorial day Ameren (electric co making electric on this lake) will raise the water level of the lake to just below the grass line.

Photos didn't come out in order as mentioned

Above blooms are located to the left of our property line looking out towards the lake.

   This peony is finally happy enough in it's new home to multiply it's size and to bloom-to the far left of our steps.

Still have iris's  blooming

  This is the peony bush from above that I brought over from the woods house-it is finally happy where it is now. These originally came from my farm girl Grandma's garden many many years ago.  This area is  little more shady than the the pink one I planted down by the lake-but it is has really spread out now and finally has a few blooms..

  Above a peak inside-- cotton- these need to get planted soon. This is the brown cotton, the white cottons seeds  never sprouted

and to close, I don't think I shared this here on my blog but I did on my Instagram page. I have been thinking of watercolor paints again. Taking Inspiration from Christine I bought the watercolor atc size papers-to play a little with paints. I always thought these were too small for me, but I think I will like them for quick little watercolor paintings. I bought these little stands for Christine's woodpecker painting and had to purchase a package of them-soooo will display the paintings that way.

  I am thinking now if I post a photo of my beverage I can link up to T this week.

   Have a good week everyone and here is a link to our hostess Bleubeard and Elizabeth for T

Iris's Blooming

 Just popping in to share my lovely iris's this morning.

A couple of years ago I dug this all up and split them into singles and re planted. This year the blooms are larger and so beautiful. Up on top of the rock wall to the right of the a/c-heating unit are mints.

Huge storms with lots of rain, wind and hail are forecast to arrive sometime today-so far nothing so it may just go around us.

   Oh I don't think I shared my spun skein of buffalo fibers blended with Shetland wool fibers. 

  I see dust is collecting on my loom-I need to get my mind clear so I can re do the threading mistake on this pattern-ugh.

  Happy Thursday