Butter or Margarine?

Posted on April 7, 2012 by admin

This article from Jim Fortner came to my attention again this week and since I ONLY use butter, I thought I would pass it on to you as well. My chiropractor told me most of this years ago and it was then that my family went exclusively to butter. Please take the time to read this – it is very eye opening.

Margarine was originally manufactured to fatten turkeys. When it killed the turkeys, the people who had put all the money into the research wanted a payback so they put their heads together to figure out what to do with this product to get their money back.
It was a white substance with no food appeal so they added the yellow coloring and sold it to people to use in place of butter. How do you like it? They have come out with some clever new flavorings….

DO YOU KNOW.. The difference between margarine and butter?
Read on to the end…gets very interesting!

Both have the same amount of calories.

Butter is slightly higher in saturated fats at 8 grams; compared to5 grams for margarine.

Eating margarine can increase heart disease in women by 53% over eating the same amount of butter, according to a recent Harvard Medical Study.

Eating butter increases the absorption of many other nutrients in other foods.
Butter has many nutritional benefits where margarine has a few and only because they are added!
Butter tastes much better than margarine and it can enhance the flavors of other foods.

Butter has been around for centuries where margarine has been around for less than 100 years.

And now, for Margarine..
Very High in Trans fatty acids.
Triples risk of coronary heart disease …
Increases total cholesterol and LDL (this is the bad cholesterol) and lowers HDL cholesterol, (the good cholesterol)

Increases the risk of cancers up to five times..

Lowers quality of breast milk

Decreases immune response.

Decreases insulin response.

And here’s the most disturbing fact… HERE IS THE PART THAT IS VERY INTERESTING!

Margarine is but ONE MOLECULE away from being PLASTIC… and shares 27 ingredients with PAINT

These facts alone were enough to have me avoiding margarine for life and anything else that is hydrogenated (this means hydrogen is added, changing the molecular structure of the substance).

Open a tub of margarine and leave it open in your garage or shaded area. Within a couple of days you will notice a couple of things:

* no flies, not even those pesky fruit flies will go near it (that should tell you something)

* it does not rot or smell differently because it has no value ; nothing will grow on it. Even those teeny weeny micro-organisms will not a find a home to grow. Why? Because it is nearly plastic. Would you melt your Tupperware and spread that on your toast?

Share This With Your Friends…..(If you want to butter them up’)!

Chinese Proverb:

When someone shares something of value with you and you benefit from it, you have a moral obligation to share it with others.

Pass the BUTTER PLEASE

By: Jim Fortner

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Just For Fun!

Posted on March 31, 2012 by admin

Just so you all don’t think I am ALWAYS in the kitchen – I thought I would share some pics from my spring break week!

For those of you who are not aware – my main source of income comes from teaching private music lessons. I teach flute and piano to lots of little and some big ones! I just started offering “Skype” piano lessons this year. My first “Skype” piano student is 60 years old and after just 6 weeks at it – he is already playing hands together, recognizable music!! In other words – he is playing ‘real’ music! (And quite well too!) So every calendar quarter, I take a week off and go somewhere.

Last summer I got reconnected with a friend that I have known since we were 4 years old. We used to live across the street from each other, and graduated from high school together. His name is Brian and I now spend my break weeks with him. He has introduced me to all kinds of ‘new’ activities – like fishing. Fishing is his passion, he works so he can fish!

 I have been spending my spring break up in Wisconsin which normally is still snow covered in March. To everyone’s surprise, this March has been quite mild and we were able to get out on the water and do some fishing. Last Sunday we went to the Oconto River and had much success! I caught 2 fish – the first was a 27” walleye, which we were able to keep and the other was an 18” small mouth bass, which I had to throw back because it is not in season.

Just a few minutes later, Brian reeled in a 29” northern! What a fun day!!! We brought them back and filleted them – yes, I clean my own fish (and bait them and take the hook out of them!) The fillets are all in the freezer right now, but I will be bringing some back home with me to cook and eat!

I think I will have Brian’s mom teach me how she makes her scones this weekend and try to reproduce them gluten-free.

Have a wonderful weekend everyone and do something fun!!

Lindy

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Donuts!!!!

Posted on March 29, 2012 by admin

As I sit here typing, I smell a deeeelicious pie baking in the oven, but that is not what I want to share with you today.

It has become a tradition that when I go to get my hair done, that I bring some sort of treat for the girls and they have graciously accepted the role of taste testers for my experiments!

For those of you who do not really know me, my passion is music but I LOVE to bake and one of my ‘shiny’ objects is recipes. I subscribe to a couple websites on Facebook and in my email. One is Taste of Home www.tasteofhome.com  and the other is My Baking Addiction www.mybakingaddiction.com . I like these websites because these are ‘real’ people and the pictures and stories behind the recipes are wonderful!!

So one day, a while ago, a recipe for donuts popped up on my Facebook page from Taste of Home. Naturally I opened it up and read it. It reminded me of the drop donuts my mom used to make when I was a kid. I thought, “wouldn’t that be cool if I could duplicate these gluten-free?” Knowing that I had a hair appointment coming up soon, I thought this would be a good item to bring to the girls.

These donuts are deep fried and I generally do not deep fry inside the house – but it was cold and rainy out, so I did anyway. I believe I cooked them too long as they were a bit dry – in my opinion. The first batch were a slightly un-done, so I cooked the rest longer, but probably too long. They did remind me a lot of the donuts my mom used to make! I will probably do some more “tweaking” to them and I might even hunt down the original recipe from when I was a kid and try them. Everyone who tried them thought they were wonderful and most did not think they were too dry. I am my worst critic.

Here is the recipe if you would like to try them yourself!

 Applesauce Drop Donuts

 3 tablespoons butter, softened

¾ cup granulated sugar

3 eggs

1 cup unsweetened applesauce

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

4 ½ cups GF all-purpose baking flour

3 ½ teaspoons baking powder

2 teaspoons xanthan gum

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

¼ teaspoon ground nutmeg

¼ cup 2% milk

Oil for deep-frying

Additional sugar

 

In a large mixing bowl, cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy, about 2 minutes. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Beat in applesauce and vanilla.

In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour and next five ingredients; gradually add to the creamed mixture alternately with the milk (the batter will be thick).

In an electric skillet or deep-fryer, heat oil to 375º.

Using a small cookie scoop or teaspoon, drop spoonfuls of batter a few at a time into hot oil. Fry until golden brown on all sides.

Drain on paper towels; roll in sugar while warm.

Lindy’s note: I rolled the finished donuts in a mixture of cinnamon and sugar. Also note that the larger you make them, the longer they will have to cook therefore the darker they will become. Mine were not golden brown due to using a medium cookie scoop.

 

 

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Woo Hoo!! Happy Dance!!!

Posted on March 27, 2012 by admin

I was doing a “happy dance” tonight as we sat down to a very tasty meal of home made Bean and Bacon Soup and bread fresh out of the oven.

I subscribe to the blog “My Baking Addiction” on Facebook and a few weeks ago, she posted a recipe for English Muffin Bread. One of the things I truly love is English muffins – especially made as a breakfast sandwich. Oh if I could only make English muffins gluten-free, I would be set! So when I saw this recipe I thought to myself – “I’m going to try this and convert it gluten-free. It smelled WONDERFUL as it was finishing baking and I was praying it would taste just as good as it smelled (one never knows when dealing with this gluten-free animal!)  It was still warm as I sliced into it, the butter melted on it oh so nicely. All the nooks and crannies that English muffins have were missing and I was a little disappointed in that – but hey, in this gluten free world, if it tastes good, we are happy!

I had made dinner for friends I am staying with during my Spring break and they were the first to taste it and both agreed that it was quite tasty! I was really surprised!!! (And did not really believe them until I tasted it myself). Now I am really surprised and doing my “happy dance”!

The recipe said to bake the bread in an 8 ½”x4 ½” loaf pan. I do not have one that size (shock, I know….), so I used a 9”x5” loaf pan instead. The bread was not as tall as it would have been in a smaller pan, but that did not affect the taste any. I think what I will do next time is use two 5”x3” loaf pans and see how they turn out. This is definitely a keeper recipe and a lot less work than my famous sandwich bread (that I sold for $10.95 a loaf at my bakery….and yes, it is that good that people bought it at that price!)

Friends, it is time to close down for the night – but I just HAD to share before turning out the lights!

Stayed tuned for the story about the Drop Donuts – oh yeah, I said DONUTS!

Have tasty dreams!!

Lindy

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Bitter Flour Taste

Posted on March 8, 2012 by admin

GF Baking Tip

I only use Bob’s Red Mill GF All-Purpose Baking flour for my baking needs. If I come across a recipe that I do not think will support that type of flour, I don’t even consider it. My experimenting only goes so far!

That being said, I had countless requests for vanilla cake while I had my bakery. So, off I go to try and find a decent recipe that the bitterness of the bean flour will not overpower. I have learned how to disguise the bitterness with so many items – but vanilla cake…? That was a challenge.

Vanilla Cake with Vanilla Frosting

I did finally come up with something acceptable. One of my friends shares the same birthday month as me, so we decided to celebrate together and I made her favorite kind of cake – Vanilla with vanilla frosting! I baked it the same day we ate it and was very disappointed! Then I remembered that I usually baked the vanilla cakes/cupcakes the day before they were needed and froze them. So I stuck the cake in the freezer – ate some the next day and vwah-lah! The bitterness taste was gone (at least to my palette!)

The moral to this story is: if you use this type of flour for baking and find you are having trouble disguising the bitterness – try freezing it and see how that works for you! It worked for me!!

Happy baking!

Now, go out and have a TASTY day!!

Lindy

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Hello world! I’m back!!

Posted on March 8, 2012 by admin

It has been a long time since I have blogged about my gluten-free world.

A lot has happened in the last year – for those of you who had been following my blog, life has taken a major turn for me. In May of last year, I left my marriage of 34 years due to domestic violence. Not only am I an advocate for the gluten-free lifestyle, but also an advocate for domestic violence awareness. I have learned so much in the last 10 months – it has sometimes been overwhelming.

I left Greensboro, NC and the bakery I had opened to return to Ohio and a wonderful group of friends who have opened their homes and hearts for me. My daughter and son-in-law are still in North Carolina and we visit on a regular basis. Starting over has been quite the experience. While in North Carolina and especially during my stint with a bakery, I realized that my passion is music and that I need to be doing music. I have re-opened my private music teaching studio and am loving every minute (well, almost…) of it!  ;)

I have several new goals with this new journey I am on. 1 – to revise “Lindy’s Gluten-Free Goodies and More!” cookbook; 2 – get cookbook #2 published in 2012; 3 – start writing my story of domestic violence; and 4 – begin to pursue what it would entail to have some of my GF food products mass produced and available in stores.

My first cookbook – “Lindy’s Gluten-Free Goodies and More!” is coming out with a revised edition the end of this month.

Stay tuned for more “tasty news” as I am continually experimenting!

Have a tasty day!!

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