New Mum’s Food Adventures

I accidentally bought 4kg but I am not complaining. We go through a lot of gluten free flour as I make a lot from scratch. It’s not that there’s not enough gluten free things available it’s that I live in the country and it’s not available in my area or much of it. So I make a lot of things from scratch. Last night was pasta.

My apologies for the messy photo but I was quite exhausted. Usually I have a nicer sauce and usually it’s nice and thick but bubs was throwing a huge tantrum over me cooking and I cut it short. It was still a good meal as ugly as it looks. These were stirred into the sauce and barely broke. They were strong enough to twirl a little and soft. I like soft spaghetti or noodles. These were very close to feeling like regular gluten 2 minute noodles. This flour has worked the best for pasta which has currently been my first test for the flour. Next is pastry, cookies and some bread rolls. Bread rolls in particular have been very difficult. The best I made was super dry. They were frankly awful but I won’t stop trying. I feel more confident with this new flour.

For this pasta I accidentally added too much xanthum which worked out in my favour. I measured out 314 grams flour. I thought oh what’s 14 grams who cares. Then I accidentally added 13 gram’s xanthum gum. I was aiming for 7 But it just fell out suddenly. I can usually sprinkle it fine but not yesterday and it turned out to be a good mistake. I added three eggs so one egg per 100 grams and water as needed until I achieved dough. I had extra flour for dusting. Then I let it rest for 20 minutes. I let the xanthum hydrate before doing anything else. It took a lot of laminating. It’s brittle and sticky. Keep going. Keep rolling through the roller until it starts to come out like smooth pasta. It could take 10 or more passes through the rollers but it’s worth it. It sounds like a lot of work but it’s not that bad. I made dinner within a reasonable amount of time. It would have been nice to get the sauce done right but I had little choice. Little man needed some comfort. Very glad the pasta worked but it was still thin and felt more like noodles than spaghetti. But it was still really good. I think thicker fettuccine would have been amazing.

Currently baby hates pasta. He used to love it now he hates it. So I switch his spaghetti pasta to rice and he is happy. He goes through phases with pasta but it’s ok. Sometimes I just turn his spaghetti dish into pizza toast and he loves it. Hard part is having enough gluten free bread thus all the bread experiments. The bread bubs and hubby love is frequently out of stock. So now with new flour I will try again to make better homemade gluten free bread. For now the well and good crusty loaf bread mix is a huge winner but like the made bread, available stock on the shelves is an issue. It would be good to know how to make a good one for times where we can’t buy what’s favoured. The crusty loaf mix by well and good is really good and would make excellent garlic bread to go with dinner. It’s great. But I still have a lot to learn.