Buy Flours?

I still buy my flours at the grocery store (Hy-Vee). Since it's pretty expensive, I'm in the process of shopping around online to find a better deal. A couple websites I'm checking out are The Gluten Free Mall, Amazon, and Bob's Red Mill.

I buy Bob's Red Mill brand right now, and I'm really happy with it. I trust the brand to be contamination free.

Where do you buy your flours? What brands do you use? I'd love to learn from your experiences!

Oven Fried Chicken

I tried a new recipe for dinner yesterday, and Tim and I both declared it a keeper! I really miss breaded foods, chicken expecially, so I thought I ought to pluck up the courage and try making some myself. I know, I know; I'm 25 and I probably should've made fried chicken at some point in my life, but I haven't. Until now.

Oven Fried Chicken

2 parts rice flour (1/2 cup)
2 parts sorghum flour (1/2 cup)
1 part potato starch (1/4 cup)
Paprika
Sea salt
Pepper
1/3 cup chicken broth
2 tablespoons butter
2 chicken breasts

(I made this just for the two of us, so I wrote the recipes in "parts" to make it easier to cook for more people)

Preheat the oven to 425. Melt the butter in the bottom of the baking dish. Add the chicken broth to the butter. Mix all of the dry ingredients in a big zipper bag. Shake up each of the breasts in the bag to fully coat them. Place the chicken in the baking dish and bake for 30 minutes. Take out of the oven and flip the chicken pieces over; bake for 30 more minutes. Check the largest piece for doneness. Serve immediately.

Weekly Menu, Addendum

When I went to make my grocery list, I realized that I completely forgot to make a menu for this weekend. How silly is that?! So, here's my weekend food adventure:

• Saturday lunch - Cheeseburger bake
• Saturday dinner - Italian Chicken with rice
• Sunday lunch - Cheesy sweet potato soup

I'm looking forward to trying a few new recipes. I'll let you know how they turn out!

On a side note, check out Tenille at Gluten Free Frugal's summer reading.

Wheat and Legume Free?

I got an interesting comment from "C," and she said that her son has a wheat allergy, egg allergy and an all-encompassing legume allergy. I feel for her; it sounds like they are really struggling to figure out what's going on with their son's diet.

I've not heard of anyone being wheat allergic and legume allergic. If any of you readers have heard of someone else in this same situation, please leave a comment. Hopefully "C" will visit again to check comments.

I know a lot of gluten free recipes call for bean flours. I myself have not ventured too far into the world of bean flours; I stick with mainly rice and tapioca flours. So, "C," most of my recipes should work for you, minus the ones with eggs. I know rice flour is almost a thing of the gluten-free-past by now, but it works for me. One day I will start working with bean flours, but I'm happy where I am for now.

Weekly Menu

Tim's sitting next to me working on the laptop. I'm going to see if he'll help me plan the menu for this week...

He says he'll help; what a great guy!

• Monday - Tomato soup (this was so good we want to have it again; also, we're out of pretty much everything else!)
• Tuesday - Oven-fried chicken, rice, veggies
• Wednesday - Tortilla pizzas
• Thursday - Quesadillas
• Friday - Mexican Lasagna

This week Tim and I start playing with our city's Summer Band. That means that we have a 7:00 rehearsal every Wednesday and a 7:00 concert every Thursday for the next 8 weeks. Needless to say, we'll be doing quick and easy meals on those two nights!

As usual, check out Org Junkies Menu Plan Monday!

Also, check out Gluten Free Mommy for the weekly Menu Roundup!

June Budget Beginnings

We're starting our cash adventure today. We've switched to using cash for groceries and consumables. We gave ourselves a $200/month budget to start out with. After June we may tweak it either up or down depending on how it went this month.

Today we had a few non-food items that we needed, so we stopped by CVS. We got 2 Pantene shampoos, Pantene intensive conditioner, 4 Dawn dish soaps, floss, 4 Oral-B toothbrushes, mouthwash, bandaids, napkins, Scott toilet paper, Hefty garbage bags, and a bag of peanut M&Ms. We spent $5.56 out of pocket and got $23.49 in Extra Care Bucks back to use next time we shop at CVS.

Now we won't use all 4 Dawns or toothbrushes tomorrow, but we will use them in the next few months. That means that we will have more money that can go towards food. Also, even if we got all of this stuff at the dollar store or as generics at Wal-Mart, we still would have paid more that we did today at CVS.

We were happy with our CVS shopping trip. Now, if only we could find a #2 plastic water bottle. You wouldn't think that would be too difficult, but apparently it is!