Cookie-Making Troubles

Imagine, if you will, a large, very large, window in a kitchenette area with fraction work written on it in blue. (Dry-erase markers.)

4/3 to 3/2 = ? to 2/3

Things like that. Resulting in fractions of 8/9 and 16/27.

"What are all those for?" I asked my 15yo.

"I don't know, they've been there for a while."

I didn't remember working with either one of them on fractions like that. What in the world...?

Oh, yes, my gluten-free cookie-making adventure. (Did you read my previous post about compound adjectives? Yes, you need them here, too. lol.)

The cookie-making adventure I'd forgotten to tell you all about when it happened. So, let me get started.





I found a chocolate chip raisin oatmeal cookie recipe I wanted to try from Cybele Pascal's The Allergen-Free Baker's Handbook. (See, she uses they hyphen, too! Otherwise it would be a FREE baker's handbook! :D) One that is vegan and gluten-free. It called for a gluten-free flour blend; I used recipe the recipe from the book for making my own blend. That's when things started to get interesting.

It shouldn't have been hard. The recipe calls for 3 ingredients. That's it. Brown rice flour, tapioca starch and potato starch. I measured the first two,  and went to see how much of the third I needed and saw it was the tapioca starch I had just put in. "Huh?" Shoot. I'd measured the wrong amount. Potato starch was the second ingredient, not tapioca. I only needed 2/3 of a cup of tapioca starch and I had the potato starch amount with the rice flour. Then the conversion factor came in to make up for the fact that I didn't measure the right thing. The flour was easy to adjust, but this one ingredient... It was complicated. I had all kinds of calculations written on the window. And after about 5 minutes of doing that, I looked again and saw it was actually 1 1/3 cups of potato starch that were needed (I had processed it as 1 1/2 cups), which then turned into I could just double the recipe and everything would be fine. And easy. Except I had already measured the extra flour I needed, so I needed to adjust and add even more. I therefore ended up with twice as much gluten-free flour blend as I had intended and I haven't really taken the time to do other gluten-free baking, so there's a large amount still sitting in the fridge.

In the process of measuring, I was trying to be quick about it since I was teaching a class that afternoon and needed everything to be cleaned up before students arrived. So I didn't pay attention to instructions such as scoop with a spoon into the measuring cups; I just poured, or rather, tried to pour, directly into measuring cups. And I was rushing. Bad combination, because here was the result:

The cookies themselves, I forgot to take a picture of. They were okay, but seemed to be lacking something in taste. Funny thing is I decided to freeze them and WOW, are they ever delicious right out of the freezer! I made a second batch last week to give away to my gluten-sensitive, dairy-allergic "niece."

Of course, after they were all done, I realized that I had actually measured 1 1/2 cups of tapioca starch, not 1 1/3, which means doubling wasn't quite the right thing to do. The blend is incorrect, but the cookies are fantastic from frozen. :D

The High-Speed Blenders I'm Considering

First, a little grammar lesson (yes, I have a teaching degree and specialized in language learning and am "particular" with details :D), with the understanding that the UK rules are a little stricter than the US rules, but being I'm in Canada, we tend to lean toward British rules for such things, even though many here are clearly influenced by US usage

It should not be "high speed blender", but rather "high-speed blender." A car can go at a high speed, but if we want to use those words as an adjective to describe the car, it is a high-speed car. Otherwise, it just doesn't make sense because it would lean more toward a meaning of it's a high (meaning it's up high) "speed car." Same thing with the blender. Is your blender kept up high on a shelf? Well, then it might qualify as a high speed blender. Here is more about the hyphen for compound adjectives: http://www.grammar-monster.com/lessons/hyphens_in_compound_adjectives.htm And if you like this sort of thing, check out Lynne Truss's books for some great, and funny, lessons about punctuation. :D

All right, nitpicky side of myself aside, here are the blenders I'm considering at the moment. I would appreciate all input!

The Vitamix:

The first high-speed blender I ever heard of when I started learning about raw foods. And I immediately discounted it due to the cost! I haven't forgotten it, though, and did find out about refurbished and even Amazon has more reasonable price on the 1782. But there's another issue that has come up in my recent research: there are different Vitamixes. Those of you with Vitamixes, which one do you have?

The Blendtec:

The Blendtec can be just as expensive as the Vitamix, but I don't know how they compare in terms of value for functionality because it, too, has different models. I've seen an increasing number of raw foodists say they are using this one and are very happy with it. Are you using a Blendtec? Have you used both a Blendtec and a Vitamix and have a preference?

The Waring:

There are a few from Waring that seem like they would fit the bill, the Waring Pro and the Waring Commerical Xtreme being two that come to mind. It does not seem to be as popular as the Vitamix or the Blendtec, but that doesn't mean it doesn't have good potential! Does anybody reading have this one? Any thoughts, comments?

Things I'm looking at: How well it performs. Cost. How much space it takes up. Ease of cleaning. Pros and cons. Warranty. Anything you can share would be greatly appreciated!

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Just a little note: Whenever looking at the star ratings on Amazon and you are concerned about a product that has a number of low stars, go actually read the poor reviews. So often, you just have to wonder what people are thinking. One person rated one blender I was looking at with a single star, saying the jar was too big. (?!) Why somebody would buy a blender with a big jar and then complain about it being big is beyond me, but that's one of the ratings there. I've also seen people give a rave review on a product but it only has a single star. I don't know if they thought that 1 was the best or what, but it is a definite error that gives a faulty impression! Another thing people will give low stars for is if it took to long to ship or something; completely unrelated to an actual product rating. Read the reviews. See if the product itself is actually likely to disappoint you or not!

I need a new blender

I thought my blender was just fine. For small quantities, it is. Although, it's just a standard blender and I never get the smoothness that I read about high-speed blenders doing for smoothies or hummus or other things. I saw the other night that even just my spaghetti sauce doesn't get blended very well. The blender seems to do well up to about 3 cups, and then after that... After a couple of years of having smoothies a lot, and having had the thing possibly close to 10 years, I can tell the motor is having a hard time.

I know the Vitamix is very popular. It's also very pricey! So, I'm looking to hear from people about their high-speed blenders: What brand do you have? How does it compare to others you may have had or tried? How long has it lasted? How much did it cost? Anything else you can tell me about it?

One Day Can Undo It All

I was very "good" last week, having smoothies every morning, staying raw through until the afternoon (although I had steamed broccoli for lunch one day, but it was still veggies)--essentially, over 50% of my diet was raw fruits and veggies--and was feeling better and was 3 pounds down (nice to get rid of some of the excess water on me!)

And then I had yesterday.

And those 3 pounds are instantly back.

I feel gross. Even before I weighed myself (which I did because I thought the jeans I put on shouldn't have been as tight as they were!), I could feel it. Blech. Hardly any fruits and veggies yesterday, lots of processed grains, sugar... I just feel blech.

Back today to what makes me feel good!