Mac and Cheese and Bread

Today was the first time I attempted to make gluten free bread.  Frankly it didn't come out bad, just a little dense.  I used a little bit too much potato flour.  Ooops!  The bread is a nice dense potato bread with a good flavor but not what I am looking for.  I'll add less potato flour and more rice flour next time.  

I was working with what I had and also followed a few recipes rather loosely.  The flour mixture was brown rice flour, potato flour, tapioca flour and sorghum flour.  I added 1 tablespoon of xanthan gum, some salt, and about 1/4 cup of sugar.  This was the dry ingredients.  I started out with about 1/4 cup of warm water maybe a tablespoon of sugar and a packet of yeast.  Let that sit while I got the dry ingredients together and then the wet.  I used two eggs, 1/4 cup oil, 2 teaspoons vinegar, and one cup of milk, warm.  Mixed them together with the yeast and it made one VERY weird dough!  

I am an experienced regular old wheat flour bread baker.  This dough, well, this dough is going to take some getting used to!  The texture is all wrong for bread so I was not sure what to do with it.  I placed it in the bread pan and allowed it to rise for an hour.  It rose a teeny bit.  Smelled good, like bread, but did not rise.  I must do some research on this now.  Baked it at 350 for about an hour.  The moist, dense loaf is the result.  Now my son loves the texture of this loaf but he is also a big fan of potato bread.

Tonight I also used brown rice pasta for the first time to make a mac and cheese.  I am using my usual recipe that is from my mother-in-law and a family favorite.  The mac is in the oven now, but the macaroni part sure seemed just fine.  The pasta I used is Tinkyada Pasta Joy.  Good stuff!  We'll see how it held up to this heavy mac and cheese, but it seemed like it will be just fine!  Juliana over at Surviving Boys recommended this type of pasta so thanks Juliana!! 

I am starting to get the hang of this gluten free stuff, I think.  My stomach area feels pretty good although I had a bit of a setback yesterday and today forcing me to scramble around and try to find out if I had any wheat.  I have handled wheat products, like slicing rolls for my family, so I am not sure if that it is.  Could I be that sensitive?  Maybe! 

Will update later about the mac and cheese!

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The mac and cheese was awesome!  NO ONE would be able to tell that the pasta was brown rice pasta and that I used my gluten free flour mix (2 tablespoons) to thicken the cheese sauce!  Awesome!