Yesterday, the task was to make a wheat-less focaccia bread. My product was edible but not tasty. I can't blame the recipe. No, it is entirely my fault. As I prepared my ingredients for the focaccia bread found in the Wheat Belly Cookbook, I found that the order I placed for the almond flour and coconut flour had not come in yet. In my eagerness to try the recipe, I decided to "wing it" with the ingredients that I had on hand. Upon closer perusal, I find a bag of dried garbanzo beans and a bag of raw almonds. I think to myself, "oh this will work, I can make my own flours of garbanzo beans and almonds. He (the author) says you can make your own almond flour in the (wheat belly cook-) book." I proceed to get out my small food processor and all my supplies and ingredients. I pour 1 cup of dried garbanzo beans and pour them into the food processor. I turn it on and immediately my poor ears begin to bleed. You see, dried garbanzo beans, or chickpeas if you prefer, are hard as rocks, possibly harder. My children stumble into the kitchen to see where all the racket was coming from and find me nearly doubled over in laughter while the food processor continued its attempts of grinding pebbles. Then it stopped. I checked and re-checked with my husband (the mechanical genius in the family) and the food processor was really and truly dead this time. But I still do not have the flour I need for the recipe. As I think over what to do next, I figure that maybe I'll just try to do a reduced wheat foccacia. I pull out the flax seed flour and regular flour. I read the recipe and make the adjustments I think will work and start mixing. Using 2 cups of flax seed flour and 1 cup of bread flour, baking powder, salt, then mixing the yeast and buttermilk preparation and the 4 egg whites that were beaten to stiff peaks, folded into the dough gently yielded these results (see picture):
The next step was to spread the dough onto a greased baking sheet, smooth and dimple with fingertips and sprinkle the prepared herbed-olive oil (or plain olive oil, which was my choice) over the top.
Then into a 400 degree oven to bake for 20 minutes. No extra kneading or rising specified. After 20 minutes, I have this:
I cut a piece, pop the warm bread into my mouth, chew and then make myself swallow. The texture is the same as a chewy bread, it's the taste.....more blah-bland than bad, but pretty bad all the same. The only thing I can think of to possibly save it would be copious amounts of garlic butter. My husband tried a bite, my kids tried a bite. My youngest proclaimed, "that's nasty." And then I was left with a pan of focaccia bread no one wanted. Since I hate to waste anything, I decided I could make dressing with the crumbled focaccia and some cornbread I had in the freezer. I grab my slow cooker, chop some onion and celery, stir in cream of chicken and cream of celery soups. (Here's a shocker: the standard cream soups have wheat in them, be sure to read the labels!) I added some celery salt, and chicken broth and set my slow cooker to high for four hours. Here is the finished dressing:
While that cooked, I decided on Almond-Crusted Chicken for our supper. I pounded the boneless, skinless chicken breasts so that they were about an inch thick. This was a messy procedure. The recipe said to sandwich the chicken breasts between two sheets of wax paper and pound them until they are about an inch thick. My wax paper began to tear and I had chicken juice splattered all over my counter. Ewwww! Bleach clean-up time!
Chicken is ready for the next stage and I realize my food processor has died....how will I chop up the almonds small enough to crust the chicken? The meat tenderizer/pounder thingy is sitting in the dish drain all cleaned up, so I snatch it up, put the nuts in a bag and release my pent up aggression by beating the crap out of the almonds. Only problem is that if you get too carried away, the plastic bag tears and you have almond crumbs on the counter. I am very talented at creating messiness. So I dip the chicken into an egg batter, then into a seasoned almond crust. My almond crust consisted of 2 cups crumbled almonds, 1 cup flax seed flour , 1/2 teaspoon onion powder, salt and pepper to taste. The recipe said that they should cook 20 minutes on 375 but I didn't think they were quite done. I cooked them another 10 minutes and checked to make sure the juices were clear before taking them out of the oven.
Our supper consisted of almond-crusted chicken breasts, sautéed green beans, and corn bread (and wheat-reduced focaccia bread) dressing. Here's a picture of the chicken:
It was a delicious meal, although it wasn't a "knock your socks off" kind of delicious. The dressing was good but not nearly as good as my mother's, which of course, due to the holidays, I had recently consumed. Although I am not someone who really likes chicken, the almond-crusted chicken breast was pretty tasty. I didn't crumble the almonds quite as small as I should have, but because I really love almonds, it was a good thing for me. This will definitely be a recipe that I try again.
Now I have a new grocery list. I am out of traditional bread since my grandiose plan was to make the wheat-less focaccia bread. And since that didn't turn out the way I planned it's back to the grocery I go to pick up bread and a few other items that were forgotten the other day. Because I would rather use up my pantry stock of "wheated" items than throw it out, you will notice that for a while, my menus will include some wheat. I have boxes and boxes of breakfast cereal that I refuse to just throw away. Same for flours, I have whole wheat, self-rising, all purpose, and bread flour just to name a few in the pantry. I own and use a bread maker. We eat lots more "wheated" items than I initially thought. It may be difficult, but I'm not giving up yet.
Today's menu plan: eggs and sausage for breakfast, salad for lunch (corn tortilla chips instead of crackers) and Wheat Belly Cookbook Cheeseburger Soup for supper. Wish me luck. :)
