Gluten Free Tomato Soup

Extra Thick, 

2 cans (or equivalent)       Tomatoes, peeled, & diced or crushed,
                                         drain & save juice

1 T                                    Salt

1 t                                     Pepper

2T                                     Italian dressing or any vinaigrette
                                          dressing or dry mix. 

2 cans                               Tomato juice or V8

1/4 C                                Corn starch (or any thickening starch)

1 C                                   Milk or cream to taste

*      Simmer tomato pulp and 1/2 of the juice

*     Add spices to taste.

*     Mix starch and 1/4 of the cold juice to a slurry.

*     Add cold starch slurry to simmering tomatoes.  Stir a lot to ensure even distribution.

*     Assess whether you need more thickening.  

*     If you're going to add milk before serving make it extra thick.  Use the rest of the juice and more starch, a tablespoon at a time. Or use the rest of the juice to thin out the soup.  It will thicken more as it cools, and even more if you reheat it.

Best Gluten Free Bread (so far)

This recipe from Celiac.com is 2/3 rice flour an 1/3 tapioca starch. (http://www.celiac.com/articles/457/1/White-Bread-2-Gluten-Free/Page1.html).
I used half xanthan gum and half guar gum rather than all xanthan gum and added a teaspoon of psyllium powder. I also used half Expandex and half regular tapioca starch.  I think that the whipping the batter into a 'whipped cream' state was the main reason it has such a tight texture, though the psyllium and split gums may have helped keep the loaves from collapsing.  The recipe almost fills a regular loaf pan, and the rise only adds a little more volume, but the oven spring really jumps it up!  They didn't shrink after cooling, though I did put them on their side for the initial cooling, removed them from the pans and left them in the oven to slow-cool.

This is the best I've done so far. It toasts well and tastes very good.  I'm going to tweak the buckwheat recipe next. (Did 2 more loaves... same great results!)

Motherhood for Ms Barnevelder!

Ms Barnevelder hatched out a few chicks who didn't survive, sadly.  Undeterred she got right back up and set for another 21 days... Success!  She's now the proud mama to 6 biddies, one of whom is a teensy Serama.  Congratulations, Ms B.

Here is Ms Cuckoo Maran with her 13 biddies and Ms Barnevelder #1 with her surviving 4 chicks.  Ms Maran and Ms Silkie hatched chicks at the same time in adjoining boxes.  Chicks and Mamas bond even before hatching to their peeps and clucks... and these chicks couldn't tell which Mama was theirs.  Mama wars ensued, with little Ms Silkie loosing all but two babies.  Ms Maran is quite capable of mothering all, and the babies sleep with her at night.  Many of my chicken co-mother chicks, especially silkies, who will co-brood a nest and then share the biddies.