Ordinary Adventures of Sarah Hoot

Hello and welcome to gluten free baking with Sarah, this week I make a second attempt at creating gluten free Irish soda bread. For those who are following my baking attempts, you may remember that my first attempt at making this bread did not turn out very good. There was a weird aftertaste, it was super dense and not baked through all the way. So without further ado, here is round two (haha fire rhymes). Baking Begins Fixing the Problems This attempt at making soda bread turned out a bit better than the first time. I added some sugar to the mix which (I think) helped with the aftertaste. Now it is less better than it was before, there is still a different taste because it is gluten free and gluten free bread usually has a different taste. The next thing I set out to fix was the crumbliness of the bread, to do that I added some xantham gum to the mix (for those who aren't gluten free, xantham gum is used as a fiber source to bind the bread together). I also tried using l...

OK guys, so I am attempting to make gluten free Irish soda bread after going home for a St. Patrick's day party. While I was there I got to work with Mama Ramey to make soda bread for the first time and then eating it. Unfortunately, since it was non gluten free, that plus all of the other food and alcohol from the night I got pretty sick. So now I am on a mission to make this Irish favorite gluten free. Now I am sure that everyone is thinking "why don't you just look for a gluten free recipe on the internet?" And to that I say HA! Where is the fun in that? So now I am working on making my own recipe for it. Problems Arose Outside looks alright Look at the inside: under-baked and dense However, the first time making anything is never perfect and there were a LOT of issues with this first attempt. Here is the list of issues I had with the bread: WAAAAY too dense (seriously, like a rock), too dry (started crumbling apart), weird aftertaste (though this ma...

Good morning everyone! Here is another two-for-one special! Remember the flat tire incident from the other day? Well yesterday we had to go get it taken care of. Mama Ramey woke Jared and I up so that we could move and they could drive to the local Les Schwab to get it fixed up. While the mechanics were working on the car all of the kids slept and the parents went to Denny's to get some breakfast. With breakfast consumed and tires fixed, we set back out on the road. The whole day was pretty much spent driving with very few pit stops. Though we did stop at a bridge where Evil Kenevil did one of his stunts and watched some people base jump. Then we just drove until we got to our campground which was in Oregon this time. Once we got there Jared, CC, and I went swimming for a bit before we all got out to go and eat dinner. Then Jared and I went to the arcade to play some games (there were some really old games) until it closed and we went back to sit around the fire. We both hung o...

We finally made it to the Great Salt Lake, though I am not sure how I feel about the experience..... As usual we woke up fairly early but Jared and I were still half asleep so we slept on the bed for the first bit of the drive. I woke up a couple of times so I could get pictures when we passed by Temple Square, one of the original Latter Day Saints sites. The temple was really pretty and I hope that I can go back sometime to walk around and see the rest of the square. After that it was only a short drive before we reached the Great Salt Lake. None of us were prepared, our original plan was hey let's float on the Great Salt Lake but then we got there.... It was awful. It stank to high heaven, worse than the ocean which is actually a nice salt smell. And there were thousands and thousands of brine flies. Needless to say, I was not impressed. We got our sand and some souvenirs and left right quick. Once we vacated the worst of the stink we headed towards the salt flats. These ba...

We are leaving the desert soon I hope!! Today we are heading to Arches National Park and attempting to get to the Great Salt Lake. We set out some what early today, Mama Ramey made actual breakfast for us! Then after enjoying our scrumptious breakfast of eggs we headed out. These last few posts might be a bit boring since we are mainly just driving now on the way to get home. But today was a good day, we drove for a while looking at gift shops for last minute souvenirs and came across this really strange tourist attraction in Utah. On our way to Arches National Park we saw this place on the side of the freeway called Hole in the Rock (and by we I mean the driver and co-pilot since Jared and I were napping in the back). Anyways, this store was literally in a hole in a rock wall, there was a little store front but the rest of it went into the wall. There was also a trading post, some sculptures in a cactus garden, and a zoo of all things. We looked around for a bit and then we were b...

Today started very early for some reason. Mama Ramey wanted to get up and go right away so she got us up out of our bed and had us move to the big bed so that they could start driving. We didn't officially wake up until like 9:30.  So we pretty much drove a lot today. We had two scheduled stops but that was it. The first was to Four Corners. For those who don't know, Four Corners is basically a place where you can stand in four states at once: Arizona, Colorado, Utah, and New Mexico. So we stopped for a bit and took our pictures, there were also a bunch of vendors set up around the patio area selling different wares so we looked around for a bit. Then we headed back to the RV so we could eat lunch, everybody except Austin and I had Indian tacos which are tacos on top of fry bread. I had a chicken salad sandwich and I am pretty sure Austin just had chips.  Then we set off so we could get to our next stop. This time we were going to a place called Mesa Verde National Park...