Living on a gluten free diet can be really difficult, since so many things contain the protein. I have a horrible intolerance to it. I’ll spare you the details, but I will say that it isn’t pretty and can be awfully painful. Needless to say, I am always looking for different alternatives so that I can stay totally gluten free.
One of my favorite alternatives is oat flour, but wow is it expensive to buy continuously! Even when trying to buy in bulk, it didn’t save much money. Overall, being on a gluten free diet is pretty expensive unless you are constantly rotating the same few things to eat, which is so boring. Plus, I really like my baked goods.
When I discovered my preference for oat flour, I decided to research how I could make it myself. I don’t know why I expected it to be complicated, but it wasn’t at all! It turned out that all I had to do was take oats and put them in the food processor and just turn it on until it reached a flour like consistency.
I did a search for other parts for my Cuisinart food processor and discovered KitchenWorksInc. They sell actual Cuisinart dfp-14 parts made by Cuisinart. I picked up some extra blades and a dough blade since I was sure I’d be using it sometime down the road as I found more gluten free recipes.
It ended up being so much cheaper to make the oat flour on my own, and I was totally shocked by it. I wish I had known this all along to save myself the extra money, but I’m glad I figured it out. It’s really a shame that things are so much more expensive for people who are on special diets, yet the basic old all purpose flour is so cheap. I suppose that’s the same all around, like with fast food and healthy food. That’s why I try to share my ideas with anyone I know who is also gluten intolerant.
I will say that oat flour is not the right substitute for everything, not even close. But it works for many of my favorites, like pancakes, waffles, muffins, banana bread, and certain types of cakes. I enjoy the consistency of it, while I know some people don’t.
For other things, which I don’t make as often, such as gluten free pizza crust, I make a gluten free flour blend in my Cuisinart food processor, which involves quite a bit more ingredients and measuring them out perfectly. The cool thing is that I make the flour blend in the food processor, and I can also make the actual pizza dough in it with my dough blades. That makes all the work on the flour blend well worth it.
Although being totally gluten free is quite the challenge, I’ve found ways to make it easier and more inexpensive which is a huge deal. It’s not easy having a specific diet, especially while on a budget. That’s why I’m so glad my Cuisinart food processor makes it that much easier for me!