miles2go

＜How to make Hand made "White Miso"＞

Wow! Thank you so much!! I have a Japanese coworker, should I run into trouble.  She doesn't cook much at all, but she'll be psyched that I'm making miso.  I love to make food that you have to wait for.

How very sweet of your friends, but I would be leery of something cooked in their kitchens.  I have a shared kitchen, but I also have separate margarine tubs, separate spoon rests, separate colanders, and I watch very carefully for bread crumbs that somehow manage to get EVERYWHERE now that I'm more aware.  I threw out my sugar and got a new bag because there were times in my pre-celiac days I would measure a cup of flour, wipe off the measuring cup with a paper towel, then dip the measuring cup into the sugar. (I know, you all are cringing...)  The last example probably is what I think of most when I worry about other peoples' cooking.  Most people are aware that bread crumbs end up in the margarine tub, but what about flour in the sugar from when you made cookies 6 months ago?

I've been glutened by my mother - who has a master's degree and read up on the subject and bought all gluten-free stuff for Christmas dinner. She swears she has no idea how it happened.  Maybe it was a bread crumb in the spoon drawer.  Who knows.

I was also glutened by a physician friend who at one time forwarded me information on gluten-free medications - I think it was cc on the grill where she was cooking the 'gluten-free' brats.

Don't mean to sound paranoid, just realistic.

You do bring up a good point.  I have never been glutened by my neighbors, who have family members with celiac, but I have been glutened by our food science department at the university where I work.  It is always a gamble, when you aren't processing your own food.

Also, khachapuri, yum.

I lost my zucchini plants this year too. I had several new zucchini recipes I had wanted to try out. However, asian thin skinned cucumbers did well and I've got miso pickles and sugar/vinegar pickles on hand. I made my own miso last year with the starter culture grown on brown rice so used that. Dried some sage and thyme for winter use. Will need to dry more. My stash didn't last me until the herbs came back in the spring, close, but not quite enough.

Our zukes did a nice harvest and are now died out, although the yellow squash are still cranking.  I'm not sure why they went, there is a little bit of powdery white mildew, but it's more likely the blight from last year, the mini-drought they went through while we were away or a combination of the three.
I am in awe of your miso making abilities, would you mind sharing how you do that?
I've made my own amazake before, but it was pre-gluten-free and I don't remember if my koji source was gluten free.

Margaret

I am blessed by close neighbors with whom we eat at least a couple of times a week.  I think it is his uncle who has celiac, so he already knew what was going on and I've been thoroughly impressed ever since the first barbecue when he scrubbed the grill completely.  Now when we have people over, there are already four of us that are at the very least gluten-aware, if not completely gluten-free and so the awareness spreads gradually and much more gracefully.  Of course we have picky, vegetarian and diabetic friends and family too, so no one is really freaked out about dietary limitations.  
It's very copacetic.