Biscuits: The #1 reason not to bake gluten-free foods if you are not a gluten-free person.

So a few weeks ago a friend of mine rode out to the Bob's Red Mill Store. While he was shopping, he came across a big ol' super cheap bag of GF All-Purpose Baking Mix.

"Hey!" friend thought, "I bet Ashley wants some of that. Cuz, y'know, she doesn't eat gluten. And she's real broke. I'll pick some up for her." Now, I'm not a gluten-free person. Wheat-free, yes. But other non-wheat glutenous grains? Bring 'em on. So later that night, when dear friend appeared on my doorstep smiling from ear to ear and exclaimed triumphantly, "I got you some GF baking mix out at Bob's Red Mill today! Now you can have baked things!" I feigned excitement lest I crush his spirits. "Sweet!" I replied, "I can't wait to bake stuff!" After a little while he left, and the GF baking mix got tossed in the kitchen cupboard full of ingredients no one ever uses. Out of sight, out of mind...right?

Wrong. Friend kept on asking me if I had made anything yet, hoping to get some sweet GF treat in return for his thoughtfulness. And every time I made up and excuse or brushed him off, I felt like a jerk. A guilty dishonest jerk. And every time I opened up the kitchen cabinet, there was this enormous bag of GF flour looming up out of the darkness, with its little wholesome, happy, Farmer Bob logo silently mocking me.  Clearly I was going to have to bake something.

Luckily, Housemates and I had a dinner/meeting scheduled. And since it was one of those gross, grey, late-February days with nothing to recommend it except (possibly) comfort food, I decided to make biscuits and gravy.  To eliminate the chances of substitution errors I even followed a recipe that specifically called for Bob's GF Baking Mix, assuming it would be engineered specifically to yield tender, tasty, reasonable facsimiles of "normal" biscuits. Apparently I assumed wrong, because while the biscuits tasted fine, they were flat, on the dry side, and kind of tough.

At first I was bummed out. Was it me? Did I do something wrong? Was it the recipe? Should I try a different one? But then I came to a realization: I'm not a gluten-free person, and I don't need to eat gluten-free biscuits.  Don't get me wrong -- maybe, just maybe, there is such a thing as really good gluten-free biscuits. But I think I'm going to just stick with gluten-y biscuits instead.