Gluten Freebies

Summer Blog Project: Gluten Free Easily's Magic Oat Bars

2010-08-12T13:14:00.000-04:00

When I woke up this morning, I was in the mood for two things: chocolate and magic. I know I'm not the only person who eats when stressed. I think most people do. Had a bad day at work? Well, just grab a bag .of potato chips! A tiff between lovers? No need to fret. Just make sure to have that Ben & Jerry's at hand. We go for the easy fix, whatever's right in front of us (God forbid we have to get up and actually peruse through the pantry closet). But today, though I wasn't making the healthiest snack, I found that the process of actually making that snack can be the best part.

This dire need for chocolate and a bit magic was the perfect chance for me to try making the Magic Oat Bars from one of my favorite blogs, Gluten Free Easily. Shirley Braden, the writer of Gluten Free Easily, doesn't only write about food and recipes. Her blog spreads the word about Celiac Disease and gluten intolerance so that nobody has to go on being ill when there's a solution. She shares information on symptoms, her support group and also puts together some amazing recipes. When it comes to being gluten free, her motto is that it should be easy. The world doesn't end when we're diagnosed with Celiac Disease. Like many of the bloggers I've written about this summer, she proves that being diagnosed is the entry to a world of new tastes. Though there are certainly challenges, cross-contamination and those recipes that go horribly wrong, there are triumphs and great foods that make it all worth while. Shirley is all about showing her readers that it doesn't have to be as difficult as we originally thought it would be.

When I came upon the Magic Oat Bars, I knew they would be the perfect snack when shut up in the school dorms, loaded with homework and in need of a break. And just as Shirley claims, they're definitely easy to make. The ingredients Shirley uses for the Magic Oat Bars are:

1 ½ cups rolled oats
½ cup butter, melted
14-oz can sweetened condensed milk
2 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips
1 1/3 cups flaked coconut
1 cup chopped nuts (your choice)

I decided on cashews as my nut of choice as I've been craving them lately. I put cashews in anything I possibly can.

I also skipped out on the coconut. I actually like coconut, but I wasn't much in the mood for it today. And I wanted my mom, who doesn't like coconut, to enjoy the Magic Oat Bars as well.

As for the rolled oats, I used Bob's Red Mill Gluten Free Rolled Oats. Most of the gluten free flours I use are Bob's Red Mill products, so I knew I couldn't go wrong using this brand. They're really tasty.

So, the first thing you want to do is put your butter in a small bowl and melt it in the microwave. Then add your oats to the butter and mix well. You'll want to eat it just like this. At least, I know I did. I admit, I did steal a few pieces. How could I not? It looks so good.

Now find a serving dish about 13x9 inches. Mine was actually a little smaller than that, but you don't want it to be too big or the layers will be thinner. When you find your serving dish, put the mixture in as your first layer. It'll seem loose, but that's okay. Press it down into the bowl once you get it evened out.

Your next layer will be the sweetened condensed milk. I just opened the can and poured it all over the butter and oats. Try to do this evenly.

After that is when the magic comes in: chocolate chips. Sprinkle the chocolate chips over the entire thing, again, trying to make it even. You might want to use more or less than two cups, so add them at your leisure, until you think it looks chocolatey enough. It'll look something like this:

Yeah, it's a lot of chocolate. Now, you're almost done.

Since I chose cashews, I decided to bake them a bit before chopping them up and adding them to the batch. I put my oven on at 350 degrees, which is also what we'll be baking the oat bars at later. Once heated, I stuck the cashews in for about seven minutes. I wanted to give them a head start since they were raw nuts. It also makes them a bit easier to chop. Your whole kitchen will smell like cashews too, which never hurt anybody. So chop up your nuts and sprinkle them on top of the whole thing.

Now you're ready to pop it in the oven. It'll take about twenty-five minutes to bake. Check on it from time to time. It will start browning on top.

When it's finished cooking, let it cool down before cutting it up and serving. Here's the final product:

See that giant layer of chocolate in the middle? It's what makes these oat bars so magical. I cut it up, and ended up eating it more like a brownie because it was pretty soft. That first mouthful of cashews, chocolate and oats is so perfect. I couldn't believe how much chocolate there was! And it smells so good. You can catch the scents of both the chocolate and the cashews, which is such a good combination. Like Shirley says, this isn't a healthy snack in the least, but when you need that fix of sweetness during times of stress, this is a great way to get that. It's easy and fun to make. I can imagine myself making this for my children one day. But, for now, these oat bars will be put to good use in the college setting. In a few weeks, I'll be back to staying up late, writing papers and feeling generally stressed. I'm definitely going to need a chocolate fix.

I want to thank Shirley of Gluten Free Easily for this great recipe and for allowing me to use it here. If you haven't already, please look at her blog! She has so much good information and recipes galore. And the next time you're stressed, remember to make her Magic Oat Bars.

Miel

Summer Blog Project: No Mayo Potato Salad from Gluten Free Cooking is Easy

2010-08-09T13:12:00.001-04:00

It's been another interesting week, what with being sick, getting better and then celebrating my upcoming twenty-first birthday with my gal pals from school. I definitely overestimated myself a bit. It was originally my plan to knock out two recipes at my party, but only managed one. But no bother. The Summer Blog Project will simply be extended into September a bit. Maybe you guys will get a glimpse of my new kitchen in my new dorm. Ooh, la la!

Anyway, I thought my party was the perfect excuse to cook. Having six girls over calls for a decent amount of food. So I decided to go with the No Mayo Potato Salad featured on Gluten Free Cooking is Easy. It would go perfectly with our burgers and hotdogs and it was something I had wanted to try ever since coming across the post. My grandmother makes a mean potato salad, but I wanted to try one without mayonnaise. It's one of my major vices, my consumption of mayonnaise. So while I still slather it onto my sandwiches, it's not an awful idea to try and cut it out of other delicious foods, right? And this potato salad looked so delicious on Jessica and Jerilyn's blog that I couldn't resist.

Gluten Free Cooking is Easy is one of the newer blogs that I follow and since I've been covering pretty popular, well known blogs, I thought it a nice idea to add in some of my new favorites. Jessica and Jerilyn are sisters who love to cook. Jessica has Celiac Disease and as their blog title displays, their philosophy on gluten free cooking is that it doesn't have to be difficult. I find the idea of two sisters cooking and blogging together so charming and they really come up with some great recipes, some derived from family classics, other twists on cultural dishes.

The two are definitely onto something. Gluten free cooking is easy, as long as you have the tools to do it. And the potato salad was definitely easy to make. There isn't any substituting since normal potato salads are gluten free. But taking mayonnaise out of the mix makes it perhaps a bit healthier, which never hurt anybody. The potato salad calls for:

1 bag red potatoes
2 or 3 celery stalks
1 can sliced black olives
1 red onion
1 handful of chopped, fresh basil leaves
Juice of two lemons
Extra Virgin Olive Oil
Salt and Pepper

I actually don't like olives, so I omitted that from the batch. I also somehow forgot about the basil, which is pretty silly considering I had the recipe right in front of me the entire time. I think, perhaps, I was so eager for my friends to arrive that it slipped my mind!

The first thing I did was wash the potatoes and put them on the stove to boil. I decided to boil them before cutting them. My mom showed me a trick to figuring out when the potatoes are done. Try to slide a knife into one of the potatoes. You can feel how soft the potato is by how far the knife goes into without a struggle. Jessica and Jerilyn say that you want your potatoes tender but not mushy.

While your potatoes are boiling, you'll want to put everything else together. Chop up the red onion and the celery and put them into whatever bowl you'll be serving your potato salad in. Then douse them in your lemon juice. This is when the kitchen starts becoming really fragrant. The lemon and onion smell take over the room. Then add your olive oil, salt and pepper. I think next time, I'll add more salt. As Jessica and Jerilyn don't specify how much salt, pepper and olive oil to put into the potato salad, it's a lot of deciding for yourself how much you want. I like this because everybody likes their potato salad a little different.

Once you feel that the potatoes are where you want them to be, drain them and run them under cold water. Do this until the potatoes are cool enough to touch, but still hot on the inside. Now, you cut the potatoes into cubes. Since they're still hot on the inside, the pieces will absorb a lot of the flavors of the mixture in the bowl once added to the mixture. So after cutting each potato, throw the steaming pieces in. Once finished, mix the entire concoction and you'll have something like this:

I prefer my potato salad at room temperature, and since there isn't any mayonnaise in it, it's not imperative that you put it in the refrigerator right away. After having some of it, I put it in the fridge (and am still nomming on it as we speak). The flavors of the onion, salt, pepper and lemon all work really well together and smell so fantastic. The colors of the red potatoes, the red onion and the celery make it a dish that's nice to look at as well. I'll add more salt next time, but as I'm still learning how to adequately spice my food, I think I did a pretty good job.

So the potato salad and the party were a great success! I also have something else I'd like to show you from the party. My aunt recently started decorating cakes and she's really talented. She also decorates cookies and cupcakes. Her business is called Cake Emprise and she makes some really beautiful desserts that taste good too! For my party, she made me a gluten free Sherlock Holmes cake and it came out great! She used the 'Cause You're Special yellow cake mix, which is really moist and sweet. The cake was really impressive so I thought I'd let you have a look:

It was a really awesome gluten free cake! And everything was edible, even the letters and the pipe. She worked really hard on it so I wanted to give her a shoutout here and a thank you. Everybody loved the cake, Aunt Lisa!

I'd also like to thank Jessica and Jerilyn for allowing me to use their recipe on my blog and for making such great food. Go check out their blog, Gluten Free Cooking is Easy.

Miel

Summer Blog Project: Gluten Free Betsy's Gluten Free Thin Mints

2010-07-23T12:02:00.000-04:00

It's been quite a week! It turns out that the motherboard on my laptop was completely shot and I'm now in the process of getting a new computer. Thankfully, with my new, fancy phone, I was able to continue to tweet and access facebook, but I needed to wait until I had a computer with with I could post my pictures. Now that I have my loaner, I can finally tell you all about my recent culinary endeavor. I think it'll be worth the wait!

The past weekend, I was up in Tewksbury for Sam's twenty first birthday party. It was great to see all of my girls again, especially since I came bearing treats for them to try!

I thought this was the perfect chance to make Gluten Free Betsy's Thin Mints. Everybody loves Thin Mints, right? When I saw that Betsy had a recipe for gluten free Thin Mints, I couldn't wait to try them. I missed those boxed girl scout cookies. I wanted that mix of chocolate cookie and mint that reminded me of being a little girl.

It was easy to decide on Gluten Free Betsy as one of my favorite bloggers. I found her when she became one of the first followers of this blog. I was so flattered since I didn't have much readership and much of what I posted was my rambling and complaining. Now that I've grown as a blogger and a gluten freebie, I want to repay one of my earliest followers and favorite bloggers. Betsy writes recipes and product reviews which have been really helpful to me when looking for something new to try. Something else about Betsy's blog that I love is that she writes about life. When I read her posts, I don't feel as though I'm reading just about food. I'm experiencing a piece of her life with her. It's obvious why she would make it on the list!

So, without further ado, I present to you, Gluten Free Thin Mints!

Betsy's recipe calls for:

2 ¼ cups gluten free all purpose flour (I used Gluten Free Girl's all purpose flour mix which you can find here)

¼ cup cornstarch
6 tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder

½ tsp salt

1 cup white sugar

½ cup butter, room temp

⅓ cup milk (any kind)

½ tsp vanilla extract

¾ tsp peppermint extract

The first step in Betsy's recipe asks you to mix together the flour, cornstarch, cocoa powder, salt and baking powder. I noticed that the amount of baking powder wasn't in the list of ingredients, but I put in one teaspoon of baking powder as per my mother's advice.

I'm pretty bad at following rules apparently because I ended up simply adding all the dry ingredients together before realizing that she says to put the sugar with the butter. Woops! This method works with most recipes though, so I wasn't worried. I simply continued by putting the wet ingredients in a bowl together.

I then gradually added the dry ingredients into the wet. Now, there aren't a lot of wet ingredients so it's a very dry dough. I ended up using my hands to mix it together (I was too lazy to dig the mixer out of the closet). A mixer might work a little better, but for those of you who don't have a mixer, or have one hidden in the deepest, darkest corner of the closet and can't find the will power to dig it out, using your hands is just fine. It's a bit difficult to work it all together because of how dry it is. But persevere!

I worked the dough into two logs, which was difficult because of the crumbly consistency of the dough. Try to wrap first and then shape once it's wrapped. And try to make the logs even. I accidentally made one too big and it broke. It all worked out in the end, but it'll be a bit easier if you make them pretty even in size.

Now shove them in the freezer and wait for them to get firm. I'd check on them every half hour or so. I let them sit for an hour and they were pretty solid. Slicing them is pretty difficult. Betsy suggests making them 1/4 inch thick. It's a bit challenging to keep them thin since the dough is still a little likely to crumble. But once you manage, it's smooth sailing. Pop them in the oven for fifteen minutes and you have your cookies.

Of course, we're not done yet. We're missing the chocolate coating! I tried the cookie before administering the chocolate coating. It's a great cookie, but the mint overpowers the chocolate. That's where the coating comes in. For the coating we need:

10-oz dark or semisweet chocolate

½ c butter, room temp

I simply put the ingredients in my measuring cup and shoved them in the microwave. Betsy suggests you check on it and mix every 45-60 seconds. I did it for about a minute and a half, checking after sixty seconds. I almost wanted to devour all of the chocolate by myself. Forget the cookies! But I forced myself to keep it for my cookies. I used two forks to cover the cookies in chocolate and to get them onto the wax paper.

Next time, I think I might keep the mixture in the microwave a little longer because I found that it was a bit too thick. I ended up running out of the chocolate coating before getting through with all of the cookies. Do I think it was too much chocolate for the cookie itself? Absolutely not.

I would give the cookies a while to dry next time I make them. I underestimated how long it would take and had to move them prematurely in order to make it in time for my party. Some might have lost some of their chocolate coating, but all in all, it worked out just fine. I made sure to put them in the refrigerator when I arrived at Sam's house and had to let them melt a little bit before serving them that night.

During the long drive to Sam's house, I put them on the floor of Jen's passenger seat (hooray for carpooling long distances) and we blasted the air on our feet. It worked out nicely.

Sam's house and property is the most beautiful I've ever seen. They have a farm with goats and horses and llamas and her mother's garden is so colorful and bright. And her house is amazing. But these all pale in comparison to the compassion shown by her mother, who was kind enough to have a gaggle of girls bombard her home. She always made sure I had food (and even made me a gluten free pizza!). She had so much food ready for us that I almost forgot about my cookies!

Don't worry! I didn't forget entirely! It was perfect having them that night when we were hanging out and playing games. When I finally tried a finished cookie, the chocolatey mint flavor was perfect. I didn't find that it was too much chocolate or too much mint. Keri called it a "chocolate explosion" and said she loved how much chocolate there was. I agreed. It's definitely for those of us with a sweet tooth! I still have some leftover cookies and plan on melting more chocolate to have more thin mints this weekend. I think I liked them better than the boxed cookies I used to love.

Thank you, Gluten Free Betsy, for supporting me and for sharing such a great recipe! You will always be one of my favorite gluten free bloggers.

Miel

Summer Blog Project: Jenn Cuisine's Strawberry Balsamic Salad Dressing and Gluten Free Goddess's Strawberry Hemp Milk Smoothie

2010-07-07T23:34:00.000-04:00

That's right! It's a double feature! I figured since we had the materials for both of these, why not do them together and have a strawberry flavored post? Strawberries have always been one of my favorite fruits. They're definitely my favorite of all berries. I always eat too many and get what my friend, Kat, calls the "strawberry tummy ache." When I was a kid, every candy I ate had to be strawberry flavored. Strawberry Bubble Yum was my gum of choice. Strawberry Fruit by the Foot was my favorite snack. As fake as those flavors were, they stemmed from my immense love for strawberries.

I don't remember how I came across Jenn Cuisine and her wonderful blog. However, I do remember that she instantly became one of my favorites. Jenn isn't gluten free but her husband is, so while her blog isn't entirely dedicated to gluten free cooking, the majority of it is and the rest of it can be pretty easily switched around to be gluten free. Most of the time, she'll even suggest ways to do so. Like me, Jenn has a bit of an obsession with strawberries, which means when strawberry season rolls around, Jenn is first to put up some really awesome strawberry recipes. But even when she's not writing about strawberries, she's an amazing blogger. As much as I've loved food my entire life, I feel as though there are so many different flavors that I haven't tasted yet. Jenn's words and amazing photographs make me want to try everything she writes about.

I have to admit; I'm usually pretty boring when it comes to making salads. When I'm at school and making my salad in Daly's I stuck to the standard Caesar dressing with feta cheese. It's delicious, but it gets boring after a while. The same goes for when I'm home. I usually stick to my childhood favorite, for I will always have a soft spot for Hidden Valley Ranch Dressing. Needless to say, I had to try something new. That was when I came upon Jenn's post, Salad Dressing of Strawberry Balsamic Reduction. Since I have such a love for strawberries, I wanted to try this so badly. I actually meant to a long time ago and never got to it. So when I was choosing the recipes I wanted to use for my summer project, I thought of this one almost immediately. I'll say right now, I'm glad I did.

Jenn's recipe for the dressing is really easy, but I made a few changes to it. While she heats part of her concoction in a pot, I just threw everything in the Cuisinart food processor and let it do all the work. But I plan on going back and doing it Jenn's way, just to see if there's a difference. There probably is, but I'm pretty happy with the way mine came out. Actually, I'm elated. If you go to Jenn's post, you'll also see that her recipe makes two cups. Knowing that I was going to be the only person to consume the dressing, I made one cup.

The recipe (2 cups) calls for:
1 pint strawberries
1 tbs. lemon juice
1/2 c. balsamic vinegar
fresh thyme
salt
pepper
1/4 c. honey (variable to desired sweetness)
equal volume of extra virgin olive oil

I'll admit that I was being a bit lazy when I decided not to heat it up. What can I say? I was hungry! I put the strawberries, lemon juice, balsamic vinegar, fresh thyme, salt, pepper and honey in the Cuisinart. Since we didn't have fresh thyme, I used dried thyme. My mother advised me to rub the thyme in my hand before adding it into the mixture to bring out the flavor. She also helped me with the next step.

The Cuisinart has holes in the top so while I processed the ingredients mentioned, my mom poured in the olive oil. We eyeball a lot when we're cooking. I'm not too good at it yet, but I'm learning from the master of eyeballing, so I'm getting there.

We then poured the concoction into a jar. I was a little wary of it at first. Like I said, I'm used to my boring salads. I was scared that I wasn't going to like the strawberry balsamic combination and fail at being a strawberry lover (I was going to say number one strawberry lover, but Jenn wins that one).

(Haha, we were watching Golden Girls while cooking.)

And I still had plenty of strawberries left over for our next recipe! The dressing, as you can see in the jar to the right, was a brownish color, which scared me at first. I dipped my finger in to take a taste and was pleasantly surprised by the flavor. It wasn't too fruity, just enough to taste the strawberries. And the balsamic wasn't overwhelming as I had expected it to be. It was the perfect mixture of the two.

So we made the dressing and then I discovered...we had no salad! So while I tasted it by itself, I didn't get to actually have it on salad until today.

As Jenn says in her post, this isn't the type of dressing that you want to drown your salad in. This was another reason I was worried about whether or not I was going to like it. I'm always the one putting more dressing, or ketchup or mayonnaise, or whatever condiment is available. So I drizzled a couple of spoonfuls of the dressing onto my salad, mixed it up and gave it a try. I already knew that I liked the flavor, but I found that on the salad, it was everything I could have hoped for in a salad dressing. Strawberry and balsamic is such a great combination! It had been a risk, changing around the recipe a bit as well as trying something that was completely different from anything I'd ever had before, but it was a risk well taken. The jar of dressing still sits in my refrigerator, waiting for me to finished ever last drop. This recipe will be really useful when I'm back at school. I can just make jars of it and it'll be an easy fix.

Thank you Jenn for your kindness, your love of strawberries and this great recipe!

When I was finished making the dressing, I thought a smoothie would be the best way to finish off the strawberries, as well as to fight off the summer heat that has been burning Jersey to a crisp. I was eager to get started on Gluten Free Goddess's Strawberry Hemp Milk Smoothie.

Gluten Free Goddess was one of the first blogs I started reading once I got into the blogging world. Again, I don't remember how I first stumbled upon Karina's blog, but I do remember drooling over the photographs of her food. This was towards the beginning of my gluten free life, so at this point, I hadn't found a lot of good food that had real substance. I had many snack foods and lots of the regular junk food that just happened to be gluten free (I'm a potato chip hound). But when I saw her photographs and read about the food she was making, I thought to myself, Why can't I be eating like this? I very slowly began to understand that I could. Once I got out of school and didn't have to worry about a dining hall, I could eat just as well as Karina and Shauna and Jenn and all of my favorite bloggers.

Karina posts many Vegan and Vegetarian recipes, which is pretty awesome for those of you who are either of those in addition to being gluten free. The Strawberry Hemp Milk Smoothie is a vegan recipe, but since I'm not vegan, I switched it up a little bit. I would have liked to try the hemp milk (and still hope to) but I couldn't find it anywhere! Amazon was even sold out! Karina mentions how healthy hemp milk is, how it's packed with vitamins and nutrients that I could certainly use in my diet. So I'm on the lookout for it so I can make the smoothie again. For now, I had to replace the hemp milk with something else:

I used Farmland Dairies' Lactose Free Skim Plus milk instead. This is what I drink and put in my cereal on a normal basis. I'm not technically lactose intolerant, though I find that I'm more sensitive to it when I've been contaminated with gluten (in fact, we thought I was lactose intolerant up until I was diagnosed with Celiac Disease). I have a very sensitive stomach in general, so I like to stick to lactose free products for the most part. Farmland Dairies is my favorite because they don't add any hormone or antibiotics.

The recipe for the smoothie includes:

1 cup ice cold Vanilla Hemp Dream
1 cup chilled ripe organic strawberries, sliced
1 teaspoon raw agave nectar, or honey, to taste

As I said, I replaced the hemp milk. When it came to the agave nectar, I opted for honey mostly because it was already present in my household (it was a sudden decision to do both of these recipes at once). Plus, I love honey. The first time I had honey was in kindergarten. Our snack was honey on crackers. It sounds weird but I remember loving it (along with the milk in a plastic bag that every kid spilled when they tried to stick their straw through).

Basically, we threw all of the ingredients in a blender and let her rip.

And look! We still had some strawberries left (which I devoured pretty soon after). When I took the first sip of my smoothie, I found that mine was lacking something. It wasn't sweet enough. The consistency was nice though and the taste of the strawberries was definitely there. I think the hemp milk might add a little more flavor. My mom suggested that we might use sugar instead of honey. Or maybe the raw agave nectar will really make a difference. Perhaps I didn't use enough honey (I eyeballed again). I'm definitely going to play around with it, especially if certain ingredients become available soon (cough cough, hemp milk cough). Once I find the perfect combination for my taste buds, this is going to be an extremely useful recipe for at school. I can just imagine it. When I'm stressed out, I'll just make my favorite smoothie! It would also make a nice breakfast.

Thank you Jenn and Karina for allowing me to use your recipes. I love both of your blogs can't wait to try out more of your recipes now that I'm finally in the kitchen!

Miel

Summer Blog Project: Gluten Free Girl's Blueberry Polenta Pancakes

2010-06-25T22:57:00.004-04:00

Today was the perfect day to start my summer project. It's the first day of summer vacation for my two younger sisters and it's so hot outside that the season is unmistakable. And just a couple days ago was the official start of summer, June 21st. So I thought it imperative that I begin within the first week of summer. I only have so many weeks left before I have to pack everything back up and head back to Rider, which means I'll be cooking on my own everyday.

Well, who better to start with than the woman who helped me through so much (without even knowing it)? She completely changed the way I looked at gluten free food and the way I look at myself.

When I was first diagnosed with Celiac Disease, I was numb. I didn't respond to anything. I acted like it wasn't that big of a deal to me. While my mom and my aunt were running around the house, looking for food for me to eat, I didn't even realize what a big change all of this was going to be. I didn't feel overwhelmed. In fact, I didn't feel anything about it at all. I remember that first couple of days just thinking to myself, I have a disease. I even joked about it. That changed really quickly, however, once I got to school (which wasn't long after). Being cross contaminated everyday and not having friends at school who understood what it was like to be constantly sick made me constantly anxious and depressed. First semester of my college experience, I found myself longing to just be home. At this point, I was also cheating the diet every once in a while, just because I felt like I deserved it. I didn't realize that I didn't deserve the pain that came with it.

I went back to the doctor that first winter break and he reminded me of all the reasons that I had to do the best that I could. It made me feel so guilty. I hated myself for putting those bad things in my body purposely, knowing the risks. It wasn't long after that that I had my very first meltdown. It was after I went to my grandmother's house for dinner. I had brought along a gluten free pizza to try, which turned out to be pretty gross. At this point my grandmother wasn't eating gluten free, so there was nothing else for me to eat. I was miserable. But I managed to joke around. When Grandma put out dessert, I smiled and said, "Oh great, more things I can't eat!" I heard a sigh come from next to me. Someone very close to me was annoyed that I was "complaining" when really I was honestly joking. That night, I cried and cried to my mom and my younger sister, even though I knew this person had no idea what I was going through. It wasn't possible. This process has been a learning experience for my entire family. At the time, however, this incident was just the last straw.

The rest of my first year continued in this fashion right into my sophomore year, when my friendships at school started falling apart. This was when my mom handed me the book: Gluten Free Girl by Shauna James Ahern. When I first started reading the book, I wasn't sure if I wanted to. Maybe I wanted to keep on wallowing in self pity. But I read and I kept on reading until the very last page. The further I got, the better I felt. Every time I was contaminated from the dining hall, I put down my homework and continued reading, knowing that she knew what it was like to feel so out of sorts, to have the aches, the nausea, the depression. It was after reading her book that I found her blog and started my very own. I wanted to be so much like her, so strong and optimistic. And because I started this blog, I found myself in a world where everyone was so understanding and so easy to talk to. I found more blogs and more recipes and more products than I ever could have on my own and I've made so many invaluable friends. And it's all thanks to Shauna.

So it is with the greatest pleasure that I begin my summer project with Gluten Free Girl's Blueberry Polenta Pancakes. I thought it only proper that we start with breakfast, right? I won't mention that I made them for dinner. Breakfast for dinner is the best, especially something like these pancakes. They're so perfectly filling.

The recipe calls for:

1/2 cup of gluten free flour
1/2 cup of gluten free cornmeal
2 tablespoons sugar (I use superfine baker's sugar)
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda (I think I'm going to try baking powder next time)
2 eggs
1 cup buttermilk
2 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
1 cup of blueberries

When I emailed Shauna, she quickly replied with her support and some advice. Instead of using a packaged all purpose gluten free flour, she suggested I use her recipe for Ahern's All Purpose Gluten-Free Flour Mix, which she recently posted along with her Gluten Free Rhubarb Muffins. It's an easy, quick mix to make and so far everything I've made with it has been fantastic.

The mix includes:

300 grams superfine brown rice flour
250 grams sweet rice flour
150 grams tapioca flour
100 grams sorghum flour
100 grams potato starch
100 grams cornstarch

As you can see, our kitchen looked like a really bad advirtisement for Bob's Red Mill gluten free flours. We've always had good experiences with their products so we decided to use them for this mix. After putting together all of the flours, I put it all in a big plastic bag and shook it up. Shauna says that for every cup of regluar flour in a traditional recipe, use 140 grams of this flour mix and a pinch of xanthan gum. It makes converting old recipes really simple and delicious!

So then it was time to make the actual pancakes..

I put the flour, cornmeal, sugar, salt and baking soda together in a bowl and mixed it a little.

I poured some milk into a measuring cup so we could make the buttermilk, but it soon became clear that it had gone bad. It wasn't past its expiration date yet, but it smelled rank. Had we not made such beautiful pancakes, the kitchen would still smell like it. As luck would have it, we didn't have any other cartons of milk. So we put a quarter of a cup of water with three quarters of heavy cream and then a little bit of vinegar to make buttermilk. After adding the eggs and melted butter, I mixed it all up.

When I added the wet ingredients to the dry, the batter seemed very thin and there I didn't think there was much of it. I later found out that this is exactly how I want my pancake batter to be from now on. So after that, I folded in the blueberries and then it was time to actually cook them!

Melting butter on the skillet, I put about 1/3 of a cup of batter onto the pan, since it was a smaller pan. If you're using a smaller pan, make one pancake at a time. The batter really spreads. When I was making them, I waited until the edges became a bit dryer than the center before flipping them over. I've gotten pretty good at flipping them now, though we did lose a couple of blueberries along the way.

Here was the end result of this endeavor.

It looks pretty good if I do say so myself! It took quite a few practice flips, but I think I've got it now. I just have to keep making pancakes.

I put some fresh blueberries on top and drizzled the whole thing in honey. Shauna suggests maple syrup, which I think would also be delicious, but I was feeling honey. My mom and I couldn't wait to eat them. When we took our first bite, we knew these pancakes would be made again. And we knew we were going to play around with them too. I wouldn't mind throwing some strawberries in there next time! The consistancy of the pancake is so perfect. It's thin and the edges get a little crispy. And there's something to be said about blueberries once they've been cooked. I love just popping blueberries in my mouth--which is why I did so continuously as we cooked--but the blueberries in these pancakes were amazing. Once you broke them open, the juice and flavor oozed out much like a yolk in a fried egg. Everything together was so delicious and happily filling. It's not often that I feel full, but these pancakes managed to do the job brilliantly. We managed to make ten pancakes out of this batter, so there was plenty to share between my mother and myself.

The pancakes were a great success and the best way I could have possibly started my summer project! I want to thank Shauna for allowing me to use her recipe and for showing such support. She's made such a difference in my life since I've become gluten free and I'm sure she's done the same for many others. Thank you for everything, Shauna.

Miel

Lots of News and Lots of Rice!

2010-06-18T23:26:00.000-04:00

Hello my fellow gluten freebies! I feel as thought I have so much to report that I don't know where to begin. Well, I have some pretty exciting news. Let me explain:

I've had this blog for about two years now and Celiac Disease for about three (August 28th will be the anniversary). Because my mother and my grandmother are such great cooks, I've never really had to lift a finger when it comes to eating well at home. I've been spoiled rotten really. Now, as I've mentioned in past posts, I'll be living in an apartment on my campus next semester, one with a kitchen. This means two things: (1) I no longer have to be cross contaminated in our dining hall, and (2) I have to learn how to cook for myself. Of course, there's always the option of microwave dinners with gluten free labels like Amy's Gluten free items. But I decided that I want more than that. I read so many other blogs, like Gluten Free Girl, that gush over the fullness and happiness that comes with cooking and I get jealous. So I've decided that I want to learn how to cook. I want to know what that happiness is, what that satisfaction is like.

My mom, of course, agreed that it's time I learned. We have plenty of our own family recipes that can be changed into gluten free recipes--something that I'd also like to do in the near future--but I thought, what better way to learn how to cook than to cook my favorite recipes from my favorite gluten free bloggers? As soon as the idea hit me, I went to making lists of the best of the best (in my opinion) and the recipes that I most wanted to try and ended up with ten bloggers and ten recipes, which will be completed in the next ten weeks. The emails have gone out to them in order to obtain permission to use recipes, and I'm waiting on one more reply. I've evened everything out so there will be breakfast, lunch, dinner, salad, snacks, beverages, dessert and everything that I could ever want when I'm at school and needing the comfort of food. Now, I'm not going to tell you who the bloggers are or what recipes I've chosen, but I will tell you that I'm extremely excited to get started, to document my journey from ineptitude to somewhere closer to edible decency. With my mom by my side (watching, not acting) and the Cooking Channel ever present on our television, I'm finally going to find the happiness that I feel only cooking and eating the food that I've cooked can get me.

That's the first matter on the agenda. Now onto the second. Shauna Ahern, or Gluten Free Girl, recently posted about the need to teach more people about Celiac Disease and gluten. I quite agree. People need to know how to prepare something gluten free without cross contamination. It's so difficult now that the gluten free label seems to be everywhere. Sure, it's wonderful that people are becoming aware of gluten, but can we always trust that these people know every gritty detail of keeping a gluten-free enviornment for customers with intolerances? We have to become proactive in making sure that our needs are met. How can we do this? Well, Shauna has posted a video for Oprah's Search for the Next TV Star. She wants to start a show called Saying Yes to Gluten Free. Watch her audition video here. Now underneath the video there's a button that says "Vote." Please click and vote for Shauna to get her own show! It would be the most amazing thing to have a cooking show for those with Celiac Disease or a gluten intolerance. And through watching, the word would spread about just how careful one has to be about contamination when cooking for someone who is gluten-free. So please vote for her and tell everyone you know to vote for her too!

To keep to the theme of Shaua and her recent posts (I don't stalk her I promise), she recently twittered a question, asking us the first thing we'd ever cooked by ourselves. This was really when my idea for my summer project hit me. I couldn't answer the question because I'd never made anything by myself. I've never had to, and with a pretty bad fear of getting burnt, I always steered clear of the kitchen. But now, I'm proud to say that I can finally post about the first thing I've ever cooked. It isn't anything too spectacular, but it's made me even more excited to start some of these other recipes. I got a taste for the pride and fulfillment that comes with eating one's own cooking and seeing others eat it as well. As you can tell from the title of this post, the first thing I've cooked without help is:

Rice! I made fried rice with gluten-free soy sauce, egg and cashew. It's easy enough to do, especially since my mom was there. I got so nervous! But it came out really well and I was extremely proud of myself once it was done. Boy does it take muscle! When you're making so much rice, it's hard to move it around in the wok. I love fried rice. We were experimenting with the cashews and it worked really nicely. I've had this cashew craving since the past semester. Our campus convenience store sells honey-roasted cashews and I bought out most of the stock, especially when finals came around. But this is a much better way of enjoying cashews. Fried rice is something that's going to be perfect for when I'm at school. It'll take a little while since I have to cook the rice and let it cool before frying it, but I could make a batch on the weekend and eat leftovers the next couple of days. And it'll be nice to share with my roommates and friends.

So I've cooked something by myself. It's extremely liberating. I feel as though I'm always looking through the pantry to find something to munch on. It's nice to know that I can make something. One thing. But still, it's something. And it's a great way to prelude my summer project. I hope I do my fellow gluten freebies proud when I write about each of the recipes I've chosen to try. I know there are going to be burns and mistakes and accidents (hopefully none too life-threatening), but I'm optimistic that I'm finally moving in the right direction.

Miel

Honest Beverages: Healthy, Natural and Gluten-Free

2010-06-13T12:31:00.001-04:00

I've been meaning to mention Honest Beverages for such a long time. I actually got a suggestion from someone I went to high school with (thank you, Ashley!) to look into Honest Beverages a long time ago. I had it in the back of my head when my friends and I went to Deliteful Foods (a couple posts back). I was so pleased to find quite an assortment of these beverages in both the gluten-free side of the store as well as the regular side. Being a college student, I only purchased two of them. They weren't horribly expensive for beverages, but I was also buying other gluten free goodies, which, as always, were a bit harder on my wallet than I would have liked.

Sometimes I get a little too confident with myself now that we're coming round to the third anniversary of my Celiac diagnosis. I sometimes forget to be extra careful and check the labels of certain products. For example, beverages just aren't something that I usually worry about, even though I definitely should. And sometimes, with products like drinks, it's difficult to be sure with all the added coloring and artificial flavoring. Honest Beverages are great because they're extremely forward with everything. Their labels very clearly tell you what the beverage is free of and what it isn't. Their website is also extremely helpful, listing such for each type of beverage they sell.

Honest Beverages was also important for me to try because many of their teas are caffeine free. About a year ago, I decided I was going to rid my diet of caffeine. At school, it was ruling my life. I couldn't go a couple of hours without having a beverage containing caffeine or I would have a migraine for the rest of the day, sometimes longer. So, the next break from school we had, I went in cold turkey and switched over to decaf. After a couple of weeks of what I thought of as withdrawal, I felt better. The headaches became far less frequent. I didn't depend on coffee or soda. I also gave up soda completely, which didn't hurt. Now, when I do have caffeine, it gives me a headache. Funny how that works, right? I can only have small bits of it at a time. It becomes a bit of a hassle at school when I'm up late and I can't have caffeine to help me, but all in all, I'm glad to have made this choice. However, it does make finding beverages a little more difficult, at least when it comes to tea. Honest Beverages was all I needed.

I decided to keep with a certain theme when I chose my two products: pomegranate. For a while now, I've had this obsession with pomegranates. It was my friend, Kat, who first introduced me to the greatness of pomegranates and for that I am forever grateful. Now, whenever I see something that is flavored with pomegranate, I instantly grab at it. So I was ecstatic when I found these two products.

Honest Ade Pomegranate Blue was the first one that I picked up. It was also the first one that I tried because I remember I simply couldn't resist once we got into the car. I was instantly pleased with its taste. It wasn't too sweet or too bitter and it didn't taste fake. It was the most refreshing thing I'd had to drink in a long time. I felt healthy drinking it. It had a very light, pleasant flavor. There was no lingering aftertaste and I was left wanting to make Sam turn the car around so I could buy out the stock of Honest Ade Pomegranate Blue. The other Honest Ade flavors include Cranberry Lemonade, Limeade, Orange Mango and Superfruit Punch. All flavors are both caffeine free and gluten free.

The second product was the Honest Tea Pomegranate Red Tea with Goji Berry. Be careful when looking at the teas. It will clearly say caffeine free on the labels of those that are indeed caffeine free. This one is caffeine free because it is made with red tea. This drink was a bit more of an acquired taste and I found myself liking more the more that I drank it. It's a little more bitter than the Honest Ade and not as refreshing, but that isn't to say it wasn't tasty. For those of you who like something a little more bitter than sweet, this is the drink for you. Other Honest Tea flavors are Assam Black Tea, Black Forest Berry, Community Green Tea, Green Dragon Tea, Jasmine Green Energy Tea, Just Black Tea, Just Green Tea, Lori's Lemon Tea, Mango Acai White Tea, Moroccan Mint Green Tea, Peach Oh-La-Long, and Perfect White Tea. Remember, not all of them are caffeine free, but they are all gluten free.

It's great to see that manufacturers of great beverages are also looking out for gluten. It's become so hard to figure out what some ingredients are that it's a relief to find Honest Beverages and their easy to read labels. I have to say, even if the labels didn't clearly say "gluten free," I think it would be easy to tell because of how natural the ingredients are in these drinks. It's all organic. There's no high fructose corn syrup, but organic cane sugar instead. Honest Beverages should be commended not only for its labels, but for being healthy and, most importantly, tasty.

Miel

Hooray for Summer: Baltimore Edition

2010-06-07T21:25:00.001-04:00

I've found that being home makes me full, happy and incredibly lazy. For weeks now I've been telling myself that I have to post--I have so much to tell everyone--but I put it off to be lazy and eat food all day. I need to get myself on a schedule and really put myself to work, hone my skills as a writer and a blogger. It's a problem that I get so distracted by other things. When I'm at school, all I ever want to do is blog and talk about food, and now that I have all this time, I'm being a complete flake! What is wrong with me?

In all honesty, summer hasn't been all lazing around for me. A couple of weeks ago, I went to Baltimore to see my sister, Cait, graduate from the Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA). Now, whenever I travel, it's always incredibly important that our food stops are planned and safe for me and Grandma. Sometimes travelling is more stressful than it is fun, but so far we've done a great job of keeping gluten free while outside of our native kitchen.

Hooray for Baltimore! Baltimore is a pretty exciting place. There always seems to be something going on. At the moment there were several graduations and MICA had a show for all of the graduation artists. There were so many amazing artists to see! If you want to take a look at some of my favorites go to my sister's blog (click here) and check out her list of "lovelies" on the right. I really enjoyed my sister's Baltimore quilt (of course) and Marissa Lanterman's portraits of Helena Bonham Carter, Steve Martin and Christopher Walken. Rachel Dougherty's illustrations were really awesome too. My sister has such talented friends!

But I digress. Seeing all of the art was really awesome, but I'm here to talk about food! Cait took us to a really interesting restaurant which was located in what used to be a mill. Most of the decorations were actually from when the building was a functioning mill. It might sound a bit cheesy and odd but the Woodberry Kitchen is really amazing! There's just one small set back that I'd like to get out of the way before I tell you how fantastic the food is.

Here's the menu. It's a little bit different from the one you'll see online. What's the problem? Well...

Yeah...It seems a little counterproductive to have a gluten free menu with no gluten free fryer. However, for me, this just limited french fries (which was, of course, what I wanted along with my burger). So just keep this in mind if you happen to pass by the Woodberry Kitchen. For those of you with a slight gluten intolerance, it might be fine. For those of us with Celiac Disease, I'd recommend staying away just in case.

I ordered the burger and fries and gave the fries away to Cait, who said they were really good. The burger came on gluten free toast, which the restaurant buys from a local baker. The toast was amazing. The burger was HUGE! See for yourself!

Look at that! I had no idea how I was going to eat it without looking ridiculous. But once I actually took my first big bite, I didn't care what I looked like. It was an amazing burger. It had been so long since I had a burger with anything close to a bun, so I was extremely pleased. The toast was crunchy and yummy which complimented the burger really nicely.

Dessert was just as pleasant, but as it was much darker in the restaurant by then, it was difficult to get good pictures of our desserts. I had some strawberries and cream, which was composed of these teeny tiny strawberries that were so fresh and sweet that I don't think I can ever look at store-bought strawberries the same way ever again. I was a very happy camper (until we had to cramp ourselves back into Cait's Jeep Wrangler--Mom and I get motion sickness...enough said).

Being in Baltimore was really awesome. And, of course, I was so happy to see my sister graduate along with all of her friends. Here are the ladies now:

Aren't they just gorgeous? Pictures probably would have been even better if it hadn't been raining! Baltimore failed us on that count. But my hair stayed intact!

It's too bad I didn't wear heels though. I felt so short next to Cait in her big pink heels. But I'm digressing again. It was really cool to be in Baltimore again and hang out with Cait. Of course, after the three or so hours it takes to get home, I was also happy to be back in Jersey and our own kitchen. It's nice to know that there's always that comfort waiting for us no matter where in the world we are next.

If anyone is ever in Baltimore, take a look at the Woodberry Kitchen and let me know what you think!

Congrats to everyone graduating this year!

Miel

News and More Bread

2010-05-13T14:09:00.000-04:00

As you might have noticed, I have not been blogging quite as often as usual. Just two days ago, I finished my last semester of junior year of college. I'm officially a senior. Oh God. But now that it's summer, I'll have the time to learn how to cook and to blog. Well, I'll have a bit more time anyway. You see, a professor of mine asked me if I might be interested in an internship with Cineaste Magazine, a film magazine. Being an English lit major with a minor in film studies, I'd really be getting the best of both worlds. So I'm going for it! Resume is ready, cover letter is...well, not ready, but it will be soon! So I'll be riding the bus to NYC quite a bit hopefully. I'm pretty excited! In the meantime, I wanted to let my few, but loyal readers know that it might impede on my blogging schedule, depending on how much work it ends up being.

I also wanted to remind you guys that with my affiliate status with Rouxbe Cooking School, I can get you a 14-day free trial. If you're interested, follow this link here and take a look around! There are some really helpful videos, as I mentioned in my last post.

Lastly, I want to encourage fellow gluten free blogger to join Jenna Drew's new community, Gluten Free Bloggers. I'm on there and so are a lot of other really awesome bloggers. As much as I love places like Food Blog Forum, it's nice to have a place for us gluten free bloggers to share information and just to get to know one another. So take a look!

There'a all the news. Now onto the bread!

I visited home a couple weeks ago, needing a long deserved break from the college atmosphere, I came home to be with my family. My mother decided it was a good time to try out another bread mix. This time, we decided on Schar's bread mix, wondering how it would compare to King Arthur Flour's bread mix, which I covered a month or so ago, and was ecstatic about. Schar's gluten free bread mix contains no gluten or lactose, but watch out because it probably contains soy, since they're usually upfront about the absense of most allergens.

As you can see, after following the directions on the box, the dough was extremely sticky. It took a while to knead the dough because it just kept sticking to everything. Not sure what could be done to change this, but if anyone has any suggestions, I'm always open to them.

It looked pretty nice once it decided to cooperate.

When it was done baking, we tried knocking on it to hear what it sounded like. Hard as a rock. King Arthur Flour's bread sounded hollow on the inside, proving itself to have a hard crust but a warm, soft inside.

The bread certainly looked nice. And the smell in the kitchen was lovely as well. When I took my first bite of the sliced bread, I couldn't help but feel a little disappointed. It wasn't bad. The taste was perfect, but it was very dense, unlike that of King Arthur Flour's bread mix. The crust was the best part of it. It was nice and crunchy, but with the dense center, I couldn't really appreciate it. I might use this dough to make rolls instead of a loaf or maybe to make a pizza crust. For a sandwich, however, I would definitely go with King Arthur Flours mix instead.

Schar does have another product that is far easier to make, and better for making sandwiches.

These white rolls contain soy and egg, so watch out for those of you who cannot have either of those. But they are gluten, wheat and lactose free.

Each roll is a decent size, fitting in the palm of my giant man hand. All I do is put it in the toaster oven and bake at 400 degrees Farenheit for 4-5 minutes.

Clearly, I lost track of time. Perfect. But I manage to get it out before it burnt. Leaving it in until it's browned slightly is nice though because it adds a nice crunch. So what I thought was a disaster, was actually quite tasty.

The inside it nice and soft. With some bologna and mayo, I had my happy, little sandwich and was extremely pleased. There are a lot of different types of these rolls tht Schar makes prebaked and so far I haven't been disappointed by any of them. They're perfect for a quick and delicious lunch. So while I won't be using the Schar's bread mix again, their rolls will frequent my tummy.

Yum!
Miel

Rouxbe's Cooking School

2010-04-20T00:51:00.002-04:00

Last night I recieved a surprising email that made me want to blog immediately. It was from Steve Ellis, someone I'd met on FoodBuzz and spoke to here and there. I was so excited to get this email because it asked whether or not I might be interested in becoming an affiliate of Rouxbe's Online Cooking School. Rouxbe's (pronounced like 'Ruby') is dedicated to teaching through videos and quizzes all about cooking. There are videos for beginners (which I'll be watching since I'm a beginner myself) and for more advanced cooks as well. The good thing about Rouxbe is that everything is so professional like a culinary school, but you can watch the videos and take the lessons on your own schedule--perfect for someone like me who is still in college and can't spend as much time on the internet as she'd like. There are videos just about certain ingredients and how to use them effectively in your cooking. Just yesterday, I was watching the video on wheat and gluten. Even though I obviously cannot have these, it was so interesting to see why gluten is so vital in most people's every day cooking. The video was engaging, easy to understand and very informative.

As an affiliate of Rouxbe's Cooking School, I'm able to embed videos and pictures here to make the experiences with future recipes posted better. I have the power to give you a free, full-access, no-videos-barred, 14-day pass to their site. All you have to do is go to the Rouxbe Online Cooking School and redeem the 14-day Gift Membership. After the trial, you can join for as little as $15 per month; however, there is no obligation. So go take a look! In the meantime, I'll post some links to introductory videos. I was going to post the videos themselves, but I had a bit of an issue trying to use the codes. As soon as I get that fixed, I'll definitely post the videos directly on this post. I got the videos to work thanks to Steve Ellis! Here they are:

Rouxbe Online Cooking School & Video Recipes

Here's the one on wheat and gluten that I mentioned earlier. It's really interesting so I'd definitely recommend watching it:

Rouxbe Online Cooking School & Video Recipes

I hope you enjoy watching some of these videos and decide to sign up! I'll be learning right alongside you, since, as you all know, I'm only just starting out. It'll be fun, right?

I'll see you there!
Miel

Deliteful Foods for a Deliteful Weekend

2010-04-16T15:02:00.001-04:00

About a year ago, my friend Lindsay mentioned to me that she knew a gluten-free place around here known as Deliteful Foods. Deliteful Foods caters to many different allergies and those without allergies who want to eat healthy. So we went and I loved it. I remember buying brownie mix. Mmmmm. But I hadn't been there since! So I decided I had going to go back with a bunch of my girlies and see if it had changed or even if it was still open! Of course, their website was still up, so I knew they were open. So here is our adventure to Deliteful Foods in Hamilton, NJ.

Here we are, leaving Rider! Good bye sweet home! My friend, Sam, was kind enough to drive us all over the place. Though her GPS didn't seem to know where Deliteful Foods was and had no record of it's address, we set off with an optimism and excitement that I hadn't felt in a while. I remembered liking this store so much and as Sam has a lactose intolerance, I was really hoping that she'd find some things that she liked.

Not too long after leaving...Sam's GPS got confused. I can't tell you how many times this GPS led us to Route 1 and then the road we were supposed to be on and then back to Route 1. We turned around so many times that I was beginning to feel nauseous, as I do tend to get a little car sick sometimes. Maybe I shouldn't have been taking pictures then! Oh well. I was fine.

Eventually we made it! What a glorious sight to behold!

It even looks cheerful! We were so excited to finally get there after turning around and taking exits multiple times. And look! Here's the best part:

Right on the sign! So we walk in and were greeted by two of the workers there. When you first walk in, you walk into the organic section. It has it's own tasting table where obviously you taste certain products. It was in this section that I found two beverages that I'll keep a secret until I tell you about them in another post.

Keri enjoyed the many natural butters that she found. She's big on peanutbutter and almond butter and all of those. I was never a big fan, but I've been on a bit of a cashew kick so I wonder if cashew-butter might be a good choice for me.

Right next door there's another section of the store. The entire half is filled with gluten-freebies galore. There were all the brands that I had recognized and all the products that I have already reviewed here. The man who works on the gluten-free side was extremely helpful and ready to point us in the right direction if we were looking for anything specific. He told us that the store had just been revamped so that this entire half was safe from gluten.

They seriously had all of my favorite products! I love the Chebe mixes so much. We usually use their cheese bread mix to make those little hotdog appetizers. Plus it's fun to play with the bag since it's a bag of flour mix.

And there was a tasting table! Looking at the products on the table, I found that I had tried most of these products, which made me extremely happy. I feel like I'm really exploring this gluten-free world that I've been forced to live in. I liked knowing that if someone asked me questions, I could tell them brands that were good and brands that were bad. I suggested a gluten-free, dairy-free mac and cheese made by Amy's for Sam and she loved it. I was happy to be able to do that.

Kat enjoyed all the gluten-free chocolate. There was a pretty big display of just chocolate! It made me super happy.

They had a freezer section too with a lot of my favorite frozen goods, like Bell&Evans chicken nuggets. Those are my favorite gluten free chicken nuggets. I just pop them in the toaster oven and wait like a half hour before they're all warm and yummy. They also had dairy free yogurt and ice cream. So those of you with other allergies and intolerances, and who live around Hamilton, NJ, please come and check out Deliteful Foods!

I'm not going to tell you what I bought. Nope, it's a secret. Well, not for too long--if I don't have too much homework in the next couple of weeks. I will, however, show you my happy face after leaving!

Look at how happy I am! And how excited Sam is over her potato snacks. I recommend Deliteful Foods to anyone who is in the Hamilton area. It's really perfect for those of us at Rider University because when you don't get lost thanks to your GPS, it's only a ten minute drive if that. The people who work there are really helpful and there's such a variety of products that you really can't go wrong. Whatever you're looking for, they'll have something useful. For more information on Deliteful Foods, visit them here!

Gluten Free Easter: Part 2 - The Arthur vs. Betty Edition

2010-04-08T22:57:00.000-04:00

I'm back with the second half of my Easter fun! I'm so sorry this took much longer than I expected to get posted. It's been a terribly busy week here at Rider University what with the Gender Studies Colloquium and whatnot (guess who got asked to speak there). I also have to admit a bit of laziness on my part due to the beautiful weather we've been having. It's so warm out that I want to spend all of my time outside. And Rider is becoming more beautiful too! All the trees are blooming and the tulips have bloomed and allergies are flaring. It's great (and it sucks for people with allergies, which is pretty much everyone in the world except my friend, Mandy). Ideally, I would be doing homework at the moment. Seventeenth Century literature is calling my name (Hooray for Aemilia Lanyer! All Amelias are awesome regardless of name spelling). I think I'm getting off topic. Where was I? Oh yeah...EASTER!

For Easter, we tried two new King Arthur Flour mixes that are gluten free. For more information on these flours and mixes as well as others, please go to http://www.kingarthurflour.com/glutenfree/

The first one we tried was the all purpose flour.

King Arthur's all purpose flour is a blend of white rice flour, whole grain brown rice flours, tapioca starch, and potato starch. Looking at these ingredients, I might be a little sceptical because of the rice flour. Back when I was a wee little celiac newbie, I tried many products that relied heavily on rice flour. Once we even made cookies, just replacing the wheat flour with rice flour. Biggest mistake ever! They were so gritty and...ugh! I'm gagging at the memory of those cookies! I learned my lesson after reading a lot of other blogs (Gluten Free Girl really opened my eyes to a lot of these things since she was the first blogger I really followed, so thank you Shauna!).

My grandma is actually the one who picked up the flour and decided to make scones with it. She followed the recipe on King Arthur's website: http://www.kingarthurflour.com/recipes/gluten-free-scones-recipe

This is how they look! They smelled really good when I opened them up. I have to admit that I never had a scone prior to my gluten free days so I'm not exactly an expert on scones. I can't give really good feedback since I have nothing to which I can compare it. So I let my mom who isn't gluten free give it a try. She said the taste was good, but the texture was a bit gritty, just as I'd feared. My grandma said the same thing. I tried one and indeed it was gritty. It wasn't terrible like those cookies that I couldn't stomach.

I thought it was interesting though because on the page of the recipe, it said,

"Many of our gluten-free recipes use our King Arthur Gluten-Free Multi-Purpose
Flour, which includes ingredients that reduce the grittiness sometimes found in
gluten-free baked goods. Our flour also increases the shelf life of your treats,
keeping them fresh longer."

Hmmm...I don't want to doubt King Arthur because I'm such a fan of their bread mix. Perhaps the recipe just wasn't a good one. I want to try this mix with other recipes and maybe some recipes we make at home instead of those on the website before making my judgement on the product.

So the scones weren't bad. They just weren't absolutely fantastic. I'm still a huge fan of King Arthur Flour.

The second product we tried was the King Arthur Flour chocolate cake mix. Now, my mom is a big fan of the Betty Crocker chocolate cake mix. I'm not really big on chocolate cake to be honest. Actually, that's not entirely true. I like the cake part. I'm not a big fan of frosting which has to come with cake. I prefer whipped cream or a glaze. Anyway, we decided to make cupcakes with the mix. I like cupcakes. Small portion of food and cute to boot!

The tops came out a little strange right? They look more like muffins than cupcakes (which is fine because I ~~really kind of sort of like sometimes~~ LOVE muffins).

This is how they looked with frosting. Oh and if you're wondering about the "18" candles, it was Molly's birthday the day before Easter! My beautiful sister is all grown up! Of course, this is old news. Molly has been grown up for a very long time. But I digress (again)!

When I took my first bite into the cupcake (after getting through the frosting) I could tell this was a good mix. The cupcakes were soft and moist and had a very rich chocolate flavor. We actually ended up arguing over whether or not the Betty Crocker mix was better than the King Arthur mix. Grandma and I are Team Arthur and Mom is Team Betty. So to those of you who actually read this, I challenge you to try both and tell me what you think!

Well, that's all I got as far as Easter is concerned. I hope you all had a really great holiday and a great week (since it has almost been an entire week). I already have a gluten-free adventure planned for the weekend so look foward to another post soon!

Gluten Free Easter: Part 1

2010-04-05T20:02:00.000-04:00

Happy Easter! Well, happy day after Easter! Helga and her Lieblings are all decked out for the holiday!

It's been a tough Monday as usual, so I thought it would be nice to watch Glee on DVD and eat the leftovers from yesterday's Easter brunch. Easter brunch is definitely one of my favorite things in the entire world. Almost all of my favorite foods are put together for one giant feast. My poor (brilliant, perfect, amazing, spectacular) mother does about two day's worth of cooking just so we can all devour it in about fifteen minutes. This year we had an array of delicious foods that I can't wait to share with you!

My ultimate favorite dish that my mother makes for brunch is the gluten-free overnight French toast. First, melt butter and brown sugar and coat the bottom of the dish--or whatever you keep your French toast in--with the mixture. Slice a gluten-free baguette and place the slices in the dish. Then on top of the bread, spread a mixture of cream, eggs, vanilla and cinnamon. Leave it in the fridge at night and then bake in the morning at 350 degrees. Your finished product should look like this:

Get a closer look!

This French toast is amazing. It's warm and soft and delicious! I'm currently looking forward to finishing this post so I can go into my fridge and grab some leftovers (to be honest, I took a break mid-post to have some)! It's so yummy on it's own that I don't even use syrup when I eat it. The cinnamon and vanilla do the trick. It heats up really well too, so whatever you don't finish can just go back in the fridge and be heated up in the microwave the next day! My mom made so much of this French toast so Grandma and I could have leftovers for a couple of days. It definitely beats eating at Daly's for lunch and dinner every day of the week.

Potatoes are another important food for Easter brunch. Of course, we have to have potatoes! I feel like I'm always consuming potatoes in different forms (mostly French fries and mashed potatoes). My friend, Jen, and I agree that potatoes are definitely our favorite veggies. But then, I like mine with a ton of salt because I figure I ought to have one edible vice, and she likes hers plain. But either way, potatoes have to be on the menu for Easter brunch! They're an essential breakfast food that is severely overlooked in many cases! They compliment eggs and bacon so well too. Poor potatoes.

Diced and baked and salted, potatoes are the best (actually, if we're being technical here, my favorite form of potato is the mashed potato)! I piled so many of these onto my plate. Between these and the French toast, I was stuffed sufficiently quite quickly.

But what's Easter without some candy? Every since I was a little kid, my mom always had our baskets filled with toys and candy. We also had a mini scavenger hunt to look for our baskets when we woke up in the morning. After a certain amount of years, we knew all of the hiding spots. I was never big on jellybeans, so when I realized I couldn't have them, I wasn't too heartbroken. Still, for those of you who like jellybeans, try Starburst's jellybeans! It says gluten-free right on the packaging! And they're pretty good too. I couldn't help but nom on them all day because we had a little bowl of them out on the kitchen table.

We had so many gluten freebies that I can't fit them all into one post! Next time I'll be mentioning two more King Arthur Flour gluten-free mixes. I had such a great Easter! I have to thank my mom and grandma again for cooking so much food!

Here's hoping you've all recovered from the food coma,

Miel

Food Adentures at Daly's

2010-03-29T12:24:00.000-04:00

As I've complained about Rider University's dining hall on quite a few occasions, I thought it might be nice to update with some good news about Daly's Dining Hall. Sure, I tend to eat a mountain of french fries each day (though they're not definitely gluten free), but there are some good things, hidden gems that make everything just a little bit easier. And I wouldn't know about any of them if it weren't for my good friend, Keri (Visit her new food blog at http://keribop.wordpress.com/). Every day, when the girls and I are sitting around a table with our pathetic plates of food (I'm not the only one with trouble finding something to eat), Keri shows up with a giant plate that is always some variation of this:

Amazing, isn't it? All of us stare in awe of the mountain of suddenly appetizing looking food piled on her plate. You see, Keri is our resident health nut. She eats well, she gets up early to exercise...Why can't I be more like her? I eat french fries everyday and I'm out of breath after walking up a flight of stairs in the Fine Arts building. I don't have the will power to wake up super early to go to the gym before class and I eat a little bag of Doritos almost every night while doing homework. But I realized, though not everything on her plate was gluten free, I could still replicate it in some fashion. Then I would be one step closer to being a healthier person just like Keri!

So, one day when I was alone at Daly's, I went up to our vegetarian section which has a bar of random ingredients. I took some spinach leaves, tomatoes, mozzarella and finally...hummus! I had never tried hummus before but it was something that Keri raved about. It's also something that my sister, Molly, who is also extremely conscious of healthy eating, loves quite a bit. She's quite possessive over her hummus! I never had chickpeas either, so I really had no idea what I was in for. But boy was I surprised. I added some mushrooms on the side, some feta cheese and sliced turkey to my plate and sat down. The mushrooms were a little...eh. I was craving those little mushrooms that I usually get from Wegman's. The tomatoes were also a bit dry and flavorless, but this is a college dining hall so we can forgive them for their produce a bit. But then I took some spinach leaves, a mozzarella ball, some turkey, hummus and feta cheese and the combination of all of these elements was so perfect that I nearly cried. I get very emotional over good food (especially when I'm by myself). This is a new and improved shot of what I call my "Keri plate."

Whenever I decide to make my Keri Plate, I try to add something new to the bunch. I've had success and failure with this and sometimes the spinach and cheese are a little dry after probably sitting out all day (thank you Daly's). Some days I'm not in the mood for my Keri Plate and opt for a mountain of fries. But I'm happy that I have something other than fries to eat all the time. It's definitely nice to have some variation in my life!

I'll add that another good thing about Daly's is the fruit selection they have out for breakfast. Well, technically it's lunch on the weekends but they serve us breakfast food until one in the afternoon so all of the party-goers with hangovers can have a healthy start to their day. I always get some assortment of fruit for breakfast because it is one of the only things Daly's does right. Fresh cantaloupe, strawberries, grapes and pineapple make for a glorious breakfast. It makes my stomach happy and allows me to concentrate well for the rest of the day.

This isn't the best picture, but it really does taste good! Hooray for fruit! I've always been more of a fruit person than a vegetable person. In fact, I've only recently gotten into eating vegetables (again, thanks to Keri). So I'm doing alright as I am right now. Every once in a while I feel ill from unavoidable cross-contamination, but it's getting better. Only a month and a week or two left before I'm home for the summer and completely gluten free for the rest of my life. I never purposefully cheat my g-free diet, but dining halls mean unsafe plates and silverware and pots and pans. So now that I know I'll have a kitchen next year, you will all have a happier, healthier and more G-Free Miel. But for now, I'm doing the best I can!

Love you,

Miel

Afterglow Cosmetics Update!

2010-03-28T23:42:00.000-04:00

Hello to all you lovely gluten-free ladies (or gents who might want to invest in some gluten free makeup for a lady friend). A couple of posts ago, I mentioned Afterglow Cosmetics, a makeup brand that uses all natural ingredients (as well as gluten-free ingredients) to make all of their makeup! The first three lipsticks that I purchased were a big success! Kiss was probably the favorite of most of the people I asked since it was that bright red and maybe a little risky. It's really noticeable, I guess. I just have to make sure not to get it on my teeth! That's not too attractive, right? My lovely friend, Kat, is always telling me I have lipstick on my teeth! Good thing I carry around my handy dandy Frida Kahlo mirror.

Anyway, since I loved the lipstick so much, I actually asked for more of them for Christmas this year. My new favorite is called Afterglow after their brand name. It's a nude color that is perfect for everyday use. It's not stark or noticeable like Kiss, but it's a nice way to even out the color of my lips, which are usually pale and sort of flat looking. I keep it in my purse at all times now because it's a great backup to have on hand! Like the others I've already blogged about, it goes on smoothly and lasts all day. I might have to reapply after lunch because of my own inability to eat without making a mess of myself. Otherwise, it would last all day.

I also decided to try the mineral foundation and concealer, as well as their Kabuki brush, which is in the picture above. The Kabuki brush comes with a little purse in which to store it before and after use. Afterglow Cosmetic's doesn't test any of their products on animals and all of their brushes are vegan brushes. The brushes can be cleaned with shampoo or soap so they're easy to maintain. But if you want to go the extra mile, Afterglow also sells a brush cleaning formula that smells like lavender! I'd buy it, but I think I'd fall asleep after putting makeup on if my brush smelled like lavender.

The Organic Mineral Foundation I use is called Pearl, which, of course, is the palest shade they have. There are nineteen other shades, so many skin tones are accounted for. On the website, ingredients are listed front and center so there aren't any mysteries. I know we don't tend to ingest our foundation, but you never know how much we absorb from our skin. So it isn't a bad investment! The first time I put on this product, I fell in love! It's smooth and light. I know they always say this on commercials, but it seriously felt like I wasn't wearing any makeup at all. It looked really nice with my pale skin too.

The Organic Total Cover Concealer I bought is called Linen which is advised to go along with Pearl. I use this before applying the foundation just to cover up any blemishes I might have (some days there are quite a few). Just like the foundation, it is soft and light and gets the job done.

This is what all three look like together along with black ULTA eyeliner and Loreal Paris Voluminous Original mascara. Sorry I couldn't get a better picture! We don't get a lot of natural light in my dorm room. But you get the gist! So I'm once again completely ecstatic about Afterglow Cosmetics and all of their products. So go visit their website at: http://afterglowcosmetics.com/

OMG BREAD!

2010-03-26T13:58:00.000-04:00

Something that always bothered me about being gluten free was the inability to find bread worthy of a good sandwich. Everything I tried had to be toasted and sometimes I wanted a soft, yummy sandwich. But thanks to King Arthur Flour's new gluten-free bread mix, I have found exactly what I'm looking for! A big thanks goes to my mom and grandma who buy me this stuff and make it for me! Grandma was the one to find it this time around. Since she's also gluten-free, she got to take some of the finished product home with her.

Of course, since I'm completely inept at anything to do with cooking, I let my mom worry about that. She was super excited to try it! And so she made the dough and did everything and shoved it in the oven. And we waited. And waited. I don't think it was actually that long. I was so hungry and I didn't want to eat anything until I had tried this bread. And then, it was finally done!!!!

Here's our results:

Let's get a closer look, hmm?

Bread! Oh, it was so beautiful! My mom knocked on the top of it to hear the hollow sound it made. Mmmm...I couldn't wait to eat it! But then, I had to wait for it to cool. This was even more torturous! The whole kitchen smelled like fresh, REAL bread and I couldn't eat it! I stared at it for a really long time, as though my intimidating look might make it cool faster.

Of course, it eventually was cool enough. So I grabbed my bread knife (the one specifically for me), and sliced into the bread. How glorious it felt!

It looks good right? It was still warm and fresh and once I cut it, the whole house smelled like it! I contemplated just eating the bread by itself just because it smelled so good! I hadn't smelled real bread for so long, and when I had, it wasn't for me. It was for gluten-eaters. Well, now it was mine! There's something so victorious about eating good bread nowadays. Of course, I love everything my mom and grandma make for me. But bread. Bread! It's a main food in most people's lives, but it's so precious to those of us who can't have gluten. This was amazing. I raved about this all throughout my spring break. And I hugged my mom forever for making it for me.

The first two pieces I had with butter. Since the bread was still warm, it melted so perfectly. The first bite I took almost brought me to tears. It was soft and warm and reminiscent of something I hadn't tasted in a terribly long time. I almost felt like I was cheating my gfree diet it was so good!

So I had to have more! This time I put my mom's egg salad on top! My mom happens to make the best egg salad in the entire world. I actually can't eat anyone else's. I'm eventually going to learn how to make it just like her because I need it in my life. I'll make it in giant proportions when I have a kitchen next year. That way I can eat it all the time! Ooh, now I can't wait to have my own kitchen at school! But that's besides the point I guess. Anyway, this was the second half of my extremely pleasing meal:

It was really good with egg salad! I definitely recommend it. I also had it with cream cheese which was awesome.

Now, it says to keep the bread or freeze it within three days. What we did was to wrap it in foil and stick it in the fridge. The next day, I tried it out to see how it stayed. After toasting it, it was still really good. Of course, it's always going to be better when you first make it, but that goes for most foods, with or without gluten. So I was completely satisfied with my King Arthur Flour experience. I think I'll try Schar's white bread mix soon. I'm curious to see how they all are. King Arthur's is definitey one that I'll be having again soon though!

Name Change: Positively Gluten Free

2010-03-25T21:15:00.000-04:00

Well, I know I haven't blogged for a while, but I'm back! I'm really excited and inspired because we recently had premium housing here at Rider University. All of my friends are finally on the same side of campus! And three other girls and I got an apartment with a kitchen! This means I'll finally be cooking my own gloriously gluten free food. I'll finally be healthy while I'm at school!

With this new inspiration I changed both the name of my blog and my username. No Such Thing As a Gluten Freebie was just too negative and frankly, untrue. I've found plenty of delicious gluten freebies that are easy and convenient. So now it's just called "Gluten Freebies."

My username changed because I don't feel like a casualty anymore. I'm just gluten free. But that doesn't make a good username! So GFree_Miel is my new name. Miel is pronounced like "Meal" so it's quite good right? It tends to be a nickname, the only real way of shortening my name. So I thought it fit. So altogether I'm feeling more positive and hopeful for the future! I just have to get through this last semester without my kitchen! The girls and I are super excited to go buy silverware and plates and pots and pans and TABLECLOTHS! It's going to be great!

Expect another post soon! Hope everyone's doing as well as I am!

-Miel (haha maybe I'll start signing off this way instead of Amelia)

A Day in Philly and Dinner at the Hocker House: Gluten-Free Awesomeness

2009-10-13T23:25:00.000-04:00

So over the weekend, two of my bestest friends in the whole entire world (Kat and Laura) decided that we had to go on what was the first of hopefully many trips to Philadelphia. Laura, my roomie, needed supplies for her painting class so either way the trip had to be made. Being the big dorks and literature buffs that we are, we just had to visit the house of Edgar Allen Poe. We hid in his closet and took pictures. It was awesome!!!!!

Here's Kat!!!

And here's Laura!!!

And here we all are with the raven!!!
Afterwards, we went to Blick (spelling?) which is the best art store I've ever seen. There was so much that I wanted to buy, but I refrained for I have more important things to purchase (like colored contacts for my Edward Cullen Halloween costume...that's right; be excited). However, it was great to peruse through the store.

Before leaving, we stopped by Naked Chocolate which has the most amazingly beautiful chocolate I've ever seen! As much as I wanted everything, it was very pricey so again, I kept my money to myself. It was still great to see the chocolate being made and formed to perfection.

Also, on a side note, we found this really cute sticker at a bus stop and I really want it.

After our trip to Philly, we all headed back to New Jersey and hung out at Joe's house for a while. His mother was kind enough to make us all dinner and made sure that everything was safe for me to eat (everything but the gravy, which I was perfectly fine without). I regret to say that I didn't take any pictures of the delicious food prepared by Mrs. Hocker, but I wanted to mention how delicious it was. We had chicken, mashed potatoes, carrots and applesauce. And strawberries with homemade whipped cream (some of which we brought back to Rider so we could snack later on). Now I'm quite spoiled though and find no delight in the food at Daly's. Still, it was worth it. I wonder what Mrs. Hocker is making this Sunday...

Schar: The Best Gluten-Free Products Known to Man (and Amelia)

2009-08-20T16:40:00.000-04:00

I know most of the gluten-free blogging world likes to refrain from packaged gluten-free snacks found in food stores and stick to cooking everything themselves, but not everyone has the time or resources to do so. Being in college, I like to stock up on snacks for my dorm room. So, in spirit of the upcoming semester, I'm going to write about my favorite snacks and easily stored gluten-free goodies. These are live-savers when it comes to school, for our dining hall can only supply me with so much. Beyond a doubt, my favorite company for these snacks is Schar. Schar products are made in completely gluten-free factories so there's no chance of cross contamination. There are also some products that are lactose free. Everything is clearly labeled, so there's no confusion.

Originally, Schar was a European brand, but they now have a branch right here in New Jersey! Isn't that convenient? I always read about gluten-free festivals and opprotunities on the west coast or the midwest. Finally, there's something in New Jersey (Lyndhurst, NJ to be exact)! So many food stores throughout New Jersey carry these products. I've found some at various health foodstores here in Toms River, and at Wegman's. So those of you in New Jersey who follow a gluten-free diet have a reason to rejoice! Schar is here!

Most importantly (besides the food being gluten-free, of course) the products are delicious! I'm still trying out a few of them--I haven't gotten to the mixes yet--but some of the snacks are the best I've had so far! I have a couple products that I'll share with you today.
These are Schar's gluten-free table crackers. These are even great to eat by themselves! They're crunchy and smooth, not gritty or too hard! They do have a tendency to fall apart and crumble easily, but we can overlook that. In fact, the best way to use these crackers is to put them in soup. I always get this white cheddar and broccoli soup from Wegman's and they go perfectly with it. You might want to find a sturdier cracker for a cheese spread, unless you don't mind the mess!
My second product is Schar's gluten free Italian breadsticks. These are a little better at staying together than the table crackers and have the same, wonderful crunch. I usually eat these with a brie spread because they manage not to fall apart while I'm dipping. My mom and I also had this habit--long before I was gluten-free--of scraping a stick of butter with bread sticks. If you have the same habit, I suggest you let the butter warm up a little. They aren't quite sturdy enough to handle cold, hard butter.

These gluten-free cocoa wafers actually weren't as great as Schar's other products. However, I think they're worth mentioning. There are two other flavors (vanilla and hazelnut--Keri, you might like the hazelnut) but I have yet to try them. The reason I tried these at all was because I missed KitKats. These taste nothing like Kitkats, but they were pretty good. Anyone who's a fan of wafers won't find a difference between those with gluten and these. I guess I'm just not much of a wafer person.

These, by far, are my FAVORITE packaged gluten-free cookies in the ENTIRE WORLD. Of course, they can't compare to homemade cookies, but they're great to munch on. I just finished a box of them actually--which was what inspired this post. They're yummy, crispy cookies with dark chocolate on the bottom. Normally, I'm not much of a dark chocolate fan. It's usually too bitter for me. However, the cookies really mellows it out, making it a perfect mixture. I can easily finish a whole box of these in one sitting. I'm thinking of trying them with milk next time. I haven't had a cookie dipped in milk since my last Oreo.

Well, there you have it. Keep in mind that Schar has a multitude of products from pastas to white bread mixes. Stocked in our pantry right now are Schar's gluten-free pizza mix, gluten-free white bread mix, gluten-free shortbread cookies and gluten-free tagliatelle pasta. I hope to try all of them before the end of summer. I can't wait to bring some of these snacks back to school with me. Watch out, roomie. Our room will be filled with Schar's gluten-free chocolate-dipped cookies!!!!

If you want more information on Schar, like their history and other products, go to the website: http://www.schar.com/us/

Afterglow Cosmetics: Gluten Free and Natural

2009-08-16T21:43:00.000-04:00

A couple of weeks ago, I started to notice that despite my being on a strictly gluten-free diet, I'd been getting stomach aches when I ate anything. And I mean anything. I started to wake up without breakfast, having something small for lunch and usually skipping dinner just to escape the daily nightmare that became my stomach. Of course, I wondered what could possibly be the cause of all this pain and cramping, knowing that I hadn't eaten anything bad. When I'm home for the summer, I'm very careful about what I eat. I rarely go out to restaurants and I usually plan what I'll eat in my head the night before. So it made no sense that I would be contaminated. I wasn't at Rider, so I couldn't blame Daly's for the discomfort. I wracked my brain for days to figure out what was causing this problem.

You want to know what it was? Medicated chapstick. Now, I've been on forums that have said that all Chapstick products are gluten-free, but ever since I started using chapstick again, my stomach began acting up. Others also claimed to have had a problem with chapstick in the past. I guess it depends on how sensitive you are. But I found that as soon as I switched to Burt's Bees, my stomach went back to normal (or what's considered normal to us Celiac sufferers). So, for those of you who are rather sensitive, don't underestimate the power of switching lip balms.

So, this made me start thinking about the other products I used on my lips (and even the rest of my face). Makeup is very ambiguous when it comes to ingredients and what's safe for those with Celiac Disease. Of course, I'm not the first to worry about this. In fact, when I was flipping through a Living Without magazine, I found the ad for Afterglow Cosmetics. I read everything on their page that I could find to learn more about their products. They are talc free, nut free, GMO free, gluten free, carmine free, bismuth free, paraben free, lake dye free, FD&C dye free, cornstarch free, mineral oil free, nano free and petrochemical free. Do I know what most of those are? Nope, but I know that it means this makeup is all natural. As an added bonus, the website assures customers that their products are never animal tested. So I started looking through their online store, having been in need of some new lipstick. You see, I never really wore lipstick. I never thought I could pull it off really. But I've been experimenting a little bit lately. So I bought three lipsticks: Innocent, Kiss, and Adore. Besides those, there are plenty of beautiful colors for all sorts of complexions.

After trying out the three lipsticks, I found them to be smooth and easy to apply, long-lasting and comfortable to wear throughout the day. I loved all three of the colors I bought and recommend them to anyone that might have the same paleness as me. I also have this fear of lipstick making my teeth look yellow, but none of these seemed to have done so. I was very happy.

The first lipstick I tried was Innocence. I loved how natural it looked. I could wear it just to hang out somewhere casual or to go somewhere a little fancier. Take a look for yourself:

The second one, called Kiss, was my favorite because it was a real gamble for me. I never thought I'd be able to pull off red, red lipstick. I always admired people who could (like my sister, Molly, who can pull off anything she wants). I was pleasantly surprised to find that this color wasn't too overwhelming, but just the right amount of red.

The last of my new lipsticks, Adore, was also pleasantly natural looking, but added a nice shimmer. I love it! It's something I could wear everyday.

Now that you've gotten to see my pretty face with pretty lipstick, go buy some for yourself! It's a bit expensive at about twenty-five bucks a pop, but for those with a gluten-intolerance, it's worth it. Besides, everything else we buy is more expensive than the norm anyway. Why not splurge on natural, gluten-free lipstick? Afterglow Cosmetics also has a large array of products, so take a look!

Blog Carnival: A Gluten-Free One!

2009-06-17T09:18:00.000-04:00

This morning I went into my email, to see if I'd been missing anything over the weeks of ignoring the world outside my house. What I found there was an email from Kim Hopkins, who writes her own blog called The Food Allergy Coach. She's starting a blog carnival all about Celiac Disease, where I've just submitted my Thanksgiving post. Of course, there will be plenty of other posts from other Gluten-Free bloggers, most of which are better and more experienced than I am. So if you're curious or are looking for more recipes, support or information about Celiac Disease and/or Gluten-intolerance or allergy, take a look The Food Allergy Coach on August 1st.

Thanks!

Amelia - Another Gluten-Free Casualty

Summer=Gluten Free Days and Blog Posts

2009-05-19T23:13:00.001-04:00

Many of my friends and family have brought it to my attention that I've been slacking these past months when it comes to this blog. And I have. There's no excuse except that school takes an undeniable precedence over my other forms of writing. But now the spring semester is over and I can no longer excuse my absence from my gluten-free blogging. As a preview for the coming weeks of delicious gluten-free foods I'll be ingesting, I've decided to post photographs of the desserts we had at this year's Easter brunch. I'm sure I'll have more to share once we start having those barbecues that make the summer so wonderful. Enjoy!

CAKE!!! (No dirty minds please, those of you who speak Middle English)

Chocolate Chip Cookies

Sugar Cookies! Very crumbly but delicious!

A Belated Gluten-Free Christmas and New Years

2009-01-20T16:14:00.000-05:00

Though it's far past the Christmas and New Years season, I thought I'd better share some of the great food I had over these holidays. Between watching Elf and White Christmas, I've had some pretty delicious food. This is all thanks to my mom and grandma since I have no idea how to do any of this. Thank you MOM and G-MA!!! I can only hope that someday I can make this on my own. In all honesty, I can't even flip an egg. Ha....erm...Well anyway, here are some pictures of what I ate over the holidays.

Rice Balls!!!

Crab-stuffed Mushrooms

Gluten-Free Pancakes

Well, there you have it. Three delicious, gluten-free yummies. Good enough to make any holiday gluten-free.

Thanksgiving At G-ma's: Definitely Gluten-Free

2008-12-02T17:00:00.000-05:00

(These are Schar's Gluten-Free Breadsticks! They're quite good!)

Tis the season to eat gluten! Am I right? I mean, come on! Stuffing? Gravy? Pie? And in my family, Manicotti? For those of you who just had your first gluten-free Thanksgiving, I assure you that it gets easier the second time around. Well, it did for me anyway, with much help from my terribly understanding Mother and my now gluten-free Grandma. They're both great. See, I can't cook for my life! That, of course, will be changing during the upcoming winter break. Regardless, it would be completely impossible for me to live a gluten-free life without their guidance and encouragement. Thanksgiving was no different. So, with G-ma's permission, I've decided to post two recipes: Gluten-free Stuffing and Gluten-free Manicotti! Enjoy!!!

Gluten-Free Stuffing
Note: Grandma made this generic recipe though she usually just wings it. Please feel free to add or take away whatever you'd like. But trust me, this was delicious!

1 pork sausage (such as Jones)
1 loaf gluten free white bread (I used Shar)
1 medium onion, minced
3 stalks celery, chopped
3 eggs, beaten
2 teas Bells seasoning
salt and pepper
milk or water
Oil

Cube bread into about 1/2 inch cubes, put in large bowl. Set aside.Fry and break up the port sausage. Drain and set aside. Add 2 TBS oil to fry pan and saute onion and celery, salt, pepper and Bells seasoning. Saute on medium until onion is translucent.
Add sausage, onion and celery mixture and eggs to cubed bread. Mix together, adding milk or water as needed. The mixture should be fairly soft. (I want to say mushy), Put in baking pan and bake for about 1 hour at 350 degrees.

Gluten-Free Manicotti
Note: This doesn't include the recipe for sauce. You can either make your own sauce or buy one.

Crepe shells as follows:
3 large eggs
1 cup gluten-free all-purpose flour
salt
1 TBS oil
cold water
In blender-mix 3 eggs, salt, oil til blended. Add flour, blend and add in water through the opening to make a thin batter. It should be a little thicker than heavy cream.
Heat crepe pan or non-stick pan and coat with a little oil. Pour enough batter (about 1/3 cup) to coat the bottom of the pan. Tilt the pan to cover the bottom. Cook till bubbles appear on crepe. The bottom should be a light brown. Turn and cook the other side briefly. Turn out on parchment paper. Makes about 9 crepes.

Filling:
1 16 oz. container part skim ricotta
1 cup shredded mozzarella
1/3 to 1/2 cup grated locatelli romano cheese
1 egg
salt & pepper
Mix all above ingredients together.

Assemble Manicotti:
Spread thin layer of spaghetti sauce on bottom of baking dish. Put filling in the middle of the crepe, fold edges over. Lay in baking dish with seam side down. Fill all crepes. Spread thin layer of sauce over manicotti, sprinkle with a little grated cheese, if desired. Bake about 30 minutes in 350 degree oven.

There you have it! Two yummy recipes to start off the season! It is possible to have a gluten-free Thanksgiving, even if it takes you a few years to perfect. Thank you, Mrs. Vairo, for these delightful recipes. Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving!!!

I'm Not Alone: A Gluten-Free Discovery

2008-11-11T22:07:00.001-05:00

It has recently come to my attention that I'm not the only gluten-free casualty on Rider University's campus. Actually, it was today at lunch that my good friend, Kevin, mentioned the name of someone else that has Celiac Disease. Though I could never say I was happy that this person should share in my suffering, it made me feel a little less alone. You know, I go to dinner and I'm stuck with questionable french fries and a questionable hot dog (without the bun, of course). I look around me and see full plates of at least halfway decent looking food. I've gotten over that jealousy, but every once in a while, I look over to their plates and sigh, just loudly enough that someone next to me might have heard it. It's definitely not fun. And in thinking that I was the only one on campus with Celiac Disease, I didn't think that I could change anything about Daly's. People without the disease don't understand just how easily we can be contaminated. They don't know that they need separate cooking utilities for gluten-free foods so they don't get cross-contaminated. They don't understand how just one crumb can make us sick for days.

I thought Rider wouldn't force Daly's to change just for one student. With my meek little voice, I know I can't change anything on my own. And people who don't understand the severity of the disease don't want to help. But now I know there are at least two of us here. I thought of going to Resident Life and demanding a kitchen, but perhaps there's another option. Maybe we can educate Rider about Celiac Disease and what we need from Daly's. We pay to go here and to eat at our dining hall. Isn't it only fair that we should get just as much out if it as any other student? I mean, they don't put out any ingredients, so that automatically puts me on the defense, and they don't have many options to begin with. Seriously, everyday I go in, hoping there's something good that I can eat. Most of the time there's nothing good for anyone to eat. So I end up with the aforementioned questionable fries and a questionable hot dog without the bun. But I always still feel like crap. How's that? Say it with me everyone: CROSS-CONTAMINATION!!!

I've decided that my winter project is going to be learning how to cook. I'm a terrible cook. I always guilt my mom into making me food. So I need to learn how to make delicious gluten-free meals for myself. I'll be using recipes I've found in various blogs (most of which are on the list to the right) and variations that I'll try on my own. Plus, I'll be trying out various mixes that I've heard good things about (already found a good one for cupcakes). Anyone out there have any suggestions, feel free to comment! I'm really looking forward to learning how to cook for myself and be healthy again!

I think the feeling that I'm not alone in this has had a very positive affect on my outlook. After reading Shauna James Ahern's book Gluten-Free Girl, I began to realize that I had a whole new world opened up to me. I would miss the old, but it wasn't such a terrible thing. Once I get out of college and have a place with my own kitchen, I can finally be healthy. And with my mom and my grandma to help, everything will be just fine. I do think it's imminent that those of us with Celiac Disease or other autoimmune disease need to get the word out, educate our peers and our community about our ailments. With more and more people being diagnosed with these diseases, we need to band together to get the world to accommodate us at long last. More and more restaurants are willing to make gluten-free menus (PF Chang's for example). If more people know exactly what we need to stay healthy, they'll make the changes, I think.

So, to my new gluten-free friend, I know things may seem a little grim right now, but with practice and help from other gluten-free casualties, everything will be just fine.

Bronc Buffet: Not Gluten-Free, but Still Fun

2008-10-30T00:12:00.000-04:00

Each month, Rider holds a "Bronc Buffet" (please, don't ask me what a bronc is). Everyone gathers in the dining hall (Daly's) and has free food, as well as some mildly good entertainment. Since Halloween is nearing, this buffet was themed thusly. Everything had webs and pumpkins and fake spiders all over the place. Oh and there was a bunch of candy (but none of the kinds I like...sad right?). My friends and I were bored so we made our way over, despite the fact that we had a long day before the festivities began. As soon as we came inside Daly's, we found ourselves at the ends of a very long, seemingly motionless line. Of course, we knew the free food would be at the end of this line and hopefully still plentiful by the time we got there. So we waited. It wasn't so bad really. In fact, we made it to the front of the line much quicker than expected. Then the real problem presented itself to me in a less than merciful manner. It was the smell first. I knew everything had to have been fried with such a divinely fattening scent. I though perhaps there'd be some fries then (though I know those are always risky as well). My sight was what displayed my abhorrence to the scene before me. Not only were there no french fries, but there was nothing that wasn't BREADED! I sucked in a strangled gasp as the realization came over me: there was absolutely nothing that I could eat. Think I'm exaggerating? Just look at this:

This would be Brian's (my RA) plate. Look at that! Of course, the fact that I know people like us cannot have these tasty, greasy treats doesn't stop my mouth from watering when looking at this photograph. I almost lost control of myself and grabbed everything. But I knew I would later regret it when in the bathroom, vomiting or something. So I didn't. I was good. I had a cup of soda instead. No, it's not food, but that's okay. I was with my friends and I had a good time, even if I was desperately hungry. I was okay. That in itself, was a miracle.

Now onto the fun stuff! Since the theme was Halloween, there was a brilliant face painter at the buffet. Of course, we got there too late and only two of us got our faces painted (of which I was not one). But both of them turned out great! So, we took this opportunity for a photo shoot!!! Ready? Here's Gina's. I thought it was so pretty:

Butterfly! There were many other good ones too. One girl got a dragon all the way down her arm. Pretty spiffy, right? I didn't get to take a picture of that one. Next is Dara's. I took pictures of her entire process. Enjoy!

Step 1

Step 2

Step 3

Finished Product
(Also note the really awesome design on the girl to the left)

Voila!
(To the right: WHY SO SERIOUS???)

See? Lots of fun. And I didn't need gluten. Didn't you forget about gluten while looking at all the fun pictures? I know I did.

Bronc Buffet = Not Gluten-Free, but still a good time