Oh, My Aching Bones!

Yesterday was cold and wet. Out at the entrance station, the rain started just about the time I arrived at 6:45 a.m, and kept up until around noon. On my job, I have to stand out in the rain talking to people who are sitting in their cars, selling them their passes, checking ID's, answering their questions. Yes, I knew that when I took the job, and Yes, I still love my job. But it was still cold and wet and yucky out there yesterday.

We have a wood stove out there for heat. I had a fire going while I was out there, and it did help, and provided warmth when I stood next to it in between cars. But the cold and damp has really played havoc with my old bones. Yes, I did have on a raincoat, and a plastic cover on my hat, but those didn't help much with my hands.

Back when we had our house in Georgia, I suffered with pain in my hands and forearms in the cold winter months. But, since we have lived in mostly warm locations, I haven't had a problem with it much since then. Last night? I was awake much of the night, with a throbbing, toothache-like pain in my hands and arms up to about half way to my elbows. I know it was from standing out there in that cold rain yesterday.

When I woke up around 3:00 a.m, I thought I might get up and cut off both arms at the elbows. The only thing that stopped me from actually doing it was the thought that after I cut off the first one, I wouldn't be able to cut off the other one, and I would still be in pain as I slowly bled to death. Yeah. They hurt that bad.

So then, I started wondering about those extra strength pain relievers I took before I went to bed. Because I now hurt worse than I did before I took them, I started wondering if there was any wheat in them. I got up and read the ingredients label. Starch. It doesn't say what the source of the starch is, so I googled the manufacturer's name, and sent them an email asking what kind of starch is used to make their product. I'll let you know when I get a response. In the meantime, I am not going to take any more of them until I find out for sure.

Biscotti Con Cioccolatto

The other day when we were coming home from Washington, D.C., I was driving and I was so sleepy I felt like I was going to nod out right there in the drivers seat. So, I got off the highway at the next exit in search of a cup of coffee. On the way to the coffee place, we passed an organic food store that was in a little cottage looking house, surrounded by a burst of flowers out front. The handwritten sign in the yard said "Fresh Mozzerella Cheese", so of course I had to go in there.

I bought a container of the cheese, which by the way was delish with some tomatoes and olive oil, but the real find was some gluten free cookies I found there. They are imported from Germany, taste a lot like shortbread with the same consistency, and were dipped in dark chocolate. OMG! They were FABulous! A little pricey at $4.19 for 15 cookies, but what a heavenly experience for a gluten free grandma!

Ingredients include: dark chocolate 29% - cocoa 60% min. (cocoa mass 47,5%, sugar, cocoa butter, emulsifier: soyalecithin), maize flour, potato starch, sugar, non hydrogenated vegetable fat, glucose syrup, milk powder, raising agent: ammonium hydrogen carbonate and sodium hydrogen carbonate, salt, flavouring.

So, I am truly sorry if you are lactose free and/or corn free, but if you are only gluten free and can still eat these, you are in for a real treat.

See them for yourself here

If you find a place to purchase them, please do let me know.

Cooking For the Daughter-In-Law

We got up late on Tuesday morning. While we were having our coffee we were discussing whether or not to call Sarah, our daughter-in-law and ask if she wanted company, when the phone rang and it was her. She had been to her doctor appointment and wanted to tell me all about it. Our little Owen is due in about 58 days now. So, we decided to get in the truck and drive down.

On the way, we stopped at a farm market and picked up new potatoes, green beans, squash, peaches, and blackberries. Those blackberries were as big as my thumb!

When we arrived at their house, Michael was in the yard playing with his friends. As soon as he saw our truck, he raced across the yard to greet us. I heard him telling his friends "It's my grandparents!" That made me feel really good, like a real grandmother. And when Sarah saw the bags of groceries, she said to me, "As soon as I hung up the phone, I thought to myself, yeah, she's gonna cook dinner for me, yum!"

That night, I cooked dinner, except for the pork chops, which my son, Seth, did on the grill. We had green beans with new potatoes, fried yellow squash with onions, fresh creamed corn, and a peach-blackberry crisp based loosely on a recipe from Karina's Kitchen at the Gluten Free Goddess blog. Everything I cooked that night was gluten free, but I did not tell my family that it was because I did not want any bias in their opinion of the meal. They all raved about the food,most especially about the crisp, which they insisted on calling a pie. It was all good.

I used white rice flour to coat the squash before frying, which is the first time I have done that. The squash turned out very crispy and golden brown, and seemed to me to be better than when I used wheat flour for all those years of cooking it. I used rolled oats and rice flour for topping of the crisp. The only negative comment I had was that it was too chewy. Oh, well, if that is the only thing then it wasn't too bad.

We only got to stay for one night, then had to come home as we had not really planned on going down there. But we did make plans to go back in two weeks. So, that was our days off this week.

Amazon Grocery Gluten Free Section

Yes, this is a commercial, so if you get offended by commercials, please tune out now. :)


Since we live fulltime in a travel trailer, I have been worried that I would not be able to find my favorite gluten free items in the next town we end up in, so I have been doing some serious web surfing trying to find gluten free items at affordable prices. Well, today, I found the Amazon Grocery Gluten Free Section. They have a big selection of everything gluten free. Yes, you have to order multiple packages from them, but they do offer good prices and some things have free shipping.

One example I can give you is their xanthan gum. The local health food store here sells a 6 oz. package for $11.95. The Amazon Grocery sells 8 oz. packages for $8.16 with FREE shipping. I would be very likely to try to find someone to co-op with at those prices.

OK, end of commercial. Thank you for your time.

Blueberry Cornbread

Being a girl from the south, I grew up eating cornbread. The cornbread I always made before I started eating gluten-free was made with this recipe:

1 cup self rising corn meal mix
1 cup self rising flour
2 tablespoons sugar
1 egg
enough buttermilk or 2% milk to make a thick, pourable batter.

Mix well and pour into an iron skillet that has been on an eye on top of the stove heating up the oil, so that when you pour in the batter it sizzles. Bake in a 420 degree oven until golden brown.

I loved that cake like corn bread, so much that at times I made it every night for dinner, and ate a piece with butter and white Karo syrup for desert.

Now that I can not eat the wheat flour, I have had to rethink the recipe. Tonight I decided to make some cornbread with some fresh blueberries in it because I had too many blueberries in the refrigerator.

Here is the new and improved, gluten-free corn bread:

1 cup yellow corn meal
1 cup white rice flour
1/8 cup powdered buttermilk
1/2 tablespoon baking powder
1/2 tablespoon xanthan gum
1/8 cup sugar
1 egg
1/2 cup 2% milk or water
1 cup fresh blueberries

Mix all the dry ingredients in a bowl. Add egg and liquid, and stir until mixed well. Stir in blueberries. Pour into iron skillet that has been heating up on top of the stove with some olive oil in it, then bake in a 425 degree oven about 30 minutes, until browned on top. Serve with butter.

This version was pretty good. I think next time I will add a little salt to the batter, though, and see how that works.

The Gluten Connection

We stopped at Barnes and Noble in Frederick, Maryland yesterday while waiting for movie time. I bought this book by Shari Lieberman. She is a clinical nutritionist in private practice for more than 20 years. Although I have only read the Foreword, the Introduction, and the first chapter, I think it should be required reading for anyone who is gluten intolerant or who has been diagnosed with Celiac Disease. I wish I had found it on Amazon first, because I paid full price at B&N, $16.95 plus tax. I see Amazon has it for $11.95. Sigh.

Now I Know

I have been gluten free since about the middle of April. Since then, I have been very faithfully GF, something I was very proud of because I felt so much better. But, my grandchildren, Sarah and Michael, came to spend a few days with me. The last day they were here, I made them some french toast, and I ate two pieces of it with them. Just because it smelled so good, and because I just wanted to.

So, I have been wondering which of the many symptoms I had would come back fastest if I "cheated", if I ate something made from wheat flour. Now I know. My legs and feet hurt so bad I could hardly walk for two days. Not just a little sore, but an ache down in my bones that required several doses of pain releivers (over the counter). I don't think I will be doing that again any time soon. Oh, yeah, and my face broke out in pimples, too. Yuck.

A New Yummy Gluten Free Pizza Recipe

I have been tryng out different pizza dough recipes for a couple weeks now, trying to find one Jim and I can both eat and like. Here is the one I tried today. It was really good, so good that Jim was bragging to the people we work with that I made a de-lish-ous homemade pizza for lunch. He said it is a keeper recipe.

For the crust:

1 packet rapid rise dry yeast
3/4 cup warm water
2 tsp. Brown sugar
2/3 cup white rice flour
½ cup tapioca flour
2 tsp. Xanthan gum
½ tsp. Salt
½ tsp. Baking soda
½ tsp baking powder
2 tsp olive oil
1 tsp cider vinegar

Add the yeast and brown sugar to the water, and stir to disolve the yeast. Set aside. Measure all the dry ingredients and put in a medium size bowl. Add olive oil, vinegar, and yeast water. Stir with a fork until a ball forms. The dough will be soft. Cover with plastic wrap and let rise until about double in size. Stir down the dough. Line a cookie sheet with aluminum foil. Spray foil with olive oil. Spread dough with the back of spoon til very thin, making sure you close up any tears or holes in the dough.

For the topping:

1 jar of Classico Pesto sauce, or homemade pesto sauce
black olives
2 or 3 fresh tomatoes, sliced
pepperoni or cooked Italian sausage
1 cup shredded mozzeralla cheese

Spread the pesto on the pizza dough. Add Italian sausage or pepperoni on top of the pesto. Slice tomatoes very thin, and add on top of the meat. Slice the black olives on top of tomatoes. Sprinkle cheese over all. Bake at 425 degrees for 15 minutes. Let the pizza rest for abut 5 minutes before slicing.

This was very good. The bottom of the crust was a nice golden brown, and the whole crust was crispy and chewy, just the way I like pizza dough. I am going to try this again next week , but use the dough to make some bread sticks. I will let you all know how it turns out.

Gluten Free Bruschetta

Isn’t it strange what we start to crave when we know we can’t have it? The latest thing I have been about to die for is Bruchetta. You know, the classic Italian dish that starts out with Italian bread, toasted and buttered, then spread with a combination of chopped tomatoes, fresh mozzarella cheese, and basil? So, that was my cooking project for today. I took the pizza dough recipe from Meesh’s blog, cooked it without any pizza toppings on it. Then I put on my bruschetta salad, and Oh My God! Was it ever good.

Here is the recipe for the topping:

6 small ripe tomatoes, chopped
12 small “balls” of fresh mozzarella cheese, cut up
several sprigs of fresh basil, chopped
¼ to ½ cup olive oil
salt and pepper to taste

Mix all the ingredients in a bowl, cover, and refrigerate for at least 2 hours, preferably overnight, if you can control yourself. Spread over cooked pizza crust that has been cut into bread sticks.

YUM! This stuff makes a complete meal for me when I have a tossed green salad with it.

Jackpot!

In Pennsylvania, you cannot buy beer in a convenience store. They also do not have beer stores. So, if you want to buy a six-pack of beer to take home and enjoy, you have to go to a pub or a restaurant. Jim asked me to pick him up a six-pack today so he could have a beer when he gets off work at ten. I went to Fairfield, about five miles west of the campground, to Ventura’s.

Ventura’s is an Italian restaurant that makes the best pizza in this area. When I went in to get the beer, it smelled sooooo good in there. So, when I was paying for the beer, I asked if they had any gluten free dishes on the menu. The guy running the register started to say no, but the owner had been passing through and heard me ask. He came up to the register and asked me what my allergy was.

I explained to him that I was allergic to wheat, and could not eat any product that has gluten in it. He told me that he is a nutritionist, and understands allergies, and celiac disease. He said that they use HIGH gluten flours to make their pizza dough, but that if I would bring him some flour he would be glad to make a pizza for me anytime I wanted to come in and eat with my husband!

Ok, so the other day I wrote about how I did not miss eating pizza. Maybe I don’t, but I DO miss eating pizza WITH MY HUSBAND. So, I am going to be taking some flour to Rob at Ventura’s, and I will let you all know what happens.

Oh, yeah, and while I was out, I also stopped at the convenience store and bought a scratch off lottery ticket. I won $70. Yippee!

Gluten Free Pizza

I have not missed pizza at all since I found out I couldn't eat it, but then I know how bad I feel when I eat the gluten. So, because my husband Jim was whining about not getting to eat pizza anymore, I decided to try to make one at home for him. Now, he is not a celiac or even gluten intolerant, but since there are only two of us living here, and I am the cook, I have told him that he has to eat whatever I can eat. I am not into cooking two meals every night. And it won't hurt him to eat what I eat.

With that in mind, I started looking at recipes for pizza crust, and found that I did not have all the ingredients listed in any of them. So, as all good FabGrandmas do, I improvised and used what I had, loosely following a recipe in the Bette Hagman's book, "The Gluten-Free Gourmet Cooks Fast And Healthy." Here is my recipe, based on hers:

1/2 cup millet flour
1/2 cup brown rice flour
1/2 cup tapioca flour
1 tsp xanthan gum
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 1/2 Tbl olive oil
1 egg
1/2 teaspoon vinegar
1 1/2 tsp brown sugar
1 cup warm water
1 pkg dry yeast

Mix together all the dry ingredients except the sugar in a bowl. In another bowl, combine the egg, oil, vinegar, 1 tablespoon of the brown sugar. Put the water and yeast in a measuring cup, stir to disolve the yeast. Add the yeast water to the bowl with the liquid ingredients and beat with a mixer on low speed. Add about half of the dry ingredients and beat well with the mixer. Add the rest of the dry ingredients and mix in with a spoon until it is smooth. Let the dough rise for 40 minutes (25 minutes for quick rising yeast). Stir it down, and spread on a baking sheet that has been sprayed with olive oil. This will be a thin, runny dough compared to a wheat flour based dough.

I baked my crust first at 350 degrees for about 12 minutes before adding the toppings. After you add your toppings, bake for another 12-15 minutes at 425 degrees.

The texture of this was not as chewy as "real" pizza dough, but it did have a nutty, "wheaty" yeast flavor and was crispy and brown on the bottom. And not bad for a first try. Jim liked it, and ate four pieces of it. As long as he is smiling after dinner, I feel like I succeeded.

My First Attempt At Gluten Free Baking

Last night I had my first attemtp at gluten free baking. I made a chocolate cake, loosely following a recipe I found online, using the things I had on hand. It was made with a mixture of millet flour, brown rice flour, and tapioca flour. I added some eggs, some olive oil, some xanthan gum, some baking powder and salt, and some cocoa powder. I did not have enough sugar in the house to put in as much as the recipe called for, and I am glad I didn't because it was sweet enough without it.

When it was done, I let it cool off, and served it with raspberries and whipped cream on top. Jim liked it enough to eat two pieces of it, so it passed the test. Now if I could remember just exactly how much of each thing I used...

Making Meals Ahead

Jim and I are working the evening shift at our job this season. This means that on Sunday, Monday, and Thursday, we get off at eight o'clock. On Friday and Saturday we don't get off until ten o'clock, and that will change soon to eleven o'clock. It also means that we are not eating the way we should, mostly because I don't feel like cooking anything when I get off work so late. This is made even harder since I am a diabetic and also recently changed to a gluten free diet.

Today I took a couple of hours to do some things in the kitchen so that we can have a light meal when we get home, or that we can grab on the run when we get a slow minute on the job.

First, I cooked three days worth of meats, packed them in plastic containers, and put them in the fridge. I made our favorite "Chicken and Salsa", then just cooked some ground beef and some italian sausage. Making "Chicken and Salsa" is easy. You just skin your chicken pieces, brown them in some olive oil, add a jar of your favorite salsa, cover, and simmer for about 25 minutes. Served over rice, it is a delicious and filling meal. It is really quick to make, but even this is too much to attempt when you don't get off work til ten o'clock. It keeps well in the fridge, then just microwave for a couple of minutes at meal time.

Next, I cooked up a batch of rice. I have found that when I store cooked rice in a ziplock bag in the refrigerator, it keeps well and heats up fast. I made enough rice to last four or five days. I can serve it with anything and it is gluten free.

After that, I chopped up tomatos, mushrooms, red onions, green onions, and lettuce. I made a big salad with some of it, then put the rest of each item in plastic containers in the refrigerator, so that we can make a salad quickly when we need one. I also boiled a dozen eggs, peeled them, and put them in a ziplock bag in the fridge. They'll be gone way before they have a chance to go bad.

Now that all that is done, I can make a quick batch of chili or ghoulash with the ground beef, and spaghetti with the italian sausage (gluten free noodles, of course). I can have a side salad with a meal, or I can make us a chef salad with boiled eggs, turkey or ham on top. It only took a little time to do this, and it will help us eat better this week.

A New And Improved Gluten-Free FabGrandma

For most of my life, I have had some, um, very embarassing problems with my gut. But, since my father and most of my siblings had the same problems, I just thought it was normal, that some people were just, um, that way. My husband and his daughter would laugh and make smart remarks about my, um, problem.

But all that has changed very dramatically for me in just a week. About two weeks ago, I received a life changing email from one of my cousins. In that email, he described his symptoms, which included diahrea, pain in his legs and back, tiredness, "brain fog", and constant hunger, just to name a few. He told about how he had been diagnosed with Crohn's disease back in November of 2006 and had been taking medication for it ever since, but getting no better. He said he finally did a google search with all of his symptoms and "allergy", and found a lot of information about Celiac disease.

Celiac disease runs in families. It is 95% heriditary. It is the most common genetic disorder in the world. It is caused by an intolerance of gluten, which is found in wheat products. It presents itself with a host of symptoms, which can range from constant diahrea to constant constipation. In children, it can cause behaviour disorders, ADHD, failure to thrive and/or failure to gain weight. In adults it can lead to other endoctrin disorders like thyroid disease, diabetes, lymphomas, and a greater risk of liver cancer, the disease that killed my father at the age of 62.

Because a lot of my cousin's problems sound like my own, I decided to try a gluten free diet for two weeks, just to see if celiac disease could be MY problem. I am writing today to let the world know, that I think it is.

I no longer have to take pain releivers every night before I go to bed because my legs don't hurt anymore. I am not hungry all the time. I am able to think better and my eyes seem to see things brighter. And I have been diahrrea free for a week. Even after eating salads, (I used to think I was allergic to lettuce), even after eating braised liver, (I used to think I was allergic to liver, which I love), even after eating eggs for breakfast (I used to think I was sensitive to eggs). All this time the culprit has been the croutons, the gravy, the toast! It is such a freedom to NOT have to be sure I am near a bathroom, the closer the better, when I decide to eat something.

I have found some pretty good gluten free products at the local grocery store. At the Rose Garden, they have an entire gluten free section. At Dunlap's one of our favorite restaurants in town, when I asked the waitress is there was any flour used in preparation of the braised liver, she told me she had some other gluten free customers so she understood my problem. Yes!

I have sent my cousin several emails thanking him for sending me the information he sent. But, just for the world to see, Thank you, Jimmy! I really appreciate it. And, um, so does Jim!