Just Shoot Me, Okay?

DANGER! POISON!

I should be shot. I should be punished. Oh, wait, I AM being punished. I had the idea right about Thanksgiving—don’t cook a lot of things, don’t cook anything that has wheat or gluten in it. My menu for the day was:

Roasted Chicken

Baked Sweet Potatoes

Turnip Greens with Turnips

Cornbread Dressing (no loaf bread in it, just cornbread, made with no wheat flour)

Giblet Gravy (made with tapioca flour)

So why am I having a “Wheat Hangover”? A busting, throbbing, headache, that is making my eyes hurt it hurts so bad? Because when we went to the grocery store to get the chicken, Jim found a box of cookies, made in Mexico, the ones we used to buy when we were in living in south Texas, before I stopped eating wheat, that are soooooo goooooood. Surtido Rico by Gamesa. And I ate about five of them.

Five cookies. Chocolate Sugar Wafer Cookies. They tasted so good. But they made my stomach hurt. And they made my head hurt. For two days. So if anyone sees me reaching for another cookie, just shoot me, okay?

Buckwheat Pancakes

I was craving some pancakes the other day so I decided to see what I could mix up to satisfy that craving. This worked great. I think buckwheat is going to be one of my favorite flours, because everything I have made with it so far has tasted really good.

Buckwheat Pancakes

3/4 cup buckwheat flour
1/2 cup corn flour (use rice flour if you are corn free)
1/2 cup tapioca flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 cup buttermilk powder
1 egg
1 cup(more or less) water
3 TBLS melted butter or margarine

Mix all dry ingredients in a bowl. Add egg and water and mix well. The batter should be pourable. Add the melted butter and stir in well. Pour onto a hot griddle and cook until bubbles appear. Flip over and cook on the other side.

Now if I just had some blueberries to go with this....

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.

The Gettysburg Bluegrass Festival

The Gettysburg Bluegrass Festival was held this weekend at the campground where I work. The music didn’t start until Thursday, but the diehard fans started arriving last weekend. They lined up at 3:00 p.m. last Sunday to put their chairs out in front of the stage, and the motorhomes, fifth wheels, travel trailer, pop-ups, tents, and whatever else they could find to camp in kept rolling in to the park until late on Friday night. I am the one in the window in the picture above.

There were lots of bluegrass acts, with music from 11:00 a.m til well after 11:00 p.m on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday and from 11:00 a.m. until 4:00 p.m. on Sunday. As I am not really a bluegrass fan, I had not heard of any of the bands before this weekend. But, I heard two tonight while I was working in the “Festival Money Booth” that I thought were really good. The first one was Cherryholmes, a family band that has won Entertainer of the Year. The second was was called Seldom Scene.

While I don’t see myself becoming a bluegrass fan on the same level as those folks who turned out for our festival, I would probably buy a CD recorded by these two bands. The Cherryholmes family was very talented. Their act included singing, dancing, and yodeling as well as picking those instruments. The guys from Seldom Scene were good performers as well, and made it worth watching as well as listening to.

I’ll be glad when the last act has performed, and the show is over, as I am tired and ready for a day off, but it has been fun working here while it is going on. The next one is August 23-26, 2007. I will be here for that one, too. So, if you decide to come to it, look me up. I’ll be here then, too.

For those of you who are like me, gluten intolerant, don’t expect much in the way of food that you can eat. Like most other festivals, there are several food vendors and a snack bar on the property. A couple of things I found that I was able to eat were stuffed cabbage rolls from The Polish Guy, some french fries from Bricker’s Frys (without the vinegar), and a BLT salad from the snack bar. The BLT salad is not on the menu, but a BLT sandwich is. I asked them to put the guts from a BLT sandwich in a bowl for me, and they were happy to help me in that way. It was quite good as a salad. Oh, and those golumpkis were delish!

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...

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!