bye-byegluten-blog

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I seriously feel as though I need to send this to everyone I know so that maybe they will understand.  Ugh.  So perfect.

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My god.  I don't think this could be any more perfect.  This past weekend I went to visit my parents and go out for a belated Father's Day dinner.  They luckily have a great restaurant in their town that is gluten-free friendly.  I still take this with a grain of salt as I'm resigned to the fact that no one really gets that my food can't be cooked in the same pan/pot, etc.  Anyway, after my spiel I had what I thought was a successful meal minus the fact that they didn't give me my potatoes.  No, starch is not the same thing as gluten, but hey, I appreciate the caution.

As I happily eat my GF chocolate fondue with bananas and strawberries for dipping, my father casually dips his biscotti in my chocolate.  I nearly flew off the handle, but thankfully didn't and tried calmly to explain that his biscotti can't touch my food. 

Needless to say, I was sick the following day and the day after.  I'm sure it is more likely to be from the rest of the food I ate, but damn, I still can see that biscotti shooting for my chocolate in slow motion!

WHEN I TRY TO EXPLAIN CROSS CONTAMINATION

(Source: casualnewyork)

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Best. Brownies. Ever.

Prior to going gluten-free I absolutely loved baking.  My grandfather is a Master Baker and from Germany.  His father owned a bakery on the small island my family comes from and he grew up in the business.  Ever since I was a kid, he has made cakes and pies for nearly every single holiday and celebration.  To me, it was always the highlight of family events.  So, I grew up with a severe sweet tooth...especially for chocolate.  I started baking on my own in high school, but didn't really realize that I had any talent in it until my junior year in college.  Since then it became a bit of an obsession and has even made me consider opening up my own business.  Now, that isn't something I'd do for a long time, but it's in the back of my mind all the time.

OK, enough back story.  All that is to say that I miss good ole gluten filled baked goods.  I'm sorry, but the gluten-free kind are not as good.  To me, they are typically tough, grainy, and incredibly dense.  That is, until I found the best brownie mix ever from Hodgson Mill.

I've made them twice so far.  The first time I used flax seed to replace the one egg it calls for so that a friend that is allergic to eggs could eat them.  And the second time I made them with the egg.  Both times I added some GF chocolate chips from Trader Joes and added some cinnamon extract in addition to the vanilla that it calls for. These brownies are dense, fudge-like, very chocolatey, and only slightly grainy.  My BF, who doesn't need to be GF, says they are the best brownies he has ever had - GF or normal.

Believe me.  These are completely worth trying and are pretty inexpensive as GF mixes go.  I bought mine at Key Foods, but the brand also has an online store (http://www.hodgsonmillstore.com) that you can get them from too.

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OK, I'm not good at this...

Yes, I haven't written in a while.  Life gets busy, I get lazy, blah blah blah.

Today is a writing day and in writing a few reviews online it finally dawned on me that I had started a blog.  Whoops.  Let's start this again.

Nearly 6 months later and I am still gluten-free.  I don't think I realized that it had been almost 6 months until this very second when I looked at the calendar for today's date.  Go me!

OK, I had a couple cheat days in there.  The last one was followed by an email to my boyfriend that simply stated:

I love you... I hate myself... Unless I have two-three days in the future to recover from eating some delicious, glutenous, meal/treat, please help me to realize that I absolutely should not do this to myself again on purpose.  I feel like every single organ in my body is on strike. 

I think that pretty much sums it up.  I've gotten a new primary care doctor.   I can't touch a speck of gluten because it throws me into the depths of hell for 2-3 days.  But generally speaking, I feel utterly amazing. So, that's that.  It really is Bye-Bye Gluten.  And Good Riddance!

I've learned a lot in the last 6 months and yes, I will post some of the more helpful bits on here.  More to come!

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I think this recipe, posted by Mom What's for Dinner, is going to make it onto my list of dinners this week.  It looks so good!

Asian Fusion Noodle Bowl

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Dining Out - Gluten-Free Vietnamese

This was my first foray into eating out gluten-free and I admit, I was incredibly nervous.  After being 100% gluten free for 2 weeks and feeling pretty fantastic, I was anxious about entrusting my stomach to strangers.  However, I had to get over my fear since my boyfriend's family was in town and they wanted to get Vietnamese.  BP spent some time looking up some GF options and found L'Annam by Union Square.

When we arrived BP asked if the gluten-free items were on the same menu.  They actually have a separate menu, which is pretty large and includes tips on ordering the food to make sure that the waiter understands that your order needs to be completely GF.  This made me feel a little bit better, but I decided to order a glass of wine and relax.

BP and I decided to share an order of their GF summer rolls and the curry chicken soup to start.  Both were fresh and tasty.  The GF summer rolls came with Nuoc Cham sauce instead of the typical peanut based sauce.  For my main dish I ordered the curry fried rice.  When I ordered I asked him to make sure that it was prepared in GF soy sauce and he sort of gave me the impression that he understood.  The entire time I was fighting back the urge to run into the kitchen and watch my food as it was prepared.  Thankfully, I didn't give in to that urge.  With my rice I was provided with a bottle of Tamari.  The rice was good and had a little bit of heat from the curry.

In all, the experience from a GF standpoint was OK while I was there.  They get bonus points for having GF soy sauce and a large GF menu.  However, as a general restaurant it wasn't that great.  The service was pretty bad and they ended up bringing out our entrees in a staggered mess.  The last entree was brought out about 15 minutes later than the first ones.

Plus, I did not feel so great by the time I got home.  My stomach was twisted in knots and I felt that if I weren't lying down I would have spent the entire night being sick.  So, I don't have confidence in the food not being gluttened by other dishes/ingredients in the kitchen.

Since BP is part Vietnamese and loves him some Banh Mi and Bun Thit Nuong, I'm willing to give in another shot somewhere down the line, but I'd be wary of the food and be particularly careful with your order.

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Gluten-Free Bread - A Bread Machine Recipe

I am happy to report that I had my first successful experience making gluten free bread this weekend!

Earlier last week I attempted to adapt a recipe posted by the wonderful Gluten-Free Goddess.  The only flour that I had purchased so far was the all-purpose flour mix from Better Batter, so I followed their instructions for replacing all flours and binders with the equivalent amount of their flour mix.  At the end of the baking cycle in my new Sunbeam Bread Machine I was left with an incredibly dense and dry loaf of bread.  We sliced and tried to give it a go, but it was nearly inedible.

Not one to be discouraged, I decided to make a second attempt with a different recipe on Friday night.  I'm going to try the one posted by Gluten-Free Goddess again when I have the right flours around to make it.  This time, I used a recipe for Butter-Basted White Bread posted on Food.com.  The recipe itself is from the More from the Gluten-free Gourmet cookbook by Bette Hagman.  I again adapted the recipe to include the Better Batter all-purpose flour mix.  Here is my adapted recipe:

Ingredients:

3 cups all-purpose gluten-free flour (I used Better Batter)

2 1/2 teaspoons additional all-purpose flour mix

2/3 cup powdered milk

1 1/2 teaspoons salt

3 tablespoons white sugar

1 2/3 cups lukewarm water

3 eggs (at room temperature)

4 tablespoons melted butter

1 teaspoon apple cider vinegar

1 1/2 teaspoons yeast granules

Instructions:

1. Mix together all dry ingredients in a bowl and set aside.

2. Beat the three eggs and the lukewarm water together until frothy.

3. Add all wet ingredients into the breadmachine (egg + water mixture, melted butter, and vinegar).

4.  Carefully add the dry ingredients on top of the wet ingredients.

5.  Add the yeast.

6.  Select the Quick option on the Sunbeam Bread Machine, select Medium for crust coloring, and hit Start.

A couple notes:

Make sure to check your bread machine's manual for the order in which ingredients should be added.  Mine is liquid, dry, then yeast, but all bread machines are different.

If you don't have a gluten-free option on your bread machine, try to determine which setting will work best.  Gluten-free bread does not require a second rising so some settings may not work correctly for this recipe.  Thanks to a review for this recipe from someone that has a Sunbeam, I selected the Quick setting on mine.

The recipe posted actually calls for 1 1/2 tablespoons of yeast and white wine vinegar.  I thought that sounded like a lot of yeast for one loaf, so I adjusted it down.  I also didn't have any white wine vinegar on hand and thought the cider vinegar might give it a nice sweet taste.

An hour and forty minutes later produced this buttery, golden loaf:

I would highly recommend this recipe.  On the site that I found, it offers a couple variations that I'm excited to try soon!

Next mission?  Learn to take better photos of the foods that I make!

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Online Shopping for Gluten-Free Products - GlutenFreely.com

It seems as though my wonderfully supportive boyfriend, who is even more into eating food than I am, has been talking to everyone he knows about the fact that I've gone gluten-free.  I think it is more about him explaining why he's changed his eating habits, which he was somewhat notorious for, than him talking about his strange girlfriend.  Either way, since we work in the same office, I've had a lot of people start randomly talking to me about it.  Due to his talkative nature, another non-work friend who was now aware of the diet change happened to come across a LivingSocial deal where you pay $25 for $50 to use on the GlutenFreely online store.  I had yet to come across any mentions of the website, so I quickly looked at the store and decided to buy in since I needed to start buying flour and the like for baking.  My (again) wonderfully supportive boyfriend bought one as well, so that brings us to $100 to spend on products.  Not too bad.

So today, I finally decided on what my purchases were going to be.  After a trip to our regular supermarket (Key Food) I found that they were actually nicely stocked on GF pasta, sauces and condiments.  Plus, their prices on pasta and the like were actually much better than those on GlutenFreely.  Since they did not carry a single box/bag of gluten free flour, I decided to focus on only getting flour and baking mixes. 

Here is a snapshot of the items I bought on GlutenFreely:

From what I've seen, the prices on the items above are pretty good, at least compared to some of the stores around here in New York City.

All in all, I'm pretty happy that we purchased the vouchers, though I have a few things to note about the GlutenFreely website.  After a little research, I found out that it was started in May of 2011 through a partnership with General Mills, the University of Maryland and the University of Chicago.  Of course, in looking at the products available, you can easily see that there is a heavy dose of GM products available.  I'm completely fine with this since I think it is great that they have such a large number of GF products even available.  Plus, they seem to include some of the staple GF products that are loved by celiacs and gluten intolerants out there at pretty reasonable products.  In all, my only complaints are that they could definitely use a larger number of flours.  I'd really like to see almond, coconut and amaranth.  Also, there is absolutely no way to search within the store for certain products.  You have to go to each section and look through each page if you are looking for something in particular, which is annoying.

Even if you aren't in the market for gluten-free products, the site has some good resources - symptoms, how to keep a gluten-free kitchen, eating out, etc.  It also has a blog and a place to ask questions about all things relating to gluten.  I'll definitely be taking some time to explore more of the website than just the store.

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Hi there.

OK, so here's a little "about me".  I'm a twenty-something that has been living in New York for the last four years.  By city standards, I live in a verifiable zoo.  My boyfriend and I share our Sunset Park apartment with two rambunctious dogs, an aging and set in her ways cat, plus a tank full of fish.  We love it, but I'm still maintaining that we need a fleet of Roombas to keep the pet hair at bay.  I work at a large non-profit in Manhattan targeted at decreasing food poverty in New York City.  All in all, it is good work.

In a way, my life has always revolved around food.  One of my parents’ favorite stories is one of me in kindergarten.  The teacher had asked all of my fellow students to tell the class what their favorite food was.  Apparently, my more normal classmates recited the typical things like ice cream, hot dogs, cheeseburgers, etc.  I, on the other hand, offered up lobster.  I have no recollection of this, but I can only imagine the confused looks of the other 4 and 5 year old kids in my class.  I admit, I was a strange child in a lot of respects.

Now, don't let that little episode fool you.  I was not (and am not) a person with an 'experienced palate' that will only consume foods made of ingredients of the highest quality.  Yes, that sentence was pretentious on purpose.  I just like food.  I like pretty much all food really.

I liked food so much that one of my mother's favorite things to say to me as a kid was a warning that "the food was going to catch up to me".  I'm pretty sure she was implying that I was going to get fat. 

In fact, I still like food even though food generally has not liked me.  The relationship first went sour when I was 7 years old.  I remember the day very clearly.  While up in Maine, where I spent the summers at my grandparents’ house, I had just gotten an ice cream cone with soft serve.  Shortly afterward, I was in a panic because of the stomach pains I was having and my family frantically searched for a bathroom.  For years, my family and I assumed that I was lactose intolerant.  Both of my parents had 'weak' stomachs as well and all we did was stock up on Imodium and Lactaid.

Then in my freshman year of college, my stomach took a turn for the worse.  By the middle of my spring semester, I had lost 30 pounds and could barely eat anything.  After numerous trips to the gastroenterologist, I started taking an anticonvulsant to help with my stomach.  The pills helped, but eventually it seemed as though I had to take numerous pills at a time in order for them to work.  Eventually, I just stopped taking them. 

Since then, I have just lived with the fact that I get sick after I eat.  I have lived with the fact that I am exhausted all of the time.  There are so many small things that I have lived with medically that my doctor's just could not wrap their heads around.  I was diagnosed with CFS, high blood pressure, heart arrhythmia, IBS, orthostatic hypotension, etc., all of this before my 21st birthday.  I have never been overweight and used to exercise as often as I ate.  By all accounts, I was otherwise healthy.  I just felt horrible and no one could figure out why.

Finally, as I head into the next decade of my life, I resolved to put an end to it.  After researching my symptoms for years, I have landed on altering my diet to see what the effects are on my symptoms.  Specifically, I am embarking on a gluten free diet and possibly moving toward gluten and dairy free.  Now, I do not recommend this for everyone. Had I had better experiences with doctors, I would have been likely to go that route as well, but this is where I am instead. 

As I go through this, I want to share things that I have learned.  I spent many weeks reading many blogs in order to build up enough confidence to start this.  Hopefully, I can offer even just a little of that back to others.