CSA

pretty spring flowers we bought yesterday

I've wanted to join a CSA for 3 or 4 years now, but could never quite justify the cost in my mind.

Then I realized I was going to the grocery store and only buying produce and spending X amount of dollars to do it. I vaguely recalled that the CSA's I'd investigated were not that expensive.

I did some research, and found a local CSA that has a winter option- reduced offerings, but it does include random items like local cider, local raw honey, local pastured beef, etc to make sure you're getting your money's worth. And it's a lot less than what I was spending at the grocery store.

I still need to buy some produce items at the grocery store (our current diet is restricted enough that we have to eat some veggies out of season, though I'd like to be able to eat with the seasons), but it's a lot less than before. I'm still buying our weekly pastured chicken at Whole Foods, but I may switch to getting it from the CSA- it's a little more expensive (not much), but it would mostly eliminate the need to go to Whole Foods every week. It's not nicknamed Whole Paycheck without reason.... I'm also trying to reduce the number of stores I'll have to go to each week once the baby comes- less running around with a newborn is always a good thing.

I really like how flexible our CSA is:

• monthly, bi-weekly, or weekly options
• small, medium, and large boxes of produce
• milk, eggs, fish, beef, pork, chicken, bread options (varying delivery options available)
• al a carte- you can order more of something if you want, and just pay for that
• very allergy friendly- easy substitutions
• you can quit any time it stops working for you- you pay weekly, as opposed to for the season
• Pickup and delivery options- less options in the winter, but more the rest of the year

I should mention that our CSA is not an actual farm that sells just what it produces: it finds local sources  for everything and builds the boxes from there. They tell us where everything comes from and whether it's organic, low-spray, etc.

So we get a large box of produce once a week, with a portion of pork (local, pastured pork- can't find that at Whole Foods) once a month. They send out an email each week stating what's in the boxes that week and I just respond and ask them to substitute the items we can't eat. They have the info in their computer, but responding each week allows me to state a preference for what we'd like instead- usually apples one week, squash another week, etc. Right now I drive downtown to pick up our box each week, but next month I'll be able to pick it up at a location that's a lot closer and more convenient- they'll be starting their regular spring/summer routine.

I hear everyone talking about Bountiful Baskets, but they're not available in our area :(
Do you get food from a CSA?

Super Yummy Nightshade Free BBQ Ribs

ok, so they don't look pretty, but they taste good! we served them with steamed broccoli and mashed roasted cauliflower. Yum!

Ribs are easy to prepare, but BBQ sauces have tomatoes and peppers in them, and rubs have paprika and cayenne (also peppers) in them. Since nightshades and I don't get along, that was a problem. We've been doing some research, and after some trial and error, we've come up with some ribs that are yummy and don't have the offending nightshades.

Super Yummy Nightshade Free BBQ Ribs (adapted from a recipe found here)

Baby back ribs
Fauxmato BBQ Sauce
Sweet Dry Rub

Remove membrane from back of ribs. Place ribs on a sheet of foil on a cookie sheet and sprinkle dry rub on one side, then rub it in. Turn over and do the same for the other side. Let sit for 15 or 20 minutes. Preheat oven to 350 degrees while ribs are resting. Spread bbq sauce on both sides of the ribs. Place a sheet of foil on top of ribs and fold over all sides, sealing the ribs into a packet. Bake ribs in oven for at least 2 hours. We've baked them for 2 1/2 hours and they've just fallen apart before we even got them on the grill. Experiment and see what works best with your oven. After removing from oven, carefully open foil and spread more bbq sauce on the ribs. Throw (or gently place) ribs on the grill for about 10 minutes each side. Be careful not to have the grill too hot or to leave them on too long as the sugars will burn instead of caramelizing. Remove from grill and enjoy!

This recipe is gluten free, dairy free, egg free, corn free, peanut free, nut free, coconut free, soy free, as well as free of tomatoes, potatoes, peppers, sorghum, tapioca, and shellfish. Always check labels before using to make sure the ingredients and/or manufacturing conditions haven't been changed.

Birthday Cupcakes

Chocolate wacky cake cupcake with raspberry frosting

LMS had a few friends over for a birthday party last Saturday. After playing and the obligatory pinata busting [which required help from Mr M- don't buy pinatas from Target- they're impossible to break. Mr M took a whack at it and the loop tore out of it- the sides didn't bust out.] we had cupcakes and strawbery sorbet.
I used the same recipe that I used for her birthday cake, but used the chocolate gluten free option this time. I used the same frosting recipe (substituting raspberries for strawberries again), also, but didn't overbeat it this time and it turned out a lot better. I also made the same strawberry sorbet that we made for her birthday.

It was all very yummy!

What we eat: Birthday dinner

 

Little Miss Sunshine turned 6 last week.

For dinner, she requested noodles (of course!), jello, fruit salad, and root beer.

Noodles: Tinkyada Little Dreams shaped rice noodles with faux mato sauce, pepperoni, sausage, and sauteed shredded veggies
Jello: blue jello
Fruit salad: fresh strawberries, blueberries, and raspberries
Root beer: Jones brand (doesn't contain corn syrup)

For cake and ice cream she requested a lemon cake with raspberry frosting and strawberry ice cream. And she wanted the cake to have "rings", by which she meant layers.

I used this recipe for the cake, using the gluten free and lemon options. It's called Wacky Cake, and dates from the Depression when eggs, milk and butter weren't plentiful. This is great for us, since that means it's naturally vegan! No substituting with flax eggs- yay! I used Authentic Foods GF Classical blend and it turned out pretty good. A little dense, but the texture and flavor were quite good. The blend does contain tapioca flour and potato starch, so we won't use this recipe too often- I could definitely tell I was eating things I shouldn't be.

I used this recipe for the frosting, using raspberries instead of strawberries. I think I used about 1/2 cup of lightly smashed raspberries instead of the 3 Tbl strawberry puree. It's been quite some time since I made frosting, and I ended up beating it a bit longer than I should have so it went grainy. It was also a bit grainy because of the powdered sugar I used- it clumped pretty bad, even after sifting it. The frosting didn't look super appetizing, but it tasted fine.

I'll post the recipe soon that I used for the strawberry ice cream, which is really a sorbet. Since we had to take coconut milk out of our diet we couldn't use the super easy ice cream recipe that we've used in the past.

All in all, it was a yummy dinner and there was only a minimal amount of things we shouldn't be eating :)

What we eat: Christmas dinner

This is over a month late, but better late than never, right?

Turkey

Red, white, and blue jello salad (my mom's recipe)

Mashed potatoes and gravy

Brussels sprouts

Homemade applesauce

Olives

Gluten free cheddar chive biscuits (store bought)

Apple cider

Apple crisp

Vanilla ice cream (a variation of this)

The jello salad, mashed potatoes, and biscuits weren't on our list of ok foods, but since we fudged less than at Thanksgiving, there were fewer problems this time. Thankfully LMS is getting better at recognizing when she needs to run (not walk) to the bathroom. The accidents are getting fewer and farther between. Yay!

What we ate for Thanksgiving dinner

Mr M convinced me to relax some of our food restrictions for Thanksgiving. Not sure that's going to happen again- my intestines aren't too happy. We were gluten, egg, and soy free, but we still ate potatoes, tapioca, corn and corn products, and sorghum.

I bought the ham from the Honey Baked Ham store and the gravy was Imagine brand. Both are gluten free. Mr M really wanted a HB Ham so we went that route instead of the traditional turkey this year. While pricey, there was zero stress when it came to preparing it. You let it sit on the counter for a half hour or so before you eat, and then you eat it. Sooo simple! I did purchase a turkey from the grocery store because it was a great price, but it's sitting in the freezer- we'll probably have it for Christmas.

The mashed potatoes had coconut milk and Earth Balance soy free "butter" in them.

I made the cranberry pear sauce using this recipe, and there was no questionable ingredients in it.

I made the frog eye salad using my MIL's recipe that I adapted to be more within our limits- tapioca pearls instead of acini de pepe pasta and a flax egg instead of a real egg in the custard- I'll post the recipe soon now that I have it (finally) figured out.

The oranges in the jello are still on the iffy list, but I sure do like them :)

I made the cornbread and sausage stuffing mix using this recipe. I had planned on making my own corn bread from scratch, but I couldn't find gluten free cornmeal so I used Bob's Redmill gluten free cornbread mix. I've used it before and it's super easy to make, but the mix also contains sorghum flour, which makes my intestines really unhappy. Better the sorghum than gluten contamination, though.

I was going to do some green veggies- salad or something, but we eat lots of vegetables and we decided to take a break for the day :) Do olives count as veggies? Mr M insisted that Thanksgiving wouldn't be complete without some olives.

We also had blueberry pie and vanilla ice cream and  a pumpkin bread trifle. Yummy! I found the blueberry pie recipe here and the vanilla ice cream recipe was adapted from this recipe.

I used this recipe for the pumpkin bread trifle, which isn't super attractive-looking, but did taste good.

Everything tasted yummy, and while my intestines weren't super happy, my stomach and throat didn't bother me (if I'd eaten eggs or gluten they would have), so I'm not complaining too much. If it was just my intestines, I might fudge things more often. Unfortunately, the mental fog comes back if I eat foods that don't agree with me. So it's probably a good thing I don't fudge on a regular basis. I'll have to decide if it's worth it do this again come Christmas. It does make meal planning easier, and as long as we don't go anywhere LMS and I can be close to the bathroom. Hmmmm....

Grilled elk tenderloin

While I was laid out on the couch last night (I think it's highly unfair that I have to endure painful monthly cramps when none of my other lady parts seem to be able to work properly) Mr M made a really yummy dinner.

He grabbed an elk tenderloin from the freezer, defrosted it and then rubbed some salt on it and let it sit for awhile.  While it was sitting, he put a butternut squash in the oven to bake.

Mr M briefly rinsed the salt off the meat, then brushed on the fauxmato bbq sauce that he had made a couple weeks ago (I still need to do a post on the fauxmato sauce). He then tossed it on the grill to cook.

When the squash was done he scraped the flesh and pureed it in the BlendTec, using some canned coconut milk to thin it.

When the meat was done, he sliced it and we sat down to a dinner of grilled elk tenderloin and coconut squash puree. The elk was a smidge salty (he'll rinse the salt off more next time) and the squash a tad runny (he'll use a little less milk next time), but it all tasted soooo good! The tenderloin was so tender and juicy no knife was needed, and the flavor was great. The flavor combination of the tenderloin and the squash really hit the spot.

I didn't get any pictures because we ate it all up so fast :)  I'll try to get some next time, since we will definitely be making this again.

I'm so glad I have a husband who likes to cook and who has taken on the challenge of cooking meals we can eat :)

What we eat when we invite friends over

We invited the neighbors over for dinner the other day. They're a cute young couple with a one year old daughter that LMS really likes (and would really like to play with, though she's too young to understand that concept yet). These days it's definitely easier to host a meal than to worry about going somewhere else to eat.

So what was on the menu?
Aidells chicken and apple sausages

image source

Grilled chicken, marinated in Nomato Sauce (more on the Nomato Sauce later)
Grilled mixed veggies (onion, mushroom, zucchini, yellow squash, broccoli, carrot)
Faux-tatoes (pureed squash)
Real mashed potatoes just in case the squash wasn't well received (and because Mr M really wanted some)
Fruit salad (blueberries, strawberries, kiwi)
Green salad (LMS put this dressing on it)

and for dessert we had homemade peach ice cream, using this recipe.

We ended up with more food than we needed, but we tend to operate on the "rather have too much food, than too little" mind set, especially when we're having company over. We had a good time and all the food was enjoyed, even the squash :)

What we eat

I've decided to periodically do a post about what we ate on a given day, mostly to demonstrate that we actually do eat well :)

Thursday we ate paleo Coconut Flour Waffles for breakfast. While paleo recipes are, for the most part, within our limits, they do frequently use eggs, which we can't eat. I subbed flax eggs for the real eggs, and they turned out ok, though they stuck to the waffle iron. That could be because I bought a new waffle iron though. I was going to use the waffle iron we've had since we were newlyweds, but then I remembered how super-sensitive I am to cross-contamination and decided that wasn't such a great idea so I bought a new one that still needs to be broken in.

For lunch we had leftover Chicken and Vegetable Lo-Mein that I made for dinner Tuesday night. I really liked this recipe and while LMS wasn't a big fan, I'm hoping that's just because I've been trying a lot of new recipes lately.

For dinner we made Grilled Chicken and Veggies. We only recently bought a grill, so we have a learning curve to deal with. Like the grill basket Mr M picked up at wally world was not the type you need to grill veggies (they all fell through the holes). With some jimmy-rigging we eventually got it to work and were able to eat a very yummy dinner.

We've also been making super easy ice cream using our ice cream maker. I found a recipe for Strawberry ice cream, which is yummy, and I've also made it with fresh peaches (even yummier!). We've been splitting the batch in half - half popsicles, half ice cream. I like the texture of the freshly made ice cream the best- homemade soft serve- yum! The rest hardens up nicely into popsicles that are healthy enough to eat for breakfast. Which we did today :)

So what DO we eat?

Lately we've been asked by a lot of people "So, what can you eat since you've eliminated so many foods?"

Let's see, the basics are: rice, quinoa, mung beans, adzuki beans, lentils, lots of veggies, some fruit, and some meat.

So how does that translate to our daily menus?

One of my favorite sites for recipes is The Whole Life Nutrition Kitchen. Their cookbook (The Whole Life Nutrition Cookbook) is also a great source for recipes and info.


Green smoothies
Cabbage quinoa soup
Broccoli soup  (from another of my favorite recipe sites)
Red Lentil Soup
Curried Cauliflower Carrot soup
Potato Leek soup
Chicken stew
Lentil and rice casserole
Lettuce wraps
Nori rolls  (we stuff these with whatever veggies we have in the frig- avocado, sprouts, spinach, cucumber, carrot, green onion, steamed sweet potato, cabbage, etc)
Quinoa salmon burgers (we really like these!)
burrito bowls
parsnip fries (quite good- kind of sweet)
sweet potato fries
steamed broccoli
sauteed zucchini and summer squash

Treats:
Mango coconut pudding  (I also made a peach version)
Date treats


Breakfast is usually a green smoothie with leftovers from dinner
Lunch is usually a burrito bowl, nori rolls, or a lettuce wrap and a piece of fruit
Dinner is one of the recipes mentioned above
Snacks are fruit, carrots (LMS will go to the frig and grab a carrot and start munching), or a date treat (LMS really likes them. I've fiddled with the recipe a bit, but the date taste is still very strong, and I'm not a huge fan of dates. I need to mess with the recipe some more)

So we have plenty of food we can eat. It's mostly a matter of changing up our menu and cooking completely from scratch. It takes more planning on my part, but some of the recipes come together very quickly. We're getting used to eating lots and lots of veggies and we're getting to try a lot of new recipes.  Changing my mindset about how I cook has been a bit of a hassle, but LMS and I are both feeling good (and LMS's intestines are finally healing) so it's worth it.

The only downside to changing up our menu this way is the increase in cost. Lots of veggies costs lots of money. I read an article recently that said something along the lines of the cost of 500 calories of vegetables costs a lot more than 500 calores of junk food or convenience food.

Eat a couple candy bars and you've eaten 500 calories and only spent a couple bucks and you'll be hungry again soon. I dare you to try eating 500 calories worth of broccoli at one sitting. I found this site that shows 200 calories of a food.

via

Hmmm. That's 200 calories worth, which means that 500 calories is another plate and a half full of broccoli. That'll stick around a lot longer than a couple candy bars. And it's a lot healthier. However, that much broccoli will cost a lot more than a couple candy bars.

Despite the increased costs, the health benefits are definitely worth it.

Gluten free, dairy free, soy free ice cream

That's actually yummy. Hard to believe, but it's true!

I've found two brands that fit the bill: Luna and Larry's ice cream and Tempt ice cream.

Luna and Larry's ice cream has a coconut milk base. The texture is very thick and creamy, very similar to Ben and Jerry's ice cream. They have several flavors, though our local Whole Foods only carries a couple of the very basic flavors. The vanilla ice cream has a faint coconut flavor, but it's not unpleasant. The coconut flavor is barely noticeable in the other flavors I've tried. This ice cream is sold in pints and ice cream bars (which we like for Friday night movie nights).  We really like this ice cream!

Tempt ice cream has a hemp milk base. And no, hemp milk will not make you fail a drug test :)  This ice cream is also very thick and creamy, not crystal-y like a lot of ice creams. Its texture is also reminiscent of Ben and Jerry's. They only have a few flavors. The chocolate is very good, but the coconut lime was weird.

It's nice to have ice cream that tastes good and doesn't make my stomach hurt. Luna and Larry's has a couple flavor combinations that almost make you think you're eating some Ben and Jerry's ice cream. Since that's no longer in my future, it's nice to have a good substitute.

Our Thanksgiving meal

I survived Thanksgiving without eating something I shouldn't. How can I tell? I had a very productive Friday.

Unfortunately, Saturday afternoon I ate some gluten free crackers that contain soy and corn. Derailed the rest of my day.

I've been paying closer attention to how I feel when I eat food. I'm constantly checking to make sure I'm eating safe food, or what I think is safe food. Lately the biggest indication I've eaten something unsafe, aside from the stomach pains and swelling throat, is massive mental fog. My brain checks out and I'm too blotto to get anything accomplished. And I feel like crap.

I've been quite successful at avoiding triggers lately and have been getting a lot done, which feels so good. It also makes it much more noticeable when my brain checks out. Not sure that knowing how much of a space case I can be is a good thing.

What did we eat for our gluten, oat, corn, dairy, egg, soy free Thanksgiving meal?
Roasted cornish game hens (yum!)
Pecan crusted sweet potatoes (double yum!)
Mock cornbread- made from millet (not cooked all the way unfortunately, but I've since made them as muffins and they were very good)
Green salad with pecans, cranberries, apples, and a cranberry vinaigrette (very yummy!)
Orange jello with mandarin oranges (yummy!)
Vegan pumpkin mousse tarts (not so great,  but that's ok)
Luna and Larry's Coconut Bliss Vanilla ice cream (soooo good!)

Most of it was good, and we didn't get any stomach aches, so it was a success :)

Justin's Chocolate Hazelnut Butter

Note: I wrote this before we left, and thought I'd posted it, but apparently not.

Last week I was wondering through Whole Foods (after hitting Kroger first) and I was getting more and more depressed by the number of things I can't eat it right now. In general this wouldn't actually be that big a problem for me, but since we have a roadtrip coming up I've been trying to find snacks and food that won't make me sick.

Normally I try not to eat too much junk food, but I do believe that roadtrips are made for junk food: m&m's, pringles, and licorice used to be our standard snacks, and we'd hit up whatever fast food place we came to when we were hungry.

Since those days are done, I've had to really plan out our trip (it's times like this that I really wish we had a small RV so I could just prepare normal food with the help of a refrigerator, stove, and microwave)- where we'll stop, what we'll bring, and so on. The candy we're bringing consists of fruit snacks. I can't find anything else that isn't manufactured in a facility that also processes wheat, milk, and/or eggs.

It was in this state-of-mind that I was perusing the peanut butter shelves, looking for little foil packets of nut butters. They're great for hiking and I thought they'd do well on the roadtrip also. While looking around, I saw this:

The label states that it's gluten free and dairy free, and there was no eggs or corn in the ingredients, so I read the label further, and it said that it contains a lot less sugar than other chocolate hazelnut butters, so it doesn't taste like frosting. Hmmm, I like Nutella, but it is on the sweet side, like frosting. Less sugar is definitely a good thing.

It is pricey ($9.99 for 16 oz), but it's not like I'm buying any other junk food now. The texture reminds me of the chocolate peanut butter, and the taste is similar too- not overly sweet, tiny chunks of nuts, but hazelnut instead of peanut butter. It's a healthier version of Nutella! Which I can't eat because it has dairy in it.

Definitely a thumbs-up!
Have you tried Justin's Chocolate Hazelnut Butter?

Food That Should Taste Good tortilla chips

I've mentioned the sweet potato tortilla chips made by Food That Should Taste Good before. I've finally found some other varieties, and thought I'd mention how much I like them.

The sweet potato chips are very good by themselves. The bag offers suggestions for toppings, but I haven't tried any of them yet.

I wasn't sure what to expect when I tried the chocolate tortilla chips. They were good- not sweet, but you could taste the cocoa. The chocolate and corn made a different, but good, combination. Definitely not your every-day tortilla chip.

The cinnamon chips were another that I wasn't real sure about, but they are very good. The bag suggests topping with hazelnut spread, so I tried some Nutella. Sooooo good! Seriously addictive.

The one variety that I've tried so far that I didn't really care for is the potato & chive. They have a rather strong flavor, which by itself wasn't too bad, but they gave me heartburn. So I won't be eating them again.

There's still lots more varieties to try, the problem is finding them at the store.

Betty Crocker gluten free mixes

A few weeks ago my sister made a pineapple upside-down cake using a Betty Crocker gluten free yellow cake mix. It was quite good- better than I was expecting.

This week I finally got around to making the Betty Crocker gluten free brownies that I bought several weeks ago. I followed the high altitude directions, and they turned out pretty good, too. A little bland, which is apparently a problem when baking with rice flour, so I think I'll add some vanilla next time. Another bonus: they're about half the cost of the other gluten free mixes out there.

More Larabars to try

I recently found a couple new flavors of Larabars at our local health food store: tropical fruit tart and peanut butter and jelly. The tropical fruit tart has a strong flavor of coconut, due to all the bits of coconut, but it also has small chunks of pineapple. Yum! The peanut butter and jelly has peanuts and chunks of cherries. The cherries and pineapple in these two flavors really make it worth going back for another one.

I just got back from checking out the Larabar website (where I got the pictures), and it says they now have mini Larabars. I'm going to have to keep my eyes out for those- LMS likes Larabars, but usually only eats about half of one.

Books and links for learning about gluten intolerance

I've shared this info with a few siblings, and I've posted some of it before, but I thought I'd bring it all together for anyone who's interested in learning more about being gluten free.

Here's the 3 most helpful books I've read so far, in order of most helpful.Healthier Without Wheat: A New Understanding of Wheat Allergies, Celiac Disease, and Non-Celiac Gluten Intolerance
by Stephen Wangen
****This is the one written by a doctor with celiac disease, so he really understands the issues.
The Gluten Connection: How Gluten Sensitivity May Be Sabotaging Your Health - And What You Can Do to Take Control NOW
by Shari Lieberman & Linda Segall
****This one talked about the myriad of symptoms that can be associated with gluten intolerance.
The First Year: Celiac Disease and Living Gluten-Free: An Essential Guide for the Newly Diagnosed
by Jules E. Dowler Shepard
****This one has good recipes and good basic info.

There's lots of good websites out there, too.
For celiac/gluten intolerance info:www.celiac.org

For recipes and coping strategies:glutenfreegirl.blogspot.com recipes, and she wrote a book about her experience with celiac diseaseglutenfreemommy.com this one has lots of good recipes, as well as links to other good sites.glutenfreeda.blogspot.com this one also has good recipes
I just recently came across a few more websites that seem really good, though I've only looked through them a little bit.
glutenfreecookingschool.com I found this when I was looking for a gluten free flat bread recipe. Since I can't eat yeast products, I need a good substitute for regular bread.
glutenfreemom.com I found this one when I was looking for a gluten free mac and cheese recipe. There are boxed gluten free mac and cheese options, but the sauce always tastes off. And homemade mac and cheese is sooo good...

Here's some others I recently came across and haven't looked at much, they seem to have recipes, news, etc.
elanaspantry.com
holdthegluten.net
holdthericecakes.com
glutenfreegoddess.blogspot.com
celiacchicks.com
glutenfreeforgood.com
I've been experimenting with different gluten free foods that you can find in the grocery store, some are worth the money, some not. My favorites:

For breakfast
*Vans gluten free blueberry frozen waffles (kind of expensive, but worth it)
*Yoplait yogurt
*Eggs
*Corn or Rice chex (They're even labeled gluten free now! They recently switched from barley malt syrup to rice syrup as the sweetener)
*Gluten free rice crispies (I've tried various 'alternative' gluten free cereals, and have to say they were all disgusting. It's nice to be able to find 'normal' cereals that are gluten free.)
*Cottage cheese
*Gluten free pancakes with unsweetened applesauce (there's several brands of mix, so far, they're all pretty good)

For lunch
*Leftovers from dinner the night before
*Tuna on Glutino cheese or vegetable gluten free crackers (the original and multi grain are disgusting)
*Egg salad on crackers
*Plain yogurt with frozen berries, sliced almonds, and agave nectar
*Fruits and veggies

For dinner
Most recipes can be fairly easily adapted: take out obvious sources of gluten such as pasta, bread, flour tortillas, etc. Less obvious ones to be careful of are soy sauce and canned soups. A lot of canned soups have wheat flour as a thickener, and a main ingredient of soy sauce is wheat. Luckily, there are pretty good gluten free versions of most food items. Tinkyada rice pasta is quite good, and there is some decent gluten free bread, hamburger buns, etc out there as well. I haven't found a really good flour tortilla yet, though I just found one in the freezer section that was a lot better than the only other variety I've been able to find locally. The only other one I've found locally is a plastic-y rice tortilla. I found a recipe to make my own, so I plan on making my own tortillas soon.

Snacks/desserts
Here's where you run into a lot of things that aren't worth the money. The ones I will buy are:
*Sweet Potato tortilla chips from Food That Should Taste Good (so yummy!)
*Rice Works tortilla chips
*Lara bars (apple pie are the best!)
*Most of the crackers I've tried aren't great; the Glutino cheese crackers and vegetable crackers are the best, but they're not absolutely delicious. Some of the cookies are ok, but again, not great. This isn't actually a bad thing- I'm trying to lose weight, so not having crackers and cookies to eat is just fine with me.
I can still eat chocolate (is that a good thing or a bad thing?). Ghirardelli chocolate is ok, but Lindt chocolate is not- it's sweetened with barley malt syrup, which gets snuck into a lot of foods. So I can't eat the Lindt Lindor truffles (except the white ones), but I can eat the Ghirardelli milk chocolate peanut butter squares (sooo yummy).

Fast food options
There are some options for eating at fast food restaurants, but not a lot. Cross contamination is definitely an issue to watch out for. I've checked out websites for menu items that are ok, and the best fast food options I've found so far are Wendy's and Chipotle, and for sit-down restaurants, Outback and P.F. Changs are the best so far. I've made up a list of gluten free items available at the mainstream restaurants- if anyone wants a copy, let me know.

Gluten-free progress report

I've been eating gluten-free for about two and a half weeks now, with some purposeful slip ups on the weekends. I don't notice a huge difference during the week, but I have noticed that on Mondays I'm feeling more blah and tired than the rest of the week. Since I don't have celiac disease, I don't have a definite reaction telling me I ate something I shouldn't have.

I'm definitely eating wheat-free, and I think for the most part I'm managing gluten-free as well. There have been a couple things I haven't been completely sure about, but I'm learning more about which ingredients are gluten-free and which aren't. It's a process. So far I've been pretty happy with the gluten-free products I've used. The pastas taste basically the same to me, and I found some really good rice bread made by a local bakery. I wasn't too impressed with the rice tortillas we tried, but I've found quite a few gf snacks that taste pretty good. So I don't feel deprived, except on Thursdays, when hubby wants to go to Pizza Hut with his family. We did find a good gf pizza crust mix, but it's not the same as Pizza Hut. Oh well.

I'm considering going yeast free when we get back from our trip. It would mean no bread or pizza dough and no aged cheeses. This wouldn't be too bad. I think I could still eat the really yummy gf frozen waffles I found (I need to make a list of the brands I like), but I need to check on that. Technically I think I'm not supposed to eat very much sugar either. I need to check on that as well. I think I'm closer to a yeast-free diet than I have in the past, so hopefully it'll be a lot more doable this time around. And I'm really hoping it will help me finally lose weight.

Lara bars

A couple months ago I read in a magazine about Lara bars, so I decided to try them out. They're made of all-natural ingredients, no preservatives or anything. The apple pie one has raisins, dates, apples, almonds, and cinnamon. That's it! I'm not a big fan of raisins or dates, but you can't taste them: they're the base for the bar and everything else gets mixed in with them.I found a couple different varieties in the local grocery store and tried them and liked them for the most part, and then told my sister about them. The next time we talked, she started going on about the Lara bars and this flavor and that flavor: all ones I'd never heard of. I asked her about it, and she said 'oh yeah, there's tons of flavors'. So I got online, and sure enough, there is quite a few flavors. I had to go to the health food store to find a wider variety, and I proceeded to try them to see which were best.



The results in order of preference:
Good:
apple pie (tastes like apple pie)
lemon bar (has a nice zing to it)
banana cookie (tastes kind of like banana bread)
key lime (tastes similar to the lemon bar)
cinnamon bun (very similar to apple pie, I thought)
OK: (they're good, but not as good as the good ones)
cherry pie
pecan pie
Yuck:
Jocolat chocolate mint (I love anything chocolate and mint, but this was just too weird: the chocolate and mint with the raisins and dates just didn't do it for me. Not as yuck as the chocolate coconut, though.)
chocolate coconut (even LMS didn't like it, and she likes anything sweet. I like chocolate and coconut, so again, I think it was the combination with the raisins and dates.)

There's way more flavors, but these are the only ones I've gotten around to trying. They're a good alternative to all the bars out there that have all sorts of unpronounceable ingredients in them.