Gluten Free Chocolate Muffins YES Please!!

Ok so I got gutsy with this one and went out on my own. I made gluten free muffins from this recipe. I just substituted the flour with Namaste's Gluten Free flour. It was Fantastic!! They make just the right snack with no after taste or funny taste at all. They are great with a cup of milk or just by themselves. It made about 24 muffins for me and I froze the extra's for other day's and kept about 10 in the refrigerator.

I got the recipe from this website    http://www.muffinrecipes.net/

The only thing that is confusing about the recipe is that it doesn't tell you what to do with that 1/3 cup of vegetable oil. I added it to the wet ingredients. It came out fine so hopefully that is what it was for. :) I hope you try this out for yourself and love them!

Chocolate Chip Muffins

2/3 cup of baking cocoa.
2 large eggs.
2 cups of flour. (substitute Namaste's Gluten Free Flour)
1 cup of chocolate chips.
1/2 cup of sugar.
2 teaspoons of baking soda.
1 1/3 cups of milk.
1/3 cup of vegetable oil.
1 teaspoon of vanilla.
1/2 teaspoon of salt.

Instructions:

Preheat your oven to 400°F.

Coat muffin tins with non-stick cooking spray.

In a large bowl, combine the cocoa, flour, sugar, baking soda, salt and vanilla.

Stir in half a cup of chocolate chips.

In a separate bowl, combine the eggs and milk. (I added the oil in too???)

Add the egg/milk mixtute to the other ingredients until moistened.

Scoop the batter evenly into the prepared pan.

Sprinkle with the remaining chocolate chips.

Bake for about twenty minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean.

Cool on a wire rack before removing from the pan.

Going Gluten free

So I wanted to blog today about my journey and first steps of going gluten free.
In case you are wondering how easy it is to go gluten free, it isn't. Sure it's easy to walk down the gluten free isle of your local grocery store and purchase some items, eat them and figure out which ones are great, and which ones, well, should have never reached the shelf. That's not what I'm talking about here.


What I'm talking about is everyday life. Filled with choices and temptations. Yeah, like when I go to work and in the break room is a huge box of a variety of donuts. And cakes because someone had a birthday, or just because. Don't get me wrong. I am not one of those people who thinks everyone should suffer because I do. I'm not posting a "I hate you normal people" blog. I'm just saying, dang, smell that fresh donut smell, hmmm, chocolate cake and icing, mmmm. Smell the cookies.... oohhhh. And standing there with the thought racing in the back of your mind that no one is going to say anything to you if you eat one. Heck no one will know. Then the other thought comes, till an hour later when your curling over in pain because you shouldn't have ate it. Ugh. So you have to make that choice right then and there of what you're going to do. Now, let me pause to vent a little more here, I am all for you healthy choice people who are going gluten free because of a free choice. But you don't know any of what it feels like to know you will have terrible consequences if you do eat it. You may have guilt and a wish that you had been stronger. We who have celiac, do not have guilt. We have pain and headaches and nausea, diarrhea, or constipation...for days. So please the next time you lightly eat a piece of bread and then complain about going gluten free and how you shouldn't have... just remember that for some people it isn't a diet. It truly is a way of life. And that way of life isn't easy and we want to give in all the time.


Ok so now that I got that out of my system, let me just say if you are going gluten free, whether because of a diet, a choice, a way of life, you need to know somethings about doing it. You need to know that as you wean yourself off of wheat, which is what I recommend, not going cold turkey, you are going to face some awful mood swings. As your body adjusts to less and less bad carbs it is like a detox. You will find yourself angry, sad, upset, and crying for no reason. And it's not P.M.S. I broke down so many times in my first month of going gluten free. It was hard. You need to know that this is normal, and your body is just adjusting. Also, you may loose weight. I am a small person already, and getting smaller. I am in the process of balancing my diet so I can maintain a healthy weight. I know that for me it is because I didn't replace wheat with gf wheat. In other words my diet is cheaper. lol I eat a lot more protein, eggs, cheese, veggies, and some fruit. Way healthier I know. But I now need to incorporate more carbs before my pants fall off while I walk. lol


So I guess this blog is more about what to expect about going gluten free. It's choices, all the time, on a daily basis. It's mood swings/detox. It's weight loss for some. I recommend having good friends who love you, who can sympathize with you and who can keep you accountable. (Amanda, Shawn, Cindy, Ryan, Bob, David) When I am starring down those donuts and my friend Ryan comes in and says your going to hurt later. That helps. I know he says it because he doesn't want me to regret making a bad choice, and he's my friend. Thanks I need the help.


Thanks for reading guys and keep me on track. <3 Crystal