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

Eating At Eat'n Park

So last week a small group of business partners and I went out to Eat'n Park for a late night dinner. I had recently had a conversation with someone who works there about their gluten free choices. I learned of their gluten free bread rolls and wanted to try them. As most gluten free breads do not taste very good my expectations were low.
The waitress was very friendly in helping me order a gluten free choice and told me how they could prepare the rolls for me with my choice of toppings. The first thing I noticed was they are very big! There was no way I could bite into that sandwich! So I used my knife and fork to cut it up to eat it. The roll was very crumbly, and literally fell apart as I tried to use my fork to eat it. So I used my spoon to scoop it up.
The gluten free roll actually tasted pretty good. And I think wouldn't have been so dry if I put mayo or butter on it. I did notice a little after taste, and I knew that not having bread of any kind in such a long time may have skewed my favor for the rolls. So I had my friend try a piece. She said it tasted pretty good, that there was a little bit of a different taste to it, and didn't favor the aftertaste.
Over all I would rate this gluten free bread roll at a 4. Not so bad and a tasty treat to what I normally get at a restaurant.

Gluten Free Mac n Cheese

This is a post about three kinds of gluten free Mac n Cheeses I have tried. 

The first one is Annie's. It is a rice pasta with a Parmesan cheese mix. The first thing I noticed about this pasta was that it took a little longer to cook than the box recommended which didn't surprise me because most gluten free pastas do. The mac n cheese was a mild flavor and was a little bland. This pasta isn't too expensive and you get the mix with it so over all I think I would rate this product at 3 stars.

The next pasta I have tried was De Boles gluten free Mac n Cheese. It was also a rice based pasta. It came with a cheese sauce mix and was Cheddar. This pasta took the amount of time on the box to soften and as soon as I poured in the mix, milk, and butter, I knew this was going to be a tasty dinner. Unlike Annie's, De Boles has lots of flavor and is very satisfying. I rate this gluten free pasta at 5 stars as the best I have tasted so far! It is also a little cheaper than Annie's.

The last pasta is still De Bole's, but just the elbow noodles. I went to a different store in search of the De Boles Mac n Cheese I had found before but only found the elbow noodles. It was the same price as the De Boles Mac n Cheese with the mix included. But since I was short on time I decided to pick it up anyways. I had cheese at home that I could use to make up mac n cheese with. There is a difference with the noodles though, they are corn noodles. And they cook up at the time said on the box: 8 Min. They can be over cooked and become mush so watch your noodles and don't let them sit in the hot water! Also since they are corn they taste a little different. They were better than most noodles I have tasted so I didn't count it a loss at all. Plus I got more meals out of the box than I did from the De Boles Mac n Cheese with mix, So over all I give it a 4 star rating.

Thanks for reading. I hope this has given you some options to try for yourself! Let me know if you have tried these pastas and what you think!

5 Minute Cakes!

Thanks to my Mother in Love who sent me this awesome recipe for 5 minuet cakes you can bake in your microwave! I'll share the recipe she gave me with you. These awesome cakes are great for snacking and for dressing up for desserts and really only takes 5 minuets to put together.
I have to say I was a little leery at first. Cakes you can bake in a mug in the mircrowave. Really? But they turned out awesome!

Here it is:
Ingredients:
4 TBSP all-purpose gluten free flour (I used Namaste gluten free flour)
4 TBSP sugar
2 TBSP cocoa
1 egg
3 TBSP milk
3 TBSP oil (I used butter bc we ran out of oil)
3 TBSP chocolate chips (maybe next time, I'm leaving tomorrow morning and don't have time to shop)
2-3 DROPS vanilla extract
1 coffee mug

Directions:
Add dry ingredients to the mug, and mix well with a fork.  Add the egg
and mix thoroughly.  Pour in the milk, oil and vanilla and mix well,
being sure to scrape the edges of the cup to incorporate all the dry
ingredients.  Add the chocolate chips and mix again.

Place the mug in the microwave and cook for 4 minutes (900 watts) on
high.  3 minutes (1000 watts) on high

The cake will rise over the top of the mug and then sink down when the
microwave turns off.  Allow to cool a little, and tip out onto a
place.  Run a knife around the edge if it doesn’t slide out easily.


I hope you enjoy this fun recipe and get to have a nice sweet treat for a change. Thank you Deni Breitenbach. These will make a perfect snack for our trip tomorrow!

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Cookie let down

So my husband found a recipe for Trefoils cookies. I thought I would try to make them with gluten free flour. The recipe was simple and easy:
2 sticks of butter
1/2 cup sugar
3/4 teaspoon salt
pinch of ginger
1/2 teaspoon lemon zest/ optional
2 cups all-purpose flour

I followed the directions closely and mixed the ingredients just substituting with gluten free flour. The dough looked great! I thought to myself these cookies will be great! I rolled out the dough and cut them with a cookie cutter and placed them on a greased cookie sheet. I put them in the properly heated oven and set the timer. 10 minuets later I checked on them and they were not browning yet. So I left them in there for 2 more minuets. When I came back to check on them they looked like 4 inch flattened piles. I took them out and tried to scoop them off with a spatula and they crumbled badly. They looked like a pile of sand. At this point I am thinking, I know how to bake. I know how to make cookies. What went wrong! Why are these cookies nothing more than crumbs!
Perhaps I didn't make them thick enough I thought so this time I just rolled the dough into 1 inch thick balls and placed them on the sheet and popped them into the oven. I left them in the oven a little longer to cook as well. About 15 min. They came out looking great! I thought yes, finally some good cookies. I took my spatula and started to take the cookie off the sheet..... crumble...crumble...crumble... Ah! What in the world. I managed to get about 5 cookies in tack onto a plate. I thought getting them off the cookie sheet was a challenge,  then I tried to eat one. Oh, boy!

The best I can figure is that flour has gluten, which holds and binds the goopy mess we call dough. Yes gluten, the very thing that makes pasta elasticy, and streatchy so you can make the pasta. Yeah, the very thing I am allergic to. It isn't in the flour I used. And then there's eggs. They help to bind as well. There were no eggs in this recipe. So taking out the only factors that would have held these cookies together, made them turn to sand as soon as I touched them.

Oh man, what a let down.

Tasty/Not so Tasty

Here are some of the gluten free foods that I got to try over the Holiday's as my awesome family came into town and bought me many different brands to try. Some were awesome... and some were awful. = (

Namaste
 is a brand that has many gluten free mixes. These are awesome because you can make a lot of variety of things with out buying all the extras in order to make it! Cookies, cakes, biscuits, and pie crusts. It does have a little bit of a different taste, but not one that makes you gag or screams Gluten Free! My family had some of the  Cake made with this brand and they loved it as well! I give this brand 4 stars.

Almond Dream
An ice cream made from Almonds and has different flavors. I had a coffee flavored one that was amazing! It is dairy free and gluten free, which made my stomach feel awesome as dairy has a tendency to make me feel horrible. I give this brand 4 stars

Gluten Free Bisquick
Great product. It tastes just like the regular kind of Bisquick and leaves no after taste. I give this product 5 stars.

Julies
I had their gluten free Ice Cream Cookies. These have an after taste. If you can get beyond the taste they are ok. I would give this brand 2 stars.

Van's Waffles
These are ok. They have a somewhat whole grain taste. They taste better with a little jam on them. I give them 3 stars.

I will follow up with some more brands I got to try a little later. These are the best that I have tried so far.

Thank you for joining me on my journey.