New! - You Know What's Gluten Free?

A lot of times, beginning and/or maintaining a gluten-free diet becomes all-consuming. For me, the transition was brutal. I LOVE to eat - and constantly learning how many foods contain gluten still gets me down sometimes. To me, food is: comfort, fun, memories, love, laughter, adventure, excitement, experience, respect, travel, knowledge, celebration...among many other things. When you are forced to completely re-learn everything you thought you knew about something that is connected to so many emotions, it can easily become frustrating. 

One thing that helped me through all the frustration (and still does) was stopping every once in a while to reflect on other aspects of my life that make me happy. Food or not. Even the little things. Especially the little things. 

Allowing myself this reflection is exactly the nudge I continue to need to make myself try that disastrous muffin recipe again, re-work a family recipe a different way, or try a different kind of boxed macaroni and cheese (my weakness) in hopes of finding the perfect one - rather than getting frustrated and giving up.

So...I'm happy to announce a new part of my blog: a series of weekly posts - each focusing on my random reflections. Stay tuned for "You Know What's Gluten-Free?" - every Wednesday, starting this week!

Kelly

Product Review: Gluten Free Pantry French Bread & Pizza Mix

About a month ago (maybe a smidge longer...the past few months have whizzed right by), I was contacted by a representative of Glutino/Ian's Foods/Gluten Free Pantry about whether or not I had any interest in receiving and reviewing a few of their products. I didn't even have to think about it! I'm always interested in trying new things in my search for easy, delicious, gluten-free staples.

I received a glorious package with the following inside:

• Gluten Free Pantry French Bread and Pizza Mix
• Gluten Free Pantry Chocolate Chip Cookie and Cake Mix
• Glutino Breakfast Bars in Strawberry and Cherry
• Ian's Gluten-Free Animal Cookies

The Hubby and I decided to try the French Bread and Pizza Mix first. We've tried several times to make gluten-free pizza at home, either with a mix or a pre-made frozen crust, all with mediocre results. Either the crust was too dry, didn't cook correctly, or just plain tasted like cardboard and/or glue. However, with this mix, THIS is what we ended up with:

That is beauty if I've ever seen it. 

The last dough we tried required rolling out...and it was REALLY FREAKING HARD. 

However, the Gluten-Free Pantry mix created dough that did not have to be rolled out and was spreadable - especially after we (and by "we" I mean The Hubby because I had no brain function left after my thesis...and he's awesome) figured out that if greasing a spatula or other spreading utensil made smearing the dough onto the pizza pan more like working with a thick icing rather than dough. The mix makes enough for two large round pizzas - we used half and froze the rest. (I'll update later with how it turns out after freezing.)

With this mix, you just throw your stuff on and bake! No pre-baking required...although we decided that we might try that next time to see if that changes the consistency at all.

We chose turkey sausage, tomato, and onion. YUM! The outer crust baked up nicely, browned, and was just crispy enough, while the crust under the "stuff" was chewy. The flavor? The most reminiscent of a gluten-filled pizza dough that I've made at home yet! Even better? It tastes like "real" pizza when cold (rather than a mouth full of cotton balls and sawdust like other crusts I've tried) and reheats beautifully in the toaster oven.

Uhh...anyone craving pizza?

Kelly

Easy Gluten-Free Vacation

I'm baaaaaaaaaack.

I want to take a quick second to apologize for having disappeared for several weeks. I was in the midst of the busiest time of the year at work and the final hoop-jumping to complete my thesis process. However, work has slowed down (a little), I finally finished that beast of a paper - and I'm graduating on Saturday! It's a very happy time for me right now.

To celebrate my impending graduation, The Hubby and I took a fabulous vacation: a 7-night Southern Caribbean cruise! We visited Barbados, St. Lucia, Antigua, St. Maarten, and St. Croix (pictured). Heaven! We're already planning our next cruise.

We chose the Royal Caribbean line for several reasons, one being that it's the favorite of The Hubby's cruise-enthusiast parents. The other reason? You can opt for gluten-free meals when you book your cruise. 


I did have to inform our dinner waiter on the first night (you have the same one every night, for those of you that haven't cruised before) that I was on a gluten-free diet, but that's all I had to do. The wait staff was informed and took it very seriously. In fact, each night after dinner I was presented with the following night's menu so I could make my choices beforehand, allowing the cooks to alter and prepare my meal separately. I felt like royalty.

Unfortunately, I don't have pictures of any of the meals - I couldn't bring myself to pull out my camera and take pictures of my food while seated with a tableful of strangers. Plus, we were having a good time! I will say, though, that the food was excellent - we were even served lobster on the second-to-last night. Awesome.

Now, granted, I realize that dinner is not the only meal of the day. Fortunately, eating is a major part of cruising. I didn't believe this when The Hubby told me (this was my first cruise, but not his) but I kid you not, there's food available any time, day or night. The main café onboard was our favorite - it consisted of a huge buffet with tons of options, and the dining area was flanked by huge windows as well as a large outdoor dining area overlooking the ocean. I have to say, it was an amazing way to have breakfast every morning.

Speaking of breakfast, this is what I ate pretty much every morning:

Watermelon, cantaloupe, pineapple, grapes, a hard-boiled egg, grilled tomato, and smoked salmon enjoyed with cream cheese so I could pretend I was eating bagels and lox. YUM.

Lunch usually involved more fruit and either a big salad from the salad bar, some sort of deconstructed sandwich-like creation of meats and cheeses, or a random assortment of things I could eat. Not a big meal, but always followed by another visit to the buffet a few hours later for a snack.

I was a little nervous about the food situation before the trip since I had never cruised before; I even packed an emergency stash of Larabars so I'd have something to eat. I only ended up eating one of them the whole time.

All in all, the trip was a huge success. Each of the ports were beautiful, the food was wonderful, and I SO enjoyed being away from work, email, my phone, etc and focusing on my sweet Hubby for a week.

I'll leave you with this - my favorite picture from the whole trip (taken by The Hubby himself):

Maho Beach in St. Maarten

Until next time -
Kelly