Gluten Free Expedition

Gluten Free Travel - Pittsburgh, PA

Going to Pittsburgh?  Well I just returned from there and I had a wonderful time in a really cool city!  I went there for work got to meet some great people from Pitt, while attending a workshop.

At the workshop everyone was provided with breakfast and lunch both days.  Of course, I called ahead to make sure they could provide a gluten free lunch.  For breakfast I figured I could just eat fruit with my coffee.  I was amazed when I actually got a bagfor breakfast with 2 different kinds of gluten free cereal and cookies (for that mid-morning snack).  Lunch both days was salad - kind of the Celiac stand-by.  But it was fresh and came with chicken one day and salmon the next.  I also got EnerG pretzels and Mi-Del cookies.  I had never had the chance to try any of the cereals, or the cookies before, so that was a nice treat! 

I played it safe (and lazy) the first night and went to PF Changs for dinner; plus, I love their lettuce wraps!  It's a fun place to sit at the bar because the bartenders are usually fun and friendly, especially on a week night when it's not very busy.  The bartender even made me a special gf spicy sauce for my lettuce wraps!

Ironically there were 2 other people with Celiac Disease in the group of 45.  I'm not sure what to think of those odds!  I asked for recommendations for dinner the second night.  I was directed down to SouthSide Works, a cool area with lots of restaurants and shopping that used to be the site of a steel mill.  I ended up eating dinner at a tapas restaurant - Tusca.  They have a gluten free menu that is full of great-sounding dishes.  I only tried 2 - the Grilled Mediterranean Vegetables and Kafta (ground lamb with a delicious cucumber sauce).  This would be a really fun place to take a group of people because the tapas portions are pretty big and if you're sharing you could try more. 

I also heard about a great gf bakery, Gluuteny, but didn't have time to visit it.  A woman said that she got her wedding cake from there and it was wonderful.  Check it out if you're ever in Pittsburgh!

Gluten Free Love

I've mentioned before how great my friends are when it comes to food.  We had a really fun Valentine's Day dinner and I could eat almost everything! 

C and R fixed steak and lobster for our main course and both were perfectly cooked.  I brought Sea's delicious dinner rolls and a salad with baby greens, toasted almonds, pepperdews and asiago cheese with homemade honey Dijon vinaigrette.  On a side note, I make these rolls all the time now and everyone LOVES them!  We also had cheesy carrots (these are so good, sweet from the carrots and onion with baked cheesy goodness), buttermilk mashed potatoes (which is how I'm going to make them from now on!), and a chocolate trifle, made with Gluten Free Pantry's Chocolate Truffle Brownies, that looks almost as good as it tastes. 

S made the trifle and snuck a taste of the brownies.  She and her daughter said that they tasted no different than regular gluten containing brownies and just as yummy.  I read the reviews of several brownie mixes to find one for her to use and almost everyone agreed GF Pantry's were the best.  I think I may have to try them sometime!

Honey Dijon Vinaigrette 
    (Quick note: I never measure anything for this, just dump, whisk and taste, so these are approximate)

1 tsp Dijon mustard
1 tsp honey
2 Tbls red wine vinegar
1-2 Tbls olive oil
salt/pepper to taste

Mix together the Dijon mustard, honey and vinegar.  Slowly whisk in olive oil.  Add salt/pepper to taste.

In most recipes for vinaigrette's the ratio of oil to vinegar is 3:1, in this case they are more equal.  I think it's from the sweetness of the honey - it cuts the tang of the vinegar.  If you like a little less tang, feel free to add more olive oil.  The recipe is also easily made with other vinegars, balsamic would be great and I would like to try champagne vinegar sometime.

Blog Fun

I just discovered a fun site called Wordle.  You can type in you blog URL and then you get a word picture.  They discribe it as "a toy for generating “word clouds” from text that you provide. The clouds give greater prominence to words that appear more frequently in the source text."

Here is the one for my blog:

A special thanks for the link to Jenny, The Bloggess, who always makes me laugh.

Happy Princess Birthday! (and GF Monster Cookies)

Today is the Girl's actual birthday and she celebrated with an adapted version of Paula Dean's Monster Cookies.  Adapted because I only had 3 cups of GF oats.  I tried baking the cookies with less oats and they were really tasty, but they spread more than I wanted.  So I added some rice flour and sweet rice flour and they were great!  These cookies have a little of everything that we at the GF Expedition house love - peanut butter, oats, chocolate chips and dark chocolate M&M's! 

The Girl had her birthday party on Saturday.  A full out princess themed girl party - with 1 boy (L) because he is her best friend (A, her other best friend, was also there along with 2 other girls).  While all the girls made fairy princess wands and tiaras, L made a cool sword and crown.  And the gluten filled cake was decorated with all her favorite princesses.

Monster Cookies
(adapted from Paula Dean)

3 eggs
1 1/4 cup brown sugar
1 cup white sugar
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp vanilla
1 12 oz jar of peanut butter (mine was 18 oz, so I had to guess)
1 stick of butter, softened
3/4 cup M&Ms (I used dark chocolate ones)
1/2 cup chocolate chips
2 tsp baking soda
3 cups oatmeal
1/2 cup rice flour
1/4 cup sweet rice flour

Mix the eggs and sugars in a stand mixer.

Add salt, vanilla, peanut butter and butter and mix well.

Mix in the flours until incorporated.

Stir in the M&Ms, chocolate chips, baking soda and oatmeal.

Drop by tablespoonfuls (or use a large melon baller) onto a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper or a nonstick baking mat. 

Bake for 10 minutes at 350 degrees.  Leave cookies on baking sheet for 3 minutes after they come out of the oven and then remove them to a wire rack (or paper towels if you don't want to have to clean your wire rack) to cool.

 

6 Months!

So I had my 6 month check up last week and just got my test results back.  At my doctors they only run a tTG (tissue transglutaminase) test for CD.  My result - 25 units, weakly positive (less than 20 is negative).  I think this is pretty good considering my first test was off the charts high.  Seriously, they couldn't report a number because it was above the test detection capability.  So yay me and my gluten free diet!

Now for the bad news, my vitamin D level is low - 27 ng/mL.  Luckily this can be easily corrected.  My first choice was to spend some time in a tropical climate, soak up the sun and let my body naturally make some vitamin d, but that didn't work out.  And there's no way I'm standing outside in sub-freezing temperatures in short sleeves for the amount of time it would take for the Midwest winter sun to do it's job!  So I'll just have to add a vitamin d supplement to my multivitamin.  Did you know that there is only 400 IU of vitamin D in most multivitamins?  And doctors are now recommending adults get 800-1000 IU per day (note: I am not a doctor and didn't even stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night; please talk to your doctor before starting any new vitamins or supplements.)

Vitamin D is essential for good bone development and health.  Thankfully my lack of vitamin Dand celiac disease haven't affected my bone strength.  I had a bone density test (DEXA scan) this week and I'm actually above average! 

So some great news and a little something to work on before my next appointment - 1 year from now!