Be sure to check out my new blogging home. I won’t be posting here anymore but I am posting here..
I have a new post up with a recipe for no bake chocolate cookie and a story about Mia. She got into some trouble with the cookies. Later in the week I’ll be sharing my favorite pizza crust recipe!
Stop by and don’t forget to bookmark my new address!
I am moving my blog to typepad. I have another blog I needed to set up there and it’s easier to manage them all in the same place. Please bookmark and update your links and be sure to visit my new blogging home! My new address is much easier to remember too. The Gluti Girls dot com!
See you there!
So much is going on here I’ve just not had any time to post. I’ve had a cold too. Yuck. And, we got a foot of snow. Oh my, I’m so sick of winter.
Now there is the issue of “the guy”. My gluti guy. He’s 22. That should be enough to tell you the challenges. He doesn’t cook and doesn’t live at home. We are trying to make a game plan for him. He is on the run constantly! Things have to be quick and easy. No fancy cooking. He is very picky and doesn’t really like to eat. He just eats because he has to. I have come up with some ideas. All things must be both gluten free and casein free.
Here is what I have so far (ideas for meals):
Dinty Moore Beef stew
Dinty Moore Rice with chicken
Tortilla wrapped around a Ball Park Frank
Bell and Evans Chicken Nuggets, Frozen French Fries, Frozen veggie
Amy’s Single Non Dairy Rice Crust Pizza
Amy’s Baked Ziti
Hormel Roast Beef Au Ju, Baked potato (in microwave), Frozen veggie
Delimex Taquitos
Gluten free/ casein free power bars (to keep in the car during the day or for breakfast)
We are going to the grocery together so I can show him how to shop and what to buy. Then I will make a master list of foods he can put together for a meal. I think I will also make up some foods we can freeze in small amounts and he can pull out and heat up. Things like, meatloaf, sloppy joe beef, taco meat, soup etc. I’m also working on restaurant lists because he is on the road a lot.
I made some uncheese sauce last night. I’m going to have him try it tomorrow. I got it from The Gluten Free Goddess (you can find the recipe here). It’s really, really good and probably way healthier than real cheese sauce. We will make nachos with it tomorrow (super bowl). I am really excited about this sauce because I think it could be used for many things! Check it out because it is GOOD!
I welcome any ideas you all may have for quick, next to no cooking ideas for him. Hopefully, he will learn to cook. But for now, he needs to just be able to follow this diet and get healthy.
If you’ve been reading my blog for a while, you know that me, my daughter and my mother are all gluten intolerant. We consider ourselves the gluti girls. I also have a son. This child is the one I suspected all along to have some kind of issues with gluten. As a baby he was always in the lowest growth percentile. He was always the smallest in his class. A very picky eater. He lived on milk. He didn’t start growing until high school. Now he’s about 6 foot tall or just above and I swear to you he’s only about 130 pounds. He is the human walking stick boy!
Lately he’s not only been loosing weight, but has had some major stomach issues. He was also diagnosed as hypothyroid about a year or so ago. His doctor did some testing on him several weeks back and today he received the results. I think she did what they call Elisa allergy testing. He has a sensitivity to both wheat and casein. He had a slight sensitivity to gluten. She told him he must stay away from all wheat and dairy. I always had a feeling about this child. It’s going to be really hard for him because he doesn’t live at home, although he’s very close. He works and has to drive a lot. He does not know how to cook much.
Lucky for him, Kati and I know how to eat wheat free/gluten free. Dairy free is a whole other animal. I experimented with that a couple months back and learned some things. It looks like now, I am going to become and expert so I can help him out. And, we now have a guy as a member of the Gluti Girls! Looks like there will be a name change coming.
I am so pumped about this!!! No, I haven’t tried it yet. But it’s on my to do list! This is just the beginning. I think in the future, we are going to have more options all the time. Thank you to Uno’s for being the first!
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: Elliott Subervi
Utopia Communications
elliott@utopiacommunications.biz
(732) 493-8867 Ext. 111
UNO CHICAGO GRILL® ROLLS OUT GLUTEN-FREE PIZZA NATIONALLY
Positive Consumer Response Prompts Earlier Introduction
Boston, MA (January 13, 2009) – Following a highly successful market test, Uno Chicago Grill® will offer its new, gluten-free pizza nationally. Uno® is the first national casual dining chain to offer a gluten-free pizza and received very positive feedback from guests who suffer from celiac disease, which affects approximately one percent of the population[1].
In fact, word-of-mouth reaction from the gluten-free community during the northeastern market test prompted the company to advance the timetable for a national roll-out.
“Food allergies are a very serious, sometimes life-threatening, issue for many Americans,” notes Uno CEO Frank Guidara. “Pizza is our signature product, and we wanted to offer a gluten-free pizza so all of our guests could enjoy it when dining at Uno.”
“Consumer reaction was so positive, and the chatter so strong on gluten-free blogs and websites, that our restaurants began receiving requests to carry the new pizza,” noted Richard Hendrie, senior vice president, marketing, Uno Chicago Grill. “Because the demand was so strong, we decided to pull out all the stops to get the gluten-free pizza into our 200 plus locations as quickly as possible.”
Recently lauded as America’s Healthiest Chain Restaurant[2], Uno has added gluten-free cheese and pepperoni pizzas to what is already one of the most extensive gluten-free menus available for a casual dining chain. This is good news to the estimated three million Americans diagnosed with celiac disease, as well as an additional seven million Americans who have a wheat intolerance or allergy and rely on gluten-free foods. While awareness of celiac disease is rising, an estimated 97 percent of those who have it remain undiagnosed[3].
Guidara explained that it took over a year of research and development to find just the right recipe for a brand that is known for its iconic pizza. “While we want to meet the needs of guests with allergies, we never forget that we are about great taste and choice, and that means developing new dishes that are healthful without sacrificing great flavor.”
The company that was the first to develop deep-dish pizza in 1943 is still full of innovation. Uno Chicago Grill works closely with its Nutrition Advisory Board, which meets quarterly to discuss trends and solutions to improve the quality and nutritional value of its menu. The board includes world-class physicians with expertise in coronary disease, weight management, and other food/health related issues. Guidara oversees the Advisory Board and brings his expertise as a member of the Harvard School of Public Health Nutrition Roundtable.
The gluten-free pizza was originally tested at Uno Chicago Grill locations in Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire, Rhode Island and Massachusetts (excluding Worcester and Springfield/Holyoke).
According to the Gluten Intolerance Group, surveys show that about 15 to 25 percent of consumers report looking for gluten-free products, far more than need to.
Uno boasts a number of healthy firsts, including being the first national restaurant chain to eliminate artificial trans-fats and to increase menu and nutritional transparency via nutrition information centers located in their restaurants. The company’s gluten-free menu has 20 items ranging from entrées, salads, sides and desserts. For guest convenience and safety, Uno clearly labels menu items with ingredients that are linked to the most common food allergies, such as fish/shellfish, soy, tree nuts/peanuts, egg, milk and wheat/gluten. Diners can also preview the menu and nutritional information online via the company’s website at www.unos.com.
The company has invested more than $2 million in nutritional advancements since 2005 and, according to Guidara, will continue its commitment to providing delicious, fresh and healthful menu options for its guests.
About Uno Chicago Grill:
Based in Boston, Uno Restaurant Holdings Corporation includes more than 200 company-owned and franchised full-service units located in 29 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, South Korea, the United Arab Emirates, Honduras, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. The company also operates a consumer foods division which supplies airlines, movie theaters, hotel restaurants and supermarkets with both frozen and refrigerated private-label foods and branded Uno products. For more information, visit www.unos.com.
Hope you are all keeping warm! It’s been pretty darn cold here in Indianapolis. I don’t do cold. I’m not really supposed to be living here. I know I was meant for a warm climate, but here I am. Stuck. I haven’t left the house all week. I have lots of things to keep me busy, so why go out in the cold!
I’m still working on the kitchen. The house we live in was just a year and a half old when we moved in it. We moved from an older home in a historic area. It’s been a little weird living in a newer home. It’s a cookie cutter house so there’s nothing much to give it personality on it’s own. Our old home was unique and suited my decorating taste well. I love traditional things like antiques, oriental rugs etc. I’ve had a hard time figuring out what to do here. In my last post, I had stripped wallpaper and painted. Now I’m tiling the back splash. I’m trying to figure out how to add some things to the home to give it the feel of an older more traditional home. So far I’m loving the tile.
There I was tiling away, when I realized it was 4:30 and I was getting hungry. Again, I had to go for some soup. So I came up with this recipe and quickly got it in the pot cooking while I finished the last couple tiles of the day.
White Bean Chicken Chili
1 quart of Gluten free Chicken Stock (I use Kitchen Basics)
1 can of Amy’s Tomato Bisque Soup
1 small can of chopped green chili’s
1 pound ground chicken
3 large fat carrots
2 stocks celery
1 large onion
1 clove garlic
1 teaspoon cumin
1 teaspoon coriander
salt and pepper to taste
1/2 teaspoon dried parsley or 1 Tablespoon chopped fresh
2-15 oz. canned of great northern beans
Chop the onion, carrots, celery and garlic. Place in large soup pan with the chicken. Cook until the chicken is done and the veggies are tender. Add the cumin, coriander, salt, pepper, parsley, broth, tomato soup, chili’s and the drained beans. Let this simmer for about 30 min. Enough time to make some gluten free corn muffins from a box mix. How easy is that!
Keep warm!
I hope you all have had a wonderful Christmas and New Years! This year seemed especially special since we focused more on family and friends instead of gifts. I’m glad January’s here though. For me, it’s a good time for projects. I usually have a winter list of things I want to get accomplished.
I got derailed for a bit when right after News Years, I sort of went nuts stripping the wallpaper in my kitchen area and painting it blue. Just days before, I had told my sister-in-law I was done with projects like that for a while. I don’t what happened. I just woke up the day after New Years and had to have a blue kitchen. And I do love it so much! I was really sick of that wallpaper.
With that out of the way, I am back to my original list. One of the things I will be doing is moving this blog to Typepad. I have another blog there and I would like both blogs in the same place. It’s taking me some time figuring out how to use Typepad so I’m not sure when the move will happen. I will post when it’s up and ready.
What I’m not doing is starting the New Year with any special diet. Over the last year, I’ve slowly dropped at least 10 pounds by just getting my thyroid normal and staying away from the foods on my allergy list. That’s enough to follow. I have been feeling much better. I have found that I can rotate the foods on my list and have them every now and then with no adverse effects. That makes life much easier to deal with!
Last week I had lunch out with my girlfriends. It was a cold day. We have a local tea room that serves salads, sandwiches and soups. Being such a cold day, I really wanted soup. The soup there, is not gluten free so I was stuck with a cold salad. This seems to happen a lot. I watched the girls eat this delicious looking cream of broccoli soup. By the time I got home that night, I had to have soup but I didn’t want to dirty a bunch of pans and make a mess. I came up with this quick and easy recipe.
Cream of Broccoli Soup
1 quart of chicken stock (Kitchen Basics is gluten free)
14 oz. package of frozen chopped broccoli
1 cup shredded cheese (I used cheddar)
3 T. sweet rice flour
1 can 12 oz. Carnation evaporated milk
Heat the stock in a heavy pan. Add the frozen broccoli and cook until tender. If you have stick/immersion blender, use it to puree this mixture. Add the rice flour to the cheese and mix well. Add the cheese mixture to the soup and stir constantly until the cheese is melted and the mixture starts to thicken. Add the can of milk and cook until heated through. If you have any lumps from the flour, you can whisk them out or use your stick blender to smooth them out.
It you don’t have a stick blender, you can use a regular blender or just have chunky broccoli soup. You could also cut the broccoli into smaller pieces before cooking it. If you would like to get one and are not sure what kind to buy, I found a post on Chow Hound where you can see what others like here. Aren’t sure what an stick/immersion blender is? Look here. I use mine for so many things. What I like is it’s so easy to clean up. I use it for salad dressings, soups, hummus, salsa etc.
I didn’t get a picture of my soup because the battery in my camera was dead! It really hit the spot though. I think we have many more cold days ahead so it looks like I might be making this a lot!
Happy January!
Last week, I was contacted by a representative from Da Capo Press. They have a new book out called “The First Year: Celiac Disease and Living Gluten Free” by Jules E. Dowler Shepard. They asked me if I would be interested in a copy for review. This sounded like a really good book, so of course I said yes!
I received it at the end of the week and have been looking it over throughout the weekend. Gosh, I wish I had this book 2 years ago! There is everything you need to know about your first year of living gluten free. The author covers everything from your kitchen and cross contamination, to shopping, eating out, getting an invitation to someone’s home, birthday parties for your children, holidays, you name it. There are even recipes. The way she does it is day by day, week by week and month by month until the whole year is covered. I think it’s a very cleaver way of doing it.
If you have just been diagnosed or know someone who has, this is one of a couple books I would recommend because it is very user friendly. There are so many challenges one comes across the first year. So many ups and downs. Just when I thought I had it all figured out, something new would come up. Even after two years, that still happens. I know this is a book that I will refer to even though I have already made it through the first two years! I give it two thumbs up!
First the warning. Last night I was blog hopping and one of my stops was at Cassandra’s Delightfully Gluten Free. She had a blog post about an article she read in the Chicago Tribune. You can read the post here about it. In a nutshell, the article is about how some foods are labeled and sold as gluten free, when in fact they are not completely gluten free. Please, take time to read the article. You can access it from a link on Cassandra’s blog.
Cassandra is encouraging letter writing to a company called Wellshire Farms that produces chicken nuggets and other products. Even though they state they are a gluten free product, there is gluten found in them and it is way above the accepted standard. Their products are targeted to young children. Serving these products to your celiac children or those allergic to wheat could cause serious problems. Please join us in encouraging this company to do the right thing.
Occasionally I’ve gotten symptoms like I’ve eaten gluten, when I know I’ve been careful and haven’t. I wonder how many other products there are that claim they are gluten free, but in reality might not always be. I know, if I don’t make everything my self totally from scratch that there is no guarantee. But, when I buy a product that claims something, I do expect that the company I buy it from would do something to ensure enough quality control in their product to live up to it’s claims. Otherwise, they need to remove their claim to be gluten free so I have a realistic expectation of what my risk is.
Now, some recipes to share! One you might want to make for Thanksgiving! Pumpkin Soup. A couple of years ago my brother made this recipe and brought it to Thanksgiving dinner. It’s been a favorite of me and my mom’s ever since. It’s really so easy to make! Forgive me for the horrible picture. These dark winter nights do nothing for taking pictures of food at the dinner table!
Pumpkin Soup
2 Tablespoons butter
1/4 cup minced onion (very fine)
1 Tablespoon gluten free flour (I used sweet rice)
1 1/2 teaspoon curry powder
Cook the butter and onion in a sauce pan till tender, then add the flour and curry powder and cook for 2 minutes.
Set off the heat and add:
2 -10 3/4 oz cans of chicken broth
1- 16 oz can pumpkin
2 teaspoons brown sugar ( l always add a tad more)
salt and pepper to taste and a sprinkle of nutmeg
Put back on heat until the soup thickens and add 1 cup of milk or milk substitute. This would be a great first course for Thanksgiving dinner or great for leftover night!
So after a couple days of turkey, you will be sick, sick, sick of it! I know I get that way. I don’t even want any more casseroles or soups made from leftover turkey. Get me far away from it!
I have a couple recipes for the weekend to get you far away from turkey. One, I made last night. This will be a new favorite recipe. I got it from my Bon Appetit cookbook. You can use leftover cranberry sauce with this, so save some!
Salmon with cranberry mustard sauce
1/3 cup olive oil
2 tablespoons Dijon Mustard
4- 6 oz salmon fillets
1/3 cup cranberry sauce
2 tablespoons shallots
2 tablespoons red wine vinegar
Mix together the olive oil and mustard. Put the salmon in a greased baking dish. Brush the salmon with 2 tablespoons of the mustard sauce. Bake at 425 degrees about 13 minutes. While the fish is baking, add the remainder of the mustard sauce to the cranberry sauce along with the shallots and wine vinegar.
After baking, turn the oven to broil and broil the fish until it’s brown and bubbly on top. Remove from the oven and add the cranberry sauce over the top of the salmon.
Cooks notes: I read through the directions too quick and put all the mustard sauce on my fish. I then baked it. I did not see a need for broiling it since I had so much mustard sauce on my fish, it browned up nicely while it baked. Since all the mustard sauce got put on during the baking process, I didn’t have any extra to add to my cranberries. It was still wonderful! Also, I didn’t have any red wine vinegar so I added orange champagne vinegar. Sometimes you have to improvise! This was a keeper recipe.
The next recipe is one I’ve posted before. I made it that last weekend and thought how good it would be for Thanksgiving weekend. So a re-post is in order. You can put this in the crock pot in the morning, decorate your house for Christmas or watch some football. When you’re hungry, it will be ready!
Taco Soup
2 pounds ground beef (or you could use turkey)
1 medium onion, chopped
1 can 28 oz. tomatoes (I use crushed tomatoes)
1 can 15 oz. tomato sauce
1 cup water
1 can 15 oz. pinto beans, drained and rinsed
1 can 14 oz. corn, drained
1 package of gluten free taco seasoning (I used Old El paso)
In your favorite soup pot, cook ground beef and onions. Drain off fat. Add remaining ingredients. Simmer for at least an hour on low heat. Serve with your favorite toppings. We use cheddar cheese, sour cream, green onions, fresh chopped cilantro and corn chips.
One recipe will easily feed six people. I doubled the recipe and fed eleven people and still have plenty of leftovers. If you like a thicker soup, omit the water. You won’t miss it!
Have a happy Thanksgiving everyone!
