Gluten free baking

Will I ever get better at this? Is there some secret to GF baking that no one has shared with me yet?

the Husband is trying with all of his might to master it (I think it frustrates him more than me frankly). The muffins he made were really quite grainy but with a bit of butter and warmed up I don't mind them. He also made some butterscotch bars which I think were amazing, but again, the base was a bit drier than the chewy bottom layer he expected.

I think part of my issue is the flour blend I'm using. I'm going to change it up for next time based on other people's successes that I've met but alas, let's hope that it helps.

Any tips?

The blanket

For Christmas I wanted a heating blanket. Ever since the Girl was about 9 months, I no longer have my internal furnace that always kept me toasty warm for the last 3 years (from pregnancy with the Boy onwards). the Husband couldn't find one he liked so instead he bought me the squishiest soft chocolate brown blanket he could find. the second I opened it I wanted to curl into bed with it. It's been on my bed since christmas other than laundry days, and I can't tell you how much I adore this blanket.

I sit here typing in bed while under the blanket and I feel peaceful. Wednesdays are tough days for me as I work at a dayhome next door with 8 kids including my own 2. By the time I get home I'm spent, so even though it's 8:14pm, I'm in bed and quite content here. This blanket is pure bliss.

My poor girl is sick. I could hear the Husband bringing her up the stairs she was snoring so loudly. Please pray or wish or whatever it is that your family does that my Girl gets better soon. She's on her 5th round of antibiotics in 3 months.

Countdown

The kids are getting tested on Thursday. I keep speculating as to what the results will be, but I have to wait and see I think. I just keep searching for answers as to why my children are so sick right now. It all started in november with strep for the Boy and a ruptured ear drum for the Girl. Multiple rounds of antibiotics later, they were "better". Then Christmas came and so did the colds.. then the stomach flu, then more ruptured ear drums (on both parts) and a throat infection for the Boy. Rounds of antibiotics later and we're on to the next illness, barely a week after the meds ended. I'm certain that there's still something up with the Boy's tonsils.. they're frankly quite repulsive. And the girl? She woke with a fever last night and was lethargic and pitiful all day. What is going on??

The Husband made such a wonderful dinner tonight. I don't even know what was in it to be honest, but whatever it was, he tossed some into a seperate pot, added some broth and blended that baby up into a lovely soup for the kids - jam packed with veggies and even some chicken (typically the Boy won't eat meat). The Boy downed the whole bowl and I'm hoping to get some into the Girl tomorrow. I think soup might be on the menu for the rest of this week.. these kids need some serious immune boosters.

Food Reviews so far

I've been trying everything and anything I can get my hands on just to try things out. Here's what I've found so far.

Glutino Bagels
Holy man these things are good. They taste like the real thing to me. So far I've tried poppy seed and sesame seed and they are both fantastic! Highly recommend these babies.

Enjoy Life Bars
I cannot stand the Cocoa ones.. they're so gritty. But I really have grown quite fond of the Apple Caramel and the Sunbutter ones. They are great to keep in my purse or pocket for when I desperately need something but can't just stop and grab anymore. Their cookies leave something to be desired. I'd rather make my own.

KinnickKinnick White Cake Mix
Holy man. This cake was out of this world. I couldn't taste any difference from gluten-filled cake at all! Oh wow it was good. We threw in a cup of coconut for kicks and that was awesome too. What I personally liked about this mix was that The Boy could do most of it himself - something he's big on as he approaches 3.

As for breads, let's just say we've had a couple of failures and a few so-sos but really, I'm not going for much bread these days..

In our life, things are as usual. I have to go for a Bone Density scan to get a baseline given the higher risk of osteoperosis when you're celiac.. I go for my 3 month blood work in March so I've still got some time before that but I'm anxious to see those levels of antibodies going down and the levels of nutrients going up.

The Boy had croup this week - my least favourite illness of his since it creates such a difficult breathing time for him. His inhalers have been getting a workout these last few days but I'm hoping we're over the worst of it.

Beauty in Sleep

I adore my kids. Without sounding like a bad mom - I love them when they're sleeping. (I love them loads when they're awake but..) There's something so peaceful and beautiful about a sleeping child that you just don't get until they're asleep. Their lips, their cheeks, their hair all over the place.. I could sit and watch my children sleep for hours (and sometimes I do).

The Boy last night had a hard time going to sleep. Something is going on with him and I'm not sure what it is. I'm not sure if he's cognitively growing given he'll be 3 in 2 months, or if physically something is off. He's battled strep throat and a throat infection and an ear infection all in the last 2 months, so I'm sure there's some healing going on. But anyway, I went up to check on him as I told him he would and I asked him why he was still awake. His response? "I don't understand why I'm not aslsep mom. I think it's because I'm still little sometimes." I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. The Boy IS still little and I forget that sometimes. It's nice to be reminded.

I held him in my arms and cuddled him, rocking back and forth shushing as I did for so many hours when he was an infant. I nearly started weeping as all of the memories came rushing back. My boy still loves a good cuddle and for that, I am so thankful. The Husband went in and read him some stories and the Boy fell asleep promptly (isn't that always the way..). I went in and watched him for a couple of moments before bed (and listened to the sound of the motors coming out of my child's mouth.. the snore is a pretty good indicator that something's up I think). Smiling, I headed off to sleep myself.

As an aside - the cake was amazing. I added some coconut to it. The Husband wasn't sure he liked the coconut in it, but the rest of us loved it!

And, the kids are being tested next week for celiac. We get the req on tuesday so it'll be off for the blood test shortly after that.

Oy Gravy

So I definitely discovered that gravy is not so easy to make without gluten. I made gravy at Christmas and it was pretty good, but the gravy I made last night was awful. I ended up throwing it out so we wouldn't have to eat it.

I'm not sure if I didn't have enough drippings, or if I used rice flour instead of GF all-purpose flour.. but it was gross. It had no taste and well, I'll have to figure out how to make it better. Any tips?

It's been beautiful here for the last while (finally, after a month of -30C temperature) and we got to spend some glorious time outside today. The kids had a blast and I only wish it woudl last, but alas, it's dropping back down this week. It'll give us a chance to start some of our crafts that we've been wanting to work on. The kids need to make some new paintings, and we'd like to try some new felting techniques too!

We made our first gluten free cake today. The Boy helped to ice the cake - he requested purple icing. It looks beautiful. I added some coconut to it (at the request of The Boy - he loves coconut) so I can't wait to taste how good it is after dinner. It was the KinnickKinnick cake mix so we'll see how it turns out!

Hope you all had a great weekend!

I'm a month in...

Tomorrow marks a month from when I was diagnosed and I think I'm doing pretty well. Other than New Year's Eve's mix-up, I've managed, I think, to avoid gluten. I've learned these few things in my short month:

1 - I'm still paranoid about cross-contamination, but I'm managing. And, it's okay to be paranoid about it.

2 - I really need to learn how to do GF baking better.

3 - Meals are actually pretty easy for the most part. GF cereal is growing on me. Dinners are really good and I can't tell the difference when something is coated in GF flour as opposed to wheat flour.

4 - Lunches are still sucking. Unless it's leftovers, I'm still feeling at a loss.

5 - Bread is not the same.

6 - I'm getting there and I should be proud of my progress so far.

Hopefully in the next month I'll get even better at things. Already it's seeming to be a routine and not something I am forcing myself to remember.

Anti-panicked or utterly confused?

It's a toss up really. Tonight's Anti-Panic session on celiac disease went rather well. I connected with other parents and we chatted about our paranoia of cross contamination. I'm told that although my paranoia will likely always be there to a certain degree (a good thing I think!), it will subside as I find my own ways and my own groove. It was helpful to know that I wasn't alone in my feelings. Especially about playdough.

It was set up with poster-boards of labels. I took pictures (which I'll put up tomorrow) of "safe" products. I found it interesting that Linda, the leader, calls things "celiac-friendly" as opposed to gluten-free unless they are labelled that way. We talked about labelling laws and how they have to get better - and how gluten really needs to be included in the list of common allergies to have it labelled on the package.

We also talked about the huge difference in acceptable levels of gluten in Canada vs the USA. Here in Canada, an acceptable gluten level is 20ppm. In the USA? 200ppm. That's 10 times the amount! Why is that? Apparently (I have no proof here, this is total hearsay), the WHO is trying to make a standard level and that level would be 200ppm. I wonder what affect that would have? It will certainly make me think even more (I don't think I've used my brain this much since university) when reading labels..

If anyone actually reads my blog, what do you think about the difference? Does that make you uncomfortable?

Will the black cloud looming lift soon?

We're having a bit of a rough go around here. The stomach flu is clearing up, but ear infections are abound with both kids having them as far as rupturing their ear drums. Plus The Boy has a throat infection. And no one is getting much sleep. I don't mind being a sleep deprived mom (though today at my eye appointment I had several "stupid" moments and had to explain that I'm not really an airhead), but I have a limit to my sleep deprivation. Last night, The Boy was up from 2am until 6am. Why? According to him, he just didn't want to be asleep. Needless to say, I'm a bit tired, and fatigue cramps any hope of creative thinking.

I've just finished reading (yes, reading, as in cover to cover) The Creative Family by Amanda Soule (she blogs at SouleMama) and I have a list of projects to start with my kidlets, but alas, I can't even think how to tie a knot let alone sew something right now.

I'm looking very forward to Wednesday evening. My local Celiac Association Chapter is putting on an Anti-Panic session for us to learn about how to be a normal functioning celiac in a grocery store. The Husband does 95% of the grocery shopping, but we need to know more about what to look for and what not to. I'm hoping that they cover some of the issues of labeling that have been popping up lately. Even though I'm in Canada, we still have most of the same food to read the labels of.

Label reading isn't new to me.. I've been allergic to shellfish for years, and always had a sensitivity to MSG, so I've been an avid label-reader for a long time. What's definitely changed now is HOW I read the labels. I used to just look for a specific ingredient, but now I look for warnings and "may contains" and "gluten-free" and "produced in a nut-free facility" type prints all over the box. It's the may-contain that drives me up the wall. Can't you just tell me if I can eat it or not?

It's especially getting difficult to try to explain to an almost-3 year old why some things are okay and others are not. He knows that he's allergic to peanuts (you say: What are you allergic to? He says: Peanuts!) which is the first step. But, at this age, he doesn't understand the gravity of it. Plus, for us, we have to avoid ALL nuts. We don't even know if he's allergic to any other nuts but our pediatric allergist doesn't like to test too many things because of false results (which I'm quite happy with) plus he adds that at this age, a nut is a nut and kids can't tell or know the difference. So, we have to be careful. But that means trying to be careful everywhere else to and therein lies the problem.

People try to be wonderful about our food restrictions, but unless you are the parents of an allergic kid, label-reading just doesn't come easily. I can't tell you the number of times I've had someone say to me "it's okay, I checked and it doesn't have nuts" only to turn the box over and see "may contain traces of..." in small print. Will I get used to it?

Please tell me Pukefest is coming to a close...

I hate the stomach flu. Loathe it with every inch of my being. It's not only disgusting (I absolutely hate puke which is why i could never be a doula, midwife, nurse, or anyone else who sees puke), but it's heartwrenching. It's bad enough when mama has it, but when the kidlets get it too? Oh my..

It's been, as a result, pretty gross and pretty sad in our house over these past few days. It started Thursday night with The Girl, Friday was my turn, then The Boy had his own set of puke-a-thons (though we actually think it might have been coincidence as we found out this morning he has a throat infection and ear infection and fever.. all of which could contribute to the puking). Thank goodness The Husband didn't get it since he has been taking care of us all like mad.

And, this was my first flu as a celiac. Why is that relevant? Well, shockingly, you need to think more when you have the flu as a celiac! Think of it - chicken noodle soup? Out. Saltines? Out. Toast? Out. Good think I very much like rice crackers because 5 of them were my intake for yesterday.. and then tonight I finally consumed some actual food: rice and rice pasta. I will get through this celiac thing!

I knew I was in trouble too at 4am - I was feeling better and couldn't sleep (given I had probably slept about 10 hours yesterday during the day never leaving my bed), and I went to read some of my favourite blogs. This one is one I frequent the most but I saw the food at the top of the page and had to make a run for it.. ugh. Not ready for that yet apparently! :)

But alas, we shall all make it through and hopefully be stronger for it. And maybe Monday I can actually start to accomplish all of the things I want to do..

The antics of 2 year olds

The Boy is the funniest boy ever. He comes out with these phrases that just make me laugh out loud on a daily basis. Here are a few from the past 2 days:

The Boy: I'm still little right?
Me: Yes, that's true.
The Boy: Why?
(as an aside, we're in the why phase)
Me: Well, because you're 2.
(then I swear he said this next line while rolling his eyes and sighing loudly)
The Boy: I'm 2 and a HALF mom.

Episode 2:
The Husband: Do you want some of my spaghetti?
The Boy: No thanks, dad.
(large pause)
The Boy: Thank you for offering to share with me. It was really nice of you.

And one of my personal favourites from sometime early fall:
Me: I love you.
The Boy: I love cars, mom.

Oh he loves cars. How nice. He has since told me many times how much he loves me but oh how that wrenched my heart!

When I'm not having the best of days, he's still there to make me laugh out loud.

As are my BFFs. I'm one of the lucky girls who has a crew of girls she is proud to call her BFFs. Yesterday, I was on the phone with BFF-H who was feeling rather body image un-friendly. We had a nice chat about her awesome bod, and she complimented me on mine. The funny part? All the parts she complimented me on are the ones I'm the most self-concious about! It just goes to show you that a) you're usually out of your mind when thinking of your own body; b) we really care too much and; c) BFFs rock.

First Time for Everything

I did it. I ate outside of my house at a restaurant. My girls and I headed out to brunch to say farewell to our NYC gal, J. She leaves in the morning so we needed to do something easy, and given that the majority of our kids are sick, we opted for a Girls-Only outing to brunch. When I went in, I was the first one there. I told them I had celiac disease and they told me there were options! Sure enough, on the menu were items labelled "Gluten-free". I loved it. I made sure to mention that I had celiac disease to the waitress too and she said not to worry. And you knwo what? No reaction. No pain, no bloating, no running to the bathroom this afternoon. I did develop quite a horrid headache this afternoon but I'm fairly certain the two weren't linked.

For supper it was wonderful rice pasta with homemade spaghetti sauce. And I made The Husband buy parmasean cheese so I can make risotto tomorrow. As long as I think of things in terms of normal-every-day living, the whole celiac thing doesn't scare the bajonkers out of me too much. It's when I start to overthink that some paranoia sets in. That and I'm insanely sleep deprived since The Boy has been having 2 hour wakeful periods in the middle of the night (where he's in and out but I'm awake the whole time, or The Husband is), and The Girl is sick and is waking up not so much a happy camper.

Thank goodness for Rescue Remedy. I've been taking 3 drops each night and since doing it, I've been once again able to sleep. It's 9:26pm and my eyes can barely remain open already. Am I old?

Funkytown..

I'm in a funk. So much is swirling right now - The Girl is super-sick, and I'm finding some of the info I'm reading a bit overwhelming right now.

I have this little pocket dictionary with ingredients in it that tell you if something is safe or unsafe (genius I tell you). I also have this other book with safe products. So you can look up "preserves" and it'll tell you which jams are gluten-free. Of course, you need to read the labels to make sure the ingredients haven't changed, but it certainly helps with things.

All that aside, there is a lot of information coming out that things that were labelled safe are in fact, not safe. Companies are taking advantage of the booming gluten-free industry and are causing those of us with celiac-disease to be eating foods that could be compromised (I think in translation, this means my doritos are out..). I have felt safer making my own food anyway as opposed to buying pre-made foods, but where does this leave any sort of convenience? Or indulgence? What's a celiac to do?

Then I'm back to my whole cross-contamination issues. The husband pointed out today that when I do play with the kids I don't seem to have a reaction (unlike NYE when I did react to the soy sauce), but does that guarantee that I'm not getting gluten? How much is too much? Will my gut heal if I'm around so much wheat still? Right now the Husband is home on holidays, but what happens when he goes back to work? Should I really be feeding The Boy soy-butter sandwiches on whole-wheat bread? I feel like I'm scrubbing him down after chemical exposure when I'm cleaning his hands. And the backs of my hands now have eczema from so much scrubbing on my part. And let's not even talk about trying to clean up the playdough (which is labelled: Contains wheat). Again, what's a celiac to do?

This is such a huge learning curve. Please tell me that one day I'll figure it all out.

It's a New Year and I screwed up already..

Seriously, how does that happen? I guess technically I screwed up LAST year since I accidentally ingested gluten last night and not today, but I'm certainly feeling the effects today.

We went to a neighbour's house for new year's and I had been reminded many times to ask about ingredients. Well, I guess I forgot one dish and after 30 minutes of feeling rather terrible and in pain, I found out there had been soy sauce in the sauce. Soy sauce. My former favourite sauce is laden with wheat. Good thing there's the alternative tamarin sauce but still. I'm feeling it today with a bit of a sour stomach - and this was after starting to feel better on a regular basis.

For some reason, it got me down a bit too. I was doing so well! I know it's going to happen, but I still feel like a shmuck for having it happen so soon.

I'm quite concerned right now about cross contamination. My kids are still eating whole wheat bread and playing with wheat playdough and my hands are getting insanely dry from scrubbing them so much after feeding them, cleaning them up, or cleaning the table. I'm not sure yet how to avoid this other than stop feeding them bread.. if tonight's ciabatta bread is any indication though, I certainly won't mind not having wheat bread - man that ciabatta bread was good! Oregano and basil and parmesean all in a lovely loaf that has pea flour in it for some protein and fibre! It was excellent!

It's a new year and I have 2 goals: 1 - I want my son to be using the potty sometime this year. 2 - I want to be healthy by summer. Exercising again and feeling great and having this diet down pat!