Category Archives: Gluten-Free

31 Days of Gluten-Free Life: On the Road

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31 Days of Gluten-Free Life

I’m headed to visit my parents with Daniel tomorrow and of course I’m having to deal with road food. I thought I’d talk about what I do for today’s post.

-KIND bars: I love them and many varieties are gluten-free.
-Leftovers: I have plans to take some pesto quinoa with me (if I can remember to make it).
-Fruit: Good for me and not greasy which is always a plus while driving.
-Coffee: Thankfully, my normal latté order is gluten-free!

Pray for me as I drive — I have some things to ponder and pray over so I’ll be appreciating your prayers for a safe drive to and from.

31 Days of Gluten-Free Life: Eating Out

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So you’ve got a babysitter for the kid(s) and you’ve got a date night scheduled with your spouse. You’re avoiding gluten which rules out a number of restaurants. So where do you eat???

Chipotle works pretty well and as they make it in front of you, you can specify what you want/don’t want. I like their burrito bowls and their soft tacos made with corn tortillas.

Some pizzerias like Pieology and Pie St. (a local independent pizzeria in the Village) have gluten-free crusts. If this is the case, enjoy your pizza the way you like it and the way that isn’t going to trigger massive stomach aches.

In-N-Out and Carl’s Jr. both offer lettuce wraps in place of buns on your burger if you specify it. Just ask for “Protein Style” at In-N-Out and specify it when you order at Carl’s Jr.

As for me, it’s bedtime!

31 Days of Gluten-Free Life: Snacking

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31 Days of Gluten-Free Life

Given that the amount of food I can eat has diminished due to either wheat, contamination with wheat products, or it contains barley and rye (the other two gluten troublemakers), I’m focusing on eating 4-5 small meals a day in order to keep full. For snacking purposes (two of those meals), I have discovered:

-carrots dipped in hummus. It’s not pita but it works with the hummus.
-apple slices dipped in peanut butter.
-fresh fruit
-fruit snacks (not ideal but they also don’t have dye issues like other ones do)

Hope this helps those who are trying to come up with meal plans that work around gluten.

The Simple Woman’s Daybook: October 6, 2015

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Simple Woman's Daybook

FOR TODAY October 6, 2015

Outside my window… sunny and brisk. We had two days of rain and it seems like fall-ish weather might be here. I’m giddy to not have temps in the 90’s in October.

I am thinking… about some things going on in my life.

I am thankful… for the neurology appointment yesterday where the neurologist handed me a prescription for Adderall for Daniel. I’d been hedging on medicating him to calm him down but he doesn’t have an off-switch and he’s getting a little too big to be bouncing off walls and out of control. Now to figure out how to get him to take it…

In the kitchen… making pesto quinoa again tonight.

I am wearing… burgundy long-sleeved shirt and jeans.

I am going… to San Jose for the weekend with Daniel. He has a long weekend and I thought it might be nice to go see my parents and have a coffee/church date with Rebecca, Daniel’s godmother.

I am wondering… what I’ll do with Daniel for the next two afternoons. Wednesday is a compact day as usual (he gets out at 12:25) but Thursday is also one which means I have to keep him occupied for an entire afternoon. IKEA may be involved.

I am reading… Furiously Happy by Jenny Lawson. If you deal with depression, anxiety, or self-injury in any form, you need to read the book. The off-the-wall stuff she does during her lucid moments is funny but she also writes some pretty accurate stuff on her normal life.

I am hoping… to get to work out in some form every day this week even if it’s just a walk with Daniel or kicking soccer balls at the park.

I am looking forward to… seeing my parents.

I am hearing… the washer, dryer, and various tools outside.

A Daniel story for today… Little boy was so tired when he climbed onto my bed at 11 p.m. on Saturday that he had forgotten his blankie. (This kid is Linus when it comes to blankies.) I went to his room, retrieved his mommy blankie and his Dodgers fleece (my mother-in-law’s creation — he also has a Giants fleece from me) and made him a little boy nest on Jon’s side of the bed because Jon wasn’t going to be home until super late and I figured Jon would probably do better in Daniel’s bed.

Around the house… machines doing, mother-in-law cooking, cat on the table. (My in-laws’ cats have very bad table manners.)

A favorite quote for today… “When depression sufferers fight, recover, and go into remission we seldom even know, simply because so many suffer in the dark … ashamed to admit something they see as a personal weakness … afraid that people will worry, and more afraid that they won’t. We find ourselves unable to do anything but cling to the couch and force ourselves to breathe.” — Jenny Lawson, Furiously Happy

One of my favorite things… sleep. I’m not getting enough right now.

A few plans for the rest of the week: Bible study tomorrow, date night and choir tomorrow, soccer practice with my kiddo on Thursday, and driving up to San Jose on Friday.

A peek into my day… A meme I sometimes feel like posting…

Apology to the tree.

Post Script…

We took Daniel to a pediatric neurologist yesterday to talk about ADHD meds for him. I think within 30 seconds of being in the room with him, the neurologist had made up his mind to prescribe them. 🙂 Anyway, I was handing him all of the neurology notes that were present in Daniel’s Medical Binder of Fun and he stopped in the middle of reading the genetic testing report from 4 1/2 years ago and looked at me. Apparently, there was one paragraph in there that contained information about genetic mutations on several chromosomes that are frequently found in kids with autism and developmental delays. In other words, kiddo was born this way and this is not the result of the MMR vaccine or aliens messing with his brain waves, or any of the other crackpot theories out there. So please, for the love of God, STOP BELIEVING MORONS LIKE JENNY McCARTHY WHO HAVE NO SCIENTIFIC BACKGROUND OR OTHER PSEUDOSCIENTISTS!!!!

I would be willing to wager serious money that if you did genetic testing on all of the kids who “suddenly” had autism around the time of their first MMR vaccine, you would find similar results.

Hosted by The Simple Woman.

31 Days of Gluten-Free Life: Coffee Klatch

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31 Days of Gluten-Free Life

If you’re like me, you consider coffee a necessary evil but you can only drink it iced and if it tastes like ice cream. So how do you do this? Well…

My standard order at a coffee chain: iced vanilla latté made with whole milk.

My standard way of drinking it at home: iced coffee with whole milk and Torani vanilla syrup. (Avoid the sugar-free stuff — it tastes horrible and is a chemical _____storm.)

Why do I not do the commercial coffee creamers? Many of them have gluten in them as a thickener. The vanilla soy milk creamer my mom uses says gluten-free on the label and we were laughing at it until I found out *WHY* they very clearly state that. (It was actually pretty good too.)

So how about baked goods? Well, it’s all about labelling and knowing who made things and how they were made. I know that It’s A Grind frequently had locally-made goodies and some of them were gluten-free or egg-free (my other dietary restriction). $tarbux has marshmellow dream bars which are effectively rice krispies treats, except not as sweet at as the Kellogg commercial ones, and that’s my go-to order if I order food there.

31 Days of Gluten-Free Life: Rice Pasta and Cheese

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31 Days of Gluten-Free Life

One of my guilty pleasures is Kraft Mac n’ Cheese in the thin blue box which I had to abandon due to their unethical use of dyes prohibited outside the USA. (The Kraft Deluxe Mac n’ Cheese with squeezable cheese is a close second.) Of course, I can’t have tyat now due to the whole “wheat pasta = gluten” thing but I’ve found an alternative at Trader Joe’s and Target:

Rice pasta and cheese.

You prepare it the same way you would prepare the stuff in the blue box. The only difference is that the macaroni is made of rice flour instead of wheat. Unfortunately, this means that it tastes better right after it is cooked than it does the next day after being refrigerated. (It’s kind of like how rice is coarser the second day you eat it.)

I mention this for all my mac n’cheese loving readers so that some of you can find something that you can eat that isn’t going to mess with your stomach (or Texas).

31 Days of Gluten-Free Life: It’s My Blog and I’ll Whine If I Want To

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31 Days of Gluten-Free Life

It has been a tough day with Daniel waking me up at 5:30 a.m. by using me as a trampoline, dealing with an AYSO coach who was being a jerk (thankfully *NOT* Daniel’s coach), Daniel being a pill all day… Since this is my blog and my whining place (though I don’t do this TOO often), I thought I’d list what I’m craving right now:

-chocolate bars (most use dextrose which is a wheat derivative)
–Arby’s roast beef sandwiches
–Maruchan oriental-flavored ramen
–In N’Out burgers that are not “protein style”
–Round Table Hawaiian pizza
-any of the bistro boxes from $tarbux (without having to pass the crackers on to someone else)
-cake
-chocolate chip cookies (my in-laws brought some home from Panera yesterday and I almost cried)
-bread bowls with clam chowder from Panera
-bagels
-pumpkin cream cheese muffins

Gah. Time for me to try and sleep. (Thankfully, I got a nap this afternoon.)