Gluten Free Breakfast Options - Fast & Easy!

As I’ve written previously, breakfast was always a family favorite growing up.  But by high school, I had pretty much given up breakfast.  The heaviness in the pit of my stomach left me feeling lethargic and funky.  I have never since been a regular breakfast eater.  (That is until I started making my own granola!)  Naturally, I married a man whose favorite meal is – yes – breakfast.  He wants bacon, eggs, toast or some variation on bread, juice, tea, the whole thing.  Lucky for me he doesn’t mind making it either.  This seemingly genetic predisposition has been passed on to our kids.  

School days are always a race.  Getting the kids out of bed, dressed, breakfast, lunches packed, teeth…  Whew!  We need some fast and easy solutions to getting it accomplished.  Gluten Free for Breakfast – it’s time I investigate the options for my newly gluten free son! 

Udi’s Plain GF Bagels:  Available in the frozen section of my local Whole Foods and Sprouts.  Although they come pre-sliced, I still need a knife to separate, and they sometimes break.  Oh well, toasted and slathered with cream cheese they are still the best bagel option I’ve found.  I paid $4.99 at Sprouts for them just the other day.  Udi's has coupons available online too!

Kid review:  Awesome!

Van’s Gluten Free Waffles:  Also available in the frozen section of my local Whole Foods, Sprouts and sometimes Von’s.  I love love love the blueberry waffles!  Toasted with butter is my fav way to eat them.  My son loves the blueberry and plain, toasted with maple syrup.

Kid review:  Great!

Parents of GF kids – don’t despair!  There are finally lots of GF products ready in the grocery stores or available online.  I’ll let you know about more products as we try them out!

GF Self to GF Mommy

I've been GF for years now.  Anyone diagnosed with Celiac's Disease as an adult is familiar with the challenges and sometimes trauma of learning to order, cook, shop and enjoy GF foods.  From restaurants to grocery stores, it's a new adventure.  

  

I now face a new chapter in my GF life - my GF child.   I haven’t wanted to face it.  I didn’t want to subject my little guy to the medical procedure of endoscopy and biopsy.   But with so many symptoms including migraines, we just have to face up to it.  My son has CD. 

Today is his birthday - he is 11 years old.  Old enough to have experienced and know the joys of fresh pasta, a perfect pizza, hamburgers on a bun, and my southern fried chicken.
    

I fight back tears.  It isn't that eating GF is so difficult for me.  I suppose that I feel somehow responsible, and guilty. I wouldn't wish CD on anyone, certainly not my own child.  I know that there are other moms out there who have faced this new chapter in life.   I wonder – did they shed a few tears as well?

So today, for his birthday, I’m baking a new birthday cake recipe.  A GF flourless chocolate cake.   With fresh berries and whipped cream.

I can do it.  I will do it.  My son will do it.  I just wish that he didn’t have to.

And we will enjoy our GF chocolate cake tonight!

Happy Birthday my beautiful son!  

Pasta Once Again

As many of the GF peeps know, pasta is one tough food item to give up!  I love homemade noodles and making them for my loved ones is an act of love and torture.  Recently, I had dinner at Osteria Mozza in Hollywood.  A friend had recommended the sausage pasta appetizer which really sounded yummy.  My husband couldn't pass it up and once again I thought bummer.  The waiter, knowledgeable on GF issues (what?!  how did that happen!) offered their GF version using corn pasta.  It was fab!  Naturally I asked for the brand of pasta and the waiter was more than happy to provide.  Rustichella D'Abruzzo corn fusilli is wonderful!  I was blown away to find it online - for $8 a pound!  Plus shipping.  There had to be alternatives.  I now am an avid buyer of DeBoles GF Corn pasta, available at most grocery stores.  Whole Foods just had it on sale, 2 boxes for $4.  What a deal!

Ahhh,  to enjoy pasta once again.  Such pleasure!  Thanks Osteria Mozza~!

Time Flies

Wow!  Time has flown by since I last posted anything.  School, holidays, and oh yeah - the kids - just keep things going at a fast clip.  I had a few minutes to peruse the cookbook section in a local bookstore the other day.  I was SO excited to find the new Blackbird Bakery cookbook!  I had heard about Karen Morgan and her gluten free bakery several years ago when dining at Il Sole in Los Angeles.  Great things come from her bakery!  The photos in the book are simply gorgeous too!  So naturally the book came home with me to start trying out her recipes.

One of the most used flours in Ms. Morgan's book is "glutinous rice flour."  With all of the gluten free books and recipes that I've read, I was not familiar with glutinous rice flour.  So off to Whole Foods, Sprouts, Trader Joe's I went in search of this mysterious product.  No luck.  I turned to google.  Sweet rice flour - that's all it is.  Off to the Asian market next as Morgan recommends.  I must say, having used sweet rice flour from Trader Joe's previously, I wasn't sure if I was on the right track.  I find it to be gritty, like a touch of fine sand mixed into your cookie.  I don't know what brand Morgan uses, but what I found at the Asian market left me with the same grittiness in the cookies.  Next up, I'll try the same recipe with a different flour mix.  Fingers crossed!