My Breakfast, Wild Flours Bakeshop

I wanted to type a nice post about my breakfast this morning, instead I'm surrounded by two adorable children who want all of my attention.  I've managed to balance Ellis on my lap and the computer on my legs with Ceci on the other side begging for wonder woman videos on youtube.  I bargained a few minutes away from wonder woman videos to write this note about my delicious coffee cake from Wild Flours Bakery in Huntington Village.   We stopped by last night on our way home from haircuts and picked up some cupcakes and breakfast treats.

First of all, it's a dedicated gluten free bakery that does not use any nuts!  They are also dairy free for those who need it.  I love walking in the door and telling Ceci she can pick anything she wants in the cases, that is a huge mommy moment for me, considering most of the time I have to negotiate with her to select one or two items that are close to safe for her.  Ceci picked a gorgeous vanilla cupcake topped with chocolate mousse frosting and some pink sprinkles, I chose a cookies and cream cupcake for dessert last night, and a coffee cake for breakfast today.  We were too greedy to stop and take pictures of the cupcakes, they were so yummy we gobbled them up.

All the cake components of our treats were so light and airy and perfectly sweet.  The vanilla cake is almost to delicate to hold up the sinfully rich chocolate mousse frosting, but somehow gets the job done in the most delicious of ways!  My cupcake had a light chocolate cake, again light, airy, and delicate, with the perfect flavor of chocolate.   The icing on my cupcake was more of a ganache than a frosting which I suspect comes from the lack of dairy, and was a bit purpley-grey from the cookie bits being blended into it.  Now ask me if I was bothered by any of those issues after the first bite, my answer is NOPE!  I ate the whole thing!  This morning I got the joy of a beautiful coffee cake that I did not have to make.  The topping was so crumbly, with the perfect balance of sweetness and cinnamon, on top of the again, delicate, airy and sweet, dry cake.  I loved it!

Maybe I'm glad it's a bit of a hike to the bakery, so I can save it for when I really want to go, otherwise I would weigh a million pounds.  Everything is always yummy there and it is so hard to choose just a few treats when we are at the counter.  As a person who has been gluten free all my life, there is such a beautiful happiness seeing an entire bakery case full of treats that are totally safe for me to eat.  I said it earlier, but it's worth repeating, taking Ceci into a bakery where everything is safe for her to eat, makes my heart so happy, seeing the huge smile on her face as she runs to the glass case and presses her tiny button nose against it to choose the most beautiful treat she can find.

We are so happy we have found Wild Flours Bakeshop!

Ok, back to Wonder Woman videos!

New Gluten Free Store

I'm so excited to say that we found a wonderful new Gluten Free Store!!  It's called Strictly Gluten Free, and it is just that, an entire store dedicated to gluten free products!  Not just a small shelf in the back of items that don't get rotated, that's right an entire store of gf food, beauty products, books, and more.

The store is pretty small, but super clean and well lit, it makes it feel so much bigger than it really is.  It is in a tiny strip mall on Larkfield Rd. in East Northport Long Island.  The owners were there working and Steve even opened the door to greet us as we came in from the parking lot, his wife Angela was there with their baby Luca in a carrier and they were all so warm and welcoming.  Angela is the gluten intolerant one, and told us they have done tons of research and traveling to different gluten free expos around the country to seek out the best of the best gluten free products.  She said she has tried 95% of the products in the store and wouldn't stock it if she didn't like it!  Let me tell you, this was music to my ears, I despise wasting money on bad gf products!!!  There is never any reason that someone with celiac can't have delicious food, and I loath when companies think it's okay to sell us bland, dry, tasteless products and over charge for them.  Well, that won't happen here!  Steve and Angela have done their homework!  They had the best of the best products all in one place, all of my favorites so I don't have to run all over the countryside gathering things I like.

After chatting for a few minutes I asked Steve if they had the gf Chinese Dumplings we have been desperately searching for for months now.  He eagerly told me to follow him and that they not only had the dumplings but had a good stock of egg rolls too!  Ceci is so jealous of Tim's dumplings when he eats them for lunch and we had found Feel Good Foods online but had yet to see them in stores.  Finally a store close to us had them!!!  So excited!

Did I mention they have samples??  We went Saturday afternoon and they had taken a delivery of some beautiful baked goods from Ms. Michelle's Urban Gourmet, including lots of beautiful muffins and cupcakes.  I think Ceci must have had at least 4 samples, and you know she doesn't waste her time on food that isn't delicious.  I think her favorite was the chocolate muffin, with chocolate chips on top.  All of the Ms. Michelle's products were fresh baked, not frozen.  

Angela also offered us samples of Soft Gluten Free Pretzels from Tonya's Gluten Free, they were Amazing!!  I've never seen them in any stores around us before and that makes me sad.  They are so buttery and delicious and come with toppings, salt or cinnamon sugar!  We bought a box of those and I can't wait until snack time to dig into them!

The store also carried Goldbaum's ice cream cones, which I've had before and really liked, but Tim went back and took a second look and realized not only did they carry sugar cones, but Coco Sugar Cones!!!  That's something new!  I don't think I've even seen those in a glutenous version.  I had one last night with vanilla ice cream and it was fabulous!  Perfectly sweet and chocolate, a great way to add more deliciousness to my ice cream.  I can hardly wait to give Ceci her first ice cream cone all to herself and see what she thinks.

If you live anywhere near this store, PLEASE go visit it!  They are wonderful people and have stocked the best products!  I want them to be successful so I don't have to drive to 4 stores to collect all my gluten free products!

Gluten Free TV!

Last night we watched ABC's "Man Up!", it was an episode about a whole family starting a gluten free diet.  It's not a show we normally watch, but Tim had seen the write up in TV Guide and DVR'ed it for us.  It was pretty funny!  The banter was great, although they didn't have the greatest grasp on what was gluten free and what wasn't, at one point suggesting that potato chips and gummy bears had gluten.  Still it was fun to see them make gluten intolerance entertaining.  I think one of my favorite exchanges was:

"Gluten, isn't that the stuff in light bulbs?"
"No."
"Oh, gluten, you mean Aquaman's nemesis!"

Awesome!!  Because there have been a good many days of my life time where that's how I felt trying to explain gluten and why I can't consume it.

Anyway if you have 24 minutes or so, and are looking for something funny, check it out.  Here is the link

ABC's Man Up! Disciplining the Keens, through ABC.go.com

and Man Up! Disciplining the Keens, through Hulu.

Check your Gluten Free Medication

Today I Ceci and I went to one of her Drs and she mentioned I should check out a website to be sure that our medications are gluten free.  It was something I had NEVER considered before!  I felt better after reading the website, it turns out gluten in medication is not a common occurance.  All of mine and Ceci's medications were thankfully on the list.  Please double check your medications too.

http://glutenfreedrugs.com/

How I survived school lunch time

Brings back so many memories!

I had the good fortune of finding out I had Celiac disease at a very young age (under two years old), and was more than fortunate to have parents who took immaculate care of my digestive system.  Being able to eat a school lunch was a very rare occurrence for me growing up, my mom packed my lunch everyday of my elementary and some of my middle school years.  At least until my preteen hormones kicked in and talked back to her about what she was packing, from that day on I was on my own (big mistake).

I remember vividly one of my favorite "sandwiches" to find, a plain Quaker rice cake smeared with Adams crunchy peanut butter, topped with banana or apple slices to keep the Pb from sticking to the sandwich bag, and to add extra fruit.  I can't tell you the thousands upon thousands of strange looks I got over the years, but to this day I sometimes make it for myself for lunch.  Now I just have to substitute sun butter for the peanut butter when Ceci is around.

If you are looking for different lunch ideas for yourself or your kids try this one, and if you need more inspiration take a look at the list Kim of Cook it Allergy free made of, PRINTABLE LIST OF 50+ ALLERGY-FRIENDLY LUNCHBOX IDEAS.  It's really inspiring!  Makes me rethink my own lunches for those days I feel in a rut.

In progress, pretty simple to make.

Gluten Free Gift Baskets

GLUTEN-FREE GIFT BASKETS

Delivered to the 48 Contiguous U.S. States – Call Us for Custom Gluten-free Gift Baskets (559) 676-1163

Looking for Gluten free gift ideas?  I just saw this today, could be useful if you need a gift for someone with celiac who is hard to shop for. Gluten Free Gift Baskets is a website to order beautiful looking gifts of yummy gluten free food.  The website is giving me a bit of trouble loading right now, and it suggest that you call their phone number anyway, because the website is still under construction.  The baskets have great themes like movie lover's, chocolate lover's, and Italian, all with great items.  They all come bundled in a nice basket or bowl with pretty ribbons and bows.


The company was started by Carla Spacher of Gluten free recipe box, who has done an amazing job.  She has even taken note to use only gf packing peanuts.  I learned that today, biodegradable packing peanuts could be derived from substances including gluten, or cornstarch.  Carla's company promises to use only gluten free biodegradable packing peanuts to take one more step to keep recipients of their baskets safe and healthy.


If anyone receives one of the beautiful baskets, let me know how you like it and what you got in it.

Link For Gluten Free Thanksgiving

If you are someone with Celiac Disease, or eat gluten free, or are at all curious about gluten free food, you have to check out The Gluten Free Girl and the Chef.  She has some amazing ideas, including this week's post for a Gluten Free Thanksgiving, so many incredible recipes compiled in one place.  I can't wait to try some, I think the pumpkin scones are calling my name.  Hope you are all inspired to have a delicious Gluten Free Thanksgiving dinner!

Gluten free Informative resources

I want to share with you some gluten free websites that have tons of good information about what Celiac disease is and how to start on a gluten free diet.




www.celiac.com

www.celiaccentral.org

www.celiac.org

http://liveglutenfreely.com/default.aspx

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gluten-free_diet

lifewithoutgluten.com

www.gicare.com/diets/gluten-free.aspx

These are all great websites, with tons of helpful information.  I would love to write a long post about what gluten is, and exactly where it's found, and all it's mutations.  Instead of stressing myself out and confusing you, I figured linking you to reliable websites would be the best alternative.