celiac disease and some work

gluten free chocolate banana bread

in our house, everything i cook and bake is gluten free.  my youngest son has celiac disease, which basically means that when he eats gluten it sets off an immune reaction that damages his small intestine and causes malabsorption among other things.  bad stuff.  the only cure is abstaining from any and all gluten.  gluten is the devil in our house.  the prevailing wisdom is that anything over 20 parts per million will cause the villi in the small intestine to begin to flatten interfering with the absorption of nutrients.  how much is 20 ppm?  how can we measure that?  i have no idea, so at least in our home, we try to minimize the risk.  i am allergic to wheat which is a completely different thing, but having a celiac in the house makes it easier to avoid it.

since this is a blog, i thought i'd share a couple of excellent blogs on how to live and cook gluten free.  some you may have heard of and some maybe not.  first is the gluten free goddess.  karina's blog is just a feast for the eyes, with so much information, beautiful photos (she's an artist) and equally beautiful stories to tell along with her recipes.  she's also dear to us because when middle son was starting a gluten free blog, he reached out to her and she reached back, emailing and helping him learn the ropes of blogdom.  next is another biggie, the gluten free girl.  recipes, photos, videos, and a love story are all here.  elana's pantry uses almond meal and flour for baking.  celiac chicks has restaurant and bakery reviews and more.  then there is book of yum for the vegetarian celiac.  one more and i'll stop, i promise.  i just found roost, a gorgeous blog about a young woman's quest to treat her husband's crohn's disease naturally by going gluten free among other things. 

here's some photos of the progression of one of the pages in the sketchbook project i'm working on.  i finally chose a theme for it from the provided list - learning how to spell and other lessons - something like that.  i'm liking parts of this page and i may make it into something more at some point.

so how's your week been?  passover starts on good friday and then easter sunday, what a weekend!  i haven't even decided what to make for easter dinner.  any ideas?

sunday

i had to share with you some neat things i found while thrifting.  first, i am in love with these books.  they aren't quite as sensational as some 50's pulp novels but i love their covers just the same.  

also found this plaster plaque of a nautical scene.  i love its little details and its 3d qualities.  and i love just as much, its chips and worn spots.  the label on back says hand painted in england.

a bit of lace that years ago, some thrifty lady saved from the hem of a nightgown perhaps, to dress up something else.  its aged color is gorgeous.

all of these will be in the shop soon.

sunday breakfast, or should i say brunch - *gluten free pumpkin chocolate chip pancakes, news and sara vaughan.  a great beginning to a beautiful sunday. hope yours was sweet too.

*we made a few adaptations to the recipe as follows:

added another cup of Pamela's, eliminated the oil, added about 1 cup water, put in an additional 1/2 tbs. sugar and maybe most importantly, added a bunch of chocolate chips.  so yummy, so moist...  there are some leftovers calling to me...

enjoy!

birthday in gloucester

massachusetts, that is.

as i mentioned in an earlier post, my kids took me to see the ocean for my birthday.  the weather was amazing for january, a perfect day for the beach. so many people had the same idea.  it was as if we all recognized what a gift a day like this was and we all couldn't help smiling at each other. even the dogs.  

the top picture is the view from our motel room.  i was happy.

i have to give some love to the 2 restaurants we went to.  it's always tricky for a celiac to eat out, so we are always thrilled to find places that have gluten free items, let alone a menu.  the bottom two pictures show gf pizza from guiseppes (ask for the gf menu!) and gf waffles from mamie's kitchen.  if you're ever in gloucester you've got to try them.  to be honest, we'd be at mamie's every sunday for breakfast if we lived in the area.

 

  

a little bit of christmas

here's the last bit of our gluten free chocolate bark that we made for christmas.  i saw a recipe at poppytalk by lyndsay sung of coco cake for pretzel toffee chocolate bark and was inspired.  while out shopping, i managed to remember the gluten free pretzels (we used glutino) and the chocolate, but not the toffee.  oh well.

salty-sweet and chocolaty, what's not to love?

happy new year everyone!

dinner night, a collaboration

this is an open invitation to our virtual house for dinner. about once a week, middle son and i will  find inspiration from a cookbook, magazine, our pantry and our csa veggie share and make a meal.  we thought this would be a neat way to document his last summer home before he goes off to college.  and we like to share. 

middle son has had his own blog for a few years now where he creates his own recipes and talks about all things gluten free.  why gluten free?  his brother has celiac disease which means that gluten is really, really bad for him.  for a better description than that, check out this.  since we never wanted our celiac to feel like some foods were off limits all our meals are gluten free.  and they're good enough that even the gluten eaters are happy.

so our first dinner will be at middle son's blog and next week it will be right here.  our dinners are very casual, flip flops and dogs are welcome.  enjoy!

tonight's dinner

 

gluten free pancakes, homemade whipped cream, strawberries.  after a long day of painting, scraping, nailing, fixing, we thought we'd do dinner and dessert in one. yum.

whoopie pies and treasuries

I was lucky enough to have my mixed media collage, silver lining, featured in a treasury, by Chris Galli at Spoonful of Sugar Bake Shop.  I happened to find her while searching on Etsy for gluten free bakeries.  She makes Italian cookies, gluten free, dairy free and low protein cookies.  All of her creations are beautiful and I can say, having had a few of her gluten free items, that they are delicious too.  Chris knows her stuff and I felt confident ordering gf from her for my son who has celiac disease.  Her whoopie pies and truffle cakes are so good, I mean so good we ate them straight out of the box after our mail man delivered them.  They were so good that the gluten eaters in my house fought for them too.  I can't wait to try her rainbow cookies and chocolate torte. 

Go over there and just look at those pinkalicious cookies and tell me you don't want them...I dare you.