It is the afternoon and I am hungry!  It is also over 90 degrees, so naturally my first inclination to satiate my hunger is ice cream!

In our house, ice cream is a regular part of our weekly menu.  Now, of course, it doesn't end up written on the actual menu, yet it is not rare for my husband to follow dinner with, "Do you want an ice cream cone?"  He makes the best ice cream cones!  He really could be considered an ice cream artist! :)  You know what I mean, just the perfect amount of ice cream inside the cone before placing a small scoop on top!  Perfectly delicious!

We've had ice cream 1-2 times a week for the past few weeks and we have yet to tire of it.  This leads me to believe that ice cream is just like pizza...it never gets old!  Such an interesting phenomenon about these food items.  Now back to the item at hand, the ice cream & it's cone.

My cone (pictured):

• Edward & Sons "Let's do...Gluten Free Ice Cream Cones"
• So Delicious Organic Chocolate Velvet Soy Ice Cream
• Trader Joe's French Vanilla Ice Cream

Crosby's (my husband) cone:

• Let's Do...Organic "Organic Sugar Cones"
• Trader Joe's French Vanilla Ice Cream

These ice cream cones never disappoint, but for my choice this afternoon I wanted something quick and a little extra chocolaty.  

Thanks to my lovely mother, I had these chocolate covered vanilla raspberry ice cream bars in the freezer.  Ciao Bella's Gelato Dips are gluten free and they are tasty!!  Now, they are also quite rich, so be prepared for that.  Nonetheless, they were just what the doctor ordered this Wednesday afternoon.  Look, even our dog seems interested!! :)

Gluten Free Saver is a new website that will be launching it's first set of savings in just a few days! :)

This service is a website that promises to be sending their first set of gluten-free coupons via email on October 3rd.  You can sign up for free on their site and they're boasting savings from 37-80%!  I have no idea how handy or effective this website will be, but it's making big promises and I'm willing to give it a try.

Try it yourself and let us know what you think.
They have a website: glutenfreesaver.com.  The website is down at the moment, so you can also access them at
Gluten Free Saver Facebook Page.

Also, if you have found coupons for gluten-free products on other sites, please let us know.  We'll check them out and post our findings on here. 

Happy Savings!!

This is the most delicious banana bread EVER!  Trust me, you won't be disappointed!
*Recipe adapted from Bob's Red Mill Gluten Free All Purpose Flour.


Ingredients:

• 1/3 cup Canola or Coconut Oil (I prefer Coconut)
• 2/3 cup Brown Sugar, packed
• 2 large Eggs
• 1 tsp. Vanilla
• 1 3/4 cups Bob's Red Mill Gluten Free All Purpose Flour (or any all purpose flour)
• 2 tsp. Baking Powder
• 1 1/4 tsp. Cinnamon
• 1 tsp. Xanthan Gum
• 1/2 tsp. Salt
• 1 1/2 cups Banana, mashed
• 1/2 cup Walnuts (I chose chocolate chips instead!)

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350.
Grease 9x5 non-stick loaf pan (funny how we have to grease non-stick pans!).
Cream oil, sugar, eggs and vanilla.  Add flour, xanthan gum, salt, baking powder and cinnamon.  Mix in bananas.  Beat until smooth, then stir in nuts or chocolate chips.  Pour into pan.
Bake for 1 hour.
Let cool for about 10 minutes.  Slice and serve with butter while still hot!

Enjoy!  Please let us know what you think and any variations that you like!

Alright so it's my turn to write a post regarding those things that are not food, but still considered gluten free.

I have chosen bendy straws, well Rachel did, but I get to write about it.

Now these things are amazing. I'm not just saying that because Bendy straws create something that is so surreal that one would have to travel to the moon to partake of the wonderfulness that is the, "Bendy."

I'm saying that, if I could go back in time and create these magnificent things, I would change its name to the Crozbend. I mean seriously, how awesome would that be. "Yo, you checked out the new Crozbends, these things are off the chain... for real..."

Anywho... I've got nothing really exciting to share regarding the bendy straws, but the fact that they make drinking anything that much cooler, you should get some. Plus they're Gluten Free!

Good afternoon Celiac's and non-Celiac's alike!


Today is National Celiac Disease Awareness Day! Can you believe it? An official day! We are definitely moving on up in the world.

In honor of today, I would like for you all to do me a favor and EAT. But, don't just eat anything, eat well today! Stop what you're doing, think for a moment, and imagine the most scrumptious and delicious food item. Now figure out a way to eat it! I'm serious, this is a day honoring you (or someone you know, for my non-Celiac's) and you deserve to celebrate.

For me, I started early with making cupcakes this past weekend (see earlier post), but the party's not stopping! Tonight I'm going to Outback Steakhouse (who has an extensive gluten free menu, yum!) to celebrate my father-in-law's birthday. I won't mention the year, but he's old! Heehee, just kidding! Love you! :) Anywho, at Outback I will be enjoying some scruptious meal, but that's not what's going to be important for me. What I'm nost looking forward to is something that I have yet to try, but which includes one of my favorite dessert items. It is their Chocolate Thunder from Down Under!!!!! That's right, in just a few short hours I will be indulging in a gluten free pecan brownie topped with vanilla ice cream, warm chocolate sauce, chocolate shavings and whipped cream! Oh, I'm excited! Granted, my eyes are always bigger than my mouth so hubby, get ready to help me out! :)

For more ideas on how to embrace and celebrate your new approach to food check out other ways to celebrate.

• http://www.fitsugar.com/Ways-Celebrate-National-Celiac-Disease-Awareness-Day-19051017
• glutenfreeville.com
• gfreefoodie.com

If you're newly diagnosed or learning about a friend or loved one's allergy, check out this site.

• http://www.csaceliacs.info/

Whatever you decide to do today, embrace the cards you've been dealt and find something deliciously yummy to indulge in. Just don't forget to share your choices with us!

I was in the mood for dessert and decided to make these red velvet cupcakes from a recipe in the latest Living Without magazine.

Sadly, the amount of red food coloring the recipe called for was not nearly enough. Only 3 drops! I should have known better! And this being my first time around with red velvet, I didn't want to go too crazy (although I did try double the amount of food coloring, but to no avail). Rather than be sad, I improvised and turned the icing red. :-)

One interesting note about these cupcakes is that they're made with stevia to replace a good portion of the sugar.

Ingredients:

• Gluten free all purpose flour
• Xanthan gum
• Baking powder
• Cocoa
• Red food coloring
• Vanilla
• Salt
• Baking soda
• Cider vinegar
• Egg yolks
• Egg whites
• Stevia
• Sugar

So essentially this was a normal recipe for cupcakes with gluten free flour and xanthan gum in place of regular flour and stevia in combination with pure sugar.

Overall I was quite pleased with the results, although I overfilled many of the cupcakes (it's been awhile since I've made these things and I remembered right in the middle of pouring the batter to only fill each cup half way)!


For the frosting I bought powdered sugar and followed the recipe on the box (adding about 8 drops of food coloring).




Okay, so I have to modify the above comments.  I had another cupcake today (day after making them) and they were perfect!  Super moist and delicious!  The sweetness was just perfect!  My guess is that trying a cupcake at 10pm when you are about to go to sleep (which is what I did yesterday) is what causes your mouth to believe they are too sweet!

As for the cupcakes, I'll have the true test when my husband tries them, especially since he is the non-Celiac and still eats "normal" flour. :-)

My husband tasted these this morning and said they were, "a tasteful treat that satisfies any diabetics dream!" Haha...that's what I get for asking him his direct opinion!  Earlier when he ate them he said they were, "really, really good!"  Yay cupcakes!!

Happy baking!!

While tasty, I did find these cupcakes a bit too sweet. So I have a small request, if you know of a tasty frosting alternative that's good, but less sweet, please let me know so we can try it. Thanks! I also don't know that I'll bake that often with stevia knowing that it is a ton sweeter than sugar. But, I will continue to use it in my coffee as that is delish!!

Friday, such a glorious day, particularly now as I am off work for the weekend! :)

So today, as we enter into fall (praying we have indeed had our last 100 degree day!) I will address a very serious topic.  Lotion.

We all know the necessity of lotion to survive in life.  Without it, you leave the world to see, and sadly have to sometimes touch, your scaly, cracking selves.  This, my friends, is a travesty.  It's a terrible, if not inhumane, way to travel through life.  ;)

Now, let me share some wisdom on this topic of lotion.

A good lotion needs to moisturize enough to not warrant a second application, yet without leaving your body with a grimy, greasy feel.  It's a delicate balance and I believe I have found the perfect option with Desert Essence's Organics lotion.

This product line has some great lotions and body washes AND it's all 100% vegan, wheat & gluten free!

As a sensitive soul (you know, the people who have issues beyond the food realm), I really enjoy their fragrance free hand and body lotion.  This stuff is so great because while it is fragrance free, it has a light and pleasant scent rather than something funky and odd.  Come on, anyone who's tried a fragrance free product knows what I'm talking about! :)  Another plus with this product is that it doesn't sting your legs when applied right after shaving!  Yay!!

One word of advice, while this line does have great lotion, I'd steer clear of their shampoos and conditioners (body washes are decent too!) unless you have fine/thin hair.  Myself, I have as my hairdresser likes to say, "enough hair for three people," on my head.  I've tried the hair products and I have to double, if not triple the amount that I normally use just to wash "all" my hair!  But, I do have massive amounts of hair, so their hair products may work just fine for you.

Don't take my word for it...test Desert Essence out for yourself!

Welcome to our new weekly post, Food Free Friday!  Every Friday we'll be featuring something non-food that is gluten free (and hopefully fabulous)!

Today, we're talking lip products.  Did you know that many cosmetics contain gluten?  It's a sad and annoying fact that us Celiacs have to deal with every day.  Now, many of you may be thinking that whether or not your cosmetics are gluten free doesn't matter, but in fact it does. It's not so much the absorption into our skin (although some will argue that it is) as the likelihood that we may ingest some of what we put on our bodies.  Just imagine for a moment about your normal morning routine and you'll probably be able to come up with quite a few ways that you could accidentally ingest your beauty products.

My suggestion is that you start to pay attention to the products you choose, starting with your lips.  Anything that goes on your lips is guaranteed to get into your mouth at least a little bit, there's just no way around it.  If Celiac experts recommend that your non-Celiac significant other brush their teeth before kissing you (they do say this is a risk for cross contamination), then you can just imagine how important gluten free lip products are. 

One lip product that I've grown to love is Softlips chapstick.  They're just so smooth and tasty!  That may sound silly, but it's true.  They have a chapstick that's vanilla flavored and it's just plain delicious!  Plus, with spf 15 you can't beat it.  Protection and a great flavor, yay!  Softlips also has tinted chapsticks, which makes getting ready in a flash quite simple.  Another yay!  So far I've only tried the "pearl" color, which is very nice and light.

Now, we need your help.  What are your favorite gluten free lip products?  Share with us and we'll post them on here!  We'll even test products out and share our results, if you like.

I know I've got some catch up to do on here and I apologize for slacking. Now that I'm getting back into the swing of things with work, I should start writing more on here.

Coming back from summer break just throws us teachers off, as I'm sure many of you can relate to. So, do expect some more updates in the near future. For now, here's a quick blog about a product I should have known better than to buy.

We were at Trader Joes and I figured I'd look around for some quick snacks that were out of the norm of what I normally buy.

I spotted these fruit sauce crushers and noticed they were gluten free. Seriously, "fruit crushers," why did I even pick them up.

My husband just eyed them oddly (smart man) as the cashier said they tasted like apple sauce.

I figured I'd give them a try and try to get a few more fruits and veggies in my day. Dumb idea! Squashed fruits of veggies?!? Really Rachel?! Obviously I can report that it tasted like I was eating baby food!! You know, Gerber from the little bottle! Yuck!

So, for all you moms out there, this is a great buy for your little ones. For the rest of you, just walk away!