Why I Avoid Gluten

I realize that many of my posts discuss or will discuss gluten-free foods, so it might be helpful for people out there to understand how I came to be gluten-free.

In High School, I suffered from a lot of health problems, which followed me into college. My list of ailments spanned the spectrum: sinus infections, severe stomach cramping, the not-so-nice stuff coming out of the bottom end, and I seemed to catch just about anything that so much as sniffed in my direction. Doctors ran countless tests, but they never gave me answers. It all came to a head when a doctor gave me a "prescription" to see a psychiatrist; they thought my sicknesses were self-induced or manifestations of hypochondria. I was livid that their incompetency and inability to find answers was somehow my "mind's" fault. I must have been imagining things if they couldn't find anything wrong. At that moment, I extended my figurative middle finger to the medical profession.

Unfortunately, I had to keep seeing doctors. Again and again and again. (As a relevant side note, let me just say how much I hate the doctor's office. I find absolutely no pleasure in visiting a giant petri dish, yet doctors thought my psyche invented my pain out of some subconscious desire to spend time with them. Right.)  Eventually, my digestive system became so sensitive that eating plain rice gave me severe heart burn. I felt bloated, heavy, lethargic, and nauseated every time I ate. In fact, I looked puffy. Nothing agreed with me. I dreaded going out to eat with friends. I avoided going anywhere far from a bathroom. My digestive system was controlling my life. One day, I ended up in a public bathroom at my college, crippled by the most intense abdominal pain I had felt, and I had felt a lot of abdominal pain.

I did what any smart college kid would do: I called mommy. The 45 minute commute to my college took my mom less than 30 minutes. When she arrived, she helped me into her car and drove me over to the ER, a very quick trek from the college. The doctors ran tests. Boom. An answer fell from the sky: gallstones. The doctors were curious, "What? How can this be? You're young, thin, and really in shape. Gallstones happen to people who are older or over weight. Not you." What factor had all of my doctors neglected to consider? BOTH of my parents had their gallbladders removed; in fact, my mom's went bad while she was pregnant with me, but she had to wait until I was born before she could have her gallbladder removed. Guess what? Gallbladder problems are hereditary. Thank you, doctors, for not considering my family history, a pretty important component in treating a patient.

I asked, "What do I do?" Do you want to know what the doctor should have said or what the doctor actually said?

Well, I'll tell you what he actually said, which will forever remain imprinted on my memory: "Don't worry about it right now. Wait until you're on your honeymoon and hovered over the toilet in excruciating pain, then you should have it removed." Sound medical advice.

I sought a second opinion from a surgeon. Within two weeks, I was having an organ removed. After the operation, my surgeon said, "Your gall bladder was so infected and inflamed that it took us 30 minutes more to complete the procedure." Apparently, I was really sick. Go figure. I probably should have seen that psychiatrist, just to deal with the emotional turmoil my doctors made me endure.

After I recovered from the surgery, I was feeling much better. Then, within two years, I needed an appendectomy. The bloating, fatigue, and lethargy was back.

It was time to rely a little less on the medical profession and a little more on my intuition. I started researching how my diet could be affecting my health. At the time, gluten-free was a shadow past the horizon, yet I found the research. All of the symptoms associated with gluten intolerance were my symptoms. I decided to remove gluten from my diet. Presto. The bloating and heaviness went away. My sinus problems abated.

Four years later, I'm learning a lot about the gluten-free lifestyle and making sure not to lose important nutrients by going gluten-free. A lot of our gluten-free products are missing soluble fiber and other beneficial attributes, so you have to be sure to find ways of including these things into your diet.

On a final note, I must add that going gluten-free is not the only step in this long process for me. I need to reduce my sugar intake (a serious battle for a sweet-a-holic like me) and increase my water intake (a serious battle for an on-the-go teacher who has to schedule times to pee.) Here are the lessons I've learned:

1. Appreciate doctors for their medical degrees and expertise, but remember that, although they know the human body very well because of their years of study, they do not know your body as well as you do. Listen to your gut (sometimes quite literally), and seek as many opinions as you need to until you find a doctor who understands and believes in you. 
2. Whoever said "you are what you eat" is right. Diet has everything to do with how you feel. If you eat sludge, then you feel like sludge. 
3. Do not allow anyone to make you feel like less of a person, for any reason.
4. You can live without a lot of your organs, or at least without part of each one. It's amazing how the body regenerates...in a creepy sort of way. 

Gluten Free to be Me

A little birdie suggested I post about good gluten-free recipe books, so this post came to be. I pull recipes from a plethora of places. I'll tell you some of my favorite places to consult.

First, I frequent this awesome organic grocery store, Roots, which is part of what's called The Conscious Corner. This corner of businesses includes an awesome restaurant (Great Sage), an eco-friendly cards/kids' toys/some clothing/lunch bag store (The Nest), an all-natural pet product store (Bark), and Roots :).

Anyway, I always buy this same magazine from Roots; it's called Living Without. I always tear out all of the recipe pages in this magazine, and I recently stumbled across its website. No, it's not cheap, but you can print the recipe of the day from their site.

Since we're hosting Thanksgiving at our house this year, I will clearly invest in the upcoming November issue. I bought the October one, too.

 Second, one of my awesome wedding guests, Carol, bought me The Gluten-Free Bible. I love fixing the recipes from this cookbook. (I found the focaccia bread recipe here.)  Tonight, I made the Mediterranean vegetable bake dish, which smelled and tasted wonderful. We fixed it with Chicken Cordon Bleu. Yum. Here's a picture of the dish before we put it in the oven.

(Let me know if you'd like the recipe!)

If you're looking for The Gluten-Free Bible, you can find it here. 
It looks like this:

Now, the next cookbook is filled with gluten-free recipes; however, it's easy to accommodate all of the recipes.

Confused?

 

 

 

 

 

Well, in case you're otherwise unaware, Bisquick now makes a gluten-free mix! (Betty Crocker has a few cake mixes, and they're all located in the "normal" food aisles, haha.) I made the strawberry shortcakes, which the middle picture features; Jeff won't stop talking about them. Some commercial for Bisquick came on the TV today; the strawberry shortcake made an appearance. Jeff peered at me with a pained look and said, "Mmmm so good. When will you fix them again?"

I've made pancakes with the mix. They're also delicious.

Honestly, my best recommendation is to figure out your favorite dishes which usually contain gluten (apple pie, red velvet cake, pizza, sandwich bread, etc.) and search for recipes on Google. I've found many recipes this way.

If you'd like for me to post about good store bought breads, pizza crusts, frozen meals, french fries, dessert, and etc., post a comment in the box below! Trust me when I say that trying out gluten-free foods is expensive and frustrating. I wish someone else had saved me the money and time by telling me which products taste like cardboard and which ones taste pretty darn good.

I'd be glad to save you some time and money!

If you read this post, thEn you might not look dumber thAn a 5th grader.

Sit down for a moment. We need to have a talk. I've been reading what you write, and I have some bad news for you: you look like a wooly mammoth beating his head with a sock full of rocks because you are confusing the homophones then and than. Rookie mistake.


Then, with an E, indicates time. 

Since all good monkeys need to see before they do, let us look at a few examples.

• The if-then statement: "They" say that if you pick your nose, THEN you will build up immunities. If you eat the booger, THEN you might become superhuman. (Really, I don't recommend this practice. Even if you pick a winner, you're sure to look like a loser.) 

Nom nom nom. (Sorry, no political malice here. He left himself wide open for this one.)

• First, he farted in my general direction, THEN he tossed an air biscuit at me. How rude!

Than, with an a, helps you to provide a comparison. 

• She was wrinklier, but not cuter, THAN a Shar pei.

Dis mah sad face. You dumb. Know than.

• Our new rug was thicker THAN an Armenian's chest hair.

Which one is it? 

1. She tidied up the house, then/than she hid bodies in the basement. 
2. If she could have afforded braces, then/than I wouldn't have called her snaggle tooth. 
3. He was angrier then/than a 10-foot troll trying to scratch its back with a baby fork. 
4. No one bakes apple pies better then/than my mom does.

 And the survey says?

1. Then
2. Then
3. Than
4. Than 

Are YOU smarter than a monkey clanging its cymbals for pennies on the street corner?  

I sure hope so.

 

Olive & Feta Cheese Focaccia

Please do not mind the ugliness of the baking sheet I laid the foil on top of before I transferred them to a pizza stone. It's a very old hand-me-down.

Okay, part of the recipe calls for flour (obviously). You can either use the following flour-blend recipe, or you can buy a box of pre-made gluten-free flour blend. However, you get more for your money this way. 

Gluten-free flour blend (can be doubled, tripled, whatever you want):

• 1 cup brown rice flour
• 1 cup sorghum flour
• 3/4 cup millet flour (can substitute with chickpea flour)
• 1 cup tapioca flour
• 1 cup cornstarch
• 1/3 cup instant, unflavored mashed potato flakes (I didn't have any, so I used 1/3 cup almond flour instead)

Mix all of these ingredients together. It helps to use a whisk. 
Store it in an airtight container. 




The following recipe is adapted from The Gluten-Free Bible.

Ingredients (for bread/dough):

• 3 cups Gluten-Free Flour Blend 
• 2 packages (1/4 ounce each) active dry yeast
• 2 teaspoons xanthan gum
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 1/4 cups warm water
• 1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
• 3 egg whites, at room temperature
• 1 tablespoon agave nectar
• 1 teaspoon cider vinegar

Ingredients (for toppings):

• 1/2 cup chopped pitted kalamata olives 
• 1/2 cup chopped pitted castelvetrano olives (whole green)
• 2 tablespoons chopped fresh rosemary leaves (recipe calls for 3, but that ends up being a LOT)
• 2 tablespoons thyme 
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• 1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
• coarsely ground black pepper
• 1/4 cup feta cheese 

Notes: 

• Recipe says fresh rosemary and thyme; I had them only in canisters, but it seemed to make no difference. 
• Recipe calls for Romano cheese; I had none, so I used feta cheese. I loved the flavor the feta contributed. 
• Don't add any extra salt with toppings. Trust me. The olives and feta cheese are already pretty salty. Adding more salt is even too much for someone who's a salt-a-holic like me.  

Directions:

1. Combine flour blend, yeast, xanthan gum, and salt in large mixing bowl. In a separate medium bowl, whisk together 1 cup warm water, oil, egg whites, honey, and vinegar. Add wet ingredients to dry ingredients with your electric mixer. Mix at a low to medium speed. You'll need to scrape the bottom and sides periodically to ensure all of the dry ingredients are mixing. Batter should be smooth, shiny, and thick. The recipe doesn't give this information, but gluten-free batters are almost always super sticky. Don't be alarmed; it's perfectly normal even if it is messy and mildly frustrating. 
2. Preheat oven to 450 degrees F.  Line large baking sheet with foil/parchment paper. (I just put a two-foot piece of foil on the counter, sprayed it with some PAM, divided the dough into two pieces, and put the pieces of dough on the foil. You want to end up with two flattened dough pieces, 8-inch round and 1/2 inch thick. NOTE: You might want to use gloves if you dislike getting really sticky dough all over your fingers. 
3. Let the dough rest for 20-25 minutes. Dimple top of dough with fingertips (because the mixture is stickier than they want you to believe, my dimples looked a little more like odd craters; I achieved the same result, so whatever.) 
4. Mix the toppings together in a small bowl to ensure even distribution.
5. Drizzle oil over the dough. Sprinkle with pepper.
6. Sprinkle dough with the toppings. Drizzle oil over top of everything.
7. Bake for 15 minutes (I didn't use a baking sheet; I used a pizza stone.) or until lightly browned on the top AND bottom. 
8. Sprinkle with cheese. Cool for 3-5 minutes on a wire rack before you cut the pieces.
9. Enjoy :) 

This recipe would make for a great Thanksgiving appetizer! Just cut up the two focaccia breads into smaller, bite-sized pieces and serve them on appetizer plates or a pretty tray.

By the way, Jeff is quite the picky one, who usually responds to my creations with "yeah, it's pretty good," and then he proceeds to eat two helpings and all of the leftovers. This time, however, his eyes lit up with the first bite, and he said (between munching noises), "MMM, this is reeeally good." There were no leftovers on his plate. Success.

Reorganizing

So, I am not entirely fond of cleaning, but I do LOVE to organize. I find it endlessly therapeutic.

Let's start with my office.

 

I considered buying chalkboard paint and painting a square of it on my office wall, but that option seemed too costly and time consuming. Instead, I found this awesome item at Learning How. 

It's adhesive chalkboard material! It came in purple and blue. Blue matched my office better, so I went with it. I didn't want the edges to look awkward, so I bought cute, paisley borders to outline the edges of my sticky chalkboard. Genius, I know. 

You can find some of these adhesive chalkboard squares on Amazon; just click the link :)

 Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know that none of my furniture is made of the same wood. Whatever! I have no shame. Maybe one day I'll find the time to sand it all down and paint it one color; of course, that would be pretty boring.
     Anyway, the tall shelf on the right is my "need to read" bookshelf; I organized all of the books by author's last name.
     The tiny desk in the middle is my "wedding project" desk. It houses all of the materials I need to work on the wedding scrapbooks I am making for my mom, mom-in-law, and two aunts. Also, if anyone ever needs a workspace in my house (say, a niece or nephew), that little desk will do just fine. Honestly, people are lining up to work in my office. True story.
     That photograph in the middle of the wall? A previous student of mine took that photo, blew it up, and framed it for me. It inspired the green accent wall.

 The curtains? Pier 1...on sale.

The little shelf to the left of my filing cabinet? It houses all kinds of paper.

The drawers to the right of the filing cabinet? They house stickers, project ideas, cards/letters to save, and other nondescript items.

Like my teacher blanket? I've had it since elementary school!

Okay, see the shelves on the wall? I like what I did with these. The top shelf holds all of the books that I've read as well as useful anthologies from college. The bottom shelf holds all of the novels/plays that I teach during the school year. Since I know the books on these shelves pretty well, I don't need them as close to my desk.

 And now for my favorite part: my desk nook. I place the desk here for a few reasons. One, it's under a set of easily accessible shelves. Two, it's not blocking the window. Three, it has the perfect view of the hallway, where people usually linger to talk to me. When I say people, I really mean Jeff and the dogs. 

Anyway, the shelves above my desk have a very specific method of organization. On the top shelf, I placed all of the teacher reference books and children's books that I don't need very often. On the middle shelf, I placed teacher reference books for reading (some poem anthologies/reading strategies books/etc.). Finally, the bottom shelf houses all of the teacher reference books about writing; I use these books the most often, so they're the closest to my workspace. Admittedly, I'm lazy once I sit in that office chair. I don't want to get up and down a million times just to grab a book. So, I made everything that I use the most as easily accessible as I could. Mission accomplished. 

 

I can hear you now: "Danielle, you're posting about organizing, yet you're throwing a random picture of your kitchen, not your office, onto this blog post? What's wrong with you?" The answer is simple: I completed both of these projects in the same day, so they deserve to fall into the same post. Yes? Yes.

Anyway, so what does this picture have to do with organizing? WELL, I'm glad you asked. 

Problem #1: I hate knick-knacks. They take up space that something useful could be filling. When I say knick-knacks, I mean little figurines and such. You know what I mean, right? Those little angels, or those little chickens, or those little boots? What does that mean, you wonder? I didn't want trinkets on the top of my cabinets. I wanted purposeful items to fill an empty space. Let's be honest. What else am I going to do with the top of my cabinets? Nada.

Problem #2: We have very few places, other than the walls, to hang wedding pictures. 

Solution? Print out some of my favorite wedding pictures and give them a home above the cabinets.

You might tell me that I need to dust the picture frames, but wouldn't I need to dust that area anyway?

As far as I'm concerned, problem = solved.


I hope you enjoyed basking in the glory of my office and cabinet tops.

Keeping Out Creepers

So, several months ago, Jeff had to take the night shift at his job. Naturally, based on my unnatural fear of being alone at night, I panicked. Our kitchen has a window above the sink, and this window had no covering, which means I'd worry about what was staring in at me from the pitch dark as I fixed my breakfast at 5:30 in the morning. I kept telling Jeff that I wanted curtains or blinds or ANYthing to block out the creepers' peepers. I'm aware that no one was staring at me, but I've watched one too many episodes of Criminal Minds not to be worried about the possibility.

See what I mean? Creepy.

You see, the only reason it took so long was that our kitchen window has one of those funky lengths that they make only valances for. And, as we all know, valances do not cover the length of any window; otherwise, they really wouldn't be valances. I was left with either finding the right size blinds (not too lucky in that department) or making my own. I had to make my own.

"Why is that a problem?" you ask. Well, I own no sewing machine. I did what any intelligent individual would do and I consulted Google for the answer: no-sew curtains. As with my gluten-free red velvet cupcake recipe, I found no instruction sheet I liked by itself, so I combined the "easier" elements of two. (I believe one was on HGTV's site.)

VERY IMPORTANT NOTE: If you plan to make no-sew curtains, please do not use no-sew glue. It's crap in a bottle and not even adhesive crap. Go with the strips of hem tape. Otherwise, your no-sew curtains will turn into hand-sewn curtains if you have no sewing machine like yours truly.

Anyway, I bought fabric that I liked. You can cut up an inexpensive table cloth from Marshall's/Home Goods/wherever, but I found fabric that I really wanted at JoAnn's. Here's how I'd do it with the hem TAPE (not the stupid, craptastic glue).

Materials:

Meet the curtain rings with clips.

• Curtain rings with clips
• Hem tape (can be found in craft stores or craft sections)
• Iron 
• Scissors
• Needle & thread (just in case)
• Curtain rod (obviously)
• measuring tape

Directions:

1. Jeff installed the curtain rod because he's tall, and that's what guys like to do. 
2. I measured the window (taking into account that I'd need to measure from wherever the curtains would start, which wasn't necessarily at the top of the opening)
3. I measured one side of the fabric and cleaned up the ends by sewing them under (after having failed miserably at trying to use the no-sew glue). At this point, YOU, the smart person that you are, would be attaching the hem tape, sticky side down, to the back of the curtain and ironing the hem in place.
4. Once I made one curtain, I measured out the other side, leaving enough room to tuck under and sew (again, you'd be ironing the sticky hem tape and saving yourself time) so that this side was exactly as big as the other side. I feared that I'd make both sides at once and one side would be smaller than the other, so I used the first one as a template for the second one. 
5. Once all of your untidy hems are neatly sewn (ahem, ironed in place), attach the rings with clips to the top of your curtains and hang them on your curtain rod. Tada!

I know that creepers can still be outside of my window, but if I can't see them, then they don't exist.

Clipless Curling Iron

So, I love to experiment with my hair. Many people have complimented certain styles that I wear, so let me show you two videos that helped me.

I figured out the clipless curling iron on my own, but here's a great video that helps you achieve the look you want.

Okay, when I have no time to do my hair in the morning, and I'm not feeling the curly style, this is my go-to 'do. Everyone always loves it. My co-teacher calls it my YouTube hair because I always tell people, "I learned how to do it on YouTube."

Remember that YouTube is not just a site to visit for music videos. You can learn how to do all sorts of things from instructional videos on this site. Thanks to YouTube, my husband learned how to tie a double windsor knot (for his tie), tie a bow tie, and a ridiculous number of other things. I typically use it for hair tutorials.

Oh, I have no pictures of me sporting my YouTube hair, but I do have a picture of my hair after I used the clipless curling iron on it.

(P.S. That awesome quilt behind me was made by one of my talented friends, Carol.)

I bought my clipless iron at Target for $24.99. Here is the link to it on Target's site:

Clipless Curling Iron at Target 

(NOTE: It comes with a glove, and you NEED it; otherwise, you'll burn the dickens out of your hand. Trust me.)