Our Favorite Gluton Free Products

Since going gluten free, I have heard different ways that gluten effects people and it's just astonishing to me.  My daughter was having stomach aches every single night.  We tried cutting out dairy, we made lists of what she was eating and could never narrow down what was the matter.  We even thought maybe it was just stress.  My Dad ended up buying a book and started telling me about the different ways that gluten can effect people.  Instantly I thought, if it works I'll try it and I'm so glad that we did.

Here is a small list of some of the effects that gluten seemed to be having on some of my friends and family until they changed to a gluten free diet.

• Repetitive stomach aches
• Chronic back pain and inflamed joints
• Inflamed hair follicles
• Anxiety
• Fatigue

Just to be clear, I'm not a medical professional and I'm not claiming that eating gluten free will cure you of any of these symptoms or anything for that matter.  For some of my friends & family though, we have seen these symptoms become a thing of the past or until we indulge in gluten again.  ;)

I thought today I would share some of our favorite gluten free products that we've run across.  Our family has been transitioning over to gluten free for the last couple of months.  At first I was so nervous, and thought, "How are we going to do this?  We're all going to starve."   But have no fears, it's easier than you think.

Going gluten free really isn't the end of the world and here are a few things that we've tried and love!

1. Flour

Namaste flour is the only gluten free flour that I've tried.  I like it, so why keep looking, right!?  You can find this at Costco.  We make cookies fairly regularly, and this is what we use.  It says to use it cup for cup like you would any other flour.  I probably use just a little less of this than I would regular flour, as I've noticed it seems to make the cookies rise a bit more.  I like my cookies less fluffy and more flat and chewy.  So if you're supposed to use 2 1/2 cups I might end up using 2 1/4 cups instead.  I've also used this flour when making chicken fried steak and you couldn't even tell that it wasn't the regular flour I used to use.

2. Pasta

We buy Barilla pasta.  I found it at our local grocery store.  I heard good things about it, tried it and loved it.  We can't even tell that this pasta is gluten free, which is the way I want it.  So... I still make pasta dishes, I just use this brand of pasta instead.

 3. Bread

We buy 2 different kinds of bread.  We buy Franz for sandwiches as it's the best bread we've found that's fresh.  Since gluten free bread is more expensive, I've just been letting Gracie eat this bread and having the rest of us, eat regular bread.  Gasp!  It really effects her, but the rest of us are okay to eat regular bread, especially since it's not very often.

Udi's bread we buy from Costco in the frozen section and I like to keep it frozen in our freezer at home and just take out a couple of pieces when the kids want toast.  It lasts longer that way, and we seem to go through more toast these days instead of sandwiches.  All of us use this bread for toast and again, it tastes good.  I just use a butter knife to separate the bread since it's frozen.  No need to thaw it out.  It works good... just takes a couple of seconds longer to toast it.

4. Pancake Mix

We have went through a few boxes of this Betty Crocker Bisquick mix and we all love it.  I haven't tried making home made pancakes from scratch yet, but until I do, this is what we buy.

5. Crackers/Snacks

These rice chips with sea salt are my favorite.  We bought these before we went gluten free.  My only wish is that Costco sold them in a large bag.   Also this Glutino brand is really good.  We like the pretzels and they also have a thicker cracker like crouton that works good to break up and put in salads. 

Gluten free products seem to be becoming more and more popular.  Every time I go to Costco, they seem to have another product that they didn't the time before.  One day when we stopped in, they had a whole section out in the middle of the floor with just their gluten free products.  Thank you Costco!

Being gluten free is still pretty new to us, but it's something that we are in for the long haul at this point.

Have you all tried or heard about any gluten free products that you or someone else loves?   I would love to expand my horizons.

Hope you all are having a great week!

Friday Favorites

It's FRIDAY people, and today I thought I would share some of my favorite things from this week, so I'm linking up with Erika, Andrea and Narci for Friday Favorites.

On this day, Emma and I went horseback riding.  She really wants to go again.  :)

I had a couple free hours one afternoon, and I decided to turn on a Christmas movie and get some of my wrapping done.  Bliss!

Going gluten free, we were worried that we'd miss out on the holiday goodies, but with the gluten free flour that I got at Costco, we were able to make chocolate chip cookies.   Normally I wouldn't make chocolate chip cookies for Christmas, but I wanted to make sure that they would turn out, before I went to all the trouble to make something else.  They turned out good and I don't think my family would have noticed a difference.  So we will be continue with our baking this weekend! 

I have a recipe that I normally use for my "no bakes", but couldn't find it.  So I tried a new recipe that I had seen on allrecipes.com .  I don't think I saved the recipe on there, so I can't link back to it, but they turned out good.  No bakes are always a fun little treat.  If you haven't ever been on "Allrecipes", you should check it out.  They have so many different recipes and ideas.

Also, I've been hanging out on Pinterest and keeping my eyes open for some gluten free recipes that would be easy to make and that look good.  You can see what I'm pinning up over there.
Here is one of the things, that I've found and it looks AMAZING!  Caramel cheesecake bites.  Need I say more...

Source

 

I hope you all have a great weekend.  As crazy as this time of the year gets... it only comes but once a year.  Before we know it, it will be January!  Enjoy every moment of it.

XOXO

Gluten Free

My love language is food.  I don't care that that isn't one of the love language choices... it's food.  Feed me good food and I will love you!  :)

So it was a very drastic decision on our part to decide to go gluten free.  We just started this new journey last Wednesday, and already we are seeing huge improvements in Gracie's health.  Tuesday night was the last night that she had a stomach ache before bed.  She normally has a stomach ache every single night, for what seems like the last year or so and we've never been able to figure out why.  The only time she wasn't feeling well this week was after eating food at the concession stand at the dance on Friday.  Other than that, we're not hearing any complaints.  I'm excited to see how this effects all of us.  

Normally, it seems that everything I shouldn't eat, ends up being exactly what I want to eat.  The only thing that I'm having a hard time with right now, is that we are right in the middle of the holiday season.  I love me some cookies and baked goods.  We could have waited until the holidays were over.  But if this was going to help with upset belly's... we figured there was no time like the present.  I have picked up gluten free flour, so I'm going to try and find some fun recipes and experiment a little. 

Dinners haven't been too bad.  We have had steak & salad, salmon and rice, a rotisserie chicken with rice, and tacos with the corn shells. 

Lunches for the kids, I've been packing deli meat, cheese, fruit, veggies and rice crackers or gluten free chips.  

Breakfast hasn't been too bad either, just more work than I normally had to do.  But they eat fruit, and we have found a couple gluten free cereals.  Otherwise I always offer to make eggs of any kind, gluten free bread and every couple of days we have bacon.

We are excited that popcorn is ok to eat.  We usually have that in the evening for a snack.  Also, we have gluten free chips that we love to eat with homemade salsa every once in a while.  Those are 2 of our favorite snacks right now.  Thankfully my kids also like most veggies, so that's easy as well.

All this to say, that we're not starving yet.  This is a huge adjustment for our family, but we are determined to try and make this work. 

If I get my hands on any good gluten free recipes, I'll be sure and post them on here.

P.S  Only 8 more days until Christmas Eve!   :)