If you’ve been wondering what I’ve been doing in the interim, wonder no more. I’ve been making jam!

Two of my sisters-in-law live in Connecticut, have had a LOT of power outages in the last couple of years.

With Celiac and my food allergies, I’ve been thinking a lot about emergency preparedness, since it’s not like somebody can walk by and hand me a Nutrigrain bar or something, and if I have meat in the freezer without power for several days, then that food storage is ruined.

I started thinking about how I’d heard that meat could be canned, so I started doing some research and found out that canning meat and vegetables requires a pressure canner. That sounded intimidating, so I decided to start with the good old water bath variety. I figured that once I’d mastered that (and made sure that I liked canning), I could move on with pressure canning.

I LOVE CANNING. I love it SO much. I bought myself a small, flat kitchen scale (easy to clean), and the book Canning For a New Generation. (My mother-in-law gave me another copy that Christmas, which works out *perfectly* since my copy is…ahem…well-used.)

The jams are beautiful and delicious, and mostly only take a few hours. This really is for a new generation. This is NOT the book for you if you want to buy 10 boxes of fruit and do nothing but can for three days. These are small batches. They usually yield 6-7 half pints. A few hours, a little clean up, you’re done. I LOVE the stirring. I just go to my happy place and think. It’s marvelous.

Happy upside: non-spoiling food (as long as it seals properly and the jars don’t break) that I can eat in case of emergency and not get sick. I can tell you, though, that I’m essentially constantly jamming (especially this summer), because the jams do not last long around this house. Local gluten-free bread popped in the toaster with whatever jam I have open is a staple for me.

If you’re interested in learning how to can and want some advice on how to start, let me know!

A good friend of mine sent me a note on Facebook this morning, asking about how to deal with cooking at LDS Young Women Camp for a young woman in her stake who has Celiac. In answering her question, I decided, as a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormons), to write a series of blog posts about some common issues that arise with gluten and give suggestions for those who aren’t familiar with how to deal with them.

If there are any topics you’d like me to address, leave me a comment and let me know!

Hello!

If you are finding this blog from the Vendor List on the Gluten-Free Expo site, thank you for clicking on my logo!

For you and anyone else who may be interested, my kind husband has helped me set up (read: did 99% of) a website. I would love for you to have a sneak peek. Be aware before you visit, however, that we’re still heavily under construction, so please keep that in mind. It’s a work in progress, and I’m very excited about it. It can be found at CinderellasPear.com

I’m also SUPER excited for the Gluten-Free Expo, and can’t wait to be there! I hope you’ll come by my booth and say hello.

If you have any feedback about the site, I’d love to hear it, and you’ll see a note on the site that I need help with the FAQ section.

Feel free to send me an e-mail at cinderellaspear (at) gmail (dot) com.

Looking forward to meeting you!

Hello, dear readers. Sorry for the bit of silence — I’m coming up with a new project. Tonight I’ll be writing about a mostly-vegan, gluten-free “bacon, egg and cheese biscuit” that I made last night

In the meantime, if you would like to e-mail me, shoot me a note at cinderellaspear@gmail.com.

Awesome, right??

Risotto. It’s a great thing. It’s delicious and relatively easy — just a little on the time-consuming side. I believe it was one of the first dishes I attempted after being diagnosed.

As I’ve mentioned in previous posts, Shauna James Ahern is one of the people who kept me sane after I got diagnosed with Celiac. This is her recipe.

Bacon Spinach Risotto (Go read the post. The story’s good. )

5 cups of vegetable or chicken stock (This is one of those times that I sometimes use chicken stock from Costco, because it doesn’t seem to bother me.) 
1/4 cup of butter (I’ll use margarine the next time I make this since I have a dairy allergy now.)
1 red onion, diced
2 cloves of garlic, minced 
1 1/2 cups of bacon, shredded (I usually use the whole pound. The Franchise likes meat.)
2 cups of arborio rice
large pinch of nutmeg
2 tomatoes, chopped (I usually use Roma tomatoes.)
6 ounce of spinach (Shauna uses the whole bunch. So do I. It seems like a lot, but then it wilts.)
1/2 cup of freshly grated Romano cheese (I obviously won’t be using this anymore, but The Franchise will probably like it.)

For the directions, go read the actual post. (You know, copyright.) Browse around the site while you’re there if you haven’t. Great stuff.

I love salmon. I also love that it’s really good for me, and that I’m not allergic to it!

We had some friends over for dinner on Saturday, and I decided to make salmon, mashed potatoes, and Shauna’s Roasted Asparagus. (The recipe is in her book, Gluten-Free Girl.) The Franchise kindly went to the store for me, and I had asked him to get some fresh dill along with the other ingredients. The store was out of fresh dill, so he went for rosemary instead. Not really knowing what to do with rosemary and salmon, I Googled it and found this wonderfully simple recipe: Lemon Rosemary Salmon from Allrecipes.com Basically? Put down lemon slices, sprigs of rosemary, salmon, rosemary, lemon slices. Drizzle with olive oil, bake in the oven.

So. Good. I think it may be my new favorite way of preparing salmon.

Also, the roasted asparagus was a big hit.

Thank you to my wonderful husband for going with rosemary instead.

In May of 2009 I was diagnosed with Celiac. In Summer of 2010, I was diagnosed with gastroparesis. In Oct. 2010, I was diagnosed with allergies to beef, chicken, eggs, milk, bananas, carrots, and corn. Eating gluten free was supposed to make me feel better. It didn’t. Then I thought that just trying to eat for the gastroparesis would help me feel better. It didn’t. Then I thought that eliminating my allergies would make gastroparesis go away. It didn’t. For any measure of success, I have to do all three.

I thought gluten-free was tough. The tough part, though, was the mental aspect. My whole world shifted. With all of the gluten-free products different companies are producing and with all the gluten-free meals restaurants are offering, it’s getting easier and easier to deal with Celiac disease. The really hard ones have turned out to be dairy and corn. They’re in everything! Luckily, I seem to be okay with minute amounts of corn…like in medications and that sort of thing. I miss cheese, though. Alfredo sauce, all sorts of delicious cheeses. For gastroparesis, I only eat enough to make me full. I’m learning what those amounts are in advance, and I have to pay close attention. I also don’t eat anything that’s too high in fiber or too high in fat.

When I observe all this, I feel pretty good… about 3/4 of the week. If I do get a full week where I’m feeling pretty good, then the next week I feel good a smaller amount of the time. It’s like those pesky 5 last pounds that people say they can never drop. I can’t figure out the secret to feeling good all the time.

I’ll tell you what, though: I’ve never eaten better in my life. The best food I have is simple. I eat rice with almost everything. Something seems to be working correctly, because I’ve dropped 18 pounds, and didn’t change any exercise habits. My body seems to be working better. I still don’t have it figured out, and it still is very frustrating, but I can be happy with where I am, and with the progress I’m making.

Life’s a journey, and we each have our own. We can be thankful for what we learn.

Last week was my first experience travelling with all of my food intolerances. I was pretty nervous. Airports don’t have much in the way of GF food that’s non-snack. I didn’t know what was in Connecticut.

I called Delta before we left to talk about taking food through security. I didn’t have a problem with it. I packed fruit snacks, fruit leather, and beef jerky in my carry-on. That worked out great on the way to Connecticut, since we only had an hour layover in Cincinnati. By the time dinner rolled around that night, I was famished. I hadn’t had “real food” since breakfast that morning. Luckily for me, there was a Whole Foods not far from where we were staying, and we rented a car (our saving grace), so off we went.

The Whole Foods there was huge! It was much bigger than the two I’m familiar with in Salt Lake (though I should try the Highland Drive one and see how that is). We grabbed a few items, and then I went in search of bread. Udi’s bread, in particular. A friend at work told me that it was really good, but I hadn’t had reason enough here to look for it. I don’t really miss bread. The prospect of having a loaf of bread (and pb&j) was far too convenient, so I looked for it. And found it. Udi’s whole grain bread. It was good. It was not only gluten-free, but it was dairy-free and soy-free as well! I was in heaven. After scouting around a bit more, I found something that almost made me cry right there in the store: Udi’s blueberry muffins!!!!! They’re also gf/cf/sf, and they were amazing. They were soft and moist and flavorful and perfect. Worth every penny. I’m convinced. The other thing that almost made me cry (I was so hungry), was that Whole Foods had rotisserie chickens! They were plain! There was only one that had been seasoned with salt and pepper already, but the rest were just plain. They had just been cooked, with nothing added. That settled it! We got a chicken, some potatoes, fake butter, the bread, and some peanut butter and raspberry jam. I was set.

Every  night we were there, we had chicken and potatoes for dinner. (Have I mentioned I have the most supportive husband ever?) We had pb&j sandwiches for lunch every day. For breakfast, I had a blueberry muffin (have I also mentioned they were delicious?) and Bob’s Red Mill Mighty Tasty GF Cereal. We bought some rice milk and brown sugar as well. We also bought Namaste pancake mix in case we wanted to change it up, but we ended up bringing it back to Utah.

I guess in the future, I’ll need to check out Whole Foods to make sure there’s one around, or make sure that I take more stuff with me.

…is not my friend.

I eliminated casein, as mentioned, as was feeling better, but still not great. So I decided to try the next thing, and I cut way, way down on soy. Products that contain soy lecithin, for example, seem to still be okay, but I don’t have soy milk on my cereal every morning.

I went off of soy to see if I felt better, which I did. So I kept going. Then, I decided to try the recipe for fruit tarts found in the Gluten-Free Dairy-Free cookbook I’ve told you about. The custard is made from soy milk. I made it as written because I wanted to minimize messing it up the first time, and because I wanted to test the soy thing to see if it was real for me or not.

I found out two things: 1) The tarts turned out very well. (They’ll be getting their own post, soon.) 2) My stomach really is not a fan of too much soy all at once. That’s okay, though. Rice milk works for me just fine, and I love horchata. Chocolate rice milk is not as good as chocolate soy (in case you were wondering).

*sigh* I suppose I just need to buck up and be grateful for all the good things I have in my life, even if I’m having a tough time with my food issues. I have so much to be thankful for, and I know the novelty and difficulty of this will eventually get figured out and will pass.