It Starts With the Books

Actually, it started with a few comments from friends who are going through the whole detox, elimination diet thing. A few things they said that made me go hmmn. Even though I've been down the elimination diet, allergy tests road before, wheat never came up as an issue. But I started to wonder: could wheat be a pain thing rather than a digestive thing for me? Really? Hmn....

And then I decided I was going to experiment. Just an experiment. One week with no gluten. By then I'd know. Right? I decided it was so. And I asked the family if they wanted to experiment with me. They both said sure. Four days? Five? A week tops? Sure, they were in. No problem. But first, let's finish that coconut cream pie. OK, now we were ready... one week, no problem.

Except, it was a problem. We all noticed right off that we felt better. Seriously better. Luke and I decided pretty quickly that this was it. We were done with wheat. Frank was not so sure. Grumbly. And then he ate something with gluten after not having any for a few days and he got all hot and bothered and said "wow, yeah."

So there you go. We are a gluten-free home. Even the dog and cat are grain free - they have been for awhile now - Zoe gets itchy paws, Tyger yacks. So, grain free for them, gluten-free for us.

And now I'm ready for more experimenting. Recipes. Originally, I had thought, forget it, gluten-free stuff sucks - we'll just eat veggies and fruits and protein and there's always rice and potatoes, and if you know me, you know that I do love potatoes. It will be fine. But, no. Luke wants cheese crackers. Frank wants bread. And if I'm completely honest, I want pizza dough. And cake, eventually. I can't live without cake. At least not forever.

Recipes. Because I'm not a boxed food girl, I prefer homemade. Everytime. Unless it's Oreos. I'll miss Oreos. And Girl Scout Thin Mints. Hmn.... I'll miss them too. Well, whatever.

Right... recipes. I started with the blogs. The blogs are great. At least the photos look tempting. The comments are encouraging too. There are so many good-looking blogs out there. Gluten-Free Goddess, Gluten-Free Girl, Gluten-Free Nosh... you can find them anywhere.... and they give me hope. The Gluten-Free Goddess just gave us a pizza dough recipe, for example. I'm all over it. (Except... it doesn't really look like pizza, does it? Maybe I should wait a bit until I'm really missing pizza.)

So recipes. Sure you can print them off the blogs... but there is nothing so satisfying as a good cookbook sitting on the shelf with handy go-to favorite recipes bookmarked and waiting, is there?

Here are my first finds:

I can't tell you how happy I was to discover The Cake Mix Doctor has a gluten free cake book. Seriously... overjoyed. Her cake mix books are my go-to books for every cake I've made in the last 10 years... I feel so much better now! And the reviews on Amazon are great. Encouraged and overjoyed.



I also found this one, which has a recipe for Luke's staff-of-life: cheese crackers. I'm making them RIGHT NOW. With Almond Flour. Who knew? Also, lots of good reviews.



And then there is the Gluten-Free Baking Classics, which, from what I am reading, as THE BEST chocolate chip cookie in all the world, gluten-free or not. Everyone says so... I'll let you know as soon as possible!



There are two more exciting titles waiting in my Amazon shopping cart... I'll get to them later. First to try these cheese crackers that are supposed to be just like Cheez-Its. They arn't, I'll admit. They need more salt. But they aren't bad. I don't think Luke is going to like them much. Maybe if I'd used Beecher's cheese?

Wanna try one?




Eh, I should have made those chocolate chip cookies. Next time.