Easy Gluten Free Living

Archive for the ‘Family Life’ Category

So yesterday I talked about sending children back to school and ways to help keep them gluten-free.

Today I want to talk about Art class.  You’re probably thinking, What does art class have to do with keeping my child gluten-free?.   I’m about to tell you.

Gluten can be found in:

• Paint
• Glue
• Modeling Clay (Play-Doh) but not just Play-Doh
• And more

I planned on going through a whole list of products that are safe for your gluten-free child, but I found a very complete and informative list over at this website.

Heidi over at Adventures of a Gluten-Free Mom has a very thorough list of  gluten-free art supplies.  She also has a printable list that you can print out and take with you shopping or give to your childs teacher.

I would even suggest you print it out and put a copy into that information packet I talked about yesterday.

I hope this helps all you worried moms.  Leave me a comment below if you appreciated this information.

It can be tough being Gluten Intolerant, but it can be really tough being the parent of a gluten intolerant child.  Especially a school age child.  Suddenly not only do you have the regular worries about your child at school, but you have to worry about whether you can keep your child gluten-free while they are away from your watchful eye.

Although my days of being the parent of school age children are long past, Read the rest of this entry »

I got an email from a newsletter reader over the weekend.  I thought it might be of interest to other readers of my blog.  So here’s her question and my answer:

Hi Mary,

 

I just found your website and am pretty excited! I have been diagnosed with fibromyalgia and have been reading and hearing a lot of things about gluten possibly exacerbating the symptoms of fibromyalgia. 

 

My question is that I love, Love, LOVE crackers – saltine crackers – plain, with cheese, spiced up with oil and spices, just to sit and snack on them makes me happy.  I looked for a gluten free saltine cracker recipe (to make crackers from scratch) on your website and just wondered if you have one or know where I could find one?

 

Thank you so much!           

I’m sure you’re wondering about the title to this post today.   If you’ve been reading my blog for a while, you may remember that Courtney, my 7 year old granddaughter, was diagnosed back in December as gluten intolerant.  You can read about that here.

Well, Courtney came to visit from Kansas for 2 weeks at the end of July, and as it turns out she is not only gluten free, she is also lactose intolerant, and has an allergy to peanuts,  (fortunately, not as bad as some children that could die from peanuts), but bad enough that she cannot eat them at all.  So I had to go back to seriously “reading” labels, not just checking to make sure nothing had changed.

I have to say, that I think breakfast was by far the hardest meal to make.  I live on 10 acres, with 10 chickens and 1 rooster, so breakfast at our house is usually eggs, and before she was diagnosed, Courtney loved having the farm fresh eggs for breakfast.  Yeah, I could have fallen back on the cereal and Lactaid milk for breakfast, (and some mornings that is what she wanted), but I really wanted to give her something yummy. 

I actually found some frozen waffles (Van’s) that were gluten, milk, and egg-free.  They were really tasty. 

For lunch we had corn tortilla wraps.  I would steam the tortillas to soften them up and then top them with a variety of things.  One day we had chicken salad made with vegan mayonaise.  Yum!  I usually use Kraft Miracle Whip, but the last ingredient in that is…you guessed it, egg yolks.

I’m not a huge fan of peanut butter, but we always have it in the house.  (My hubby loves it on a spoon, and Charlie, my lab, likes it in his Kong).  Courtney of course couldn’t have peanut butter but she asked for Almond butter.  If you haven’t tried Almond butter yet, you have got to try it.  We had wraps with almond butter.

I made a gluten free/milk free, cream of chicken soup for my crockpot chicken dinner with Lactaid milk. 

Wow!  You parents that have gluten free/casien free children, my hat is off to you.  This is definately not easy. 

I’ll have more info about making food for Courtney coming soon, including a gluten free/milk free/egg free, ice cream recipe coming for you soon.

It’s been really deserted on this blog the past month, I know.  Let me tell you what I’ve been up to and where the heck I’ve been.

As some of you may know, I have a full time J.O.B. outside of my blog and gluten-free classes.  I work with my husband at our Locksmith shop, and I also babysit 2 of my granddaughters.  Eilidh, age 3 and 3/4ths, and Mhairi, age 9 months.  So I have a lot on my plate to start with. 

Add to that, my son-in-law talked me, (more like roped me), into running an estate sale for him.  So I have been working on that… finding, pricing, and generally getting everything ready for the sale, since back in March.  Since I was doing this completely in my spare time, it took longer that I had hoped.  Every day off and every spare minute and weekend was consumed with getting the Estate ready for sale.

I finally got everything ready to go and the estate sale was held on the Friday and Saturday of  Memorial Day weekend.  It went very well and I have been spending my spare time since getting rid of and selling everything that didn’t sell.

I am happy to say that I almost have all of that cleaned up and ready to get back to work here on my blog.

I have a lot of new information for you all, several product reviews and some contests also.  As always let me know if there is anything you’d like to see here.

If Mom is a coffee lover this dessert will blow her away.  Top her dessert cup with a spoon of whipped topping and sprinkle the topping with chocolate sprinkles.

Full of Cream Coffee Dessert Read the rest of this entry »

If  the kids are making this for mom, have dad cook the steak.

Herbed Steak Salad Read the rest of this entry »

It’s been more than a little crazy at my house the past week.  I won’t go into details, but for the next several days I’m going to be offering you gluten free recipes for your Mother’s Day festivities.  I hope you enjoy them.

Made With Love Chicken Salad Read the rest of this entry »

I’m back today with another recipe for you. 

Are you having kids at your Easter dinner this year?  If you are here is a great little salad that is perfect for all the little bunnies. 

These are cute little salads that can be placed at any child’s place setting.  They’ll get a giggle out of seeing the Easter bunny at dinner. 

This salad is naturally gluten free, so your gluten free child doesn’t have to feel different.

Enjoy!

Flopsy, Mopsy, Cotton Tail and Peter Salad Read the rest of this entry »

I babysit 2 of my granddaughters almost everyday.  Mhairi, is only 6 months old and still on breast milk.  The older one, Eilidh, is 3 1/2 years old going on 40.  Most of the time she is a pretty good eater, but Read the rest of this entry »