Let's go to the MOOVIES!!!

I, like so many, many, other people, am a HUGE Harry Potter fan. Really REALLY huge. So I have now seen it twice. In less than five days. This, of course, means, that I have been in a Movie Theatre twice recently.
That got me thinking about popcorn, (you know), because in Movie Theatres there is lots of popcorn EVERYWHERE. :)
I was just wondering how you guys go about eating at Cinemas. Do you buy candy, or bring your own Popcorn?

(Sorry about the very short and incoherent post, I got about 5 hours of sleep last night, and still have to pack for two weeks of vacation...)

C.C.

Are they Cupcakes? Or are they Brownies?

A few months ago, I ran across this recipe while in a waiting room somewhere, and loved it immediately.
I was planning on making them for Father's Day, as the article suggests, but I forgot (of course!), and so I created them on Independence Day.

Here are a few things I learned:

Its best to make the brownie/cupcakes the day before you plan on serving them, just don't decorate until the day of. This way, they have a chance to cool, and you won't spend a good portion of the day in the kitchen.

GREASE THE BAKING CUPS. This seems obvious, and I am sure all you experienced bakers would do this anyway, but I skipped this step because the baking cups told me I did not have to. I DID HAVE TO, as it turns out. :)

Skip the dying of the icing and sticking it in a bag and all that. I tried that, made a huge mess, and it still did not work. On the second batch, I used black piping gel (it had sparkles, an added bonus for the "grill") that we picked up at the grocery store for like 3 dollars. Way easier, because not only does it use less ingredients, it has easier clean up, and is VERY easy to put on the cupcakes.

Make a glaze of confectioners sugar and water to brush on the cupcakes before you sprinkle on the sugar crystals for "embers". Otherwise, the crystals just fall off. I believe the recipe calls for putting the "grates" on and then the "embers", but that is just silly because embers on a real grill are below the grates, and the glaze is easy to assemble, as well as being clear.

I could not find any orange sugar crystals, so I used a combination of red and yellow. It seemed to work just as well, so no problem there...

Okay I think that is it :)

I did have one problem which is that I could not find and caramel-cream candies that were GF!! So i just used the non-GF kind, had my sister stick them on, and did not eat those brownies.

The Whole Batch:

 The "Hot Dogs":

 The "Kabobs":

A GF Fourth!!

First of all, let me start out by saying Happy Birthday America!! (Also, Happy Canada Day, even though that was a while back...)

Second, I hope you all had a nice Fourth of July, I know I did!!

This year was way easier food-wise than last year. For starters, we had less people over, and some of my friends that came were GF too, so that helped, but mainly it was just that I have been GF for over two years now, and this was my THIRD GF 4th of July, so I just am more comfortable. It also helped that my mom made all the food, and she is really good about cooking GF.

So I ate potato chips and a hot dog, and peppers. I made some really cute brownie-cupcakes (details posted soon), which were verrryy verryyy yummy). And after the fireworks, 2 friends and I split a pint of Ben and Jerry's Coffee Heath Bar Crunch ice cream. Needless to say, that kept us up for a good long time, far later than was probably healthy. :)

What did you all do for Independence Day?

C.C.

Summer is officially here, and has been for a few days now, which means we are back to calling up the various ice cream vendors, and chip companies, and salad dressing-makers to see what products are GF, which are not, and which products were once GF, but are not any more.
I have no problem with Customer Service people, and they are always really very nice and helpful, but I have to say, waiting on hold for up to 15 minutes just so they can go find an ingredient list is really very annoying, and I wish that the lists were just handy and right there. I mean, I cannot be the only one calling to ask what "natural flavorings" they use, right?

Are there any GF/Celiac related things you guys do at the start of every summer?

C.C.

Rice Krispies FTW!!!

I had my first bowl of GF Rice Krispies today, and they were...okay. I am pretty dissapointed, I hate to say. While MILES ahead of the other GF crispy puffed rice cereals out there, they still were not very good. The cereal got mushy pretty quickly, and it did not have much flavor. Overall, good-ish, which is a bummer. Oh well.

C.C.

The Best GF Foods on SHINE

There I was. Scrolling through Yahoo. (Did you know that Bradley Cooper speaks fluent french?) (And have you seen that video of the skiving marriage proposal?) To sum it up, I was procrastinating. I am very, very good at procrastinating. I saw this article on Yahoo's SHINE and, obviously, clicked on it.
There are a few opinions of mine I would like to share.
The best GF cereal? Corn Chex, or Honey Nut Chex. Not Rice Chex, I do not think they have enough flavor when plain, and they get mushy a lot faster in milk than other cereals.
The best GF dry pasta? Mrs. Leeper's Brown Rice Pasta or Jovial or Bionaturae, depending on what shape of noodle you want. The Quinoa pasta they feature just does not reheat very well.

I also wonder if the author, Karen Ansel, has Celiac...
Hmm....

What are your favorite GF foods? Do you agree with the article?

GF: True or False?

There is an ice cream place in my town, and out front they have a sign telling people about their GF items!

That is great, and wonderful that GF is becoming more mainstream, but THESE PRODUCTS ARE NOT GF!!! I bet some of the ice cream itself is probably GF, but the scooper's they use to scoop it? Nope. The gloves handling the icecream that just make a grilled cheese for someone? Nope. The sprinkles that all the cookie dough ice cream has been rolled in? Nope.

And that really bothers me. I feel like, unless you are certified GF, (and this place is not), you should not GF in the advertising. It just feels wrong, and what about the people you go in there to get Ice Cream thats GF, eat it, and get really really really sick?

What you do guys think?

C.C.

Rice Krispies, Take 2

Hello, all!

Rice Krispies will be launching a GF line in June,which I AM INCREDIBLY EXCITED ABOUT. I do not know if I have ever told you guys, but Rice Krispies were on of the products that bugged me most. Puffed rice cereal should be GF. So, when I saw that announcement, I was soooo happy!

I do wish that Kellogg's had just made the Original RK's GF, (like General Mill's did with corn chex), but I will take what I can get :).

Also, these GF ones will be made with brown rice. Why is that? Does anybody know? White rice is GF. It is not that I have a problem with brown rice, it just seems as if they might be able to get the most similar taste to the originals if they used white rice. Maybe it is because brown seems more "GF"? If so, that is super dumb.

At this point, it is unclear whether or not they will be certified GF, which would be my biggest issue, if they are not. I do not think I am comfortable eating a "GF" product that might not really be GF! It just seems unsafe to me.
What do you guys think?

C.C.

Tweet Tweet Tweet

Celiac Cake is now on twitter!!!!

@celiaccake

:)

C.C.

Potato Chips & Happy May!!

Happy May, everybody!!

Summer is right around the corner, and that means cookouts, cookouts, cookouts!! I love cookouts. The potato chips, (which I can eat almost exclusively due to limited parental supervision), the soda, (which I drink GALLONS of due to limited parental supervision), the flashlight-tag, (during which I can get more bug bites than I care to count due to limited parental supervision), the limited parental supervision. :)

But back to the potato chips. I love them. I love them. I love them (Potato chips, that is). Recently, I have gotten very good at eating them, too. The one problem is that not all of them are GF!!! So, here is what I have discovered regarding the GF-osity of some potato chips.

Utz rocks. They say GF if they are, and don't if there is any question, just as it should be.

I have had some trouble with Frito-Lay products. Sometimes they list wheat as an allergen and say things like "manufactured on equipment, blah blah blah, so obviously I don't eat those ones, but even ones without wheat listed, and none of those manufacturing disclaimers, I have still gotten contaminated, even though all ingredients are GF, and everything!! (This is why the FDA needs to get it's act together! May 4th GF labeling summit!! Anyone going?)

There are others as well, but..er...I forget what their deal is, so I will leave them out :)

Have any of you ever had and trouble with Frito-Lay? What are your potato-chip favorites?

C.C.

One in one-thirty-three!!

Remember to check out 1in133.com!! Great cause, as all of you know!!

WARNING!!! THIS DUDE IS EVIL!!!

Okay, so you GF-savvy people probably already have read about this and have already been adequately outraged.

Chef Damian Cardone, publicly posted this on facebook, and it got subsequently picked up sites such as celiac.com, and The Celiac Handbook.

     Damian Cardone

Gluten free is bullsXXX!! Flour and bread have been a staple of life for thousands, THOUSANDS of years. People who claim to be gluten intolorant dont realize that its all in there disturbed liitle heads. People ask me for gluten free pasta in my restaurant all the time, I tell em sure, Then I serve serve em our pasta, Which I make from scratch with high gluten flour. And you know what? nothing, NOTHING! ever happens! People leave talking about how good they feel gluten free and guess what, They just had a full dose! Idiots!

 

I just wanted to warn some folks about this very, very, sadistic and ignorant and just plain EVIL man.

 

 

C.C.

 

 

*Found via Celiac Handbook on Facebook.

**Damian's post I got off his Facebook wall. It was copied and pasted here without editing, (hence the spelling mistakes, save for a bit of censoring). You have to scroll down a bit, it was posted on March 10th, 2011, at 10:53.

***While it is unclear where he now works, some sources online, (I forget which ones), have him currently working at Florindo's Italian Cuisine, in Glenwood Springs, Colorado.

 

 

GF Labeling Summit

May 4th, in D.C.!!!

1in133.org

C.C.

TV

Last night I was innocently watching people get lost and get angry and drink lots of tea on the Amazing Race. 
Cut to commercial. BLAH BLAH BLAH NATIONWIDE INSURANCE, BRAWNY PAPER TOWELS, BLAH BLAH BLAH. And then up on the screen pops this lady, and I am almost positive she is the star of some other show I don't watch and she is talking about how this terrible disease damages your intestines and is really bad for you and most people don't even know they have it, and I am sitting there like, "Oh frosties, what if I have this? It sounds awful and OHMYGOD IT COULD KILL YOU PROBABLY!", and then this lady with the braids is all, CELIAC DISEASE. GET TESTED.  And I am just like, I DO HAVE THAT!!!!

Anyway, point of the story is, those "CBS Cares" things will scare your socks and YAY for Celiac awareness.
C.C.

Stonehearth

I recently discovered a pizza place on the east coast. One the offers every single pizza and pasta on their menu in GF!!!!! I nearly peed myself, that's how excited I was when I heard this. The days of cheese pizza and plain pasta when eating out are OVER!!!! If I wanted, I could have pineapple-chicken-sausage-onion-tomato-chocolate pizza. I dont want to do that, because it sounds gross, but I COULD!!! I just think that is wonderful. So, whenever I am in Massachusetts, I will be eating at Stonehearth Pizza. And I encourage you to try it, too.


C.C.

Ice Cream

It's that time of year again. When we update all of our GF ice-cream lists and call all the ice-cream shops, and all the ice-cream manufacturers. It is always amazing to me how many ice-creams are not GF. I mean, sure I understand if they have cookies or brownie or other things like that, I understand that because of liability, many places cannot say something is GF, but what I dont get is why so many of  the ice cream bases, in the most basic flavors (vanilla, chocolate), are not GF. Even if the are made on their own equipment line!! Is wheat germ put into it? Any ideas?


C.C.

Wow.

I have always thought I was okay with being the only GF person in my grade, the only GF teen that I REALLY know. But now one of my closest friends is wheat-free (WF), and I am giddy. GIDDY. Wow. That sounds so lame! But, it is so true! Now, I know that WF and GF are different and they entail VERY different things. However, I just cannot wait to have someone to talk to! To unite with against those awful people who give us flak for asking for a clean ice-cream scoop.

I always thought that I was totally fine with going at it on my own, but now I guess I always felt a little out of it. I guess I always kind of felt like no body at the lunch table really understood. NOW someone does though!!!!!! :) SO HAPPY!!

thanks for "listening."
C.C.

Thank you

So there I was. All ready to say goodbye once and for all to the blogosphere. I was feeling like what is there to say? I don't know what to write. Then I read the comment from Jenn, and it made me stop and think. She shared a bit of her GF life, and I had shared a bit of mine. Because, really, isn't that why I got into blogging in the first place? To hear and be heard? To be part of a community that welcomes everyone, no matter age, race, religion, or medical issues? So what if 8 out of 9 posts are rambling and incoherent and DULL. That one little post makes it worth it.
I was recently reading some forums on Celiac Feed, and there are so many newly diagnosed teens out there! And most of them seem confused, and unsure, and frankly, a bit scared. Just like I was!!!! And it made me want to reach out to them and help them and show them that there are so many of us! So if Celiac Cake is my way of doing that, then I will keep blogging. Even if it is only two posts a month. Or less! Maybe I only help one person, maybe I help none. That is okay! I just feel like the reason I started was to create a community of GF people. Teens, kids, adults. Not a support group, just a place to ask questions, answer questions. Because thanks to the internet, even if we are miles apart we can still be united.

Okay, That was my little pep talk to my self. Also, I was feeling "deep." But all of that is still true.

Thanks for sticking with me.
C.C. 

Valentine's Chocolate? Not for me.**

**Mainly because I don't like raspberry filling. Ew.

Ahh...Valentine's Day. Cupid Day. Heart Day. Whatever you want to call it, it is pink, red, white, and chocolaty. Also, it usually involves class parties. Which tend to involve cupcakes. And cookies. And various other Gluten-Filled foods.

Cue Operation GF Infiltration. OF MY LUNCHBOX!!!!!! Whenever a holiday is coming up, and I suspect some celebrations to be imminent, I make sure my lunchbox is fully stocked with GF cookies, chips, and other general GF yumminess.

So. That's how I do it. What do you guys to do?

My February Resolution

New year, new you. That is what all the ad campaigns have almost wrapped up saying until 2012. Well, I am saying New February, TIME TO ACTUALLY DO SOME BLOGGING, YOUR FORGETFUL TEENAGER, YOU!!!!!!!

So, my apologies for being the type of kid who goes on the computer with one intent and ends up on Facebook an hour later saying "wait, why did I come in here?"

Anyway, Valentines Day is coming up and all my pallies and I are freaking out, because we still haven't mailed those Christmas gifts, and oh-my-goodness So-and-So's Birthday is coming up, and what should I get her, I only have 20 bucks, and all kinds of fun things like that.

(Segue in next topic)
The answer to what I am getting for "So-and-So's" Birthday is simple. One word, four letters. All yummy. If you are thinking Cake! Then you are..ABSOLUTELY RIGHT!!!!

Giving people cake or some other sweet for their birthday is my 'thing'. As I look at it, most everybody loves cake, (and if they do not cake, I make cookies), cake is affordable, and cake can be whatever you want it to be. All that matters is how you decorate it. Which is how I am giving one of my best girlfriends an "iPad" for her birthday.

Been up to any gluten-free escapades lately?

C.C.

Whoops.

So I have really fallen of the blogging wagon lately. Whoops. Sorry about that.

I love cake. That is the whole story. Something about the month of January makes me want cake more than usual, however. So I am thinking about making some cake. Not for a birthday, not for a party, just so I can eat it. :)

This was a short and random post, but I am just getting back in the swing of things!

C.C.