One year!

Yesterday was my one year gluten free anniversary!
It has been an amazing year for me, it truly has. To think that this time last year I was glancing sideways at toast, wondering, hoping that going without it would mean that I would be able to live a fuller and more healthy life.
Little did I know that I would be feeling this healthy this year. Apart from the gluten before the biopsy and the recovering afterwards, I haven't really been sick for more than two days this year! Now, if that's not a reason to party I don't know what is!

I was just looking over the posts that I put up on my old blog last year. This one is my announcement about going gluten free. I got a little teary when I read it.

"Sure, it stinks that my favorite breakfast just happens to be leftovers on a thick juicy slice of toast. I already dream about tuna, mayo and lettuce sandwiches. I have a sad prediction that those dreams will get even worse as I wean myself off the beauty that is bread. [They went away actually, now I dream about Sushi and flourless chocolate cake.] However, I am not depressed about it. On the contrary; the possibility of being healthy, the probability of having the energy that I see in others is exciting to me. It is a kind of hope that I may grow old and not be sick about fifteen times a year [every year.]"

And then in another post from my first gluten free week:
"Eat all the gluten you want, but I'm not going to. It is my poison, I want to be healthy." - I quite like that phrase.


One of my brothers drew the gluten monster on our whiteboard back in December last year. His kilt makes him extra menacing. Beware lest you eat any specially designated gluten free food - or he'll hide under your bed to scare you, or even infect you with the gluten syndrome! My brothers and particularly my sisters live in fear that it may happen to them one day.

And, while we're rehashing stuff; I wrote this little imaginary conversation within my first Gf month. It's sad how often people actually react like this:

You: "Hi Theresa."

"Hi."

"How's the new diet going?"

"Shh! If anyone overhears you they will assume that I'm doing a weight loss diet."

You nod your head, grinning.

"I'm not."

"Oh. What's the purpose of the gluten free thing again?"

I sigh. Then I rant about gluten, a word that many people have heard of but most know very little about.

"Oh! that's what it is! A plant protein that eats up your gut?"

"Yeah."

You offer me a piece of cake.

I look at you in surprise. Didn't you understand what I was just saying? "Um..." exasperated I decide to be blunt, "It contains flour which contains wheat which has gluten in it. I can't eat it."

"Oh."

"Anyway, the diet is going great. It is amazing how suddenly, the day I went gluten free, I managed to force myself not to look at bread and drool. My mind just goes a little blank when a lettuce and tomato sandwich is on the table near me. I don't even let myself imagine the taste. However, I have yet to experiment by glancing at tuna, mayo and lettuce on toast. Sadly, I think I might just run out of the room screaming if someone eats that in front of me."

Your mouth is full of cake so you just nod as if you understand.

I don't think I could have made it through this year without the above baking mix. There is nothing as comforting as having a good baking mix on hand, just in case you need scones for the soup, a quick ad hoc pizza base, cupcakes or have a desperate need of chocolate pudding. Thanks Healtheries!

And thank you to my family too, especially my mum, who have put up with my crazy experiments and tried to make me feel happily fed and healthy. Oh, and also for trying not to complain when I eat a beautiful lunch while they just eat toast! But it's only lunch, I'm so lucky that my mum always makes a gluten free dish for tea. It really helps me feel like I'm not really missing out on much.

I also discovered a new found love for eggs. I hated them with a vengeance at this time last year - but being gluten free must have changed my palate or something because I'm a big fan now! Especially of cold tomato and salmon mini quiches [above.]

So, that's one year down of a lifetime of gluten free living. I'll always remember back to this year as one of the awesomest and educational years ever. Honestly, feeling this healthy?! It's awesome!!!

Summer and Sushi!

It feels really summery today, I like it. I know that most other people in the gluten-free blogosphere are just about to endure winter. Everyone that I follow on google reader is talking about hot Christmas puddings, mulled wine, roaring fires and cold noses. While I read it I look at my newly sun burnt shoulders, take a spoon of ice cream and realise that I'm wearing a sleeveless top and shorts.

Summer is also the time when roses start to flower, these ones are my favourite from my grandma's garden.


I've been feeling like eating sushi for ages now, so this morning I indulged myself and made these:

Yum? Yeah, they were!


Sushi is usually gluten free - you've just got to check the ingredients of the rice vinegar and the soy sauce.

Well, that's my post for today, I've got to go and help prepare for our summery BBQ tea before we watch masterchef!
- be jealous! haha!

Hello, my name is loser.

Ok, I'd better just spit it out and say it straight: I've quite nanowrimo.

*sob*

I finally made the decision on Sunday when I realized that I'd have to write like CRAZY to finish before the end of November. I just don't have the time to write like that at the moment.
This is a gluten-free blog so I'm sure you're all familiar with medical things. With that in mind I can announce that my mum is in the middle of a drawn out skin cancer nose job thing. To say it bluntly, it looks like she has half a dead sparrow on her nose - poor mum. And she can't wear her glasses either, so is pretty much half blind and is going to remain like that for three more weeks.
So I'm 'chief cook and bottle washer' at the moment. All that entails taking people out to whatever engagements they have, whether it is swimming, music lessons, or hospital visits. We waited for a whole hour in a hospital waiting room this morning, only to have *just* four stitches taken out by a squeaky nurse. Oh the joys.
Oh, and I just put oil in my ancient grandma's ears. I get to take her to the Dr tomorrow which will be a good laugh... honestly! "That's what young people today do for fun", according to my Aunty.



Anyway, back to nanowrimo; I'm feeling pretty stink about loosing two out of the three years that I've participated in it. So I've devised a plan.
It's the 24th of November and I'm going to blog every day until the 22nd of December.
Bring it on.

So, I'll see you tomorrow then!

sweet, sweet freedom!

I finished the very last of all my assignments for the year yesterday. I expected the feeling of exhilaration to be much stronger, and thus produce a much longer victory dance in the kitchen afterwards. But my dance was stopped by my jersey rubbing on my badly sunburnt back. Exhilaration turned into relief, and then tiredness.

But I'm excited. At last I can start to feel summery and let my imagination run wild with all the things that I want to cook, make or do over the next few months.
Below is a little sketch of my latest project, a cupcake stand. I'll start on it tomorrow.


The stand isn't going to be empty - no, the other day, in my procrastinating I wanted to eat chocolate. So my sisters and I made these:


And we decorated them, it was our first ever experimentation with sugar-paste icing.


Don't you think they would look awesome on a cupcake stand!?

The next few weeks are going to be filled with cupcake making, eating, movie watching, reading, more eating, piano playing and... oh, noveling. I'm way behind in my nanowrimo novel so need to catch up before November finishes!

a conflict of interests

I don't know how I did it, but I cut my thumb... again. I'm always cutting myself on things, and they don't have to be sharp to make cuts.

Yesterday I was making pasta sauce and took a small chunk out of my thumb by opening a tin with it's pull tab thingy. Ok, I know that doesn't sound like it would be hard to get cut on, tins are sharp. But I was doing it the wimpy way - with a spoon handle.
Then today I found a 'slice' down the middle of the same thumb and I have no idea how it got there. Perhaps my computer keyboard? Or was it my very blunt looking coffee cup? Whatever, it hurt.
So now my thumb is bandaged up with two plastic plasters due to the location of the cut.

I don't know why I'm complaining about this, people who cook get cut all the time. That is why the sticking plaster was invented after all. But I'm also a pianist, of sorts. I've got a piano concert in two weeks and was attempting to practice my piece a few minutes ago. It didn't work. My thumb was too big and not only did it slip all over the keys because of the plaster but I couldn't feel the keys properly. So I gave up and listened to a great rendition of the piece on youtube. Have a listen and read the story [on the side] that his girlfriend George Sand wrote about when Chopin composed it. Awesome. By the way, don't you think the pianist in that video would make a great Dracula? It's on my reading list for this summer.
I really wanted to play this for the concert, however I couldn't learn it properly in time... on well, next year.

As my hands fumbled over the piano keys a few minutes ago I wondered whether I should give up cooking and reckless paper usage for the next two weeks. Imagine if I sliced my hand badly two days before the concert! I've never worried about it before, but this year it is actually a real possibility considering my close proximity to knives.

Nah,.... I can't face two weeks of omelets and G-free toast, I'll just have to use knives. Does anyone have some chain mail gloves I could borrow?

The best home made pizza base ever!

On Friday I asked my not so little sisters what they felt like eating for tea. After some debate we decided on pizza. I'm sure that if you're gluten free you will know that gf pizza is easier said than done. Honestly, I've tried to make many, many gluten free pizza bases in my short gf life, but none of them have really been able to stand up to the real thing.
So, with much trepidation I used an idea that I must have read about somewhere, I don't actually think I ever come up with original ideas. I decided to use a bread like base for the pizza. What a revelation! Of course, I mean, I use bread dough for the gluten ones... why wouldn't it work with the gf bases too?
Naturally I didn't use a recipe. Stupid me. Look, if I write the recipe down it will probably fail, so there is no point... right?
From memory:
I proved [or is it proofed? I never know] 1tsp of yeast in 1cup of warmish water and used ... 1 1/2 cups of an F.G. Roberts GF flour sample [it was really lumpy] , 1/2 tsp of guar gum, 1tbsp of milk powder, 1/4 ? cup of potato flour, 1tbsp of oil and 1 tbsp of sugar for the yeast.
After the first rise I spread it out on a tray and put in the oven at 35`C for awhile.
GF pizza bases need to be pre-cooked before the topping goes on them. I had no idea if it was going to work, the gluten pizza bases looked so beautiful. "I hope it works," I told my brother, "if it doesn't I'll probably cry."
I pulled it out of the oven and tasted a corner. It was beautiful, I almost cried with joy. The not so little sisters and the big little brother tasted it too and said that it almost tasted like a normal pizza base!

We topped our pizzas with tomato paste, heaps of onions, chorizo and mozzarella amongst other pizza-ish things.

It was yummy, we smiled, but my smile was especially broad because of my beautiful pizza base.

Ok, ok, the picture above is a bit strange. But honestly I couldn't put the pizza down for long enough to get a good photo - let alone stop myself from biting into the piece I wanted to shoot! One of the not so little sisters took all of the other photos in this post, she was bustling around trying to do close-ups the whole time the rest of us were decorating pizzas.

What to you do to de-stress?

This morning I had a very stressful episode - in short I almost failed a whole paper accidentally. I felt so stupid. Yeah... it was stressful. I contacted my lecturer with a mayday call and played the piano until she replied. I was praying at the same time, just reminding myself that everything is in God's hands and asking Him for help. There was nothing else that I could do.
I've been crazy busy with assignments and nanowrimo lately, but I've still found time to eat - and cook. There are two major things that I do to de-stress, the first is play the piano and the second is cook. Oh, and yeah, I like eating too.
This is a list of the things that I've been eating in the past few days that have helped me get through my assignments and the first part of nanowrimo.

Tonight we felt like eating spaghetti bolognese so I went down to the supermarket and picked up this pack of g-free spaghetti. I hadn't eaten spaghetti in so long, needless to say I was really looking forward to it. [I really like those old San Remo guys on the left there, haha!] It cost $4.59 - yeah, gluten free pasta is expensive!


It tasted AWESOME! The spaghetti is like all gf pastas, it doesn't hold any sauce and also tastes slightly strange on it's own. But I loaded up the sauce and it was delicious. I definitely recommend San Remo GF Spaghetti.


The other day we had some whipped cream left over, so I defrosted a piece of brownie to have with it. I have to say, it really helped me with my novel writing!


Another thing that has helped me with nanowrimo and assignments is Jaffas. Oh, how I love them, and they're gluten free! I put some in an empty jam jar beside my computer, don't they look delicious?!


I also made spring rolls the other day when I couldn't think of what to write. They were divine, when I perfect my recipe I'll post it here.
Rice paper has been a bit of a life saver for me, in the past when the others were eating something I have just jumped into the kitchen and thrown together some lettuce, tuna, soy sauce, ginger, chili and rice paper. The others are almost always jealous and I almost always feel better about being g-free!


I haven't written any of my novel today, but I finished an assignment so can go to bed with a feeling of accomplishment.

What do you do to de-stress?