A Gluten Free Disney!

We just spent five fabulous (magical!) days at Disney. What a BLAST we had. We went on rides and met characters and sang and danced and ate real french fries from a gluten-free fryolater!  It truly was magical - Z-bug had conversations with real live princesses ("Oh Ariel, that's not a guppy, that's my sister - on land we call them babies!"), E-bee was absolutely enthralled with the characters and rides and pool ... I smiled for five days straight! 




Z dancing with Tigger!


I also spent the mornings much like I do at home - setting up two bowls of gluten-free cereal or plain greek yogurt, cutting up fruit, putting together an assembly line of pb&j sandwiches on gluten-free bread, bagging snacks ...

I had ordered stuff from Amazon to be delivered to the hotel - princess autograph books, a package of diapers so I didn't have to pack so many, little packets of almond butter, a Rapunzel dress for baby E to match her big sister's, those Happy Baby/happytot squeezy veggie-fruit things that are good to carry around... and pretzels.



Glutino pretzels (which rock even by gluten-filled standards) to be precise.  A whole case of them. I ordered the snack packs (8oz) which I thought excessive but manageable - but received a huge Glutino box with 12 family size bags (14oz) of pretzels - for four people for five days ... pretzels for breakfast, check! Pretzels for dinner (dipped in hummus or mustard - it's a fine meal!).  Pretzels for snack, as many as you want!  And we still had EIGHT bags to stuff into our suitcases and carry-ons at the end of the trip.  Ooops!

I also ordered groceries to the room from GardenGrocer.com (highly recommended, by the way - food was at the hotel when we got there and everything was fresh and as ordered) which saved us money, time, and the possibility of low blood sugar meltdowns while we hunted for g-free fare at the parks. Turns out, there are actually a lot of gluten free options at Disney but it was nice to not have to worry about it.  And in the three restaurants we did eat in, the chefs came over to talk about what on the menu/buffet was safe to eat.  They were really knowledgeable and nice, and pretty smart - all their meatballs and salmon cakes, etc are made with potato flour so they're safe for celiacs too!

My Disney-lovefest did suffer a blow this morning, though, when I read this:  http://www.post-gazette.com/stories/ae/tv-radio/mom-disney-show-jessie-ridicules-kids-with-celiac-disease-688350/
Celiac aside, having a weaker kid get food thrown at him for laughs doesn't sound very funny or like good messaging for the kids watching it- but not having familiarity with the particular show involved, maybe there was a teaching moment involved that somehow redeems the comical bullying?  In any event, we get enough rolled eyes and confusion when we order food or ask what the ingredients are in meals prepared in people's homes to commiserate with those two sweet kids who felt ostracized by a show they enjoyed watching. 

This news, however, about an upcoming Phase IIb clinical trial for an enzyme combination that helps break down gluten, is fairly encouraging: http://seekingalpha.com/article/1446911-abbvie-s-latest-drug-deal-marks-a-shift-in-the-celiac-disease-therapeutics-field [In a six-week phase IIa study, the drug company reported that their enzyme/drug reduced giadin-related intestinal inflammation in celiac patients that consumed gluten during the trial!!]

Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies without the gluten - really!!

Hello and happy celiac awareness month! If there's anyone keeping track of such things, I did in fact take a brief hiatus, during which we ...

... celebrated Z-bug's 4 and half-birthday with butterfly wings (cardboard and glitter - so fun!) and cupcakes from Glutinus Minimus (a dedicated bakery in Belmont, MA that also sells through a local cupcake place... eh)

 

The half-birthday girl with her big wings at the table and a set of smaller wings to go outside and kick the soccer-ball around (and just to prove I wore mine all day too, that's my arm up in the top-left of her table photo!)

... had our first family case of the pink eye (FYI, drops are much easier with a squirmy 17 month old than that gel-like substance you're supposed to squeeze along an eye that is closed and turned way from you) ... witnessed a terrorist attack firsthand (Boston) ... cut out the morning 'nana' so baby E's down to just bedtime nursing (remarkably and a total coincidence, at 17months just like Z-baby was) ... and decided to plan a spur of the moment but much-needed getaway next week -- to DISNEY WORLD (seriously perfect timing since E-bee can pick Ariel, 'Rella and the Beast out of a line-up and I heard this during a viewing of the Little Mermaid last week: "now baby, don't worry - the scary parts aren't real, only Ariel and Prince Eric are real)!!

And in the meantime, and quite by accident, I discovered this past Sunday how to make chewy chocolate chip cookies!! I have become a pro at the crispy, buttery, no one can tell they're gluten free kind. Thing is, I love a good chewy cookie sometimes and just assumed I was out of luck.  But as luck would have it, I was running low on my g-free flour blend and needed cookies (we were headed to a party where I knew there would be a full table of dessert, none of which my girl could eat).  So I did the following:

Whisked together:
1 1/2 cups King Arthurs g-free flour blend
1 1/4 cups almond flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon xanthan gum (more like 2/4tsp... some sort of spilled in while I was measuring)
1/2 teaspoon salt

Creamed:
1 cup butter
2 teaspoons vanilla
2 eggs
1 1/2 cups brown sugar
3/4 cup cane sugar

Mixed it all together and stirred in a package of Trader Joes semi-sweet chocolate chips  (they're on the T-Joes no gluten added list).



Baked little balls of the cookie dough at 350 for approximately12 minutes, took them out while pretty soft and hoped for the best.  They didn't crisp up just hardened enough to be cookies (with the exception of one or two that were soft and broke so we could taste them!).

I put the tasty little morsels on a pretty party tray, covered with celophane and ribbon and off we went (I know, I should have a photo - I am not by any means handy with celophane but a tip for my fellow not-particularly-talented-but-crafty types it's available at the party store, pretty forgiving and definitely looked nice enough to to bring with us to a party of not just friends). The entire platter of cookies I brought (minus the two I stashed away for Z in case of emergency) was GONE by the time the desserts were put out - someone had poked a hole in the celophane to get at one and apparently started a trend ... people devoured them, and we were the only non-gluten eating people at the party.  Moist, delicious, and gluten free .... hooray!!

I also brought a big and short-lived jar full of my sweet and savory roasted nuts ... I've not quite perfected the recipe though and they all get eaten (okay, I eat them) so quickly I can't seem to keep more than one batch around at a time to compare and see what proprotions we like better.  Guess I'll just have to keep trying!