Eat your way through Summer

So the semester is slowly ending and the weather is warming up (finally). It's that time of year when families start barbecuing and picnicking regularly. Eating gluten and dairy-free can be difficult during the summer but have some deliciously safe solutions for you!

Your-way BBQ Chicken

Head to the grocery store and pick ANY gluten-free marinade you like and your favorite type of chicken. My personal favorite is World Harbors Lemon Pepper & Garlic. Let it marinade for at least 2 hours in the fridge prior to barbecuing. Grill until meat turns white. Enjoy!

www.tabernaclerescue.com

Quinoa Salad

This recipe is courtesy of Gluten-Free Girl Shauna Ahern, my favorite gluten-free chef. Feel free to leave out the pesto as I'm not a huge fan of it myself. Quinoa has a delicious smoky taste and can be combined with any vegetable you like! www.glutenfreegirl.com

Ultimate dairy-free ice cream

Drive to the nearest Whole Foods Market or health food store. Purchase a delicious flavor of Purely Decadent Soy Ice Cream. Peanut Butter Zig Zag is my favorite but they even have a gluten-free Cookie Dough! Perfect to cool off on the hottest days. www.sallybernstein.com

Clearly I'm not the greatest chef myself, but I love to help others who suffer with the same issues as me. Gluten-free cookbooks are everywhere now. I use the Gluten-Free Gourmet books. Have fun, play with recipes and most of all, stay healthy!

Roughing It

I spent all last weekend living the simplistic life in Cape Henlopen State Park in Lewes, Delaware. My sorority travels to Cape once a semester for a weekend full of community service and we stay in youth camps. These camps vary in cleanliness...and let's just say that this time we weren't so fortunate. I've gone twice before but never stayed in this particular place... (pictured below).

Now onto the reason why this post is about being gluten-free. There was an oven, stove and walk-in refrigerator but no freezer, microwave or toaster. Frozen meals are easy, but in cases like these they can take much longer (up to an hour) to cook in the oven.

Here are some things to keep in mind for those who enjoy camping:

1. Bring easily disposable items

I made the mistake of bringing pasta to cook for dinner one night but forgot to bring a separate strainer and pot from everyone else. Cooked gluten-free pasta has TONS of starch in it and is inedible if you do not drain it. I attempted to eat it but it tasted like straight grain....not appetizing. This time, I brought tin cake pans to cook my chicken nuggets in the oven. It worked perfectly!

2. Pack protein

If you're going to be hiking, climbing or working outside like I was, keeping up your energy level is important. I bought delicious Kind bars from the local health food store to snack on when I felt weak. The Peanut Butter & Strawberry is my favorite.

3. Udi's Udi's Udi's

As I've said in previous posts, Udi's is my all time favorite gluten-free brand. I brought cinnamon-raisin bagels and multigrain bread for breakfast and lunch. They have recently released the first gluten-free hamburger and hot dog buns available worldwide! You can now join in the camp BBQ without a worry. I have no doubt that they are delicious.

4. Do your research

I can't stress the importance to research the place you'll be staying ahead of time. It is important to know what amenities they have and do not have so you can pack accordingly. Also, look into the local restaurants in case your family or friends want to go out for a night using online databases.

5. Prepare yourself

Bring medicine in case of cross contamination or accidental ingestion of gluten. Not many medicines help me when I have some wheat by mistake but I can always trust Excedrin to make the pain more tolerable. I hate to be negative but sometimes you have to anticipate the worst...

On a lighter note, the weekend didn't end up being so terrible. The clouds cleared up on Sunday and we had an eventful day painting a playground near Bethany Beach. Helping make a difference is always worth it.

Cheeburger Cheeburger

So a new restaurant opened on Main Street in Newark, Delaware last week. It's called Cheeburger Cheeburger, which is a 50's style diner with a rather large menu. Their specialty is their milkshakes and malts which of course, I can't have. But for people with regular diets, there are TONS of options for mixing and matching flavors. If I could, I would've gotten a Peanut Butter Chocolate and Banana milkshake. Ahh, those were the days. But luckily for people like me, they had tons of Monin flavorings for iced tea, lemonade and soda. I had a blackberry lemonade and it was fantastic. My friend got watermelon lemonade which was even better. Every time I go I will try a new drink! So for a main meal I decided to go for something safe, a salad. I knew there was an allergen menu on the website but for some reason I couldn't view it so I asked the waitress if they had it in the restaurant. She looked at me like I had horns so I took that to be a "no." So I chose a salad for 6.99 and you can pick any toppings you want without extra charge! I got avocado, artichoke, chickpeas, tomatoes, cucumbers and mushrooms with oil and vinegar. It was good but it definitely wasn't filling. Next time I'll get some bacon or something to add more protein. They also let you put burgers (turkey, veggie and beef) on top of a salad. Maybe I'll try that next time!

So Cheeburger gets a thumbs up from me. They were really friendly and the atmosphere was great. It's much much better than the diner that was there before. Try it and let me know what you think!

Gluten-free going mainstream

www.glutenfreephilly.com
So I was at Acme today doing my regular shopping for fruit and the select few gluten-free items they have when I discovered gluten-free/dairy-free TASTYKAKE cookies! I was in shock. I hit my friend who is also gluten-free and pointed. We both grabbed boxes of chocolate chocolate chip and chocolate chip to try. It's gotta be good if it's Tastykake right? RIGHT. They taste so good like they're filled with gluten but Tastykake assures us that they are not! Of course they're 130 calories per cookie but for someone like me, who cares!? I had to do more research. I stumbled upon the National Foundation for Celiac Awareness website and found an article about the cookies. Only to find this amazing bit of information that made me jump for joy:

"Tasty Baking Company is latest mainstream manufacturer to address gluten-free needs. Last December, PostFoods announced that its Fruity and Cocoa Pebbles would soon bear a gluten-free label, while Kellogg’s quietly revealed last month that it’s working on a gluten-free version of Rice Krispies

cereal."

- NFCA

I can't believe great cereal is finally coming into the gluten-free market! I literally told my friend tonight that cereal is the only thing that hasn't been further developed. I used to LOVE Rice Krispies and now I can have them again! All is wonderful in the gluten-free population.

Another recent gluten-free addition I discovered is Mike's Lite Hard Lemonade now comes gluten-free! The lemon and cranberry "lite" flavors are safe now.

This was such an exciting post that I apologize for all of the "!"

:)