Hello and welcome to Gluten Free Life.

I’m Michelle: lover of food, educator, gardener, business owner, wife and mama to one very active little boy. Our whole family is living gluten free.

This space will share my journey living and educating others about gluten free living. You’ll see recipes, gluten free products reviews, tips and a glimpse of my experiences mothering a child on a gluten free diet.

When I found out that I couldn’t eat gluten EVER again, I experienced two conflicting thoughts: First, how in the world was I going to follow this diet? I love bread and pasta and muffins and pie. I have a family to feed and they, too, love their glutenous foods. Keep reading…

We gobbled down a bit of breakfast and hopped on a train bound for Grand Central. Once upon a time I would’ve spent the train ride dreaming of the glorious foods that New York has to offer: chewy bagels, a slice or two of pizza, deli sandwiches on Jewish rye and goodies from bakeries. Not this time, though. This would be my first gluten free visit to New York. I grew up on this food, and now I could only enjoy it as a memory.

By the time we got to Brooklyn, though, my stomach was already telling me that I should’ve eaten a bigger breakfast. I’d thrown a couple of KIND bars into my purse before leaving for the train, but I’d planned on saving those for later in the day. With all the walking ahead of us, I predicted needing one before lunch and maybe one for the long train home. If I ate one now, I would be short a bar. No one wants to be around me when I’m hungry, especially my husband. Keep reading…

Creating a gluten free kitchen was actually kind of fun for me. Why? Well, after getting rid of everything with gluten in my pantry, there was suddenly all of this space was just waiting to be filled! The possibilities were exciting.

OK, I’m a little bit of a food nerd.

I went back through my dog-eared cookbooks and remade old favorites into gluten free masterpieces. I started to cook double batches and freeze meals. Soon, I’d built a sizeable collection of my own gluten-free recipes. I’d mastered eating and serving gluten free food at home, but I knew someday soon we’d have to venture beyond the safety net of our own kitchen.

Plus, I needed a break!

At first, the idea of dining gluten-free in restaurants filled me with anxiety. I pictured waitstaff rolling their eyes at each other and, with a jerk of their head in my direction, whispering sotto voce to a coworker -”another one of those high-maintenance gluten-free chicks”.

I’ve never minded asking for what I want in a restaurant, but I never had to worry that I’d get sick if my order wasn’t correct. I have unknowingly eaten gluten a few times since eliminating it and the day after felt hung over and lethargic. Not fun and even less fun when trying to keep up with my high energy toddler! But at least those “accidents” were my own mistakes - not reading labels carefully or taking a chance with mystery foods at a buffet. I had to get over my fear of being “that kind of customer”.

Sure, there are big chain restaurants out there that have gluten free menus (e.g., PF Chang, Wendy’s). I know I could just walk in, sit down and order from their gluten free menu without having to worry that gluten will be hiding in a sauce. But I prefer the food and ambiance of the small, independent restaurants, and Seattle has so many to choose from. I’d hate to miss out on such a treat.

It took me a while to get out there and start ordering. But once I did, I was relieved to find that restaurants have been friendly, helpful and accommodating. Living in Seattle has many perks, and fabulous restaurants is one of them. It takes a little work up front to dine gluten free, but I’ve developed a strategy that works well and relieves the anxiety that I felt. Here are some tips to help you get out there, too.

• If possible, check out the menu in advance. Stop by the restaurant, see if the restaurant has it on their website, or call and ask for one to be faxed to you.
• Talk in advance to someone who works there. If you stop by to look at the menu, chat with the manager, hostess or even a server. If face-to-face isn’t realistic, give them a call (do this during off-peak hours). Definitely leave a message if they’ve got voicemail. Be specific, ask detailed questions and make sure you’re understood.
• Always tell your server about your dietary restriction(s). Let them know that you will get very sick if you eat gluten. Make sure they understand that gluten is not just wheat. Again, be specific, ask detailed questions and make sure you’re understood. Ask about the ingredients and preparation methods.
• Dine at off-peak hours. The waitstaff is more likely to be able to take the time to help you make choices and to ask questions of the kitchen staff. And the kitchen staff is more likely to have the time to make special orders.
• Stick with basic foods or foods that can be easily modified. If you’re not certain that the restaurant really gets what gluten free is, then have a salad with oil & vinegar as dressing. Order a burger without the bun (and make sure the patty’s not pre-seasoned). Fresh fruit, steamed veggies and rice are good options, too.
• Familiarize yourself with restaurant cooking and ingredients. For example, french fries often are coated with flour and some restaurants fry breaded foods in the same fryer as non-breaded foods. Expect that unless you ask, your food might be prepared on the same cutting board that a loaf of bread was just sliced on.

What are you doing to take a break? Share your dining out adventures.

Have you tried gluten free pizza yet? I have. I’ve bought the frozen pizzas ready to pop in the oven. I’ve tried the frozen crusts topped with my own sauce and cheese. I’ve even tried gluten free delivery.

Honestly, they’re not very good.

The frozen pizzas don’t bake up beyond the appeal of an over-sized cracker with melted cheese. The frozen crusts are sometimes hard to differentiate from the cardboard they sit on. And delivered pizzas don’t hold up well from there to here, offering a sad tease of a pie. So what’s a girl to do when she wants a fresh, hot pizza? She orders from ‘Zaw Pizza.

‘Zaw Pizza is an innovative Seattle business. They’re green, they’re local and they’re good. Billed as “artisan bake-at-home pizza”, ‘Zaw uses organic flours from Bob’s Red Mill and all of their toppings are sourced locally. In fact, if you buy them from their stand at one of the local Farmers Markets, the toppings are likely to have been purchased from a neighboring stand.

The menu offers a number of delicious and innovative combinations, but you if a standard cheese pie floats your boat you can get that, too. Three crusts are available (white, wheat, gluten free) and create-your-own masterpieces are encouraged. Gluten free crusts can only be ordered in the large size and will put you back an extra $4, but still well worth it if you’ve got a hankering for fresh, hot pizza. You order your pie, pick it up, take it home, and bake it yourself.

The gluten free dough is a mix of garbanzo flour, amaranth flour, rice flour and tapioca. They’re mindful of cross-contamination and, though all dough is prepared in the same kitchen, separate mixers are used for the gluten free and gluten containing doughs. Since they don’t use pans (pizzas are made on recyclable cardboard discs), cross contamination from cookware isn’t an issue.

With such an extensive selection of ingredients, making our own seemed overwhelming. And besides, why reinvent the wheel? They offer so many yummy sounding pizzas that in our hungry state, we took the easy route and ordered straight from the menu. Thinking ahead, we ordered two. One for immediate consumption, one for the freezer. We did a half-and-half of Savory Savary (hot Italian sausage, maple syrup, caramelized red onions, sage and a blend of cheeses) and a seasonal special that included blackberries.The verdict? Hot and delicious! The crust was just the right kind of soft, nothing like a cracker. Toppings were fresh and plentiful. And as a bonus, our house smelled divine.

Grab ‘n go food just isn’t part of the gluten free vernacular. Most meals require planning and preparation. But what about those mornings when you’d like to just grab a muffin to eat in the car on your way to work? Or you need a mid-day snack that isn’t salty and crunchy or super sweet and full of empty calories?

Flax 4 Life has your answer. Healthy and hearty, these moist and flavorful muffins are a great solution for food on the run. Likewise, they’re also great for mornings when you have time to enjoy them warmed with butter and a hot cup of coffee.

Available in 6 flavors, all are fabulous. Faithful Carrot Raisin, Wild Blueberry, Tantalizing Cranberry Orange, Hawaiian Pineapple Coconut, and Chunky Chocolate Chip and Apple Cinnamon. A welcome change to the glut of gluten free goods on the market that are void of flavor and nutrition. I ate these before I knew that I had to eat gluten free - they’re that good!

The first ingredient is ground flax seeds with nary a mention of rice, tapioca or potato. These muffins are great at room temperature or warmed, have great texture, are moist, hearty, flavorful, and chock full of healthy goodness. At 10 grams of fiber, 3200 mg of omega 3 and more than 160 mg of lignans per muffin, these babies pack a healthy punch.

A note of caution - half of a muffin is a serving so watch your portions. Oh, and once you slice your muffin in half (to eat that single serving), warming it and slathering it with butter is quite decadent. No preservatives, cholesterol, hydrogenated fats or trans fats.

You would think if the entire ingredient list consists of two words, “soy flour”, that the product is gluten-free, wouldn’t you?

I had in mind a gluten-free bread recipe I wanted to try, so I stopped off at PCC on the way home to pick up a bag. I couldn’t find soy flour with a “GF” logo on it, so I went with a brand that makes a lot of other GF flours, Bob’s Red Mill. Soy flour is soy, which has no gluten, right?

Just to be sure, I checked Bob’s Red Mill website. Good thing, too, because as it turns out, this seemingly safe flour is not safe for us gluten sensitive folk.

Bob’s has it’s very own gluten-free processing plant. The grains that enter the plant must pass a quality test to ensure that they don’t contaminate the GF plant. After processing, the end-products undergo more testing. It’s a completely different story for the non-GF plant, though. This facility produces high-quality grains and products, but since they’re processing lots of other things that do contain gluten, even the otherwise gluten free products, such as soy flour, can experience cross-contamination. In fact, Bob’s has tested these types of products and sure enough, though they’re not made with gluten, they do test positive for it.

So what to do then, if none of my local stores carry gluten-free soy flour and the source I often rely on for common and uncommon GF flours doesn’t make one? Get on the Internet and start searching!

I came across only two brands: Arrowhead Mills Soy Flour Organic Gluten Free and Hodgson Mills Organic Soy Flour. My preference for all food is organic, which these both are, so then it came down to price. Arrowhead Mills was $3.99 for 22 oz, Hodgson Mills was $3.89 for 24 oz. No brainer, I ordered the cheaper one and am waiting (impatiently) for it’s arrival.

That’s a lot of footwork for a little bit of flour, but really I’m fortunate that, here in Seattle, we have so many stores that carry gluten-free products at all. Usually, if one doesn’t have what I’m looking for, the next will. Occasionally it takes a third, but rarely do I strike out.

This time I did, but perhaps the exception proved the rule: that this was such a rare occasion makes me appreciate my progressive Emerald City that much more. And after so much work to chase down the elusive gluten free soy flour, I’m going to let my local stores know how much I’d like to buy it from them, rather than online. If they don’t know we need it, they won’t stock it.

(Hi, I’m Jordan, Michelle’s husband. I’ll occasionally be blogging here.)

I’m a man of simple tastes: a couple of fried eggs with toast for breakfast have been my staple for as long as I can remember. I’d vary the type of toast occasionally (rye, wheat or sourdough), but, honestly, I considered it “varying my diet” if sliced the bread diagonally into triangles. Throw in a copy of the New York Times while I eat, and I’m in heaven.

So when I had to give up the “toast” part of that equation, you can imagine my despair. Aside from the loss of the PB&J, nothing made me question whether I could “do gluten-free” more than that. Sure, I’ve tried Udi’s gluten free breads and a handful of others, but, aside from the difficult-to-obtain loaves baked at Wheatless in Seattle, nothing has approximated good bread except in shape and color.

The key, for me, was to let go of inclination to find a “bread subsitute” or a “gluten-free bread”. Instead, I just had to find a different way to eat my eggs. And, with a little suggestion from Michelle, I’ve succeeded.

This is my breakfast five days a week, give or take, and it’s better than eggs and toast. Easy, nutty, light, satisfying, everything a breakfast should be.

• 2 eggs, fried or poached
• 1 cup cooked quinoa
• 1 tomato
• 1/2 avocado
• 1 tbsp olive oil
• salt to taste

We cook a batch of quinoa once or twice a week and leave it in the refrigerator, which is what makes this recipe practical. I just grab a cup or so, add the olive oil and throw it in the microwave for a minute while I cook my eggs (I prefer poached, but it takes a bit longer). I chop my tomato and avocado, while all that’s cooking, throw them all in a bowl together, salt and eat. If I’m in a hurry, I’ll skip the veggies, but don’t tell Michelle.

Dinner around these parts more often than not needs to come together in a pinch, often coinciding with a desperate need to grocery shop. Those two can make for a few anxious moments of repeated openings of cabinets doors, and lingering hand on hip in front of the open refrigerator. I don’t know why I think that if I look in that cabinet just one more time or open the refrigerator again, something new will jump out at me. “Here I am! Cook ME!”

But actually, it does. Eventually, somehow among the opening and closing and lingering, an idea pops off a shelf and into my head and suddenly, there’s dinner. Or at least, there’s the idea for dinner. Then I just need a few uninterrupted minutes to actually prepare this dinner and we’re all set.

With bread being a rare commodity these days, our once old-reliables are no longer our go-to foods. Yes, I mean sandwiches. Grilled turkey with provolone and pesto on crusty sourdough is out. Chewy ciabatta with tarragon chicken is out. Even the lowly PB&J on regular ol’ wheat bread is out. So what to do when a toddler’s demanding that his mama play, the fridge looks a little bare and dinner should be eaten within the hour? Take stock of what I do have in the fridge, check the staples in the pantry and make fast work of this line up.

The fridge held a wee bit of leftover breakfast bacon, a smidgen of pesto and some mozzarella nearing its due date. On the counter sat a tomato slightly past perfect and an avocado just hitting its peak. I feel something coming together, but what’s going to tie these together? Pasta would be quick (and quick is an essential ingredient tonight). But we’ve had plenty of pasta recently…there! In the pantry at eye level is the answer. Polenta. It’s not the slow-cooked creamy polenta that one imagines at a fine Italian restaurant. This is a packaged, semi-solid polenta that has saved the evening on more than one occasion. And tonight it’s going to help me out again.

• 1 tube All-ready cooked, packaged polenta (Ancient Grains makes a great one)
• Sliced fresh mozzarella (shredded will work, too)
• Pesto
• Sliced avocado
• Sliced tomato
• Bacon, crumbled

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Lightly oil a baking dish. Slice polenta into rounds. Top with cheese & bake until cheese melts, about 15 minutes. Remove from oven and layer with pesto, avocado and bacon. Serve with tomato slices.

Gummy Bears were all the rage when I was a kid, but we were those kids that weren’t allowed to eat candy. I remember the feeling of puzzled amazement when I went to friends’ houses and they had chips and cookies and candy and, yes, SODA! They made soda, in cans, that you could drink at home! Who knew?

So you can imagine how candy was rationed - outside of the small stash of Halloween treats we were allowed to keep, it was nonexistent in our house. As we got older and had a little discretionary income from babysitting and such, we’d sneak a visit to the local 7-Eleven. I wasn’t a chocolate lover as a kid (weird, I know), so I’d go for things that were fruity or sour - like gummy bears. Soft and squishy and so full of flavor!

I’d try to make them last, but couldn’t resist eating them all at one go. As I got older and more health conscious, though, the sugar and weird food coloring freaked me out, so I stopped eating them.

Until my recent discovery of Surf Sweets, that is!

These little babies pack a burst of flavor. They’re moist and chewy and fruity and I like them even more than the plasticy originals I grew up on. Better yet, I don’t have to worry that I’m ingesting some crazy food dye. I know, I know, it’s still just sugar, but oh, they’re so good (and at least it’s real sugar, not corn syrup)! Opening the bag makes my mouth water and, though I always tell myself that I’ll just eat a couple, the bag is usually empty before I realize that I’ve just popped the last little delicious bear in my mouth. Some things never change.