Surround Yourself With Good People

I am always trying to teach my children and my clients, and anyone else who will listen to me, to surround themselves with good people and this world will be a better place. When you have specific dietary requirements, like gluten free, dairy free, or life-threatening allergies, some people around you "get it" and some people do not. I appreciate it so much when family and friends take it seriously and go out of their way to help anyway they can. Sometimes it's a phone call to let us know what is being served at an event we are going to, sometimes it is an email letting us know about a new gluten free product, and sometimes it's ordering us a gluten free pizza at a birthday party so we can just come to the party and not have to worry about the food.
Yesterday we received a letter from a woman who was my daughter's teacher three years ago. She has since retired from teaching and moved away, but she sent us a note saying hello and four new gluten free recipes, all of which looked delicious! I can't tell you how excited we all were from this act of kindness. I can now pass along these recipes to clients, friends, and family and the gift keeps on giving!!! Thank you Mrs. Green for keeping us in your heart and I will pay it forward.
Things like this make me know that I am teaching my children that surrounding yourself with good people is such a big lesson and I will continue to stress that in our everyday lives. Little things make a big, positive impact on other people's lives, so continue to do the little things because they truly are appreciated!!
Have a great gluten free day!

Gluten Free At Metro

I was going through the flyers this morning, my usual Saturday morning ritual, and much to my surprise I see the words "NEW Irresistibles GLUTEN FREE For All Your Gluten Free Needs" I immediately open up the paper to that section and there it is, a whole entire page of the paper dedicated to Metro's new line of gluten free products. Irresistibles is Metro's private label and they have a whole line of well priced gluten free products including pasta ($2.49), rice crackers, bread crumbs, tortilla chips, croutons, macaroni and cheese, pancake mix, chewy bars, rice, and cake mix.
Now, I haven't tasted any of the products yet, so I don't know how fabulous this is, but I have to say that even seeing this in the local paper is exciting and I will definitely be heading to Metro this week to check it out!

P.F. Changs Gluten Free Menu

I recently went to Buffalo with a friend, in search of the latest and greatest gluten free foods. We began our day at Target, where we stocked up on General Mills Rice Chex and Nature Valley Almond Crunch Granola Bars. Then, it was off to Tops for more exploring. Here we stocked up on General Mills Cinnamon Chex and Chocolate Chex, as well as Post Cupcake Pebbles and Betty Crocker Gluten Free Brownies. We also found a Hamburger Helper Beef and Rice and Chicken and Rice, both labeled gluten free! The gluten free possibilities were endless and we were enjoying every minute. It is so nice to shop in the U.S., where gluten free items are actually labeled gluten free. We bought Quaker Rice Cakes, I think just because they were labeled gluten free! After spending the morning in the grocery stores shopping, we headed for lunch at P.F Changs, where we were able to order off the gluten free menu. Check it out at www.pfchangs.com/menu. The gluten free menu includes starters (chicken lettuce wraps, our personal favourites!), noodles, vegetarian dishes, soup, rice, sides, entrees (18 different entrees including chicken, beef, shrimp, and, scallops), and dessert. Can you believe that all these items are on their gluten free menu!!!! You can well imagine we had a field day choosing the dishes and then eating. The server was very knowledgeable with respect to the gluten free diet and needed no explanations. They mixed sauces at our table using gluten free soy sauce and spicy sauce and hot mustard and explained to us that all gluten free dishes come out of the kitchen on specific plates so that there is no chance of mixing up dishes. It was thrilling to be able to go to a restaurant and have such good service and feel safe about what we were eating, while at the same time enjoying every mouthful!
After a delicious lunch, we headed to Wegmans for our final destination. Wegmans has a gluten free section, where I stocked up on Cherrybrook Kitchen products (pancake and waffle mix and sugar cookies are my personal favourites) and showed my friend how fabulous the Wegman's Private Label is marked with a "g" for gluten free.
We didn't even spend a lot of money, we just purchased our personal favourites and found some new items that may become favourites in time!
It was so liberating to be able to have so much choice that you actually have to leave items behind. It was a great day!

deeLiciously Gluten Free

Last week, I had a wonderful breakfast meeting with the owner of deeLiciously Gluten Free, Heather Keeso and a mutual friend of ours, Carole. We talked about everything gluten free and healthy and we sampled some of the new deeLiciously Gluten Free Products. Heather and Carole are both former educators and both are very committed to living and promoting a healthy lifestyle. All the gluten free baked goods that Heather makes are not just tasty but very healthy as well. I am always so impressed by her attention to each and every ingredient, making sure everything that goes into her baked goods has nutritional value. In the past I have sampled her breakfast bars, spicy pumpkin bread, and ginger cookies, and this time around I sampled a carrot bread, cookie, and muffin. The taste was great, the smell was wonderful, and the texture was nice. DeeLiciously Gluten Free products are not nut free, so they can not be used as a healthy snack for school. However, they are perfect as an after school snack or even for a meal.
Needless to say, I had a wonderful time catching up with friends and sampling the latest creations by deeLiciously Gluten Free. Heather is passionate about her gluten free creations! These are gluten free baked goods that I can feel good about feeding to my children.

Gluten Free Gift Baskets

A couple of weeks ago, I mentioned that I went to one of my favourite stores, Nut'n Gluten, because they were celebrating their 1st Anniversary with a 10% off sale. It was a great day and I am thrilled to say that I was one of the lucky winners of their raffle. I won the Gluten Free Italia Gift Basket, valued at $80. It has my favourite gnocchi in it and lots of other gluten free Italian goodies like Lundberg Risotto, Duinkerken Pizza Crust, Schar breadsticks, Rizopia Lasagna Noodles, Patsie Pie Chocolate Chip Biscotti, and Schar Ladyfingers (I'm so excited, I can finally make gluten free tiramisu!). It has dish towels, wash clothes, a snowman spreader, and a whisk. This basket is chock full of fabulous gluten free things! There isn't one single gluten free product in this basket that I don't love, truly amazing.
They make all kinds of gluten free gift baskets and for a variety of different prices.
These would make the perfect gift for someone special this holiday season.

Gluten Free Cookie Exchange

I encourage everyone to do a gluten free baking exchange of some sort with friends that are gluten free. It is fun, saves time, increases the variety of treats around during the holidays, and is a simple act of kindness.
My cookie exchange started the first year my daughter was diagnosed with celiac disease. A woman that worked with my husband heard about my daughter and arrived at work one day with 2 huge bags of gluten free food, filled with all of her personal favourites! Months later, I wanted to do something special for her, so I showed up to the office Christmas party with a platter of our gluten free favourites. This lead to an annual gluten free baking exchange, which we all treasure!
This year I made gluten free home made chocolates, gluten free snickerdoodles, gluten free thumbprint cookies filled with black raspberry jam and apricot preserve, and gluten free Hershey's peanut butter blossoms. Even my mom got into the spirit of giving and added gluten free chocolate chip cookies to the platter.
I made so many cookies that we have enough leftover to make up a second tray that our dietition will give to a gluten free family in need. "Paying it forward", that is what our special friend, Denise, has taught us.
This annual cookie exchange is always a reminder for me of how lucky we are to be surrounded by people who are kind and make our world a better place.
I look forward to next year's cookie exchange already!

Milestones Gluten Free Menu

We had a wonderful dinner at Milestones Bar and Grill in Markham last Saturday night. They have a gluten free menu, which included 2 appetizers, 3 entrees, and 2 desserts. The starters included the Milestones' Caprese Salad and the Milestones' California Spring Salad, the entrees included the grilled mediterranean chicken, tomato basil brown rice spaghettini, and certified angus beef top sirloin, and the desserts included a ganache torte and premium italian vanilla gelato with house-made caramel sauce. As well, they were willing to do any of the pasta dishes off the standard menu with brown rice pasta. Now, I must say, although the gluten free menu was very appealing, there was a disclaimer at the bottom, saying cross-contamination may occur during preparation. Disclaimers always make me weary, however they did take our gluten free concerns very seriously. Our waitor Jess was very knowledgeable and attentive and the manager on duty that night, Hannah, came over to our table to discuss ingredients and just double check that everything would be safe. All this was done without us asking and I appreciated the extra care they took in making sure our gluten free needs were met. We ordered the beef sirloin entree and the gelato for dessert off the gluten free menu and it was delicious. The gluten free meal came at the same time as the other meals (which is a bonus because often you wait for gluten free meals in restaurants) and we had a wonderful evening. I must say, it was also a Saturday evening before Christmas, the place was very busy, and they had no problems meeting our expectations!!!! We will be going back to this restaurant for sure.