3 tips to Grocery Shopping Done Right---Gluten Free

In my life many people do not remember that I am gluten free. Sometimes I feel like I need to tattoo on my forehead GLUTEN FREE, but that doesn't really matter either. I still have to explain what I can eat, No family member I cannot eat that flour tortilla, pretzels, graham crackers, cake, donuts, the list goes on and on. No, I cannot have just a little bit. No, I am not just doing this for weight loss or some trendy reason. I went Gluten free to help with my seizures and since going gluten free I have went off one of my anti-seizure medications. And my seizures have decreased and I could make up some percentage but I don't know how to quantify it.

Things to do to help with GLUTEN FREE EATING AND GROCERY SHOPPING

1. READ LABELS-- things with more than 5 ingredients probably are overly processed and filled with preservatives. Many times those preservatives have gluten in them, I was shocked when I realized that Campbell's tomato soup was not Gluten free.

2. SHOP THE OUTER RING-- For the majority of your food should come from this part of the store.This generally includes the produce and fruits, dairy, meat, bakery, cheese sections. A few items can come from the middle but I have been trying to avoiding chemicals in our foods so if I avoid things in boxes and cans, avoiding preservatives by buying fresh stuff.

3. USE THE GLUTEN FREE SHOPPING GUIDE--The Triumph Dining's The Essential Gluten-Free Grocery Guide is broken down food groups in the front and the index in the back by exact type of food. Which is nice to be able to verify if something is gluten free when some labels are not always clear. It may not list WHEAT on the label but you do not see GLUTEN FREE so you are a little hesitant to buy it. I know I am thinking, if they were gluten Free wouldn't they put that on the label. This book is a great reference for newbies and veterans of the gluten free lifestyle.This book makes me #hippiehappy.

I received this product in return for my honest #hippiehappy or #nothippiehappy review.

Gluten Free Recipe: Peanut Butter No Bakes

My mother made me the most wonderful cookies as a child, Chocolate Peanut butter no bakes. I asked her to make these for every birthday celebration at school so I could proudly hand these out to my friends. They brought chocolate chip cookies or cupcakes, but no one ever brought anything like these and I was so proud that I brought something different and so scrumpdittilyumptious. After I graduated from college and was to become a mother myself, my mom gave me the recipe! I felt like I had really become a woman. Not getting the dipolma, not being pregnant but I had the real no bake recipe from my mother.

I made them and Score, they were wonderful. Years pass, my kids love these same cookies. They request the cookies, I start making the cookies for family affairs because my mom had switched to low fat peanut butter and the cookies did not make the change to low fat well, they would never harden and they became globs of oats and choco-peanut butter. I was happy to take over something that made me so happy and now I was part of a legacy that brought me hippie happiness. And you would think that would be the end of this tale and we move on to the recipe. But I must digress.

I knew when I went Gluten Free that the recipe for mom's no bakes would only need minor brand tweeks in order to be gluten free because the cookie themselves are flourless-- score. For the last two years my uncle would tell how when he was in school, they had no bakes but they did not have chocolate in them but they were peanut butter only. I had seen them in the bakery of Kroger but I would never think about it again until after I made my "normal" kind. That was until Easter. My uncle had just done a nice thing for us (which is not unlike him, he does nice things for everyone all the time) so I made a point to look up how this OTHER no bakes were made. Come to find out all I had to do was not put in the cocoa. Same exact recipe I had been using for 14 years from my mother minus cocoa. Take heel of my palm and smack my forehead-- duh.

Digression over-- they are the best cookies I have ever eaten. Better than the cookies of my childhood. They are peanut butter goodness. Don't believe me? Here is the recipe for you to try and let me know or tell me how you do it differently. One thing I have learned is that one little change to thirty years of something great can lead to something even better. Feel free to comment on the recipe.

Recipe:

First Section:
Heat on med (4/5 on my stove)
1/2 cup milk
1 stick of real butter (until butter is melted)

then add
2 cups of sugar (stirring frequently to dissolve the sugar completely but not to caramelize. If the sugar does not dissolve the cookies taste gritty). Turn off the heat and add

1/2 cup Peanut Butter (I prefer crunchy to add more crunch to cookie but creamy does work)
1 tsp of vanilla

Stir until peanut butter is dissolved. Remove from heat and add

3 cups of Gluten Free Oats ( I add one cup at a time and stir in)

Spoon mixture onto wax paper and let dry. Will make approxiametly 40 cookies depending on the size of your spoonfuls.

Ardenne Farm Gluten Free Chocolate Cookie Mix Giveaway

I have received for free this product for an honest review and for the giveaway. I am blaming my epilepsy meds and the flu that I did not start this giveaway last week when I should have. Hope some great people enter. I will complete my review of the product tonight after work. But I needed to get the giveaway going. Please enter. I need a WINNER and I know you are a winner. Wink, wink.

I made the cookies tonight and they were ten times better then the premade cookie dough I bought from Pillsbury. Those were not even a little good. Now I had some trouble with the size of my cookies and they meddled together took up the size of the whole pan. Now I did not really look at the size of my spoonfulls and when the amount of cookies should have been twenty and I only ended up with maybe 14 scoops I knew I was in trouble but I shrugged it off.

Well, they still tasted yumtastic considering my total disregard for the rules of the measurements of the spooning. I know you will be more "ocd" than me.

Good luck and happy eating to the winner. GF all the way baby!







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Defining my blog: Not perfect organic living but healthier every day.

I read an article that suggested that a good blog have a purpose a narrows down its direction. And truly I know what types of products I want to try out for my audience of currently ten people (and I love every one of you!!!) in order to grow my audience and become a better writer. Well I want to write about and test products that really have to do with what my family and I would want to infuse into our lives not just ways to get free shit. I have a shit ton of hair on my head, it is past the middle of my back, its thick and I have a lot. When winter and Fall come I love to have my hair done, one to keep me warmer like a natural scarf and two to give a little props to God for giving me nice hair. Most people hate their hair for one reason or another and I love my hair so I feel like hiding it in a bun or a ponytail all the time is a slight against God who gave me this as one of my gifts. Getting back to my wandering point, I want my hair to look its best with as little chemicals as possible. So I tried what someone on the internet offered-- no shampoo and that left me too greasy.

Then I tried a sample of Organix

and it cleaned real well and left my hair light and I plan to buy both the shampoo and conditioner of this product. Here is the pictures of this result:

The next product I am trying is L'Oreal Ever Curl, sulfate free shampoo,

Pictures to come soon. So we are all a work in progress. Trying to live better. That's the McDaniel way, better every day.

I love Dutch Ovens (and not the kind under the sheets)

Part of my path of improvement of me has been trying to simplify my life through many areas particularly in the area of cooking. We have been slowly going Organic and unprocessed over the last year. One of the things I wanted to own was a cast iron dutch oven like I saw the Pioneer Woman use on the Cooking Channel.

I found one on sale at Kroger for $24.95 on Friday and there is nothing I love more than a bargain. Last night I made a seared pot roast-- best I ever made.  Something primal about making a meal that has been made for hundreds of years.

 In college I thought I wanted to be a liberated woman and what I thought that meant. I thought stay at home moms were lesser women. I couldn't fathom a woman going to college getting a degree then once she was married just staying home to have kids.  College Danyel thought that was beneath say becoming a doctor, psychologist, social worker, author any job was better than staying home.

I did not see that there  could be pride in making a meal for your family. In college I was lucky not to burn my spaghettos and pop tarts.  Food to me was nutrition to keep me going, I saw none of the preparation, none of the heart that went into it.

Now at 37, married with an almost teenager who hates me most of the time and an eight year old son who still loves his mommy, I take such pride in sauteing  the onions (which 10 years ago I wouldn't have even cooked with because I hate onions) because they really do add a great flavor to the meat.  using my new dutch oven to slow cook a meal that my kids may not appreciate the way I would hope but I know the hours of love and care that the veggies are all organic and the meat had the proper marbling of fat for the best flavor, not to mention the seasoning and all gluten free to stay within my diet restrictions. They don't care about any of that, not now.

 But I look back on the hot meals my mother had on the table every night and I understand now what a stay at home mother does. When I work 40hrs a week, and struggle to remotely keep the house clean, I understand what a stay at home mother does. There are times when I feel a little sad that I was unable to fully give my kids all of me as a mother. Luckily they do get me every summer when I am off with my job.

A small part of me wishes I could move to a remote farm, grow my own food and live a rustic pioneer organic hippie life writing books. But I would have to still buy my meat, I couldn't raise animal friends then eat them. I love meat but I couldn't do that.
 

How one suggestion can change your life...

One Monday weeks before Christmas, my husband and I were thrift shopping (with $20 in my pocket) and we ran into my aunt. My Aunt is a licensed massage therapist and lives a very holistic lifestyle. She has been very aware of my struggles to find medications to control my seizures and asked about how I was doing. She had done some research and found a Gluten free diet was working wonders for people with Epilepsy some eventually went off medication all together.

I did a little Bing search myself and found quite a bit of research saying the same things. After years of yo-yo dieting for my weight, I thought why not try something that could help me control my seizures and if it doesn't work. What would I be out?

So two weeks before Christmas, I went Gluten free and did not notice any major changes but my meds were pretty stable. The only times my meds seem to fail me are during stress times of the month (sleep deprived, food deprived, menstruation) and but when Christmas Day came I thought I would do a little scientific experimentation of my own. I ate a few crackers, cookies and just random things you can only eat on Christmas and the next two days I had break through seizure activity. I immediately went back on gluten free and have been on it ever since and unless I accidentally eat gluten-- you would be shocked where it hides. I have been seizure free since Christmas.

Obviously this is not scientific proof that going Gluten free will cure your epilepsy. Don't stop your meds and go Gluten free. I am not a doctor, but if you wanna try something in conjunction with your meds whats the worst that can happen?

All I know is my brain is back and I can read and write again. From October till Christmas, I was unable to read, edit or write and it was torture.