Birthday Dinners

This weekend I went to Spokane to visit my sister for her birthday. We ate out every meal and as many of you with dietary restrictions know, eating out is not easy or fun. Almost everything comes with cheese on it and bread on the side. I usually have two choices. A salad or some kind of meat with veggies.

On Friday night we went to Anthony which is usually one of my favorite places! As soon as we sat down we started talking about appetizers. Let me start off my saying crab dip is my favorite when I go to any seafood restaurant. So of course they order the crab dip and breaded asparagus and then the waitress continued to place two large baskets of fresh bread right in front of me.

At this point I am being tortured and I’m sitting quietly and waiting for my salad. When the salad arrived I was very upset. I remembered to ask for no croutons but forgot to say no cheese. I was starving and watching everyone around me stuffing their faces. Finally the dinner arrived after the longest 45 minutes of my life and I don’t think I’ve ever been so happy to see food!

The next nights dinner was quite the repeat of the night before. I think this was my sisters way of getting back at me from all the mean things I did to her as kids. We sat down and again ordered crab dip!  Then they sat down the best smelling garlic bread I’ve ever smelled! I almost died. It took every thing in my body not to risk it and have a piece. The worst part was after dinner when my Mom’s boyfriend ordered three desserts that I couldn’t eat. Creme brulee, chocolate cake, and breaded pudding.

Oh well! Overall probably saved me about 1500 calories!

All I could think was:

Glad I Wasn’t Gluten Intolerant Before it was Cool!

Last night I had the best dinner of my life! I found gluten free noodles that taste better than regular noodles!

I have the palate of a five year old. My most favorite meal on the planet is butter noodles. No sauce. No meat. Just butter and noodles. I feel like my life is back to normal! This is my first win against gluten!

I did try some dairy free, gluten free, soy free, GMO free, and fun free cheese. It. Was. Terrible. Just awful!  It tastes like you’re biting into a block of rubber. And they said American cheese was fake cheese. You don’t know fake cheese until you have tried making a grilled cheese with this stuff. It didn’t melt.

I have found substitutes for all my favorites like pancakes, brownies, noodles, and bread! I’m just so grateful that all the celebrities made the gluten free diet so glamorous because now my stomach and taste buds get to be equally as happy. Looks like I’m having my gluten free cake and eating it too.

Cheetos are Gluten Free

My biggest fear when finding out the would have to be gluten and dairy free was that I would have to eat only healthy food. So I made a list of some of the junk food available:

Cheetos ( I can’t eat them but they are gluten free)

Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups

Sour Patch Kids

Corn Chips

Gluten Free Brownies (Betty Crocker taste like gluten Brownies)

Popcorn

Goodbye Pizza. Hello Rice Cakes!

glu·ten

ˈɡlo͞otn/

noun

noun: gluten

1. a substance present in cereal grains, especially wheat, that is responsible for the elastic texture of dough. A mixture of two proteins, it causes illness in people with celiac disease.

Over the past month I have made the decision to give up gluten and dairy. I have had an intolerance to both of these since I was in grade school but pizza is my favorite food so I was never been ready to fully commit. Now that I have completely cut gluten out of my diet I have to eat things like rice cakes, rice chips, and rice crackers. So far I haven’t found many substitute for dairy products. I mean there is almond cheese and sorbets but I don’t have the guts to try almond cheese yet. That’s still too much for me and I could live the happiest gluten free life anyone has ever seen. The dairy is the hardest because everything has cheese in it and I love cheese!  Next time you go to a restaurant look at their menu and see how many things DON’T have cheese on them. There wont be many. I guess being dairy free isn’t cool yet.  So for now its a rice cake and peanut butter for dinner.

Last weekend I went home to visit my parents and my step mom so kindly picked up dinner for the family. To my delight it was stuffed crust pizza. So I ate rice with gluten free soy sauce. Yum.

This I’ve found to be my biggest struggle. Having to say no when the food is right in front of you. when I’m home by myself it’s easy to have salmon and veggies for dinner. But saying no to the cheesiest pizza on the planet when it’s right in front of you is so hard!

This is not going to be a blog about changing your life and giving up the greatest foods in the world because Miley Cyrus is doing it. This blog is going to be my stories about my gluten/dairy free experiences. Like eating out, bring my own food to family parties, and recipe disasters.