You'll Crack Your Head Open!

I called Honeybaked the other day and their glaze contains gluten. Again. They went gluten free about a year ago and I guess it didn’t work out so well for them. They were gluten free at easter. Well at least they gave it a shot. If you’re having Honeybaked for Thanksgiving, have an extra piece for me k?

Oh well. Now I’ve got to figure out something else. I’m pretty bummed though. A friend of our’s was saying that he had a Honeybaked Turkey last thanksgiving. They put the same glaze on the turkey as they do the ham. He said it was the best turkey he ever had in his life. [sob..]

I’m looking at some recipe sites to see if I can figure out how to do the honeybaked thing on the turkey anyway. That sounds really good doesn’t it? Even if it doesn’t turn out perfect, I can’t imagine it being awful or anything. I mean it’s honey and spices. You can’t go wrong with that.

Found a copycat recipe on Recipe Zaar.  They say that Honeybaked uses a butane torch to caramelize the glaze on their hams.  There we go.  That’s what I was wondering about.  How on earth they get it crispy like that.  I was picturing my turkey being a sticky mess.  Now I have an excuse to buy one of those butane torch gadgets.  Awesome!

Last night I went out with a few friends and tore. it. up!  Woot!

Okay… fine.  We went to Joe’s Crab Shack for dinner (thanks to their gluten free menu that they emailed me ) and then walked around Old Sacramento.  But it was fun!

The picture is, from left to right, C, Maggie, me and Alexandria. Maggie and I have been close friends for years and we used to live just a few miles apart, but now we live on opposite sides of town. Which means of course we almost never see each other anymore. C is Maggie’s good friend and Alexandria is my good friend. It was great for us all to meet each other finally.

After we stuffed ourselves on crab and margaritas, we went walking around Old Sac to see what there was to do on a Friday night. As we were walking, C asked a bouncer we passed how much it was go get into that club and he said it was free. Fantastic! So we headed down the stairs and got ready to get our party on. There was nobody in there but us. Um… woohoo… Oh well. It was still only 9 or so, so it was way early for any crowds anyway. The bartender said that it had just opened the weekend before too. It ended up being a techno club, which I have to say wasn’t our thing, considering that most of us are either over or fast approaching 40, but they had a really cool patio area in the back.  It was a gorgeous night, so we spent a while out there.

We were about ready to head home for the night, but C said that we had to go to this one place before we left.  She led us down an alley to a place called The Back Door Lounge.  Oh my gosh!  As soon as we walked in I was in LOVE… It looks like a lounge from a movie. Dimly lit, red and gold velvet wallpaper, the whole deal.  To top it off, the lounge singer is fantastic.   Lee Diamond.  Not only is he a great singer, but he was friendly, talked to the crowd, made you feel like one of the regulars immediately and he was fun and funny.   Definitely somewhere we’ll go back to.

Yay!  It’s negative.  Here’s the run-down:  For the test, I measured out two cups of Dr. Pepper, put it in a stainless steel pot and simmered it down until it was down to half a cup.  So that’s what?  A 4x reduction?  It didn’t thicken up too much either.  It was still pretty liquidy and wicked up the test strip just fine.  I let it cool down to room temperature too because I was worried that heat might make the test not work right.   I looked at the strip under a good light too and there wasn’t even a faint line.  The control and hook lines showed up fine, so we have a negative.

So Dr. Pepper is definitely gluten free.  Well at least there’s that.  Honestly, I’m probably just eating (and drinking) waaaay too much sugar, especially with all of the halloween candy around.

I did take a glutenease as I was waiting for the test to finish and I felt better emotionally after about 15 minutes even after being down in the dumps a bit for a few days.  (In addition to feeling sick.)  Which coincides with me buying the halloween candy.   As far as I’m remembering the only halloween candy I’ve been eating have been the Baby Ruths and Butterfingers.  In my experience, Butterfingers are kind of a crapshoot.  Sometimes they get me and sometimes they don’t get me for months.  I’d bet there’s an occasional cross contact issue on their lines. So that’s an easy solution – stop eating the halloween candy.  I should also say that I tend to be on the more sensitive side when it comes to reacting to gluten.  I react to some things that most people don’t.  Like vodka made from wheat.  I can’t drink that, but I know most people who have gluten issues have no problem with it.  So your mileage may vary, as they say..

Besides, who needs halloween candy when I’ve got these – Glutino Sans Gluten Free Chocolate Covered Wafers. The ones in the brown box.  KitKat much?  OMG these are sooo good.  Not that I hide them from my children or anything.

This weekend I’m going to Joe’s Crab Shack with a bunch of friends.  I discovered they had a lot of gluten free stuff last summer.  Love it!  It’s kind of downtown though, which freaks me out to drive in.  I’m a suburbs kind of girl.  Give me a left turn arrow light and some nice wide streets to drive my minivan through and I’ll drive anywhere.  Throw a one-way street or paralell parking at me and I start getting shaky.   But apparently a steampot and Pop Rocks margaritas are my currency right now.  Who knew?

I feel better today.  Not as tired and headachy and my sore throat is getting better.

Right now I’m boiling down some Dr. Pepper to do a gluten test on it.  I’ve been really tiired and cranky lately.  Might as well check and see if that’s the problem.  I’m boiling it down so that I can boil off some of the water so if there is gluten in there it will be easier to detect.  I’m up to drinking several Dr. Peppers a day, so even if there’s just a small amourt of gluten, it might be building up and causing problems for me.  It’s also very possible that it’s  not gluten at all and it’s just the chemical crap and all that sugar in sodas in general.  At this point I’m just curious if it’s gluten or not.

Considering the fact that Dr. Pepper has sooo much sugar in it and I’m boiling it, I might just end up with candy.  I’m trying to keep the temperature low though.  So hopefully I won’t reach hard crack stage or anything like that.  We’ll see.

The plan is that once I get the Dr. Pepper boiled down enough I’m going to do an EZ Gluten test.  It detects gluten down to 10 ppm (parts per million) and I’m trying to up the sensitivity of the test by concentrating the sample by boiling it down.  So if there’s any gluten in there, I’m going to find it.

Or I might end up with a great big piece of Dr. Pepper candy.  Which wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world either…

I’m soooo glad Halloween is finally over.  I’m ready to be done with it.  I’m not much for horror  movies or anything like that, so by the time Halloween week rolls around I’m up to here with all of the scary movies and TV plots everytime I turn on the television.  I did more decorating for Halloween this year than I probably ever have.  Which means there are pumpkins on my mantle.  I’ve always got a lot of plans for decorating, but never quite get it together.  Maybe I’ll hit some clearance sales and see if I can get some stuff for next year.

Right now I’m fighting off some sort of a bug.  It’s just hovering in the headache and sorethroat stage right now.  Thank goodness oscillococcinum and zicam are gluten free.  I hate just sitting there and letting a bug get me.  At least those make me feel like I’m doing something that might help.

I’m going to be hosting Thanksgiving for our family this year.  I think I’m going to go the honeybaked ham route if they’re still gluten free.  As of Easter, someone on one of the message boards confirmed that the ham was GF, but it’s always better to reverify I think.  And it only takes a few minutes to email.  I’m hoping their ham and turkey are both gluten free so we can have both.  It’s a small group.  Just 8 adults, one teenager and four littles from 4-8 years old.

I’m planning on going the traditional route – ham and turkey, mashed potatoes, roasted sweet potatoes (chunks, not mashed), fried okra courtesy of my FIL and a big salad.  Then pumpkin pie for dessert.  I might add some other stuff if I’m feeling like doing it when Thanksgiving gets closer, but I think that’s pretty much going to be the basic menu.  As long as Honeybaked gets back to me with good news the only thing I need to really get that’s gluten free is pie crust from Whole Foods.  That’s easy enough.

I’ve also got my birthday in November.  I’ll be 39.  Woot!  I’m obnoxious about getting older.  I’m totally fine with it.  Some of the side effects, not so much.  But getting older in itself doesn’t bother me.

Today I’m going to try to get through a bunch of laundry.  I’m planning on going through my son’s toys and “putting them in the attic” (wink, wink..).  I always pull a few aside that I think he might still miss and keep them in the garage for a few weeks just in case he notices something is gone.  I went through my daughter’s toys a couple weeks ago and she’s done fine with it.  Fingers crossed that my son doesn’t freak about anything I can’t get back.