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!

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.

I  love this picture.  She is the most confident, self-assured person I’ve ever met in my entire life.  She’s amazes me.  I want to be her when I grow up.  She thinks that grandma’s house, a 40-minute drive, is very, very, VERY far away.  Once she knows how very big and wide this world is, there’s going to be no stopping her.

The cake supplies that I ordered for her 6th birthday party came today.  It’s a Little Mermaid plastic figurine sitting in a seashell – so CUTE.  She picked it out herself.  In the picture, they show just putting that up in the corner of a 1/4 sheet cake, using ocean colors for the frosting, scallop borders and writing the message on the cake.  I can totally do that.  I’m also going to run to Michael’s tomorrow for some Wilton Color Mist spray (GF), so I can get all artsy n stuff.  The green is a little too green, but I think I can do something with the blue.  Maybe I’ll make the main frosting color a sea green and then do some sprays of blue over it.

I was going to get all the matching plates and napkins, but I decided to get the plain pink instead.  The Little Filly truly doesn’t care about or notice things like that quite yet.  So why spend the money on it when it can go to something else she’s going to enjoy more?  The funny thing is that on the website there were two different colors of pink.  I had no idea which to order because the colors are so hard to trust online.  But the pink I ordered ends up being the absolute perfect shade of pink.  It was like I matched it up myself in the store.  So that makes me happy.

I also ordered the matching gift bags which will be filled with little toys and GF candy from the dollar store.  All the kids will get the same mermaid bag, but the boys will have boy stuff in the bag.

We’re doing the actual party at a bounce place, which is perfect for her and all of her little bouncy friends.   She’s so excited to be seeing everyone.  I’m looking forward to seeing all the kindergarten moms and dads I made friends with last year too.

Bentos are apparently a really big (huge) deal in Japan.  Especially for kids.   Moms pack lunches that not only have a variety of foods, but are decorated really cutely.  Think smiley-face pancakes to the nth degree.

To see what I’m talking about visit these Bento blogs.

- Just Bento

- Lunch in a Box

- Adventures in Bentomaking

See?  How cute is that?  It doesn’t need to be Asian food, or anything super fancy.  I’ve been using little tiny heart and star cookie cutters to decorate my kids apple slices.  Just slice the apples into circles and use the cookie cutter to cut the core part out.  I’m going to get some of those reuseable silicone cupcake liners to use as little food baskets too.

It’s actually inspiring me to cook a little bit  more so I can experiment with stuff.

I’ve also got to admit that I’m not the best mom when it comes to food.  If two of the four food groups are included in the food my kids are eating, I call it a meal.  I usually get three in there because Doritos are made from corn, and as we all know, corn is a vegetable.  Ahem….

So yea… I’ve got a lot of room for improvement in this area.  We pretty much eat like we live in a dorm.  Even though we’re gluten-free.  If anyone tells you that the gluten-free diet has made them cut junk food out of their diet, they aren’t trying hard enough.

Anyway, back to my growing girl’s nutritional needs and her first year of all day at school school.  She’ll be going from around 8:30 to 2:30.   So that’s six hours of time away from home and food.   That is, if I can get her to eat breakfast that early in the morning.  And if I can get myself to roll out of bed early enough to give her a breakfast that didn’t come out of a box. We’re all late sleepers.  I’ll have to figure out some good, nutritious, fast and easy breakfasts too, but that will have to be another post for another day.

Back to lunches.  I’ve got a few things going for me when planning this all out, but the biggest one is that the little Filly could give a rat’s patootie about what everyone else is eating.   So that’s going to make things a whole lot easier.   She’s not a terribly adventurous eater, but once she does (finally) try something she usually likes it.   She already knows that this summer she will be trying new foods because she won’t be eating lunch at home anymore.

My plan is to find some good lunch containers.  Maybe something like a bento box.  Maybe an insulated box with an ice pack.  I’m not sure yet.  I just know that they have to be:

- Big enough to hold a nice amount of food.  The little Filly has a good appetite.

- Easy for her to open and close.  Or else I’ll end up with a pile of mush in a box because she has no patience with that stuff.

- Easy for me to clean and fill.  I’ve got no patience either.

- Snazzy.  A big part of the battle in helping kids not feel left out with the GF diet is to give them something that the other kids just might be a little jealous of.   I’m not above doing a wide-ranging internet search or going on ebay to make sure she has the cutest lunch box in class.

I had the idea of having her try different sandwiches over the summer for lunch.  She doesn’t have much experience with sandwiches because the GOOD gluten-free bread ain’t cheap.  You’ve also got to factor in time in the breadmaker.    But then again, that’s a good reason not to make sandwiches.  They may end up not getting eaten because she’d usually rather play than eat.  That’s a lot of money, time and effort gone to waste over the course of a week.  Since she doesn’t like peanut butter (?) we’re talking a meat and cheese sandwich.  Which needs some sort of quickly spoiling condiment like mayo or butter.  That makes me nervous.  Especially in the summertime, which is very, very hot and lasts until late October here.   So some sort of bento box or similar divided container is probably going to be the best option, at least for a while.

Now I’m off to search for some cute lunch containers.

Act II Movie Theater Butter Popcorn.

What types of food allergens would you think would be in popcorn?

Milk?  Of course.  Butter is in the dairy group.  It says butter right on the label.  That’s an easy one.

Eggs?  Hmmm…  Well, okay…  I guess maybe to make the flavor stick?  It’s probably something like that.

How about fish?   Oh yes.  I said fish.   F-i-s-h.  Fish.  In popcorn.  Fish.

I figured that this must have been a misprint, which I thought was hilarious.   I mean, what could be worse than fish listed as an allergen in popcorn?

I decided to contact the manufacturer, ConAgra, to find out what the deal was – misprint?  Or just plain gross?  I received this nice reply from Rose -

August 23, 2007Dear Nancy,Your communication concerning our ACT II® Movie Theater Butter
Microwave Popcorn was most welcome.  We appreciate comments and questions from
our consumers.

The reason fish would be listed as an allergen would be that some of
the flavors we use contain fish gelatin.

The only sure way to know whether or not a product contains a certain
ingredient is to check the carton ingredient list on the package.  From
time to time, products are reformulated and ingredients may change.

We appreciate your patronage and value our customers.  We hope you will
continue to enjoy our line of quality food.

Sincerely,
Rose
ConAgra Foods Consumer Affairs

So yea, there ya go…  As for what could be worse than fish being in popcorn?  Fish jello being in popcorn.

I’m speechless.

I’ve been doing some baking again.   Let’s see, this week I’ve made french bread, cheese crackers and graham crackers.  They all turned out good!

I decided to make myself learn how to do the cool links and stuff before I blog about them.  Just wanted to say I’m up and running again.

Mystery glutening #2 in the last couple weeks.  I was just starting to feel back to normal too.

No idea what happened.   I might have inhaled some dust when I fed the dog.  Might have gotten it from Hubby via a goodnight peck.  Maybe something got cross-contaminated somehow.   Hubby has been so busy at work that he’s eating lunch out.   Maybe he had something on his hands.  If I could figure out WHERE it came from, I could throw it away or avoid it.

Blah.

I hate mystery glutenings because I have no frickin’ frackin’ idea what happened.   Again.

Interesting to note though that because I’ve been taking St. John’s Wort, what is usually  brain-buzzing insomnia with terrifying nightmares once I finally get to sleep, ends up being brain-buzzing insomnia with weird dreams once I finally get to sleep.   Definitely an improvement.

Good to know.

So anyway…  if there are any scientists out there reading this – Here’s what I want:

I want you to start genetically engineering all gluten-containing grains so that gluten will fluoresce under blacklight.  Okay….  Go!

I’ll expect weekly status reports.

I’m just starting to feel back to normal.   I get really ADD-ish and distractable, as well as really super tired and brain-foggy.   So anything that requires stringing two thoughts together has been uh, hmm…  (is that two thoughts already?) trying to think of a word.  Not difficult…  Impossible!  Yes.  Stringing two thoughts together has been impossible.  And that’s my final answer.

So we’re hosting Fourth of July for the first time ever.  Which is oh-so-not-good when your thoughts flit away at the turn of any shiny object.  I’m just thankful I planned out the menu a few weeks ago and didn’t wait until the last minute.

Grocery shopping this morning was something to see.  I forgot my list (of course) so I was criss-crossing the grocery store like I had never shopped before.   Then I had to stand over in a corner and go through my cart making sure I got everything.   Because I’m not going to the grocery store on the 3rd of July.  I’m not.  You can’t make me.   If I’m missing something, we’re just not going to have it.

Later today I went to the craft store to get all the decoratey stuff for the two cakes I’m making (two birthday parties as well as the 4th of July).   Repeated the same shopping technique from the grocery store.   Got some decorations for the house on one side of the store.  Back to the other side for cake stuff.  Wandered around the kids section.  Decided against decorations for the house.  Put those back.  Looked at colored pencils.  Got those.  Got inspired on a theme for the second cake so back to the cake area.  Decided to get a different house decoration.  Put the colored pencils back.  Put decoration back.  Got some more cake decorating stuff because I couldn’t remember what cake decorating tips I had.  Because again, I’m not going shopping on the 3rd of July.

So I finally went to check out.  The guy at the checkout said, “I’ve been watching you criss-cross the store for an hour.  I was about ready to send someone in after you.”

LOL!

If he only knew…

There are so many great free recipes there, as well as pay-for recipes (only 79 cents each).  I get recipes there because my kids and I can’t eat gluten.   But everytime I go there, it makes me think of people with other food intolerances who may be able to replicate food that they normally can’t have.

If you’ve got soy or corn intolerances you should definitely browse through the free recipes on that site.   Those can be so hard to deal with because of all the soy and corn used in just about everything.

I had to avoid soy for about a month once and I was shocked at how much I couldn’t eat.  That was way more inconvenient and frustrating than avoiding gluten has ever been.   Soy is apparently the go-to oil in food manufacturing.  It’s everywhere.

Then there’s corn.  Specifically high fructose corn syrup.  It’s what they use to sweeten just about everything.  Every time I see a Top Secret Recipe that lists corn syrup as an ingredient, especially in drinks, it makes me think of how easy it would probably be to substitute simple syrup and use that instead.

Simple syrup is made by boiling water, disolving in sugar and boiling it to the soft-ball stage.   I’ve seen varied recipes from 1 part sugar to two parts water, to equal parts of sugar and water.   Once it cools, you can refrigerate it.

Here are some more ideas.

- Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups – If you’ve got a peanut allergy, you could make these with another type of nut butter or soynut butter, or anything else really.

- Nabisco Cheese Nips – Totally on my list as one of the next things to try.  I’ve got two preschoolers who are both gluten intolerant.  Before we found that out, they were eating just as many goldfish crackers as every other kid.   The lack of GF cheese crackers was an adjustment.   Especially at first when they were somewhere like church or preschool where other kids are eating them as the class snack.

- Girl Scout Cookies – The Thin Mints recipe is free (!!), the shortbread you have to pay for.   It might take some experimenting with some of the ingredients, but I’d bet you’d be able to create your own GF girl scout cookie clones.

- Twinkie Filling (new and improved) – The cake recipe isn’t on there, but the filling is.

- Jack in the Box Oreo Cookie Shake – K-Too’s by www.kinnikinnick.com are pre-made GF oreo-type cookies.   I’m not as familiar with dairy intolerance, but you could probably make a great shake out of Rice Dream ice cream.

- Miracle Whip – Just in case you ever wondered what exactly Miracle Whip is.

- Oreo Cookies – Worth the look just for the cream filling alone.   There’s a little bit of granulated sugar to give the very slightly gritty finish to the cream filling.

- Olive Garden’s Pasta e Fagioli – All you’d need to do is sub some GF pasta, such as Tinkyada, and you’re there.

For more Works for Me Wednesday ideas – Go to Rocks in My Dryer – http://rocksinmydryer.typepad.com/shannon/2007/06/works-for-me-ba.html

(Note to self – figure out how to do links better.)