May
20
2013
A Wide Assortment of Running Supplies, All Gluten Free!
My wife and I, like many in Raleigh, like to workout, exercise, or call it what you will. Our activity of choice is running. We both run races, including marathons. Our girls like to tag along on some runs with us, with our oldest even recently completing a 5k. If they choose to run races, they will need sustenance at some point. What options are available to Celiacs in the realm of running gels, beans, bars, and the like?
Many, if would seem. For the next couple of posts, I would like to share some things I found while subscribing to StrideBox. Who doesn’t like to receive packages in the mail, right? Well the girls and I wanted to do something special for my wife for Mother’s Day, so we purchased her a subscription to StrideBox (http://stridebox.com/). Stridebox will send monthly collections of a variety of running/athletic samples. The fun thing? You never know what you will receive. In the picture, you see the HUGE variety of things from our May box. Most, if not all–gluten free!! Stay tuned this week to see reviews on them.
May
18
2013
A Quick and Easy GF Snack
I can definitely remember going through can after can of potato sticks growing up as a kid. Recently, we found Pik-Nik brand potato sticks at Harris Teeter, and sure enough, they now carry a gluten free label. Looks like these ones are slightly better than the ones I ate growing up, I remember very greasy fingers after finishing a can. And while you would definitely not want to serve these regularly, a once in a while gf snack is definitely something to keep on hand at a summer picnic or when travelling. And bring the hand sanitizer handy–they still leave your fingers greasy!
May
16
2013
Yeah, who doesn’t like chocolate or any kind of cupcakes! The girls and I decided to be in charge of dinner and dessert for Mother’s Day. We grilled, but needed something for dessert, so we headed to Whole Foods. We found these seemingly yummy cupcakes in chocolate, vanilla, and these–vanilla frosting with chocolate chips. Let me just say they may be the best gluten free cupcakes we’ve tasted yet. Very moist, very fresh tasting, and not gritty. Underneath the mountain of frosting there was a fudge layer, then the chocolate cake. Wow! Definitely a must try from Whole Foods!
American Gra-frutti is a gluten free bakery out of Georgia (http://www.agrafrutti.com/new/). They produce a variety of cupcakes, made-to-order sheet cakes, and other gluten free baked goods in their gf bakehouse. Another good company out there providing us options!
May
14
2013
Ahh…camp…
My daughter and I recently spent the weekend at Camp Seafarer in Arapahoe, NC for our Y Princess Spring Outing. Y Princesses is a YMCA sponsored organization (http://yguides.ymcatriangle.org/) that seeks to build good relationships between dads and daughters and dads and sons. We participate in a number of activities and meetings with our tribe throughout the year and culminate with a weekend at camp.
With a food allergy/issue, camping can obviously cause some anxiety for both your Celiac and yourself. Have no fear though–as we are starting to see with Camp Kanata, the Y definitely takes food allergies/issues seriously. On our weekend menu (http://yguides.ymcatriangle.org/sites/default/files/2013%20YGP%20Menu.pdf), they marked all the various allergens for all campers. On Friday, as we arrived, they served an ice cream social. Except for the Oreo topping, my daughter could eat all the toppings, and settled on some chocolate syrup. Full disclosure, though, for all these, we never looked at labels for the items, except where I mention. Saturday morning, we brought a bag of Honey Nut Chex, got milk, some eggs, and lots of fruit. For lunch we brought a Hebrew National hotdog and an Udi’s hot dog bun. Comparable to the fried chicken filet on a bun they served. Dinner that night we went with Perdue GF chicken nuggets, a gf roll, and a chocolate cupcake while the other campers dined on steak tips, rotini, and a yellow cake with chocolate icing. MANY of the other girls looked envious as they ate their steak tips (aka steak stew!) and my daughter ate her hot dog. We ran a 5k the next morning, then stopped for Dannon gluten free yogurt. We buy Yoplait at home, since Dannon had always been glutened, but on the cups we picked up, they clearly showed gf. A little more fruit and cereal finished us off.
So really nothing was that difficult. We could match up the meals ahead of time and even participate in some of them. For snacks, like all the rest, we brought our own chips, fruit snacks, etc. All in all, not too difficult of a camping trip. We look forward to next year for round two, plus my youngest will also start Y Princesses. Two spring outing weekend! Phew!
May
12
2013
Pie, Lots and Lots of Gluten Free Pie. Or at Least Crusts.
Back from a little hiatus, and stock full of a variety of gluten free products and news. The first bit of news we would like to share involves our second Whole Foods Bakehouse tour coming up on August 15th at the Whole Foods factory in Morrisville. If you missed the first opportunity to tour this great facility (read the review here: Part I | Part II | Part III | Part IV | Part V | Summary), John Paul Register from Whole Foods will invite the Raleigh Adult Celiac Group and the Raleigh CelKids group on another in depth tour of their facility. Not too much interested in a tour? Then at least come out for all the delicious samples we will certainly try! Please read the email from Raleigh Support Sponsor Pat below for details. As you will see, teens may participate, but this tour is not open to younger children, as we will tour a live factory. If interested, PLEASE SIGN UP here. You can definitely change your mind, but we just need to provide a rough estimate of participants to Whole Foods.
All…A Whole Foods GF Bakehouse tour/tasting has been scheduled for us on August 15th, 7:00PM – 9:00PM. We hope many of you will be able to attend.For those who have not been on a GF Bakehouse tour, this offers amazing insight to the care and concern taken each and every day to insure Whole Foods’ gluten-free products are – and always will be – 100% gluten-free. And, the “tasting” part is absolutely yummy! Team Leader, John Paul, has assured me many new g-f products will be available for tasting.Teens are welcome. Additionally, please feel free to include other adult family members or friends who need to be gluten-free.I know August 15th is nearly 3 1/2 months away, however, the Bakehouse would appreciate a tentative count. Please let me know by the end of May, if you know and/or think you might be able to attend. This is not “cast in concrete.” We can add and/or delete as needed until 8/15.Look forward to hearing from you…Pat
Apr
30
2013
We love quick snacks that also function as great travel companions. You definitely get that with Orville Redenbacher’s new PopCrunch snacks. We picked up both the brown sugar cinnamon and the white and sharp cheddar mix flavors. We love them, our girls love them, and the bags clearly sport a ‘Gluten Free’ tag. We found these at Wal*Mart, but since we have seen them many other places as well.
Apr
24
2013
A New, Yummy Granola Bar!
Mmmm…another good Udi’s product, this time granola bars. That’s right, more gluten free granola bars. We found these recently at Whole Foods in North Raleigh, and since we like other Udi’s products so much, we picked up two boxes. The girls really like the chocolate chip variety. While very ‘wet’ and ‘dense’ these definitely are soft and chewy. A decent taste, although I would like to see them lose a little of the wetness. Not so much for taste, but perception. But definitely glad to see Udi’s come out with these and definitely glad our girls like them!
Tags: breakfast, celkids, cereal, cookies, dough, raleigh, snacks, travel, whole foods | 
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22
2013
Almond Breeze
Finishing our little mini-series on milk alternatives, we come to Blue Diamond’s Almond Breeze almond milk. We all know Blue Diamond for their yummy assortment of nuts (smokehouse almonds…mmmmmmm…), but they also produce a dairy and gluten free almond milk. We know some Celiacs also suffer from lactose issues, so soy and almond milk may be the option for you. Some even suffer soy allergies, so Almond Breeze comes lactose, gluten, and soy free. Great to have more options for all these things that ail us.
Apr
19
2013
Silk And Gluten Free
Definitely on a milk/cold beverage kick lately. I assume Silk’s soymilk always came gluten free, but I noticed on our most recent carton they clearly label it gluten free now. My wife and girls use it regularly on cereal and to drink. We drink regular milk as well, but they like soymilk sometimes as well. Now we can do it with no fear at all.
Apr
16
2013
Nothing Better Than Surprise Cupcakes!
My wife recently met her two cousins at the RDU Observation Park. For those of you unfamiliar with that, they offer a high observation deck to watch the airplanes take off and land, plus a mini playground for the kids. The big news, however, from this trip is the surprise cupcakes my wife brought home. Both of her cousins are also diagnosed Celiacs. None of their children are yet, but they are younger than our girls. One of the cousins made these cupcakes from a Betty Crocker mix, but these were MUCH moister than the usual cake mix.
Why?
She followed a recipe from A Gluten Free Guide that called for instant vanilla pudding. Yum! Not only did it make them moister, but it provided a unique taste. We really like the Betty Crocker gf mixes, and will continue to use them, but we like to find options like this. Click the link for the recipe and some other info from a good blog!