“Buh-bye” February!

Monica says:

As I begin writing this post, we are in the midst of yet another snow storm to be followed by ice…March is certainly carrying the bad weather forward!

I had a very busy end to February and luckily, it included some sun and a lot of fun!

Yes, my sister and I went to “The Sunshine State” of Florida to visit some wonderful friends and get some much needed rest and relaxation.

And even though Florida was experiencing some very cold weather, the last few days of our trip were in the 70s while our northern families and friends were in a deep freeze. So let’s just say we felt very blessed!

While visiting the Seminole/St. Petersburg area, I was able to find some gluten-free goodies! Here are a few of my finds!

Double Tree @ North Redington Beach had a gluten-free menu!

Turkey Reuben with roasted turkey breast, Swiss cheese, Thousand Island dressing and sauerkraut on toasted GF caraway seed bread! Accompanied with Strawberry Lemonade with beach umbrella….mandatory!

Horiatiki Salad @ Hellas in Tarpon Springs….garden fresh tomato wedges, cucumbers, onions, green peppers, Greek olives, and feta cheese. I had mine with oil and vinegar to be safe.

The “best Gyro in town” without the pita @ Hellas! A blend of lamb and beef, broiled….melted in my mouth with tzatziki sauce! Delightful!

We had to go to Florida to find a Pizza Hut that carried gluten-free pizza….was a treat but didn’t have the taste I remember! I guess I was really missing that gluten-filled crust….oh well!

A visit to the Mazzaro’s Italian Market in St. Pete was the best place yet! We could have wandered in this place all day! Everyone was hustling and bustling about….great fun!

Of course, I had to have dark chocolate gelato and look at these Italian salamis and pepperonis!

February ended on a very high note when Lewie and I attended the wedding of our dear friends’ son, Ian who married his high school sweetheart, Sarah. Lewie and I (also high school sweethearts) celebrated our own wedding anniversary just a week prior and were so happy to be invited to this celebration! And the weather cooperated!

Ian’s mom, Dori, and I first met when I was hired as an elementary librarian at a school district in the Poconos where her children attended school. She was hired as my library assistant and our friendship was cemented right off the bat! We had so much in common and have been close ever since….19 years and counting!

Later, when I transferred to the high school, I was again connected with Dori’s children….just loved having them!

Luckily our husbands are good friends too….Mike and Lewie have a lot in common as well….both LOVE food and are great cooks! Lucky us….although we aren’t too bad in the kitchen, either!

Anyway, Ian and Sarah chose what proved to be the absolute best place to have their wedding reception….The Brownstone in Paterson, New Jersey. It was stunning in every way!

The food was phenomenal….by far, the best wedding reception food we’ve ever eaten! It truly did not taste like mass-produced food at all….it was fine dining!

And even if I couldn’t eat some of it…I admired the smells and beautiful presentation of the appetizers, the drinks, the salads, the entrées, etc.

To say that we were “stuffed” is an understatement! You just couldn’t help yourself….so much to eat and so little time!

Thank goodness for the wonderful DJ and dancing!

The evening began with appetizers too numerous to recount but here are a few of my gluten-free favorites!

Our dinner was a Mediterranean dream….the wait staff asked you to choose your salad, pasta, and entrée. I did not choose pasta for obvious reasons, but here are my other choices.

And c’mon…..how about this dessert table?

Italian zeppole (doughnuts), wedding cake that tasted like strawberry shortcake (or so I was told by Lewie), Italian cookies, fruit, and coffee (with your choice of liquor) that was so pretty, you just didn’t want to drink it…but I was told it was incredible! Even though I could only choose fruit, it was delicious and satisfying!

Let’s face it…there’s nothing like an Italian wedding! If you’ve never been to one….I hope you get invited to one of these amazing celebrations!

Just love this picture of Mike, Sarah, Ian, and Dori!

Much happiness for Ian and Sarah!

Thank you for letting us share this glorious day with you!

7Feb2015

February Foods We LOVE! Ice Cream!

Posted in Breakfast, Celebrations by glutenfreedoubletalk

Monica and Daria say:

Ice cream is a food that we can eat anytime, any season, right?

Well today is “Eat Ice Cream for Breakfast Day” so who’s ready to celebrate?

WE ARE!

Oh so many flavors, so little time to eat them all….we decided on a pistachio almond that is so smooth but has the great crunch that we are craving!

And of course, since it’s breakfast, we decided to combine the ice cream with gluten-free waffles to ramp it up a bit! We used Pamela’s Baking Mix!

So delightful!

When Daria was little, she and her sister along with all of the neighborhood kids and parents, used to descend upon our house on the 4^th of July. Why? Because we lived near a hill which overlooked our local high school football stadium and that’s where the city would have the fireworks show!

After the wonderful display, everyone would walk back down to our house and we would make waffles and ice cream for everyone! It became a tradition!

Then when we were diagnosed with celiac disease, our celebration changed. We continued to make waffles and ice cream for everyone, but for the first year or two, we only indulged in the ice cream. Once we learned how to mix the flours, we searched for waffle recipes. In those days, there were no mixes!

Bottom line, we survived it and it’s the memory of the fun times we had all those years that’s important!

We’ve since moved away from that wonderful neighborhood but still stay close to the best neighbors anyone could have!

If you want to make some great memories, fire up the waffle maker, get out the ice cream and invite your neighbors, friends, and family over!

You won’t be sorry!

Enjoy!

15Dec2014

Christmas parties….eat before you go!

Posted in Celebrations by glutenfreedoubletalk

Monica says:

My sister has had an annual “Teddy Bear Tea Party” with close friends and their children in mid-December for the past 20+ years. It’s a wonderful tradition where everyone wears a hat and brings a teddy bear to the tea.

Here is Daria on the right with several of her cousins back in 2011. My Claudia was in NYC and couldn’t attend.

My girls looked forward to it every year when they were young and it was always a great way to celebrate the Christmas season.

Well, all of our children have grown up, but some of my sisters still have their children in the area, and they in turn have children, so the tradition continues.

The party is wonderful and full of Christmas goodies and delights. A special Christmas tea highlights the day and everyone, young and old, drinks it out of beautiful bone china tea cups. The menu always includes little tea sandwiches filled with tuna and chicken salad, a special salad with pecans or walnuts, veggies and dip, and various other items brought to the celebration by the attendees.

Attending this party as the sole gluten-free person is difficult, at best.

As soon as you enter the house, the smell of pumpkin cinnamon rolls as well as the many other delights and confections, is so overwhelming, you can almost cry knowing full well that you will not be able to eat any of these food items.

Since my husband and I went to a late Mass at our church, we rushed to get to the party and I had not eaten anything before Mass. So I think I really had a hard time dealing with being gluten-free….yes, the oddball among the “regular” people.

And you would think after 12 long years of being gluten-free it gets easier….it does in many ways, but not always!

My sister did have some chicken salad set aside for me (couldn’t have tuna since I am allergic) and gluten-free crackers for which I am so grateful.

The night before I made a gluten-free sour cream coffee cake and had such a hard time removing it from the bundt pan, and when I finally did, the whole thing crumbled! Such a disaster!

What did I do? I pieced it together and brought it anyway….at least I had one calorie-ridden thing to eat when everyone else was munching on Christmas cookies, walnut roll, lemon fluff, etc. Of course, no one wanted to try the gluten-free cake…who would with all of the other goodies?

So, I suppose my best advice when attending a holiday celebration….eat before you go….just in case you are not able to indulge in much!

Enjoy the people, not the food necessarily, even though it’s hard to get past all of the wonderful aromas! All of that food will make you sick and miserable….albeit lovely to look at and sniff!

18Jul2014

Happy birthday to you…and you…and you!

Posted in Celebrations, Desserts by glutenfreedoubletalk

Monica says:

My sisters and I get together for our birthdays every year…just the girls…and we go out for dinner and then have birthday cake at one of our homes. We are fortunate to all live within five miles of each other. At one point in our lives, we lived in different states and towns. But we are getting older now, and it is a comfort to live near one another.

Since two of my sisters are born in July (and only a week apart, date-wise), we usually celebrate their birthdays together. They like it this way, again, now that they are older!

It’s funny when you think of it because when you’re little, you want your VERY OWN birthday. I know my girls were born 10 days apart (3 years apart as well) but didn’t exactly like to “share” their birthday with each other. It was especially troubling for my Claudia, who despite being the older sister, had the birthday later in the month. She couldn’t understand how Daria got to have her birthday first and would exclaim, “But, Mommy, I’m older….I should be first!” Such a sweet memory!

If I make the birthday cake for any one of my sisters, it’s gluten free because my kitchen is gluten free. They certainly don’t seem to mind and actually look forward to what I am going to come up with! I am a recipe-crazy person, so I am always trying something new.

I just so happened to find a recipe for a dark chocolate cake that looked incredible on one of the blogs I follow, so I thought I’d give it a whirl!

Thanks to gfandme for posting this delightful cake recipe….it turned out amazing!

And even though I didn’t frost this birthday cake, it was so moist and rich. I opted for homemade whipped cream and fresh strawberries!

Needless to say, it was a hit! The girls were perfectly happy with their gluten free birthday cake and so were my brothers-in-law, as the girls were sent home with some for each of them.

We LOVE to celebrate in our family and make any little event an occasion! Birthdays, on the other hand, are big occasions and should be celebrated with the ones you love!

Happy birthdays, dear sisters!

5Jul2014

Our salads were a hit!

Posted in Celebrations, Desserts, Salads by glutenfreedoubletalk

Monica says:

Just wanted to share a few pictures and links for recipes from our salad offerings yesterday at our picnic! Our main protein was my husband’s famous chicken on the grill which was simply wonderful, too!

Everyone gave rave reviews for these veggie delights and I was thrilled to be able to boost everyone’s nutritional intake for the day….rather than the traditional picnic fare!

Let’s start with a salad that I saw in Better Homes and Gardens magazine while at the hairdresser’s!

It was super easy and could even be easier if you used a bag of frozen sweet corn (obviously, thawed); you would eliminate any silk that you tried so hard to remove, but when stirring the salad, you see that some still sneaked in! Oh well….

http://www.bhg.com/recipe/corn-peach-salad/

Same source for this mouth-watering salad….Better Homes and Gardens…..this time got a link to it in my BHG email newsletter that I receive daily.

This salad was so refreshing and had a nostalgic taste for me and my sisters. Our grandmother used to make a salad that featured fresh dill, like this one. It had such a lovely taste! And topping it with a little feta just added another dimension!

http://www.bhg.com/recipe/cucumber-honeydew-salad-with-feta/

We love asparagus in our house and when I caught this recipe on the Leafy Cauldron blog, I had to see if I could replicate it! Oh my….it was so unusual and delicious! A marriage between fresh tarragon and fresh mint made this salad amazing…..

http://leafycauldron.net/2014/05/28/fresh-asparagus-salad/

Another salad that is a must-have when we get together is your basic (and did I say fabulous?) Italian Tomato salad! This one is just from scratch….from my head you might say!

I cut about a dozen fresh tomatoes “on the vine” (that’s how they are advertised in the store) into small bite-sized pieces and sprinkled salt and pepper on them. Then I peeled and cut one medium-sized onion into slivers and added it to the tomatoes. I seasoned it with ¼ cup of virgin olive oil, 1 T dried oregano, and fresh basil (about 6 leaves chopped). I marinated it for several hours at room temperature on the counter.

This tomato salad was served with fresh Italian bread to sop up the goodness! Of course, I didn’t eat the bread, as it was for “regular people” as we refer to them!

Finally, as promised, here is a picture of our gluten-free blueberry cobbler with homemade whipped cream and fresh strawberries….what a way to end the day and make your tummy so happy when viewing fireworks!

Hope everyone enjoyed their Independence Day celebrations!

4Jul2014

Happy birthday, America!

Posted in Celebrations, Desserts by glutenfreedoubletalk

Monica and Daria say:

We just love to celebrate the Fourth of July! How about you?

Red, white, and blue abounds all around the house and neighborhood….everyone is in the spirit! And we are gearing up to see some great fireworks tonight!

Since every dessert recipe seems to be red, white, and blue, we decided to share a great recipe for blueberry cobbler. Okay, so we have the blue and white….where’s the red?

We are going to top it with some homemade whipped cream and fresh strawberries. And we’re good!

This recipe was developed by a fellow Culinary Institute of America graduate of Daria’s, Elizabeth Barbone. She is the author of Easy Gluten-Free Baking (©2008) and we have tried quite a few of her recipes over the years!

We changed it slightly to suit our taste and it is a keeper!

Gluten-Free Blueberry Cobbler

Filling:

4 pints of fresh blueberries, washed, dried and all stems removed

¾ c granulated sugar

1 T cornstarch or arrow root flour

2 tsp ground cinnamon (original recipe omits this ingredient)

Biscuits:

Dry ingredients

1 c tapioca starch flour

1 c brown rice flour (original recipe uses 2/3 c white rice flour and 1/3 c cornstarch)

¼ c granulated sugar

1 T baking powder

½ tsp salt

Wet ingredients

6 T butter, cold and cut into pieces

¾ c heavy whipping cream, chilled + several T more if necessary

Preheat your oven to 425˚ (our oven baked this @ 375˚).

Butter a 9” x 13” baking dish (we used a glass Pyrex dish).

In a large bowl, mix blueberries with granulated sugar and cornstarch (or arrow root flour). Add cinnamon, and stir well. Place berries into the prepared dish. Set aside for now.

Now whisk together all of your dry ingredients for the biscuits.

Add the cold butter pieces and cut it into the dry ingredients. You can use your fingers or a pastry cutter until no big pieces remain. We prefer fingers!

Now add ¾ c heavy whipping cream. Stir it into the dry mixture with a wooden spoon until you see a dough form. You can add an additional tablespoon or two of cream to form the dough. It should eventually form a dough ball.

Pinch the dough into small balls. Place each ball on top of the berry mixture using all of the dough.

Bake for approximately 30-35 minutes or until the biscuits are golden brown and the berry mixture is boiling.

Remove the cobbler from the oven and cool it on a wire rack.

It will smell amazing….trust us! Now comes the hard part….waiting for it to cool!

It will be so yummy for our guests….let’s get this party started!

Happy Independence Day and thanks to all who keep us free….we really appreciate their sacrifices!

4Jun2014

It’s National Cheese Day!

Posted in Celebrations by glutenfreedoubletalk

Monica and Daria say:

Celebrate this great day with your favorite cheese or cheese dish! And even if you are lactose intolerant (like we are) you can still enjoy dairy!

Always check the label of any cheese for the lactose level. It’s easy!

The grocery chain Wegman’s gives this advice to consumers:

An easy way to check for lactose in cheese is to look at the Nutrition Facts under “Sugar” Since the sugar in cheese is lactose, you can easily see how much lactose the cheese contains. If the sugar is listed as zero, then the cheese contains no more than half a gram of lactose per ounce. Compare to 12 grams of lactose in an 8 ounce glass of milk.

Natural, aged cheeses are best for those with lactose intolerance. Since most of the lactose is drained off during the cheese making process, these are easy to digest. Cheddar, Parmesan, and Swiss are a few.

Can you guess the #1 cheese recipe for Americans?

Macaroni and cheese, of course!

So whatever you eat today with cheese in it, or on it, enjoy!

Photo credit http://www.thekitchenskinny.com/

15May2014

It’s National Chocolate Chip Day!

Posted in Celebrations by glutenfreedoubletalk

Monica and Daria say:

OmG!

Who doesn’t LOVE chocolate chips?

Okay, maybe a few of you, but you are definitely in the minority, sorry!

We remember when Daria was in pastry class when she was in high school, and one of her assignments was to design a powerpoint on the history of chocolate. What kept her going as she researched and wrote? Chocolate, of course!

Some of her amazing finds about chocolate chips were:

Ruth Graves Wakefield of the Toll House Inn in Whitman, Massachusetts is credited with adding chunks of a semi-sweet Nestle chocolate bar to her cookies in 1933, thus inventing chocolate chips!
In exchange for her recipe, Nestle offered her a lifetime of chocolate, and added the recipe to their packaging. What a deal!
Up until they developed the present morsel, Nestle included a “chopping tool” in each bag for cookie bakers. Then in 1939 the company started packaging the chips we know and love today!
The original chocolate chips were only semi-sweet chocolate….today there are many varieties!

We don’t know about you, but we think we are going to bake some gluten-free chocolate chip cookies!!

Promise that we will post pictures and a recipe soon…..gotta go bake!

Have a great chocolate chip day!

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Gluten-free double talk

A mom and daughter discuss celiac disease

Category Archives: Celebrations

“Buh-bye” February!

February Foods We LOVE! Ice Cream!

Christmas parties….eat before you go!

Happy birthday to you…and you…and you!

Our salads were a hit!

Happy birthday, America!

It’s National Cheese Day!

It’s National Chocolate Chip Day!