Delicious Gluten Free Cookies

April 5, 2016 by cryan.com

Just because you have to eat gluten free does not mean that you have to eat blah cookies or be a master chief at mixing flour-like ingredients. Thanks to the 'Gluten Free Chocolate Chip Cookie Mix' by Betty Crocker, you can make delicious yummy cookies at home.

We have tried other gluten free cookies and some of them come out good. What makes Betty Crocker better is that its Betty Crocker. It tastes the same as any other batch of cookies that we use to make from Betty Crocker. Nobody will ever know that they are gluten free. In fact, I would recommend getting two boxes because these cookies will disappear very quickly.

You can find a box of the "Gluten Free Chocolate Chip Cookie Mix" at most major supermarkets; Stop and Shop, Market Baskets, Shaws, and Wegmans. It's usually stocked in the regular baking aisle. Some stores will put them on the top shelf.

It easy to make the cookie dough, simply add a stick of soft butter, an egg and a teaspoon of vanilla to the cookie dough. The only tricky thing with the Betty Crocker baking mix is remembering the vanilla extract. Many other cookie mixes that we used didn't require that.

We add a couple of things to make the cookies really special. Some tips:

• We use unsalted Stop and Shop brand butter. I soften the butter stick by putting it in the microwave for about 45 seconds.
• To mix the dough, it's much easier to just roll up your sleeve and use you both hand to mix it up. I find that it goes much faster and mixes better than using any stirring device.
• To add some addition flavor we wrap some of the cookies around Hershey's kisses. Basically, you take a Hershey Kiss and make it the center of a dough ball. The chocolate melts very nice in the oven.
• There's nothing special about cooking it in the oven, it takes about 13 minutes to cook. Parchment paper works best and what most bakeries use when they make cookies. We have had delicious cookies using Pam sprayed on a regular cookie sheet.
• Clean up is easy and quick.

A box of Betty Crocker makes about 18 medium size cookies. They are best when eaten minutes after taking them out of the oven.

Traveling with a Celiac

March 29, 2016 by cryan.com

This past weekend we visited our relatives in Connecticut for an Easter Celebration. On the way, we stopped at Stop and Shop to get some coffee and snacks for the trip. For us, stopping at a supermarket was a necessity because you can't get a gluten-free snack at a regular Dunkin Donuts.

That brings up today Gluten free topic: Always be prepared when traveling.

Having Celiac doesn't always limit your food choices, but it can limit on where you can eat. There are lots of celiac safe substitutes for many common foods. However, they aren't available everywhere. You need to plan safe snacks in advance.

Whether it's taking an early morning flight or spending a couple of hours in the car, you need to think about food options that will be available. Will you need to bring food and will there be any gluten free options where you are going.

Easter Weekend

We have found that it's best to play it safe and have a box of gluten-free Mac & cheese (Annies is great!). Just in case that there wasn't any good gluten free options. Lucky for us, they had gluten free Mac and Cheese and a lot of other naturally gluten free options.

Everyone was happy and had a great time. They even had some gluten free cupcakes made, but my daughter was too full to eat anymore.

In addition, the Wow Baking Company' Gluten-free Chocolate Chip cookies and fruit snacks were the perfect tag along for the trip. They help fix those instant hunger cravings during any long road trip.

Boston Logan Airport Food Planning

It can be tricky when catching a 6am flight out of Logan International Airport. We have to arrive super early, which usually means no breakfast at home.

Many of the restaurants don't open super early at Logan Airport. The few restaurants that are open don't have any gluten-free options. Good luck trying to find something to eat at Dunkin Donuts that doesn't contain gluten.

For this, we have found that the fruit snacks and a couple of gluten free breakfast bars do the trick.

Jet Blue has a gluten free snack option on board, so we can use that if she is hungry mid-flight. All of their chips that they have are also gluten free.

Final thoughts

It helps to plan ahead and always be thinking of creative ways to feed the hungry needs. Simply stopping at McDonald's, Burger King or Dunkin Donuts is not an option. It doesn't hurt to pack a snack, as it could save lots of time in the event that the trip takes longer than planned.

Corned Beef and Cabbage

March 22, 2016 by cryan.com

The good thing about the traditional American-Irish dinner (Corned Beef and Cabbage) is that it's gluten free. Yes, then corned beef and cabbage meal is gluten free - for the most part.

Last week we made our traditional Irish dinner in the crock pot. Basically, throw everything in putting a few cups of water set it on low and 12 hours later you have a wonderful meal. The meat is perfect, a simple cut of the meat and then it breaks apart with a fork.

The Food Network has a good version of the recipe. We just set up ours once and didn't touch it all day. This is perfect to make when your not at home, because after a few hours you can start smelling the meat - and it smells really good.

One thing that we always struggle with at the store is which cut to get. Typically you have two choices - Brisket or Uncured Flat Cut Brisket. We got the Brisket and it was really good. The only downside is that you do get a lot of fat on the regular brisket.

Some versions of the Irish Dinner may not be Celiac friendly because some restaurants may pour some Guinness in the pot to add flavor to the meat. We use to do this and found it was a good way to flavor up the meat.

Gluten Free Pizza

March 15, 2016 by cryan.com

I like to consider myself somewhat of a gluten free frozen pizza expert at this point. Kind of a silly title. But it's true, over the past year we have tasted almost every type of frozen pizza made for the East Coast market. We have found a clear winner - Freschetta Gluten Free Four Cheese Pizza.

The Four Cheese Pizza is great because you can put any topping that you want on it. You pizza is your canvas in tonight's dinner.

How we make it better

We cook our pizza using a pizza oven pan at 450 degrees. The pan makes the pizza have a bit more of a crispy taste than if we were to use a standard cookie sheet.

We usually make 2 Freschetta pizza's on Friday nights, and end up with some leftover to snack on over the weekend. So it's very handy to have two pizza oven Pans available - you can find them at most Super Stop and Shop and Wegman stores.

How Freschetta Makes it Better

Freschetta now makes a single size portion Four Cheese Pizza and Pepperoni pizza! Whoa, this is huge! Now we can make a single serving size pizza for my five-year-old daughter, So now in between Macaroni and Cheese cravings she can have her favorite Four Cheese Pizza.

Charlie Cupcakes in Natick

March 8, 2016 by cryan.com

The Natick mall is a great place to go if your eating Gluten free. You have the option of getting a gluten free pizza at California Pizza Kitchen, pasta at the Cheesecake Factory or Gourmet Chinese food at P.F. Chan's. There's are a lot of choices for those that need to eat gluten-free.

Your not out of luck if your wondering around the mall looking for a gluten free snack. You should stop at Charlie Cupcakes. Located in the middle of the Natick Mall, where Crumbs bakery was, is one of New England's best cupcake company - Charlie Cupcakes.

On the top of their cupcake case is a small display of gluten free Cup Cakes. They are in a small dish, with a pudding stirred in with a cupcake. They actually looked better than the regular cupcakes. They currently cost $2.50 each, which seems reasonable to premium cupcake prices.

When you check out you'll also see some gluten free chocolate chip cookies. These are nice and big! There's two cookies per bag and certainly will help overcome any snack attack while shopping at the mall. The cookie bag cost $5 and look too good to pass up.

The cupcake was very good, and we'll certainly go back for more. The lady behind the counter told me that they get a fresh batch every Friday. I was disappointed that they didn't have any chocolate cupcakes, but perhaps those go really quick.

So now we know a great local place to get some gluten free dessert.

Tennessee Real Bar-B-Q

March 1, 2016 by cryan.com

The past weekend I stopped at the Tennessee Real Bar-B-Q restaurant in Framingham. The restaurant is located in the Route 30 Mall on 341 Cochituate Road. As soon as you walk in you know you're not in Framingham anymore, the decor is very south and all you can smell is the fine Bar-B-Q.

I ordered the BBQ Memphis Ribs with three sides - French Fries, BBQ Baked Beans and Cucumber salad. I didn't have to wait too long for my order, I got my drink, found a seat and checked in using Swarm. A minute or so later they called my number and I was ready to enjoy my meal.

The food was scrumptious. I enjoyed the ribs and sides and pretty much ate everything on my plate. I don't eat ribs all the time, but these were juicy and tasty. The sides were 'ok' nothing too extraordinary. The ribs certainly seem to get a lot cooking attention.

While I didn't intentionally eat gluten free on this trip, for the most part, my meal was gluten free. The only thing that I needed to confirm was if the french fries were subject to any cross contamination. Even if they were, there were certainly plenty of other gluten free options to try.

The restaurant wasn't busy for a Saturday night. During my stay, I saw several take out orders being placed. On the way out, I noticed that other restaurants nearby were busy, such as Boston Market and Five Guys, so I was a bit sad to see Tennessee Bar-B-Q not all that busy. Hopefully, it was because people didn't have BBQ on their mind on a cold winter night.

There's nothing like a good Bar-B-Q meal to start thinking of summer.

Emoji (Now Gluten Free)

February 23, 2016 by cryan.com

Did you know that someone proposed a new Emoji graphic for Gluten Free?

What's an Emoji you might ask? Well, it's those little graphics that you see in text messages and on Twitter. The most popular one is the smiley face, Slack has a display of frequently used Emoji:

The Unicode Consortium - the people that decide on what the emoji standards should be, is considering a request by Hiroyuki Komatsu for various food allergies. They proposal is for version 9.0 of the Unicode standards.

Hiroyuki Komatsu is a Google engineer and he put in the request with a hope that that people would use the Emoji allergies as shorthand expression. In his request, he points out that there are no viable alternatives to illustrate various known allergies.

If the community approves the recommendations this could be the next Emoji you will be seeing for Gluten Free:

Note: If the committee accepts the proposal, it could be some time before you see them adopted everyplace. Apple tends to implement new Emoji quickly into the iOS library.

If you would like to voice your opinion about these, the Unicode Consortium would like to hear from you. In addition, if your crazy into Emoji and have some cool ideas to add in the next version, submit your own proposal.

Chateau Resturant

February 16, 2016 by cryan.com

Yesterday we had a very good gluten-free lunch at the Chateau in Westboro. The Chateau is located 95 Turnpike Road (Route 9)in Westboro, MA. If you have any questions, feel free to call 508.366.5959 and they will be happy to assist you.

Owned and operated by the Nocera Family, the Westboro Chateau opened in 2007 and has been providing the tradition of Italian family dining, friendly service and quality food at reasonable prices for its customers.

The Chateau has a very good gluten free menu with a lot of options for lunch and dinner. Many of their popular dinner entrees are available in lunch size portions.

Once seated, the waitress came by noticed that we had a gluten-free menu and offered to bring gluten free bread to our table. This was a nice request that we rarely get at restaurants, as most places don't have any "freemium" appetizer options.

After we placed our order, a manager came by our table to inquire about our gluten free order. For this particular sitting, we told him that it was a preference and not an allergy.

The meal was great and we certainly will be visiting back again. The service was quick and we were able to leave within an hour after walking in.

We stopped by for lunch on President Day, a holiday for some local companies, and the restaurant was fairly quiet. I don't know if our experience is typical lunch hour, but it certainly worth going back again.

Princess Juliana Blog

February 9, 2016 by cryan.com

Check out princessjulianasmom.wordpress.com a great site that just launched with some creative ideas about going Gluten-free. While the site has been idol for a while, I got word that there I going to be adding content on a regular bases.

I really like the "Allergy Friendly Valentine" idea, it's perfect for classrooms. Here're some things already posted:

• Allergy Friendly Valentines
• Gluten Free Hot Cereal
• American Girl Bunny Brunch

About the Princess Juliana's Mom Blog

I find myself often thinking of things I would write in a blog so I decided it was time to start one. Finally, get some of this stuff out of my head and into the world. Could be products I like, recipes, mom stuff, situations that happen - oh the possibilities are endless. I just hope that someone, somewhere finds something on here useful or helpful. Happy reading!

Gluten Free Chocolate in Boston

February 2, 2016 by cryan.com

If your looking for some good Gluten-free free chocolate ideas for your Valentine, you don't have to look far in Boston's Bay Bay. There are a couple of unique places to shop from.

teuscher chocolatier

tesuscher chocolatier is the place to go to get authentic Swiss Chocolate. All the chocolate is made in Switzerland and flown over so that Bostonians can enjoy some really good treat.

I stopped by last week and saw all types of creative flower gift boxes ready to be filled with whatever chocolate your valentine desires. Simply pick the chocolate you want, and they will create a basket for you.

They have a large selection of Gluten-free chocolate and the person working the store told me that they would let me know how it was made if there was any concern.

This is certainly the place to go if your looking for something way beyond the "traditional" box of chocolate that you would get at CVS or Walgreens.

This store is located on 230 Newbury St. About a 2 block walk from the Apple store on Boylston street.

LA Burdick

LA Burdock is one of my favorite chocolate shops. They have the best hot chocolate in Boston. It taste very rich and creamy, almost like you are drinking pure chocolate. This is a far cry from Swiss Miss Chocolate and if that's the only hot chocolate you ever had, you need to come to LA Burdock.

You can take a break from shopping and enjoy your hot chocolate in their little cafe. On my last visit, I didn't see and Gluten-free snacks in the cafe. You can always get a chocolate bar and snack on that for a true chocolatey experience. Personally, I like to get some hot chocolate and take a walk around Copley Square.

There's lots of gift box options here, simply let the people know that your looking for Gluten-free chocolate boxes and they will point you to the right ones. You can also make your own box. Try something different and add some chocolate penguins to your box.

The store is located on Clarendon Street, between Boylston and Newbury. There is no parking around, the best way to get here is to take the Green line to Copley and walk down a block and a half.

Max Brenner Chocolate?

Just across from Ring Road on Boylston Street is Max Brenner Chocolate, tasty chocolate place and a desert restaurant. Did you think that the Cheesecake Factory was the only desert restaurant in town?

Sad news is that it isn't Celiac friendly as per their website:

What allergens do your chocolates contain?

Our chocolates are produced in a manufacturing facility that also produces items containing peanuts, tree nuts, soy, milk, sesame, eggs, wheat and/or gluten. We recommend that individuals with sensitivities to any of these allergens do not consume our products.