Gluten free adventures

During my senior year of college I began having horrible stomach aches after nearly every meal. It was really awful and annoying to not know what was causing the problem. Around this time I began to hear a lot about people having sensitivity to gluten in food and I wondered if this was maybe my problem. So I headed to the internist to be scoped, praying I wouldn't have to give up bread and beer along with a ton of other foods that have gluten in them. I'm blessed to say that I wasn't diagnosed with celiac disease, in fact I'm allergic to poultry, but that's a story for another day!

Even though Gluten did not turn out to be a problem for me, it is a big problem for a lot of people. Their intestines simply cannot process the gluten and it can make them very sick. In fact, even people who don't have celiac can have gluten sensitivity that they are unaware of. Some recent studies say that about 1 in 200 people have celiac and around 1 in 7 people have some sort of gluten sensitivity. Needless to say, all of us could probably to do eat gluten free every once in a while to give our systems a break. You might even notice how much better you feel when eating gluten free even if you didn't know you had a problem with it!

All this brings me to my fabulous new cookbook from Babycakes bakery in NYC!

Awww, look how happy it is to be joining some of its cookbook buddies on my shelf of favorites! My dear friend Carissa gave me this cookbook as a 1 year anniversary present on New Years Eve (thanks Carissa!!) and I've been baking like mad out of it ever since. All of the recipes are vegan, and most all of them are gluten free.

I have heard so much about the Babycakes bakery and I'm dying to go. And this is coming from a girl that could usually take it or leave it when it comes to desserts! The Owner, Erin Mckenna, found out that she had food allergies and set about baking up some delicious but healthy sweets. The bakery has been such a huge hit in NYC that she opened up another location in LA and get this..a new location in Disney World!! It think its great that Disney would want to bring a gluten free vegan bakery to their theme park. Places like babycakes are helping to mainstream healthier food and I'm sure kids and adults alike will be packing in there! How awesome is it for kids that have gluten or dairy allergies to be able to get a cookie or cupcake in Disney world! Yay! The pic below is of their store front in NYC, its adorable.

So far I have made the banana bread with chocolate chips, the pumpkin muffins, the cornbread, the double chocolate chip cookies and the chocolate chip cookies and they have all been soso good. I had never done any gluten free baking before so I was worried about how it would turn out but I should have known Erin McKenna wouldn't lead me astray. Even Mark loved everything I have made, especially the chocolate chip cookies.

We skipped dessert at the restaurant after our date on Friday night and came home to make these. In the cookbook Erin says that you can make sandwich cookies out of them by putting icing in the center of them. Well, I see your move Erin and I'll raise you one...we put ice cream in between and made ice cream sandwiches! I did plain vanilla in mine and Mark did cookie dough ice cream. Chocolate chip cookie dough inside of a chocolate chip cookie!?? Yep, it pretty much blew his mind too.

I can't wait to try out pretty much everything in this cookbook. None of the gluten free ingredients were very hard to find like I though they might be. A lot of the recipes call for Bob's Red Mill gluten free baking mix. It makes everything super easy instead of measuring out small amounts of several different types of flour you just use two cups of the stuff and I found it at Super Target! The next things to make on my list are the cinnamon apple bread and probably the red velvet cupcakes for Mark because he loves those. Seriously the only downside to this cookbook is my thinking that because the baked goods are good for me that the portion sizes should be gigantic. Half a loaf of banana bread in a day anyone? Just me? I dare someone to limit him/herself to one slice or cookie!

Childhood Nutrition

Anyone who knows me well can tell you that good nutrition, especially for children, is something I really care about. I strongly believe that the smartest, most active and well developed children are those filled with healthy and delicious foods. That being said, does anybody else hate the chef boyardee commercials as much as I do? I mean its processed meat in a can. Let's be frank, there is nothing good for you about this food. Yet the commercials focus in on the fact that there is "a full serving of vegetables" in the can and that the Mother's don't want their children to find this out, because if (heaven forbid) the kid knew there was vegetables in there he wouldn't eat it. Is it just me or is there so much wrong with this message?!

First of all, we should be encouraging children to eat and explore all fruits and vegetables from an early age so that they can find which ones they like and develop a palate for more than mac and cheese. Just to brag on my own Mom a little bit, I used to bring asparagus to preschool in a baggie as part of my lunch. My brother as a child loved mushrooms. We were exposed to all kinds of things that people wouldn't think of as kid food and because of this I am so blessed because it lead me down the road to my passion for cooking and healthy eating. So these commercials obviously make me mad because why should we have to hid the fact that something has vegetables in it so a child should like it? We should trying to equate vegetables with yummyness, not trying to make kids think that everything yummy is void of nutrition.

Second, just because a processed can of animal product and enriched flour has a full serving of vegetables in no way does it make the product healthy or "secretly nutritious" as chef boyardee says. A full serving of fruit in this case means 1/2 of tomato sauce, yep 1/2 cup, real nutritious right? Along with that 1/2 of tomato sauce you also get 9 g of fat, 3.5 g saturated fat, 860 mg sodium and 8 g sugar for 1 serving of big beefaroni, and really who only eats half the can? 


Don't get me wrong, I understand that parents are busy and don't always have the time to whip up some big gourmet meal and its attractive to just open up a can and heat it in the microwave. Really though, it only takes 8 minutes to boil a pot of whole wheat penne pasta and simmer some organic store bought marinara sauce to pour over it. Toss in some frozen broccoli or spinach with the sauce and you have a much healthier meal in 10 minutes that I'm sure most kids would happily eat. There are so many quick and easy meals that would only take about an extra 5 minutes and really, when it comes to feeding a child better brain food isn't it worth it? 


Sorry about the major soapbox, but that commercial just came on again and I felt the need to vent! Chef Boyardee is in no way the only company guilty of doing this, trying to convince consumers their product is healthy, lots of other companies like general mills and the dairy association are major repeat offenders too. 


Hope everyone is having a great week and I'll post soon with some recipe reviews from a great new cookbook I got, the Babycakes bakery cookbook!! I promise a more picture filled fun post :) 

Another year. another blogging attempt

2011. Wow can't believe its here already. 2010 was truly a wonderful year in my life. 1st year of marriage, bought our first home, started my final year of law school and best of all had some truly fabulous travel adventures. I hope that 2011 can live up it its predecessor!! My goals for this year are not unreasonable wishes (get in the best shape ever! keep the house sparkling clean!) Instead 2011 is going to be all about chasing my passions and blogging about them. I have been inspired and entertained by other's blogs for the last 4 or so years and this will hopefully be the year I stop lurking and start chronicling my own life to join in on the fun. One failed cooking & fashion blog blog later, I'm back, ready to not limit what I feel like writing, thus Allison Wonderland. When I was younger I thought that the movie Alice in Wonderland was "Allison Wonderland" (they really do sound alike) I think the name is representative of what I want to remember life is, a wonderland of adventures. Not only travel (my favorite thing in the world) but everyday adventures as well.

What I dream of doing in 2011-
Take more pictures
Blog
Find a job
Run
Travel
Live life in the moment

After 2 1/2 years in law school I am really starting to realize how much I miss writing, maybe I should have stuck with my undergrad journalism degree and tried to get a job instead of continuing on to law school. Not that law school hasn't been great, it has! Love being challenged, learning new things, meeting new smarty pants friends, having holiday breaks :) but I really miss the creative aspect of journalism as I am a quite right brained!

Let's end this post with a photo homage to 2010 shall we?

Honeymoon in Maui

Lobster rolls in Boston

Edinburgh, Scotland

A stay in Inverlochy Castle

Beautiful Scotland Highlands

St. Patrick's cathedral, Dublin

Owl Island, North Carolina for a wedding

Our sweet new puppy, Peanut

Cabo, Mexico


I cannot wait to see what adventures 2011 has in store!!!