Happy Joe's and other excitement!

Holiday time....naturally the holidays tend to kind of revolve around FOOD....which, for a gluten-intolerant person, can be a challenge (and even accompanied by sadness).

My family is becoming increasingly more and more cognizant of my gluten-free lifestyle. I love them for it! Obviously I love them for many more, and more important reasons as well...but their understanding of my need to live a gluten-free life is really a huge blessing to my life.

This was my THIRD gluten-free Christmas...I can hardly believe the time has flown by so quickly! It seems like just yesterday was that October 2008 day when I made up my mind to "quit" gluten "cold turkey"!!

Yesterday (1-1-11!) we had the annual Christmas get-together for my Mom's side of the family. My mom told me that she had seen that Happy Joe's (a yummy pizza place in the Quad City area) now carries gluten free pizza crust!

This is amazing to me for a number of reasons....if you've read much of my blog you know that my biggest gluten-free "sadness" is the lack of pizza. Oh, I love pizza! :) So, knowing of another gluten-free pizza option....is amazing!

Secondly, Happy Joe's brings back good childhood memories for me :). I am fully aware that their pizza may not be the best ever or anything really hugely unique or exciting to some people. However, it is truly nostalgic for me. We didn't go out for pizza much when I was growing up...but when we did, it was typically for Happy Joe's!

I can't wait to check out their ingredients to see what I can eat there! I am hoping for their Canadian bacon...it would be amazing if that was gluten free. That was definitely one of my favorites :).

I felt so loved/taken care of by my mom and sister yesterday...they each had prepared me a little single-serving gluten-free version of dishes that they brought to share at the Christmas party! Megan brought a baked pineapple dish (that was amazing, by the way!). The regular recipe called for a cracker crumble-topping, as well as flour in the dish. She omitted the topping and substituted corn starch for flour in my little single-serving dish. Yum! My mom made a delicious sweet potato casserole (one of my favorites!) and also swapped the flour for corn starch. The entire large dish was gluten free...but she scooped out a little dish for me ahead of time so that it wouldn't get cross-contaminated at the big buffet table! WOW! In addition, she made me a little single-serving dish of a strawberry jello dish that typically has a graham cracker crust (crustless for me). Mmmm! :)

Thanks, family, you are such a gift to me! :)