{GULP!}

Tomorrow...later today, really (since it's after midnight!)...is our trip to AZ! Long awaited, and now it is staring us right in the face! I'm reallyreally nervous about the food situation. I am sure I'll have lots to write about when I am back.
Ok, back to packing! Wish me luck!

Yummy dinner!

Thanks to JILLIAN for this awesome present...two boxes of gluten free mac and cheese from a recent trip to Trader Joes!! Jillian, a great friend I met at work, is just AWESOME and sooo generous! She always finds me little goodies...and I love her for it!!

I have a pot of water with one box of the noodles a'boilin' downstairs and can't wait to eat it! After that I am off for a pedicure...a silly indulgence, I know ;). It is in preparation for our trip to AZ on Thursday...my biggest trip yet while gluten free! It'll be an adventure, I am sure...but I am up for it! :) Time to go consume said mac and cheese....have a lovely night, all!

Flourless Chocolate Cake...mmmmmm!!

This week we had a potluck planned for Tuesday over lunch at work....so of course I knew I had to find some kind of new recipe to make! My mom had told me about a recipe for flourless chocolate cake that she had heard on a morning show on ABC I think...and had e-mailed me a link to it. The recipe looked and sounded delicious...and it was by Emeril, so it HAD to be good, right?! :) I gave it a try...here's the recipe for all of you adventurous-sorts out there!!

Flourless Chocolate Cake
(by Rachel and Emeril ;) )
~1 pound semisweet chocolate, coarsely chopped (I used four bars of Ghiardelli semi-sweet chocolate baking bars)

~1/2 pound (2 sticks) unsalted butter, cut into 1/2-inch cubes, plus 1/2 tablespoon (I used Land O' Lakes, our butter of choice in this house ;), and it was actually the salted variety because that was all we had at the time...and it was fine)

~1/4 cup Kahlua (I am cheap and didn't want to buy a $20 bottle of Kahlua, so I used this Bolthouse Farms Mocha Cappuchino chocolate milk drink I had in my fridge...also worked great!!)

~8 large eggs (organic, of course ;))

~1/4 cup sugar

~1 teaspoon vanilla (be sure it's gluten free!! Some aren't!)

~1/2 teaspoon salt

~Confectioners' sugar or cocoa powder, for garnish (I just used the powdered sugar; I figured there was already plenty of chocolate! ;))

~Fresh raspberries, for garnish (I forgot to get these; so I just had the powdered sugar...it was fine ;) Fruit, though, would make it even prettier!!)

Preheat oven to 325 degrees F. Using 1/2 tablespoon butter grease a 9-inch springform pan and line bottom with a parchment round (I didn't have a round, so I just roughly cut one from my big roll of it!). Cover pan underneath and along sides with foil and set in a roasting pan (I used a cake pan! I don't have a big roasting pan).

Bring a medium saucepan of water to boil. Combine the chocolate, butter, and Kahlua (or chocoalte milk! ;) ) in a metal bowl set over simmering water or in the top of a double boiler (I don't have a double boiler, so I used a medium-sized sauce pan and put a metal bowl on top). Melt the mixture, stirring constantly, until smooth and creamy, about 5 minutes; reserve.

Meanwhile combine eggs, sugar, vanilla, and salt in a large bowl and whisk with an electric mixer until frothy and almost doubled in volume, about 5 to 10 minutes (honestly, I probably did closer to 4-5 minutes). Fold 1/3 of egg mixture into chocolate mixture using a rubber spatula. Repeat this process 2 more times until all of egg mixture has been folded into chocolate mixture.

Pour batter into prepared springform pan and place in the roasting pan (I poured it into the prepared pan that was already inside the "roasting pan"/cake pan). Pour enough boiling water into the roasting pan to come about halfway up the sides of the springform pan.

Bake until cake has risen slightly and edges are just beginning to set, about 40-45 minutes. Remove cake from roasting pan and cool on wire rack to room temperature. Remove foil, cover, and refrigerate overnight. Remove cake from refrigerator about 30 minutes before serving. Remove springform pan sides, invert cake onto a large plate, and peel away parchment paper from bottom (this part took a while since I was being careful! The bottom of the springform pan was stuck to the paper, which was stuck to the cake. I bent a fingernail trying to pry them all apart! Be careful!!).

Reinvert cake on another large plate or serving platter and garnish with confectioners' sugar or cocoa powder immediately before serving.Yum yum!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I took some photos to put with this blog entry...but I deleted them off my camera accidentally before uploading them onto the computer! DARN it all!!!!

I feel bad...

...and it is SO frustrating....

Sunday was Jeremy's 27th birthday...happy birthday (again), babe! :). For a while, I had planned on having a birthday party for him. I had one last year...a surprise! I had arranged for his best Bloomington guy friends to meet out at Medici (which was a new restaurant here in town at the time) for pizza and then come back here to our place for dessert, along with their wives/girlfriends/whatever if they wanted. I think Jer had a great time with his friends, and I was happy to have pulled off the surprise. I decided against the surprise this year and instead talked to him about what restaurant he'd like to go to and what friends he'd like to invite. I also decided against having just guys...because, quite frankly, I wanted to go too :). We planned this year's party for Saturday night (Feb. 28th) at CJ's here in town, not far from our house.
(I started this post on Monday and never finished it! I will finish it now--Sat 3/7!)
I suggested CJ's because I know they serve Jeremy's favorite Chicago-style deep-dish pizza in town. I KNEW it would be a struggle for me to sit there and watch him eat pizza, but I made the sacrifice, because it was his birthday and he LOVES it!! I know, I am being kind of dramatic...referring to it as "a sacrifice"...but in a way, it really was! It is NO fun to sit there and watch people eat pizza. It is one of the worst food issues I have.
Anyway, so I invited tons of his (mostly) local friends and said we would be having dinner at CJ's and then everyone was invited back to our place for dessert...
Well, we had a great turn-out...Chuck and Sarah came, Brooke and Jamie stayed for dinner (they were visiting from Rockford!), Aaron and Katie came, Jon (Jeremy's brother), Alec, and Josh and Laura. It was a great group of fun people!
We had reservations for 6:30, but we ended up hanging out by the crowded bar until a few minutes after seven because they never got a table ready for us. At one point (around 6:50), I went over to the hostess stand and asked some lady about it and if our table would be ready soon...pointing out, of course, that we had reservations for 6:30....her response? "Well, do you have a keg of dynamite? Because we're just waiting for some people to move so we can get your table together!" EXCUSE ME?! Yeah, she really said that. It was interesting.
Well...we FINALLY got seated ;) and started to look at the menus. EVERYONE ordered the deep-dish Chicago-style pizza. Awesome...or not. So, once the meal arrived I had to sit there and watch everyone eat that yummy-gooey-cheesy pizza. Let's just say, I was in a mood. HA! Oh, and before that, people ordered tons of deep-fried, breaded appitizers. So, it was pretty awesome to sit there and watch those being consumed as well. I know, I know...it was my HUSBAND'S birthday...and I tried to have a good attitude. I didn't, though!
Oh, and the waitress delivered those 4 awesome-smelling and looking pizzas...and realized she had forgotten my entree somewhere. Great. So, I sat there LONGER with no food in front of me to distract me! When she brought it out...it was pathetic. I had ordered the broiled cod and the darn cod fillet was no more than THREE inches long. Seriously. I had ordered it there before, so I KNEW that wasn't how it typically was. I was pissed...it was bad enough to be eating fish when everyone else had pizza, but the size of it was really pathetic. That darn 3" of fish cost me 13.99! Reeeeediculous.
Ok, ok, I'll stop ;).
I felt terrible sitting there and being so cranky and I kept telling myself to cut it out, it wasn't a big deal, etc., etc....but I kept getting MORE upset at myself for being upset at all so it was just one big upset, uncomfortable mess. I didn't even take any pictures at dinner because I was in such a foul mood! Silly me!
After dinner, though, things turned around. We all went back to our place (minus Sarah...she wasn't feeling well...she had just gotten back from an overnight trip to Atlanta to see Ben Folds and was hungover and tired ;)) and plus Adam and Jami who joined us around 11. I served the yummy-looking oreo ice cream cake I had made for Jeremy (again, sacrifices I made for his birthday! ;) It's one of his favorite desserts) and I ate some yummy Edy's vanilla ice cream with dark chocolate hot fudge on top. I wasn't suffering there! ;) ;) HA!
Hopefully next year I will be a big girl at Jeremy's birthday party. Good grief!
All in all, though, it was a great evening with friends...and I am DEFINITELY thankful we have so many fun and wonderful friends :)
Thanks, guys, for putting up with cranky ol' ME! :)

Uno Chicago Grill Rolls Out Gluten-Free Pizza Nationally...is this FOR REAL?!?!?!

I just found this awesome blog post....

and was allllll excited because it looks like Uno Chicago Grill started carrying gluten free cheese and pepperoni pizzas......

well we've been to the location at the Mark Twain Hotel in Peoria numerous times...Jeremy's favorite food is chicago-style deep-dish pizza and I love (well, loved??) it as well. I was SO PUMPED to see that we might be able to go there to enjoy it together again!

Well, I jumped on the Uno website to find the phone number for the Peoria location to see if they were, indeed carrying the gluten free pizza (the corporate website said that not all locations have it yet)...and it turns out, it isn't an Uno's anymore! It is now called Two 25. Excuse me?!??!?!

So close....yet so far away. Darn you, pizza!!!!

MORE GF resources

1) MEIJER:

A friend from work, Kristin, just sent me a facebook message telling me to check out the Meijer Meal Box online website because they had a bunch of gluten free tips/information, etc. Thanks so much, Kristin! There are some great tips/products/information here!

Link to resources: http://www.meijermealbox.com/gluten-free-resources

Link to a list of foods available at Meijer grocery stores (we have a huge Meijer here in Bloomington-Normal!): http://www.meijermealbox.com/gluten-free-product-list

2) Living Without magazine:

I'd been meaning to subscribe to this magazine for a while now, but forgot about it until I saw a link to it on the Meijer mealbox website mentioned above. I just subscribed to it...$23 for a year (6 issues). I am so excited to get some new recipe ideas and tips! The magazine claims to bring the "latest news on food allergies, autism, celiac disease, and asthma"...I had peeked at one once, and it looks great! I am pumped to get the first issue...I hope it's soon! I will definitely keep you all posted and let you know how it is :)

3) Blogs

On the right hand side of my blog (you'll need to scroll down), you'll find links to some blogs I've found to be interesting and helpful...for your convenience, I also listed them below and they all have links to their sites:

Gluten Free [Cooking School]
Gluten Free Optimist (i need to take a few tips from here about being optimistic!! ;))
CeliacChicks
Gluten-Free Living (They also publish a magazine that I might subscribe to also at some point)
Gluten Free Blog
Recipes from Karina's Kitchen Gluten Free Goddess
Recipe for a Gluten Free Life by Mrs. G.F.
GF-Zing! -this website is Gluten Free!
At some point, I hope to get better about networking and start leaving messages on all of these blogs and maybe "feature" some of their blogs on my blog, etc. We'll see. For now, though, I just thought I'd let you know some of the cool gluten-free blogs I've discovered :)

ENJOY! :)

CHEX!

Ok, so I knew Rice Chex was now gluten free (I have a big unopened box in my kitchen!)...but what I had forgotten about was that on the Chex website they had a bunch of gluten free recipes! My good friend Jen had told me about this, and I had forgotten until she reminded me on the phone yesterday! I looked it up today for the first time, and it looks great! There are some yummy-looking probably crowd-pleasing snack ideas that would be great for parties or other get-togethers. I can't wait to try them! The recipes look easy and delicious The only hard part will be deciding which one to try first! ;)

Chex Gluten-Free Recipes

I think I am the most excited about the Italian Chex Mix...and of course, Muddy Buddies (or "Puppy chow"! :))