Pumpkin Love! GF Pumpkin Spice Cutouts with Pumpkin Buttercream Frosting

I'll admit it... I'm addicted to pumpkins! I even have my very own pumpkin patch at the Red Roof Inn. Sadly they didn't do too well this year, but that didn't slow down my pumpkin love.

I was trying to think of something to take to thanksgiving at my Aunt and Uncle's this year. I decided to do a GF dessert of some kind.  My Aunt and Mama are really good about making sure I have enough real food to eat at all major holidays.   My Grandma usually brings the dessert, but bless her heart, she is 90 years old and she tends to get pretty flustered (and a tad bit forgetful) in her old age. She spent an entire day one year making me this fabulous, but very difficult GF pumpkin pie dessert that had like ten different layers. But nowadays, understandably, she is a bit overwhelmed with cooking in general, and especially GF cooking. She always feels bad when she doesn't bring something (or she brings something I can't eat), like she isn't participating. So I thought that Grandma and I would make something together!



Here is my beautiful Grandma with one of
her favorite great-granchildren!

I adore my Grandma and I love to spend time with her. Some of my very favorite memories of her were made right in her kitchen. We were always mixing something up on her yellow countertop, often times it was cookies.   I loved going to grandmas to make and decorate cutout cookies!  That is when my ridiculous cookie cutter collection was started!  Those cookie cutters were put into storage when I was diagnosed with Celiac because I was overwhlemed with the whole idea of GF baking.  Afterall, I was young and impatient, and frankly just bitter about the whole GF thing.  But happily those cookie cutters are back in business and will be reunited with Grandma's yellow countertop!




Finding a pumpkin cutout recipe that actually tasted like pumpkins and was easily adapted to be GF and was still easy to roll out was no easy task.  I admit I had to improvise a little.  After a couple test runs this is the recipe I settled on and the one we will be using.

Pumpkin Spice Cut Out Cookies

3/4 C Unsalted Butter
1/2 C Packed Brown Sugar
1/2 C Pumpkin Puree
1 t Vanilla (make sure it's GF!)
1 Egg Yolk
2 1/4 GF All-Purpose Flour*
1 1/2 t Pumpkin Pie Spice
1 pinch of salt

*I used Stashu's GF All-Purpose Flour Substitute... because it's easy and already has the xanthum gum in it ...If your mix doesn't have xanthum gum make sure you add a bit to the recipe or it will not work.. I promise!

In a medium bowl cream the butter and sugar.  Stir in the pumpkin, egg, and vanilla.  In a separate bowl sift together the flour mix, salt, and pumpkin pie spice.  Slowly add the flour mixture to the pumpkin mixture, stiring as you go.  Mix well.  Chill the dough for at least 30 minutes.  Roll the dough out to 1/8 inch thickness on a lightly floured surface (I use powdered sugar so the dough doesn't get dense as I go, but you can just use whatever GF flour mix you put in the recipe).  Cut into desired shapes (We are using pumpkins, turkeys, leaves, pilgrims, indians, cornucopias... I told you I have a ridiculous cookie cutter collection.. I have 8 different pumpkin shapes for goodness sakes!)  Place on an ungreased cookie sheet and bake at 375 for 10 to 12 minutes.  Cool on a wire rack while you whip up some frosting.  Frost, Decorate, & Enjoy!



Of course the recipe is written on a pumpkin recipe card!
You can find these adorable cards here to print for free!

 

These cookies can't be slathered with just any old frosting...they deserve something special...and here it is!

Pumpkin Buttercream Frosting

 

1 C Unsalted Butter (at room temperature)
3 C Powdered Sugar, sifted
2 T Milk
1 t Vanilla
2 T Pumpkin Puree

1 t Pumpkin Pie Spice

Beat the butter with a mixer on medium speed until creamy, about 3 minutes.  Gradually add the sugar in, one cup at a time.  Add the milk, vanilla, pumpkin, and spice.  Beat until smooth and creamy.  Try to get more on the cookies and less in your mouth :)!

 

 

We just had our "Thanksgiving Feast" at school today (I brought the pumpkin fluff.. the kids love it!) and that always officially kicks off Thanksgiving week for me!  I won't see my kids for a whole week.  I will miss them all, but I am so excited to be spending my first day of my 5 day Thanksgiving break in my Grandma's kitchen making these cookies with her.  I hope you all get some time off to spend with your families too, and you enjoy your GF Thanksgiving!





I am very thankful for this special little lady!
This is what PS does at Grandma's when she isn't helping us clean up the floor..
Sometimes when I'm at school I bring Penny to spend the day with Grandma
and she sits with her blanket gaurding Grandma's house from "her blue chair" by the window. 
It always makes Grandma smile!

A SPFy Anniversary!...GF Sunscreens.

Come January I will be escaping the cold darkness of the snowy midwest winter and will be sitting my bikini clad booty on the beach of sunny Mexico! And what goes so well with bikinis?!? Why yes... Piña coladas...but I was thinking of something a bit more practical...Sunscreen!

We celiacs need to make sure that we are protecting ourselves from more than just sunburns and skin cancer. So what sunscreens do I slather myself with?

1. Coppertone: My brand of choice...all of their products are gluten free!! This summertime favorite is readily available at Target, Walmart, and most drug stores. Sensitive Skin SPF 50 will be making its way to Mexico with me this winter. Bonus... you can usually find some pretty good coupons on their website!

2. Banana Boat: Another convenient choice, but be careful with this one... only the sunscreens are gluten free.  

3. California Baby: This is another option, but it is pretty pricy and is not quite as easy to come by. But the entire line is organic as well as GF.

4. Bare Minerals: This is a very celiac friendly brand. They offer a Tinted Sunscreen for Faces.

5. Juice Beauty: The entire line is GF and organic. They have a fabulous SPF30 Tinted Mineral Moisturizer that comes in a variety of shades. And don't forget your pucker.. They have a lip moisturizer that also has SPF.

Remember: To stay safe while soaking up the sun you need to reapply every two hours, or after swimming/sweating (whether it is waterproof or not!) And when I say reapply... be hard core! To make sure you are protected you should be using two ounces (yep...as much as a shot of jd!) of sunscreen each time.

I hope this lists helps you enjoy the sun without the worry! I hope some of you get to use this list when traveling to somewhere sunny this winter, but if not know that I will sip some beachy cocktails for you all on the shores of the sunny Caribbean Sea! So let the countdown begin! Now that I've decided which SPF to take, I'm off to start choosing which bikinis to pack (do you think ten is a bit overkill for one week?)! Can you tell I'm just a tad excited?!?

Help a Celiac out... Sign the Petition!

I am sick and tired of playing hide and seek with gluten!  And let me tell you what.... gluten is getting better and better at hiding and it's kicking our butts...literally!  Sometimes it feels like we aren't even in the game anymore.  It's time that we step up our defense.... and I need your help to do it!

I don't know about you, but it think it would be absolutely amazing if I could use the time I spend reading labels to do something that I actually enjoy.  I could get a lot done in the amount of time I have to needlessly waste meticulously reading food labels.  Not to mention, it would save me A LOT of worry and stress too!  A wheat warning isn't enough... food labels need to be serious about gluten.  It has come to the point that I only purchase items that say gluten free on the packaging because gluten is hidden in so many ingredients.  But it could be so much easier...

November 1st is the last day to sign the petition that would make gluten a known allergen on food labels.  It would rank right up there with peanuts, eggs, milk, and many more.  I want Celiacs everywhere to have the peace of mind knowning that if there were gluten hiding in anything it would say GLUTEN in big fat letters in the allergen statement as a warning to us.  This doesn't have to be a dream for us anymore.... let's make it happen!

The goal is 25,000 signatures by November 1st, 2012.  When I last checked we had around 8,500 to go.    So let's get back in the game... get your name on there and spread the word!! 

 

Click Here to Sign the Petition

 

Finalize Standards for GLUTEN-FREE Labeling

The Food Allergen Labeling and Consumer Protection Act required Health and Human Services to set a gluten-free labeling rule by 2008 to aid people with celiac disease, a life-threatening autoimmune condition. The only known treatment is a strict gluten-free diet.

 

An estimated 3 million Americans have celiac and even more may have non-celiac gluten sensitivity. Without adequate labeling, those on a medically prescribed gluten-free diet struggle to make safe food choices and stay well.

 

Children with celiac cannot participate in the National School Lunch Program when food service staff cannot determine if products are gluten-free.

 

Congress did its part by passing the law. It is up to the White House to protect the health of millions of adults and children by finalizing the rule NOW.

Trick? Or treat?!

Anyone that knows me knows that I LOVE holidays, especially Halloween!  It is one of my favorite holidays (oh who am I kidding?..All the holidays are my favorites... except Valentine's day... but that is another story and I'm getting better about that...yay me!)  But anyway...I. Love. Halloween!  I love everything about it (except gory horror movies and especially not Michael Myers... yikes!) I love dressing up, I love seeing what costumes my kids are going to show up in for our school party, I love seeing all the Trick-or-Treaters, I love jack-o-lanters, and candy.... I love candy! 

But a Celiac Halloween is a bit different that your average person's Halloween.  You see to us...not all candy is created equally.  And sometimes it can be a real pain in the you know what to figure out what is safe, because companies are constantly changing ingredients and processing of the treats.  It all feels a little more trickish than treatish!


Lucky for us Celiacs, the good people at MyGlutenFacts.com do all the work for us!  They update this list every year before Halloween and include extensive information on how the candy is produced. They indicate if it is made in a dedicated gluten free facility (DF), on a dedicated gluten free equipment line in a facility that does process wheat (DL), or on equipment that is cleaned after processing gluten containing products but before processing the gluten free products (CL).  This alphabetical list can be narrowed down according to processing depending on your sensitivity.  You can also search by brand or keyword if you are questioning something in particular.  Easy peasy... but please remember that this is just a guide.  It is still necessary to check labels before buying anything just to be 100% sure.  But at least this gives us somewhere to start.  Also, with 385 items on the list there should be something that appeals to all trick-or-treaters, both big and small!  I posted the link for you all below and I hope it allows you to spend less time worrying and more time enjoying Halloween!

http://www.myglutenfacts.com/2012-gluten-free-halloween-candy-list/

So thank you MyGlutenFacts.com for making our lives so much easier! I hope you all put their hard work to good use and find yourselves something you like!  My personal favorite is Reese's Peanut Butter Pumpkins... why do they taste so much better when they are shaped like pumpkins?!

Stay tuned to hear about one of my favorite Halloween traditions and hear what I finally decided to dress up as!

Halloween Traditions: Costumes & Soup!

I have made THE big decision....what to be for Halloween.!  I'm going for an Alice in Wonderland theme this year! I will be a brunette Alice (I know...not quite authentic, but I hate itchy wigs).  Miss Penny Su has the most adorable little bunny costume so she can be the White Rabbit. She even has a clock to wear on her collar to make it official! Now if we could only get Mr. Kat to be the Mad Hatter... don't hold your breath!

Here we are last year as a caterpillar and butterfly!!

I'm pretty proud of those wings... check 'em out!!  I made them myself!!

I love passing out candy on Halloween night!  My parents live in one of the IT trick-or-treating locations in our town and a lot of my kids, both past and present, come see me at their doorstep.  I love seeing all their smiling faces and their costumes!  We go through between four and five hundred pieces of candy in a two hour time frame depending on the weather.  That is quite a lot considering our town is pretty small.  A lot of our family and friends gather at my parent's home to watch all the festivities through the big picture window.  I sit outside on the front porch step with Penny Su, Mr. Kat, and whoever else wants to tough out the cold with me.  We try to pass out more candy than we eat!   This is my favorite part about Halloween!  Everyone gathers together and we share A LOT of good food, yummy treats/snacks, and Halloween cocktails! 

My Papa always used to make chili for Halloween night.  And let me tell you what... this chili is probably a big part of why everyone started gathering at my parent's house on Halloween! But when Papa started traveling for work, unfortunately he had to miss a lot of Halloweens....and Halloween was never the same with out him :(.  We had to keep the tradition alive, but chili is Papa's thing, and my chili didn't stand a chance of living up to his.  So I had a plan...Soup... now that is my thing.  So for the past few years I have made soup for everyone on Halloween night, it has sort of became our new tradition.  Last year it was Taco Soup, and it was a really big hit.  So this year I wanted to do something a little bit different, but also kind of similar. 

I decided on Stuffed Pepper Soup.  It is one of Mr. Kat's favorites!  It is fairly easy and perfect for a cool fall Illinois Halloween night; very hearty, just a hint of spicy, and fairly healthy to help make up for all the other junk we are eating!  And most importantly...of course it is gluten free! 

Stuffed Pepper Soup

Prep time: 20 mins Cook time: 4 hrs

Serves: 8 (I will double this for Halloween night)

Ingredients: 4 Cups Vegetable Broth* 4 Cups Beef Broth* 2 lbs Ground Beef/Turkey/Pork Sausage- (I usually use a lb each of beef and turkey, but I like to mix it up sometimes) 1 28oz can Crushed Tomatoes 2 (8oz) cans Tomato Sauce 1 10oz can Rotel 1 Cup uncooked Brown Rice 2 Green Peppers- diced 2 Red Peppers- diced 1 Yellow Pepper- diced 1 Orange Pepper- diced 1 Large Red Onion- diced 4 Garlic Cloves- diced 1/4 Cup Brown Sugar 1 1/2 tsp Sea Salt 1 tsp Ground Pepper 1 tsp Onion Powder 1 tsp Garlic Powder

Instructions:

1. In a large skillet brown ground beef- when done, drain.
2. In a crock pot add all ingredients – rice will cook in soup.
3. Set on high for 4 hours

*Please be very careful when buying the broths... they are hard to find gluten free. Mine always come from Aldi (Chef's Cupboard or Fit & Active... always double check!) and they have a label that I love right on them...Naturally A Gluten Free Food!  Makes my life so much easier!  The same goes for all of the other canned ingredients (Happy Harvest brand) I put in this soup as well as the meat.  So a big thanks to Aldi for being so Celiac friendly!

And just for fun I always write the soup recipes that I make for Halloween on fancy Halloween recipe cards (and I always bring extra to share!).  This way I can look back years from now and remember which recipes I have used each year for Halloween.  These are some of my favorites from http://cheekypaperie.com/.  If you sign up for their newsletter you can print these for free, plus get a bunch of other fun freebies!

What are some of your favorite Halloween traditions? What are you all going to dress up as for Halloween?

Hello Friends!

Holy Wow!... Celiac Disease is a pain in the you know what!!  Sometimes it makes me want to pull my hair out, but then I recall that that would not be necessary considering all the gluten hidden in my shampoo essentially did that for me.  But that is another story.  I should probably introduce myself first.

So... Hello Friends! I'm Katrina, or Miss Kat as my kids calls me.  I am the proud mama to three rescue pets.  We all live happily ever after in our farmhouse that I lovingly nicknamed the Red Roof Inn.  You are probably wondering about these kids I speak of that call me Miss Kat.  Well, those are my preschoolers who make me smile everyday I see them.    In addition to preschool, I also teach yoga, do energy healing, make jewelry, and make cars looks gorgeous.  Let's just say I stay busy.  And as if that isn't enough, add Celiac Awareness Advocate to the list. 

So as you have probably already figured out... I have Celiac Disease.  I was diagnosed at 19, thanks to my papa who insisted I be tested for a disease that I didn't even seem to have symptoms for (long story.... we will get to that a little more later).  I consider myself a seasoned veteran at this gluten free business, as I had celiac before celiac was cool!

As I mentioned before, I didn't seem to have symptoms of this disease.  Seem being the key word.  I always had what my mama called "a nervous stomach" and I had learned to simply ignore it.  When I cut gluten out of my life it became very clear that my so called "nervous stomach" was much more than that, and it wasn't something I just had to live with.  No gluten meant no belly aches!  I learned to live with the fact that being gluten free was a lifelong committment.  I tried not to focus too much on what I was missing out on, but more on the fact that this disease wouldn't kill me as long as I was disciplined.  I was strict with my diet, but probably not strict enough.  I never had too terrible of symptoms and had learned to ignore my tummy so it was hard for me to notice when I got glutened, thus I was never forced to be all that careful.  This didn't mean that I allowed my self to cheat (besides on Sundays at church), but I was never really that strict about "hidden gluten" or cross contamination.

Looking back, I know I should have been way more careful.  It wasn't until I had visible symptoms of this disease that it became so clear to me that I needed to get way more serious about it.  And this time I meant business!  Breaking out in rashes, losing my hair, and struggling with anxiety that made me feel like a crazy person were not acceptable to me.  They were visible representations of what this disease had done to my body and mind, and it was destroying my life.  If it was showing up on the outside, I shuddered to think what it had done internally.  This also meant that this was a disease that was out there for everyone to see, I could no longer be tough and hide it.  Before these symptoms, I could choose to let people know I had it, or just pretend I was normal like everyone else, fooling them and myself. 

With these new symptoms, particularly my skin issues, I felt an insane amount of stress.  I was constantly worried. Worried about my shampoo, my makeup, my toothpaste, communion at church, going out to dinner, laundry detergent, salad dressing, car wax, or essentially anything that touched me.  All these worries and anxieties put me smack dab in the middle of the worst depression of my life, one that I quite honestly feared I wouldn't survive.  After a very long struggle, a punching bag, multiple yoga mats, a great counselor, an understanding and supportive family, good friends, my little smiling faces at school, and a just a little tequila I managed to pick myself up, I dusted myself off, and decided I was going to live my life.  I was in control of this disease, not vice versa!   I reminded myself that I have a fancy biology degree and I needed to use it.  I would educate myself on vitamin deficiencies, immune responses, mental health symptoms, and anything and everything associated with Celiac Disease.

I threw myself into learning.  I got serious about my nutrition, not just my food.  Before all this I always told myself that it was enough that I had to worry about being gluten free, that I had no more energy to devote to making sure I was eating healthy too.  And I am proof that just because you are gluten free doesn't mean you are healthy.  Chocolate, ice cream, Jack & Coke, potato chips, and highly processed GF foods are all gluten free... but that doesn't mean they are healthy.  As for vegetables, forget about it, I avoided them as if they were full of gluten.  So I changed my diet like my life depended on it, because it essentially did.  I started cutting out sweets and soda, making my own salad dressings, eating vegetables, cutting out most processed foods, and being way more serious about gluten.  This gave me back a sense of the control that I needed.

Next up, the whole idea of anything that touched me.  I know it is a somewhat controversial topic, but I believe that topical gluten is a huge issue for some Celiac patients.  (The sole reason I was tested to begin with was because my Uncle was suffering from severe dermatitis herpetiformis which eventually led to his diagnosis of Celiac)  I educated my self on gluten containing ingredients in cosmetics and cleaning supplies and overhauled my entire home.  From nail polish and lip gloss to dish soap and tampons (yes... some do contain gluten... I know...outrageous!) I got rid of anything that had gluten.  And Oh. My. Goodness. You would be surprised what I was left with.  A whole lot of nothing!  I began researching ingredients, calling companies (some very helpful, others not so much), and documenting what my options were.  It was then that I had another realization.

I said Miss Kat, you need to share this with the world.  You are putting in a HUGE effort, and there are a lot of individuals out there who could use this information (not to mention you can refer to it later).  Maybe someone needs to know what nail polish brands are gluten free, or maybe lip balm.   Or maybe someone wants to know which brands of gluten free bread are actually edible.  I have always tossed around the idea of having a blog like this, but I never felt that I was responsible enough to share my gluten free-ness with others.  After all my gluten free-ness was never hard core enough to share.  I could destroy my own intestines, but not the intestines of others (a little dramatic, I know, but true).  But now I am holding myself accountable for helping you go completely gluten free.  And I vow to you all, and to myself, that I will be hard-core!  So stay tuned to see what fabulous gluten free-ness I'm up to, be patient with me because I know nothing about blogging,  let me know if you have any questions, share your experiences, and most of all just enjoy life with me.. even if you have to do it with Celiac!