Jens Gluten Free Blog

I don’t think I will ever forget that far away look in his big brown eyes. When my daughter was two I brought her to a Mommy and Me music class run by a friend. There were six of us in the class: my daughter and I, my friend and her son, and one other mother with her daughter. My friend had all sorts of instruments and fun songs to sing with the kids. My daughter really got into it. I loved watching her little legs bopping up and down to the music. And there is no feeling like that of a tiny little hand enveloped in your own as you rock together to soft music. But my friend’s son didn’t seem to respond the same way.

Last week I found this great recipe for banana cream pie on the Jell-O website that I easily adapted to the gluten-free diet. It’s easy (those are the only kind I make), fun to do with kids, and a great way to get them to eat their bananas (if they don’t pick them out when you are not looking)!

I opened the door to my daughter’s pre-school and peeked in. I spotted my daughter munching on some potato chips that I left at school for when all the other kids were eating food with gluten. If she was eating them it meant there must be a party of some kind that I forgot about. I was probably supposed to bring her a gluten-free cupcake that morning. I slipped into the room, tip-toed over to the teacher, and apologized profusely. “Don’t worry about it,” she insisted. “She’s fine. Take a look.” I glanced over to the table and saw her laughing with a friend. She really was fine.

I spent over an hour making caramel squares this weekend. I had found the recipe in a gluten-free cookbook and I was thrilled to see that it was an egg-free recipe. I made it my pet project for the morning and boasted to my kids that they would have the yummiest treat that afternoon. I really got their hopes up too. The only one I couldn’t convince was my husband who has heard me boast like this before and knew better…

A ground breaking study was performed by researchers at the mayo clinic on autistic children and the gluten-free diet. The gluten-free diet has generally been thought of as effective in treating children with autism, but this study indicates that this is not the case.

I must admit we aren’t doing too badly in the virtual cupcake crawl (if you haven’t yet voted for our gluten-free chocolate/chocolate chip cupcakes, feel free to go on to www.gourmetgirlmagazine.com and vote your hearts out! The deadline is July 25.). We have about 2% of the votes which isn’t bad for a gluten-free recipe. The carrot cupcake is doing quite well (they currently have 12% of the vote) and it reminds me of a delicious gluten-free carrot muffin I made this weekend.

So you just found out that you or your loved one has Celiac Disease. I’ll never forget the moment I found out. I was naively smiling at my daughter’s gastroenterologist as he uttered the words, “Your daughter has Celiac Disease. You are going to have to put her on a gluten-free diet.”