Friday, July 6, 2012

General Talk - Be Careful Of On-Line 'Gluten Free' Shops!

Out of pure boredom tonight, I went searching to see if I could find anything nice and tempting to buy gluten free on the web. I came across a site that seemed almost too goo to be true. It was shop located in Aussie but also right under it's logo mentioned 'world wide shipping'. This sparked my interest right off the bat.

I started to look... first thing I went to was cake decorations. I have been DYING for some stuff like sprinkles and confetti to decorate cakes/cupcakes and what not with. I start to open pages to look at them more in depth as they also offered ingredient lists to the items. By now I'm totally and utterly excited because it's been so long since I had any of these to make things pretty, specially for Christmas and the last page I opened made my jaw drop... right smack in big bold print were the ingredients that even made FULL mention of glucose syrup from wheat! WTH?!

They say in their 'about us page' that they say and I quote (without names being mentioned of course as I'm not here to bash any one)....

'We take pride in providing the largest range of gluten free products in Australia. The majority of us here experience some allergies or food intolerances, which helps us considerably to understand what each of you, as customers,are looking for whilst shopping.'

Now this item might have only been a slip up but I can't see how it could possibly be a slip up when it comes to gluten free if a person actually has to type in the word 'WHEAT' when putting in the ingredient list. Come on.... 

So my heart sunk... another site I can not trust to be 100% gluten free. Even today I was out shopping at a local outdoor market with my mother for the last time for a few weeks due to some festivals that will be happening and wanted a bottle of water... I couldn't even do that because the only place to buy it was at a stand that sold hot dogs, sausages and burgers all with buns... then they would have to touch my bottle of water.... blah.

Ok so with that said, BE CAREFUL WHEN ORDERING ON THE WEB! If you see something that looks a bit off... DON'T CHANCE IT! I know there are a lot of people out there that are only living this life style because they think it's better for their bodies but for those of you that are following my blog because you HAVE to live this way such as I do, you can not ignore this instinct... if you think it's wrong, then most likely it is wrong.

I wrote a comment to this site and will see what their response is but I know for a fact that if people who have to live gluten free didn't have a problem with items such as sugars in items made from wheat then we also wouldn't need factory warnings on items that are only processed in places where gluten products are made... after all the same amount of wheat will be in the item with sugar from wheat as those made in a factory as far as I'm concerned... it all hurts our bodies and reverses the healing effects we've worked so hard to get to happen!

Now I might be overly sensitive to this subject so I looked up about if sugars made from wheat are 'safe' or not. The first report I found was at http://surefoodsliving.com/2008/09/is-glucose-syrup-gluten-free/ and says according to the FDA guidelines that it is 'safe' but sorry, I can tell them 100% that it isn't. But again, I'm only 1 person aren't I?? But I don't need medical testing to tell someone that I got into wheat some where... I don't need a test to tell me I have a tummy ache, bathroom problems, tiredness, anxiety and memory problems/fogginess due to getting into gluten some where. I believe personally the best way to avoid getting into gluten that could be doing your body harm is to just stay away from it. Simple as that. The only reason we have this issue going on is due to 'processed' foods any how and I do strive to stay away from these as much as I can and if I can't, I know I can simply avoid the few items that do contain stuff like this.

Ok rant done... storms have rolled in again for the 3rd night in a row and I'm gonna go enjoy them! I miss my old USA based thunder storms so I have to enjoy them while I can!

Sunday, July 1, 2012

Simple Soft Scrambled Eggs

It seems that people always have a reason for not having something for breakfast but then it also seems that every one says that breakfast is the most important meal of the day. The meal that starts you off, gets your body going and gives you the energy you need to get through your day.


So here is a short break down on how to make a fast 2 or 3 egg soft scramble that are so velvety that you will want to make them every morning!

You don't need a large pan for this, in fact you want a fairly small pan. You don't want so much room that your eggs have room to move away from each other, you want them to stay together for the cooking process.

Slightly preheat your pan over a medium heat. Remember you will want to work quickly with this! Place a bit of oil or even butter in to coat the pan, break your eggs in and add a small nob of butter to the eggs themselves. Now start working the butter into the eggs with a spatula. You want to mix this. By the time the butter is completely melted, your eggs should be ready! Simple but elegant!




My photos today are showing off the eggs I made to go with our Sunday brunch a while ago of Blueberry Pancakes with chicken sausages.


Drinks - Fizzy Raspberry Lemonade

It's officially summer around here in Belgium and I don't mean just by the date but all that tells you that it's summer time. School is officially out as of this weekend, all my beloved summer fruits such as Donut Peaches and raspberries are out, the sun is already giving me problems due to having sun sensitivity (I'll take that over not having summer though!) and it's just plain ol' feel of summer.

The other day I had tried a soda that I hadn't before just for the sure want for something 'different'. It was Schweppes Lemon. I normally don't go at all for lemon soda around here mainly due to the fact that it's a bitter lemon and I do not like that at all.



This soda is different though. It has a very very light lemon taste that would remind you more of the old style American style lemonade but with the added soda fizz. This brought up a longing for a lost love from the States... Raspberry Lemonade.

So one afternoon I bought a pint of raspberries and went about trying to make it! Ok so that wasn't *THAT* hard but honestly I loved it more then my husband but lets all face it, I'm still an American by all means and lemonade + raspberries just make sense!


So grab a bottle of schweppes lemon soda, take out a nice tall/big glass, add a bunch of ice, mash up a few raspberries (no sugar needed as there is sugar plenty in the soda), place the mashed raspberries into the glass of ice and pour in your soda. Give a mix up with a spoon and let sit for a moment to get nice and cold. The results are amazing.


Later on though, I'll post a recipe for home-made lemonade both with and without fizz version so that you can also make this the old fashioned way! But for now, I couldn't resist showing off the amazing photos my husband took of these drinks and well this IS a gluten free blog... not just recipes right??