Dear Food Diary...

Dear Food Diary,

I am proud to report that today marks Day 7 of Gluten–Free living for Carly and me. Not a speck of wheat has touched our lips: no wayward crust off a trimmed PB&J, no nibble off the edge of a lone McNugget, no cookie, no cupcake, no cream puff…no way.

Why gluten-free? Well, we’re not quite sure. To be honest, it seemed like the trendy thing to do and we both wanted some sort of framework to help thwart our inborn gravitational pull toward anything toasted and slathered with a cube of butter. Perhaps cutting out wheat would be the first step toward some sort of self-discipline come feeding time at the zoo.

Well my dear diary, I am not so pleased to report that our results have been less than glowing. After one week of deli sandwich deprivation, our cheeks are not rosier, our teeth do not shine with the brilliance of a thousand suns, our skinny jeans remain too skinny and if Miss Frizzle and her Magic School Bus took a field trip through our lower intestines, she’d travel a windy path still fraught with just as many road hazards as before.

Were our expectations too high? Perhaps. But you know what I’m guessing? I’m guessing that our lack of promised physical, spiritual and emotional transformation has something to do with the fact that both of us have found every wheat-free way to crush our carbohydrate cravings.

Oatmeal is a proven cholesterol-fighter, is it not? Dark chocolate…how else would we get our anti-oxidants? Frozen yogurt…Doc says we gotta get that calcium.

Of course, we might have overlooked the fact that our oatmeal is generally topped with brown sugar and cream, we buy our dark chocolate in Trader Joe's "pound-plus" bars ,and nonfat, soft-serve, frozen yogurt has become a daily obsession, slathered with scoops of crushed Heath Bar, Gummi worms and hot fudge.

Oh, dear food diary…do you think we may have missed the point?

None-the-less, we've been having a little bit of fun with it anyway…trying to cheat the system by creating tasty concoctions sure to fool even the most discerning of palates. Recipe resources are plentiful: the Internet, cookbooks, the lady next to me in line at the grocery store…all of a sudden, it’s a gluten-free world!

It’s funny. You know when you get a puppy, then, like magic, it seems that everyone you know has a puppy too? I remember, that’s how it was when I was pregnant; never noticed all those full-bellied girls before then low and behold, I join the club and I feel like I’m, living in the land of Oompa-Loompas. This past week it seems that everyone from the mailman to the goalie on Carly’s field hockey team considers wheat to be the devil’s grain.

But, back to our adventures in baking…

A few days ago, I finally got to Good Earth in search of a few wacky ingredients I would need to make a zucchini bread recipe I found on the Internet. Why not? Gotta use up that giant mutant zucchini from our garden. The recipe suggested peeling it in stripes which I thought was cool-looking if nothing else.

Perusing the aisles, somewhere between the seaweed snacks and the soy milk, I found the baking section.  “Let’s see…sorghum flour? Check. Tapioca flour? Check. Xanthan gum…seriously? Sounds like something you would use to remove rust from a marine propeller. By golly there it is! Check.”

Thirty nine dollars and eighty-eight cents later, I had everything I needed to make that loaf of bread. It better be good.

Guess what…it was delicious! I even had some left over supplies so Carly whipped up a dozen vanilla cupcakes for a gluten-free gal pal who turns “Sweet Sixteen” today. She found this recipe on the same site noted below.

I must admit, they were yummy too! We had our doubts as the batter was weirdly gummy but when the timer buzzed, we eagerly pulled those funny-looking little cakes steaming hot out of the oven and waived one around for a few minutes until it was cool enough to slather with homemade butter cream before sending it down our deprived gullets. So what that it was 11 pm at night and we were eating cupcakes…they’re gluten-free!

Here’s the recipe for the zucchini bread if you ever feel the need to hop on the wheat-free love train. Me and Carly? Not sure how long we’ll be along for the ride but at least we’re having a few laughs along the rails and learning some new stuff while we’re at it.

First grate the zucchini, squeeze it with a paper towel until it is as dry as you can get it, then set it aside.

Cream the wet ingredients, mix the dry in a separate bowl, then add them to the wet. Mix into this battter the zucchini and the walnuts (say "yes" to Omega-3s).

Spread into an oiled loaf pan into which you have previously placed a sheet of parchment like this.

And, voila...gluten-free goodness: sweet and moist with a crisp but tender crust!

After all of this baking, maybe next week we’ll go Atkins…bring on the bacon!

Gluten-Free Zucchini Bread

Cream together:

• 1 cup brown sugar
• 1/3 cup coconut oil

Add in:

• 2 egg whites
• ¼ cup coconut milk
• 1 tps lemon juice
• 1 tps lemon zest

Stir together in a separate bowl then add to wet ingredients:

• 1 cup sorghum flour
• ½ cup tapioca flour
• 2 tsps baking powder
• ½ tsp baking soda
• ¾ tsp xanthan gum
• ½ tsp salt
• 1 tsp cinnamon

Stir in to the batter:

• 1 rounded cup fresh grated zucchini (really squish out as much moisture as you can using paper towels then fluff with a fork to measure)
• 1/3 cup chopped walnuts (optional)

Bake at 350 degrees for 50-60 minutes or until tester comes out clean.

Adapted from recipe found at http://glutenfreegoddess.blogspot.com/