Birthday Party!

My daughter just celebrated her 8th birthday this past weekend. With the help of  Haley's Corner Bakery in Kent, Wa we were able to celebrate with a beautiful, GF/CF cake! The cake was a bit on the sweet side because my daughter chose frosting as her middle layer inside but the taste and texture of the cake was excellent. Haley’s offers an assortment of fillings (the chocolate mousse is very good!) and we had our choice of eight different cakes.

For dinner that night, my daughter really wanted spaghetti and garlic bread. I had not tried to use my bread recipe to make garlic bread but it ended up working out great!

Start by mixing up a batch of  my basic bread  recipe. Then, instead of putting it in the bread machine, use a muffin top pan similar to this one Cuisinart Chef's Classic 6-Cup Nonstick Muffin-Top Pan  If you don’t have a muffin top pan, you could use English muffin rings or maybe even tuna cans with the top and bottom cut out placed on a cookie sheet. What didn’t fit in my muffin pan, I put in a regular bread pan.

Pre-heat the oven at 200 degrees for about 5 minutes and then turned it off. Place the bread in the oven and let it rise for about 1 hr. Remove the bread from the oven and pre-heat the oven to 400 degrees. Put the bread back in and bake for 10-15 minutes.

After baking the bread, let it cool (I actually made mine in the morning for that nights dinner) and then split whatever shapes you made in half. I had 6 round buns and 1 small loaf.

Use whatever butter or butter substitute you want. I used Earth Balance spread mixed with garlic powder to butter them. Bake them at 400 degrees for 10 to 15 minutes (keep an eye on them as they can brown up quickly).  
Next time I think I will make a larger batch of these and freeze them. The round loaves would make perfect hamburger buns as well.

We enjoyed the bread with Trader Joe’s Rice spaghetti noodles with spaghetti and meat sauce.

Party Survival

     A few weeks ago, my kids received an invitation to a birthday party. They were thrilled... for about 30 seconds. Then they turned and looked at me and said "uh, mom, do you remember the last party we went to?" Do I remember? Oh, yes, I remember. It involved 2 hysterical children and leaving early. The last party we attended was the first party I had ever enforced our GF/CF diet. See, we used to do the diet at home but if we went to a party or had the desire to eat fast food, we would break the diet, allow the offending food, and then suffer through the reaction for the next week. It was a constant roller coaster of emotions and frustrations.
 
    This time, I assured my kids, it would be different. And guess what? It was! They both had an absolutely wonderful time. There were no tears, no fits, in fact it was almost...normal.

     So, what was so different? Mom was prepared!! The first thing I did was contact the mom of the birthday girl and asked what was going to be served. I also expressed my concerns about what could possibly happen to give the mom a heads up if we had to leave early.

    Here is what was planned for the menu. Pizza (uh-oh, that's a toughie), cake (of course), popcorn (another uh-oh, due to sensory issues Alex can't stand to be around someone eating popcorn because it makes a "squeaky" sound), and candy (oh please let there be no chocolate). There was going to be a movie being shown (please let it not be one that disturbs Alex).

     Ok, deep breath mom, we can do this!

    

 I sat the kids down and told them what was going to be served and asked them what they thought a good substitute would be. After some negotiating (I had to remind them that cookies are NOT a substitute for pizza) we arrived at a menu that we could all live with. Scrambled eggs and sausage for Alex. Hannah would be having the pizza (she is only GF/CF to support brother so we do allow some for her). The mom giving the party was wonderful in choosing the candy for during the movie. She made sure that a majority of it was GF/CF. They also ended up serving chips that Alex could eat and skipped the popcorn since the kids were so full from everything else. I also brought an assortment of other foods in case the kids wanted something else.

     What about the cake? Before the party we made a special trip to a  Gluten free bakery  (they also offer many items CF). The kids each picked out their own mini cake, they were about the size of a single slice of birthday cake (I forgot to get a shot of them before they were devoured, sorry!). Once the birthday girl had her slice of the big cake I served the little cakes to my kids, there was no issue.

     We had an absolutely wonderful time. No issues, no crying, no leaving early. It was...normal!