A Gluten Free Dairy Free Vacation

The Enemy is a Robber of Joy, So With That Perspective in Mind, I Needed a Quick Re-Allignment

 

 

You've heard it say that the anticipation of vacation is half the fun. In vacations past, much of my anticipation was imagining delicious sweet and savory treats from around the world. My vacations were a culinary delight. Searching for wineries, cooking classes and great restaurants. Also, making sure I could get my hands on a kitchen in order to cook with regional foods have always been part of my anticipatory pleasure of planning.

 

A few months ago, however, my world turned upside down and my view of food has turned from "living to eat" to "eating to live". It definitely changes one's focus on vacation planning. Now, more than ever, I need to focus on food - but for different reasons.

 

This time the planning stage was pretty extensive. I figured the more I planned the less thinking I'd have to do while on vacation. So, I started with a personal travel guide. His name is "Mr. Google". All I had to do was let him know some magic words, and a plethora of culinary options were at my disposal. My first suggestion to Mr. Google was a B&B in the town where we planned to stay. The magic words were "gluten free B&B in Cape May, NJ" and "voila", The Mason Cottage Victorian B&B appeared.

Patti, the Innkeeper, had written a blog seemingly just for me. It was titled, "For All Our Vegetarian, Vegan and Gluten Free Guests". Well, that was the start of the "anticipation" of my topsy turvy vacation.

I have to admit, up to that point, I was not looking forward to any vacation. Simply because I was anticipating too much thought on where to find foods I could eat instead of simply finding delicious regional temptations to enjoy. But once I had at least breakfast taken care of, it gave me courage to investigate further.

 

The next thing I did was to do some mega cooking so at least one other meal could be gluten and dairy free. I spent the Saturday before we left planning, cooking and storing meals. I have to admit it was tiring, but I was happy during the week when I didn't have to use brain space for, "Now what am I going to eat".

Next, I asked my "travel guide, Mr. Google" to find gluten free restaurants in Cape May. There were a few that had gluten free menus, but one really caught my eye; it was called "Higher Grounds". It is an organic cafe which offers vegan, vegetarian and gluten free foods. YAY. It turned out to be a wonderful find. We were able to frequent it a few times and enjoyed lunch or organic coffee and cookies on their Garden Patio. We even enjoyed playing a game of chess while waiting for our food. An added blessing was the owners/servers were very amiable, knowledgeable, friendly and encouraging. We spent a couple pleasant afternoons there.

 

When we first arrived, we went to a restaurant that was supposedly gluten free friendly, but they simply took out ingredients that I couldn't have without replacing it with anything else. What I ended up with was expensive, plain tasting food. At this point I felt going on vacation was a mistake. My high anticipatory expectations came tumbling down and I had a good cry and spent a couple hours under the covers. This is when I realized that the enemy was trying to ruin  my vacation. The problem was, I was letting him.

 

 

So, I put on my Pollyanna face and forced myself to count my blessings. Come to find out there were many more happy things in my life that didn't need to be overshadowed by a couple of food allergies. I realized I needed to change my focus on enjoyments other than food (not easy when you're a foodie) - like chatting with some wonderful people who were also guests of the B&B, during tea time. Enjoying delicious specially made gluten free dairy free cookies that Patti, the Innkeeper, had made speciallly for me AND she gave me the recipe! (There I go again, getting excited about food - or maybe it was that it was baked with kindness. Yes, that must be it.)

 

Thumbprint Cookies

From Patti from The Mason Cottage, Cape May, NJ

Makes about 30 cookies

Fill these oat and nut cookies with your favorite fruit juice sweetened jam. Or just leave in a ball and roll in organic powdered sugar once they're cooled.

Ingredients

1 cup almonds or pecans
1 cup gluten free rolled oats
1 cup gluten free flour blend
1/2 cup coconut oil
1/2 cup maple syrup
1/4 teaspoon salt
Fruit juice sweetened organic jam OR 1/2 cup organic powdered sugar

Directions

Preheat oven to 350°F. Put almonds and oats into a food processor and pulse until coarsely ground. Transfer to a large bowl and add flour, oil, syrup and salt. Stir to combine well. Roll walnut-sized balls of the dough in the palm of your hand to form each cookie, then arrange on 2 large baking sheets, spacing cookies 2 inches apart. Press your thumb gently down into the center of each cookie to make an indentation. Spoon a scant teaspoon of jam into each indentation. OR leave in a ball shape (when they're cool, roll in powdered sugar).

Bake cookies until golden brown and just firm around the edges, 15 to 20 minutes. Transfer to a rack to let cool completely, then serve immediately or store between layers of waxed paper in an airtight container.

 

 Also, the weather a couple of days was gorgeous and my honey and I were able to explore the enchanting town of Cape May.

 

I'm not sure I've perfected the art of "eating to live" instead of "living to eat", especially during vacation; but I have learned that focusing on those who love me, on meeting new people, and enjoying the blessings God has placed in my path are where my focus needs to be in order to enjoy my future vacations - and well, life in general, yes?

 

 

 

 

Have You Been Robbed, Or Are You Giving It Away?

 

We live in a day where saving money and pinching pennies is imperative, especially on mundane items like food - we need so much of it. So how do we justify buying and preparing foods that are healthy or even worse, organic?

 

Hold on to your seats friends, I've found the answer!!!!

 

You've heard the old adage, "Time is Money". It just occurred to me that we are being robbed! Of our money? In a sense, yes. What is it that we all spend our extra time doing? You guessed it - the wonderful world of Internet, Net Flix, Hulu, Cable, FaceBook, Email, iPhones. We hurry hurry and at the end of our exhausting day we plop for our nightly entertainment. While it is true that these expensive inventions can be time savers, they have also robbed us of something precious. Some old fashioned goodness. Namely, home cooking and face time. Think about it. What conjures in your head when you think of good 'ole home made cooking? - Homemade pies filling the kitchen with the aroma of apples and cinnamon, savory smells of beef stew cooking all day. Stuff your grandmother did, right? We don't have time to cook like that. We need something fast, quick, convenient and subsequently unhealthy.

 

What did our "grandmothers" do the first thing when they got up in the morning - turn on their computers, check email, FB, news? Of course not, sillies (Gollum LOTR). Their mind was on efficient and economical ways of keeping their families fed. Maybe they started a bread dough, a tomato sauce, or a stew; maybe they went out in the garden to pick what had ripened overnight. Their first hour was probably food prep - and without a microwave, mind you. Their time was their money.

 

Lots of our money is gobbled up in electronics - and I love my electronics as much as the next gal. But when people say "I don't have MONEY to buy organic" or "I don't have TIME to cook from scratch", I wonder if our priorities are just topsy turvy. A 24-hour day is still a 24-hour day.

 

Back in the day when women had the luxury of staying home they did a lot of, what we call, the mundane chores, together - baking, quilting, ironing. Well, we women still need "girl time" but the focus has shifted...we "do lunch" or catch a chick flick.

 

But lately, some of my friends who want to save time and money while eating with healthy ingredients have gotten together like women of old to cook together (older times mind you, not old in age). It has given us back something which we've been robbed of, home cooking with girl friends! Why not have fun learning and sharing together while saving time in the kitchen and subsequently saving money? It also takes away the drudgery of cooking - we're having fun with friends!

 

Our supper swap looks like this: each bff brings a healthy recipe and all the ingredients (you can change up the amount of people or the quantity of recipes depending on your needs). Together in one of our kitchens, we each cook our own recipe. We laugh, chat, eat and have fun together (all the components of girl time). Once we're done, we divide the finished meals into containers. If there are four of us, we've each made one big healthy meal and go home with four small ones. What a time saver!

 

Instead of spending money to "do lunch" or ordering out a quick pizza, our extra cash is spent on healthy organic ingredients and our robber of time and money has been vanquished.

 

I know we can't be asked to save money by canceling cable, or "doing lunch" less often - we need it, right? Of course we do. But what if we switched it up occassionally and got together like the ladies of 'ole and had some good "old fashioned" girl time - while keeping the time and money robbers at bay for awhile.