this is gluten free?

I've been thinking about making a gluten free blog for a while now. So here I go. My name is Karen, for those who didn't know. I've been gluten free now for almost seven years. After years of knowing I was sensitive to gluten, eating it anyway, and not knowing it was terrible for me, I became gluten free. Gone are the days of horrible, stabbing, "mom it feels like a knife in my stomach" pain, food going right through me, feeling like I had food poisoning, and canker sores.

People ask me if it is hard to be gluten free, and yes, at times it is, but it is so much better than feeling sick. It is hard to eat out, especially in a pinch. I rarely go out for Italian food, which I'm sure my husband misses terribly. I'd love nothing more than a really great bagel, doughnut, or sub sandwich. Maybe I will get to that level of baking someday.

Despite the things I miss occasionally, eating gluten free is very easy. Most of the time I don't miss it at all. There are alot of bread, cake, pizza dough mixes out there, but I find if you really want something to taste "not gluten free" you need to do it yourself. Most of the time you don't even need to do anything special at all to cook gluten free!

In this blog I hope to share the best of my recipes I use on a day to day basis. I've learned alot about gluten free baking over the years. For example, what is xanthum gum? how much do I use? when? (maybe we'll get into that later). It sounds harder than it is. Trust me, if it was really hard to bake gluten free without mixes and prepackaged items, I wouldn't do it. And in time, baking because fast: I can make a batch of chocolate chip cookie bars in the time the oven preheats.

So, I hope you find things turn out well. Most of the time people can't tell anything I make is gluten free. For example, one day I sent gluten free cookies with my husband to share with work. One of his coworkers, who is gluten free, said to him, "Are you sure those cookies were gluten free? My stomach hurts now..." He responded, "Yes, I am sure those were gluten free, we don't even have normal flour in our house!"...so, like I said, most people can't tell...or they are just being really nice...see for yourself.