WOW!!! Gluten Free Casein Free has never been this good!!!

Wow! I'm speechless, well almost!

Come on this is me we are talking about;-)

Tonight’s dinner was absolutely Devine! In the Primer house we eat very little junk like foods at home and today we hit the motherlode as we indulged in Amy's Rice Macaroni with Non Diary Cheese, NuLife Foods Chicken nuggets and Chocolate Chip cookies.

Let's start with the Amy's Rice Macaroni with Non Diary Cheese (Daiya Cheese) Let's point out that many frozen foods once cooked look nothing like the picture on the box! That is not the case for this product. I followed conventional oven cooking instructions, since I prefer a good baked Mac & Cheese. After cooking and stirring it looked beautiful! I have to say it tasted even better, in my humble opinion! My two little taste testers agreed and practically licked their plates clean. I swear to you any restaurant out there could serve this and no one would ever know the difference! The funny thing is Emily who is 10 was hesitant to try it since she had already saw Austin eating it, so she was clued in that it was GFCF (and may I add soy and egg free). When I asked if she knew it was GFCF she looked at me a sarcastically said "um yeah I've been in this family awhile and Austin could eat it duh!!" (Wonder where she gets that smart arse attitude, lol). She did though eat every last bite! The only downside I see to this product is the calories and fat. The box is considered it one entree and it is 520 calories, 22g total fat (34% of your daily value if on a 2000 calorie diet), 5g saturated fat, and 740 mg of sodium (31% of your daily value). As a wife of a heart attack survivor (at 39) this is definitely a food that should be eaten in moderation. My suggestion is to halve it and serve as a side dish with a lean meat and lots of veggies, and a salad!

Next up is the NuLife foods chicken nuggets, these are GFCFSFEF. If you are looking to replace McDonald nuggets these are not the nuggets you are looking for, for that matter you are never going to find those! McDonald's food is not food! At the San Diego DAN conference in 2008 one of the doctor's hit the nail on the head and said there is no such thing as junk food, there is junk and there is food and McDonald's is just that JUNK! The number one reason these won't replace McD's is they are breaded, not battered. I tasted these at the PITA mom's night in Orange County in June and can tell I understand why Ron from NuLife Foods describes these as their most popular product! They are very kid friendly. Austin had snuck 4 of them before I even served dinner! Let's just say that is a good sign he loved them! Emily also gave them rave reviews. They are 250 calories for a serving of 4. I will say both Austin age 8.5 and Emily age 10 each ate 8, but I know my friend’s boys, age 9 and 6 normally eat 4 nuggets at dinner.

Last but certainly not least are NuLife Food's chocolate chip cookies. These are GFCFSF unfortunately not egg free. So all reviews for this product will be from the non GF members of the family, Ed, Emily and I all give them 3 thumbs up! I might have also moaned when I ate my first one, but I really like fresh baked cookies and rarely have them. My sister Tanya also tasted one; her comment not knowing I had not made these from scratch was that I used a little too much butter substitute. I am unsure if this is accurate as I was afraid to over cook them. The directions said how long to cook, but my experience with cooking cookies is Toll House and you cook until the edges are golden or 1 2 3 gluten free where they taste like toll house but if cooked until the edges are golden crumble once cooled. So I went on the cautious side and under cooked! Ed said they were as good as any gluten filled cookie on the market so this is also getting really high praises from the Primer Family! I would buy these and use them regularly if Austin was not egg free and could eat them.

Until next time PITAup and make the world a better place for someone with Autism!

*Please note any links that are in green and underlined twice are being linked by the blog, and are not being linked by me and do not represent anything I am promoting.*

Old Favorites

Since I have some new parents who follow me on Facebook, Twitter, and read the blog, I thought I would review an old favorite since they recently introduced some new flavors. These products are all GFCFEF, not soy free. The have an awesome Allergy Alert for those who worry about cross contamination. I love companies that do not make you search for answers like this! They have this alert on several of their web pages.

Kinnikinnick animal cookies, for once this is a GFCFEF product that got it 100% right the first time!!!! Kinnikinnick animal cookies are just as disgusting as the original animal cookie and that is a GREAT thing! There purpose and usefulness are awesome from a parent's perception! Kid’s first and foremost love them. Animal cookies are a great teething cooking for smaller children. The mush up properly causing very little chance for choking and get all over toddler hands and then all over your clothes and you look like you rolled in a vat of talc or chalk. Ok the last part might not be awesome, but it’s a right of passage in parenting. These disgusting little cookies are winning big raves with all the PITA kids even the not GFCFEF kids! The kids that hang out in our smaller sub PITA group (our group that hangs out together every weekend, kids ages range from 13 months to 10 years old). Everyone will eat these puppies, I mean animal cookies!!!

They have also just come up with two equally unappealing versions Graham Style and Chocolate, which all the children love as well. As a parent I'm all for these disgusting treats if all the kids are, I just wish they were soy free. I think in my world sf and ef are not compatible but companies who cater to our community need to realize GFCFEFSF is where it is at! When we started the diet 6 years ago GFCF was recommended today by our local support group Talk About Curing Autism now, but today the tacanow.org website recommends everyone start GFCFSF. In my experience on this journey there is at least 25% of us that add in egg free due to allergies or IgG tests that recommend it. Egg allergies are huge now days due to many vaccines that have been grown on eggs and IMHO cause allergies to eggs! I think in a few years the majority of parents and support groups will be suggesting starting with GFCFEFSF.

Until my next time, PITAup and make the world a better place for all our kids, but especially those with Autism

New favorite gluten free casein free foods

We have two new favorite foods to review!!!

The first item up for review is the new Daiya cheese, its package boasts “deliciously dairy free”. It is dairy, lactose, casein, whey, nuts, gluten, soy and egg free. It is also free of artificial ingredients, preservatives, hormones, antibiotics and is GMO free. It comes in Cheddar style and Mozzarella style. I paid $4.99 for an 8 ounce bag.

After having Austin on the GFCF diet for 6 years I can tell you CF cheese is generally nasty. It has no redeeming qualities to it and generally turns to oil when melted. Honestly at our house we gave up cheese when we started the diet. It was just something that could not be duplicated!!!

Daiya cheese is changing that perception in a big way!!! Not only does it taste good it melts. I made Austin a grilled cheese sandwich the other day and when I tore it apart it spread like real cheese! All I have to say is WOW!!! If you haven’t tried it you need to. In Southern California Daiya cheese can be found at Whole Foods and Mother’s. I am hoping Henry’s hurries and gets the message of how great this cheese is or I will be making those bi-monthly trips to Mother’s again. Won’t be a bad thing for me since I have a Mother's addiction, but the husband may complain since we live in Carlsbad, CA and the closest one is in Laguna Hill, lol.

The Daiya website also has a macaroni and cheese recipe that looks great. The also have other products they have paired up with and it is definitely worth checking out that list as well since NuLife Foods, Amy’s and other well known GFCF companies are in the list. I’m definitely looking forward to my sample pack of foods NuLife Foods is sending since I noticed that Daiya cheese is on their pizza. Very exciting indeed!! Also if you did not hear you can order the trial pack right now for only $10 with special discount code. For the same shipping cost you can add one more item to your cart. My favorite still is the chicken burger, but I hear the nuggets are an overall favorite!!!

The second item up for review is the gluten free pizza at BJ’s Brewhouse, cost $8.99 without toppings. If you order it without cheese it is also casein free. Per Tamara Bersbach, BJ's Restaurants, Inc. Risk Management Coordinator, “The pizza crust does not have dairy nor does the sauce. The only dairy comes from the cheese. Also all of our ingredients for the Gluten Free Pizza's are in a separate area to avoid any cross contamination with other food items.” Per the menu all toppings are gluten free except the meatballs. The pizza is also egg free! I did not inquire about topping being casein free. I went with the safe choice of grilled chicken as Austin won’t eat veggies on a pizza and I know that the majority of pepperonis have milk in them.

So this Pizza is pretty much a typical thin pizza, it is 10 inches and could easily feed 2 or more children. Emily tasted and liked it and Austin ate half of it, so the Primer’s are giving it 2 thumbs up. I did take Daiya cheese and threw some on top of it when it came out. Now if only we could get BJ’s Brewhouse Restaurants to pick up Daiya Cheese for their pizzas and the world of GFCFEF would be a little better place.

One of the things I really like about BJ’s Brewhouse is they have an allergen menu, so if you are going there just ask for one or I have a .pdf of their Allergen brochure that lists 10 common allergens: egg, fish, milk, msg, peanuts, shellfish, soy, sulfites, tree nuts, and wheat. If anyone wants it feel free to e-mail me at pita_up@yahoo.com and I will send that right out to you!

I do have to say if you are deciding to try BJ’s Brewhouse Restaurants’ I am not recommending the Carlsbad, CA store for anything more then take out. We really love the store in Laguna Hills; they have fabulous service, even with parties of 10 or more. The Carlsbad store we have been to at least a dozen times since it opened in October and the food is great, but the service is seriously lacking!!! I think the only time we have been to the Carlsbad BJ’s and received good service is when one of my husband’s former students served us.

Until next time, PITAup and let us know your thoughts on our 2 new favorite products!!!

*Please note any links that are in green and underlined twice are being linked by the blog, and are not being linked by me and do not represent anything I am promoting.*

What’s for dinner?

What’s for dinner?

After almost 6 years on the Gluten Free Casein Free diet, I especially find it amusing hearing how hard the diet is and how someone could never do it. Sorry people it is not that hard. PITA UP!!!

When we started 6 years ago we ate bark, literally most thing tasted like bark!!!

Ok I should be forthcoming, the Primer household doesn’t all eat GFCF, but I am also not a short order cook. Had we only had Emily and Austin when we started the diet we would have all been, but we had a 12 and 10 year old who had a life before GFCF and before Autism. At that point in their lives we were so upside down we decided it was not fair to make them give up everything and trust me after meeting Autism we gave up everything, it might have been good for them to give this up too, but I would not ask it!!!

We did for an entire year though not have any commercial cereals and this was before EnviroKids had much more then Gorilla Munch. It was the one thing Ash and Nic used to leave down and one day I hit my limit and said, in the mom voice, “If you leave that down one more time, we will never have it again” and then for a year we did not. But trust me when their favorite bread was the next thing they left for Austin to eat got the threat, they did NOT leave it out. The learned they adapted!!

So for the record we all eat the same dinner and I make Austin his own “TV dinners” to take to school every day from the leftovers. I freeze them in wax paper and Ziploc baggies and they serve at school.

The diet is like any life change, i.e. exercise, moving, changing jobs, whatever, it is a mind set, once you realize that is just the way it is you get through it. Today’s GFCF people have it easy. I envy you all since we are now GFCFEFSFAF, for those newbie’s, those letters mean Gluten Free (no Wheat, rye, oats or barley), Casein Free (no milk), Egg free, Soy free and Apple free. For most things now days you can find tasty foods that are free of a lot, but generally they are either GFCFEF or GFCFSF, but you can’t be both. All you companies out there thinking what does the public want next, we want GFCFEFSF ;-)

OK so I have days where I have simply run out of ideas for what is for dinner. I figured others might also. So I thought I would share my new favorite GFCF recipe and that in a future blog I will share some of my other new favorite GFCF things.

Today I managed to make Emeril's Chicken Marsala. I subbed rice & potato flour for the wheat flour and ghee for the butter. It turned out fabulously and I am highly recommending the recipe!

Let’s put into perspective how well this was loved. The child who 6.5 years ago would eat no meat, veggies, fruits and definitely not a sauce with mushrooms in it, he ate it, and as I type is licking the plate, and before this when he was done eating his food he had seconds, and then moved on to his dad’s food!!!

That means we will be eating this at least once a week now!!!!!! YUM!!!

Oh and for those of you who say my kid is toooooooo picky for GFCFSF this is the same child that 6.5 years ago found a small piece of hot dog my sister tried to trick him into eating and he figured out how to get it out of the piece of Mac & cheese, without loosing his gluten filled opiate food and only spit out the hot dog!!! The more restrictive we have gone with the diet the better my child eats!!!

OK I will continue this subject in the future because I have some other fun and great new products to promote!!!

Until then PITA up and make the world a better place for our 1 in 91 kids with Autism.