Hippie Lifetime Membership Achieved

I bet you’re wondering what that stuff is.  It’s okay.  I would wonder, too.  Especially since the color is a bit off thanks to the lack of light.  Next you’re gonna wonder if I’ve lost it, but that’s okay, too.  It is.  Wait for it.  Deodorant.  Yep.  Homemade deodorant.  Not antiperspirant, but frankly, I live in the South.  No amount of antiperspirant is really going to help me most months of the year.  And I’m a little nervous about blocking up pores with chemicals and aluminum.  I have enough trouble remembering things, I don’t need help forgetting where I put my keys or who so and so is.  I took some medicine once that wrecked my brain temporarily.  I had little short term memory and I thought I was loosing my mind.  That put the nail in the coffin for conventional deodorants for me.  So I’ve tried several natural deodorants.  Some have worked great.  Some not so much.  So I decided to take the leap and make my own.

I read lots of things on the webernet.  There are loads of recipes out there.  After reading them I poked about in my cupboards and found that I had several of the ingredients that had been mentioned repetitively.  I decided to use coconut oil (I used the vanilla stuff I made.), baking soda (I’m a bit nervous about using this.  Some people reported irritation from it.), and corn starch (Arrowroot powder was often used in place of this.), and a few drops of lavender oil.  I used 3 T of baking soda, 4 T of corn starch, and I would estimate 4 T of coconut oil.  After I mixed it up I added 6 drops of lavender.

I have to say, it smells amazing.  Bonus:  It’s gluten free and I know it.  Feel free to sing that to the tune of I’m Sexy and I Know It.  I did.  I suppose tomorrow will tell the tale since we are in the middle of a heat wave.  Hopefully it will work.  Right now it is pretty thin.  I’m going to put it in the fridge to thicken it up a bit.  I’m not sure if it will ever be able to go into a recycled container.  I know it won’t travel particularly well because of the low melt point.  But I don’t travel a whole lot anyway.  I’ll keep you posted.

Oh, and this alone is not why I got lifetime membership.  I’m also made (maybe) kombucha today.  I’ll have to get back to you on that.  I have assembled the ingredients into one container.  Hopefully the magic will happen.  Cross your fingers for me.

Travel Makes Me Nervous

Summer will officially be here in a couple of days.  For lots of people, including myself, that means travel is looming on the horizon.  I used to LOVE to travel.  Not that I have been anywhere particularly worldly or exciting, but I have always enjoyed a change of scenery every once in a while.  Now, I kind of break out in a sweat. Traveling with gluten issues is way different than traveling without them.

Now I have to plan things like where I am going to eat OR what I am going to take with me to eat.  I can’t really take for granted that anything will be safe.  Even well meaning family and friends can make things for me that they think are safe for me to eat, but the problem is gluten has multiple personality disorder.  It goes by dozens of names and can show up in things that you think gluten has no business being in.  Salad dressings, soy sauce, heck, even broths have to be examined to make sure that I can eat it.  It is annoying at the least and makes you feel like a burden at the most.  You can feel like an outcast and a diva when really, all you want is to be able to eat safely.  Before I can eat anything other than what I’ve brought along my brain screams STOP!

And I have to ask myself, “can I eat this?”  Sometimes the answer is yes.  Sometimes it is no.  I prefer to err on the side of caution.  So, if you see me at a picnic, or maybe a cook out, and I’m eating a KIND bar while everyone else digs in to burgers (seasonings may have gluten) and potato salad (may have cross contamination from gluten containing dishes), don’t be under the impression that I’m a vegetarian, or a food snob.  I’m just trying to play it safe.  I would much rather do that and be able to hit the beach, than be stuck inside feeling miserable.

 

 

Yummy Pizza Goodness

So, I can’t eat gluten.  That means that I can’t have pizza, right?  Oh, so very, very wrong.  You see, there are lots of things this nerd can live without, but pizza isn’t one of them.  No way, no how, uh-uh.  Before learning that I couldn’t have gluten, I had three favorite foods.  1.  Pizza.  2.  Burgers.  3.  Tacos.  Numbers two and three transitioned easily enough.  Tacos, well, just skip wheat tinged seasonings and and make sure that the chips or shells are gluten free.  Nowadays, I don’t even really use the chips or shells, I just have a big honkin’ salad.  Although sometimes, I like to get crazy and put all that goodness on a baked potato.  Burgers are easy enough, too.  The bun was really only a vehicle to get the beef, cheese and foolish amount of toppings I would put on a burger to my mouth.  My burgers used to resemble a salad stuck inside a bun.  Now it is just a salad wrapped up in more salad.

But the pizza.  Oh, the pizza.  I have tried many different things.  And trust me when I say there are lots of ideas out there on how to go about making a gluten free pizza.  I tried gluten free doughs, but they all tasted a bit off or they left a weird film in my mouth.  I also tried the cauliflower crust.  Now that was amazing, but a calorie bomb with crazy amounts of cheese.  Not that I have a problem with that, really, but the frequency with which I would like to enjoy pizza makes that a bit of a problem.  So,  enter into my life portobella pizzas.  I attempted to take a picture of this goodness, but it looked rather… unappealing.  To say the least.  BUT, it was delicious.

You use the mushroom to make the “crust”, by baking in the oven for a bit.  Next time around, I  will drizzle balsamic vinegar at this step to give it a bit more kick.  I may even add a bit of pepper flake.  Then you load it up just like you would a pizza, sauce, peppers, olives, ect.  You can skip the mushrooms though.  You’ve got that covered.  Toss it back in under the broiler to melt the cheesy goodness and then (and here’s the important part) DON’T FORGET IT.  I did.  Oops.  But it still tasted great.  I see this going into a regular Friday night rotation in this household.  Next time, if I don’t forget about it, I’ll take a picture.  But you gotta try this.  Even if gluten isn’t an issue for you.  Here’s a link for one recipe, but you can google it and find loads more.  Bon appetit!