First, let just say here that I don’t take very good pictures of food. I live in an RV, so I don’t have a lot of room or very good lighting. That being said, I can say that these recipes are quite good, and if you have to eat a gluten free diet, they will be a great addition to your holiday meal! Click on the pictures to get the recipe.

Gluten Free Coconut Cream Pie

Gluten Free Pumpkin Pie Recipe

Sweet Potato Pie

Potato Salad

Blackberry Vinaigrette Salad Dressing

I don’t have a picture of them, but here are recipes for:

Gluten Free Southern Style Cornbread Dressing and Giblet Gravy.  They taste just like the stuff my mother used to make for me.

Sausage Balls. These are great for appetizers!

GlutenFree Macaroni and Cheese.

Getting new glasses today made me think about all the different glasses I have had over the years. I couldn’t find a picture of me with my very first glasses–they were those black cat eye glasses that were popular back in 1965, the year I turned 13 years old. I hated them and wouldn’t wear them. But the second pair, shown here in 1968, wasn’t much better. I had them because my mother picked them out:

and here is an even dorkier pair from 1969:

 

If  you wear glasses, when did you start wearing them? Did you get to pick out your own frames? Do you think you would have worn them more if you had picked them out?

 

 

No, not for the kitchen, for my eyes! Last night I was cleaning my glasses and broke the frames, and I knew I would have to go today to buy some  new eyeglasses. I am one of those people who can’t walk without her glasses. I walk into walls without them. I am pretty much useless for anything if I don’t have those glasses sitting on my face.  The ones I broke were purchased in 2007! so I knew it was time.

Because we have an account at Lens Crafters, and we have bought our glasses there several times, we decided to go there again this time. I had an eye exam, and had my eyes dilated. After that I was told to go and pick out some frames. Now I don’t know about you, but I can not walk, or see much, without my glasses. Add to that the fact that my eyes were dilated, and you can be assured that I was not seeing much.

I took these pics myself, but I did use the try on option at the store, too.

What was really neat, and new for me, was that they have a camera built into their computer station that can take a picture of you wearing the frames you  have picked out, so that you can actually put your old glasses back on and see what you look like wearing the new frames!

I asked Fagrandpa to help me decide which frames to buy. I already knew I want some with rhinestones, because I am all about the sparklies! Here are some that I tried on:

I found quite a few pairs of frames that I liked, and these were the four I liked the best. I really liked the rhinestones on the ones on the lower left the best, but the actual frames on the lower right looked better on me.

There I am on the computer screen! The salesperson attached a matrix like device onto the frames, then took a picture with the computer camera. Using the resulting photo, she was able to get measurements that were accurate to with .10 of an inch! Look how big my pupils are! Fuzzy vision for sure!.

Because I have such a weird prescription, I have NEVER been able to get a pair of glasses in one hour, at any store I have ever been to. But, the manager of the store made me a temporary lens that was as close to my prescription as he could get it, for me to use until my prescription lenses arrive, for FREE! Now THAT is good customer service! And just another reason why I will continue to use Lens Crafters for my eyeglass needs.

So there I am in my new EXPENSIVE glasses. Please don’t pay attention to my hair. I got caught in a drenching rain.

There they are. New glasses with temporary lenses. At least I can see until I get the real prescription lenses.

I used  My Memories Scrapbooking Software to make the collages in this post

(This is re-written from a post I did back in 2009, but it is still relevant today)

Way back years ago when I was a divorced mother of three young children, trying very hard on a very tight budget to make ends meet, I was the recipient of a food box from a community organization at Christmas. I was happy to get it, but one of the things I have always remembered from that experience was how many cans of hominy were in it.

I did appreciate getting the food, but I remember thinking “I wonder how many people really eat that stuff?” and wondering why, if you don’t eat something yourself, would you put it in the donation box for others.  Do people think that just because we are unable to provide for ourselves for a minute that our taste buds or nutritional needs are going to change? I have to say here that I am not complaining about someone putting something that is inexpensive in a food donation box. I am talking about hominy in particular because my family never ate it when I was growing up, and I never bought it myself. It is just something that there was a LOT of in that foodbox I received, and my children wouldn’t eat it. I cooked it and put it on the table, but it was a wasted effort. So, ever since then, I have been more thoughtful about what I buy to donate to others. If my family won’t eat it, why would I give it to someone else? That is all I am asking.

Back then, it was just a matter of tastes. If I were the recipient of a food box now, though, it would be a matter of whether or not I would be able to eat the foods that I received. I am not alone in this line of thinking. Dee Valdez, who was diagnosed with Celiac Disease 17 years ago, remembers talking to a mother with a sick 7 year old who had Celiac. The mother said she had to choose between feeding her whole family or just feeding her sick daughter the very expensive gluten free food she could find. That distraught mother said, referring to her Celiac daughter, “She’s just going to have to live with diarrhea.”

“There is a great need to develop a systematic approach to establishing Gluten Free Food Banks across the nation.” says Valdez. She is making that happen in Loveland, Colorado, where there was a dedication and ribbon cutting for the new gluten free section of the existing House of Neighborly Service Food Bank (HNS) on Tuesday, December 15, 2009. This location will serve as the test site for the new program Valdez is designing to be implemented in communities across the country. What a wonderful thing for the 1 in 133 of us who can not eat gluten!

I was also happy to read that Pamela’s Products, a dedicated gluten-free company, is a supporter of this effort, and is donating their Baking & Pancake Mix and their cookies to HNS. I discovered Pamela’s Baking and Pancake Mix early on in my gluten free life–it is now one of the staples of life in the Fab household.

While the costs of gluten free products has come down, and there is a much wider selection of them, they are still more expensive than regular normal foods. For example, you can pick up a loaf of regular white wheat bread for under $2.00 at any grocery store, and for even less at a discount bread outlet. The last gluten free bread I bought cost me about $6.50 for a 12 ounce loaf.

Fabgrandpa and I can afford it, but with so many people losing their jobs, many people who must eat a gluten free diet are finding their budgets stretched to the limits, and facing the choice of whether to eat foods that are toxic to them. Ever since I started eating gluten free, whenever I donate items to a food drive, I always donate gluten free–pasta, bread mix, baking mix, cookies, cereal.  Because, what is the point of giving something I wouldn’t eat myself?