Gluten Free Birthday Dinner

All I want for my birthday is a "hassle free" gluten free dinner. I celebrated my 22nd birthday on Saturday, February 23rd and my birthday wish was go out to dinner and not worry about the menu or what to order. I looked up gluten free restaurants in Philly and since my parents were paying, I found a higher end restaurant called Davios Italian Steak House. Davios is out of the price range for an average college student, unless you don't want to pay your rent for the month. Valet parking is eighteen dollars, so I suggest taking the subway or taking the chance of finding a parking spot.

Davios wasn't like a typical restaurant that offered some gluten free food; they actually had a separate gluten free menu, which offered many gluten free options. I ordered the pasta bolognese. The pasta was cooked to perfection and the bolognese sauce was tasty!  My mom ordered roasted chicken breast with the bone over mashed potatoes and asparagus, delicious!!  For dessert I ordered crème brûlée with chambord raspberries, the plate was decorated with "Happy Birthday Taylor," nice touch. I had never tasted creme brulee, it was creamy and I loved the crunchy sugar crust. We thought the meal was over and we were paying the check when the wait staff brought us chocolate, chocolate chip, craisin cookies and biscotti. To my surprise the cookies were gluten free and great tasting!  I would give this restaurant eight out of ten because of how expensive it was, for a high-end establishment, the food quality was very good, not great.  The service was excellent; our waiters were attentive and informative, 10 out of 10.  I don't know if I would return to Davios unless I was celebrating a special event or if someone else was treating. I cannot wait to try more gluten free restaurants.  If anyone that follows me knows of any good gluten free friendly restaurants that you think I should try please comment and tell me. 

Before I went to Davios, I went to Wegmans to glance through their gluten free aisle. For everyone that does not know what Wegmans is, it is a huge grocery food store that has everything and even a fresh hot food buffet where you can purchase and sit down and eat. The one thing I miss after going gluten free is graham crackers.  I found a gluten free product in Wegmans called Grammy crisps that are made with cinnamon and sugar. They are manufactured by Cruchmaster and are not only gluten free but have 21g of whole grain and 0 grams of saturated fat, are peanut free and are oven baked. The other nutritious crunchmaster crisps are cheezy crisps, multi-grain original and multi-grain with sea salt. My boyfriend, who does not eat gluten free, loved them and he never likes any of my gluten free food. Try them, they are a delicious snack food or dip them into ice cream for dessert. Continue to follow my gluten free path

You only live once, so eat dessert first. Since I'm a person that loves baked goods more than a regular meal, I am going to give you my secret ingredient for gluten free baking. My mother and I have tried many different recipes to make a good gluten free cookie because those are our favorite. When trying to make cookies from scratch, the recipe called for ingredients like rice flour or tapioca flour.  The cookies would come out flat and taste like paper with chocolate chips.  We resorted to going to a gluten free bakery and buying them, tasted good, but too expensive. We had to find a different way to make a good cookie, cupcake or brownie.  About 3 years ago Betty Crocker came out with gluten free cake, brownie and cookie mix that you just had to add eggs, water, oil or butter, like regular mixes from a box. I have to say they are really good. But we wanted to find a better way  we could make cookies from scratch like we did when I was a child. New gluten free products were coming out everyday. One day my mom and her sister were in Williams-Sonoma just browsing and they discovered a gluten free section. They had several pre-mixed baked goods, but my mom found a bag of flour that was called Cup 4 Cup. The slogan is Gluten Free, But You’d Never Know it. All you have to do is substitute the flour in your recipe with Cup4 Cup. It's so easy, but the only down side is that  a 3 pound bag costs $20. My mom and I think it's so worth it because we like making everything from scratch and knowing  exactly what is goes into the food we bake.  Actually my mom just baked me a batch of gluten free cookies. I was thrilled! My school has some gluten free cookies, but not homemade.   If you just want a quick and easy way to make some baked goods, Betty Crocker is sold in most grocery store's gluten free section. If you want to make baked goods from scratch then Cup 4 Cup can be found in Whole Foods, Williams-Sonoma, Wegmans, Dean and Deluca to name a few. If you want to find out more about Cup 4 Cup the website is www.cup4cup.com. Remember, if you're gluten free, follow me!

The Best Gluten Free Chocolate Chip Cookies

2 1/2 cups of Cup 4 Cup flour
1 teaspoon of baking soda
1 teaspoon of gluten free vanilla
2 sticks of butter
3/4 cup sugar
3/4 cup of light brown sugar
2 eggs
1 bag of chocolate chips

Preheat oven 350

Cream softened butter with sugar then add brown sugar, add eggs, baking soda and vanilla. Add flour, then chocolate chips.

Drop by measuring tablespoonfuls onto ungreased cookie sheets

Bake for 9-10 minutes, place on cooling rack

Eat and Enjoy!!

Follow my Gluten Free path......

My name is Taylor Wootton and I am a student athlete that goes to school and plays basketball at Drexel University i n Philadelphia, PA. I grew up in a normal household with a mom, a dad and a brother. The only difficulty my family had to deal with was "what are we going to eat" or "where are we going to eat." This was the case because my mom had celiac disease. Celiac disease is when your body does not digest the protein in gluten. Foods that contain gluten are breads, cookies, cake, soy sauce and many more foods containing wheat, barley or rye. When you have the disease and continue to eat foods that have gluten in it, the symptoms could be, abdominal pain, nausea and vomiting, chronic diarrhea, constipation, just to name a few. Some of the risks could be intestinal cancer, thyroid cancer or type 1 diabetes. My mother was diagnosed about 20 years ago. At first she cheated a lot because the gluten free foods that were available tasted horrible. All she wanted was good tasting gluten free foods, pizza, bread, pasta, cookies. She wasn't asking for much, but she felt all alone,  the diagnosis of Celiac Sprue (as it was called 20 years ago)was new to world. There weren't many companies that made gluten free foods, let alone good tasting gluten free foods. I wanted to taste some of the gluten free foods she ate, Yuck; probably the worst tasting food I had ever tasted and really expensive. I hated when my mom cheated, she would get sick,  but I understood because I could never eat the food she had to eat. As I got older my mom and I always tried to find good tasting gluten free products and gluten free restaurants. I would always try the gluten free foods because if someone that didn't have Celiac thought the food tasted good, it must of been amazing for her. This past summer I was in and out of  many doctors’ offices because I had stomach problems. The doctor ruled out that I had celiac disease but since my mother has the disease I could have gluten intolerance. This meant I could not have foods with gluten because it hurt my stomach. At the start of this school year I went on a gluten free diet and started to feel like myself again. I try not to cheat but it's extremely difficult to do because I travel so much with my basketball schedule.  I'm starting to learn to ask, "what's in this dish" and "how is this prepared".  I sound like my mom. Since the summer my mom and I were talking about a blog named "gluten free follow me".  We want to share with everyone where to find the best gluten free products and which restaurants offer the best gluten free foods. Today so many people have this disease or are gluten intolerant or gluten sensitive.  In my blog I will post about different gluten free products and gluten free restaurants.  I hope you can follow me on my gluten free path.