Food Philosophy: Recipes and ramblings from a gluten-free naturopath

Many people think of S'mores as soon as summer is mentioned!  I like to indulge in s'mores once the weather has cooled off and fall has arrived--mostly because I don't like sitting around a roaring campfire when it's so hot and humid!   But, that doesn't mean that I don't identify with the yummy, sticky, gooey-ness of a wonderful s'more!  I think the best way to enjoy a s'more during the blazing heat of summer is in an icebox cake!  I made one recently and it was s'more-licious!! Icebox cakes are fabulous for the heat of summer because they don't require any baking, so you won't need to heat up your house with the oven.  It takes a bit of time to get all the components together and layered, but then, you just let it sit overnight in your refrigerator and you're ready to dig in...YUM! First, you have to get all the components prepared.  The first thing you'll make is a chocolate ganache (which I could drink all day

Summer is here again and it's road trip season!!  We all love jumping in the car and heading off to places unknown, or perhaps to old favorites.  But, one of the big downsides of a road trip is the plethora of sugary and unhealthy snacks. I always begin a road trip with virtuous promises to stay away from the soda and sugar and ice cream and caramel corn and .....but, within a day or two, somehow I seem to succumb every time and I feel terrible!  (Not so much guilty-terrible, as body fatigue-headache-irritable-terrible). So, a few years ago, I decided that I needed a solution--something that I could feel good about snacking on and more importantly, something that wouldn't make me feel like I'd been hit by a truck on my trip!  As you well know, just the everyday side effects of dealing with an autoimmune disorder are enough--and then, if you add the stress (even good stress) of dealing with traveling, it can really mess you up!  So, I wanted something that would be fu

It has been 20 years since I was diagnosed with Celiac disease and that I have been eating a gluten-free diet!  I can hardly believe that it's been that long! I always seemed to have some kind of mysterious illness, even as a child, that the doctors could never diagnose properly, or at all.  I would hear things like, "It's {this}--take this medicine," or "You need to reduce your stress level," or "It's all in your head!"  My all-time favorite was the doctor who told me, when I was at my most toxic, "You need to triple your wheat fiber intake!"  That advice almost killed me! I finally got a doctor to listen to me and he agreed to run a panel of blood tests, although I'm pretty sure he didn't believe that there was anything wrong with me; he just wanted to shut me up and get me out of his office.  Well, 3 or 4 days later he called me and was so apologetic!  The first words out of his mouth were, "You really are sick

I have lost about 40 pounds in the last 10 months, which I realize is a very strange way to begin this post, especially under the picture of a cake and whipped cream!!  But, I do have a point :)  The way that I have lost this weight has been by eliminating most of the sugar from my diet and by cutting my portions down by at least 1/2, if not more.  So, in order to stick with my new healthy lifestyle, I've been on a journey of learning how to make dishes small! My biggest challenge has been with desserts.  I LOVE desserts, but they don't love me!  And not just because of the weight issue...I suffer when I eat sugar, although in varying degrees, but I do suffer---headaches, pain, lethargy, nausea, indigestion, congestion, brain fog...I've been able to trace all of these to levels of sugar consumption.  Of course, the auto-immune issues cause all of these symptoms, but mine are greatly ameliorated if I limit my sugar intake.  So, I've had to bite the bullet and