Beer Week

This past week was Beer Week in Sacramento. The wonderful owner of Gluten Free Specialty helped organize a gluten free beer tasting event at River Rock Tap House. Melanie brought gluten free snacks too, so we had crackers and hummus to pad our bellies as we tasted the beers.

I'd previously tried Green's and Bard's and Redbridge (my favorite-I'm told this means I'm not a real beer lover). But the tasting was my first opportunity to try New Planet. Of the three New Planet beers, I enjoyed the Raspberry Ale the most. I miss being able to drink Pyramid's Apricot Ale, which was one of my favorite beers in my pre-gluten free days, so having a fruity beer was a treat!

The Crunchmaster 7 ancient grain sea salt crackers were my favorite (rice crackers always taste a little funny to me but I liked some of the rice crackers too).

The bar also had four flavors of Two Rivers gluten free hard cider on tap. I tried Pear for the first time. It isn't as sweet as Wyder's pear cider and there was something really different about it. I still haven't decided if it was a good different or not. Also available on tap from Two Rivers: pomegranate, blood orange, and huckleberry.

It was a really nice way to end a busy weekend. It was super awesome having an event like this during Beer Week! Thanks to Melanie, Dan, and Scott for organizing it!

Foam rollers

enough said.

Miglet's raspberry donut

Miglet's bakery makes gluten free donuts. I've tried both raspberry and maple. The icing on both was reeeeeeeeally sweet. The raspberry was better than the maple as the jam filling helps disguise the otherwise dry donut. Not sure these are worth the calories.

I miss hot fresh Krispy Kreme original glazed donuts.

Tastes like beer

Persimmon bread

I love persimmons! My mom made gluten free persimmon bread from a recipe we found on foodista.com. It wasn't very good.

Baked goods

My mom loooooves to bake. (that's an understatement). During previous visits to my parents house I've gotten sick from the wheat flour in the air when my mom bakes with gluten. So this holiday season, she's only baking gluten free. Yay!

Lucky for my two more family members have recently switched to a gluten free diet (and seen significant improvements in their health). that means I'm no longer expected to eat all the baked goods that my mom makes, like the pictured cinnamon rolls.

I think the easiest thing to do if you're new to being gluten free and you want to make holiday sweets is to stick to recipes that don't have flour. Using naturally gluten free recipes is much easier than trying to convert a review to be gluten free. (I'm not speaking from personal experience but I did hear my sister day she made three recipes of gluten free cookies last weekend and they all tasted like sawdust.)

My favorite naturally gluten free sweets? I've definitely had more than my fair share of meringues lately (oops no picture because they all got eaten). Make sure any flavoring you add is gluten free. My mom also makes these date-coconut-walnut balls.

Sorry about the formatting. I'm posting this via email because my android's swyping technology makes it pretty easy to type one handed.

Apple cranberry walnut rum cake

Surprise! A new post. My mom makes a delicious cake the other day, apple cranberry walnut rum cake. She used the Betty Crocker gluten free yellow cake mix and doctored it up. It was perfect with some whipped cream.

In other news, during my bicycle commute one day in July, while stopped at a red light, I got hit by a truck. So blogging hasn't really been high on my priorities. Anyone still reading this other than the baker of this cake? I'm not exactly doing much better yet but I thought maybe I'd do some short posts here and there.