I have mentioned in the past that I have taken part in the Champions for Kids simple service projects, and I am again thrilled to take part of this month’s Energizer Light Up a Life service project.

The goal of this campaign is to make care kits for kids.  These kits can include Energizer flashlights and batteries, bottled water, small toys, toiletry products, band-aids, wipes etc.  Some of us may be thinking that does not sound like much, but to children who have been through hardships or even trauma this is a huge safety need for them.

The goal of this campaign is:

Gather: Get friends, family, and co-workers involved to gather items to assemble the care kits.

Give:  Give the care kits to an organization of your choice.

Report:  Report back to Champions for Kids so that they can indicate when they have their goal of mobilizing 20 Million by 2020!

For this project, I am hoping to make 10 kits and donate them to DVIS.  DVIS stands for Domestic Violence and Intervention Services.  DVIS helps families and children in need on a daily basis.  DVIS houses women and children and gets them out of a domestic violence situation.  I am looking forward to learning more about DVIS and donating these kits to the children that DVIS provides shelter for.

I hope you will join me this month and give back.  Together we can all reach 20 Million!

For more information find Champions for Kids on Twitter.  Also, follow the hashtags #EnergizerCFK, #Cbias, and #ChampionsforKids.

Disclosure: This shop has been compensated as part of a social shopper insights study for Collective Bias.  I am honored to be taking part of this project to give back, all thoughts and opinions are my own.

One of the first things I knew I would need to do after going Gluten Free was find a good pasta.  Why?  I love pasta.  It just did not love me back.  My first attempt at gluten free chicken Alfredo was a success, even my husband loved it!  I used Tinkyada Brown Rice Spirals; however, if you do not need to eat gluten free just use a pound of your favorite pasta!

This time, I used my white sauce but added Parmesan to it.  I have to say that this is one of my favorite sauces, the only downside to using a cream cheese based sauce is it hardens quickly, so this is best eaten fresh not reheated.

Let’s get on to this delicious recipe!

Enjoy!

Disclosure:  I am an Amazon affiliate, so the pasta link is an affiliate link.  I simply wanted to show you all what pasta I used.

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One of my favorite food bloggers, Lynn of Lynn’s Kitchen Adventures,  just launched her newest E-Book, Cooking 101 for Kids.  As soon as I saw this I knew I would be purchasing a copy, my son is still a toddler but he is now getting to the point where he really enjoys helping me in the kitchen.

I love that she goes into detail on each aspect from the correct tools to use for your kids down to food safety.  There are even tips on grocery shopping for your child, essentially this e-book takes you through the entire process from planning, shopping, preparing, and serving!

As a kid, I really was not taught much about cooking, so I love having this e-book to guide me on how to teach my son and any future kids on what they need to know about cooking.  This e-book is a great way to prepare your kids for life on their own someday giving them the right tools to be able to provide healthy meals for their family!

Lynn is currently selling this E-Book 50% off making is only $2.99!

Head over to Lynns Kitchen Adventures to learn more and purchase this e-book!

Disclosure:  I am an affiliate for this e-book.  I love this e-book and all thoughts and opinions are my own!

This dish reminds me of something my husband’s grandma would have made, it’s just one of those comfort meals to me.  This was also the perfect meal for our family when we were going through sickness.  I think the reason being it isn’t an over powerful flavor so it’s nice and subtle.

Enjoy this delicious, home style dinner!

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It’s launch day!  It’s time to share with you a little of what I have been working on!  I have mentioned it briefly on Mommy Hates Cooking Facebook page; however, we have content loaded and we are ready to say, Food Allergy Eats is in business!

This site is the brainchild of my sister and I who have been working together to find a better way to showcase recipes that are free of the Top 8 Food Allergens.  I have a small glimpse into food allergies each day with a few of my own; however, her son was born with 22 food allergies, several of those were life threatening.  Find out more on her story and the reason behind Food Allergy Eats by visiting Our Story.

In the upcoming weeks we will be doing giveaways and reviews of all sorts of foods and products including both King Arthur Products and Enjoy Life Products!

We will also be baking and cooking sharing new recipes throughout the week as well as real life stories of not only surviving food allergies but overcoming them.  Our purpose is to encourage and empower you to overcome the trials that food allergies may cause and to find support on Food Allergy Eats.

Now, I encourage you all to follow us on Twitter and Facebook then tell ALL of your friends too!

Sarah and I are very excited about this new venture!  As far as this site, it will continue to update regularly with recipes and there may be a few days with links to Food Allergy Eats just to show you even more recipes to try.  Many of the allergy free recipes we will be making can easily be made by those without food allergies as well and they taste fabulous!

I hope you join us on this new journey!  Start now by heading over to Food Allergy Eats!

Slow Cooker days are my favorite in our household, especially on busy weekends.  This dish was perfect for us over the weekend when we were packed full with events and I was trying to avoid having to be home in time to cook dinner.

Meatballs are a favorite of mine to do in the slow cooker because you can make so many meals out of them.  They can easily be served on subs, with pasta, or even plain with some sides.  The day we made these meatballs, I decided it was a sub kind of evening!  Note if you are gluten free, these are just as tasty without the sub and made with gluten free breadcrumbs, which is how I eat them.

Enjoy this easy and family friendly meal!

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Photo Source and More Information on Gluten Free:  The Gluten Free Diet

My Life Lately

I’ve mentioned a few things about being Gluten Free on Facebook recently; however, I have not really posted about it or told my story on what has been happening lately in my life or I should say my body.  Let me warn you this is going to be much longer than my usual post and more personal, but it affects this site and my future recipes.

Since I was a kid I have had nothing but stomach troubles, I always related it to being lactose-intolerant.  I would push through the pain with several varieties of medicines.  Plus, to put on top of that I have severe reflux and GERD.  Usually the reflux gets the blame for everything.

Then, bring it up to about the last few years, nearly every other day I would be sick to my stomach so much so I could hardly get moving in the morning or I would be drinking sprite and eating crackers on a daily basis.  I can’t even fully describe to you the pain I was in.  When I was pregnant I was in so much pain that I ended up in the hospital.  Again it was all blamed on just stomach cramps or pains.

After the stomach pain came the fatigue, it felt like chronic fatigue sometimes taking me hours to truly get moving in the mornings and then after an hour of doing something I would need to take a nap.

Next came the vomiting, every morning it was like a ritual for the last several months.  I knew that immediately after I would eat, I would be throwing up.  Every family member I talked to continued to ask “are you sure you aren’t pregnant”.  At some point, I just wanted to scream, I AM NOT PREGNANT!  Trust me, I took test, several of them hoping that’s what the issue was, but it wasn’t!

Finally, the hypoglycemia.  I constantly felt as if my blood sugar was dropping, but why wouldn’t it be because I was throwing up every time I ate!?

All of these things collided this past month.  I was so sick, so much that it was a miracle for me just to get my son to school and get home and go back to bed.  It was all I could do to cook dinner and get work done!  When my son would wake up, I would just want to roll over and cry because I was so extremely fatigued I could not even play with him.  It was bad enough that each day I would just pray he’d sit with me and watch a move for a few hours in the mornings.  This was something we hardly ever do during the day.

I had enough, I knew something was not right.  I felt this immense despair that at age 28 this was going to be my life, day in and day out would be a struggle just to get up, to eat, to function and truly live.

Keep in mind that I had several test run back in the summer for all of these issues but nothing was found to be wrong.  I started googling and talking to friends that are gluten free finding out their symptoms and finding out that almost each one of them was not officially diagnosed gluten free but simply tried the diet and it worked.  It is extremely difficult to diagnose and most people that are gluten free find out they need to be by trying the diet.

The more I talked to each friend that is gluten free the more I felt like they were telling me all about my life, they had lived it and been there!  They each spoke volumes about how incredible they felt just within days of going gluten free and that the most results though you will see several years later as your body takes a while to heal.

The first part was to try it for 2 weeks and see what I thought and really stick to it cutting out the gluten.  I will tell you that I wanted to cry my eyes out as I realized everything I normally bake with contains wheat.  Then, shortly after that I started realizing all the things that I could eat and how easy some of my recipes would be to convert to gluten free.  This gave me hope.

Let’s fast forward here, the very first day that I went gluten free I had a few stomach pains which I later found out was the gluten free whole grain bread, apparently I need to stick to gluten free white bread.  The next day I had absolutely no stomach pain whatsoever.

Honestly, I had to tell myself each day that this was what it felt like to not have stomach aches and to have energy.  I forgot what that was like, I lived with stomach pain.  My friends and family never knew this because unless you were my mom or my husband, I likely never said anything.  I always pushed through the pain.

Then, I noticed I hadn’t been throwing up either, keep in mind here that I was barely able to get out of bed, throwing up every day, and had immense stomach pain.  I truly did not remember what it was like to not feel sick to your stomach.

Now after 2 1/2 weeks, I haven’t thrown up since the day I went gluten free, I haven’t had a stomach ache since the day I went gluten free, I haven’t had a single blood sugar drop which was happening daily, and I have had more energy in the last 2 1/2 weeks than I have had in years.

What have I learned?  That although I may not have a gluten allergy, it is affecting me in huge ways enough so that I will likely never touch gluten knowingly again the rest of my life.  I may still cook with it for my family on occasion, but the fact that I feel this good after feeling like I was going to live my life in bed or worshiping the porcelain throne for life…I am happy to go gluten free instead.

What does this mean for the website?  You will still see easy, tasty recipes; however, I will likely be cooking the majority gluten free.  If I’m doing pasta I will just add a note stating how to make the recipe gluten free the same goes for most of the other meals.  This way those that are gluten free or are not gluten free can both enjoy each recipe.

There will also be a few showing up that are not gluten free that I made previous to the gluten free diet.  I am just now getting those on the site this upcoming week, after that the majority of the recipes that I will be showing can be easily made gluten free, I’ll make notes of how to do so on the post.

I hope you understand this and where I am coming from.  This diet is certainly not for everyone and by all means if you can eat gluten and bread, eat a piece for me because I certainly miss it.  I was a carb and bread fanatic; however, I have high hopes of creating recipes to satisfy those bread taste buds again!

Stay tuned for more fabulous recipes!

Are you looking for a family friendly meal for this weekend?  Check out this delicious Cheeseburger Ring, so many options with this dish!

This is a kid favorite too at least around our house, so that’s always a nice bonus!

Happy Friday!

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