Gluten free family time with a bit of Hakuna Matata

Have I ever told you that my house is called Camp Chaos?

 It's because of this guy. Chaotic isn't he? It's what we dubbed ourselves shortly after bringing home our first puppy, Chaos Monster in Febuary, 2005. The name's stuck and it's followed us from  Maine to Colorado and back to Maine. It's a great ode to our beloved golden retriever, Chaos who's about to celebrate his 7th birthday. Chaos was the first dog I ever had the pleasure of living with. He's taught me a lot since I brought him home as a young puppy in early 2005.  His soft golden mane is often a source of comfort and reminds me of my favorite Disney movie, The Lion King. I was in high school when the Lion King first came out and it earned it's place as my favorite all time Disney flick. I think that's why I love my golden puppies so much as Chaos often resembles a regal Mufasa and crazy little Mayhem is a young Simba. When the movie came back out on DVD this year I quickly snatched up a copy and enjoyed the movie along my memories of being a favorite babysitter to my young cousins.


This week my sister, Kim came for a visit with her husband and two kiddos- Moyer's who's almost 5 and Keturah who's 3 going on 7. Kim and Keturah are in the midst of a gluten free trial and Kim did a guest post a few weeks back about their Mighty Fine dining experience in Austin, TX. So far with this trial  they've discovered that Keturah doesn't do well with corn as well as gluten. As most of us glutards know a lot of gluten free items contain corn in one form or another so we stuck to a lot of naturally gluten free, corn free foods during their visit to camp chaos. Like Annie's Gluten Free Mac N Cheese with some hamburger and peas added in for fun.

The kids and I watched The Lion King the first morning here at Camp Chaos and the rest of the visit featured small voices singing lines of Hakuna Matata.

Hakuna Matata! It means no worries for the rest of your days

We even tried to make some corn free powdered sugar for our Chex Muddy Buddies...

Played Legos (because every good aunt and uncle should have a house with legos...)
Walked the dogs which was even better with shoulder rides from Patrick

But he wouldn't give the dogs shoulder rides- they had to walk

as did Moyer but he liked to run, jump and hop more then walk. He is a good runner.

We took time to make the donuts...gluten and corn free.
And of course I whipped up some knitted projects for the kids. You can see those over at Asiaramblin 

I've been really impressed with my dining experiences at the Rack since we've moved back to Sugarloaf and even more so after our trip with my gluten free, corn free niece. Our waitress (who's also gluten free) double checked the gluten free options for us for traces of corn and Keturah enjoyed a great safe bowl of gf, corn free noodles and marinaira.

 Don't you wish every gluten free meal could have a bit of Hakuna Matata?

Homemade Pasta

I'm not the least bit Italian although I felt it last week as I pulled out the brand new pasta roller attachments for the kitchen aid mixer last week. Brand new and will NEVER be touched by gluten- such a wonderful feeling. I cracked open my trusty copy of Artisanal Gluten Free Cooking and flipped to the Bronski's pasta dough recipe. It's similar to this that they posted on No Gluten, No Problem in 2008 and I did make one tweak- my dough was very dry so I added water a tablespoon at a time until it was pliable. I had to work it a bit by hand until I could feed it through the roller.

xanthum gum, eggs with bit of salt and artisanal flour blend

getting ready to mix together by hand....

and now the toys come out...

and the pasta cutter....

the finished pasta- I'm a bad direction reader and over boiled- but a good first attempt

I was a bit nervous but the simple ingredient list put me at ease and the Bronski's had some good tips for using a machine in the book. It was a meditative recipe to work with as I played with the dough then fed it through the machine. I bagged some of the uncooked pasta and put it in the fridge for Dave to try. He's a gluten eater and LOVED this, in fact he loved it more then I did. It was a fun project with a tasty finish and the four servings were huge. I think it took me about an hour for this first attempt- it's hard to keep track on Thursdays as I get a bit preoccupied by Grey's Anatomy.