Gluten Free.....No way, not me!

Tomorrow marks 8 weeks that I have had some sort of rash.  It is mostly on my lower back (upper buttocks), on my sides, around my chest, on my lower stomach, behind my ears and all over my scalp.  It is so itchy and drives me nuts.

I have been unable to see my family doctor as they are booked about 3 months out, so I have visited the urgent care 3 times and the emergency room once.  On all 4 visits I was diagnosed with contact dermatitis.  Meaning, I am coming into contact with something that I am having an allergic reaction to.

I've been prescribed mass amounts of prednisone, topical steroid cream and scalp wash....but, it continually keeps coming back.  We have gone through every item in our home (indoors and out) to see if there is something out of the ordinary that I have used and to this day we have thought of nothing.

Thankfully, I had an appointment with my regular physician yesterday for my annual and we were able to discuss my rash.  She made a phone call to a dermatology office and explained my situation and they were able to get me in yesterday afternoon.  Miracles do happen!!

A biopsy was taken off my lower back and will be sent out for testing and I also had some blood work drawn.  The specialist is thinking that I have Duhrings disease (aka dermatitis herpetaformis) and celiac disease.

Unfortunately, if this is the case, I will be on a strict gluten free diet and this will be a lifelong requirement (along with medication).  I've been wanting answers for weeks now as to what is causing all of this....but THIS is not the answer I would have hoped for.  I love food way too much to even "think" about having to go gluten free!

As much as I want this chronic itching to end.....I just never imagined this would be my answer.

Do any of you have to avoid gluten?  If so, what tips do you have.

Pinned it....So I did it



I am absolutely horrible at hard-boiled eggs!  Any time I want them I have to have my mom make them for me.  Well, I had pinned this on Pinterest a while back, but had forgotten about it.  That is until the other night when I was craving an egg salad sandwich.

This was honestly SO EASY! 

1.  Preheat oven to 350 (some sites say 325, but I went with 350)

2. Place eggs in a muffin pan (mini muffin pan would have been better so the eggs didn't move around as much, but I don't have one so I made do with what I had)

3.  Bake for 25-30 minutes (I chose 30 min)

4.  Remove from oven and place in a bowl of ice water for 10-15 minutes to cool

5.  Peel and eat

You will notice some brown spots on the eggs when they came out of the oven, but they peeled right off and didn't make any difference.

Immediately transfer to a bowl of ice water

Perfection!!



The BEST part of all of this (besides the yummy eggs) was that they were SO EASY to peel.  I simply cracked the ends....rolled them around a little to further crack the shell....and then started to peel.  The shell basically just fell right off leaving behind a perfectly smooth outer layer.



I hate Valentine's Day

I was going to write a whole post about why I hate Valentine's Day, but then I read this article on CNN and it sums up all my feelings!

Why I hate Valentine's Day

And, on a personal note....My hubby and I got into a huge fight yesterday!  Ughhh!  Our Valentine's Day was awful.  Do you wanna know what the fight was about?  Tator-tot casserole.  Yes, my friends....tator-tot casserole!  Evidently my husband doesn't like cream of mushroom soup used in recipes AND I DIDN'T KNOW THAT! 

Thank God that stupid "day of love" is over!

Cream of Tartar

Can anyone tell me what "Cream of Tartar" is??? I have a recipe I want to make and it calls for Cream of Tartar and I have never heard of it. This recipe also calls for covering my pan with "Silpat"....what the heck is silpat?