We recently made a trip out to our neighboring city of Dallas to a fabulous bakery dedicated to making delicious tasting bakery traditions for the gluten-free, dairy-free, allergy-free community here in north Texas. I share these bakers' passion full-on, as this is how my "kitchen-career" began - baking and cooking for families that had ingredient challenges.

Have you ever been on a hike or a run when you get on such a pace that you lose track of your surroundings, what you are passing and how far you have come? Eventually, you snap back to reality, maybe you stop to rest, and you look back at the road behind you. Looking back, you realize that you have traveled quite a long distance and maybe through some hurdles and you take in the accomplishment. That is where I am standing at this very moment.

In her first guest blog for us, Stacy Baugh shares about her daughter's very first sleepover. So many parts of Stacy's post ring very true for me; I hope you'll enjoy it as much as I have and find many things with which you can relate, too. Please help me in welcoming Stacy as our newest Guest Blogger! ~Leigh
TO PREPARE, OR NOT TO PREPARE
By Stacy Baugh
Recently our 7 1/2 year old daughter, Emily, had an opportunity to have a sleepover with a friend. It would be her first one ever. I have to say that I’m not a huge fan of the idea of sleepovers that are held away from our own house, but this was with some very dear friends who we knew well and who we completely trusted with our precious child. I wasn’t nervous about her safety, but I was incredibly nervous about how she would handle such a new and different situation. Emily has Asperger’s & Sensory Processing Disorder and is a true creature of habit. She likes to do things a certain way and do them the same way every time. She’s not a fan of unexpected changes, and when she’s out of sync her SPD is more pronounced. It’s one thing to go to someone’s house to play for a few hours, but to spend the night?

~ So there I was with a plate (and a mouth) full of pie, choking back some of the emotions that the holiday season is always sure to sweep in. This year, my baker’s therapy was recreating a family tradition (from my husband’s family), Oats ‘N Honey Granola Pie. The “real” recipe called for a full cup of corn syrup, ½ cup of brown sugar, chocolate chips, and the star of the show – honey & oat granola bars (which contain canola oil, corn flour, brown sugar syrup, soy flour, and soy lecithin – all ingredients that we no longer call “safe” for our Molly).

This is the final part of my interview series with Dr. Julie Buckley, author of Healing Our Autistic Children. (Click to read Part 1 and Part 2 of the series.) I want to express my sincere gratitude to Dr. Buckley for writing about and presenting on this topic in a way that has profoundly changed my perspective and approach to life. I hope that you will enjoy and take something powerful away from this interview series.
LAW: Part 2 of your book is dedicated to guiding parents through biomedical treatments with their child’s doctor; please share a little bit about the standard steps to biomedical recovery.
JB: The hard part about autism is that there is little that is “standard” about the approach we use. It is a highly individualized process – each child is unique in their genes, in their environmental exposures over the course of their short lives, and in the manifestations of the disease process. It takes a careful eye observing, and careful ears listening to a parent to find a starting point for working toward recovery.

In case you missed it on our Facebook page yesterday, there was some talk about preparing for Thanksgiving. I posed a question to our FB friends about how everyone will be celebrating…traveling, staying home, hosting, etc. In my house, Ethan absolutely loves to help me bake anything sweet and has become a real whiz at cracking eggs lately! In the thread, I was asked for my GFCF Cornbread Dressing recipe, so I wanted to share it here, too.
This recipe is from my maternal Grandmother (who was a tremendous cook and baker), it later became my mom’s (who is also amzaing in the kitchen and converted many of her mom’s recipes to be GF many years ago). When I started cutting casein from Ethan’s diet, Grammy’s recipe transformed once again! The result is below. If you give it a try, let me know what you think. (I apologize in advance for the lack of precise measurements – especially in the dressing recipe…I’m a “taste it as you go” kind of cook most of the time!)

Halloween is just around the corner which means there will be lots of CANDY in your house very soon! Some children can’t eat candy due to allergies and special diets and others can eat candy, but as parents, you may try to limit the amount they eat. If this is the case for your family, you just might find the “Halloween Fairy” to be your new BFF. Here are a few ideas on how to use the “Halloween Fairy”:
1. All of the Candy

This past week, I had the great privilege & honor of conversing with one of the most brilliant and passionate human beings I have ever met, Dr. Temple Grandin. Her work with Autism and with animals has an unparalleled and organic humanitarianism (or animalitarianism!) This is surely not a week I will forget soon, and the best part for me was getting to ask Dr. Temple Grandin what her thoughts were on Gluten-Free diets.

Being on a restricted diet, it isn’t often that my family and I have a great experience in a restaurant that meets all of our special dietary needs and has a staff that shows respect and dignity with my son, Ethan, who lives with Asperger’s Syndrome. But this past Friday – in honor of my husband’s 40th Birthday – we had a truly stellar restaurant experience at Zeppole (a beautiful Coastal Italian restaurant) located inside the Gaylord Texan Resort.
In the past – like most families raising a child with Autism – we’ve had our share of not-so-fantastic experiences in restaurants. On more than one occasion, we’ve left restaurants feeling less than satisfied, both with the service and with the food. In fact, you can read my previous post HERE about an experience this past summer with a judgmental and rude waitress. Many times we will simply avoid places we don’t get a good feel (or good food) from, but it is always nice to find a place to go for special occasions…that is what Zeppole has now become for us.

School is now in full-session and those cool breezes are starting to blow through, sweeping away those hot summer days with the unmistakable gusts of FALL! Yes, its fall, y'all; and that means it’s time for that fall fan-favorite - FOOTBALL! Try these quick and easy gluten-free, casein-free versions of some game day classics and have your family cheering for more than the game this season.