My name is Kim and six weeks ago I was diagnosed with Celiac Disease. Two and a half years ago my husband, 2 children and I moved from the West Coast of Canada to the tropical island of Java: less exotically, we moved near Jakarta, a traffic-congested, smog-smothered city teeming with people and with sites and sounds and smells like we'd never experienced before. My husband started a blog so that people back home could keep track of our journey (we didn't know we'd stay longer than our intended 2 years), and he got too busy to keep it up. I took it over and realized, as I wrote, that I was forced to write accountably, meaning that I had to write as if both Indonesians and loved ones back home were reading. I couldn't write those things that, after the frustration and anger subsided (ie if I wrote a post just after 4 hours in Jakarta traffic...) I'd feel ashamed at the words I chose. Over the years I felt that this kind of writing has kept me focused on the positive and has enabled me to live here with joy rather than discontentment.
This is what this blog is about. I have already 'mystery-written' a dozen postings over the last 6 weeks in my head, and I believe that by writing out the frustrations and successes of each day, it'll be that much easier to learn to live with Celiac. Although there is the chance that no one else will read this, I do hope that as I learn to live this journey, I can encourage others to do the same. I have taken time to look over many blogs, and so many of them contain recipes and advice that, in the beginning, completely overwhelmed me. I'm going to start slow and as I find VERY easy recipes, ones that don't take much effort and that taste good, I'm going to share them here. Simply yummy and simply easy.
Living in Indonesia, access to non-gluten flours and flour mixes is a little trickier, although they are available. Mostly they are a bit stale and honestly, at this point nothing tastes as good as a gluten-filled, wheat-based chocolate chip cookie, loaded with butter and chocolate. I've come to realize that it will take time and effort to create a cookie I love. I've also learned that ANY cookie recipe calling solely for soybean flour will be sure to turn out bitter and disgusting; even the lizards in my kitchen wouldn't go near them!
To start, a friend found me some Hazelnut milk (made in Oregon, USA) and I wasn't crazy about the flavour. Since black tea and coffee seem to be off my list, for now at least, I really needed something I could drink with a slice of rice bread and honey. After a little searching, I found some ideas on the net (not a whole lot of hazelnut milk recipes out there!), altered them to my taste, and ended up with a yummy hot drink.
Hot Hazelnut Milk
1 mug of hazelnut milk
honey to taste
cinnamon & dash nutmeg to taste
Heat hazelnut milk in microwave with a little honey. If you have a small, hand-held whipper, now's the time to try it out and get some foam going. Sprinkle with cinnamon and the teeniest bit of nutmeg.
That's as simple as it gets.
Thanks for reading.
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