October snow means it's time for gluten-free hot cocoa

It's snowy here in the Philly suburbs.  It's October and it's snowing.  Ugh.  But the good news is that a snowy day makes for a great excuse to have gluten-free hot chocolate!

To make my GF hot cocoa, all I need are four ingredients:

* Hershey's natural unsweetened cocoa powder
* Blue Diamond Almond Breeze Vanilla almond milk
* Sugar
* Sea salt

I kind of ignore the hot cocoa recipe on the side of the Hershey's container.  I'm notoriously crap at following recipes--I'm too lazy and/or creative.  When it comes to recipes, I'm usually like, "Meh, this looks like a cup of [whatever it is I'm adding to the mix]" (as I throw in a heaping amount of it) or "This recipe would be sooooo much better if I added [some sort of bizarre ingredient like gummy worms that would never sound like a good idea to anyone else but me]."

The one thing I do follow from the Hershey's recipe is using 1/4 cup of the cocoa powder.  If I use any more than that, I've found that the bottom of my hot cocoa is clumpy, chocolately sludge.  Ew.  So this is one instance where I actually follow the recipe, and by "follow" I mean "actually use a measuring cup to make sure I'm using the right amount."

So I dump the 1/4 cup of cocoa powder in the bottom of my mug.  I then add 2-3 packets of sugar, and then some delicious, good-for-you vanilla almond milk.  Using almond milk instead of hot water and milk makes the cocoa very rich and decadent.  I stir this mixture and then microwave it for 60 seconds.  It comes out with some clumps and chocolate bubbles on the top, so I stir it again, getting rid of the clumps and bubbles.  Once it's smooth, I taste it.  If it tastes good, I add a little bit of sea salt, stir it in, and then microwave the cocoa again, but this time for only 10 seconds or so (any longer than that and it can taste a bit scorched).  And then--voila!  Rich, indulgent, and gluten-free hot chocolate.  It's the perfect complement to the gluten-free chocolate chip cookies my awesome mom made for me!

To anyone else reading this while looking outside at this strange October snow, I hope you're staying warm, staying safe, and enjoying a comforting gluten-free drink and/or snack!

A great gluten-free experience at Legal Sea Foods

Last night, my friend Kim and I went to dinner at Legal Sea Foods in the King of Prussia Mall.  I'd never been to Legal Sea Foods before, but I'd read that they have a gluten-free menu, and I was curious to try it.  I had looked up their gluten-free menu online before going to the restaurant, and was pleasantly surprised by how extensive it was--I'm a bit of a picky eater, but there were several GF options I was more than willing to try.

We were seated promptly at a cozy corner table.  Right after he'd introduced himself, I told our waiter, Chris, that I am gluten-free.  He immediately assured me that wasn't a problem and told me he'd be right back with a gluten-free menu for me.  When he came back with the GF menu, he took away my regular menu--a good idea in case I would have mistakenly looked at the wrong one.  After perusing the gluten-free menu, I chose the fried shrimp (their gluten-free fried shrimp are fried in brown rice flour and cornmeal), and two sides--brown rice and their seasonal veggie du jour, carrots.

After Kim and I placed our orders, I was pleasantly surprised when Chris came back with a plate of four rolls.  He pointed out which two rolls were celiac-friendly, and which two were not.  I hadn't expected to get any rolls at dinner--since going gluten-free, I have accepted that dinner rolls at restaurants are a thing of the past for me--so I was pretty stoked!  The gluten-free rolls, with just a sprinkling of sesame and poppy seeds on top, were incredibly tasty--and they tasted like actual normal-person dinner rolls!  Delicious!  In the future, since now I know that Legal Sea Foods offers gluten-free rolls, I'm going to ask the server to bring the GF rolls out on a separate plate from the regular rolls.  I noticed on the plate we'd gotten that one of the gluten-free rolls was touching one of the regular rolls.  I've been glutened due to carelessness at restaurants before (not Legal Sea Foods, of course, but other places), so now my motto is "I can never be too careful."  Sure, that teensy little bit of contact between the gluten-free roll and the regular roll may not have hurt me, but just to be safe, I ate the gluten-free roll that was not touching the regular roll.

My dinner was absolutely scrumptious.  I had never guessed that I'd be able to eat fried shrimp again.  The breading was awesome, light and crispy, and didn't taste different from glutenous fried shrimp breading I'd had in the past--but this breading came without the bloat!  :)  My brown rice was good, too, and the carrots were good, although a little too peppery for me to finish all of them (I'm a wuss when it comes to spices).  I finished all ten of my big, fat fried shrimp, all of my rice, and about half the carrots, and I was pleasantly full.

Our waiter offered us dessert, explaining that the Belgian Chocolate Mousse Parfait is gluten-free (sadly, I also have an intolerance to cream, so I cannot indulge in this), as is the sorbet.  We declined to have dessert, but I'm glad to know that there is GF dessert available there if I'm hungry enough for dessert next time.  And yes, there will be a next time.  Between the delicious food, the gluten-free rolls, and the variety of options on the gluten-free menu, I'll definitely be back!