Fried Cheese

Interestingly (and unfortunately), we are pretty sure my husband is going to have to go gluten free as well. He's been working out of town a lot for the past eighteen months and having mysterious sicknesses between being home and going out again. He feels better now that he's home, but gets sick to his stomach when he goes out with his buddies and eats. Very suspect. We'll be getting him tested before too long, but since we already know our son has 2 copies of the gene, 1 is definitely from him... how did we get so "lucky"?

Anyway. He has different cravings and must-haves in the way of what we GOTTA find that tastes good gluten free. Since he's been home, he's been experimenting with our fryer. I almost never drag it out because it's a bit of a pain and not so healthy, but OH MY the things he's been making lately taste so good. He watches Food Network and revamps things that look interesting to be gf for us.

HEY! FOOD NETWORK! YOU REALLY NEED A GLUTEN FREE CHEF ON YOUR CHANNEL!

Our latest favorite is Guy Fieri. He does Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives, and also Guy's Big Bite. Lots of cool recipes on both shows. And he's the spokesman for TGI Fridays now, and let me just say, that was my favorite restaurant before I went GF and it would be so fabulous for them to develop a menu I could actually eat off.

I'm taking a really long time to get to the fried cheese part, huh? Well, nobody's posted here for awhile, so take what you can get.

So. Guy Fieri makes fried cheese. Here is the recipe. We of course had to adjust it some to suit us, but that's where we started. We have been searching high and low for gluten free won ton wrappers with no luck, but we did find some Vietnamese rice paper that works pretty well, so we use that instead. Also we used GF bread crumbs. I forget what kind they were- he picked them up at Whole Foods though. And Oscar Mayer rotisserie chicken breast instead of salami.

They are crazy good. And now that I know the rice paper will work for holding stuff inside and breading, I really want to try a fried candy bar. But right now we'll stick with cheese. Equally good with marinara or ranch. mmmmm.......

Ahoy there you mateys!

Cap'n Josh and some of his first mates!
Here's the Pirate pinata we converted from a soccer ball (gotta get creative with our China resources).

Here's the cake!

I am very proud of the cake I made for Josh's birthday.

For the Pirate cake, I used one store bought chocolate cake mix, chocolate icing, and white icing colored yellow and blue. I make a 9 inch cake and a loaf cake (put most into the loaf cake) and then cut the side of the front of the cake to make the bow. I used rolos on the side for the cannons, and little dove chocolate bars on the side of the boat. You can't see it, but I used one dove bar as the plank on the other side of the cake. I used chopsticks for the sails and red card stock for the sails. I used pretzels and green airheads for the palm trees, but I would use toy ones if you have them because the airheads did not stay stiff. I would refrigerate it after it is all together to keep the frosting in tact. I had fun with the party, because we also did pirate mustaches for the boy, face designs for the girls, gave out bandanas, eye patches and earrings to the girls. Also, I make a treasure map with a bunch of "x's" on it and we hit their party treat at the end of the party.

The only snafu was Coby choking and turning blue when Josh was opening gifts. Fortunately, Jeff was able to find out he wasn't choking and then administered a couple of quick CPR breaths and he was back. As Jeff rushed him to the doctor, Josh just casually mentioned "Oh, Coby is just jealous of all my great presents". Sounds like something you would hear from a little boy whose spiritual love language is receiving gifts! Needless to say, this will be a party these 5 - 7 year olds will not quickly forget!

If you have questions on how to do it, please let me know.