Surprises since going Wheat-Free

We've had a few surprises in our wheat-free adventure over the past couple of weeks. Mostly, I've been pleasantly surprised with the good surprises!

• It IS possible to bake a good tasting loaf of gluten-free bread! I make a variation of this recipe. I use two whole eggs instead of four egg whites. Leaving 4 yolks for another recipe means I may or may not have use for them, so the yolks could go to waste. Also, we liked the bread better when I used whole eggs rather than egg whites. I don't have a french bread pan, so I just stick it on a cookie sheet. This bread sticks really hard, so I also use some parchment paper. Since the dough is sticky, I wet my hands and shape the bread with wet hands into a rustic shaped loaf. I bet this recipe would also work for making hoagie rolls or dinner rolls, too.
  
• We like the gluten-free oatmeal pancake recipe better than the regular wheat pancake recipe. Yeah, it's a bit of a pain to make because you use cooked oatmeal as well as oat flour, but they come out nice and fluffy, and a teeny bit crunchy on the outside, just like we like them.
• Dave prefers gluten-free brownies to my old recipe. And my old recipe was GOOD. My version of this is slightly different: I use unsweetened chocolate instead of bittersweet chocolate.
  
• Cheerios and Life cereal both have wheat in them! WHAT? I knew most cereals are not gluten-free, but we're not a gluten-free family, just wheat-free. The reason many cereals are not gluten-free is because they use barley malt, which Dave is not allergic to. So yesterday when shopping for cereal, I was only able to get Snack Balls (aka Kix) and Rice Chex, which actually is one of the few mainstream cereals that is gluten-free. YEA CHEX!
• There are tons of naturally gluten-free meals that you can make! Chili and cornbread, tacos with corn tortillas, stuffed green peppers, curry and rice, polenta and Italian-style sauce... yeah, we'll miss pasta, but getting control of allergies is so much more important.

Next month Dave and I have our birthdays. This cake that Dave's cousin made looks soooo good, but it is made with coffee. It's strange... I don't feel weird cooking with alcohol, but coffee is a different matter to me completely. I guess because alcohol usually burns off most of the way, but coffee is still going to be coffee. I'm going to have to test it out with some sort of coffee substitution to see if I can make a delicious wheat-free cake.