Tuesday, September 6, 2016

Going Gluten Free - for one

My husband has been told by his doctor to go gluten and dairy free for 6 weeks. AAACK!
Then we were told to just do gluten. Everything has gluten in it. Everything good that is. I went from feeling very overwhelmed to just being overwhelmed. At least there's a chance now with the dairy back in the picture to help him gain back some of the 15 pounds he's lost since May.

I did what I usually do... talk to friends and family, then look online for some simple recipes and then get some cookbooks from the library. I've found that the online recipes are good, but since the authors want your money, they post the best recipes in their cookbooks - hence the library.

One of the things I've learned is that it's a mixture of flours that helps the taste and texture of the new breads I need to make. I went to Winco's bulk food section and got a little of almost every kind of flour that is gluten free. I didn't grab almond. Time to experiment.

Here are some keepers I've found in the last little bit (date noted):

My favorite online resource..... Yum Universe  see  http://yumuniverse.com/

BREAD
http://www.cottercrunch.com/  I like this site because you can filter by diet and type

I made this one first (8/23).... http://www.cottercrunch.com/paleo-chocolate-hazelnut-bread-molasses/ and found it to be a bit dry and not sweet enough. (even though I doubled the sugar it asked for). But it was okay considering all of the ingredients I'd usually put in were missing. It took a lot longer than I thought it would. In a glass pan at 325F it took 55 minutes, not 35. If I do this over, I'll make muffins - less surface area. And I'd bake it for 15-20 min. We had a little and then ended up sticking it in the freezer to try later. I wasn't going to let it go to waste.

I then made (8/25) this bread http://lexiscleankitchen.com/2014/08/24/the-ultimate-paleo-sandwich-rolls/
Since I didn't have her bread molds, I used my muffin tins for this. It was better than I thought and reminded us of cornbread muffins. This is a keeper. I didn't have the exact flours, so I used 1/3 c. Tapioca flour, 1/3 all purpose flour (Bob's Red Mill), and 1/3 c, Brown Rice flour. The original recipe calls for 1/2 c, blanched almond flour and 1/2 c. tapioca flour. I also used regular shortening, not palm shortening.

And this one - also a keeper (8/30)
https://blog.nuts.com/gluten-free-banana-bread-recipe/
I made it exactly as it said to, and did it in my glass bread pan. At 325F for 50 min, then at 300F for another 15. It is soft and moist. We like it and  there's still a little in the fridge - not dried out at all.



SNACKS
Chocolate (8/25) 3 ingredients - so wonderful! I ate most of it, not him.
http://mywholefoodlife.com/2014/02/13/3-ingredient-chocolate-bars/
Again, I added more sweetening (even triple the maple syrup works).

Rice Pudding (8/29)
http://greatist.com/eat/recipes/healthier-rice-pudding
Very good and rich.

I then went to two standards - Fudge (9/6) and Granola by SS (9/5). This gave us more breakfast and snack stuff. These are posted already.

OTHER MEALS
We've found that a lot of things can be tweaked just a little and without much extra work. For example - we used some potato water. chicken stock instead of milk (with dill, salt and pepper, and garlic) for mashed potatoes.

Using corn tortillas, corn tortilla chips, rice, potatoes, and quinoa for starches works well. We haven't done rice noodles, but that is a great substitute too.

KEEPING IT SIMPLE
Putting out a simple meat (no breading or sauces) with a fresh fruit and veggie platter keeps everyone eating pretty much the same thing.

WARNING
There is gluten hiding everywhere. Or so it seems. Three common items we have had to avoid so far are Nalley chili, licorice and soy sauce.

Tomorrow, I'm trying two kinds of pancake recipes... I'll let you know how that goes.


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