Fortunately, with the current popularity of the gluten-free diet, there are a lot more resources than there used to be. Here are a few of my favorites:
Living Without magazine publishes an excellent print edition that is available in many natural foods co-ops and shops, as well as in some bookstores and supermarkets dealing with living and eating well with various kinds of food allergies, not just celiacs/gluten intolerance. The cover art alone gets my inner foodie all excited. Along with loads of yummy-looking recipes, their magazine usually features a travel section that talks about where to find delicious food in whatever destination they are featuring that month. In addition, they have a really informative website, and you can even sign up for their free "Gluten-Free Recipe of the Week" email list.
There are a multitude of gluten-free cookbooks available now, but not every cookbook you use has to be specifically gluten-free. There are plenty of dishes that are just naturally gluten-free, and many others which can be made gluten-free with a little simple substitution. Pasta dishes, for example, can be made with rice pasta instead of durum semolina pasta for a delicious gluten-free substitute that sacrifices nothing. With that in mind, if you don't already have a basic, all-around cookbook that is your go-to for whatever pops into your head to try making, it's very much worth getting one. My all-time favorite (and the one I give to newlyweds, college students, and pretty much anybody who finds themselves in charge of a kitchen for the first time) is the Joy of Cooking. It's a classic, and a great resource for learning to make all the basic things that people used to just know how to make, especially if you are just starting out as a cook as well as a gluten-free person. My dad gave me my first copy when I went away to college, and various editions have been my trusted source for basic cooking questions ever since.
If you want to have bread that is worth eating, skip the store-bought stuff and learn to make it yourself. Fortunately, it turns out that making gluten-free bread is not only totally different than making regular wheat bread, it's totally easier! My bible for gluten-free bread is The Gluten-Free Gourmet Bakes Bread by Bette Hagman. Invest in a copy, and then take the time to read the first couple of chapters, where she talks about the different kinds of gluten-free flours, how she combined them to come up with her bread recipes, including some of the food science behind why it works that way, and how gluten-free baking is different from regular baking (for one thing, No Kneading!) The bread I have been making on an almost daily basis for the family is the basic "Bette's Four Flour Bread". Hot dog buns my husband made using one of her recipes came out fairly good as well, although we'll have to tweak the recipe a bit to get it just right. Watch for a future post on making bread, with pictures of what the dough looks like at various stages.
Most of my cookie recipes, including the sugar cookies that won the award at the Allentown fair and the really awesome snickerdoodles, came from The Gluten-Free Kitchen by Roben Ryberg.
Bob's Red Mill not only sells a wide variety of gluten-free flours, mixes, and other products, they also have a recipe finder on their site that allows you to search specifically for gluten-free recipes, so you don't have to wade through pages of baked goods you can't eat to find the recipe you're looking for.
Last but not least, Mary Jane Butters of Mary Jane's Farm has created a gluten-free version of her Budget Mix baking mix that comes with a recipe booklet full of recipes for things you might want to make with baking mix, including pie crusts, biscuits, scones, and her famous Bakeovers, which are just about the closest thing to a miracle meal that a busy, overworked mom is likely to find anywhere. Budget Mix is my favorite of the gluten-free baking mixes I have tried; we buy it in the 10 lb size because we go through it so quickly. Her site also hosts a chat forum where Farmgirls from all over the world come together to talk about anything and everything, and which has an entire section on food and cooking. In general, Farmgirls are friendly and helpful, and the chat forum is a great place to ask questions and get answers. Also, even though her magazine is not specifically gluten-free, and many of the recipes she publishes are not gluten-free, she frequently gives substitutions for making them with gluten-free ingredients. One issue had a whole section on how to make classic sweet treats like cream-filled sponge cakes (think "Twinkies" only homemade and delicious), cupcakes, chocolate sandwich cookies ("Oreos"), moon pies, and more - in gluten-free as well as regular versions. I haven't had a chance to try them yet, but when I do, I'll be sure to let you know how they turn out.
Sunday, July 15, 2012
Focus On What You Can Have
One of the things that many people I have talked to cite when explaining why they are reluctant to try going gluten-free, even though it may help resolve long-standing health issues, is that they are afraid of giving up their favorite foods, or that if they go gluten-free, they will be doomed to a lifetime of eating boring, unappetizing food that doesn't taste good. Fortunately, this is not as big of a problem as you might think.
First, gluten-free alternatives exist for many foods, and in some cases are as good as or better than the regular gluten variety. Shortly after we discovered the boys couldn't have gluten, for instance, I entered a batch of gluten-free sugar cookies I had baked in the Great Allentown Fair in the regular sugar cookie category, and won a ribbon (it was for 3rd place, if I recall correctly). In other words, my gluten-free sugar cookies, while maybe not the very best ones of all those entered in the fair that year, were good enough to be in the top 5, even though they were competing against cookies made with wheat flour. Since then I have discovered a snickerdoodle recipe from the same cookbook that tastes just like the ones I remember my mom making when I was a little girl. There is brown rice pasta on the market now that is very good, and while maybe not identical to pasta made with durum semolina (the wheat variety used to make most pasta), it is certainly close enough that there is no need to give up your favorite pasta dishes.
Second, rather than focusing on what you can't have anymore, I find it helps to focus on what you can have. When looking for tasty gluten-free meals, I have found it helps to look at cuisine from parts of the world where they eat primarily rice or some other non-gluten-containing grain. Thai cuisine, for instance, features a lot of rice-based dishes, including noodle dishes made with rice noodles. Similarly, sushi can be a delicious gluten-free alternative, especially if you bring your own small bottle of tamari when eating at restaurants. Cuisines and dishes that don't use gluten in the first place are wonderful on a gluten-free diet because you don't have to change anything, so you don't feel like you're giving anything up, or missing out on what the meal is "supposed" to taste like. People used to ask me how I got my young children to eat ethnic foods like sushi or Thai or Indian cuisines. I always replied that unusual foods from foreign places look a lot more appetizing when you can't eat the same junk as everybody else. What would you rather have? A glum hamburger patty with no bun (which is really like giving up half your meal) or a plate full of Pad Thai? My not-so-little-anymore boys go for the full plate every time.
Third, a lot of pre-packaged gluten-free food is not only massively expensive, it's really rather hideous. This does not mean you have to resign yourself to a lifetime of horrible food. What it does mean is if you want to eat well, you're going to have to become familiar with your kitchen. It's easier than you think, and making things from scratch instead of buying them already-made not only produces much tastier food, it is much less expensive. Our family has found that despite a tight grocery budget in the last year, we are eating better than we ever have, simply because we spend the money we do have on ingredients, especially fresh local meats, dairy, and produce, and prepare our own foods from scratch. With this in mind, I highly recommend equipping your kitchen with two very important, very versatile appliances: a good, powerful food processor (preferably one with a nice deep shaft so you can puree soups in it, among other things) and a KitchenAid stand mixer. (I'm sure there are other brands of stand mixers on the market, but KitchenAid is the classic.)
Next post: A few resources for gluten-free cooking and living
First, gluten-free alternatives exist for many foods, and in some cases are as good as or better than the regular gluten variety. Shortly after we discovered the boys couldn't have gluten, for instance, I entered a batch of gluten-free sugar cookies I had baked in the Great Allentown Fair in the regular sugar cookie category, and won a ribbon (it was for 3rd place, if I recall correctly). In other words, my gluten-free sugar cookies, while maybe not the very best ones of all those entered in the fair that year, were good enough to be in the top 5, even though they were competing against cookies made with wheat flour. Since then I have discovered a snickerdoodle recipe from the same cookbook that tastes just like the ones I remember my mom making when I was a little girl. There is brown rice pasta on the market now that is very good, and while maybe not identical to pasta made with durum semolina (the wheat variety used to make most pasta), it is certainly close enough that there is no need to give up your favorite pasta dishes.
Second, rather than focusing on what you can't have anymore, I find it helps to focus on what you can have. When looking for tasty gluten-free meals, I have found it helps to look at cuisine from parts of the world where they eat primarily rice or some other non-gluten-containing grain. Thai cuisine, for instance, features a lot of rice-based dishes, including noodle dishes made with rice noodles. Similarly, sushi can be a delicious gluten-free alternative, especially if you bring your own small bottle of tamari when eating at restaurants. Cuisines and dishes that don't use gluten in the first place are wonderful on a gluten-free diet because you don't have to change anything, so you don't feel like you're giving anything up, or missing out on what the meal is "supposed" to taste like. People used to ask me how I got my young children to eat ethnic foods like sushi or Thai or Indian cuisines. I always replied that unusual foods from foreign places look a lot more appetizing when you can't eat the same junk as everybody else. What would you rather have? A glum hamburger patty with no bun (which is really like giving up half your meal) or a plate full of Pad Thai? My not-so-little-anymore boys go for the full plate every time.
Third, a lot of pre-packaged gluten-free food is not only massively expensive, it's really rather hideous. This does not mean you have to resign yourself to a lifetime of horrible food. What it does mean is if you want to eat well, you're going to have to become familiar with your kitchen. It's easier than you think, and making things from scratch instead of buying them already-made not only produces much tastier food, it is much less expensive. Our family has found that despite a tight grocery budget in the last year, we are eating better than we ever have, simply because we spend the money we do have on ingredients, especially fresh local meats, dairy, and produce, and prepare our own foods from scratch. With this in mind, I highly recommend equipping your kitchen with two very important, very versatile appliances: a good, powerful food processor (preferably one with a nice deep shaft so you can puree soups in it, among other things) and a KitchenAid stand mixer. (I'm sure there are other brands of stand mixers on the market, but KitchenAid is the classic.)
Next post: A few resources for gluten-free cooking and living
Wednesday, July 4, 2012
Greetings! Welcome to my HAPPY Food blog!
When we began our journey of living with and cooking for multiply-food-allergic children almost 8 years ago, one of the first things I learned was that the Standard American Diet is far more limited than I had ever imagined. When we started out, the list of things my children reacted badly to included gluten, corn, dairy, nightshades (tomatoes, potatoes, and eggplant), and meat preservatives such as sodium nitrate and nitrite (which are carcinogenic and not good for you under the best of circumstances). I was stunned to discover that almost all of what Americans, including myself, ate consisted of the first four things on that list. Remove gluten, corn, dairy, potatoes, and tomatoes, and you're left with....not much. Since the Standard American Diet (or SAD) was not available to us, I was forced to learn how to cook and bake all over again from scratch, and to look to other cultures for tasty and interesting cuisine that would not make my family sick. My kids have since grown out of their nightshade allergies, and we discovered several years ago that it was not the dairy itself they were allergic to - it was all the corn that most dairy cows in this country are fed that was triggering their reactions. When we began purchasing milk from a local dairy whose cows are grass-fed, they were fine. Gluten and corn, however, are still issues, and recently my husband has realized that gluten is at the root of the mysterious health problems he has been struggling with for years. As our household moves towards 100% gluten-free, I am finding that on the occasions that I do eat gluten (mostly to use up the few remaining products that still contain it), I feel much worse and less energetic than otherwise.
When we started our allergen-free journey, I got a lot of help and advice from other people moms on the Positive Discipline e-list. I also learned a lot through simple trial and error. Since then, friends who knew our kids were gluten-free have asked me for advice on how to go gluten-free, either for themselves or people they knew. Now members of our extended families are looking into gluten-free as a solution to their mysterious health and digestive problems as well, and turning to me for advice. It's my turn to pay the debt forward, and starting a blog seemed like the best way to share what I have learned with all of you who are just beginning to explore life without some of the most commonly used ingredients in American cuisine, and to provide a forum for folks to talk about what works and doesn't work, yummy discoveries, and the gluten-free/allergen-free life in general.
Why HAPPY food?
Since the Standard American Diet is SAD, it made sense to me that the opposite of SAD is HAPPY. Additionally, when you stop eating food that is making you sick, even if everyone else is eating it, you will find that you feel much happier - and when you are feeling happy and healthy instead of sick and cranky, the people who love you will be happier as well.
Going gluten-free doesn't mean you have to resign yourself to a life of eating tasteless, unappetizing, boring food. Join me as we explore the wide world of gluten-free, family-friendly cuisine, eat well, and be HAPPY!
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