Gluten free tips and recipes? Newly diagnosed coeliac!

[beeble347]

Hope it's okay to post here! As title says, just been diagnosed coeliac (bummer) age 33.

I've been pescatarian since I was 6 which is quite inconvenient now tbh since it limits my options further!

Found some good GF alternatives but my god they're so expensive! Barilla pasta £4 for 300g, I saw a 1 for 1 flour with xantham gum mixed in on Amazon: £20 for 1.5kg!

DH and I both enjoy cooking but I think I'm going to have to do a lot more from scratch for myself and maybe bring food out with me for on the go?

Anyone who's gone gluten free got any good tips or recipes? TIA!

M&S do excellent coffe and walnut cake, and their ginger snaps are amazing

Dh likes M&S iced buns as well.

For baking bread, if you can find psyllium husk it improves breads a lot - you have to mix it with water first to form a gel, then add it to the dough.

I've got two coeliac grandchildren and have had a steep learning curve trying to cook with gluten free flour.
Stick to foods that are naturally gluten free, they're so much cheaper.
Avoid supermarket "free from" as much as you can - most are horrid.
Best flour is Dove's Farm gluten free - I made pancakes/crepes today with the plain and it's really good.

Becky Excell is a legend for her baking recipes.

Also a newly diagnosed coeliac at 39 😔

I can’t stand most gluten free breads, but corn tortillas are great - I’m cooking more Mexican food, lots of corn tortilla with rice and beans.

Never been able to make decent bread. Warburtons tiger loaf is ok.
caputo pizza flour is amazing for making pizza bases.
agree try and eat naturally gf so rice and potatoes rather than pasta.

get used to checking labels for “may contain” as well as the actual ingredients. Sadly the May contains are often not in bold. I still get caught out occasionally.

eating out is ok most of the time. The chain places like Wagamama and pizza express are good. There are good fb groups such as “coeliacs eat out too” or “ gluten free Manchester “ (using Manchester as an example) and you can ask for advice on independent places to see if they are considered safe or not by the local community. Eating on the go is the worst as can be hard to find a sandwich, etc. especially if you don’t eat meat. So snacks for such days are good. Or a full on pack up.

dont be afraid to quiz places on their coeliac knowledge. I’ve been in a coffee shop before where the menu said they did gluten free panini. When questioned they said they use the same panini press and the same tub of butter. No thanks. Will have a jacket potato with no butter thanks. (They opened a new tub of butter for us).

Mexico is a good holiday destination. Ditto Italy for some bizarre reason. Think it’s due to how many coeliacs they have there.

I’d also suggest Sainsbury’s pasta - it’s not expensive.

The trick is finding items that are already GF and not in the GF aisle. You might have to get used to going to a few supermarkets to get things.

I read recently that there’s mass screening in Italy - so basically loads more people know they have it, so they cater for them well! Rome is one of the best places I’ve ever been.

I made a rhubarb crumble with the freee from flour from Sainsbury's recently. It was a bit more sandy than usual but mostly because I didn't have any gf oats to add texture.
I make quite a lot of gf for bake sales and usually add a tiny bit of xanthan gym even if flour contains it and certainly most sponges have worked fine (e.g.lemon drizzle, chocolate cake, coffee and walnut). I used to buy xanthan from Amazon but noticed recently that my corner shop has it.
Pastry is tricky, my gf family members rate the frozen genius brand.

Tesco GF orzo is actually indistinguishable! Pastas in general I find do quite funny things to sauces so I cook them then rinse them off and then heat it back up in the sauce. Find it goes gloopy otherwise. Similarly if you make a roux or use a sprinkle of gf plain flour in gravy the texture is off, use cornflour instead!

The gluten free barilla pasta is much cheaper than £4 if you buy it from the supermarket! ASDA sells it for £2 for 400g for example. We generally use morrisons own brand though and it's fine.

ASDA flours are also pretty good, and they do GF onion rings. Morrisons is best for busicuits cakes and pizzas.

Warburtons is the best got supermarket GF bread. The soft squares, tiger bread and the new sliced white farmhouse are all excellent (for gluten free).

I would strongly recommend Loopy Whisk website and recipe book - we make the bread and pizza and focaccia recipes from there. For bread, using a Dutch oven makes a big difference i find for a good crust on a country style loaf. A lot of recipes, i find people can’t tell the difference - particularly, cakes. There’s a lot of trial and error, but if there are specific recipes you want do ask, as im sure those of us who have been on the gluten free journey a bit longer will have gathered some recipes. (Im not gluten free but my daughter was diagnosed coeliac 9 years ago at 4.) The Schar croissants and pain au chocolat are good and Morrisons do some frozen profiteroles, which are decent - although I make my own chocolate sauce.

Oh yes. Important to minimise cross continuation at home. For example, small particles of wheat attach to wooden utensils like spoons so you need separate spoons and chopping boards.

Becky Excell recommendation from me! Asda GF pasta is 71p for 500g..it is pretty good. We often all have it not just the GF person. However,I have yet to make decent gf bread..

Oh yes Loopy Whisk too. Dp has probably tried ALL the gf breads and has decided to stick with co op seeded one.He does eat some of the Nairns gluten free biscuits. Some of the ready made gf snacks are full of additives etc so it has been trial and error. If you have time to bake biscuits etc at least you know what is in them.

My DH is coeliac. Another shout for Sainsbury's gF pasta and they also do a gluten free cous cous made with corn that is delicious. Gluten free bread is rank but gluten free oat cakes are amazing. Doves gluten free plain flour is great for baking and thickening sauces, gravies etc Kallo strock cubes are also good and potatoes are great.

You will adapt very quickly.

Brazilian cheese bread is gluten free, tasty and easy to make.

At the moment Sainsbury’s has 20% off free from food and I know last week Tesco did, I’m not sure if they still do though

I don’t like any of the gluten free alternative breads/cakes/biscuits so I go without, I mainly eat meat & salad

You may be able to get a Juvela or Glutafin sample box, depending on where you live and local policies on GF prescribing.

https://www.juvela.co.uk/sign-up/?gad_source=1&gad_campaignid=23467966078&gbraid=0AAAAAD1M6wKmEuZ3bSGSMMSdga0mqofZM&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIkvGciLPQlAMVPJhQBh0LwzggEAAYASAAEgIL8vD_BwE

https://www.glutafin.co.uk/register/

www.freee-foods.co.uk/recipes/

It must be over 26 years ago I stopped eating wheat and gluten, it was awful back then and so much easier nowadays.

Separate toasters is a must!
Italy is good and so is Spain to be fair.
One of the Tesco own brand brown sauce is gluten free, it took me years to find a replacement brown sauce.
Always make a cheese sauce with cornflour, never flour.
Tesco own stock cubes are gluten free.
Make yorkshire puddings with cornflour, 100g cornflour, 150ml milk and three eggs - best yorkshires I've ever made.
For Dumplings check out Jamie Olivers all butter dumplings recipe - they are like fluffy clouds and far superior to the hard as rock suet ones I used to make.
Pastry is tricky, it needs an egg in it to bind and will always be really short, don't bother rolling it, just try and push it into pie dishes etc, lots of trial and error with pastry and still not getting it right every time.

You can make a pretty decent rollable GF pastry if you can get quark - 250g quark, 250g butter, 4dl of flour and 1tsp of baking powder and chill for a long time before rolling out in layers several times then it'll become quite workable (but if too workable you'll need to chill again before baking it). And you don't need to rub the butter in cold, you mix the quark with softened butter before adding the flour.

Mana Dew Bakery in London does amazing gf pastries which you can order online and freeze.

Becky Excell is amazing. I’ve also found that some things like stock cubes in the Free From aisle are more expensive than the same stock cubes just not labelled Free From but still not containing gluten in the normal aisle. Just check packets carefully, you don’t necessarily need free from, just make sure there’s no wheat / gluten. I find Promise sourdough rolls so nice.