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!

Yeah we just use the normal knorr vegetable stock cubes which are gluten free - it doesn't say anywhere on the box but there's no gluten indicated in the ingredients.

OP just to let you know most Sarsons vinegar products are gluten free as well despite containing barley so you can still have Sarsons Malt Barley vinegar on your chips and Branston Pickle if you like.

On the downside you do need to check things like cheap cola which often contains barley and things like chips/crisps which often contain wheat in their flavourings.

I've been diagnosed Coeliac for over 40 years OP, welcome to the club.

Some random recommendations.

Get used to self catering holidays. A hotel's ok for a night we find, but no longer. On the plus side if you rent a villa or apartment, you'll have a lot more space to enjoy.

Spain and the Canary Isles are very good for Coeliacs. The CEO of the Mercadona supermarket chain's daughter is a Coeliac, so their labelling is excellent. One of the Canary Island supermarkets, I forget which one, used to print all the price labels of gf products in a different colour.

You can order gf burgers at McDonalds in Spain and Portugal.

A couple of tips if you're barbecuing this weekend. The Bratwurst in Aldi and Lidl are tasty and gf. Aldi's Marmite equivalent is gf ( don't use Marmite).

I'll be making a German potato salad that's gf this weekend. Cooked potatoes, chopped tomatoes, onions, cucumber, green pepper, chopped German salami ( from a packet, not a deli slicer) and Hellmann's mayonnaise.

A quick recipe for you that people will think you've slaved over for hours: Pork fillet medallions in a Dijon mustard and cream sauce ( EDITED TO ADD Maille Dijon mustard is safe). Fry the pork fillet in a little butter. Sauce is a pot of single cream, a teaspoonful of Dijon mustard, a twist of black pepper and a slosh of brandy. If you don't have any brandy, add a quarter teaspoon of sugar. Don't over heat the sauce or it will separate.

If you wanted you could roast cubed potatoes, onions, peppers, mushrooms in olive oil, garlic, rosemary and thyme to go with it, and a little rice to soak up the sauce.

I find Asda's sliced brown bread to be very easily digestible, and it's very reasonably priced too.

Good luck!

I'm not coeliac but I am lactose intolerant.

Watch out for things like stock cubes and seasoning.

I reacted to some sausages, who would have thought there would be lactose in sausages?

I've recently eaten a couple of meals at a 'Hungry Horse' pub, they have a GF menu, unfortunately (I just checked) they only have salmon, the rest is meat.

Good luck OP

Cooking at home, we’ve used gram flour or cornflour (with a bit of baking powder) works for sauces, Yorkshire puddings etc)
Chefs Sauce is a really lovely Irish brown sauce that I’ve now decided is nicer than HP! Easy to get from supermarkets, can’t remember ifs in GF section or normal ss it’s naturally GF.
Hendersons is a perfect replacement for Worcestershire sauce.
Remember, you do not need to get everything from the FF section. There are loads of foods that are GF by chance. You just have to get used to reading labels and checking there are no BROWS (barely. Rye, oats, wheat, spelt). But, if something specifically says it’s GF, then that overrides anything on the ingredients list.

That's not my experience at all.

I spent years working away from home and trying to buy lunches on the go was always a mission. Whilst in theory many places do some sort of gluten free sandwich or wrap they were frequently not available and as soon as you found somewhere reliable they'd suddenly discontinue it.

Eating out for lunch, not much better. Frequently lunch options in cafes are very limited or non existent.

Dinner options tend to be more straightforward but often cross contamination issues and extensive studying of menus required. Some places will come up as having gluten free options but in reality they mean olives as a starter and the drinks menu. Memorably, I'd once checked whether a hotel room service had gluten free options and when I got there it turned out that the only gf thing on offer was carrot cake! I also went to a work event where everything gluten free was clearly labelled, the aioli was the only thing 😂

I've been diagnosed for 20 years now and it's pretty much taking stripped most of the enjoyment out of eating out and travelling. On the plus side, I'm a much better cook!

If you like eating out and have a Pho restaurant near you, most of their menu is GF.

This is a very stylish food blog that is completely gluten-free and offers a welcome different approach to the often highly processed supermarket foods: https://ourfoodstories.com/ gluten-free food doesn’t have to be dull and second-best'.

I’ve been gluten free for about 15 years now and only recently found a true game changer cookbook - it’s The Elements of Baking by Katarina Cermelj. I generally had decent success just substituting in gluten free flour but her book is a true game changer cause it explains what minor quantity tweaks are necessary and why. I bake her bread recipe every week and it is so easy - no knead, simple and delicious.

I thought this would be the case, but sadly it’s not. Because being gluten free is quite trendy (god knows why) I thought it’d be fairly easy. But I reality it’s still very limiting when you’re out and about. A GF pizza is no good if it’s made in the same oven as the normal ones. Same with chips in a fryer etc. I’m actually shocked at how few GF sandwich options there are in supermarkets, Pret etc. And I’ve struggled with friends etc not understanding the cross contamination issue, or saying “surely a little bit won’t hurt?” 😡
Its clearly a million times better than it was 20-30yrs ago, but it’s still pretty crap.

@jinglejuicing - I'd say out and about was better 10-15 years ago, and gluten free was really on trend then. Starbucks, Pret & Costa all had gf wraps. In the last 5 years, vegan options have really taken over. Our local supermarket used to have a large frozen gluten free section. Two thirds of that is now vegan.

Not read the entire thread so apologies if it's already mentioned, but the Coeliac UK app (££) will scan barcodes for most supermarkets and major brands and tell you if the product is GF or not. Very handy for food shopping.

I'm not coeliac myself but a couple of family members are - I buy GF bread, flour, pasta and snacks and tamari soy sauce but mostly rely on cooking things that aren't wheat based.

Anything Mexican (with corn tortillas) Indian, potato-based etc is either GF to begin with or just needs GF flour.

I have never baked GF as it sounds too complicated for me. Things like crumbles are disappointing, but GF flour makes decent shortbread. Brownies and ground almond-based cakes are what I normally rely on.

Cornflour Yorkshire puddings are the best by far :)

And for crumble, I agree the gf flour makes a disappointing top. M&S sell a GF ready make crumble topping that you mix with melted butter - it's fantastic!

I was about to comment suggesting this author although my book by her is called Baked to Perfection.

I do like Becky Excell, but her baking pales compared to these recipes. My husband will actually eat these ones 😂 Most of the cakes our guests have not been able to tell they were GF

M&S made without wheat oaty sliced loaf is my favoure gf bread. I usually still toast the bread for sandwiches as I prefer the texture.
Warburtons tiger loaf is also good as people have said.

Be aware that not only can ingredients change without notice, contamination and forgetting to include wheat or gluten on the ingredients list is a thing.

Sign up to the Food Standards Agency alerts - chances are it'll come through about a month after everybody's been glutened, but occasionally something pings before you've opened the packet.

The app is notoriously unreliable, I do not recommend it as it regularly will say something is not safe when it is. Getting used to reading labels is the best thing you can do.

I had a coeliac friend over recent and put together a picky-bits buffet from the gluten-free things that were available from asda (along with plenty of naturally-gluten-free foods like veg, potatoes and meat/fish). She's usually a Sainsbury's shopper so the things available were different from what she is used to, so I guess it would be a good tip to not be in a rut with always using the same supermarket. The 3 things she was really happy with were the onion rings, some little bitesize calzone and some cookie dough icecream balls that she said were really nice and things that she thought she'd never have again.

I’m not coeliac but have a wheat intolerance & I have found it easier to eat protein & veg type meals rather than fork out for the various gluten free options sold. I realised that I didn’t particularly like pasta, I just used to eat it because it’s so convenient when you have kids to feed!

You’re pescatarian, so try all the different fish & seafood available and eat it with seasonal vegetables. For carbohydrates: quinoa, beans, lentils, sweet potatoes, potatoes, rice are all naturally gluten free and can be cooked in myriad different ways.