Beginner's guide to being coeliac - GLUTEN-FREE cookery, food advice, hints and tips

[Fauve]

My ds (12) is under investigation for coeliac disease - although one blood test was negative, he is to have a further blood test to see if he has inherited the coeliac gene from his (definitely coeliac) dad, and then if necessary a biopsy. He is a bit daunted by the notion of not being able to eat gluten if he turns out to be coeliac, and I will have to get my act together more than I have to date - at the moment I only cater for a coeliac dh, not a coeliac adolescent boy!
Also another MNer was recently diagnosed as coeliac, and I've promised to post my own recipes (such as they are ). As a start-off, I've been trawling through the archives, and these threads are particularly useful to me:
This one could change my life with its revelation that you can take gf pizza bases to Pizza Hut, and they will cook a pizza for you.
This one's good on baking.
And so is this one.
This one has lots of basic info, and some links.
I'm really grateful to all the people who posted on those threads. Hopefully we can put some recipes together here, as well. I'm going to go away and type some of mine up in Word, so they don't all disappear when something goes wrong with my posting Also I'll keep trawling through the archive threads in my usual obsessive way...

Thanks Fauve! Will definitely try the Pizza Hut idea - and might give it a go with Pizza Express!

Fauve -thanks for this. I for one will find it handy for when DDs friend (6) comes to tea as shes coeliac ( the one that I was trying to find gluten free choc/sweets for party bag for -you gave me advice on the thread).

Mumsnet is great for things like this.

Oh, good, DD, you've seen it. I know, dh always says he can't go to Pizza Hut, and it's ds' favourite place! So it really could make a huge difference to us - I never even thought of asking if they'd do it.

dp made me my first gluten free cake last night and I have to say it was pretty delicious! (OK, I'm still getting used to the fact that it's not quite the same, but it was nice to have something cake-ish, if you know what I mean).

Saucepan Cake

4oz marg/butter
1 cup caster sugar (tea cup)
1 cup milk
1 cup fruit

Put them all into the pan, bring to the boil, leave to cool for 30 - 40 mins.

Mix in:
2 beaten eggs

Then fold in:
2 sieved cups of Doves farm g-f flour (and add 1 teaspoon of baking powder)

Mix until smooth and put into a greased and lined loaf tin. Bake at gas mark 4 (180C/350F) in the middle of the oven for 60 minutes. Check then and leave in for longer if necessary.

Ta-da!! I took it round to friends last night and they all had some in solidarity - bless!

Sounds yummy! Dove's gf flour seems to be universally recommended on MN - and I haven't even got any

This thread has a link to a Gluten-Free Message Board, which lists London restaurants that do GF. Mmmmmm...eating out has been a constant problem for us...more research needed, obviously!

Standby rice salad:

Take some cooked rice, and add some chopped red onion, chopped tomato, chopped red, yellow or green pepper. Add sweetcorn, raisins or other dried fruit ? dried apricots are particularly yummy ? and some rinsed capers. Mix well, then add some Hellmann?s Light mayonnaise. Let it sit in the fridge for a couple of hours, so that the flavours come out and the dried fruit plumps up, then mix in some pine nuts just before serving ? don?t let the pine nuts sit in the mixture for any length of time, or they?ll go soggy. Eat with gusto.

One of the good things about this is that you can add any other stuff you need to use up, eg cucumber, cooked peas. You should try to get a good mix of colours in there. It also works well with protein added, eg cooked chicken or tinned anchovies.

Pizza Express definitely do the pizza base thing too. Bella Pasta are surprisingly good - they have a complete list for all their dishes of what it contains, so dead easy for a waiter/waitress to suggest alternative sauces or whatever if need be.

I say this always - Sainsburys Too Good To Be True sausages - fresh herb particularly are fab.

Watch out for wheat in unexpected places, get used to reading all the labels. Sainsburys, Tesco are excellent for food labelling. Modified maize starch can contain wheat as well, so beware.

Re: takeaways, Indian definitely more doable than Chinese. Remember poppadoms are (or should be) wheat free. Watch out for McD's chips, they have flour on.

I don't find the cooking side of it that irksome to be honest, it's more just helping to ensure we eat the food we should be anyway, i.e. cooked from scratch good home-cooking.

Hope your ds will be okay - although obviously being diagnosed with coeliacs isn't the end of the world, it's no-one's dream situation, is it? At least you can get stuff on prescription.

Thanks, Tribpot, very useful - esp about Bella Pasta and Pizza Express - we tend to assume pizza/pasta places are completely out. Thanks for the other tips, too.

I thought Mcdonalds chips were OK?? (not that I go that often...). I take the kids for a treat in the half term holidays and I was thinking I could have some chips and a diet coke!

Does most Chinese tend to have gluten in the sauces? I wasn't sure if MSG has gluten as part of it.

McD food sensitivity info - actually it looks as if friees are in a bit of a grey area; the oil they fry them in (not Extra Virgin Olive, shocker) contains hydrolized wheat. That wouldn't be enough to set my dh's intolerance off, but poss not good for a coeliac?

DS is gluten intolerant, and a source of great recipes I've recently found, are the websites of the gluten free food manufacturers. The schar one seems particularly good. Obv, they promote their own foods, but that's to be expected.

After over a year of DS1 being gf, I now get some gf food on prescription. We get 10 items per month as he's only 2 years old.

Thanks, Laura, will have to have a look at those. Can't believe how slow I've been, really - today I made Yorkshire puds, just substituting Juvela flour mix for ordinary flour, and they were fine! Somehow, I thought it would all be more complicated.

Here's the pancake thread which inspired me to have a go.

Quick question to all Coeliac experts! I've had my biopsy, been diagnosed - how do I go about getting my prescription food?! Do I wait for the confirmation letter from my consultant to GP (Assuming I get a copy...). I'm not sure how it's all supposed to work. I'm seeing my GP on Friday to talk about getting ds2 referred for a blood test - probably should mention it then?

It's a strange new world!

Don't buy corn pasta - it looks pretty in the packet but tastes disgusting!

I got the dietician at the hosp to send me a list of what you could get on scrip, and then just took my list to the GP's.

fortyplus - I know!! Made the mistake of buying some and trying it last week - bleugh!!

Yes, I'd mention it then, DD. From what I've heard, you'll probably have to train your GP in how to do it - it's a bit complex and completely unlike the usual prescription process. You'll also have to train your pharmacist, and there'll be lots of errors all round at first. I'm not an expert on this, though (yet) - will try to get dh to post.

Even the 'normal' gf pasta has to be eaten with a sauce of some kind to make it palatable, IME. Here's some recipes:

Boil pasta - have the water boiling very fast, and add some oil. Even then, some strands will bunch together - either chuck them, or carefully cool and pull apart with your fingers, then put them back in boiling water for a bit. Drain. While the empty pan is still hot, add the oil from a tin of Sainsbury's Anchovies in olive oil with garlic and herbs; then chop up the anchovies and add to the pan. Add the pasta; mix; serve.

Boil pasta; drain. Put the pan on a very gentle heat; add some mascarpone, grated cheddar, torn-up wafer-thin ham. Mush together; add the pasta. For a less high-cal version, use low-fat soft cheese, which can be thinned with double cream, or you could possibly use yogurt to thin.

Boil pasta; drain. Add a tin of mackerel in tomato sauce to the pan and chop roughly. Heat gently; add the pasta. This is my fave, though dh doesn't like it - any ideas on how to flavour it for him would be v. welcome!

There are plenty of ready-made pasta sauces which are gf, too.

I think the best pasta is the Gallo rice stuff ('best' being a relative term here!). Important thing is not to overcook it by so much as 10 seconds, or it turns into gloopy horribleness.

Thanks, Tribpot, have not tried that yet.

I submit my prescription requests like this:

Breads
Dietary Specials
2 packs of Gluten & Wheat-free White Sliced Loaf 400g (PIP Code 282-3771)

(taken from the sheets the dietician sent me)

I leave it at the GP, as it takes them a while, and then the pharamcist norm. takes 24hrs to get it all in.

I find the fusilli pastas best - the Tesco own brand one is OK. To cook that is, I don't eat it, so don't know about flavour. It's DS1's favourite though.

I add to super boiling water with olive oil in. Cook for at least recommended time, poss more, then rinse immediately in cold water to stop it going starchy. Like this it's fine the next day for pasta salads etc.

This was my last prescription:

Juvela G-F Fibre Bread 10400g
Ener-G Macaroni 3454g
Juvela Gluten-Free Fresh Bread (PIP Code 322-0217) 1* case of 8

My GP never makes any fuss about what I order, and encourages me to ask for larger quantities (so less repeats). However he hardly ever notices when I ask for a changed quantity of anything.

The pharmacist (Boots) usually takes 3 - 7 days to get the order in.

Thanks. So do you think I have to wait until I get a dietician - assuming I automatically get one? Just wondering out loud - I'll check with my GP on Friday. My biopsy was 2 weeks ago and I haven't had anything in the post, but I'm probably expecting too much too soon!

I first saw a Dietician several weeks after my diagnosis/biopsy. She took a food diary from me and worked out on a computer what I was lacking in nutrients and what I had to watch. Her recommendations included Eat More Fruit, watch the dairy/cholesterol total, try nuts etc. I do not remember any specific recommendations on gf food.