Does anyone know of any Gluten free and Lactose free cookbooks?

[ABetaDad]

I would like to try a gluten free and lactose free diet. However, I need to find a way of replacing the meals I used to eat containing gluten / dairy foods and would like to get some Gluten Free and Lactose Free cookbooks.

I have not been diagnosed with coeliac disease which I know is caused by an autoimmune response to gluten and is also associated with lactose intolerance. However, I am going through a series of medical tests and examinations at the moment and want to talk to my consultant about about how my general health changes when I remove gluten and lactose from my diet.

I have been experimenting with cutting out bread and dairy products having suffered with a very long standing bowel problem and already feel a lot better from eating less gluten and dairy foods but I am finding it difficult to get enough variety of foods in my diet.

If anyone happens to know of a Gluten Free and/or Lactose Free cookbook or internet source with gluten/lactose free recipes I would be very grateful if you could let me know the name of the book or a weblink.

Yes. but it's at home and I am at my parents. in fact I never use it (I bought it because my mum is cow diary and wheat intolerant but I cook for her so rarely I just make things that don't contain either). It's quite american but if you want it post on here and I will send it to you free.

Also you might want to just try cutting cow diary out by substituting goats which is easier to digest.

It's this one:
www.amazon.com/Gluten-Wheat-Dairy-Free-Cookbook/dp/0722540272

Libras - thats brilliant. Thanks for the offer to send me the book but I do not want to trouble you. I will get one on Amazon.

MN is such a fab resource with such lovely people.

really if you want it you can have it.

Libras - no really it is fine. You have already been a huge huge help.

TBH, I have a few GF cookbooks, and never use them. Everything apart from bread or yeasted products converts so easily with Doves Farm GF flour and a bit of xanthan gum, that I think they are a bit of a waste.

Is there anything in particular that you are looking for ?

My favoured GF pasta is Rizopia, and I like DS multigrain bread. If you are in a Waitrose Delivers area, their website allows you to just display the GF food, and then you would only have to look for DF.

You may well find that if you go GF that the lactose may be less of a problem

CMOTdibbler - ah yes. I had forgotten about Waitrose gluten free. We are in their delivery area. Thanks for mentioning the other products. Are they really expensive though - say even more expensive than organic food?

I am thinking of cooking my own gluten free bread in a bread maker as that is the thing I miss most and find difficult to replace.

I actually discovered cutting down on milk and cream (but not out compleletly) gave me the biggest immediate lift first and then I missed out bread for a few days and felt pretty good but basically was just starving myself. I lost 2 kg last week in 4 days without really trying so that cannot go on for ever as I would be quite underweight if I lost another 10 Kg.

GF speciality food (rather than stuff which just is GF) is horrendously expensive. At first I spent a fortune on it, and resented every penny, and then realised that I needed to change my diet around to exchange other things for bread based meals rather than subsituting GF for real bread. So apart from pasta (and even then I most often have thai rice noodles which are naturally GF) I try to buy things which are naturally GF. I will stock the freezer with a load of stuff from Lifestyle every so often so that I can have a treat of a danish or a cornish pasty if I need one

TB brutally honest, I have not in 11 years found a GF bread I really like. For sandwiches GF pitta bread is fine if toasted and then kept in a plastic bag, and I have that about once every two weeks (they freeze fine and toast from frozen). Most of the breads are OK for toast, but not otherwise.

For pizza I use the brazilian bread mix from Johnsons which makes a really nice soft pizza base

CMOTdibbler - thank you for your very helpful advice.

I am a complete novice at this but you have confirmed what I had begun to suspect. Basically speciality GF is a bit of a rip off and really I have to redesign what I eat to go naturally GF free rather than just eat what I used to eat but with GF ingredients . As I said, what I am doing right now is just missing out things out which is making me lose weight but that cannot go on for ever.

I have tried alternatives to bread such as rice cakes which I do not really like (a bit like eating polystyrene). I take your point on GF bread toasting to make it more palatable.

I would like to know what Lifestyle is as stocking the freezer is actually quite a crucial issue as we live in two houses. Do you use a milk alternative to sort the lactose issue out?

Rice cakes are as far as I am concerned. The only time I eat them is on planes as BA are incapable of doing a GF meal without them.

I don't have a lactose problem - it is common to have one if you have any bowel damage from gluten though, so a lot of coeliacs are LI until they heal - although I have LI friends and cook for them a lot. I personally don't mind sweetened soy milk or rice milk, and theres some good soy or rice ice cream replacements. You could also try doing some lactase drops to see if that helps.

Lifestyle is a GF bakery who do fresh baked to order stuff. Pricey, but they do fill in some gaps that are hard to fill - esp their puff pastry stuff

Johnsons are a very good company to deal with. Helen who runs it is coeliac, and fussy about what she will stock - as in she has to actually want to eat it !

CMOTdibbler - Thanks ever so much. I will copy this MN page into a Word document and save it so I dont't lose it. Agree with you on rice cakes they are very ing.

I had a quick trip round the Lifestyle site which does look like the place for GF bread/pastry/biscuit/cake replacement things by the look of it. I love having a pastry and coffee (espresso obviously) for breakfast with my wife which is when we plan our day as we work together and so that is something I would miss a lot.

The Johnson pages seem to have more things I could make for myself with a bit of thought but definitely worth a look for the things for the freezer when I do not have time and a few speciality ingredients.

You have given me hope that I do not have to have a totally weird GF life.

No, honestly you don't have to have a weird life Since I was diagnosed, I have spent more hours on planes than I thought possible, worked in all sorts of weird and wonderful places, and felt better than I thought I could. Sometimes I've eaten a lot more salad than I wanted, but I've also felt smug when I'm the one with a bag full of emergency food when the conference food has sucked.

If you like croissant, the Proceli ones are very nice - the Livewell Pain au Chocolat are not good btw.

Muffins freeze very well and can be nuked in 30 seconds - I do a almond/apple/cinnamon one that is very tasty for breakfast.

Still in negotiations as to whether I can have an espresso maker - DH and I both work from home (but not for the same companies) and I miss having coffee

In my view, don't get an espresso maker unless you can afford at least £300 but even then they are a complete pain to clean.

We have several different sized Bialetti coffee pots that we just bung one heaped desert spoon of top quality ground coffee in (e.g Lavazza Gold or Illy) per person and boil on the stove. They wash up with quick a rinse under the tap.

Like this one for £25 which is a decent size for 4 people:

Bialetti 6 cup

They make a lovely cup in a few minutes without the messing about of an espresso machine and definitely will be a winner with your DH no doubt.

You sound like you do travel on planes a lot - I used to have that life but thankfully gave it up. BA food does seem to have gone down hill since its best years under Lord King when it really was the World's Best Airline.

DH alas is allergic to coffee, so trying to minimise the smell is also a consideration. But a stove top is a great idea - had forgotten about them

Am travelling much less the last 3 years, but have a longhaul a month for the next 4 months, plus at least one short haul each month. The special diet food is pretty uniformly rank, although Finnair is good. The gulf between business and economy food is gigantic now - although I only get to go in club if I spend miles or get very lucky at checkin

I have Cooking Without and Vegetarian Cooking without by Barbara Cousins, also Healthy Gluten-Free Cooking by Darina Allen.

As has been said, the bread you can buy is pretty rubbish unless mic'd or toasted.

I used to make some savoury sconey things for the freezer which were nice with soup.

Short grain brown rice is very good for bowel issues (from the healthfood shop not the long grain stuff from the supermarket).

I was wondering what you meant by not being able to get a variey of foods.

CMOTdibbler - wow I never heard of coffee alergy although the smell (not the smoke) of tobacco give me an instant headache and I feel sick so sounds like your DH has a similar condition.

Nontoxic - thanks for the book titles and other info. Scones sound like a great idea. I could make those this GF flour which I saw in Marks & Spencer.

I say I cannot get food variety at the moment becuase I am just experimenting by missing out flour and dairy based products. I really have to redesign my diet to be naturally GF rather than just miss things out.

I think that's the key to success - also cooking family meals rather than separate things just for you.

I seemed to spend the first year chained to the kitchen, but Darin Allen's recipes are very family friendly.

Afair, the scones were made from gram (chickpea) flour, the recipe was from one of the Cooking Without books.

There was also a recipe for banana and mango ice cream which the kids liked.