Southern And Starving!

[jesimae]

Ok so I'm not starving, but I am Southern. Raised in South Mississippi mostly and a few years here and there in Arkansas and Louisiana.

I'm not typical Southern as far as my diet goes. I don't fry anything except occasionally some green tomatos, some okra, and catfish. And I mean rarely (maybe like, once a year). Don't really eat a lot of bread. Period. But I gotta have an occasional piece of cornbread to go with my beans and greens-lol.

I do love dairy (low fat of course). I don't cook with lard, butter, or vegetable oil. But I am not a health nut.

Blah, blah, blah...I'll get to the point:

Looking for some Southerners with Celiac's that can help me replace some things without totally changing my favorite cultural recipes (Ooh, I wonder if Paula Deen will go gluten free for a few episodes?). I mean come on, it's Southern cookin?!

Some things that will be hard for me to do without:

cornbread

cream of wheat

grits

an occasional biscuit

chilli

homemade mac and cheese

casseroles (hello! for "dinner on the grounds")

sauces

I probably could go totally vegetarian, though, and be perfectly happy...if I were still in the South where the fresh veggies are; instead I'm in Northeast Wyoming.

Found a health food store and bought a few things. But a lot of that stuff just seems too herbal for me. Kinda scared it's gonna make me extremely gassssy;p

Need some help please.

[mushroom]

Ok so I'm not starving, but I am Southern. Raised in South Mississippi mostly and a few years here and there in Arkansas and Louisiana.

I'm not typical Southern as far as my diet goes. I don't fry anything except occasionally some green tomatos, some okra, and catfish. And I mean rarely (maybe like, once a year). Don't really eat a lot of bread. Period. But I gotta have an occasional piece of cornbread to go with my beans and greens-lol.

I do love dairy (low fat of course). I don't cook with lard, butter, or vegetable oil. But I am not a health nut.

Blah, blah, blah...I'll get to the point:

Looking for some Southerners with Celiac's that can help me replace some things without totally changing my favorite cultural recipes (Ooh, I wonder if Paula Deen will go gluten free for a few episodes?). I mean come on, it's Southern cookin?!

Some things that will be hard for me to do without:

cornbread

cream of wheat

grits

an occasional biscuit

chilli

homemade mac and cheese

casseroles (hello! for "dinner on the grounds")

sauces

I probably could go totally vegetarian, though, and be perfectly happy...if I were still in the South where the fresh veggies are; instead I'm in Northeast Wyoming.

Found a health food store and bought a few things. But a lot of that stuff just seems too herbal for me. Kinda scared it's gonna make me extremely gassssy;p

Need some help please.

Hi soustherner, and welcome to the forum. So what is it that makes you think you have to give up food because you are gluten free? Admittedly there are a lot of things eat in the south and I don't eat, and some I can't eat for reasons other than gluten, like cornbread, but what about Open Original Shared Link ? Haven't tried it, but you might.

As for the rest of your list::

cream of wheat - well, obviously this is out, but you might try cream of rice

grits - know nothing about them, but there has been a bit discussion about them on here - just use the forum search for 'grits'

an occasional biscuit - likewise, there have been endless discussions here about the perfect gluten free biscuit

chilli - now unless you have other food intolerances like me why on earth would you have to give up chilli?

homemade mac and cheese - I make it all the time

casseroles (hello! for "dinner on the grounds") - make them all the time. Am making a broccoli cheese casserole for dinner tonight.

sauces - you just have to find the right all purpose gluten free flour mix for your sauces, particularly the ones that involve southern roux (yes, we've had discussions on here about that too!!)

So what else, besides the cream of WHEAT!!! do you think you will feel deprived of??

[meme2kids]

I'm from Tennessee and just little bit of changes you can make all the above items..

Tonight: I made pan fried Zucchini, lightly breaded in Gluten Free Cornmeal.

For Breakast: a bacon, egg and grit casserole

Some of the tradtional gravey and sauces are, will need to be severaly modified due to the butter and flour bases as with the mac & cheese,but it is doable.

[jesimae]

Thank you! Sorry, just a lil whiny, I guess lol. The thing about the chilli. It is my absolute favorite food. I could literally eat it everyday, so of course, I checked my favorite seasoning blend, and it contains gluten:( It's the McCormick brand, and I LOVE it. They do have many gluten free seasonings, but that's not one of them. Guess I'll have to find another.

I tried my first gluten free flour in one of my favorite recipes tonight and it tasted even better than before! So I think I've found a keeper.

I also learned today that our local grocery store has a section of gluten free foods on nearly every aisle! I was in Heaven!

They make cream of rice? I'll definitely try that.

About the casseroles, the ones I usually make contain things with gluten (And my husband loves them, so I don't feel it fair to deprive him). But I pulled some of my recipes out tonight and think with some substitutions, I can still make them.

I bought some bread, crackers, flour, corn bread mix, and blueberry muffins. I have tried all but the cornbread, and they are all delicious! Can I just say that the Udi bluberry muffins are awesome!?

I'm so encouraged now. Very glad I found this website and forum. Most all info on the web about Celiac just tells you what you CAN'T have, hence my discouragement earlier.

Still learning to navigate the site, and will search for more info. There's tons here! Kind of hard to decide where to post what;)

Fried zuchini, huh? Haven't had that in a while. Might try that soon:)

Asked my husband for a bread maker for my birthday (still hasn't gotten me anything yet; my birthday's too close to Christmas) and he said "of course". Yay!

My daughter asked if she could go gluten free with me, so that's encouraging too. Actually the whole family will be, but I don't have to tell them until they taste the food, right? lol

[missy'smom]

We are lucky that there are several options for cream of...soups now. Gluten-free Cafe? makes a canned mushroom, Pacific now has small cartons of mushroom, celery and chicken, there are several others. Most of them are thinner than the condensed soups so we need to adjust for less of the other liquids in the casserole, or add some starch and thicken it. If you can't find these in the market, there are recipes out there to make your own that are pretty easy.

[Dixiebell]

These are spices I use for tacos and chili. I do not measure, I just smell and taste until I get it right. I used to always buy the McCormick too.

Chili Powder

Garlic Powder

Onion Powder

Ground Red Pepper

Ground Oregano

Paprika

Ground Cumin

Sea Salt

Black Pepper

Corn Starch (for thickening)

[BethJ]

I think we all went through some shock when we learned we could no longer eat all the things we loved but after the initial grief/anger period, I decided to keep making the same things but with substitutions. Thankfully, it's worked out fairly well.

cornbread: I use my old recipe but substitute Bob's Red Mill All-Purpose baking mix and a pinch of xanthan gum for the flour called for. There are also recipes using only conrmeal and some are pretty good, especially the ones made with buttermilk.

cream of wheat: try grinding plain dry white rice in a coffee grinder, then cooking until creamy. It's a close substitute - or just pretend you're a Northerner and put milk and sugar on your grits.

grits: they're naturally gluten-free. I use regular grits and haven't had any problems with them. Be careful in restaurants . . . they can be cc'd with cream of wheat or cream gravy.

biscuits: the new gluten-free Bisquick makes great biscuits. I use butter instead of shortening and they're very good.

chili: no reason for it to have gluten that I know of.

homemade mac and cheese: I haven't tried making mine from scratch but I don't see why you couldn't use rice macaroni and proceed from there. I love Amy's gluten-free mac and cheese and hers is a rice macaroni.

casseroles: lots of gluten-free cream soups are available now so you should be able to find something suitable.

sauces: you might have to try different types of gluten-free flour until you find one that's right for a particular sauce. I love cornstarch for gravies and sometimes use an all-purpose baking mix.

Sometimes I think if we try to look at all the great things we can have, we won't cry as much over the things we can't have.

[CarolinaKip]

We are lucky that there are several options for cream of...soups now. Gluten-free Cafe? makes a canned mushroom, Pacific now has small cartons of mushroom, celery and chicken, there are several others. Most of them are thinner than the condensed soups so we need to adjust for less of the other liquids in the casserole, or add some starch and thicken it. If you can't find these in the market, there are recipes out there to make your own that are pretty easy.

I use gluten free Progresso Creamy Mushroom soup and it taste wonderful! I usually heat it and add corn starch to it to thicken it before adding it to my dish! I made an awesome gluten-free greenbean casserole Thanksgiving using this soup and Funyun onion rings! My gluten eating extended family loved it! I'm corn free right now, but even alone, it's a good soup! You can do alot! Just look at the recipe thread, there are some awesome gluten-free cooks here!

[sb2178]

cornbread - easy, buy some corn flour and sub for the wheat flour. Use a two egg recipe, and neglect the sugar as your mother did or did not instruct you to do so.

cream of wheat - there's BoB Red Mill's Mighty Tasty Hot Cereal. heard of cream of buckwheat but haven't ever eaten any...

grits - darling, you can still go there! just watch for processing as smaller plants may also process wheat

an occasional biscuit - got nothing. sorry. learn to like muffins?

chilli - you used flour in chili??

homemade mac and cheese - corn quinoa noodles, and a white sauce made with rice flour. toss in lots of sharp cheddar and you're good

casseroles (hello! for "dinner on the grounds") - go back to using actual cream and/or egg. or else there is always tomato sauces or crushed tomatoes for the liquid. I've even used canned pumpkin, which is... interesting, but works with sausage.

sauces - there are many many non-flour sauces, and rice flour does a decent job for many.

And, hey, you've got rice, beans, greens, corn, and all the bacon you can eat. ;-)

[MindytheOrganist]

Just watch which beans you put in your chili, Brooks chili beans have wheat in them. I use Bush's chili beans.

Gluten-free Bisquick and Pamelas Mixes make great biscuits, however they work best as drop biscuits.

Haven't found a decent gravy, yet. We tried to make regular gravy (sausage), and it turned out pretty bad.

Beans and cornbread - I cook dried pinto beans and bake gluten-free cornbread. I believe Bob's Red Mill has both cornmeal you can mix with other gluten-free mixes, but they also have a complete cornbread mix which is easy to make.

Fried chicken - I actually prefer rice flour; it seems to stick to the chicken better.

Casseroles - try looking up recipes on the Internet. Most casseroles that use pasta can be adapted to be gluten-free.

[jesimae]

Thanks for all your help! You've all given me some ideas, and I feel much better about being able to manage my diet.

I've started keeping a "diary" with a list of foods as I try them, and what I like/don't like about them. My mother has had "IBS" for years and "fibromyalgia", so she's getting tested too. I plan on giving her tips from my diary should she need it.

Restaurants will be little tricky, but I think I can manage. Read some posts about that. Soooo much to learn

[Wolicki]

Georgia Girl Here

cornbread- Bob's red mill makes a great mix. However, I have found no reasonable sub for GA cornbread- the ones fried in a cast iron skillet with the lacey edges- Lily White is not gluten-free:(

cream of wheat - Rice and Shine by arrowhead mills is pretty good

grits- Quaker and Albers are gluten free naturally

an occasional biscuit- not like my Granny's but will do in a pinch- gluten free bisquick

chilli- don't use the package, use chili powder, cumin, salt, garlic, cayenne and sugar

homemade mac and cheese- use ancient harvest quinoa macaroni. Make a roux from brown rice flour

casseroles (hello! for "dinner on the grounds")- if you are only missing soup, try Progresso mushroom soup, you just have to thicken it a bit

sauces- sub regular flour with brown rice or sorghum flour. No one will ever know the difference.

I had a gluten free Thanksgiving for nearly 20 people complete with dressing, biscuits and gravy and everyone raved!

[GlutenFreeManna]

It looks like everyone else answered your questions pretty well. I thought of this thread when I saw this recipe: Open Original Shared Link

My hubby is a Southern boy so I'm going to try to make this for him tonight. Looks like good old comfort food.

[Marilyn R]

I'll step up and say that buckwheat is ok, especially when you make it with honey and sliced bananas, kinda like having banana cream pie for breakfast.

But you might want to simmer down on trying new things (especially grains and mixes) to let your system simmer down a bit.

Chick pea flour makes really good veggie or seafood fritters. (And my favorite, onion rings.) Plus it's good for a fish fry. And you can make a mean flatbread out of it.

You found a good spot (this forum), hope you can convince your mom! Good luck, and I wish you good health, along with good cookin'!

[gramma elaine]

I think the Us is way ahead of us (Canada) when it comes to available gluten free products. I have yet to find a single tin of gluten-free soup. I'm really looking for cream of mushroom for casseroles. In my case I don't live in a large City.( the nearest large city is 8 hours away) I know more products are available in large centers. I'm going to Palm Springs for spring break. I hope to find lots of gluten free foods there! What are grits? I make mac and cheese all the time using either rice or corn noodles. Use sharp cheddar and thicken with potatoe flour. Potatoe flour works much better than rice flour for thickening sauces.

[Dixiebell]

Hi gramma elaine.

Here is a thread from not too long ago about grits