Millet

[Bonnie]

Hi guys,

Apart from having celiac disease (4 months dx) just had it confirmed I am intolerant to rice (white, brown, wild, basmati), seeds, nuts, chocolate, alcohol and sucrose.

I had more or less gotten a handle on avoiding gluten, now this.

In trying to find a substitute for rice, I have tried millet. Its a bit bland but I'm sure I can do more with it.

Does anyone have any ideas on this?

Also, the bread I order from the bakery is made with rice flour. Does anyone have a really simple bread recipe I can make with other flours? I'm useless at baking and don't have a bread machine. Perhaps I should invest in one seeing as this is a life-long investment!

The health shop told me potato flour was the same as potato starch and I just read on another thread they are totally different. Mind you, they also told me I could have their muffins as they are gluten-free and only contain wheat. AAAHHHH!!!! I didn't know whether to cry or punch her!

Thanks everyone.

Yvonne

[nogluten-]

Yvonne,

That's rough that you're allergic to rice. I haven't tried the millet before,but I just wanted to tell you to hang in there. Also, are you tolerant of carob? Sometimes it can be good if mixed with coconut oil. Take care.

[SandraNinTO]

I love millet. I put some in my crockpot every night with water and a handful of raisins (on low) and have a great breakfast every morning before work and pour soy milk all over it! It fills me up and the best part is that millet is cheap! Enjoy. Sandra in Toronto

[Bonnie]

Thanks Sandra,

I will definitely try that. Breakfast is always a problem. Its always good to have a nice filling breakfast.

This is one thing I enjoy about this diet of ours, trying all the new things!

[Canadian Karen]

Also, although I haven't tried it yet, my sister swears by quinoa (spelling?)...... She says it is delicious.....

Karen

[SandraNinTO]

Oh yeah, I used to have Quinoa for breakfast. It really freaked me out the first time I cooked it because it has that little white "ring" in it which struck me as looking kinda worm-like. But it's really good! You have to rinse it well before you cook it I think to take the bitterness out. I used to put date butter or date syrup on it. You know I wish I could remember actual recipes. I am the kind of person who can't cook unless the recipe is right in front of me!

[Bonnie]

I'm exactly the same Sandra! I have absolutely no imagination when it comes to cooking. Probably why most of this healthy stuff tastes like cardboard - it's the way I'm cooking it!

[SandraNinTO]

Luckily my husband cooks. He even claims to enjoy it (should I believe him?) I plan to post some of his recipes tomorrow. Am not sure where in this message board I should do that. I'm new to this. What we are missing though is a recipe for decent bread! Sandra

[Kasey'sMom]

My daughter likes cooked millet with a dash of cinnamon and dried cranberries.

[VydorScope]

MIllet? My birds love it... but never tried it myself

[tarnalberry]

I enjoy millet. (My bird does too, though he gets unhulled millet. ;-) ) I like millet grits, combined with quinoa and flax meal, along with almond milk, for a hot cereal. Or toasted first in a dry skillet, then cooked. You can use it in a pilaf, or made with broth too, or in place of bulgar in tabouleh.

[Bonnie]

I enjoy millet.  (My bird does too, though he gets unhulled millet. ;-) )  I like millet grits, combined with quinoa and flax meal, along with almond milk, for a hot cereal.  Or toasted first in a dry skillet, then cooked.  You can use it in a pilaf, or made with broth too, or in place of bulgar in tabouleh.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Tiffany this sounds great but way over my head! Toasted then cooked? I assume that makes it taste better, and then do you cook it as usual or will it cook quicker? I don't even know what flax meal is!

You sound like a fundi in the kitchen, you lucky thing.

Yes Sandra, a decent EASY bread recipe is one thing I have not been able to find on this site.

4 and a half months down the line and bread is still my biggest problem!

[Japsnoet]

Bonnie

Have you tried eating Maltabella by Bokomo ? (Matabella is imported to Australia from SA.) You can also use it when baking bread it makes really yummy bread if you use it in combination with a number of other flours.

I bake with the following flour mix Sorghum Flour, Cornstarch, Tapioca flour, corn flour. You can replace the cornstarch with potato flour, if you want. Another mix that works really well that you can use if you can eat potatoes is besan flour, maize flour , potato flour and yellow maize flour. Lola Workman one of Australia’s best gluten free cooks uses this combination in her Wheat free world recipes cookbook. I baked the ginger fingers one of her cookie recipes for my husband and he turned into the cookie monster and he does not need to follow a gluten-free diet. He is a sucker for a good cookie. Have a look at her web page Open Original Shared Link

Her recipes are very easy to follow and she each time give you an alternative if you want to replace rice in one of her recipes.

You can also bake with Iwisa white corn meal (white mieliepap flour) it makes great bread they import it into Australia from South Africa.

Here is my Ouma’s Cornbread recipe:

Steamed Cornbread:

2 cups corn cut off the cob (blend in blender)

3 heaped up tablespoons of cornflour

2 teaspoons of gluten-free baking powder

3 tablespoons of margarine

Mix all the above together. Pour into a porcelain flute dish ( a round dish with a little chimney in the middle of the dish that will allow the steam to escape) Place baking paper/waxpaper over the top of the dish and use an elastic to keep the paper in place over the dish. Make just a little hole where the chimney's steam must come out.

Cook in a pressure cooker 1 1/2 hours. Let the bread slightly cool before cutting it. The cornbread is pretty solid, but really delicious.

Have you contacted Lucille Cholerton Open Original Shared Link in South Africa she runs a number of coeliac support groups. Her contact details are 031 761 2129 email lucoll (AT) mweb.co.za remove the (AT) and replace with @ when emailing her. You can write to her on 1 The Palms, 13 Parklane, Kloof 3610 South Africa. She has a whole collection of recipes that make use of SA ingredients.

I’m on a rotation diet myself due to a number of other allergies so I regularly eat different grains to prevent my body from building up intolerance to food that I eat repetitively.

I cook my millet the same way as I cook rice and use all my old couscous recipes and just replace the couscous with cooked millet. If you cook millet in home made beef stock or gluten-free beef or chicken stock it gets a really lovely flavour. Have a look at some Middle Eastern recipes they use a lot of millet and a number of their recipes are gluten-free.

You can have warm millet for breakfast with cow/ soy milk or apple juice, goat milk, sheep milk yoghurt. I have mine some days with sheeps yoghurt, or soy milk or rice milk with a dash of nutmeg or cinnamon. You can also mix in some dried coconut and fresh fruit with the millet just as a treat for breakfast with some cinnamon or dried fruit if you are allowed have it. Have you tried Sago porridge with banana, dates and soy milk ? When you cooking the sago porridge just add a cinnamon stick it gives a lovely flavour. Have you tried potato pancakes ? You can use them like role up sandwiches or buckwheat plaat Koekies/crumpets. You possibly could eat the South African three bean salad.

One of the things I have learnt on this diet is that you have to through out all conventional ways of eating and sometimes have things that you would have for dinner for breakfast and things you have for breakfast for dinner or lunch vice versa. I just see it as an opportunity to try and thin outside the box.

Have you tried buckwheat ? I it has a lovely nutty flavour, it is not related to any nut plants. I cook it the same as rice don’t over cook it as it is really unpleasant then it becomes sticky and googy ant not nice. Just cook it in your rice cooker. You can use buckwheat for similar things as millet. I use my buckwheat to make Tabouli with I just replace the bulgar with chipped buckwheat. When you buy buckwheat buy the raw buckwheat and not the roasted one the roasted one goes to googy when cooked.

I also eat quinoa ? not sure about the spelling. It’s good with fresh red plump unpitted cherries and soymilk. You can use it in simular ways as millet and buckwheat.

What I have done with most of my grains is to cook up a big batch and then just to freeze it in little potions so I can just take it out of the deep freezer what I need.

PS: Flax seed meal is lindseeds

Try some of the Cape Malay recipes most of them are gluten-free if not you can easly adapt them.

Hope this helps a little.

[tarnalberry]

Tiffany this sounds great but way over my head!   Toasted then cooked?  I assume that makes it taste better, and then do you cook it as usual or will it cook quicker?  I don't even know what flax meal is!

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

No, no... really, I just don't care if I mess something up and have to throw it all away. :-)

The toasted millet is much easier than it sounds - as I only realized when I tried it one day when I was intimidated, but bored. Take a clean flatbottomed skillet, and put it on the stove. Turn the heat under it to medium or so, and wait for it to get warm enough that if you put your hand about an inch above it, it feels pretty warm on your hand, but not _hot_. At that point, pour in one cup of dry millet into the pan. Every few seconds, stir it around with a heat-resistant spatula or wooden spoon, or shake in the pan using the handle. If it starts to smell like it's burning, turn it down! Keep moving it around in the pan occassionally, and after about three minutes, you'll start hearing little pops. Like making popcorn, it'll increase in frequency for a while - keep stirring. When the popping starts to taper off, you should have started to get a slightly nutty/toasted aroma coming up from the pan, and as the popping winds down and you're happy with the scent, it's done. (Easy, but you just have to stay at the pan. It is scary until you try it.)

If your skillet has a fitted lid, just pour in the right about of liquid (I think millet is 3 cups liquid to 1 cup millet?) - I like to use Imagine Vegetable Broth, myself - lower the temperature to low, cover, and let simmer as long as the instructions say to (15? 20? minutes I think?).

The toasting process really isn't that bad, but it certainly does sound intimidating. It's time consuming enough (~10 minutes) that I don't do it that often, but it's fun. :-)

As for the flax meal, you can get it from Trader Joe's or almost any grocery store. It's just flax seeds that have already been ground. As many others here do, you can get whole flax seeds and grind them in a clean coffee grider if you want. They're chock full of omega-3 oils, and a good fat/protein source. They've got a nutty taste, and work well with other hearty grains.

[Bonnie]

Hi Japsnoet,

Wow, thank you so much for taking the time to write such a long message. I really appreciate it.

Yes I eat Maltabella quite often, usually on the weekends as I don't have time to make it in the morning during the week. I love it. I would be very interested to try it in bread if I knew how.

I know Lucille Cholerton and have been to see her. She consults as a nutritionist now. She really only told me everything that I knew already from this forum - all about the disease rather than day to day coping. This is probably my fault as I didn't ask for specific help for baking etc. I will phone her again today to ask about flours etc.

I have definitely been in the wrong mindset - trying to eat conventional breakfast items but what you said makes sense - to eat things I would normally have at other mealtimes.

Thanks a million for all your advice and tips!

[Bonnie]

Tiffany,

I will definitely try this toasting thing. Because I'm not a very good cook when I read all these things they sound incredibly intimidating BUT I will try! Probably all a lot easier than I think.

Thanks so much!

[Japsnoet]

Bonnie I found a rice and yeast free Sorghum bread recipe on

Open Original Shared Link

You can replace the sorghum with maltabella.

You can replace the sugar with applesauce or just take a can of apples and liquidize in your Magimix add the amount as is required in the recipe to replace the sugar.

Here is one of the recipes that I use for Matabella/sorghum Bread, Yeast free brown sorghum bread.

Matabella/sorghum Bread, Yeast free brown sorghum bread

Here’s the recipe.

Preheat your oven 180 C

Mix all the wet ingredients together:

1 cup Sheeps milk yoghurt by Meredith diary

4 eggs, beaten

2 tablespoons olive oil

2 /3 cup water

1 teaspoon lemon juice

Dry ingredients:

3 teaspoons Guar Gum

2 /3 cup corn flour

2 cups brown rice flour

2/ 3 cup Matabella made by Bokomo or Sorghum flour

1 1 /2 teaspoon gluten-free baking powder

1 /4 cup pine nuts

1 / 4 cup linseeds / flax seeds

1/ 4 cup sesame seeds

3 tablespoons brown sugar

1 1 /2 teaspoon salt

3 tablespoons mixed seed that you can sprinkle over the bread just before you bake it.

Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and mix in your kitchen aid. Place the mixture in a pan that has been sprayed with cook and spray. Bake the bread for 45 – 60 minutes

I got the original recipe from an South African friend of mine, I had to adapt it a little for my own intolerances.

You can leave out all the seeds and replace the rice flour with a combination of tapioca and arrowroot flour. I just had some today for lunch the bread is really moist. The bread it solid as it doesn’t have any yeast in, but it great tasteing. I make sandwiches with it for work. If you can get white sorghum use it , but maltabella works just as well. You can replace the sugar with applesauce.

Give both recipes ago and let me know what you think.

[Bonnie]

Japsnoet,

Thanks a lot. I will definitely try these recipes. Its great to speak to someone who knows the South African products!

Have a great weekend.

Yvonne