lobita

I'm making one of those Jello Flags for kiddo with the gelatin bottom layer and whipped cream, berries-blue and straw for the stars and stripes.

That's adorable!

I looked up what a "croze" is....it's the notch inside the barrel where the barrel head fits. So there is a definite possibility of contamination there. Note that he said that they only use the new barrels for Pinot Noir and Chardonnay. And it was a Pinot that glutened us. The rest of the shipment didn't have any effect on us.

Huh, how interesting. I thought I had been glutened by a Beringer Pinot Noir a couple of months ago. I mostly drink South American wines now, and usually don't have any problems. I guess it's a matter of the process at each winery.

Ooh, I did a layered bean dip last Sunday for Father's Day, and it went fast.

I put pieces of fresh basil leaves instead of cilantro and it gave it a really different, but yummy taste.

My favorite is Mountain High, which says it's gluten-free right on the container. It's a super creamy yogurt.

Also, the Lifeway brand of kefir clearly marks all of their gluten-free kefirs. Peach is my new favorite from them.

I don't have a problem with those sodas, but if you continue to, there's always Sprecher's soda, which are all listed as gluten and caffeine free.

Thanks for the replies you guys. It made me feel better.

Looks yummie. In my cooking, I always substitute rice flour when it calls for flour like in making a roux or dredging. It's always worked out fine for me.

This is probably going to sound more like a rant than a question, but here goes.

My bf's sister is hosting a family dinner event this Sunday, which I'm invited to and expected to go to. The problem is that she's totally not sympathetic to my gluten intolerance. Her attitude is she's going to cook what she's going to cook and tough if I can't eat it. While it totally upsets me that she's like this, I really can't do anything about it.

I've realized that I'm going to have to eat before going. And I'm making my own cake to take so I at least can eat dessert. But I'm wondering whether the next time I'm going to have to just decline any invitations to her house? I'm worried that might start upsetting people and cause a wedge.

I was looking into this question the other day, and I found that gelatin acts as an additional binder. If you look in the ingredients of some gluten free mixes, especially the ones that are not so "main stream," some contain gelatin. It seems that you can use 1 tsp gelatin to 1 cup of flour. I just made a new flour mix, and I added some gelatin.

This has been something I have not been doing, but according to many the ratio of "heavy" to light/starchy flours should be 2:1. The heavy flours include the rice flours, bean flours, sorghum, teff and millet. The light flours include tapioca starch/flour and all the other starches such as corn, potato, and arrowroot.

Celiacmommy gave me the tip of dramatically reducing the butter in cookie recipes. It avoids the flat gluten free cookie phenomenon! I typically add about 1/3 of the butter called for.

Recently I discovered gluten free angel food cake comes out with amazing results!

Thanks for the info! I think the 2:1 ratio is a good rule of thumb, but for different products, will vary. For instance, I made Annalisa Roberts' soft pretzels and it calls for 1 c sorghum, 1 cup combo of the light flours, and it comes out perfect.

I've found cakes and cookies can pretty easily be converted from a wheat recipe. It took many years for me to get a good pie crust (adding an egg really helped), and now I love my pizza crust.

The most problems I've had is with gluten-free bread. Sometimes it seems to work, sometimes it seems not to. The gluten-free yeast-breads sometimes have trouble rising, then if they do rise, they rise then fall after baking or shrink. Ugh. I still make them, but I think I have to be content with what it produces and call it good.

I was wondering if anyone knows what the unflavor gelatin does when added to gluten-free bread recipes. I've used it, but I'm not sure if it's adding anything.

I did eat it and I didn't react as far as I can tell, but if I saw the ingredients before tasting the sample, I wouldn't have touched it. So maybe that's more of an emotional response rather than a rational one.

I just ate some homemade stirfry which I made with sweet potato starch noodles, and I had no reaction to it. It still could be the culprit in your case...maybe you got a batch that was cc'ed

I haven't heard this! This is great news!!! ...Except, I'm allergic to peanuts and the Honey Nut Chex sounds good. Oh well...

I was wondering if there'd be any discussion about Toro on the board.

I went to a Gluten-Free and Allergy Expo last weekend, and I was encouraged to try some samples made with Toro flour. AFTER I ate a piece, I looked at the ingredients of the flours and was horrified to see "wheat starch" there.

I was really surprised that the Expo allowed the vendor to pass out samples without warning about the ingredients. I never would've tried it if I was warned...even if it is "certified" gluten-free.

BUT I don't think it made me sick. I already had a dh outbreak and it didn't get any worse since this weekend, and I didn't experience the usual day-after-contamination-trainwreck.

I went to a gluten-free cooking demo this past weekend, and the guy there said he heats up a pan of water in a glass dish in his microwave, then puts the bread on a rack over the water and leaves it in there until it rises. I haven't tried it yet, but it seems like a good idea.

I thought I'd add my two cents. Cadbury is made by Hershey's. Hershey's is a very unfriendly company to those on a gluten free diet, so I would not buy their products on principle. Also these eggs contain "natural flavors" so they will not tell you if they are truly gluten free! I need to do more research on glucose syrup before I make a decision about that.

Mars is a gluten free friendly company. Dove truffle eggs DO have gluten free ingredients...and they are DELICIOUS! (I didn't even buy any for my son's Easter basket for the fear that I'd eat them all! )

Totally agree. Dove has WAY better chocolate than Hershey's.

I usually freeze my cookie batter before baking and it tends to keep them from spreading out.

For years after I went gluten free, I ate the same thing for breakfast:

Rice + honey + dates + tahini sauce (ground sesame seeds)

I have no idea why I created this combo, but it was probably making up for something else lacking in my diet. I only eat this once in awhile now.

Also, someone else mentioned polenta. That's another thing that's pretty easy to make. I eat it with maple syrup and dates.

Totally agree about Recipezaar. It's great.

I've found that once you get used to using alternative flours to wheat, really anything can be recreated gluten-free (except for doughy, fluffy white bread, I haven't yet created an equal substitute for wheat bread, and it's driving me nuts).

Last night I used Recipezaar to find out how to cook mahi mahi (something I've never made before). I found a great sauce and just subsituted rice flour for the wheat flour to thicken the sauce. That was the only thing I changed and it was fab. Then for the sides did spinach and rice...super good.

As far as the substituting some kind of canned cream of _ soup, the best is just to melt butter and add rice flour and salt to make the roux, then toss in the milk or cream or broth or whatever. It's not really that much harder; it's the way everybody used to cook before Campbell's started pushing their soup onto everybody.

Hasselbeck isn't my favorite celeb either, but at least she does bring up celiac disease often. I've heard her mention it several times on "The View," back when I was able to watch it while working from home.

I used her chocolate chip recipe and didn't have the liquify problem, but I REALLY didn't like the taste of the shortening in there. The texture and the look were great, but they tasted like something a grocery store bakery would make. Maybe some people like that kind of fakey taste, but not me.

I also tried doing the Italian/French bread recipe and was disappointed. It was SO dense and didn't rise at all. I've had better luck w/ the bread recipe that is found on this forum.

I'm not giving up on the book, though. I really want to try the elcaire recipe.

Agreed. Outback is pretty great. And I feel especially safe after the last time I ate there since our waitress was telling us how detailed their Celiac training is for the staff. She said they have to watch a long video with people on it talking about how sensitive they are to gluten and will get very sick if anything non-gluten-free is touching their food.

lobita,

I don't live in Chicago, but that comment is annoying me too.

People are always getting negative with me about my lifestyle-diet and I usually get so upset over their reactions. They make comments like that reviewer you mentioned: "Oh, I could never eat like that", or, "Oh, I just love cake and bread too much", or, "Corn and quinoa pasta is just gross." And it's like, do they realize 1 in 130 people have this disease? And usually, it's my family -- people who are related to me. Um... perhaps they don't realize this has genetic factors and stopping eating gluten would actually do them some good! I have an autoimmune disease of the thyroid and I also can't tolerate gluten... what makes you think you've got a genetic free pass??? I want to say, maybe if you stopped eating gluten too then you wouldn't be so tired or have those dark circles under your eyes, or you wouldn't always be gassy, thank you very much.

I know! I feel the same way. It's like as soon as you say "gluten-free" people start scrunching up their noses, ready to say "Ewe." My bf is reading up on home brewing gluten-free beer and apparently there is a guy in Australia who's doing it and he entered his gluten-free brews into a contest, but didn't tell them that they were made with gluten-free grains, and he placed third. If you ever read reviews from non-gluten-free people about gluten-free beers, they hate it and say things like "I love me some gluten," or whatever. So obviously people are just prejudice.

I have a theory: I think the reason why some people say rude things about gluten-free food is because they're trying to suppress a nagging question...that maybe they might have an intolerance too. Like when people ask me why I decided to go gluten-free, I'll explain to them that I was tired all the time and didn't feel good constantly and had skin problems, etc...and I start to see this thing in their eyes, that my symptoms are pretty close to theirs. Sometimes they'll admit it, sometimes it's just the look. It's amazing how many people would rather stay miserable and eat what they want, than have to restrict a bit of their diet (while finding other awesome foods) and feel healthy.

Okay, that's my rant for the day.

Hi Lobita

Can you pass on the address of Da Luciano's? I Only get there once a year but it would be nice to eat someplace besides Bone FIsh or my mothers house!

thanks

ken

Absolutely. Their address is:

8343 Grand Ave

River Grove, IL 60171

(708) 453-1000

You also might want to check out Rose's Bakery, too. It's all gluten-free. They have awesome eclairs (if you manage to snag one, I don't know why they don't make more of these! They go too fast). They make a pretty fine gluten-free pizza, too. Their address:

2901 Central St.

Evantson,IL 60201

Tel: 847-859-2723

www.rosesbakery.com

The Chicago PBS station, WTTW, has a locally produced restaurant review show called "Check, Please." They have three "regular" people recommend a restaurant and then each person has to go to the two other's choices and review it on the show. A man with celiac chose a gluten-free restaurant (Da Luciano's). The other two reviewers didn't really like it.

One comment really upset me, though. It was from one of the women who had a plate of gluten-free pasta, saying that she was glad she didn't have a gluten allergy, but then she didn't explain what was wrong with it. This just kinda rubs me the wrong way because the people I know who still eat wheat and have gone to that restaurant say they can't taste the difference b/w the wheat dishes and the gluten-free dishes.

I must say, however, the gluten-free pizza there leaves much to be desired.