Friday, December 30, 2022

Gluten-Free

Now that I pretty clearly need to be gluten-free, though I came to this conclusion kicking and screaming, I figure I will do something other than feel sorry for myself about it. (I have also to be dairy free for all "young" dairy like milk, mozzarella, and yoghurt, though I do fine with butter and aged cheeses.)

My wife has had to be GF for years, and most GF foods just suck. Either the flavor or the texture might be right, but not both.  If you can find a GF food that you'd rate a 4 on a scale of 1-10, buy it in quantity. At least it is a legit version of the food it is supposed to be, even if it's not a good version. So as I have found a few, I thought I would pass them along. 

BTW, I am no longer seeing people make the accusation that this is made up for most people, who are affecting a food sensitivity in order to feel special. That was a thing as recently as two years ago, and someone over at Maggie's was fond of putting up videos about it. I dunno - maybe they wanted to feel special.

GF beer is rare. Gluten-reduced is more common and no good for me, and some of the safe-looking things are malt beverages as the basic alcohol part. Like the hard lemonades, darn it. It's mostly only seltzers and ciders that qualify as GF.  Glutenberg is barely okay and at least tastes like beer, and the IPA is actually not bad. They are having distribution problems at present and it's hard to find. I have to go all the way to Merrimack for it. 

We had GF toast thrown in at a breakfast restaurant and thought it good enough to inquire back to the kitchen who made it. Little Northern Bakehouse makes a variety of breads, and nothing so far rises to the level of being a good piece of bread, but the white sandwich slice is legit. You could make a cheese toast or a turkey salad sandwich with it and not particularly even notice the lack. It's a slice of bread. My wife has been getting 3 Bakers which is edible, but if you try to do french toast it's got absorption issues, and any sandwich had better be strong flavored and not put too much strain on the strength of it. Still, it's usable, though we may just go strong in the LNB direction now. (It's through North America, from British Columbia.)

Gluten pretty much means "gluey" after all, so things like pizza crust (which ordinarily has extra gluten) or a nice chewy bakery loaf are nigh impossible. Gillian's makes a garlic bread that is actually pretty good. It is crisp instead of chewy, but otherwise fine. King Arthur makes a whole line of mixes and tests them extensively, so even their pie crust, a notoriously difficult feat for GF is actually okay. They don't mention what happens if you use lard for the fat, because I think that is just too far out of fashion these days, even in Vermont. I may try it when no one's looking someday. 

Glutino is meh, but the chocolate wafers are okay. Schar is uneven but the chocolate honeygrahams are not a bad cookie. I don't have cookies much, but my wife likes Goody Girl, which does knockoffs of girl scout cookies. Schar does a cracker that is not far off from saltines in taste, but so fragile as to be mostly unusable.

8 comments:

  1. I have a grandniece with celiac who wasn't diagnosed until she was 4 years old. Of course, she had no way of expressing the pain except what were first treated as 'temper tantrums' no matter how many pediatricians she saw. She's 18 now and I hope diagnostics have improved.

    With a few exceptions, I can do without wheat though I don't seem to have any problems with it. If it weren't such a time-consuming and mess-making ordeal, I'd fix chicken fried steak and gravy more often, but I don't miss it all that much. I make a praline bread pudding that I could eat way too much of too, but again, it's a once or twice a year thing. Other than those, I'd rather have a hamburger without the bun and a club sandwich without the bread. My favorite Mexican dishes are made with corn tortillas. Potatoes and rice are the starches I like best.

    Oh, I might miss macaroni and cheese on occasion too. It's a bit of a shame that it would be fairly easy for me to go gluten free when I probably don't need to, isn't it?

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  2. If you can make it to Nashua, there's the "Beer Store" (https://thebeerstorenh.com/) which might have more gluten-free choices. They carry pear cider, which I think is nicer than apple-based cider.

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  3. Sorry to hear that you have this restriction. If you have a Mod Pizza franchise near you, they offer a cauliflower crust that is gluten-free and pretty tasty, my wife gets it all the time.

    Happy New Year, all.

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  5. Noodles&Co's "zoodles" taste fine, but that's using _their_ sauces. I haven't experimented with them at home. I'm trying to imagine what cauliflower noodles and cheese would be like... (Since I never cared for mac and cheese in the first place, I doubt it would be worse.)
    (Dreams of a fresh warm sourdough baguette... Quoth the raven...)

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  6. I've been thinking about some of my family's favorite recipes and there are quite a few which are gluten free. For example, frito pie. According to Google, Fritos are gluten free and the chili I make has always been gluten free -- I use masa and creamed corn to thicken it. Pinto beans and potato soup* are also gluten free. Yes, my family's favorite cornbread recipe uses flour, but we also like 'hot water' cornbread which doesn't.

    For an "Italian-flavored" dish, it would be stuffed peppers with rice as the binder. To me, trying to re-purpose zucchini, cauliflower, or any such other vegetable as a noodle seems a waste of effort... and flavor.

    Our traditional 'good luck' New Year's Day menu is gluten-free except for the cornbread, but that's because we choose the recipe that includes flour... which half of the participants won't eat any more than they would eat the gluten-free hot water variety.

    I guess what I'm trying to say is that needing to eat gluten-free need not be based on grasping for substitutes for gluten-based foods, but rather on giving those substitutes a chance to shine on their own.

    *I do not use a flour roux to thicken potato soup. I use the potato to thicken the soup. Some of them are cubed very small while others are left bite-sized. Roux is a good technique, but not always necessary. I also make gumbo without a roux, as okra is also a great thickener.

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  7. Oh, we've been eating lots of potatoes, that's for sure. Just short of complete nutrition (needs B12), very filling, and one of my favorite things to eat anyway. The strict potato diet says to use only a little oil and focus on various herbs and spices, but we use a good deal of butter any way, or sometimes olive oil. People go on potatoes alone for two weeks at a time. I've only done three, but I am considering the longer run. Simple for the digestion, and some people lose weight.

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  8. recommend Cup4Cup brand flour and mixes. french laundry chef developed gf flour blend

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