Read the label before you eat it!

As time has gone by I've become more confident in what I eat. Although at times I have forgotten that there is gluten in things like sauces etc. I'm going to share another mishap story with you....

It was several months into the gluten free diet and I was having dinner at the in-laws. A lovely meal (no I'm not sucking up!) of prawns (shrimp for American readers) and salad. I LOVE seafood and particularly prawns, its a genetic thing I think for anyone who has seen my grandfather sit down to a plate of prawns. There was also some lovely seafood sauce that I piled on to my plate and dunked my prawns into. Yummy!!!

After gorging myself on the prawns, for some reason I picked up the bottle of seafood sauce and started to read the ingredients. WOOPS!!! it contained wheat flour and wheat starch! Maybe I should have read the label before I poured the sauce all over my prawns!!!

About 30 minutes later, the pufferfish emerged, the pains started and yet another embarrassing trip to the bathroom!

Thankfully I have found some brands of seafood sauce don't actually have gluten in them! Good news for me and all those coeliacs who love seafood sauce.

Morale of the story read the label before you eat!!!!

Recipe of the Day
This is from the 4 Ingredients Gluten Free Cookbook
Chocolate Mousse Patty Cakes

Ingredients
250g milk chocolate
3 eggs
1/4 cup GF self raising flour

Method
Preheat oven to 180 degrees Celsius. Melt chocolate in a saucepan (put in a smaller saucepan, with the smaller saucepan in a larger one filled with hot water, prevents chocolate burning), stirring often. Mix eggs and flour with a whisk and stir in chocolate with a wooden spoon. Grease a patty cake tin (recipe says it makes 6 I made 7) and spoon in mixture (not too high as they will rise). Bake for 20 minutes or until sides are set but centre is still liquid. Cool for 10 minutes. Serve with ice-cream or cream.

Enjoy

Revamp

As you may notice I've given the blog a bit of a revamp! I hope you like it, I'm new to blogging so I'm experimenting along the way and I must say having a lot of fun with it!

Along with the revamp I've also decided that I'm going to post a recipe a day, calling it 'Recipe of the Day!'. When I first thought of starting this blog it was going to be more about recipes etc but as I started to write and people started to read my blog, I am really enjoying sharing my story and my experiences with everyone. The solution to my problem was to have the best of both worlds by having a daily entry about my gluten free life and sharing a recipe with everyone each day too. But there's also something else I wanted to include in my blog, as I find it difficult finding restaurants and cafes that cater to someone who can't eat gluten. When I looked on the net there were some websites blogs etc which had restaurants etc that were in the city but nothing out here. After many frustrating and sometimes painful experiences finding something to eat at restaurants (some even claim that their food is gluten free and 30 minutes later the puffer fish shows its ugly head and I'm in agony for the rest of the night!!, clearly NOT Gluten Free), many of these places or experiences I will devote a blog post to at a later date!, I realised that there was a need for a resource that provided people with SAFE places to eat at, with true gluten free food.

Each week I will share somewhere I have eaten that sells genuine gluten free food which I haven't reacted too (so fingers crossed you won't either). I figured that Friday is probably a good day to share this information, you might even like to try it Friday night or over the weekend. Tomorrow I will share with you the Restaurant of the week.

If you have a gluten free recipe that you would like to share with me, please email me and I will try it and your recipe can feature as the 'receipe of the day' , the same if you have been to a restaurant or cafe that has done a good job with their gluten free food, I'd love to share it with everyone.

Recipe of the Day

The first recipe that I'm going to share with you is my favourite and one of the first gluten free recipes I tried. Fortunately I love to cook (there's very little in pre-packaged gluten free food available in Australia), so when I first discovered that I was a coeliac I headed straight to the trusty domain of google and to one of my favourite websites, http://www.taste.com.au/ , and typed in gluten free. I was very pleased to discover that there was actually lots of gluten free recipes available.

What I wanted though was something sweet (I have a notorious sweet tooth) and tasty. I found a recipe for gluten free brownies. From the very first time I made them, they have been a massive hit! They have now become my token dish that I take to birthday parties, lunches, dinners, make when people come over or just for my husband. They are easy to make, my husband has recently starting cooking them! And I have to say he does a very good job of them! My printed out recipe is well used, butter and cocoa are smeared onto the pages, a sure sign of a much loved recipe (and a messy cook, but mum always told me a good cook is a messy cook!).

Without further ado here is the link for the recipe, I hope you enjoy. Oh and two tips make sure you sift the flour and whisk the eggs, it really makes a difference in the taste if you don't.
http://www.taste.com.au/recipes/17650/chocolate+fudge+brownies+wheat+and+gluten+free

Enjoy and happy cooking (make sure you lick the bowl!!!)

p.s think I will make some for afternoon tea. yummy!!

Testing the waters

I've spoken before about my denial of having any reaction to gluten, despite the obvious and I think even when I found out that I was a coeliac I didn't really think that there would be that much of a difference in my overall health. Thankfully I was really wrong! It's funny how you get so used to feeling run down, tired and you get used to the puffer fish that it just becomes your normal.

I was keen to start the diet straight away and headed to the supermarket to stock up on as many gluten free products as I could. Not that there was that many! My first choice of cereal was gluten free cornflakes with berries (blaah!! rather tasteless!), I later resorted to GF coco bombs, not the healthiest alternative but they had some flavour.

I stuck to the diet, starting cooking with GF flours and started to feel better. It wasn't as hard to pull up my jeans and I could go out without the fear of the puffer fish emerging! People started commenting on how good I looked and the bags under my eyes started to disappear!

It was a few weeks into the diet when I decided I would test the waters and see how much of an effect gluten had on me, I ate 1 chicken nugget.  Within 30 minutes the puffer fish emerged, the pains and wind started and I felt like crap! I forgot what it was like to be so bloated, it feels like you need to relieve the pressure in your stomach by poking it with some pins (please don't try this!). My husband and I had planned to go on a date night and see a movie, put I couldn't fit into my pants and even with the old pull up style pants I looked 4 months pregnant and was just feeling too crap to go out. So I put the tracky (sweater for USA readers) pants on and we stayed in a watched a DVD!

Theory well and truly proven, I definitely had a massive reaction to gluten. Before I started the diet I could have eaten a nugget and had not nearly the effect on me that it did after the diet. I guess the build up of gluten in my system just meant that I was so used to it. I'm sure that it would have been affecting me and doing some damage though.

Diet works, and no intentionally eating gluten for me! I'm amazed when I hear that people occasionally will eat a McDonalds cheeseburger and deal with consequences of eating gluten! Of all the things that you could possibly eat with gluten in it, a McDonald's cheeseburger! Seriously WTF!

Morale of the story folks stick to the gluten free diet, it's not worth the consequences.

Recipe of the Day
Creamy Chicken Pasta

Serves 4 adults
Ingredients
2 Chicken breasts, chopped
150g diced bacon
6 mushrooms (medium sized), sliced
3 cloves garlic, finely chopped
Olive oil
1 teaspoon oregano
1 teaspoon rosemary
1 teaspoon thyme
Pepper
1/4 cup chopped butter
1 cup cream
3/4 cup shredded or shaved Parmesan cheese

Method
Coat the bottom of a large saucepan with olive oil, heat, add garlic and bacon on medium/high heat for a few minutes. Add chopped chicken, oregano, rosemary, thyme (add more herbs according to your taste) and pepper to the pan and put lid on saucepan. Add mushrooms to pan and reduce heat to low.

Sauce: Melt better in a saucepan, add cream and bring to the boil. Simmer for 5 minutes, stirring frequently. Add Parmesan cheese and stir in well, ensuring cheese melts. Add pepper and 1/2 teaspoon of rosemary (season to taste, adding more pepper and rosemary if you like).

Drain the oil from the chicken, return to stove top and add extra herbs and pepper to taste. Add the sauce to the chicken dish and mix through on low heat.

Serve with rice noodles or gluten free pasta. I made this dish for my husband, sister and brother in law, I cooked them normal pasta and myself rice noodles. Cook rice noodles or pasta as per instructions on packet, rice noodles are best if soaked in boiling water for at least 5 minutes.

Place pasta or noodles in pasta bowls and top with creamy chicken.

Enjoy