My gripe with product placement

I was out with a girlfriend yesterday and we wandered into one of the big supermarket chains to get some munchies. She headed straight for the biscuit aisle to get some Tim Tams, unfortunately full of gluten!! So I trudged off to the 1/4 aisle of gluten free food. I shouldn't really complain, I know that in the past 5-10 years the range and availability of gluten free products has greatly increased, BUT it still has a long way to come!

Anyway as I was browsing through the various products, sadly none were as tasty as Tim Tams, something caught my eye. In a very good play of product placement was two very long rows of home brand rice crackers, the Japanese kind.  I started to get excited, this was something that I loved to eat BD (before diagnosis) but all the products that I had found contained gluten.

I picked up the packet and read the bag, I'd learnt my lesson from previous mishaps!. Low and behold it contained wheat flour and wheat starch! What makes it even more infuriating is that in bold letters and the bottom of the ingredients list is contains gluten!!!

Let me clarify in the middle of the gluten free products, which only make up 1/4 of a very large supermarket aisle, with rather large ticketing (the product was apparently on sale), is gluten filled snacks!!! Seriously, did anyone think to read the ingredients before placing the products in this aisle in prime location!!!! Obviously not!

Most people who have been diagnosed or are aware that gluten has some affect on them have learnt over time after various mishaps that you need to read the labels even if the product or the product placement looks okay. But what about those poor people who have only just found out! Think they are doing the right thing and end up in agony with the puffer fish emerging! Or indeed the family and friends of people who are gluten intolerant and think they are doing the right thing, buying some food that their beloved can eat!

Argghhh!!! Just really annoying. So please if you work in a supermarket or somewhere that sells gluten free food, please ensure you read the ingredients list before placing the product in prime position for gluten free buyers.

And yet another warning for the coeliacs and gluten intolerant readers, please don't be lured in by clever product placement and marketing ploys! It's a sucky part of not being able to eat gluten and shopping takes longer but PLEASE read the ingredients list of everything you buy, even if the positioning and labelling looks okay (use common sense though, it can't claim it's gluten free if its not, so the GF wording on the front means less reading for you!).

Recipe of the Day
Scones
This is another recipe from the 4 Ingredients Gluten Free Cookbook
The additional ingredients of the extra carton of cream, vanilla essence, icing sugar and jam is things I have added, for serving with scones.

Makes 12
Ingredients
4 Cups GF self raising flour (I ended up using the entire box)
2 tsp GF baking powder
2 x300ml cream
375ml can lemonade (sprite for US readers)
1/2 teaspoon vanilla essence
1/4 cup icing sugar

Method
Preheat oven to 200 degrees Celsius. Sift self raising flour into a bowl, mix thoroughly and make a well, pour in cream and 3/4 of the lemonade. Mix with hands to make a firm dough (I added more flour as it is very sticky and wet, you won't get the consistency of gluten scones). Roll onto a GF floured surface and knead into a high round mound. Cut with scone cutter (I didn't have one so just formed small round molds), onto a greased baking tray close together. Bake for 15 minutes until golden brown.

While scones are baking, pour second carton of cream into a bowl with vanilla and icing sugar, beat with electric mixers until cream has thickened (this is how my grandma made cream, lovely and sweet). Put into a serving bowl.

Remove scones from oven and serve warm with jam and cream, and a nice cup of tea or coffee.

Enjoy

p.s My profile picture is going to be my blog logo, its my design of the puffer fish, rather appropriate I thought!.

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!!