A Use for Gluten-Free Bread

 

I just cooked myself a very nice supper. When you’re a sixty year old man, who hasn’t really cooked before, anything above the ordinary is good.

I took some gluten-free bread and minced it in my Kenwood Mini-Chopper, as featured by the cheating Delia. I then used it to bread a turkey breast, which I’d flattened with a rolling pin. I fried it in olive oil and it was delicious.

Goat's Milk

 

After reading Dogtor J’s piece on lactose I thought I’d try some goat’s milk. Over recent years, I’ve come to think that I’m slightly lactose intolerant. I always thought it tasted and smelt a bit funny, but the Waitrose semi-skimmed seemed to be almost indistinguishable to cow’s milk.

I have found that I get a slight reaction with larger qualities of cow’s milk, such as I would have with cornflakes. But I tried the goat’s milk this morning and felt fine. I even put some orange juice on top of it and got no reaction. That can make me feel queasy.

Recipes in The Times

 

Trying one of these for lunch today.

Does Anybody Like Rice Cakes?

 

I recently went to Montreal for a weekend on business. Coming back there was no gluten-free bread or biscuits, but they served rice cakes. They really are truly awful. Does anybody like them?

As an aside Montreal was good, but not if you are an unprepared coeliac. At least the breakfasts in the hotel were fruit and eggs, but otherwise waiters and restaurateurs didn’t have a clue. Strangely though I met two people, who had close friends or relatives who were so it’s not as though the disease is unknown.

I’ve posted my experiences of the city here.

I’ve since done a Google search for gluten-free restaurants and there are a few lists.

Campaign for Real Chips

 

I’m writing up my book on coeliac travelling and a pattern is starting to emerge. When I’ve been glutened and it hasn’t been often, I suspect that in several cases, it has been due to chips. If you look at M&S, their oven chips are marked as containing gluten and I suspect that some of the industrial chips used by restaurants and sometimes very good restaurants have been coated in flour.

On the other hand, I was recently at the Ship in Levington near Ipswich and had some very good hand-cut gluten-free chips. So it can be done. I was also told by the manager of the Cart and Horses at Kings Worthy that his chips were not gluten-free, but they would boil a few potatoes for me. I also accused the owner of the Star at Lidgate over her chips, as they were very nice and very crisp and I suspected that there was flour involved. She assured me they weren’t and I was fine.

Campaign for Real Chips anyone?

Gordon Ramsay in The Times

 

There are some interesting recipes in The Times today courtesy of Gordon Ramsay. A bit too challenging for me, but of the three recipes there’s no gluten except in a soy sauce, which of course can be changed.

It must be gluten-free day as there are a couple of nice ones in the East Anglian too!

Gluten Free Sausage Pie

 

Henry and some of his friends are coming down at the weekend, whilst I'm up in London.

Celia would have always cooked them something so I did the same this morning. Henry may have lost his mother, but he shouldn't lose the things she would do.

So I've cooked a variant of her sausage pie for everybody.

I took ten Musks gluten-free sausages and cooked them in the oven and then cut them into pieces which I put into the bottom of a large flat dish.

I also fried one onion and two peppers in a small amount of olive oil, which I then mixed with the sausages and a tin and a half of baked beans. Some gluten-free soy sauce was then added for flavour.


The whole thing was then covered by mashed potato.


Before heating it just add some grated cheese to the top.

A Gluten-Free Dinner Party

 

Celia and I always had a dinner party at Christmas. Roderick had pointed this out at her celebration and I thought why not in a rash moment.

So on Friday night, seven of us sat down to dinner that I'd cooked myself.

Now, is that a first for someone of sixty?

Super Natural at Sainsburys

 

I was in Sainsburys this morning and they had a special offer on these. They are chilled meals for one and it seems that about half are labelled “Suitable for Coeliacs” and not just gluten-free.

I had a chicken and rice one tonight. OK.

India Knight in the Sunday Times

 

She is promoting her new interesting diet in The Sunday Times today.

I’ve just read it and most of what she has done looks interesting and is gluten-free. There is one recipe for Indian Scrambled eggs, that looks good to me. She also has a recipe for quiche that doesn’t use traditional or gluten-free flour.

Baked Eggs with Tomato

 

This is a recipe that Celia found many years ago and we’ve served up at dinner parties for years. As we always had a dinner party sometime around Christmas, I thought I’d try and carry on the tradition and the recipe did me proud.

2 cups cooked or canned tomatoes
½ cup finely chopped onion
1 teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon freshly ground pepper
3 tablespoons butter
2 tablespoons flour (gluten free works)
1 teaspoon sugar
6 or 12 eggs
¾ cup grated cheese

Butter 6 ramekins or small baking dishes well. Combine the tomatoes, onion, salt and pepper, and simmer for 15 to 20 minutes. Add the butter and flour, which have been kneaded together, and stir until the mixture is thickened. Add the sugar and taste the mixture for seasoning. Spoon the sauce into the ramekins or dishes. Break a large egg into each dish. Sprinkle lightly with cheese and bake at 350 degrees for 15 minutes or until the white is set.

Sorry about the cups etc. but this recipe came from James Beard’s American Cookery.

If you get it right, which is not too difficult, they come up like little domes and look seriously impressive.

Gluten-Free Cookery School

 

Thanks to everyone who responded to the death of Celia.

It’s funny but I’m happier now that I’m by myself. I suspect that it’s because I can do what I want and eat what I want and need. My middle son went out and bought some ready-made cottage pies for supper yesterday and he didn’t bother to read the label. So I went out for an Indian in Cambridge.

Seriously, though my cooking skills are pretty limited, although I’m not bad with a frying pan for one.

Does anybody know of a gluten-free cooking school, preferably somewhere nice and warm, that would welcome a sixty-year-old widower with the lack of knowledge outside of the very basic?

Kangaroo Meat

 

Kangaroos are gluten free, but they jump about a bit on your plate. They are yumm though!

Trufree Pretzels

 

Found these in Tesco at Newmarket this morning.

Taste just like normal ones.

Catering at Exhibitions

 

I normally avoid eating at exhibitions and such-like as there is usually never anything remotely gluten-free except Coke and perhaps a few crisps. Today, I went to an exhibition at Earls Court and was intending to turn up, walk round, exit and the take the tube to somewhere more friendly.

But, they had four types of sealed salads which were a pretty good meal for me. I chose a Nicoise and although the plastic knives and forks were their usual useless selves, the salad was quite tasty and much more than OK. It contains lots of tuna, a whole egg, a lot of cucumber and tomato and not too much lettuce. Unfortunately, there were olives. I hate olives. There was also a cheese and egg salad, which looked gluten-free.

But the salad was only £4.50, which I thought was very reasonable for an event, considering that a 33cl. bottle of Coke was £1.80.

I shall be writing to Earls Court.

Gluten Free Food on Prescription

 

I’ve never bothered much with prescriptions.

The only thing I get is Dr. Schar’s pasta, which you can’t get in a shop.

I should also say that I don’t eat GF bread, as I’ve just cut it out of my diet. I do it biscuits and cake, which I get from the supermarket.

As I turned 60 in August I get free prescriptions, but after going through what is available, I decided not to bother. My surgery has its own pharmacist, so I was able to sit down with her at the computer.

She said that the lot of many could be improved with some chocolate items on the list. She felt that as you’re ill, the NHS thinks you shouldn’t have anything enjoyable.

Food Manufacturers

 

It’s funny, but the older I get, the more I trust certain companies and the less I trust others.

After my spat with Proctor and Gamble, I wouldn’t trust them as far as I could throw them. Mars are on that list too, as no matter how I try I can’t find the information I want. On the other hand you have Heinz, Kettle and Cadburys, who are always honest. It’s the same with restaurant groups. Some you trust and some you don’t.

I think that if I ran a company, then honesty and openness would be the best policy, whether I was a coeliac or not.

After all, we may think being a coeliac is serious, but I wouldn’t want to be allergic to nuts.

The Black Farmer

 

We bought some of his company’s sausages from Sainsburys last week and ate them last night.

They were excellent, although they are very meaty and exceptionally filling.

But they were some of the best GF sausages I’ve ever tasted.

Crunchies

 

Crunchies used to be made in the old Frys factory near Bristol and were very gluten-free then.

I just checked on the Cadburys site and you can bring up a list (long) of all their products that are gluten absent and suitable for coeliacs. Crunchies are still there. It’s an odd list though and I suspect it’s more to do with which factory they are made in rather than the ingredients.

If so they are taking cross contamination into account.

For instance, small Dairy Milks are GF, but the standard product is not.

Mars

 

I read a post on the UK-Coeliac List, this morning and tried to find out whether Mars is gluten-free on not from the Mars web site.

It is the worst consumer web site, I’ve ever seen, where there is virtually no information and nowhere to write to or contact the company.

It just amazes me that you were able to find out the product is not gluten-free. Incidentally, I looked at one of their bars in Waitrose today and there is no information on that either.

I’ve avoided their products for some years and I think it was a good decision.

I've written to them and I'll be interested to see if I get a reply.

Food Additives

 

A Professor on Victoria Derbyshire's program is right when he says that some food manufacturers will see removing additives as a marketing advantage.

I’m a coeliac and you can see a pattern with food manufacturers over gluten. Some are honest and you can trust what they say. With them gluten-free means absolutely no gluten. Others are dishonest and hide nutrition information, so that you need a magnifying glass to know if it will poison you. They also hide behind standards that allow small amounts of gluten in food.

It’s funny but the successful, open and health-conscious ones are all in the first group. The others are renowned for the products you’re talking about today.

Unless legislation is passed, there is a class of food manufacturer, who will pass off absolute rubbish as food. Unfortunately, they will fight to the last.

Did I hear Turkey Twizzlers?

Son Julia Hotel, Majorca

 

We stayed at this hotel in Majorca for my sixtieth.

They understood what to do and a good gluten-free few days was had by all.

I should say that the hotel is not cheap, but the grounds, pool etc are magnificent. Note too, that we’ve spent New Year on the island and were able to swim outside, as it’s not unknown for the temperature to be 20 degrees. A double room in October was about 184 Euros a night upwards. Suites were up to 700 Euros.

They seem to be part of the Stein Group of hotels and I’ve e-mailed them to see if all hotels have the same gluten-free policy.

As an aside, I noticed that at Palma Airport, all of the prepared salads were properly labelled and it was obvious which contained gluten, as it’s the same in one form of Spanish.

Pringles Rice Crisps

 

This is the correspondence, I've had over Pringles Rice Infusions.

The first is my letter to Pringles in Belguim. Yes, the Customer Service Department where you write to is in Belguim.

My local supermarket is Waitrose in Newmarket.

Today they had a promotion on your new rice-flavoured Pringles.

Now I should say at this point that I am a coeliac and therefore can’t eat wheat, barley or rye.

So I asked the demonstrator, if your new product was suitable for me and he said no. (10/10 for him!) So we had a very good look and could just see that there was a very small note that said the product contained wheat starch.

So you put rice all over the product and then say in very small print that the product contains wheat.

Where is the mark that says that your product is suitable or not-suitable for coeliacs? Nowhere!

I suggest that you look at your competitors like Kettle or Walkers.

I shall be reporting your product to Trading Standards because of the misleading packaging and the fact that it is not clearly labelled as unsuitable for coeliacs.

If you want to see the full letter I wrote, it's here as a pdf file.

I don't think that their reply was very helpful, but that is not for me to judge. Just read their full reply.

As I said I would I wrote to Trading Standards when I received the unsatifactory reply.

I am enclosing some correspondence that I have had with Pringles concerning their new Rice Infusions.

As a coeliac, I thought that here must be something that I can add to my limited diet. I am a coeliac, which does get a bit difficult, when you are away from home and can’t cook your own fresh food.

The packaging emphasises the rice, but it is only 26%. The major component is wheat starch, from which most of the gluten has been removed to make the product meet the CODEX level. For many coeliacs including myself, this is not good enough and eating some of this product would cause severe diarrhoea and other problems.

The packaging on this product must be changed so that it says “Unsuitable for Coeliacs”. Walkers, Kettle and other crisp manufacturers do this, so why not Proctor and Gamble? It is just like Cadburys and other chocolate manufacturers saying “May contain nuts”.

But they are unrepentant.

I should say that Waitrose have behaved correctly and warned me against the product.

Again if you want to see the full letter, just click here.

I also wrote to Procter and Gamble, returning their two pound voucher.

Thank you for your totally inadequate reply.

You say I got the wrong information in-store. I did not. Waitrose obviously care a lot about their customers and don’t want them to suffer adverse reactions to the products they sell.

Rice Infusions may be gluten free according to the regulations, but they are not gluten free, which as my wife who is a barrister says, is totally without gluten.

I am not a supersensitive coeliac, but I am sensitive to small amounts of gluten in such things as wheat starch and glucose. For instance, I can’t use most normal cough mixtures and Boots have advised me the ones that use real sugar instead of wheat glucose.

So your product should say that it is “Unsuitable for coeliacs”, just like most of the other snack manufacturers, such as Walkers and Kettle, do in similar circumstances.

I am returning the voucher as I have no use for it.

The full letter is here.

I shall update this as the correspondence develops.

Prewett's Chocolate Biscuits

 

I’ve just tried out some of these biscuits. They seem quite new and are available in Tescos and Waitrose.

They were pretty good for gluten-free chocolate biscuits.

We also got some GF Jaffa cakes in Waitrose this morning. They were from Baker’s Delight.

Warning - Pringles New Rice Crisps

 

These were on special offer with Waitrose this morning. They looked like they might be gluten-free.

But they also had an old retainer, demonstrating and giving out tasters, so I asked him if they were gluten-free.

He said sadly no, but the fact is buried in the very much small print on the packet. In fact, I suspect they are even less gluten-free than the normal Pringle crisps.

So I shall be sending this to Pringle as I think that saying the product is rice-based (only 26%) and then not saying it’s gluten-free is almost fraud.

So it’s full marks to the demonstrator at Waitrose and nil points to Pringle.

Afghan Cooking

 

The Times has some interesting Afghan recipes in the paper today. They look GF.

Gluten Free Oats

 

I’ll put my farmers hard hat on here and put my head over the parapet.

Oats in themselves are gluten-free, but the problem is cross contamination in the fields. Walk past any field of wheat and you’ll often see wild oats growing above the wheat. They have seeded accidentally and they are called “volunteers” by many farmers. (I think this is where the expression sowing wild oats comes from.)

With a field of oats, that may have been used for wheat or barley you may well get the same problem of self seeding of unwanted crop, but here because the wheat is shorter than the oats, you can’t see them. So when the oats are harvested there is a variable amount of wheat or barley in the oats.

With a good farmer proud of his crop, this level will be probably be below a few parts per million, so it would be acceptable to many coeliacs. I can eat porridge in most cases, but I don’t as I’m not that struck on it.

So would organic oats be better?

I will infuriate many here, by saying that in my view they may not be. The reason is that when a non-organic farmer is putting a new crop into a field, he will use a strong spray to kill the remains of the previous wheat or barley. This may reduce the cross contamination. Other practices such as good crop management and probably leaving a wide border around the field would also help.

So they would certainly be more gluten-free if it was a good farmer, who might even be growing oats for seed. In that case he would want to make sure that the levels of contamination with wheat or barley were extraordinarily low. They get a premium price from that.

So as in many things provenance is everything.

And that’s the problem with oats.

How do you find out which field on which farm they were grown? And what was in the field before they planted oats?

Aside - After writing this I found a company that produces gluten-free oats called Gluten Free Oats.

Read how they do it.

I suspect in Wyoming, where they have a lot of space, they can do it. But it will be much more difficult proposition in a crowded country like the UK, where agriculture is just that more intense.

Kosher Food and Gluten Free

 

I was having a friendly argument with a Jewish friend about kosher food and whether it is gluten free. This had started because her mother had always coated fish in matzo meal rather than breadcrumbs and she thought they were gluten free.

She pointed me to Kosher On-Line Superstore called justkosher.co.uk, which does have a small gluten free section. And you can get gluten free matzo meal, but it is made from oats.

One thing that came up, was my friend said she’d never come across a Jewish coeliac. Just chance I suspect.

Pitta Bread in Waitrose

 

Our Waitrose in Newmarket has expanded its Free From section and added a Sugar Free section next door.

They’ve now added pitta bread from Livwell.

Mars

 

I am not vegetarian, Jewish, Muslim or any of those other groups that are morally or religiously affected by the change in the formulation of Masterfoods products.

I have to read all food labels as I'm a coeliac. This means I'm allergic to the gluten in wheat, barley and rye, so no bread, beer and pasta for me. But I can and do enjoy cake, cider and rice noodles!

So when a company like Masterfoods changes the formulation of their products, without flagging this in the media and on the product with a big **New** sticker, I immediately put the company on my banned list.

There are many companies that are scrupulous in flagging and informing changes and in future I'll stick to them.

Ice Lollies

 

I’m pretty sure that Waitrose do a lolly which is just frozen orange juice. We give them to our granddaughter (non-coeliac), as she thinks they’re great. I suspect that some of the other supermarkets make them too.

On the other hand, my mother used to make lollies with a mould. I’m 60, so that was more than a few years ago.

I looked and Lakeland have an ice lolly maker on their site.

Montezuma's Chocolate

 

Celia bought some of this in Wilkinson's in Norwich. She bought the Chilli variety and it certainly tastes of chilli!!!

It's very high in cocoa and most if not all appears to be gluten-free. They also have shops in the South of England.

Green and Blacks Chocolate

 

I've just read their nutrition page in detail.

To summarise. Only mint and caramel chocolate are down from gluten and all the ice cream is safe.

But what about their Dark 85% chocolate. It's virtually nothing except cocoa and vanilla. I think I'll live on that for the last five days of my life.

Sainsbury's Hot Cross Buns

 

I tried these over Easter and found them excellent.

Halls Extra Strong

 

I received this letter about Halls Extra Strong which is good news for coeliacs.


Let's hope that other companies remove unnecessary gluten from their foods and snacks.

Supermarkets and Gluten-Free

 

Our closest supermarket is a Waitrose in Newmarket and their gluten-free offerings are pretty good.

I get Trufree crackers, Village Bakery cakes and ginger biscuits and Orasco bars from their Free From section, but I also buy a lot of other things that are certified gluten-free from other parts of the store. These include Whole Earth cornflakes, Aspall cyder and some of the ready meals by people like Castle Farm Kitchens. (They also seem to have introduced a Free From section into the chilled foods in the last week or so.) My problems with Waitrose include the fact that they don't do any reasonably priced liver.

Sainsbury's are the closest the other way in Haverhill and their gluten-free offerings are not as good as some of their more up-market stores. I do buy their small sponge puddings (where are the jam ones), some of their scones and the Meridian sauces. For a time they did have a very good gluten-free pitta bread, but apparently the factory burned down. I would use them more but they don't stock Village Bakery stuff.

I try to avoid Tesco for personal reasons, but I still have to go there for their pitta bread.

As for Asda, being owned by Wal-Mart is a very good reason not to shop there.

My wife also gets things like liver and gluten-free fishcakes from Marks and Spencer. They also do some excellent cheese soufflés in some stores.

So to get what I need, I have to go to four different supermarkets. That isn't really a problem for me as I travel to Cambridge about twice a week, where there is another Sainsbury's and three Tescos. But this must be a problem for people who only have easy access to one supermarket or large shop.

Chocolate Cake

 

Our son cooked this at Christmas and it works well.

300 gm Green & Blacks Plain Chocolate
50 gm Ground Almonds
165 gm unsalted butter
275 gm caster sugar
6 large organic eggs
pinch of sea salt

Place chocolate, butter, sugar and salt into an ovenproof bowl and melt slowly over a pan of simmering water.

While the chocolate is melting, beat the eggs and ground almonds together.

Once melted, remove the chocolate mixture from the heat and fold in the eggs and grounds almonds.

Place the mixture into a lined 23 cm. spring loaded cake tin, and cook at 180C for 35 to 40 minutes, take care to cover the top and sides of the cake tin to prevent the cake burning.

When cooked leave the cake to cool in the tin, then leave overnight in the fridge to set.

The following day remove the cake from the tin and lightly dust with icing sugar.

Elveden Estate

 

Yesterday we were on the A11 at Elveden, which if you know the area, is the only piece of single carriageway road between Newmarket and Norwich.

We went into the Deli/Cafe at the Elveden Estate, which is probably the most luxurious farm shop, we've ever seen. There were lots of very interesting products, many of which were gluten free and probably unheard off outside of Suffolk or Norfolk. It was definitely worth a browse. We bought some Suffolk salami and a Suffolk dressing for salad.

We also had a coffee in the cafe and they said to mention if you had any allergies. Obviously, this didn't apply to the coffee, but I asked and they said they were very much aware of all the problems and would be happy to provide an appropriate meal.

They also have all sorts of other things to do.

Halls Mentholyptus

 

I just checked these on the Cadburys nutrition site and the normal ones are neither gluten nor wheat free. The blackcurrant ones are labelled as gluten free (suitable for coeliacs), but not wheat-free. The sugar-free ones though don't have any wheat or gluten.

All very confusing.

Letter To Dame Deirdre Hutton

 

She is the chairman of the Food Standards Agency and appeared on the Simon Mayo show on Radio 5 Live.

This is the letter I wrote to her.

Issues for Coeliacs

I am a coeliac and not a sufferer of coeliac disease, as properly handled it is very much a non-illness and an intolerance.

I heard you yesterday on the Simon Mayo program and was generally impressed with your answers on the work of your Agency. On a personal point of view, as an engineer/scientist and statistician, I’m not impressed with the Tesco labelling system and feel your proposal is best. (I had one of their healthy option pies and quite frankly it had more salt in it than the Dead Sea! They know that salt sells and I know I don’t like it. I also have gall-stones.)

I am a moderator of a lively group of several hundred on coeliac disease on Yahoo and one topic has dominated over the last few weeks. That is the fact that the Codex standard allows 200 ppm of gluten. This means that if you have two slices of toast, you’re eating a lump of gluten the size of the average aspirin. (It doesn’t bother me, as with few exceptions gluten-free bread is total crap and only marginally more tasty than cardboard. I’m on a Marie Antoinette diet where I eat cake.) So please can you reduce that limit to at least 20 ppm as it is in Australia or the USA.

I also was worried about your reply on Simon’s program as to labelling for allergies. It should be compulsory for all allergens to be named on the packaging. Anything less is totally unacceptable. Marks and Spencer are leading the way here and actually name both gluten and wheat separately.

Remember that according to serious studies coeliacs are one in a hundred of the population. Even if many have not been diagnosed!

It will be interesting to see the reply.

Sainsbury's Gluten-Free Bread

 

I just phoned them on 0800 636262 to complain about the lack of gluten-free pitta bread. Apparently, it's on hold to change the packaging.

Sounds daft, as it was rather nicer than the Tesco pitta bread.

So if anybody wants to phone up and ask, it may get them to take their fingers out and start deliveries again.

Quaker Seasons

 

I've just tried this snack. Not bad and it says it's suitable for coeliacs.

Anybody else looked at these.