Starting The Adventure

Starting off the GF/CF/SF journey.

So...we got back to Ireland from the DAN! conference in Atlanta last Monday. Fired up to start our son (who turned nine this weekend (happy birthday!)) on the Gluten (wheat), Caesin (Dairy) and Soy Free diet. Oh, yes and we want to cut the sugars out too.

Challenges:

• Replace his current diet with a healthier one. his diet mostly of:
  
  1. Toast & crusty bread rolls
  2. Scones and cheesy scones
     
  3. Cheesy crackers
  4. Cheese
  5. Crackers
  6. Apple juice
  7. Sweets

• Find an alternative to butter that has neither dairy nor soy in it.
• Find an alternative to milk in baking
  
• Find out how to bake 1-5 above.
• Celebrate his birthday with a cake.
  

Ingredients

Flour
The first challenge was to find alternatives to wheat in baking. There are lots of good natural alternatives out there. Unfortunately there's no magic bullet 1 for 1 replacement. Odlums have a product (Trytamil) which is excellent, but sadly contains soy flour (Odlumns, if you read this please try and reformulate without the soy).

So...we have found in various places various flours you can buy. Tesco in Naas have a small gluten free section and Superquinn have a bigger one. Sadly these don't have many products that are also caesin free and soy free too. Health food shops (which I'm now enjoying for the first time in a long and unhealthy life) have better selections. We have bought many types this week and the key (from what I've read) is to mix certain ones to get a good base. So far we have bought Buckwheat, Corn (maize), Rice and Trytamil along with a flour mix (Dove Farms) and a brown bread mix.

The flour verdict (so far)....we'll I haven't been able to recreate all the things I need to cook using the ingredients yet, but the white flour mix seems pretty good so far as does the rice flour. The brown bread (also from Dove Farms) smelled great while cooking, but tasted so-so (noone here would eat it!)....I did find a great use for it though (see recipes below)

Butter
Butter has been more of a challenge. In baking I'm trying to substitute with veg oil, nut butter or coconut oil...but with varying degrees of success.

I'm still no closer to a butter as a spread on toast solution...ghee (clarified butter from Indian stores) has been suggested in the books as the clarification process removes the caesin, but I haven't tried that yet. Another choice is to make my own GF/CF/SF mayo...which may work out fine for me I can't see Conor going for that.

Verdict: For cooking plain old veg oil often works, for spreading on bread...watch this space...

Milk
This has been slightly easier. We got Rice Dream from Tesco. There is some debate about whether Rice Dream is actually totally gluten free. (Apparently) There is no gluten in the ingredients, but there is some in the production process which can contaminate the milk (1 part per 20 million). I'm willing to accept those odds for now, but there are people who have noticed a difference when they replaced Rice Dream with another totally gluten free brand.

I also got some Almond Milk from the health food store.

Both are pretty good.

Anyway, the shop bought milks are just a stepping stone as I've ordered my milk making machine (www.soymilkquick.com) and it should arrive this week.


Cooking

Recipe 1: Scones
This is a definite success.

1. 150 g White Flour Mix (I used Dove Farms one)
2. 150 g Rice flour
3. 1 tsp salt
   
4. 230 ml Milk (I used both almond and rice milk in different batches with equal success)
5. 6 tsp Baking Powder
6. 1 tbsp oil (I used omega 3 oil)
7. 2 tbsp protien (see below)
   

To cook

1. Preheat oven to 180 Centigrade
2. Sift the flours, salt baking powder together and add in the protien from step 3 if desired
   
3. This is an excellent recipe for disguisiung other foods you want to be included in the diet. So far I have made this with chicken, sausage (GF of course!) and bacon. Simply get a few tablespoons of the meat (not the sausage!) and grind it down to a smooth consistency. I've been using a coffee grinder for this as it's quicker and easier to clean then the full mixer.
   
4. Add oil and milk all at once and mix to a firm consistency (slightly sticky is fine too)
5. Turn out onto a floured board and roll (I just use my hands) to about 1/2 inch thick
6. Cut out scones and place on a floured baking tray
7. Cook for 10-12 minutes ... the tops may not brown as much as you'd expect so check them!

Recipe 2: GF/CF Stuffing

Strange, but true...you can make such a thing and it can taste great! The following recipe was created by my wife and I. It's a byproduct of the brown bread I made that noone wanted to eat.
Simple to make and an excellent accompanient to any meal.

1. 4-5 slices of gf/cf bread made into breadcrumbs
   
2. 2 onions diced
3. 4 tbsp sage
   
4. 1 egg
5. flax seeds
6. Gogi berries

To cook

1. Preheat oven to 180 degrees centigrade
   
2. Fry the onions in some veg oil. I added some almond butter, but this was probably not necessary. Make sure you use plenty of oil ad the breadcrumbs tend to be on the dry side.
3. Add onions and sage to the breadcrumbs and mix.
4. Whisk an egg and add as a binder.
5. Optionally add flax seeds and gogi berries to taste.
6. Judge yourself how moist the mix is ... if it looks dry add another egg, or some oil or some almond butter.
7. Bake in a preheated oven at 180 degrees centigrade for 60 minutes.
   

Recipe 3: Croutons

Another bread that noone wanted recipe.

Still not perfected...but close I think.

1. Oil
2. Tomato puree
3. Bread
4. Herbs (to taste)

To cook

1. Preheat oven to 180 degrees centigrade (seems to be my favourite temperature!)
   
2. Marinate the oil and tomato for some time
   
3. Seive the oil from the paste...you should now have a tomato oil!
4. Cut the bread into crouton sized pieces (leave the crusts on ... these help keep the croutons together)
5. Heat a small amout of the oil in a non stick pan
6. Roll individual pieces of bread in the oil and then add to pan
7. Flash fry on on sides
8. Remove from pan and transfer to an oven proof dish and bake for about 10 minutes.

Viola! Croutons.

Now sprinkle with basil or whatever you like.

Enjoy.


Recipe 4: Chocolate Birthday Cake.

I have to admit I cheated and bought a shop mix. It was excellent...from a company called Orgran (please send me free stuff for the name drop!). I'm going to buy more this week!

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Ok, well that's all from me for tonight....it's very late and I'm tired.

My objectives would be to find recipes for the following:

1. Scones (done!)
2. Cookies/biscuits
3. Breadsticks
4. Bread

I guess I've a ways to go...but I'll get there.

Shep.