Sorry back to the dreadful yellow light.

This fruitcake has solved a problem that was looming up for Xmas.

Our family likes Xmas cake... English version. I think the children like the icing more than the cake but it is the tradition that counts.

So what to do about it in GF terms. Well, try some fruit cakes to see what will work best.

First I tried a Dundee cake substituting GF flour (Potato Starch, tapioca starch and Rice flour)

Unfortunately it turned out "Tolerable" but too dry for my liking.

Jan had the answer... she suggested using a boiled fruit recipe instead and what this actually meant chemically is that there were all the same molecules in the cake with 8fl oz of H2O molecules as well. This couldn't be better.... I don't think she will mind me posting her recipe as she is just like that! -generous to a fault, if such a condition is possible.

Jan's School Fruit Cake

4 oz butter

12 oz dried fruit

2 tsp mixed spice

1/2 tsp bicarb of soda

7 oz brown sugar (the darker the better I think, oh, and I used less)

8 fl oz boiling water

Boil all these ingredients for 5 minutes (of course I boiled it for longer - being the forgetful type)

Cool for 5 mins (or longer!)

9 oz flour *

pinch salt

3/4 tsp Xanthan gum (which I have learnt is the outer cell wall of some organism or other so really a vegan shouldn't be using it at all!)

2 eggs

1 tsp baking powder

Mix all the dry ingredients together very well, as is normal for GF cooking

Then mix in all the above ingredients into the wet ones

*the Flour mix that I use is in the ratio of 3:2 :1 Brown rice flour, Potato starch, Tapioca Starch

Those Ginger biscuits (101 uses)

Here we have wonderful Breyers real vanilla ice cream resting on a bed of crumbed ginger biscuits (GF of course) with a fresh raspberry coulis (with a hint of lemon). This is a trial run for a recipe I am planning for Yuletide dinner.... See later blog entry.

Channuka and GF Latkes

This recipe was an amalgamation. Not just an amalgamation of potatoes but an amalgamation of recipes.

The first from Mollie Katzen - Still life with Menu book where she suggests parboiling the grated potatoes, then draining them very well... The second our own family recipe for latkes... which basically goes like this.

Peel potatoes and put them through the grater of the Kenwood Chef.

Add salt and pepper and an onion (similarly grated in the kenwood).

Add eggs till it is just sloppy

Add flour till it isn't

The third modification was to create a GF latke...

By using rice flour instead of wheat flour and guess what.... they made the best latkes I have ever made.

We celebrated Channuka very jollilly.

I then made a huge latke for John (here it is cooking on the first side) - we all agreed it was really a Rosti... thus convincingly demonstrating parallel evolution in food.

Dung roti/chapati (Don't take offence - read on)

Last night I cooked up a quick veg curry and wanted some flatbread to go with it... I have Urid flour but didn't know I had to let the flour and grains soak to ferment so I searched the web and found a recipe for some rice chipati... Which I have now modified somewhat.
I forgot to take a photo - but we liked the authentic (of course, with the coriander, coconut and cumin) taste and they were a great addition to the masala mix I had cooked.

Dung Roti - Chapati (Don't take offence - read on)

2cups or rice flour
1 cup grated coconut (I used desiccated as I don't have a coconut grater!)
1 onion (minced - we don't like raw onion taste in things)
1 chilli (The kids wont touch it if it is too spicey)
1/2 cup coriander (chopped)
1/4 cup chopped ginger (I grated it)
salt and cumin -
6 tsp veg oil (I used less)

The recipe called for asafoetida (needless to say I didn't have any dried latex around the house at the time... or is this what Xanthan gum really is? No! well a search on Google quickly educated me to the fact that asafoetida is a "plant resin so foul-smelling that it is often known as devil's dung" so I am quite glad I had none in.)

Method -

My method not that of the link above... as I found it too sticky to work in doughy balls....

Put all dry ingredients in a bowl and mix in wet ingredients - with water or yoghurt till the mixture is runny enough to just drop a large spoonful onto a lightly greased frying pan and spread it out till it is thin like a thick pancake.

Cook till it looks dry on top and lightly browning on bottom, turn and cook again till lightly browning. Then place in a dish in the oven to keep warm. But cover in oven as mine went a bit dry.

Repeat for the remainder of the mixture.

French Bread - from a French Stick tin=success

It worked, it tastes good - especially with this herbed goats' cheese and no 'GF bread' taste... Aliya will be very very happy.
Thank you Brian.

Garlic Bread - yum

The bread might have been horrid for sandwiches but it was wonderful for garlic bread starter.
Sadly I had burnt some of the tops in the toaster prior to today's garlicking up of the slices!
Today I bought a French Stick tin and it was pricey from Happy Cooker! but I will post if I make progress.

French sticks = blocks

These breads were made using the recipe from Brian at Fire and Salt only I don't own any French stick pans which Brian says are really reallly ridiculously essential. Not one to be put off by small things, and because I have the book club meeting at my house tonight and want to make nice bread... (I hope) to have with cheese, I made the bread anyway and used my loaf (tins).

The bread is very light (orange... no, not really, that is just the lighting in the kitchen on a Calgarian Wednesday at 5pm, ) looking and has folded and collapsed a little just like a French stick might.
The smell is of GF bread so that is a thumbs down from Aliya...
And when cut into it was - - still wet... so back into the oven, naked, that is - without the tins for another 25 mins I guess and then....
taste...
is.....
good but the bread is wet... even on toasting it remains wet...
I will buy a French Loaf tin for $20 like Brian suggested.

But just to repeat the bread tastes gooooood..... and it even looks like a nice French stick in texture.


Thanks to Lauren for (without realising what she was doing) giving me a kick in the pants so that I can once again see a value in blogging on about GF cookery.

Focaccia - Yum, Tortillas - awlrite

Look you can see where I nibbled.
I am still struggling with the number of different powders and ingredients one needs to make a dough with these new eating habits.

Here you see the ingredients for Focaccia - Corn based

From"You won't believe it's Gluten Free" by Roben Ryberg ISBN 978 1 56924 252 0

I have since made this recipe and the result is just lovely, a little sweet for my taste but I topped it with olive oil and rosemary and the smell through the house and the taste of the little bit I nibbled is ***** (5 stars), light with the flavour of the herbs I used and lovely olive oil. No corn taste or texture. In fact the texture of this bread was lovely when warm... I might update this entry if I find the bread to be hard and tough after a few hours...ie., tonight when the kids eat it!

I was going to write out the recipe here but, then thought better of it... owing to the fact that it is copy-written... and I might get sued.

So you will have to get the book from the library or wait till I have modified the recipe and create my own cook book.

The Tortillas on page 103 were good too, but I will cook the next ones slightly less so that they remain softer.

What a delight

Fairmont Hotels and Westin Hotel, Vancouver. They have got to be congratulated. I have just had a lovely conversation with chefs from each of these hotels who all say they have or are instigating a GF menu.

The famous afternoon teas at the Fairmont Hotels are already in place.

It is v. reassuring to know that these people care or know what is good for their business. I think that with the increase in Celiac D. sufferers they know which side of their rice free bread is buttered.

I am sure Aliya is going to be in heaven when we get there. I don't intend to say anything to her about the blueberry muffins, the lemon cake or any of it. It is going to be v. special. And it should be - it is costly!!! I just wish all hotels could afford to take as much care - although I do understand the financial constraints of catering to individuals as opposed to the masses.

And as for the nut allergy they didn't bat an eyelid.

I am sure it helps to pre-warn the chef what is coming! Here is the content of the GF business card I have created for Al as based on the one in the book I was recommended by the dietician at Calgary Children's hospital (The Gluten Free Chef - cooks what you crave ISBN - 978 0 9810161 0 8)

Print it out as a business card to be handed to the server and passed to the Chef. Apparently it is just what a chef would want to know about my daughter and her needs. The last thing a chef wants is for his food to make someone sick.

I am gluten intolerant. If I eat any food product, additive, stabilizer, starch or seasoning containing even a trace of most grains including wheat, oats, barley, rye, triticale, spelt, kamut, malt, or any derivatives of these grains, I will become ill. Please ensure that my food does not contain any of the ingredients listed above. I am able to eat foods containing potatoes, rice, corn, fruit, vegetables, meats, and fish. Please assist me in ordering a meal I can safely enjoy.

Unfortunately I am also allergic to all nuts. I can eat seeds and coconut.

Thank you very much.

Thank you Loretta

Today I was really fortunate to be lead by the hand or steering wheel,  to the Cochrane GF patisserie by Loretta.  There you can find Waffles that look good enough to float down the Elbow on, fantastic cup cakes that are not extreme like others here in Alberta, also cheesecake to die for I am told (we haven't had our evening meal's dessert yet)  and coffee cake which are an excellent addition to  a GF school lunch box - as Aliya has seen in Molly's pack up.

And I saved the best till last.... Bread real Bread.  And when I say real bread I mean REAL GF Bread that is in a class of its own.

And the icing on the cake (apart from being loved by all who eat it) means to me that all the things described above are ok for us Celiacernuts!  we just wont go for the macaroons and nutty butter tartlets, but I have already told you I make my own tartlets no problem.

Thanks Loretta I owe you.... but maybe you will like my choc chip cookies?

I realise what this blog is missing is imagery... I will attempt to have a camera to hand and build a photo essay along with this blog to improve it's image!

One week on, two weeks in.

We are doing very well, Al has had clearance to try eating egg and this merely resulted in a flare up of eczema but not an allergy.  And she enjoyed her scrambled eggs.

Here is the recipe for chocolate chip cookies which were well-received.  Great on first two days... dried out after that - still nice then but different.

Chocolate Chip Cookies  GF ( 'GF' - like Crayola gel pens -' FX'!)

1 cup light brown sugar

1 tsp baking powder

1/2 cup butter

2 eggs 2 tsp vanilla

1 cup potato starch

1/2 cup white rice flour

1/2 cup choc chips

Beat sugar, b. powder and butter till creamy.  Add eggs and vanilla. Add pototato and rice flour.  Add chips.

Refrigerate for 1 hour or overnight (this helps limit the spreading in the oven....) Place in tsp- fulls (really that little) on a silicon lined sheet 3" apart (really that much) .

Bake at 375 F for 8 mins (really that little).

The biscuit batter spreads a lot but the chips just drop the bottom... so choc in middle biscuit around the outside.  Yum.

Next a wonderful mix for v. short short-crust pastry (sweet), which you can use in butter tartlets as below.... this recipe won hands down in a blind tasting against the Lakeview butter tartlets.  Go girl go!!!

Sweet short-crust pastry - Makes one 7" pie case

3/4 cup white rice flour

1 tsp sugar

1/2 tsp Xanthan gum

1/4 tsp salt

1/3 cup butter cut up

2tbsp water

Use an electric mixer (bladed one works best) rub fat into dry ingredients.  Then ad water in two goes.  Makes a light, v. short dough that you can only roll between silicon paper.  I didn't do it that way but pressed it into the silicon lined 7" pie dish, with my hand.  Use as described in your own recipes, bake blind or not...

(To bake blind = pre-cooking the empty shell: Bake 10 - 12 mins at 350F )

Butter Tartlets

(a recipe my mother in law gave to me and her aunt gave to her.... and the recipe must be pretty old.... I was interested to come to Canada and discover that these little tartlets are a staple here! they must have come over from Yorkshire with the first settlers!)

1oz butter

4oz brown sugar

1 tsp vanilla

1egg

4 ox sultanas or raisins

Melt the butter, add the sugar and heat through... add vanilla.  Add one egg and mix quickly to prevent forming scrambled egg in the batter.  Add dried fruit.

Spoon mixture into the uncooked, individual small pie cases (as you would for Xmas fruited mince pies) or if using GF short-crust rice pastry as above, spoon into the 7" pastry case.

Cook 400 for 20 mins approx.  less if making individual small tarts.... 15mins approx.

Salad severs, choc orange cake and death to gluten

The Pesach chocolate cake was a success and so easy peasy.

Deborah's Favourite chocolate orange cake (For Pesach and GF)

3 eggs
3oz castor sugar
2 1/2 oz potato flour
1/2 oz cocoa powder
1 oz melted butter
Rind 1/4 orange
1tbsp orange juice

Whisk eggs and sugar over hot water till thick and creamy, then whisk without the water till cold
Sieve the dry ingredients and fold in 3/4
Add melted butter
fold in remaining flour and orange peel
Fold in orange juice

Put into 2 sandwich tins lines with silicon paper (7")
Bake at 350F, No. 4 for 20 - 30 mins
When cold sandwich with chocolate orange cream

Chocolate orange cream
11/2 oz butter (softened)
3oz icing sugar
1 tbsp cocoa powder
3 tsp orange juice

Cream butter and sugar
beat in cocoa and orange juice

Thanks Deborah.
We (Daniel, Aliya, Bailey and I ate this Al fresco - at 23 degrees C in lovely sunshine as an afternoon treat.

Went to the Library today and got out two of their 3 books on celiac cooking, I will mention their titles if I find them useful.  Found a recipe for Challah!!! Not holding my breath.Bailey's friend, who has been celiac for 6-7 years is writing a cookery book.... I hope she lets me have her best bread recipe soon.

Amazing fact of the day:

I will have to change my salad servers, not because the old ones have a crack down the middle... but because they have touched Caesars dressing which contains gluten.  Whatever will I learn next?

Question of the day:

Does gluten die... I mean if I keep my toaster for a year, then will it be kosher as far as gluten is concerned?

Gluten in Vanilla essence - your kidding me

I have found myself in a supermarket a day... that is my target to visit a new one each day in my search for gluten free products.
So I have visited Community, Planet Organic and Amaranth...
Each day I try to find something that Aliya WILL like as opposed to something I think she might like. So now we have gummy bears GF, vanilla doughnuts GF and cinnamon granola breakfast GF... she seems happy enough.

The five minute chocolate cake in a mug that I made for her dessert last night was disgusting. And we had better leave it at that.

Today I made my sisters "favourite chocolate orange cake" a recipe for Pesach which uses potato flour instead of wheat flour. and none of the Xanophilic gums... (just a joke... referring to the number of ingredients with strange names, that one appears to need to make a good baking flour. the house is now filled with a lovely smell, but how will it taste??? tomorrow we will know.

Also each day I have tried to clear some area of the kitchen of gluten products. Some have a lot of gluten... Wheatgerm, bran... and some a little... icing sugar, cocoa powder, raisins! and some well... I just don't know where the gluten is but apparently there is some in vanilla essence.

Added to my daily chores are daily visits to the Calgary Laboratory on street 1A...i think that street is like Diagon Alley in that you can find everything there... and it is a bit Diagonal the way it meanders instead of the usual American N-S or E-W run of streets. So Monday - went there to see if I need a form before i could get a test (someone had told me I didn't need a form - Wrong)... Tuesday I go the form and my test. Wed Dan's test.... I will just gather folks off the street to take tomorrow.

Discovery of the day - Tuesday
You can claim for GF foods against tax in Alberta

Discovery of the day - Wednesday
"Tapioca flour is good for thickening soups, sauces and dips, pie fillings and puddings. and it is great for GF baking as it lends a springy texture promotes browning and makes crispy crusts." from Bob's Red Mill packet of Tapioca flour.

Actually Bob's is a great website and I found this table of how much Xanthan gum to use which might help later on as I get more familiar with recipes.
And if that is scary enough maybe this table of flour substitutions will do it for you.

But on the other hand Bob does have a large number of GF recipes - just select GF under the recipe search from the top red menu bar.

We are the Millson family - John (Geology and Marble Cake), Karin (Art and chocolate gingers), Daniel (High tech and Terry's Chocolate Orange) and Aliya (Botanist in the making and Fruit Queen). Today we begin on our road of sorting out a rather complicated diet. the CELIACERNUT diet....

This is a diet for vegetarians who also have Celiac Disease and try to keep a kosher house where one of the family has an allergy to nuts.

I challenge myself to make or find the foods that our family love within a Gluten free, (gf) vegetarian, somewhat kosher nut free diet.

Today I spent several hours trawling and now have begun my bookmarks' bar for: Celiac Recipes (self explanatory). Celiac Associations and "Others" (like the website that created by children with Celiacs). Wow what a lot of hours people have devoted to finding out and documenting stuff to help people with these difficulties.

Hmmm.... I wonder how we will cope and what we will become. I have seen online: moneymakers, educators, concerned parents and wonderful volunteers and the self proclaimed over the toppers.

I already feel the pressure to clear the kitchen to remove all traces of Gluten... Do I really have to throw away all cutting boards and what of my best friend in the kitchen - Ken More (The Kenwood, to those of you in Britain)? but since we have lived with nut allergies and vegetarianism for years and managed not to over react, I think we will stay on a level footing.

As a Jewish girl I was brought up to read food labels with care - to avoid gelatin mainly... today people in a similar position have to look out for so many additives that contain non-kosher items. This I have not been doing and our lives have been the simpler for it. Now, I realise we have to take on that task, and more, to avoid Gluten in all its disguises.

I want to note here the work of Karina Allrich, gluten free goddess indeed, who doesn't realise quite how encouraging she has been to me today and probably to our family over the coming months. Thanks Karina. Your slide show has shown me that I can continue to create food that is art. I can continue to follow the path Molly Katzen and the Moosewood Cookbook as in The Enchanted Broccoli Forest and Stone's Spells for Magic Feasts and other favourite cook books of mine.

I think this is the beginning of a great adventure. Thanks to everyone who has already and certainly will, in the future, help us along this road.