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.