Diagnosed with celiac (can't eat wheat)

[Trek420]

Offthegrid "The GF thing is actually going surprisingly well. I'll have to add a Crock pot to my wish list -- after a breadmaker. Many of the GF products I've tried so far taste pretty good except the bread"

OTG, Knott was just saying you could pass on the breadmaker, that leaves you more money on the list for something like....a bike .

Seems that what breadmakers do is knead the dough to make the gluten stringy. No wheat, no gluten, no kneading needed.

Think of breads like cornbread, zuchini, banana....GF bread is made with batter like those, rather than a dough.

[mimitabby]

I agree with Knot, forget the breadmaker. By making your bread by hand you
are using your muscles and keeping stronger and fitter. and you're right,
no gluten, just mix the stuff up!

[Offthegrid]

Um ... I suck at cooking. Really, really seriously suck at cooking. I've messed up instant rice, and I'm NOT kidding about that.

So all the advice about things you can make is really, really, really nice and truly appreciated, but it's like speaking Greek to me. Fusilli? Tripe? Puttanesca? Posole? Hominy? I have NO IDEA what these things are, much less where in the heck to find them or how to even begin to prepare them.

But I would like to be able to make my own bread. I just don't have the talent or patience to hand-knead it and such.

[tygab]

Hi Susie,

Sorry to be late to see this thread, but I wish you the best. I know virtually nothing about this disease, but I will figure out how to make something tasty that is GF before we go to Lake Placid!

And yeah, slow cookers rule. Definitely get one of those, potatoes do very well in them amongst other friends like peppers, tomatoes, well heck any veggies you have on hand the best part is you mostly have to think of a bunch of stuff to put in but once you do it does all the hard work.

Good luck figuring it out, and I bet when you start feeling better it'll all be worth it.

[Offthegrid]

I know virtually nothing about this disease, but I will figure out how to make something tasty that is GF before we go to Lake Placid!

I just have to find some GF graham crackers so I can make s'mores! Yummmmm ...

I'll be bringing a bunch of my own GF stuff. They have GF hot dog rolls and then you just have to make sure the hot dogs are GF, too. Same with hamburgers. I bet most of the food they typically serve volunteers is out, though.

[KnottedYet]

But I would like to be able to make my own bread. I just don't have the talent or patience to hand-knead it and such.

Uhhh, hang on a second. Kneading is only done to bread made with gluten. You won't be kneading anything, cuz you won't be eating gluten.

If you are making "bread" it will be a batter, not a dough. No kneading. No gluten.

More than likely you will be taking a couple cups of mix, adding an egg some oil and a cup of milk, beating it briefly, then pouring it into a greased pan and baking it.

5 minutes prep time, tops.

Makes good "bread" though.

Uh, and "graham" is wheat, so I'm not sure what you can do for graham crackers. I've never seen any gf graham crackers, but I bet you could use GF gingersnaps.

Edit: hot dogs and hamburgers, I eat 'em naked! no fuss, no bother, no bread product to worry about. And if you go to a restaurant they are very cool about giving you your burger without a bun. Most sandwich places (Subway, etc) don't even bat an eye if you ask for your sub-stuffing to be put on a bed of lettuce instead of a roll. Watch out for the vegetarian burgers and hotdogs. Those critters are often laden with gluten.

[Aggie_Ama]

I thought of ya'll today (especially Knott)... Paul Harvey had an ad for a new gluten free beer! Budweiser is making one but leaving out the barley and something else. I just wonder if it will be awful?

[KnottedYet]

OOOOOOHHH!!!! I *want* that beer!

I drink beer anyway, willing to pay the price. Microbrews seem to go easier on my tummy than the big brands (the bigt brands sometimes add gluten to make the beer foamy)

Searched around the gluten-free section of my favorite *expensive* but good selection natural foodstore today but didn't see any GF graham crackers. Saw some spiffy arrowroot cookies and gingersnaps and vanilla wafers that would all probably make nice S'Mores, though.

OTG, I dunno if I've mentioned it before, but The Cravings Place makes really really REALLY good cookie and brownie mixes. www.thecravingsplace.com I just bought some of their pancake/baking mix to try, even though I adore Pamela's pancake/baking mix. (mainly because the store was charging 2x what I felt like paying for a big bag of mix) T.C.P. brownie and choc chip cookie mixes are my favorites, so I have high hopes for their general mix. Usually you can just substitute your favorite general mix for flour in any of your favorite NON-KNEADED recipes.

I also checked out the frozen GF bread and rolls section. Kinnikinnik and Wheatless In Seattle make a lot of nice breads and rolls. I have no interest in them, but you can probably google them and order some. En-R-Gy breads and rolls are really yucky, in my opinion. I'd stay away from them unless that's all you can get.

Oh, yeah, and Pamela's sells pre-made cookies and such as well as mixes. The cookies are ok (for pre-made). A little dry, generally. (The Cravings Place are my all-time favorites, so I'm really biased.)

OTG, you just gotta come to Seattle! We've got GF restaurants and darn near every grocery store has a GF section, even if it's a little one.

[Duck on Wheels]

Edit: hot dogs and hamburgers, I eat 'em naked! no fuss, no bother, no bread product to worry about.

Here one way hot dogs are served is with "lompe", like a soft tortilla made from potatoes. There is some flour in it to bind it, but it doesn't have to be wheat flour. You could probably experiment with a gluten-free flour or bread mix. My recipe: Boil 4-5 good-sized Yukon gold potatoes in their skins. Peel while still warm and mash. Add a good dollop of butter and a couple heaping spoonsful of sour cream. Then stir or mash in flour to make a fairly firm dough. Wrap in plastic and chill in the fridge overnight. Take bits about the size of a ping pong ball and roll them out thin (about the size of a frying pan). Cook them on a dry(!) frying pan or griddle til they just start getting "tan" spots, each side. Place under a tea towel with something heavy on top. That helps keep them soft. Dough and finished lomper can be frozen and later thawed. You can also try different types of potatoes, but the Yukon gold were best of those I tried back in Madison -- had a hint of almond taste

[KnottedYet]

Ok, just made pancakes with my newly purchased T.C.P. pancake/baking mix.

In a nutshell: Bleh.

Very fluffy, fragile, and bland. Pamela's Products general mix is definitely the winner. (I found the 4 lb bag online for $2 cheaper than at my Manna Mills store, but still not as cheap as Trek and I saw last night at Berkeley Bowl.)

PP gives you more of a crepe style pancake, TCP gives you a cakey style pancake. PP has buttermilk powder and almond meal in it, which really does add to the entire experience.

www.thecravingsplace.com
www.pamelasproducts.com

[Duck on Wheels]

Just got back from the store. Noticed a whole section of GF foods, including waffle mix. Anybody interested in trying that? Knot? If you want a sample, jes' pm me an address.

[KnottedYet]

Thanks, Duck! I think I'm good with the mix supply here in sunny Seattle.

OTG - how are you doing finding GF stuff? Have you done it all online, or have you found a store yet? This is my B12: Source Naturals MethylCobalamin 1mg. www.sourcenaturals.com I get the 60 tablet bottle for around $10 or so. 16,670% of your daily value of B12 per tablet! (and that only brings my blood levels up to the "low-normal" range)

[eclectic]

Here one way hot dogs are served is with "lompe", like a soft tortilla made from potatoes. There is some flour in it to bind it, but it doesn't have to be wheat flour.

mmmmmm I LOVE lompe. they call it "Lumpe" here! OTG definately try it. It is soft and tender - way better than soft flour tortillas. Thanks for posting how you make it DOW. I have made lefse but could never find out how Lumpe was made.
For lefse we boil red potatoes, and white potatoes whole, peel them after cooking, rice them, mix them 1/2 and 1/2 then rice them again. I wonder if it would make a difference to Lumpe - I don't think we can get Yukon gold here - I haven't seen them anyway. but then I have never really looked.

[eclectic]

I don't have Celiac, but I found out in Feb that I'm allergic to wheat (I had suspected it for a long time). It causes serious breathing difficulties and triggers asthma attacks, so as a racer I have eliminated it from my diet. And almost immediately I lost weight (which has more to do with the fact that I over-consumed pasta than than wheat is evil -- it's not).

Wow - what we don't learn on this great forum! I have been fighting chronic asthma for the last 2 years. It is never very bad but is always there. After a multitude of tests, catscans, xrays, medicine - it is still the same.

I read this post and a light came on. for the last few days I haven't been eating anything that is made from wheat and guess what? my breathing is better.

I ate part of a flour tortilla yesterday and the old feeling came back.
I ate some cake and 2 cookies and there was no problem - DARN! ! !
After the New Year I am going to go off all wheat for 2 weeks then introduce some back in and see what happens.

After reading this and calling her I discovered my mom quit eating whole wheat hot cereal years ago because it triggered her asthma - now why didn't she tell me that sooner before I spent $$$$ on all the tests ????

for the past 2 summers I told everyone - "Just you wait - if I can ever breathe I will kick butt going up hills" This summer I just may be able to do it!

What kind of sucks is my dad's a wheat farmer

[Duck on Wheels]

What kind of sucks is my dad's a wheat farmer

Yep! We had 6000 chickens I was allergic to.

As for the lompe ... if you've been making lefse with potatoes, then that's lompe. I think for classic lompe the usual flour to add to the riced potatoes is barley flour. I don't know how much gluten there is in barley, but if barley flour is also a no-no, then I bet rice flour will do the trick and bind well enough. And you can use any variety of potatoes you like. I bought about 5 varieties at a potato stand at the farm market, just 4-5 of each, and compared results. Of the ones I tried, the Yukon gold turned out best. They mashed up smooth, made an easy-rolling dough, and had a hint of almond in the flavor.