gluten free familyA mum's blog about gluten-free living in Australia

Chia seeds

Now many of us have been forced to look beyond wheat as a source of nutrition, attention has begun to shift to some of the ancient grains of our ancestors.

They don’t just look wholesome – but actually contain higher levels of protein and fibre than more traditional gluten free staples such as rice, corn and potato, which could mean a healthier and more balanced diet for those of us who have sworn off gluten for life.  Here are a few that have caught our eye in recent times.

Chia

Chia seeds are popping up in a wider range of gluten free goods, so we thought it might be time to take a closer look at this grain.

The Lifestyle bakery has had great success with its award-winning chia loaf and breadmaker Dovedale has also released a number of breads and other chia-based goodies.

Dovedale says chia’s origins date back to Central American civilisations and “improves human nutrition by providing the richest natural source of Omega 3, antioxidants and dietary fibre”.

Read the rest of this entry »

More than a dozen princesses and fairies descended on my house on the weekend to eat, drink and be merry.

This bunch of belles were in the dark about the gluten free thing and I don’t think the g-word was mentioned even once.

They were thrown off the scent largely thanks to my favourite gluten free mud cake mix – popular as ever with the gluten quaffing crowd – and some marshmallow-garnished red jellies.

Our little party people were also more than happy to tuck into the popcorn, rice crackers (which I cunningly jazzed up with a cheese square and half a mini tomato), a watermelon & kiwi fruit platter, gluten free mini snags, corn chips & dip and some regular chips. Read the rest of this entry »

Melinda's Risotto cakes

My British heritage makes me partial to bit of stodge – but when you have to dodge wheat it’s not always so easy to get your hands on.

That is why I have taken note of a few new products that might find a warm welcome in my pantry.

Melinda’s – the packet mixes with the funky pink packaging in Woolworths Naytura section – have launched a couple of new products that we tried out over the weekend.

The first were Tuscan-style risotto cakes, and the other was lemon curd cupcakes.

My co-blogger Mandy sent some of her caramel cupcakes off to school for a cake day.

What we liked about these products was that they were very simple to put together. Instead of sacrificing flavour for simplicity, Melinda has put little sachets of yummy stuff that you add to the mixture at the last moment.

The risotto cakes have a lovely rich vege sauce that gives them the kick that that kind of food needs. Likewise the lemon curd cakes have a luscious lemon curd sachet and the caramel cupcakes came with a pouch of yummy caramel.

It’s a clever way of giving home made food a bit of extra zest without asking busy cooks to go stock up on obscure ingredients or spend precious time grating lemon rind. Read the rest of this entry »

Sydney gluten free expo

Is gluten intolerance a real condition?

This was one of the topics debated at the gluten free expo in Sydney, and Dr Robert Anderson, the man leading development of the coeliac vaccine, took to the stage to address this sensitive issue.

The gluten intolerant now far outnumber those with coeliac disease, but according to Dr Anderson finding a true diagnosis for either condition is far from straightforward.

I won’t go into too much of the science here, suffice it to say that he believes coeliac disease is being underdiagnosed by the medical communiy owing to over-reliance on things like preliminary blood tests which may give false negatives – as well as the less common issue of biopsies that can miss damage in the small intestines.

He says a gene, blood test and biopsy (where evidence of coeliac disease exists) are all required to build up an accurate diagnosis. (The coeliac society now has a diagnostic flow chart that is designed to steer prospective sufferers on a path of investigation that will prevent such misdiagnoses and I will write more on this at a later date).

This brings us to the other side of the equation – gluten intolerance. Dr Anderson believes that most cases of gluten intolerance in the wider society have been confused with fructose malabsorbtion. Read the rest of this entry »

Before I get down to some more of the nitty gritty issues that arose from the Gluten Free Expo last weekend, I thought it might be helpful for those who couldn’t make it to get a little run-down of some of the new products at the show.

Cakes and bread led the charge as usual – but there was also some very interesting additions with the number of suppliers to this market growing ever larger.

Lets begin with new kids on the block, Vitarium, who have been releasing products at a rate of knots. In coming months you will see a bunch of new cake mixes including low fat versions of  chocolate cake and muffins, multi-purpose cake mix and muffins, and some
crumpets. They are excited about the arrival of a new natural sweetner called Natvia helps to keep the calorie count down (we shall be investigating this further down the track).

Simply Wize recently brought a new bread mix to the supermarket shelves – now they have added Nocchi to their range. I bought some today and will be testing it out for lunch.

The makers of our favourite frozen convenience foods, Bayview – who brought us chicken nuggets and fish bites and a bunch of other tasty kids favourites – are preparing to launch a line of calimari. They are still deciding whether it will be salt and pepper calimari or plain (one would be for the grownups and the other for kids – so I guess from a selfish perspective I know which I would prefer!).

Melindas already sells a range of sumptuous sounding cakes and puddings in the cute pink packaging. Now she has added Risotto Cakes and Lemoncurd Cakes to her collection. I have one of each and can’t wait to try them. Read the rest of this entry »

As one of our Facebook followers commented, gluten free sweet treats are pretty easy to pull together at home. It is the creation of tasty savouries where new inspiration is most welcome.

For this reason, one of the highlights of the gluten free expo for me was the Diego’s stand. They make gluten free corn tortillas which are sold in Coles, IGA, BiLo and Foodland – and are also sold by Woolies under the Select brand.

But what was really great was that they were demonstrating were some brilliant new ways to use them. Though regretfully I did not get to their official cooking demo, I came away from their stall with two great new ideas to add to my arsenal of kid-friendly carbohydrates.

In the absence of specific instructions, I decided to put these to the test at home:

1. Yummy tortilla triangles:

They used a flat sandwich maker to make it. They sprayed the tortilla with oil, spread it with red pesto and added diced ham and cheese and folded it half. They then toasted it (the toasting irons need to touch to get the right effect). After it was cooked they sliced it into portions. Read the rest of this entry »

There is more to say about the Sydney Gluten Free expo than I can possibly put into one blog post so please stay tuned over the next few weeks as we report on the many new products, write about some of the experts’ opinions and more importantly review some of the wonderful new products we got out hands on at the show. Here’s a quick summary and a taste of some of the things we will be reporting on here in coming weeks:

Coeliac Vaccination: we’ll give an update on where the vaccine development is at – plus write up some of the (possibly controversial) thoughts about Coeliac disease v gluten intolerance from the man who is leading the research, Dr Robert Anderson.

Lots of brand redesigns and product launches: Prepare for the battle of the cake and bread mixes as some of our favourite brands expand their product ranges substantially.

Bakeries open their doors: A bunch of bakeries are springing up all over town with fresh and gorgeous gluten free baked fare. Read the rest of this entry »

You’re probably realising by now that when it comes to your child’s diet there are a whole load of experts out there – and none of them is your paediatrician.

Schools, daycare centres, well meaning relatives, family friends – they all have strong opinions about what you should be feeding your child. Add food intolerances or coeliac disease into the equation and you will suddenly find that the whole world knows better than you (and your dietician/doctor) about what is good for your child.

Part of the problem is the perception that food intolerances are just a growing fad. You can almost see those start eyes rolling when you mention gluten intolerance to some carers/educators, and some relatives can take the whole issue even more personally. They may either try to tackle you on head on and talk you out of your foolishness – or subtely undermine your efforts by slipping prohibited foods to your child.

This of course can jeopardise the health of your child – and with severe intolerance or coeliac disease – this is really a dangerous situation. Its also very hard to deal with if the very person or organisation you are relying on, is letting down you and your child when you are not around to prevent it. Read the rest of this entry »

gluten free mini muds

I got a bit experimental today with one of our favourite mudcake mixes. The Deliciously Free mix by Naturally Good was one of our faves when we did our recent choccy cake bakeoff.

It has an enticing blurb on the back called Cup Cake Ideas in which it suggests you use the mix in this way. The only thing holding me back was the lack of detail on the pack about actual execution of these ideas. There was nothing about how long to cook them or how many cupcakes it could produce.

Given my penchant for mudcake, though, it was only a matter of time before I took the plunge. Turns out that half an hour is enough (about half the time of the large cake version) and it makes about a dozen medium-sized cupcakes.

Because this mix does not include frosting, I topped it with gran’s chocolate icing recipe which is nice and shiny and hardens nicely.

You mix together a a knob of butter, about half a cup of icing sugar and a few tablespoons of cocoa (until it looks right) over a little heat. You will also need a dash of milk, enough to make it nice and shiny and runny enough to spread.

I found the cupcakes a little less spongy and moist that the larger mudcake – but on the upside, they are very cute, handy and freezable.

MB

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Choices gluten free bakery

This weekend we jumped in the car and headed for Choices gluten & wheat free bakery in Sydney’s Turramurra.

It was our first trip because it is a good 40 minutes away in quiet traffic. But we were inspired by news on the Gluten Free Pages that Choices has opened new Sydney stores. It now has outlets in Bondi Junction, Bella Vista and Mona Vale.

Though none of them are close to us, this is still great news and gives me hope that a gluten free bakery may some day open its doors in my neck of the woods.

Like most of the specialist bakeries they will deliver to other areas. But for those like me who like hands-on shopping, there do seem to be more bricks & mortar bakeries popping up. Silly Yaks for instance has opened a factory outlet for its frozen bakery goods in Preston Victoria.  Then there is Deeks Bakery & Cafe in Canberra. Read the rest of this entry »