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

It’s often said that you shouldn’t remove gluten from your diet unless you really have to. But where does that leave you in a household where half of you react to gluten and half of you don’t?

On one hand, you don’t want to deprive everyone of the flavour, texture, nutrition and fibre content of gluteny grains, (the latter’s a risk if you stick to unadventurous alternatives like rice and spuds—and I’ll own up to this).

On the other hand, if you’re not into a la carte-style meal prep, and want to avoid gluten envy, you’ll need to find some common ground at the dining table. Read the rest of this entry »

Gingerbread minimen from Dragonfly foods.

Our gluten free family has got used to doing without certain things when we are out and about. We mainly take it in our stride, but every now and then I have to explain to my four-year-old son why can’t have one of those delicious looking gingerbread men lurking temptingly at eye level when we visit certain food outlets.

I make a yummy gluten free version of these at home, and he always just assumes gingerbread is one of those things he is allowed to have. Read the rest of this entry »

From the Coles freezer - one is gluten free and one is not!

I am always on the hunt for something new to add variety and colour to our family table – so I was delighted to see some of those new products we found at the recent Gluten Free Food expo in my local Coles freezer section. Read the rest of this entry »

Pastry Pantry in action

One of the holy grails of gluten free cookery would have to be pastry. How I toiled in the early days trying to create something akin to sausage rolls to pack in my little boy’s lunchbox—only to find the pastry (both homemade and packet mix) would break when I tried to roll it—and then emerge rock hard from my oven.

Then I discovered Pastry Pantry ready-made puff and shortcrust pastry sheets. They actually behaved like normal pastry even though they contained no wheat or dairy.

But several months ago, our supermarket suddenly stopped selling it (read more about this here), but now it’s back with a brand new recipe and packaging in some selected outlets.

So what do we think of the latest version? Read the rest of this entry »

Well and Good's Crusty Bread mix

Just when you think you have tried out all the gluten free bread mixes in the market, a few more pop up out of nowhere.

This is especially true in the case of the Tasmanian Sky Ranch Bakehouse, who recently shipped me a packet of their bread roll mix to test out.

It was hard to resist making the charmingly named ‘Bunsky’ mix, and as I have never actually attempted to make gluten-free buns, I was particularly interested.

And lo and behold,  in the very same week, Well and Good sent me a box of their crusty loaf mix – hence an ideal opportunity for a mini-bake off. Read the rest of this entry »

Syndian lentil burgers

We of the gluten free lifestyle know all about the difficulties of finding the right dietary balance – but what about those who have other strict dietary restrictions on top of being gluten free?

I once explored some of the options for vegetarians who must also avoid gluten, but when Syndian sent me some samples of their gluten-free vegan range of frozen convenience products, I started to think even more about the the lack of options in mainstream dining outlets for those on very strict cruetly-free diets who are told by their doctor they must also ditch wheat products. Read the rest of this entry »

Gluten test

My curiosity got the better of me over Easter and I forked out $30 or so for a BioRevive off the shelf test for “gluten intolerance (Coeliac Disease)”. Read the rest of this entry »

You may have realised by now that I have a slightly balmy obsession with bread making.

Given the increasing diversity of decent ready-made gluten free loaves on the supermarket shelves, I probably need to explain why – so here goes . . .

Although we have no trouble getting our little one to eat gluten free toast, what I really want is to send my child to school with yummy, soft sandwiches in his lunchbox that don’t have any wheat, milk, eggs or preservatives in them. Is that such a big ask?

Unfortunately in the world of gluten free baking it is. So with this goal in mind I bring you the Big Bread Bake Off mark II. Read the rest of this entry »

We did not shirk all of our blogging duties over the Christmas break. We remained vigilant in our search for hot new GF products with the potential to fill our hearts and our pantries. Here are a few recent sightings: Read the rest of this entry »