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

Snack fatigue. That little phrase completely sums up our relationship with the vast array of gluten free snacks on the market.

What our little boy embraces with passionate intensity one week is often declared inedible the next, leaving my cupboard littered with half-eaten packets of yesterday’s favourites – which I hang on to in vain hope that they will swing back in favour one day.

You may argue that we pander too much, and he should just eat what is in front of him – but as every parent knows, it is quite difficult to argue with an untouched lunchbox. And so we tackle it a bit like we used to deal with his toy box when he was two.  We rotate often. 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 »

Gluten free lunchboxes

I have become a bit obsessed with finding quick, great tasting gluten free carb options for school lunchboxes this week.

Why?  I recently went back to fulltime work and with relief handed the dreaded lunchbox duties over… and that’s when gluten free choc chip cookies & mince pies quietly started to find their way into the daily mix. Oops! Time for a lunchbox overhaul. Read the rest of this entry »

There’s nothing like having a few friends over for a sausage or two and a bread roll… oh, unless you happen to be gluten free. 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 »

corn chip crab cakes (photo supplied)

Sometimes you just hanker for something crispy-coated. Unless you make it yourself though, these types of foods are usually out of bounds.

I have dabbled with a few types of gluten free breadcrumbs over the years.  I have made them the usual way by drying gluten free bread slices in the oven on low heat and then grinding them into submission.

You can also buy gluten free breadcrumbs if you can find them. Vitarium are among those who make them and they are pretty good [crumbs from Lifestyle bakery have also recently appeared on on shelves at Coles].

And back in the day when I used to whiz up my own chicken nuggets, I would coat these in rice bubbles crushed by hand with a wooden spoon or in the kitchen whiz.

They offer a very quick, easy, nice tasting last minute solution and they also go well in rissoles, meat balls and patties along with some onion, egg and seasoning – and whatever else you feel like throwing in.

But far and away the yummiest crumbing was introduced to me recently at a work do. Read the rest of this entry »

I recently embarked on a new strategy to make carbs more tempting to my gluten free kids.

I blogged about it at the time so I have decided to write an update because we have been having quite a bit of success with the plan – which basically involves them making their own meals.

Here is a chronicle of our latest efforts:

The first involved them designing their own pizzas, a no brainer and predictably popular.

The second was more experimental: roll your own uncooked ricepaper springroll. 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 »

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 »

Back from another weekend away, and thanks to some handy self catering we managed not to fall of the gluten free wagon even once. Not knowingly at least.

Of course with kiddies in the car and a long stint on the freeway it becomes almost impossible to dodge the mighty Maccas when coming and going from our weekend hideaway – and we found ourselves driving through those golden arches on more than one occasion this weekend.

Gluten free food is not a traditional focus for hamburger restaurants, but the good thing with the big chains is that once you get to know their menu, you can at least have some type of assurances about what you are eating.

Lucky for us McDonalds french fries in Australia are officially gluten free (although it is worth noting that not all restaurant chips are) and we don’t seem to have any trouble with them at all.

And while McDonalds bricks & mortar is not the simplest place to hunt down gluten free info, the company has published fairly comprehensive food sensitivity charts, ingredients and nutritional information on its website. Read the rest of this entry »