Monthly Archives: January 2008

Gluten Free Granola

My coeliac daughter is beginning to feel a bit despondent about breakfast. “There’s nothing to eat …”, she’ll complain.

There is, of course, but she’s bored with the normal range of gluten free breakfast available, so I’ve been looking for an alternative. (If you’re new to living gluten free, and are here because you’re looking for ideas for breakfast, you could try this post about gluten free breakfast).

We’ve just discovered a new breakfast cereal … gluten free granola from Bakery on Main.

No doubt this is familiar to all Americans – but this is the first time I’ve seen it here in the UK, and I found it in Morrison’s. I’m often surprised by our small Morrison’s … they sometimes have very interesting gluten free foods, and sometimes unusual ingredients, too.

We’ve got the Apple, Raisin and Walnut Granola*, but it also comes in Cranberry, Orange and Cashew, or Rainforest (brazils, banana and coconut), Nutty Maple Cranberry or Extreme Fruit and Nut.

I’m not surprised to see that the average review score is 5 out of 5 at Amazon – I think this is a great cereal. I wish someone had started importing it before …

(* affiliate link)

By |January 21st, 2008|Living Gluten Free|10 Comments
Read More

Allergy Alert: Morrison’s ham

This is another slightly unlikely risk …

Morrison’s own brand breaded ham doesn’t say on the label on the back that it contains wheat flour (though the front of pack label is correct).

Of course, if you are a coeliac, you won’t have bought the breaded ham anyway. But if someone else bought it for you in the belief that because it didn’t say ‘wheat flour’ on the back it would be OK, or if you are at all confused by the pack labelling, don’t eat it.

This refers only to:

Morrisons Carvery Breaded Ham, (dry cured) 250g packs

Date code: Use By 2 February 2008

By |January 16th, 2008|Alerts, Living Gluten Free|0 Comments
Read More

Food Standards Agency: more allergy warnings

The Food Standards Agency has said that restaurants and cafes should take steps to warn customers about possible allergens in food. They suggest that products made with ingredients which could spark an allergic reaction should have them listed on a card, label or menu, and that staff should always check whether a products contains a potential allergen when asked by a customer. guidance says.

At the moment, businesses which sell food prepared or wrapped on their own premises (such as sandwich shops, delicatessens, cafes and bakeries) are not legally required to say whether their products contain potential allergens. Ingredients which can prompt allergic reactions include nuts, milk, soya, mustard, eggs, shellfish, gluten and celery.

Apparently, the FSA has produced booklets and posters to promote the guidance to catering businesses and staff.

This has been welcomed by Coeliac UK. Sarah Sleet (CEO) said: “It is essential that cafes, delis and restaurants are fully aware of these guidelines and have a strategy for dealing with allergens be it from chefs to serving staff to ensure people with coeliac disease can make a safe choice.”

This is still only guidance, not mandatory, but should be welcomed nonetheless as a step forward. Many places, of course, already do their best to provide this information, either on the menu or packaging, or by asking the chef.

You can see the guidance notes here.

FSA Allergy Poster

(This is a smaller version of the FSA poster).

By |January 16th, 2008|Alerts, Living Gluten Free|1 Comment
Read More

Show off your gluten free flour mix

Just a note to remind you to enter your gluten free flour mix recipe at Gluten Free Cooking School‘s blog event …

Regular readers will know that I’m from the UK, and so I usually use one of the ready-made mixes for my daughter which are available on prescription. Because she’s under 19, this is free (or rather, paid for my our taxes) … I like the Wellfoods one, but the full list is available on my UK prescription page.

I’m therefore not really qualified to enter a mix of my own. I’ve tried the Carol Fenster mixes, with some success, and also some of the mixes used by other bloggers – most recently the gingerbread mix from Only Sometimes Clever. I’d definitely like to extend my range.

What I’d really like to find is a good mix for gluten free croissants.

So I’m going to be very interested in the results of Mary’s event – if you’ve got your own mix, do enter it before 23 January. (Especially if it works for croissants!) You might win a Bette Hagman book.

By |January 15th, 2008|Living Gluten Free|7 Comments
Read More

Bottom of the fridge sauce again?

My husband was rather surprised to be offered ‘bottom of the fridge sauce’ with pasta the other day. I know his mother always had a menu plan for the week, so I suppose he’d never come across this particular delicacy before.

tomatoesMy new resolution for the year is to avoid waste, and (obviously!) this pasta sauce was made with the things lurking in the vegetable drawers in my fridge. It was great, but perhaps I need to work on the marketing …

For years I’ve wanted a recipe book or site that I could ask “what can I cook with what I have in the fridge?” And here it is!

I love this!

At Cookthink, you can ask for:

  • recipes that fit your ingredient (yay – two going-soft peppers, anyone? They suggest sauteed bell peppers with pine nuts and parmesan, or an aubergine, pepper and basil caponata, or …)
  • recipes that fit a particular dish (if you’re looking for a dessert, or fancy a risotto or …)
  • recipes from a particular cuisine (if you fancy turkish, for example)
  • or recipes that fit a particular mood (e.g. healthy, special occasion, gooey or brittle or … what looks like hundreds of different moods)

And any combination of these four main types (and multiple ingredients).

They will come up with one suggestion, but if that’s not quite right, there are many more recipes that fit your requirements.

Now then, the key question is how do they cope with gluten-free? Oddly, this counts as a ‘mood’, but once you know that, you can ask for gluten free recipes – and there are lots. I asked for a gluten free dessert, and they offered me roasted […]

By |January 14th, 2008|Gluten Free Finds, Living Gluten Free, Work|3 Comments
Read More