Gluten Free Advice

mirrorwall14

Hi everyone,

I've never had to cook/deal with gluten free but I'm organising a group weekend away and I'm looking for advice! This had been the plan

Friday: Some sort of grab/keep hot dinner for as everyone arrives down e.g. curry, lasagne, bolognaise, chicken and mushroom casserole
Saturday: Breakfast (cereal/bread/fry up/melon), Afternoon tea (scones/cakes/sandwiches)

Any advice on changing elements to cater for the gluten free person?! I don't mind cooking gluten specific scones for example but after that I'm not sure!

michael999999

mirrorwall14 wrote: »

Hi everyone,

I've never had to cook/deal with gluten free but I'm organising a group weekend away and I'm looking for advice! This had been the plan

Friday: Some sort of grab/keep hot dinner for as everyone arrives down e.g. curry, lasagne, bolognaise, chicken and mushroom casserole
Saturday: Breakfast (cereal/bread/fry up/melon), Afternoon tea (scones/cakes/sandwiches)

Any advice on changing elements to cater for the gluten free person?! I don't mind cooking gluten specific scones for example but after that I'm not sure!

Your local butcher can do you some burgers and sausages.

Aldi also do a great range of gluten free foods!

0lddog

You might pick up a few ideas if you hunt around

http://coeliac.ie/webboards/viewforum.php?f=2

Dizzyblonde

Have you had a look in the Diet & Nutrition forum? There's a sticky at the top devoted entirely to coeliac food recommendations, recipes etc.

searay

As a coeliac, I think it's great that you are trying to cater for your friend. I'd recommend you talk to the coeliac as we tend to plan to bring foods we can eat and would be happy to help share the load.

Of the meals you mention, lasagne is a difficult choice as the pasta and sauces are more difficult. Curry is good.

Don't try to make everything gluten free to suit all as you'll put too much work on yourself.

MissFlitworth

If you're cooking for someone with coeliac you need to be really careful about cross contamination, even a trace amount of gluten in something you cook can make them really sick (like from a mixing bowl that had a little flour dust in it). A coeliac buddy always brings their own food to group trips away and cooks before everyone else cooks, following a pretty thorough clean down of the area, because they can't trust that someone who doesn't live with the condition will know enough not to accidentally gluten them. Sorry, I'm useless with food swap recommendations, but I'd definitely recommend involving person with the gluten intolerance in the prep in a big way so that they can help identify any dangers you might not know about (ie - soy sauce contains gluten, people perceive spelt to be gluten free and it isn't, some coeliacs also have a dairy intolerance etc. etc)

mirrorwall14

Thanks everyone for the help, I just sent her the same info as you guys. Curry/Shepherds pie seem to be ok she says (obviously I'll make sure there's no flour in them!) and I think she's going to bring her own breakfast stuff. I'm going to pop a set of new toaster bags into the box too as another friend of mine recommended it so they can have (gluten free) toast in the morning without too many worries.

My mums doing the baking for afternoon tea so that should help avoid cross contamination as she's in a different house. I can strip down the kitchen before cooking the curry and shepherds pie. I'll be sure to keep the shopping for the main house separately too.

Edit: Does anyone know if there is gluten free flour about? As in if mum cooked the normal scones/cakes and I made some gluten free ones too?

confusticated

Yep, you can buy it in most supermarkets, Dove's is the brand. You might need an extra egg to normal though, gluten-free baking tends to be drier and not hold together as well. I think the egg replaces the gluten in binding things together.

mirrorwall14

I'll definitely use a gluten free recipe too-thanks for the brand name! thanks for the links above guys-I'm on the hunt!

mirrorwall14

MissFlitworth wrote: »

If you're cooking for someone with coeliac you need to be really careful about cross contamination, even a trace amount of gluten in something you cook can make them really sick (like from a mixing bowl that had a little flour dust in it). A coeliac buddy always brings their own food to group trips away and cooks before everyone else cooks, following a pretty thorough clean down of the area, because they can't trust that someone who doesn't live with the condition will know enough not to accidentally gluten them. Sorry, I'm useless with food swap recommendations, but I'd definitely recommend involving person with the gluten intolerance in the prep in a big way so that they can help identify any dangers you might not know about (ie - soy sauce contains gluten, people perceive spelt to be gluten free and it isn't, some coeliacs also have a dairy intolerance etc. etc)

Thanks for the info. I'm going to email her the full recipes with all ingredients to get her to throw her eye over to be sure. Luckily no soy sauce in curry

searay

mirrorwall14 wrote: »

Thanks everyone for the help, I just sent her the same info as you guys. Curry/Shepherds pie seem to be ok she says (obviously I'll make sure there's no flour in them!) and I think she's going to bring her own breakfast stuff. I'm going to pop a set of new toaster bags into the box too as another friend of mine recommended it so they can have (gluten free) toast in the morning without too many worries.

My mums doing the baking for afternoon tea so that should help avoid cross contamination as she's in a different house. I can strip down the kitchen before cooking the curry and shepherds pie. I'll be sure to keep the shopping for the main house separately too.

Edit: Does anyone know if there is gluten free flour about? As in if mum cooked the normal scones/cakes and I made some gluten free ones too?

Odlums make a gluten free scone mix, costs around 3 euros and is often in the cake mix section of larger supermarkets. Makes lovely scones and saves having to worry about baking powders etc. all you need is an egg and water to mix.

Shenshen

mirrorwall14 wrote: »

Thanks everyone for the help, I just sent her the same info as you guys. Curry/Shepherds pie seem to be ok she says (obviously I'll make sure there's no flour in them!) and I think she's going to bring her own breakfast stuff. I'm going to pop a set of new toaster bags into the box too as another friend of mine recommended it so they can have (gluten free) toast in the morning without too many worries.

My mums doing the baking for afternoon tea so that should help avoid cross contamination as she's in a different house. I can strip down the kitchen before cooking the curry and shepherds pie. I'll be sure to keep the shopping for the main house separately too.

Edit: Does anyone know if there is gluten free flour about? As in if mum cooked the normal scones/cakes and I made some gluten free ones too?

I would say check the ingredients in your curry powder (should you be using this). I remember a coeliac friend of mine once ringing up Supervalu to check if they had any they could deliver to our workplace for an event and asking if it was gluten-free, to which they replied it wasn't...

0lddog

MW, The Coeliac Society ( "CSI" ) publish a booklet every year that lists gluten free foods and ingredients. Things like curry powder and sauces are by no means always gluten free ( from memory I think that the Goodalls curry powder is and some of the Knorr curry wet sauces are. ) To get the booklet you have to join the CSI - ( so it would be hardly worth your while ? )

There is a fair amount of chit chat on the CSI web site on the G/F status of various food products. Google is your friend to find the bits that you need.

e.g. for 'curry' put

'curry site:coeliac.ie' into a google search box

as for 'scones' just search for

'scone site:coeliac.ie'

etc etc

HTH

OD

MissFlitworth

On the scone thing, a family member has a gluten free parent in law and for the longest time when she used to stay in their house she'd accidentally 'gluten' the butter by buttering her own toast with it and sticking the knife back in the butter for more (needless to say it took a while before they became friends). So scones need their own butter and jam to stop that happening

hairway2Steven

gluten free patsa, A tomato based sauce is gluten free, any cream sauce can be replaced with creme fraise and parmesan, seasoning too and a glug of olive oil in lieu of flour based bechamels