MNBeth

Does anyone else get nervous, though, when they see things like stuffed pork chops or breaded fish fillets in the butcher case? I want to believe that meat processors in factories and stores have to be pretty fanatical about cleanup because, well, it's meat.

But it makes me nervous every time I see it.

Sorghum flour is about the best thing that's happened to my family since we went gluten-free. I rarely used white flour before going gluten free, so I wasn't eager to start baking with mixes of white rice flour and starches. I was looking for some nutritional value! Sorghum has really filled the bill, especially in quick breads like muffins and pancakes. I use 3 parts sorghum to 1 part starch - usually tapioca and potato, along with a little guar or xanthan gum. The best part is that I can use this in my own favorite recipes intstead of having to dig around for new gluten free versions of everything we used to love.

For sandwich bread I'm using, from greatest to least, sorghum, sweet brown rice, millet, potato starch and tapioca starch, so, again, I've got a greater proportion of whole grain than bare starches. And as gluten-free bread goes, we think it's pretty good.

I haven't given cookies enough attenion, yet, to I know what I like best for those.

But if I've learned anything from this process, it's that everybody has their own tastes, so your best bet is to just give it a try. It can be hard to be patient with the process; I tend to go in spurts. And I'm trying to make myself take notes every time, 'cause I hate it when something comes out well and I can't remember what I put in it!!

Let us know how it goes for you.

(One more thing about sorghum. We've noticed, at least in the summer, that sorghum baked goods like muffins would go funny if left at room temp for much more than 24 hours. They might last longer now that it's not so warm in the kitchen, but I've taken to freezing anything that doesn't get eaten that first day.)

Ditto what ptkids said. I had the KA grain mill, too, and I really think the grind is too coarse for gluten-free.

Even with wheat, while I was using the KA mill, I could only use whole wheat for about half the flour in bread or it would be too heavy. Once I got a Whisper Mill (now Wonder Mill), I could use straight whole wheat flour and make great bread.

I had to give that mill away once we went gluten-free, and replaced it with a NutriMill. I wish I'd gotten the Wonder Mill instead - the Nutrimill is agonizingly slow in comparison. I'm stunned that more people don't complain about that.

I'm milling brown rice and millet, mostly. I'd love to do sorghum, but I can't find an economical source for the whole grain.

It would be helpful to know what went into the bread you disliked, as recipes vary so widely. I can't help but wonder if there was bean flour in your recipe. My daughter did a gluten-free bread comparison science fair project last year when we were newbies, and the bean flour bread looked the best and tasted totally nasty! Since then, through trial and error, we've come up with a recipe we like pretty well.

Try to be patient. And maybe try a mix, like Jerseyangel said. I think they're a great way to get started.

I'm pretty much using my own recipe for bread after several months of playing around with it. I like Annalise Roberts, and my recipe is probably closer to her sandwich bread (from Baking Classics) than anything, though not quite the same. Eventually I'll probably start trying to tweak it some more, but, having found something that works, I'm taking a break for a while. Actually, what I'd really like to try is sourdough, but I just haven't been motivated enough to dig in.

I also make a lot of muffins for the family, and for those I use my favorite pre-gluten-free recipes, subbing a mix of 3 parts whole flour (mostly sorghum, sometimes some millet, too) and one part starch - potato and tapioca, usually. Works out great, but we have to freeze any that don't get eaten w/in 24 hours. The sorghum seems to go funny at room temp - at least in the summer it did. Don't know about now. The same flour mix also works great for pancakes.

I'll have to try teff in my bread. I've used it to make injera to go with an Ethiopian-type stew, but I haven't really tried it in anything else.

Sorry I'm not more help!

Voix,

I think you're right in guessing that most commercially available gluten-free breads fall more in the category of empty carbs than nutritious food. They certainly can vary, though, and the Glutino Fiber bread sounds promising, at least. I've never actually looked at it.

Before I went gluten-free, I was milling my own wheat at home and making all of our bread products precisely because I was concerned with nutrition. Since I had that whole grain mindset, it was alarming to me to start digging through gluten-free recipes and see that the vast majority of them relied heavily, if not solely, on white rice flour and starches.

I kept digging, though, and learned that it doesn't have to be that way. I'm back to baking virtually all of our bread products, and use whole grains like brown rice, sorghum and millet. I do use some starch, but try to keep it to 25% or less of the total flour in the recipe. I'm sure that bean flours would add greatly to the nutritional profile, and I think would also benefit in terms of texture. But so far we haven't liked the flavor. I need to play around some more with those.

I'm sorry I don't know the specific nutritional breakdowns. I'd love to get that sorted out, but haven't had the time so far. But I have a 16 yo boy to keep fed, and at least I feel like he's getting something worthwhile in his bread products.

Have you thought very carefully about cross contact in your own kitchen? When my son and I went gluten free last year, I tried to keep a mixed kitchen. It was hard work, though, and very stressful. My sister and her family do keep a mixed kitchen, and it makes me nervous when we're sharing a kitchen. (And last time they stayed here I did get sick.)

Some of the kinds of things that happen: Everyone eats something like pizza or burgers, which gets flour all over their hands. Then they're reaching into bags or bowls of gluten free things like chips or grapes and contaminating them. Those glutened hands are also handling ketchup bottles and butter dishes, and opening cabinets and drawers and the refrigerator, and moving chairs around, so I can get gluten on my hands just from touching the same things. I don't enjoy having to get up and wash my hands after I put ketchup on my burger.

Regular flour is notoriously hard to contain. It gets airborne when measuring and mixing and eventually drifts down onto everything exposed in the kitchen. I'm even wary of people's sugar canisters because they're so often right next to the flour canister and both are regularly opened at or near the same time.

Things like colanders, scratched or ruptured plastics and scratched nonstick cookware that are used for both gluten and gluten-free foods can often be the cause of gluten contamination.

So eventually we decided it was easier to keep the house mostly gluten free. We still buy some gluten cereals, but that's about it. It's a great relief for me not to have to be policing everyone's movements in the kitchen in order to keep my son and me from getting sick.

Do you bake? My 16 yo son and I went gluten free last year, and I'm keeping an almost gluten-free kitchen. (I still buy some regular cereals, but that's pretty much it.) I've found that I'm able to make most of my old favorite recipes with gluten free flour. My whole family eats them, and I serve them to guests who really, truly cannot tell the difference. (Not so w/yeast bread, but cookies, cakes and muffins have come out wonderfully.)

Other than that, Glutino pretzels are really good, and Kinnickinnick Oreo-like K-Toos. My son still eats PBJs, too. So far for us, homemade bread is best.

Gotta run! I'm sure you'll get plenty of good suggestions.

I was wondering if rice (maybe Arborio) or quinoa would be a better substitute for barley in a hamburger soup recipe? Is there anything else I could use other than rice or quinoa? I also use to eat barley for breakfast with fruit compote on top. What could else could I use?

I have a similar soup recipe w/ground beef and barley, and I like short grain brown rice as a substitute for the barley. It's chewier and more substantial than plain white rice, and also starchy enough to thicken the broth a bit like the barley did. Can't remember whether I've tried sweet brown rice, which would be starchier still.

I also like the short grain brown rice with cream or butter and brown sugar or maple syrup for breakfast, but I haven't played around much with other grains for hot cereal. Millet is next on my list to try, though there's another thread where several people have posted that they don't tolerate it. Hopefully I won't be one of those!

I'd love to get one of those Crock Pot Little Dippers to fix whole grain hot cereals in overnight. Maybe I'll ask for one for Christmas!

We're definitely boring and serve the same side dish with ham all the time - but we only have it a couple of times a year, so it's not that bad I guess.

Anyway, our standard side is a potato casserole made with frozen hash browns, sour cream, milk, butter, cheese and onions, and topped with buttered gluten-free cornflakes or crushed potato chips. It's pretty simple to throw together, and our whole extended family loves it.

Bob's Red Mill does NOT label their cornmeal as glutenfree. It is at their gluten-containing plant. Their products labeled gluten-free are done in a separate facility.

You're right; that was actually the point I meant to make, but I reorganized the sentence and inadvertently dropped the word "don't." My brain is not what it once was. Sigh.

I would wonder about the cornmeal. I've noticed that while Bob's Red Mill labels a lot of their products as being gluten free, they claim that their cornmeal is. I wonder if cross-contamination at the milling site might be a common issue with cornmeal.

... What is the usual price in MN?

Sorry so slow; it's usually somewhere between $3.15 and $3.65. $1.66 is rockin' - can't believe I actually went to another Walmart for science fair supplies for the kids and forgot to grab a few more boxes!

Well, I took the plunge, but I'm still on the fence about whether it was worth it. There are a few things I've seen, though.

Brown rice flour is definitely a LOT cheaper to mill from cheap brown rice than to buy. I don't think the flour from my mill is quite as fine as Authentic Foods brown rice flour, which is the best, from what I've read. So far, though, that hasn't been a problem for me. I don't use as much rice flour as I thought I would, so it's working in the quantities I'm using. I also mill sweet brown rice, and that's nice because I the sweet rice flour I find at the store is always white rice, and I prefer to use as much whole grain as possible.

I also do millet, and since I can get whole millet from the bulk bins at the natural foods store (where there's nothing gluteny in bins above or adjacent to it), that's cheaper for me than buying the flour. What I'm finding I use most, though, is sorghum flour, and so far I haven't found a local source of whole sorghum. If I order it, the shipping cost negates the savings from buying the whole grain. So I have a mill, but the flour I use the most of I still have to buy packaged. If I could get into a natural foods buying club where I could order whole sorghum (and millet) in bulk w/o paying exhorbitant shipping, I think I'd be set.

I bought a NutriMill because I was under the impression that it would mill slightly finer than the Wonder Mill, but I regret it. I don't like the design of the NutriMill at all. It's too hard to get the flour bin correctly locked in, and impossible to really see that it's correctly locked in. And it's SLOW, at least compared to the Whisper Mill I used to have. (The Whisper Mill company went out of business. The Wonder Mill is basically the same mill - made in the same factory, even.) And I don't find the flour to be any finer than I used to get with my Whisper Mill. If I had it to do over again, I'd definitely go with the Wonder Mill.

I just happened to be at Walmart last night, and just happened to need some Rice Chex, and did at least a triple take when I saw the price. I thought it must be wrong. I'm in Minnesota, and it was $1.66 here, too. Brought home 6 boxes. Wanted to get more, but felt a bit greedy.

Yup; me too. Now I'm back to sleeping like the dead.

I don't think it will take too many more episodes like this one to put you on your guard!

We're all different. I had wondered for a loooong time whether I might be gluten intolerant, and my dad has celiac, so I was well familiar with the drill. But I think it was also just in sync with my nature for me to become sort of food-obsessed. I never forgot - having to be gluten free was all I could think about. A year later it's still always pretty near the forefront. But then, we do need to eat every day...

Hi all,

My 2 yo daughter was just diagnosed. I have already tried 2 bread receipes that were complete failures. If anyone has any suggestions for a good bread roll pizza or pancake receipe I would really appreciate it!

Oh we also have to avoid all nuts, seeds, rice and bean flours

Thanks,

If you can find sorghum flour, it's my favorite for things like pancakes and muffins. I generally use 3/4 sorghum flour and 1/4 starch (potato and tapioca). I use that mix in my old favorite pancake and muffin recipes with great success. It's much more tender than rice flour, and sorghum is a whole grain flour, so it's much more healthful than using all starch.

I'm learning, though, that sorghum products don't keep well at room temperature, so it's best to freeze whatever doesn't get eaten the first day. Otherwise they develop a funky flavor and the texture goes weird. But they're great when they're fresh, or if kept frozen until needed.

I am going to Chicago in November for a few days and definately want to have some deep-dish gluten free pizza. I have read of a few places that offer it, but who has the best?!

Sorry; I don't know about deep dish - that's more of a tourist thing than a native Chicagoan habit, at least in my experience.

But in case you might be interested in "regular" pizza, too, Aurelio's has always been a favorite of mine. I grew up in the south suburbs, and the original restaurant is down in Homewood. But there are franchises all over the Chicago area now, and I was tickled this summer when I found out they were doing gluten-free pizza. I thought I'd never have their pizza again.

I think they're just using Kinnickinnick crusts, actually, but for me it's all about the sauce and toppings, anyway, and in that sense it was just like old times! And I didn't get sick, so it seems like they're being careful about cc.

Here's a link to their locations:

Open Original Shared Link

I don't think all the locations do gluten-free, so make sure you call the specific one you want and check on it.

Sorry I can't help w/the deep dish, but the Malnati's sounds like a great option.

She insisted that bread does not have gluten in it if you make it yourself, and pointed to the fact that you can buy gluten separately as "proof" that it is added later to bread.

Vivid evidence that a *little* knowlege can be dangerous!

We went to Cheesecake Factory yesterday, ...

I did order their Godiva chocolate cheesecake (flourless crust) and it went down well

I'm glad you didn't get sick, but I would be cautious about Godiva and Cheesecake Factory cheesecake, based on comments of other posters who have contacted the companies:

From Smiles, 8-28-08: I was not sure where to post this, but I contacted cheesecake factory because that is the food I will probably most miss and even though sugar is out of question for the moment with me, I would like to one day eat a cheesecake again....

Here is there response:

Thank you for your email!

Our Godiva Chocolate Cheesecake is gluten free. However, the pan that is baked in is sprayed with a pan release that contains a trace amount of flour.

From olalisa, 2-8-07: I went to their (Godiva's) website a while back and did the online chat with a person there who sent me their official statement that none of the chocolates are safe for someone with gluten intolerance. I wish I had copied it so that you could read it here, but it was pretty clear.

Just thought you might want to know.

Hi Nina,

I'm an American, but all of my ancestors are from Sweden. My mother's parents spoke Swedish at home, and both my parents grew up in Swedish immigrant communities, so I still feel somewhat tied to that background. (MorFar was from Orebro, but that's all I know.) I live in Minnesota, now, which also has lots of Swedish immigrants and history.

Welcome to the group!

Beth Nordquist*

* My husband has a Swede or two in his family tree, too! :-)

Whether or not gluten can be absorbed through the skin is a topic of some debate, but I have decided to use only gluten-free makeup quite apart from that question. I just know that I'm not a person who never touches my face. I don't want to have to worry about getting gluten on my hands every time I scratch an itch or brush a stray hair out of my face.

If the amount of hand dish washing detergent available on the store shelves is any indication, I'd say there is still a LOT of hand washing going on in households across the land.

I don't know that that relates to having a dishwasher or not. Even having a dishwasher, we don't have many meals that don't require some hand washing, too.

Olive Garden: you didn't miss much --- as Italian food goes, their stuff is an American interpretation of Italian food (I'm Italian descent and lived with grandparents who were from Italy who cooked authentically)

Oh, I know! I'm from the Chicago area, and we had wonderful Italian neighbors, and no end of great real Italian restaurants. I only went because my daughter's been wanting to go, it was her birthday, and it was a rare chance to go where she wanted - not where it works best for her gluten-free brother and I. I won't miss it a bit.