lpellegr

I've seen this little guy used when people are being sneaky or mysterious. I haven't been able to come up with just the right occasion to use it yet!

I hear they are building a PF Chang's near me - I hope so, there aren't enough choices for a decent dinner out around here!!!!

Jules Thin Crust Pizza in Doylestown serves gluten-free pizza! I haven't been there, but other people on this forum said it was great. They have a website: Open Original Shared Link

The Easy Pizza recipe on the page right before Bette Hagman's Bean Flour Pizza Crust (the one this thread is about) is really good and actually bakes up better with her original blend than with the bean flour, so if you like a thick crust pizza with no beans, this is good.

You probably will want to have duplicates of the mayonnaise, peanut butter, margarine, mustard, etc. I bought stickers and then wrote on them: bright green with "gluten-free" means mom's, don't touch. Red with "not gluten-free" means everybody but mom should use that one. Anything not labeled I don't touch. I also label packaged and canned food so if my husband is cooking he'll know I can have the Bush beans but not the Campbell's. I took over one of the drawers in the fridge for all my condiments, cheese, lunchmeat, anything else that I want their gluten-y hands off, since none of them ever think to bend over and open a drawer to look for something they want. I have sheets of the red and green stickers clipped to the fridge so they are easy to find when I bring home groceries.

Best symptom lost? No more poisonous, foul, constant gas that made me wish I could crawl under a rock for 30 years. Second best? My skin used to turn red and itch and even sprout hives for half an hour whenever it got cold - not any more. Probably due to lowered inflammatory chemicals running around my bod in response to gluten. No more waking up at night to pee, no more IBS symptoms. I didn't know how messed up my digestive system was until it normalled up. And one side effect - less chance of gaining weight by partaking of every donut, cake, cookie, or slice of pizza that someone brings to work!

Best symptom lost? No more poisonous, foul, constant gas that made me wish I could crawl under a rock for 30 years. Second best? My skin used to turn red and itch and even sprout hives for half an hour whenever it got cold - not any more. Probably due to lowered inflammatory chemicals running around my bod in response to gluten. No more waking up at night to pee, no more IBS symptoms. I didn't know how messed up my digestive system was until it normalled up. And one side effect - less chance of gaining weight by partaking of every donut, cake, cookie, or slice of pizza that someone brings to work!

This is from a Philadelphia Inquirer article about eating gluten free, from 3/23/06. Try Buddakan, Django, The Fitzwater Cafe, and Radicchio in Center City; Rx and the Marigold Dining Room in West Philly, and Margaret Kuo's in Wayne. The article says that these are willing to provide gluten-free menu choices. Also try My Thai. This article was about Ross Cohen, who came up with the Triumph dining cards.

Home fries! Peel and slice raw potatoes, fry in plenty of margarine or oil, covered, turning over with a spatula once in a while until potatoes are cooked through and some are nice and brown and crunchy. Or chop up cooked potatoes and fry until crispy. Add onions, peppers, whatever you like.

I gross my kids out by eating eggs scrambled with chopped sauteed kale or spinach, cheese, and any kind of meat hanging around, and it keeps me full all morning. Yeah, I pretty much gave up on cereals and pastries, and I lost weight and stay full longer, so good all around. It's easier to make a crustless quiche and cut it into pieces than to cook the eggs etc every day.

Bob's Mighty Tasty gluten-free Hot Cereal is pretty good - heartier than just cream of rice or grits. I haven't noticed any reaction to it myself, so if you're willing to take a chance, I think it's a good hot cereal.

Anybody else work in science labs? I had a funny thought the other day, that I have worked very carefully with radioactive things, I have worked very carefully with sterile cell culture, and I don't think I ever worked so hard at avoiding cross-contamination of one thing by another as I do with this diet!

It could be the vinegar. According to the Clan Thompson list, Vlasic pickles are gluten-free but are manufactured on the same lines as gluten-containing foods.

Here's a post from another thread. I don't know if this will help because he doesn't specify what flours or whether there is Xanthan gum in it. I have made noodles using Bette Hagman's recipe and they were good except for tasting and smelling very eggy. I think your Italian neighbor could see if this recipe will work. Let us all know how it turns out!

All you need for the dough is (for 1 person):

100 g of gluten-free flour mix;

1 egg (all of it);

1 table spoon extra virgin olive oil.

The time required is much shorter than ordinary homemade pasta, 'cause it's not a good idea to let pasta layer dry out: they'll break!

I get helped by using a bowl, in which I put almost all flour. Into it I add at a time the egg and the olive oil. I stir it all with a spoon. Then, when the dough starts to be drier, I shape a ball with my hands, I put it on the table and I handle it as grandma would. Once the dough is homogenous, I can either cut it into spaghetti (with the proper machine), or into layers, which will be then cut into tagliatelle rather than lasagne...

As ordinary homemade pasta, it is to be boiled in salted water for a few minutes. Then your pasta can be flavoured with a sauce. Sauces can range from very dry (aglio olio e peperoncino = garlic, e.v. olive oil and chilly) to something made with tomatoes, cream or even fish!!

Many greetings from Italy

Fabio Max

From another gluten-free Lee:

How about lunchmeats and cheeses? I have been buying prepackaged ham and cheese (Oscar Mayer and Kraft are safe) and rolling them up together for breakfast, lunch, or even snacks. I find these keep me full for longer than any carb-based foods. Throw in some fruit, carrots, or other veggies and the fiber will keep you satisfied even longer. Other good traveling foods (if you can take a cooler in some cases):

Baggies of gluten-free cereal for snacks

peanuts and raisins mixed

celery and peanut butter

cheese sticks

small cans or flat packs of tuna with individual packets of Hellman's mayo and Nut Thins crackers

Dinty Moore shelf-stable dinners that you can microwave

Individual servings of Bush beans with pop-tops

small bags of prewashed salad mixes - toss in some cheese chunks and sunflower seeds or a can of shrimp

Hard boiled eggs

little bags of tiny carrots (even if they have SpongeBob on them)

I have been trying to avoid middle-aged spread so I tend to focus on protein foods. I find they keep me satisfied longer, I actually lost weight, and my cholesterol has been fine (granted, I'm on Vytorin, but the levels have been great). When I travel I usually have a big stash in my luggage but then I wear a huge fanny pack that has space for a little can of tuna and enough food (like above) for a meal, including napkins and plastic cutlery. I did learn that cheese sticks melt if you're out on a 90 degree day, though!

I used to bake lots of bread by hand, but it has been a challenge to find something good. After lots of tries I found one Bette Hagman recipe that seems to work for me every time (except the last one - oh well, you can always turn it into crumbs). I make the Almost Pumpernickel bread from The Gluten-Free Gourmet, revised edition. I leave out the caraway seeds and cocoa powder if I want it to be less like pumpernickel and more like white. This is the only recipe so far that is moist and stretchy on the inside and lasts like that for days. In general I don't eat much bread, but when I want bread this is the one. The Rapid Rise French Bread from More From the Gluten-Free Gourmet is really good hot out of the oven, and if you make it in baguette pans you can slice it the long way and it makes really good french bread pizza - I have even frozen them with all the toppings and been very impressed at how good they are. One more recommendation also from More From the GFG: the Caraway Soda Bread. This is a round bread baked in a casserole and has no yeast, but when it's fresh the exterior is just like a biscuit, and when it's cooled you can slice it and it is very moist and can hold together for sandwiches. Let me know if you want me to write out all these recipes, or you might be able to find them at a library and make copies. And when I want bread for crumbs I use Bette's True Yeast Bread (revised) from The Gluten Free Gourmet, because it's guaranteed to crumble . Sometimes I make a loaf of that just for the crumbs. Have you seen the price of gluten-free bread crumbs?

Does your gluten-free flour mix contain xanthan gum?

Boar's Head bacon actually says gluten-free on the package! Tasty, too. I stock up when it's on sale. If you gotta have protein, might as well make it taste good. A Chinese co-worker once told me that when she first came to the US she asked her father (who had come earlier) what she should eat, and he said, "Bacon! It's delicious!" I wholeheartedly agree.

If you can find frozen hashbrown potato patties (like McD's hash browns) they make very good mini-pizzas with even less work. When I was newly diagnosed and feeding my family english muffin pizzas, this was my version of dinner, and everyone pouted when I wouldn't share.

I had the black soy pasta and really liked it, but it isn't the texture you expect from pasta. It has a nice chewiness to it, almost like meat, and the only flavor I remember is the sauce I put on it, so it must not have a very "soy" taste. I would get it again if I could find it. I think we got it at Wegman's.

If you have an Asian grocery store nearby you can get rice flour, tapioca flour, etc much cheaper and usually ground finer - the rice flour's not so sandy-textured. At 3 1-lb packages of white rice flour for $1, I stock up there instead of paying $4 for a pound and a half in a regular store. And the cost of xanthan gum hurts, but it does last a while. Just don't do what I did and spill most of it the first time you use it.

Clan Thompson says that Burt's Bees Beeswax Lip Balm tin and tube and Lifeguard's choice and lip gloss are all gluten-free. Other gluten-free lip balms:

Blistex lip ointment

Blistex lip balm, regular, mint, berry

Chapstick lip moisturizer spf 15

Children's chapstick flava-craze, grape or fruit punch

I believe the Neutrogena lip moisturizer stick is also gluten-free. And if all else fails, petroleum jelly works great - put some on at bedtime to heal cracks and chronic dryness.

Sesame and seaweed is good - it tastes like garlic, onion, soy, or teriyaki, but you would never pick "seaweed" to identify the flavor. Love 'em. Agreed, hard not to eat a whole bag at a time.

A suggestion for crackers - I don't miss bread, but when you want something crunchy or want to spread some cheese or peanut butter you need crackers! There are rice crackers around, usually on the shelf with the Asian foods, but I'm not sure all of them are safe so read the labels to make sure they don't include soy sauce or anything iffy. Nut Thins are the absolute best gluten-free cracker out there and you can sometimes find them in a regular grocery store! They are not made in a dedicated gluten-free facility, so if you are very sensitive to cross-contamination you should take that into consideration, but so far I've not had any problems. I have also learned to make homemade crackers that are kind of like Wheat Thins, but I haven't found any substitute for Ritz or saltines. Some of the online sites carry crackers that claim to be "just like Ritz" so if you have a casserole that's just not the same without the crushed Ritz on top and you don't mind the expense you could find a substitute. I also found Glutano crackers online in small packages so you can carry them with you when traveling - they are not saltines, but not too far from it and are nice for tuna or peanut butter. I wish I could remember which online site had them - do a search or go to the Gluten-free Mall and you might find them.

Here's one if you have leftover gluten-free breadcrumbs (sometimes I bake a loaf of bread just to make it into crumbs):

Slice raw boneless skinless chicken breasts to about 1/4", then put them between plastic wrap and pound them just a little thinner (skip the pounding if you are good at slicing thinner than 1/4").

Make breading (I just guess at how much I'll need so I can't give you measurements):

half gluten-free bread crumbs

half finely chopped walnuts or pecans

salt, nutmeg to taste

Beat together one egg and a few spoonfuls of brown mustard and dip chicken in this or brush it onto both sides. Coat chicken slices in breading and let it sit 15-30 min to set up a little. Saute on each side in a mix of olive oil and butter until browned and cooked through. This is phenomenal and worth the work. Also works with turkey breast, and you could probably use any kind of mustard that floats your boat. I'm drooling just thinking about it and wish I was having it tonight!

Thanks! Lots of good info here. I have thought about leaving a bottle in the car, but considering how much heat builds up in a parked car in summer and how cold it gets in winter, it's not a good idea to leave any foods or meds in your car. I'll check out some of those web sites. My daughter, although not positive on blood test, has so many gut problems she has also started eating gluten free (with good results) so we will both appreciate any portable soy sauce!

Work group is going out to a Thai restaurant for lunch on Friday. Not going is not an option because we work for a psychopath, but I digress. I'll take my Triumph thai dining card and I'm going to try to fax it in ahead of time, but if anybody out there in celiac world has suggestions for dishes that are or can easily be made gluten-free I'd be most appreciative.