lpellegr

I'm flying next week, going to Birmingham via Frankfurt, and wondered if anyone had had experience with gluten-free meals on US Airways. I'm going to assume that it might not be edible and pack extra food accordingly, but I'd appreciate any thoughts from someone who had been there and done that. One good note, though - the conference I'm going to provides a free lunch every day and they will actually have gluten-free meals available! You go, UK. Hear that, US? You need to catch up.

When making my own bean or lentil or split pea soup, I have frequently found random grains in the dry beans, so it wouldn't surprise me if canned beans were contaminated to some extent. Be wary of canned soups.

I tried gluten-free oats at some point after I went gluten-free, and I had the same symptoms as with gluten, so for some of us we just have to avoid oats. It does suck, doesn't it, having to still check the label even when it says gluten-free. It's possible that a new oat challenge would work for me after 8 years, but I'm not willing to chance it.

I would hesitate to eat at Panera simply because they bake bread there with gluten flour, and I would expect the air to be saturated with flour dust, which would contaminate everything there. So eat there if that doesn't bother you, but if you have doubts about any particular food, like the chicken, you are safer skipping it. That's a good general rule for us - if you have doubts, then skip it.

Based on those amounts, I'd guess that it contains 2 c of flour total. Good luck! Don't add all the water until you see how the dough looks - keep back about 1/4 cup. The dough should be thick and sticky, but not runny. If it looks too thick, add more water, about a tablespoon at a time and mix it in.

The dry milk they add is to increase the amount of protein, since most of the substitutes (especially rice, tapioca, and potato flours) don't have much protein, and it helps the bread retain its structure.

You have to know that you will probably never find any replacement bread, especially homemade, that has the soft, spongy texture of store-bought white bread, or the ability to stay fresh on the shelf for long. This will be a disappointment at first, but you will either eventually get used to this kind of bread or you will decide that it's not worth eating bread that isn't good. Many of us learn to eat sandwich fillings that aren't between two pieces of bread, but on a plate or rolled in a corn tortilla or scooped up with crackers or celery. If you are determined to keep eating as much bread as you are used to, then try all the different kinds that are commercially available and see what you like (look on this forum for recommendations). If you want to try making your own, start with mixes before going out and spending money on xanthan gum and 12 different flours. At least you don't have to knead (you couldn't if you wanted to, because it will be sticky)!

This forum will be very helpful, but there are also books out there that can educate you, and lots and lots of cookbooks. This seems very daunting, but eventually will be second nature, hard as that may be to believe now.

Check out the gluten free Baklava making video on Utube

But what recipe did they use that gave them a dough that wasn't sticky? Can't remember the last time I had gluten-free dough that you could roll like that.

Oooh, I have to look this up for the next time I'm in Philly! Thanks!

If it's too hot to cook and you don't have refrigeration where you'll be, then the easiest thing is to bring individually wrapped things, like cups of tuna and applesauce, a bag of crackers, a little hummus, carrots, etc. Even refrigerated things like yogurt, cheese sticks, and hard boiled eggs will keep for a little while at room temp. Roll up lunchmeat and cheese slices around pickle or cucumber spears. Treat yourself to some Pirate Booty or a Snickers bar to make up for having to eat differently from the rest. They will want what you have!

Based on some of the recipes I make, I'd give this a try:

Mix the tapioca, brown rice, sorghum, and potato for a total of 2 cups (I'd use 1 cup of brown rice and split the other cup between the rest). 2 or 3 T of ground flaxseed meal, a T of sesame seeds, 1 t of salt, as many sunflower seeds as you like, 2 t of xanthan gum. Mix all those ingredients. I don't know how evaporated cane juice is used or even if you can get it, but a little sugar (maybe 2 t) will help it brown and feed the yeast. Put 2-1/4 t of dry yeast (or one package) in a cup and add a little sugar (1/2 t). To the yeast add about 1/4 cup of warm water and stir, then let it sit for a few minutes. When it has become bubbly and is obviously growing, then you can add it to the dry ingredients along with enough warm water to get all of the dry ingredients wet (probably about 3/4 of a cup, but this can vary and is the trickiest part of these recipes). Mix on medium - high for 3-4 minutes to make sure it's well mixed. It should become smooth except for the seeds and be thicker than cake batter but thinner than normal bread dough (yeah, I know, that's easy for me to say).

Scrape it into a greased 4 1/2 x 8 1/2 pan, cover it with a clean towel and let rise. Preheat the oven to 350. When it rises to the top of the pan (not higher), put it in the oven for 10 minutes. At that point, cover it loosely with foil and bake another 45-50 minutes. At the end of that time, press a finger gently on the top - if it seems very soft and spongy, give it another 5 minutes, and repeat if necessary. Remove from pan to cool. Don't slice it until it is cool.

Without knowing their recipe, it could come out very different but it should still be edible. And you can always use it for croutons. Many recipes have some fat (oil or melted butter) and some eggs to help moisten them and hold them together. You could try that, but watch the amount of water you add because you will have already added some liquid. If you want a larger loaf increase the flours to a total of 3 cups and use a larger pan and another t of xanthan gum, along with more water but no increase in yeast. I have better luck with 2-cup recipes. Good luck!

Just wondering why sugar is no good but honey is okay? Sucrose is glucose + fructose, and honey is full of fructose, which signals your liver to make fat, so you're not gaining any health benefits by substituting honey for normal table sugar.

Hershey Park is very good with gluten-free. I had the best gluten-free pizza EVER at Hershey Park - I don't remember the name, but it's near the big flume ride. And it's a really nice park.

You also have to consider that since plenty of labels don't say anything about other things that might share the lines or factory, you could be eating things that "may contain traces of wheat" all the time without knowing it, so while it's good to avoid the potential contamination that they tell you about, it still won't keep you 100% safe. That said, if the package states that there's a chance for cross-contamination, I mentally thank them for their honesty and step away from the product.

Because of shared packaging equipment, it's not uncommon to find a grain or two of something in a bag of dried beans, peas, or lentils, so it wouldn't surprise me if some of that made its way into canned beans. I will buy the dry beans/peas/lentils, pour them into a dish, sort through them to pick out anything that isn't supposed to be there, then repeatedly wash them under running water before cooking them. I tell myself that this will wash away any gluten dust, and most of the time it seems to be fine. I don't want to skip split pea soup for the rest of my life, so this is how I handle it.

We always scooped up ice cream with pretzels, and my mom salted her watermelon. Cottage cheese with apple butter is familiar to those in the PA dutch regions. I used to really like to put hot mashed potatoes on a slice of heavily buttered rye bread (pre-celiac, alas).

I like Lubriderm. Easy to find.

In the absence of bacon, scooping up your ice cream with salted pretzels is also lovely.

Anyone know if the Burger King bacon sundae is safe? I expect it would be, but...

Thaw it, slice it thin and put into a ziploc bag. Douse with interesting ingredients, squoosh it around until all chicken is coated, and let marinate in fridge for an hour or more. I like olive oil, cider or wine vinegar, worcestershire sauce, garlic powder, onion powder, and salt, but all kinds of things work. You should have some kind of oil and some kind of acid - lemon juice or vinegar. Saute the slices until cooked through (you don't even need to add more oil to the pan), then cut up and add to green salads or just eat.

Get a colander dedicated just for gluten-free pasta because you'll never get the old one clean enough. Always wash your hands before you handle your food or eat, because you know that somewhere, some time, you might have touched something gluteny, like the fridge handle. Cleaning surfaces before you eat or prepare food should help keep cross-contamination down. Buy a pile of cheap washcloths and use a fresh one for each wipedown, so you don't have gluten crumbs lurking (or use paper towels, but that's wasteful).

I have made the Ginger Lemon Girl bread a lot, and it's really good, in a dense whole-grain kind of way. I follow her recipe except for the Sure Jell, which I leave out, and use 3 whole eggs instead of two whole eggs and two egg whites. I use butter instead of margarine. The trick is to know how much water to use - never use all of the water a bread recipe calls for until you know you really need that much. I put the dry ingredients in the Kitchenaid, including the brown sugar, and mix. Then I add the proofed yeast, the eggs, and the melted butter and start the mixer, with 1-1/4 c of warm water standing by. As the mixer starts incorporating the other wet stuff, I pour in the water slowly and watch the dry stuff at the bottom of the bowl. When all of the dry ingredients have become wet, that's usually enough water. This bread does not become light and airy. Only let it rise to the top of the pan, then bake for 10 minutes naked, then cover with foil for the rest of the baking time (that's another 45-50 minutes in my oven). It should feel a little springy in the center but not too much. Don't be afraid to bake for another 5 minutes if it feels squishy. This will stay moist for a few days at room temp, but I always let it cool, slice, and freeze in pairs.

Note: the King Arthur Flour pans that they recommend for gluten-free bread work well with this recipe, making nice square slices ideal for grilled cheese. Also note: I calculated the calories in this bread, and for a loaf divided into 14 slices, it came out to 200 calories a slice, so any sandwich starts with 400 calories before you even add filling!

Leftover meatloaf and New Jersey strawberries. Or maybe potato salad.

It could be the vegetable cellulose - they may have made that from wheat. You may have to call them. Simplest thing is to just not use any product that says it contains wheat.

In addition, doesn't ELISA require whole proteins while at least some protein fractions are as harmful to a celiac as the whole? I'm not entirely clear on this.

Since ELISA tests use antibodies against the protein of interest, you may or may not need whole protein depending on the particular antibody chosen and its antigen. So an ELISA could pick up a fragment of a protein if the test was designed with the proper antibodies to do so. Can't make a generalization, however. A gluten protein broken up into smaller pieces can indeed be just as harmful to a celiac as a whole protein, otherwise the act of digestion would render the gluten safe.

I don't use Bisquick, but I know many of you do, and the price of the gluten-free one is disgusting. In an old book, "Cheaper and Better" by Nancy Birnes, she give homemade recipes for a lot of common processed products, and here's her recipe for the equivalent of Bisquick. This was meant to be made with all-purpose flour, but I'll bet a white (rice/potato/tapioca/cornstarch) gluten-free flour mix that contains xanthan gum could be substituted for the same result.

10 cups flour

1/3 cup baking powder

1 Tbsp salt

2 cups shortening

1. Sift dry ingredients in a large bowl. Using a pastry blender, a food processor, or your favorite method, cut in the shortening, a little at a time, until it is the texture of coarse cornmeal.

2. Keep stored in a tightly closed container. Room temperature if cool and dry, in the fridge if hot and humid. Use like Bisquick.

A lot of very cool things in this book, if you can find it.