Cooking from scratch is time-consuming, albeit worth it, but cooking two different meals three times a day is downright impossible. Early on, we decided that for breakfast and lunch we would keep things on hand that Esther could make for herself, like granola, lots of fruits and veggies, ingredients for fruit smoothies, homemade corn chips and hummus. For dinner then, we pursued recipes that all of us could enjoy. Sometimes we just needed to make some adjustments in ingredients to “fix” a recipe for Esther’s use. These are some of our basics.
Fleischmann’s unsalted margarine is lactose free and makes a good substitute for butter in most recipes. It is slightly more oily and less rich than its counterpart, but tastes good. Using it in baking produces a more crispy product (like using Crisco); sometimes it helps to cut down on the amount a bit.
Silk makes a very good soy milk; its creamy texture and sweet taste makes it behave like evaporated milk in recipes. It is great in desserts, on hot cereals, in fruit smoothies. Esther has learned to like it well enough to prefer it over cow’s milk, but the after taste still makes me wince a bit. Vegetable broths substitute better in gravies and savory sauces. I am learning to save the liquid from boiled potatoes to add in when mashing them; with salt and pepper and a chunk of Fleischmann’s unsalted margarine they are just as good as the the way I used to make them.
Deboles and Tinkyada make corn and brown rice pastas that are treasures for a girl whose favorite food used to be noodles. Of course they can’t have cheese on them, but a good meat sauce on spaghetti or spiral noodles is a welcome variation over beans and rice. Because of the cost I usually make a separate handful of pasta for her, in another pan, and then we share the sauce.
Uncle Bob’s Red Mill has a whole line of gluten free baking products. The all purpose flour, baking mix, and hot cereal are all substitutes in regular recipes, though the flours do best with other strong flavors– they get their good texture from ground up garbanzo and fava beans, which gives a slight vegetable taste to the flour. (One of these days I’ll write about the ongoing quest for flour and baked goods.) The bread, brownies, and cake mixes are expensive though– it is easier just to use your own recipes once you have the flour, soy milk, and Fleischmann’s to work with!
Along those lines, it was a happy day when we realized that baking cocoa has no lactose in it. There are many ooey-gooey chocolate baked goodies that use baking cocoa, and with some experimenting and substituting we turned out some remarkable brownies and a cake to satisfy any teenage girl that is feeling deprived.
Sometimes it is just a matter of going to a better brand to find food that is “safe.” We have found that bigger companies don’t need to use their factories for so many different products and don’t add as many fillers to the foods. For example, the store brand of peanuts might have a whole list of ingredients besides the nuts, and the label has an allergy warning that it was processed in a factory that also processes wheat and dairy. Planter’s brand contains only the nuts and salt, and was manufactured in a dedicated facility. It is worth the extra money for the better quality item.
At first we were delighted to find ready-made foods that were labeled “gluten free,” but we soon learned that these are not only expensive but they taste very “processed” to someone who is used to homemade “food from scratch,” and often do not contain much nutrition for a recovering digestive system. Rather than buy animal crackers and cookies and pretzels with the right labels on them, we decided it was better to find new things to snack on that we could make ourselves and would be tasty and healthy.
Label reading has become a regular past time in our house. If the complete information cannot be found on the label, more can be found on company’s websites, and on celiacs’ forums. (This is especially helpful when the label checks out fine but it is still causing an unpleasant reaction. That seems to be rather common, unfortunately, whether because of lax standards of measurements or because of inconsistent labeling regulations.)
It takes a lot of reading and experimenting to find good recipes that will work for the whole family and still be easy on a damaged digestive system, but it is possible! I am constantly adding to our repertoire here at home and also finding things Esther can make for herself at school or that can be sent along with her. We’ll keep you posted! In the meantime, here is Esther’s Hot Fudge Pudding Cake.
