Going Gluten Free – A few Questions

saw50st8

Mon, Apr 30 2012, 8:24 am

I discovered a few months ago that I was gluten intolerant. There was no way for me to be gluten free the last few months, but I am ready to get started. A few questions:

1) Where is the best place to buy your gluten free flours? What type of flour is your favorite? I’ve been reading about using almond flour as a replacement for regular flour. Any thoughts?
2) Where do you buy GF oat flour? (my husband doesn’t need to be GF but I want to attempt GF hamotzi if I am not sensitive)
3) How do you fill up? My entire family is large eaters and I am wondering about the overall effect on our grocery budget.
4) Do you serve your guests GF food? Do you buy challah for them?
5) What are your fast meal ideas?

Please give me your best tips for going GF.

Thanks for your help!

Happy 2B

Mon, Apr 30 2012, 10:27 am

I am not gluten free. But many of my family members are and therefore I often cook gluten free. So I will answer some of your questions.

My sister does not cook gluten free everything. she has regular challah at her table and makes gluten free rolls for herself and her husband.

Most suppers you cook are gluten free already unless you serve alot of bread. Think chicken, meatballs, hamburgers etc. All most of the time gluten free.

I happen to like the brown rice pasta and it's healthier so I use it in my own home but if my sister is making pasta she would make two pots one for the kids and one for herself because her kids can be picky.

I don't think it's very hard to cook gluten free. Instead of flour in small amounts in recipes I use potato starch or corn starch.

Gefen Cornflake crumbs is gluten free. She also uses Rice chex cereal which she crumbles up onto fish or chicken for crumbs.

We stock up on some items pesach time. I make my father pesachdik kneidlach all year round.

Freunds regular fish all year round I believe is gluten free just check the wrapper. Otherwise several companies make gluten free. Your local fish store might make their fish and often they are gluten free if the store does not put in flour (ask)

Basically protein is gluten free and side dishes you can serve potatoes, rice, quinoa, and not other rice based pastas. (which I happen to do anyway)

I don't know where is the best place to get oat or almond flour. There is a gluten free shop in Boro park though. They sell gluten free rolls that my father buys in the healthfood store Landua's located at 5203 13th Ave.

The Brown rice pasta you can buy in the regular grocery store like kollel or super 13.

If you want to be very careful see if any stores have pesachdik'e groceries as people with very sensitive stomaches would only use pesachdik spics as spices all year round can have some wheat in them.

The gluten free Shoppe is located at 3918 16ths avenue.

Hatzlocha!

Hashem_Yaazor

Mon, Apr 30 2012, 10:38 am

saw50st8 wrote:

We are not gluten free, but my son is sensitive to wheat (meaning he can have gluten in other forms, and it doesn't seem like spelt is an issue -- just wheat that we can detect right now, but it's a massive trigger).

I have not used almond flour, except in one specific recipe where I just ground up almonds myself (I think they were called power bars or something like that on oceansofjoy.wordpress.com -- delicious!)

I have brown rice flour, xantham gum, potato starch, and I'm trying to get a hold of tapioca flour/starch to make Seraph's GF mix from her site.

I basically make wheatless foods or if I make a dish that has wheat, I'll serve him a substitute or make it for the whole family, depending on what it is....for example, last week I made a chicken/penne dish that I just used brown rice pasta in instead. It cost $2 extra but it wasn't worth the hassle for me to make 2 pots of pasta, and I know my kids like it. This week, I'm going to make some meatballs but I'll make rice in addition to spaghetti.

Shabbos this past week was regular challah (he has spelt matzah or has one piece of challah because the allergist said he should have wheat in moderation or it can make it worse) non-gebrochts gefilte fish, chicken soup with noodles separate for anyone who wants that, chicken, rice with onions and almonds, sweet potato muffins (not GF), cranberry oat muffins (I didn't use GF oats as gluten isn't the issue so I'm not so worried about contamination) and brown rice flour instead of wheat flour (it fell apart more, even though I thought crumb coating shouldn't make too much of a difference; I think I'll add more oil next time), green beans, and brownies (regular for us and for him I made a batch of GF, cut it up and wrapped them individually in the freezer to take out a serving for dessert each time).

Today I am making a quiche and instead of making a speciality crust, I'm just making it crustless.
Things like that...

If you want to know my grocery bills since Pesach (and this is with little stocked up before since we don't sell chometz gamur):
I spent IIRC $120, $90, $152 (this week) for a family of 6 eaters.

It took me a long while to figure out how to balance the budget, as I was spending around $200 at the beginning. I've cut back dramatically on veggie straws which was a splurge, and that has helped. A lot of the money I spent was on trying to come up with novel lunch ideas to keep my son happy, but really that doesn't apply to you.

Also, I splurged and bought a $3 pack of GF pizza crust mix (I have made it on my own, but I'm not sure it's cheaper) -- this made 2 pizzas. I cut them up and froze them in 2 slice portions, and sent him to school with one of those portions today. For the rest of the family, I made regular homemade pizza to save money.

I have found by making a lot of the no wheat food and putting it in the freezer, I don't feel overworked making 2 separate dishes for the family as I usually have something to rely on for my son.

Fast meals are the same as they always were...I can do tacos: brown beef and add sauce and cook the rice separately when I don't have much time.
Also, if you do some work on Sundays making your own chicken nuggets and putting them in the freezer, it saves money and it saves time when you're in a rush on a weeknight.

anon for this

Mon, Apr 30 2012, 10:47 am

My daughter was diagnosed with celiac disease ten years ago and has been GF since. She does eat oats, though. Happy2B posted a lot of helpful ideas.

My daughter used to eat GF breads made with rice or tapioca flour. Now she just eats rice cakes (some types include wheat or other grains, so read the ingredients). For hamotzi I bake oat rolls for her--I grind quick cooking oats in my food processor instead of buying oat flour.

As Happy2B wrote, recipes that use flour as a thickening agent can be made GF by substituting corn starch or potato starch. I use quick cooking oats (or potato starch on pesach) in foods like meat loaf instead of flour or matza meal. In place of bread crumbs I use a mixture of potato flakes and starch. I tried the GF kneidlach but they kept falling apart--this year I made pesach noodles using a crepes recipe and they were much more successful.

We all eat a lot of brown rice, but when I serve pasta I prepare brown rice pasta for my daughter and regular pasta for the rest of the family, because my other kids are picky. The pasta can be purchased at most grocery stores.

bandcm

Mon, Apr 30 2012, 10:52 am

The Americna gluten free cake and bread flours are terrible, meaning that the texture of the baked product is different to regular. I always thought this was a given until I was in the UK and bought gf cake and bread flour. There is NO DIFFERENCE between cakes, pies, cookies,pancakes made witht htis flour than regular self raising wheat flour. Since then (we live in Brazil) I have brought suitcases full of flour with me every year when I visit England. I empty the shelves in all the Tescos! If there is any way you can possibly get some four from Tescos in England, try it. it is worth the shlep, to be able to use it exactly as you would regular flour, no xanthan gum, no nothing.
On the other hand, the American gf brown rice pasta (green bags, I forgot the company) is excellent, and so is the American Bobs Mill (I think) oats for making oatmeal. Oat flour you buy in big tubs in the Gluten Free Shoppe in Boro Park.
Suppers are rice, meat, dairy, veg, potatoes, quinoa, lentils, beans, fish, chicken. Gluten is not usually used in supper anyway unless you eat pasta (in which case I make a small pot of gf pasta for myself and my daughter and a big pot of regular for everyone else.) Be careful not to use the smae fork for stirring, obviously. I make quiche, pot pies, all with the wonderful English gf flour, and nobody knows the difference.
Since I live in a place with no kosher shops, I dont buy all the wafers, cookies, etc. even our regular gluten bread is homemade, so I dont know about any of that, and in my opinion it is all overpriced and unnecessary. A hundred bags of gf flour, some gf pasta, and you' re set.
PS gf bread is not like regular bread, you will need to toast it after you bake it. I dont often make it, I just make large pancakes similar to waffles and my daughter eats it like bread. It also contasins milk, so more nutritious. GF pizza, made with the bread recipe, is delicious, all my kids prefer it to the regular pizza. I used to make a huge batch of gluten pizza dough and a little bit og gf, now I make more gf because everyone likes it.

naomi2

Mon, Apr 30 2012, 8:40 pm

welcome to the club! ds is gluten free as are many other family members of mine.
1) shoprite has many of the alternative flours, as does the health pantry on coney bet. jk and the GF shop in BP. gold standard flour is supposed to be the absolute best combination flour substitute-it's very pricey and I don't know who carries it. I dont know anything about using almond flour.
2) shoprite-I think the price there is the best. they also have tinyada brown rice pasta and glutino pretzels and Udis bread (in the freezer near the bakery) dont confuse it with rudi's bread (ewww)
3) you can do it on a tight budget if you eliminate bread, pizza, pasta, substitutes and processed food or ready made food
4)if you follow the restrictions by number 3 your guests dont have to know -aside for your own GF challah roll-everyone else can get regular challah.
process corn chex for malt free GF coating crumbs.
pesach/homemade kishke and limabeans to thicken your choulent.
potato flakes as fish/chicken coating or fillers instead of breadcrumbs when called for in a recipe (meat balls, tuna patties etc...)- the measurements are not the same though. you add, then wait for it to expand.

eraiser

Tue, May 01 2012, 12:00 am

my husband has been gluten free for a little over a year so here's what I've learned:

I buy my GF flour on Amazon - it's the Gluten Free Pantry brand and you can do a subscribe & save in order to get a discount. They come in 6 box shipments. I try not to use it so much because it's expensive. I pretty much try NOT to replicate a regular diet in terms of making cakes and cookies that require a lot of flour. every once in a while, but not usually. I'll use it as a thickener or in recipes that don't call for so much flour. I HAVE used it cup for cup as regular flour and it comes out very good, though, if you choose to do that.

I also buy my GF oat flour from Amazon. It's the Bob's Red Mill brand, also with subscribe and save. It comes 5 pkgs, I think, in a box. It doesn't have a hechsher on it but we asked and found out that because it's just oat flour, it doesnt need one.

Eat lots of rice and potatoes and sweet potatoes. You can buy the brown rice pasta (I personally don't like it, but DH is ok with it). And LOTs of salads and veggies. potatoes are great because they can be made lots of different ways.

I try to make full GF meals but my situation is different than yours. I just don't want DH to sit at his own table and not be able to eat some things. I didn't feel like that was nice. I DO buy regular challah and he'll eat his oat challah and I'll eat my regular challah.

fast meal: chicken and rice. Place rice in pan, add spices, little olive oil, water to cook. Place chicken pieces on top, spice them, cover it, and bake for 1.5 - 2 hrs.

PM if you have more questions.
Good luck!

Seraph

Wed, May 02 2012, 5:12 pm

saw50st8 wrote:

Almond flour is expensive. I make a GF flour mix with 1 cup brown rice flour, 2/3 cup potato starch, 1/3 cup tapioca starch, and 2 teaspoons xanthan gum and it works as a 1 for 1 replacement for wheat flour in most recipes, including cakes, pancakes, homemade noodles, etc.

Our fillers here are white rice, corn meal- made into polenta, potatoes, rice cakes, and bananas. Buckwheat, brown rice, rice noodles occasionally. Corn noodles and quinoa and sweet potato rarely. We have rice usually once or twice a day.

I serve my guests GF food because that's all I make now that I finally convinced my husband to go off gluten. Before he went off gluten I'd cook generally gluten free, but if I was using an expensive gf sub like corn pasta (10 shekel a bag here) I'd make his with the non gf sub to keep it cheaper.

My fast meal ideas are rice cakes with spreads, or rice made in a pressure cooker with omelets on the side, or instant mashed potatoes and tuna fish, or red lentils over rice.

cbsmommy

Wed, May 02 2012, 6:33 pm

Hey guys,
I've got a toddler who just walked out of the pantry with the jar of marshmallow fluff, so this is going to be a super fast post.

We've been ENTIRELY gluten free for years. I was diagnosed as a teen, DD #1 has it, and DH gets less migraines when strictly gf (but he was never formally tested for anything).

For flours - I shop Amazon. I use the subscribe and save. I like bob's red mill sorghum flour but arrowhead mills for brown rice flour (I find it's less gritty). I buy millet flour, gluten free oat flour, tapioca flour, potato starch, and quinoa (on occasion). I make a mix of gluten free flours out of millet, sorghum, rice flour, potato starch, tapioca (recipe later).

I keep our budget low by using our slow cooker, making meals with rice, corn, beans, potatoes, and quinoa, and by shopping trader joe's. TJs basically repackages other products as house brand. Their rice pasta is essentially tinkyada. Their gluten free snicker doodles are enjoy life brand repackaged. I can get a kilo of gluten free oats for 2.99 at the TJs near work, the same pack from glutenfreeoats is 3x the price.

More later. I do a lot of 'walking people through' the initial stages. Feel free to PM.

Oh no. DH lost the battle. I gotta go deal with DD and a sticky mess.

Gsanmb

Wed, May 02 2012, 6:47 pm

I was diagnosed with Celiac Disease a year ago. I cook a lot of things gluten free and add in regular stuff as sides for my family.

Flours...the best one by far that I have found is called "better batter." www.betterbatter.com In many recipes it can be substituted 1 for 1 to regular flour, which is not usually the case. It has the xanthan gum already in it, which is necessary for a binding agent. I have used the Bob's Red Mill gluten free flour which I find is quite a bit heavier and 'mealier' for lack of a better term. The Arrowhead Mills gluten free flour mix isn't bad although it can be pretty expensive. As for separate flours, I frequently use brown rice flour and sometimes chickpea flour for specific recipes. Almond flour is really, really expensive.

For coatings, I have used ground almonds (I process them myself in my food processor) for things like fish 'sticks', 'shnitzel' and other similar dishes. With spices added it works nicely.

For 'crumbs' I have used potato starch, sometimes ground almonds, or crumbs of gluten free bread that I made that I turned into crumbs once the bread started tasting kind of yuck (gluten free bread in general doesn't stay yummy very long although once you crumb it and freeze the bag that's fine).

I cannot tolerate oats, even gluten free oats -- I don't make hamotzi, and my last trial was the seder when I ate a small shiur of the gluten free oat matza and got really sick. So my rav told me, no chiyuv there.

I eat a lot of quinoa and wild or brown rice when I need a 'starch.' I do however buy the gluten free brown rice pasta from trader joe's (their store brand) which is significantly less expensive than the Tinkyada. If though, Vitacost.com or Amazon.com has a sale or special on Tinkyada, I stock up. Their brand is definitely the best tasting gf brown rice pasta. The colors of the bags are just what the shape of the pasta is.

I have a couple good gluten free cookbooks and I get a lot of recipes online. In general I try to cook with a lot of whole foods and not so much junk calories like white carbs etc. even for my family. So it's not so huge a deal to do the gf thing but I will make some whole wheat pasta for my family and of course challah for them for shabbos. Most of the time I make a nice gf dessert which they eat (my Pesach brownie recipe is a year-round favorite...it's from the Kosher By Design for Passover book).

There really are a ton of options out there, but I would gently suggest: don't try too much substituting for a while. GF 'fakes' won't taste the same to you as the 'real' thing and will leave you aggravated and unsatisfied until your system recalibrates to your new diet style.

Feel free to PM me if you need any info! Smile