Healthy Obsessions The Adventures of a Mild Obsessive Compulsive

Tag Archives: Gluten Free

Getting Tested for Celiac Disease

A lot of friends have been asking me about the whole process of getting tested for celiac disease. Enough by now that I’m figuring I ought to do a full write-up instead of typing up a new answer each time. So, without further ado:

The Tests Themselves

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Maps of Bay Area Gluten Free Restaurants

I’ve taken to using Yelp to find local gluten free restaurants, and then Google Maps to mark them and make notes. So far I’ve got San Francisco:

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How to Feed a Celiac

 

Wooden cookware can retain gluten, even after thorough washing.

 

First, a thank you. To everyone who has fed me and dealt with my dietary limitations. In particular mom and wshaffer. You are heroes of the revolution.

Now, an apology to anyone I’ve driven crazy by minutely examining their kitchen, or not eating the food they prepared, or whose trash can I’ve sifted through to find food wrappers. It’s not personal.

Feeding a celiac guest is hard. There are a lot of things that aren’t initially obvious. I made lots of mistakes in the early days. I’m probably still making some.

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Gluten Free Chicken Pot Pie

I will admit, I cheat. I haven’t actually made a pie crust since I went gluten free. Whole Paycheck has a great gluten free pie crust in their refrigerated section. I use that. You get two bottom crusts in one package. You can make a bottom crust into a top by letting it warm up, forming it into a ball again, and then rolling out on parchment or wax paper.

The filling, though. That I do make myself. I wish I could remember where I snagged this one from. I know it’s a combination of two different recipes, but I can’t recall the source for either. You can also make this into cream of chicken soup by adding broth or water to thin it. Read more →

Gluten Free Cinnamon Rolls

I intended to make blueberry muffins. Really, truly did. But I was hanging out with a friend who, I learned, didn’t like muffins. So I made cinnamon rolls. Gluten free. But definitely not fat free or sugar free…

The finished product.

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Follow Up Rant, Having Met the New Doc

I’m hesitant to be publically critical of doctors. They don’t like that, you see.  And getting decent medical care can be dependent on how much your doctor likes you. In a perfect world, it shouldn’t be. But. It often is. So, as I said, I don’t like publically criticizing doctors. However (you could totally tell there was a however coming, couldn’t you?)…

The doc I wrote about meeting  several weeks ago is… well… either he’s a flake or an idiot. I think I’d prefer thinking he was just a flake.

He was nice enough. Pleasant and friendly. Sat down with me to talk about the Celiac screening test I’d had done. And here, in bulleted list, were the things that bugged me:

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The Posting of Recipes (Gluten Free and Other)

I’ve had a few people ask for recipes in response to some of my recent facebook posts, and so I shall do something I never really thought I would. I shall post recipes, with a few caveats:

  • I will only post recipes that are my own, are public domain or creative commons, or that I have changed so much that they would be considered new recipes.
  • I won’t post recipes from cookbooks, because, aside from the issues of copyright or intellectual property, I like encouraging folks to buy good cookbooks. The more gluten free cookbooks that sell, the more that will get published. The more that are published, the easier it is for my family to find holiday presents (I am apparently hard to shop for).
  • I will, however, link to cookbooks and online recipes, and provide reviews of those.

With that, I give you:

Gluten Free Croissants (from the excellent Gluten Free Gobsmacked)

My Results:

9 small servings made (out of 36)
75 – 120 calories each
(not including filling)

I must note that I actually do not like croissants. I have never liked croissants. That said, I love this recipe.

The thing with most gluten free recipes is that they often turn out denser than the original gluten-full version. In this case, that worked to my advantage. This recipe is insanely rich and makes a brilliant pastry.

I used it to make cheese turnovers and, I will admit, one chocolate turnover. Simransmiles, who told me about this recipe in the first place, used it to make an apple turnover. I suspect it would also make great hamantaschen, if I can ever remember when Purim is.

Tonight, I intend to experiment with it to make tyropita. If I am very clever about it, I will manage to take a decent picture of the results. In the meantime, here’s a semi-decent picture of a turnover (taken with my iPhone and missing a bite):

The Last Turnover (approx. 2 inches long)

Tips & Tricks:

Upon first glance, I was intimidated by the process, but it’s actually a lot less hassle than I’d feared.

  1. Plan to make the dough on one day and do the rolling and baking on another. In addition to letting you chill the dough overnight, it also makes each step feel simpler.
  2. When the dough warms (which it will do while you’re rolling it) use an ice pack on top of the upper layer of parchment paper. Just don’t leave the ice pack so long that condensation begins to gather and wet the parchment paper.
  3. Be okay with getting butter on your hands. Although I froze the butter both before and after grating it, it clumped up and I had to break the clumps into smaller pieces for rolling out the dough. (This may also be due to freezer suckage, so YMMV).
  4. If you have a food processor, and it has a grater attachment, use it. It is a blessing.
  5. For the flour mix, I used Arrowhead Mills Gluten Free All Purpose Baking Mix, which worked just fine.
  6. I suspect you can make these more properly croissantish if you role the dough thinner than I did.
  7. Each quarter of the dough should be approx. 700 calories, taking into account the rice flour and grated butter used during rolling. I overdid with the grated butter on that first batch, which is why I put in a range above.