Spoff

 

I saw their products in Waitrose in Hitchin and bought a packet. I've since tried them and they're worthy, interesting and do you good.

Phil Vickery and Jamie Oliver

 

A friend gave me a copy of the Phil Vickery book. It’s interesting, but I’ve found some equally good stuff on the net. It’s a very good present, but I probably wouldn’t have bought it for myself.

Typically, there is this is from Jamie Oliver.

I’ve found it to be a good GF fish pie. I use a Cornish Goats Cheddar from Waitrose instead of good Cheddar. It also doesn’t need a lot of washing up, as you make it all in the baking dish. It freezes well too!

Phil Vickery and Jamie Oliver

 

A friend gave me a copy of the Phil Vickery book. It’s interesting, but I’ve found some equally good stuff on the net. It’s a very good present, but I probably wouldn’t have bought it for myself.

http://www.jamieoliver.com/recipes/fish-recipes/fish-pie

I’ve found this a good GF fish pie. I use a Cornish Goats Cheddar instead of good Cheddar. It also doesn’t need a lot of washing up, as you make it all in the baking dish. It freezes well too!

Waitrose New GF Cakes and Biscuits

 

I’ve tried the dark chocolate chip biscuits and they are very good. They also seem to be competitively priced. But what do I know about the price of anything?

I just tried the ginger cake slices. They are good too.

It says on the box, “We created our gluten free range in a specialist bakery so you can still enjoy your favourite foods on a gluten free diet”. They are also produced in the UK.

Dr. Schar Products

 

As you know I’m not a fan of GF bread, but I do find the Dr. Schar Mix-B more than acceptable and also my non-coeliac friends like it. It seems to rise pretty well in the breadmaker. Most others seem not to and produce bread like soft concrete. I should say that my housekeeper is a very experienced breadmaker, so it’s not my cooking!

But I can only get it on prescription, which does work and is free, but means I have to plan it. I wonder why, it’s not available in the shops. After all I just bought two one-kilo packs at €4.45 each in Den Haag. They also lots of other products of Dr. Schar in the shop.

Gluten Free Hamper

 

I was looking at a web site and saw a Google ad for a Marks and Spencer gluten-free hamper.

Details are Gluten-Free Greetings - £55.00 - Product Code: 00645232

It may not be to everybody’s taste, but it’s an interesting development.

Marmite Rice Cakes and Unilever

 

I bought some of the new Marmite Rice Cakes in Waitrose on Monday, because I felt they might be gluten-free. I phoned the number on the packet and they assured me that they were, so I ate them and no ill effects. They were quite nice and made a change, but I’m not the greatest fan of rice cakes, as I know they taste of polystyrene.

The guy on the phone was really helpful and said that Unilever could send me their product list with whether things were GF or not. It arrived this morning and was a good document, in that it warned against changes in product composition and gave links to such as Coeliac-UK.

So it seems that Unilever are getting or may have got their act together on gluten. It was interesting that they play safe and say that oats are non-GF.

Eggs Florentine

 

I've always liked this and thought it was terribly complicated.


But then I found this BBC recipe.

It was delicious and gluten-free too!

Eating Gluten-Free in Minsk

 

I did not want to be adventurous with my eating in Belarus.

As a coeliac, there is nothing worse than having to travel on a plane or drive down the motorway, with your guts telling you in no uncertain way that they are unhappy with the gluten. Your best course of action when this happens, is to sit near a toilet. Or sometimes permanently on it!

I had prepared by bringing a good box of supplies with me.


The box contained Trufree crackers, Fruit Break bars and Oskri Sesame Bars. If the worst had came to the worst then I could have existed on them, plus a few bananas, other fruit and a salad or two.

The Belarus Hotel has a Panorama restaurant on the twenty-second floor with expansive views of the city.


I'm afraid that the picture doesn't do the view justice!

I thought I'd be careful and only have a main course with a glass of wine. At least the menu had an English translation and there seemed to be a lot of choice.

I'd also brought one of CeliacTravel's excellent menu cards in Russian, so I gave it to the waiter and asked if a pork something was OK. He took the card and checked with the kitchen.

I was getting a bit apprehensive, but when the meal arrived, I had no worries. The pork had obviously been cooked without any source and it came with some onions, peppers and tomatoes. They did bring a cup of tomato sauce to go with it, but I decided that as I was ahead I'd stay there.

I had no reaction to the meal at all. The card had done its trick.

The two breakfasts that I ate in the hotel were fine too. But then with a buffet, you can usually be fairly careful about what you eat. I stuck to fruit, cold meats and vegetables.

So would I be more adventurous if I went to Belarus again? Probably, especially if I went with someone, who understood their cooking better than I do!

As a postscript here, much of the cooking in Belarus is based on potatoes. They even make pancakes that way. So if you're careful, it isn't one of the most difficult places to eat gluten-free.

But you'll have to take your own biscuits or bread!

Calais and P&O Ferries

 

I got mixed up in the trouble at the Chunnel on Friday night as I was coming back from France. Actually, very easy getting into the Port at Calais and then due to P&O I had to wait two hours later than I should for the ferry. Partly, this was due to port problems, but it wasn’t too bad as I spent a lot of time educating a medical student about coeliac disease.

I was getting hungry as although it was only eight in the evening all the snack bars seemed to be closed and you could just about get coffee or a Coke. Incidentally, there was a lot more available at Dover than Calais. So I just waited for the boat.

I did get a good coffee and some crisps on the boat, but the notice in the Food Court summed it all up. “Food Allergy Advice – Whilst every effort is made to maintain the integrity of all food served onboard, we regret that due to the complexity of our operations, we are unable to guarantee that any food will be free of food allergens.”

Is that good enough?

Problems in Northern France

 

Last week I stayed with a friend in Northern France. I won’t say shopping is a nightmare, as we knew exactly what we were doing, but trying to find anything prepared without dextrose was very difficult. If it was declared it was dextrose de blé, which is wheat. I even found prepared salads which declared the allergies not to contain gluten, but had dextrose de blé. Most crisps and ham seemed to contain it as well.

After what has been said on this list whilst I have been away, that is wrong!

At least my friend is a very good cook and we ate in all the time.

Baked Beans

 

They’ve just announced on BBC Breakfast that sales of baked beans are up due to the recession. I’ve always had at least a small tin a week, which means that I eat nearly eleven kilos a year. Apparently the average is ten kilos a year.

What’s wrong with that?

Belgian Grand Prix - 1

 

I’m off to the Belgian Grand Prix at Spa on Sunday. It would have been our fortieth wedding anniversary, so I felt I should do something completely different. Celia would have hated it. I probably will! Let’s hope little Lewis wins!

But has anybody got any ideas for snacks I can take with me. I shall be taking cold sausages, salad, TruFree crackers, chocolate and nuts, but it’s on trips like this, where I suspect the offerings at the other end are totally useless, that I really feel hungry and trapped. My problem is that I can never pace myself and I’ll probably eat all the food I take as early as I can. At least, I’m travelling on after the Grand Prix to a friend in France, who knows my dietary requirements.

Sainsburys Organic Chocolate

 

I went to Sainsburys last night, as they’d given me an offer of quadruple Nectar points on a shop of over £20 for six weeks. Sad, if that’s the only reason why I took a detour. But I did need diesel, some Black Farmer sausages and some TruFree crackers. The latter seem to be difficult to get around here for some reason.

I also had a look at Sainsburys Organic Chocolate. The 75% Dark one is cleared labelled “Suitable for Coeliacs”. I haven’t tasted it yet, as when I open it, I’ll eat it in one.

Lactose

 

I’ve cut down on lactose and I think I feel better. Use goat’s milk instead.

Gluten-Free Bread

 

This is something on which you might like to take a watching brief.

The Codex allows 200 ppm of gluten in food, before it can be called gluten free. As not a particularly sensitive coeliac who needs gluten-free food, I still find that this level too high and welcome proposals that would reduce this limit to 20 ppm.

But!

There are two methods for measuring gluten in food; Elisha and Mendez. The first is used primarily in the UK and the second mainly in Europe. I’ve been told this by a gluten-free food manufacturer, so it could be suspect. The Elisha test is ideal for producing fresh food and no licences are available in the UK for the Mendez method.

That wouldn’t be a problem, but the Food Standards Agency have just followed the draft Codex which makes the Mendez method compulsory.

On the one hand, this would mean a lot of small British manufacturers wouldn’t be able to make gluten-free food and claim it as such and there would be no fresh bread as it would only be available from mainland Europe.

There will be a lot of angry coeliacs out there!

I should say that I won’t be one as I find gluten-free bread awful. Unless of course, it can be proven otherwise.

Haddock and Crushed Peas

 

This recipe was from The Times today.

It looks like even my cooking skills could manage this one.

They did and it was good.

A Use for Gluten-Free Bread

 

I just cooked myself a very nice supper. When you’re a sixty year old man, who hasn’t really cooked before, anything above the ordinary is good.

I took some gluten-free bread and minced it in my Kenwood Mini-Chopper, as featured by the cheating Delia. I then used it to bread a turkey breast, which I’d flattened with a rolling pin. I fried it in olive oil and it was delicious.

Goat's Milk

 

After reading Dogtor J’s piece on lactose I thought I’d try some goat’s milk. Over recent years, I’ve come to think that I’m slightly lactose intolerant. I always thought it tasted and smelt a bit funny, but the Waitrose semi-skimmed seemed to be almost indistinguishable to cow’s milk.

I have found that I get a slight reaction with larger qualities of cow’s milk, such as I would have with cornflakes. But I tried the goat’s milk this morning and felt fine. I even put some orange juice on top of it and got no reaction. That can make me feel queasy.

Recipes in The Times

 

Trying one of these for lunch today.