Gluten Free - overcoming the challenges!

As many of you may be aware, I have recently been diagnosed as Coeliac. This means I must remove all wheat, rye, oats and barley from my diet. For a keen cook this has provided me with a challenge.

Challenge 1 - create fresh, homemade pasta
After 3 failed attempts (or 3 successful attempts at making hot glue:) I have successfully created home made fettucine. The recipe still needs some tweaking as it did not survive a pasta machine, but after handrolling and cutting the fettucine, the results were very delicious. I will continue to refine the recipe so that I can get the pasta thinner, but here is the simple recipe

TIP: replace all plain and 00 flour (as per previous recipe supplied on my blog) with Orgran pasta flour (gluten free and contains GFG). Only use potato or rice flour for dusting.

Challenge 2 - create gluten free orange and cardemon shortbread for Christmas
First attempt at this looked to be a success, until I moved the shortbraed from the tray to the cooling rack. After 10 minutes, when I returned, the majority of biscuits had crumbled through the racks.

TIP: allow to cool slightly on the tray until beginning to firm, then place on the cooling racks. My "normal" recipe calls for 3/4 cup rice flour and 1 1/2 cups self raising flour. I was successful with 1 cup of rice flour and 1 1/4 cups of orgran self raising flour (contains GFG)

Happy cooking for Christmas :)

this one is a bit of a challenge

It took me by surprise, but 2 weeks ago I was given the formal diagnosis of coeliac disease. My hope over the previous four weeks was that the blood tests were all a false positive. This means I must now stick to a strict diet of gluten free. Gluten is a component of wheat, barley, rye and oats - it is what helps stick things together. Hence wheat is used in many unexpected things to thicken or "stick" flavourings.

The obvious no goes for me are most bread, pasta, breakfast cereals, cake, biscuits etc.
The less obvious are potato chips (wheat is used in the flavourings), soy sauce (as a thickener), ice cream (as a thickener) etc. So now I need to read labels carefully.

I also need to modify my famous tomato sauce and Worcestershire sauces as they both contain malt vinegar (another gluten derivative). All a challenge for Rie's kitchen to overcome. But first on a personal quest, I need to perfect gluten free fresh ravioli :) When I get this right, I promise to post the recipe to this blog. So far we have had 2 goes. The first created ricotta clag soup, and the second although edible had the wrong texture - very stodgy. I will get it eventually!!

For anyone wanting more info on coeliac disease, or gluten free diets, check out the following website http://www.coeliacsociety.com.au/