Hyper Trolley

Senza Glutine!

The drive from Bologna through to Reggio Emilia takes us past the Ipercoop in Modena which houses a massive gluten-free aisle. Considering I was staying in a small village north of Tuscany for a week, I was't sure how often I would come across such a treasure-trove so the shopping cart was loaded. In went two breads (a plain white loaf and a country style loaf - both quite passable), gnocchi, and savoiardi biscuits for tiramisu (a cracking find), all by DS. The gnocchi were surprisigly good, as good as store-bought gnocchi get anyway, though as with all gluten-free pasta, I would recommend adding a drizzle of olive oil to the boiling water to help prevent clumpage.

Happiness is potatoes.

The Coop also carry their own line of gluten-free items of which their Frollini Classici (effectively delicate butter biscuits, wonderful with tea and coffee) were my favourite. The shop also stocked the Fantastic Delite rice crackers from Australia, a great Japanese inspired snack. All around a good shopping experience. Updates to follow once we put the Savoiardi biscuits to the test in a toramisu.

Stocked on stems and stalks

Stumbled upon a wonderful little nursery and organic food shop in New Cross Gate called Dig Thie Nursery. They offer a wonderful selection of seeds and seedlings, big on variety if small in numbers. They stock assorted flavours of 9bars (a great seed bar that is my go-to snack on the run) and some gluten-free products I hadn't seen elsewhere. Doves Farm Stem Ginger biscuits were acquired alongside parsley and Greek basil plants. Fresh produce, assorted food cupboard essentials and a wonderul cactus named George (who was not for sale) make this a great stop for anyone who commutes via New Cross Gate, whih I admittedly do not bit I will happily make the trip to visit again.

Tesco have been upping their game in the Free From aisle and have added quite a few more flours to the mix; something I pounced on when taking advantage of their latest 4 for 3 offer on free-from items, ongoing until August 24th. The variety truly allows for a wonderful amount of flexibility and creativity in the kitchen. Udi's have really grabbed hold of the gluten-free market and seem to be overtaking Dietary Specials in quantifiable shelf space though the DS Ciabatta Rolls still get my vote for the ideal burger bun.

I am now well equipped to tackle the next ambitious (perhaps overly so) project: homemade gluten-free bagels.

Starting lineup: Udi's, Doves Farm and 9bar

Meze

I'm now making my own hummus; my local Tesco will certainly notice a drop in sales of their own variety. Al'fez Tahini is listed as 'free from' too, which is a bonus in a day and age when even certain teas are listed as possibly containing wheat (I'm looking at you, Tetley). So far, experimentation has yielded just a particularly edgy hummus with a kick of chili and paprika and another with more garlic than any standard recipe might call for. Next up, caramelised onion.

O! hole-y goodness

A midnight shop at Tesco Extra, a wander down their ever expanding Free From aisle, and lo and behold three new flavours of Udi's Gluten Free Bagels bringing the range to a selection of six. That's Plain, Savoury, and (the ever elusive) Cinnamon & Raisin now joined by Multi Seeded, Chocolate Chip, and Sundried Tomato; all proudly gluten and dairy free. This latter will be key for kookaberries's visit from Berlin as her lactose intolerance combined with vegetarianism and my gluten intolerance will make for quite the 'free-from' weekend.

Udi's GF bagel selection at Tesco

Udi's website doesn't even list the three newcomers so perhaps Tesco is testing the line. I am hoping to see a classic sesame seed bagel join the lineup before long as Montréal bagels remain, three years on, one of the most missed elements from home.

Things fall apart

With the savoury side of life mostly covered with suitable pasta, meat and dressing alternatives, bread is where it all starts to fall apart. Literally.



Pink Champagne Gluten-free cupcakes



The Great British Bakeoff is my favourite reality program in the UK, it’s so charming, quaint, fun and presents the aspiring bakers with wonderful challenges. Paul Hollywood (not to be confused with the Paul I usually refer to), while a tad arrogant, is a fantastic baker and celebrity chef who acts as a judge on the program. His specialty is bread-making and while I absolutely adore watching him bake and talk about the baking process, it is agonising to hear him mention gluten so damn much.

 XANTHAN GUM is an ingredient present in a lot of gluten-free products because it acts as a thickening and binding agent in an environment where the gluten from the wheat-flour would normally provide elasticity. Some gluten-free self raising flours have xantham gum mixed in while other plain varities often do not but the xantham gum is readily available in baking sections of large grocery stores.

I've attempted a few lots of cupcakes using gluten-free flour. The key-lime pie ones were a definite success, the pink champagne ones fizzled out, but Paul has even mastered a recipe for gluten-free pancakes.

I don't have much of a sweet tooth so I can't testify for too many store-bought gluten-free cakes and pastries. Any store-bought bread has been wholly unriveting. As a personal preference that fast approaches a general rule, gluten-free breads need to be toasted to be even remotely passable. Whether it's something about the preservatives used that make them unappetizing when cold, I'm not sure. 

SAINSBURY'S GARLIC & HERB PITAS taste great and work well as dippers but even after heating are difficult to open into a pocket.

GLUTINO bagels (acquired in Canada) have a nicer texture than most breads I've tried, with a density approaching that of a proper bagel but definitely need to be toasted as per instructions on pack. Seeing as how I had high bagel standards to begin with, anything called a bagel that is not a freshly based Montreal bagel was going to have to bring its top guns. Proper Montreal bagels are the one food I found most difficult to resist during a trip back home.

DIETARY SPECIALS do rolls that are the best I've tried for sandwiches and they double up well as hamburger buns. I prefer much of their line over most grocery stores' own 'Free From' ranges. While the DS buns are passable cold for sandwiches, I do toast them to ensure they don't disintegrate when in contact with anything hot 'n juicy. I've always been a fan of toasted buns so at the very least this element of this gluten-free adventure isn't a horrendous life-changing endeavour.

Step 2: Wherein I restock my cupboards

Everything will always be alright (when we go shopping)

My first few forays to the grocery store after finding out about the Coeliac disease took twice as long as usual. I assumed, correctly, that I would become one of those shoppers who reads the ingredients list on everything but I can’t discourage this habit. It did take me a few months before I was seriously vigilant, almost aggressively so with myself, but I realized the only way I would find out how much I can tolerate is to cut out the gluten altogether. That way, if I were to accidentally slip up, I could more easily trace the culprit.

The obvious things like bread, pasta, beer, I cut out almost immediately. Substitutes are certainly readily available and I have since found some gluten-free favourites, as well as some blasphemous attempts at alternatives. There are so many things that I initially took for granted, never thinking for a moment that they could contain gluten. An alarming proportion of food, both fresh and non-perishable, use wheat flour as seasoning, binding agents, or preservatives.

Like soy sauce.

We were in the habit of regularly making stir-fry and sauces with soy sauce at home, not to mention eating Chinese take-away or sushi on the run at least once a week, and it was at least 6 months before I stopped to read the label on our soy sauce bottle. Bam. Wheat preservatives. I was so unbelievably angry with myself for overlooking that one and I was, once again, angry at the injustice of being deprived of even more of my favourite foods.

TAMARI SOY SAUCE, I was to discover, is a gluten-free alternative to your regular run-of-the-mill soy sauce. With no wheat, it simply has higher concentrations of soy beans, though the brand I use doesn’t taste quite as strong or salty but is still a perfectly acceptable substitute. They say the recipe for Tamari soy sauce is actually closest to the original Chinese soy sauce recipe introduced in Japan. While eating out is still something to be wary about, at least I could be certain I was safe at home.

I’m convinced adding breadcrumbs to hamburgers and sausages is just a way for the manufacturers to save money as opposed to doing anything structurally beneficial to the meat. With the exception of Tesco Finest Pork and Chive sausages, the labels on every one of their other packaged sausages flag up the presence of gluten/wheat. Whether the Chive ones were actually made without breadcrumbs, I’m not sure but one day when they were out of stock and I was having a little sulk in the chilled meat section, I took a few steps further down the aisle and my most favourite discovery yet showed its pretty little face (in part because its packaging decidedly stands out).

Enter HECK SAUSAGES. Farmer’s quality sausages from a UK-family run business, with a lovely ‘Gluten Free’ proclamation on their cheerily bold and colourful packing. The good part? When on sale, these babies cost the same as Tesco Finest sausages; a rare occurrence in which a gluten-free option doesn’t cost more than a glutened alternative. The best part? They taste infinitely better than any pre-packaged grocery-store sausages I’ve ever had. Paul agrees. They are heavenly plump with hardly any grease and/or fat oozing out during the cooking process, come in a variety of flavours, and the company operates by ethical and fair production standards. Heck sausages are the one gluten-free food I’ve tried that I happily recommend to even non-Coeliacs.

So life is feeling a bit more normal. I have soy sauce, I have sausages. Anything fresh in the way of fruits and vegetables are obviously fine. The next step was finding a great substitute for pasta and bread. I’m still waiting on the latter. Pasta, sigh, will never hold the same appeal to me. I’ve tried pasta made with rice flour and corn flour. I can say most of the corn flour options I’ve tried tend to fall apart during the boiling process. I like my pasta al dente but no gluten means that elasticity is greatly reduced, making it is slightly more difficult to assemble things like cannelloni or lasagna, and a lot of things effectively wind up having the texture of cardboard. That being said, some of products made with rice and/or potato flour turn out just fine and if enough love is put into the seasoning, I’m a happy camper.