Living life without gluten isn't easy. It's not so bad if you're battling a mild intolerance and living a low-gluten diet, eating commercial gluten-free products and seeing great results. For those of us with coeliacs disease and wheat allergy, however, it's a whole different ball game. Gluten is lurking everywhere: contaminating just about every grain, legume and seed; lunch meats, bulk bins, waxed fruits, canned vegetables, margarine, some dairy products, and a number of other things. Sneakily enough, manufacturers use a cornucopia of names to mask wheat, rye, barley and oats and their derivitives-for who knows why-and the seemingly safest of things i.e. "vegetable protein" and "dextrose" leave you violently ill. To a degree, some trace ingestion is utterly unavoidable unless you are only eating home-grown produce and perhaps even never leaving your house (and then, you risk the all-too-common problem among coeliacs of vitamin deficiencies and depression, ect) it's inevitable, but we all try the best we can. The bane of our existance is, the more we eliminate these foods, the more sensitive we become, your body tells you in the rudest of manners, ahem, when you've ingested something and there's no turning back, you're certain now you'd become frighteningly ill, if you increase your ingestion. Not to mention the intestinal damage, the risk of cancer, crohn's, malabsorption, well. I don't need to go on. You already know this story! It's like living in the most ridiculous paradox! So you start to seem like a conspiracy theorist, because gluten is lurking everywhere, and you have to be so careful, and make all of your own foods. Restaurants? Forget about it. You probably haven't had a good loaf of bread in years, I'll bet. Well, don't despair too, TOO much my friends.
I am DEDICATED to creating recipes that can be made with ingredients from dedicated gluten-free producers/manufacturers here in Europe (and with the broader variety available to you in the States, I'm reasonably certain you can ascertain these things from dedicated facilities too!) I am dedicated to creating these recipes to taste as closely as possible as the real thing. So that I don't miss out. So that my son doesn't miss out. Either on nutrition or on those amazing textures and flavours that we miss so much from gluten and wheat.
I also have people in my life with various other allergies, including some living under my own roof. Many of my recipes will cater to those with all sorts of allergies. Mostly, I will post baked goods and candy recipes, as these are my specialties. My kitchen is a whole-foods kitchen, with no sugar, gluten, corn, chemicals or yeast. No chillies either, sadly, as my son is strongly allergic. Booooo.
I'm a busy mother, and I have a lot of things to do; but baking and candymaking is one of the greatest passions of my life. Got something you're hungry for, and want me to recreate it for you without your allergen(s)? Drop me a line. Let's chat.
I hope you enjoy my natural, whole-foods, allergen-friendly recipes. All I ask is that, if shared, my recipes are sourced because I work very hard to create these with love and they are all originals from my kitchen using the knowledge from my background studies in Culinary Arts, a lot of time spent researching, many experiments, and a lot of devotion. Also, I'd LOVE to know what you think! Honest feedback-seriously.
Now. Enjoy some bread. Rustic, crusty-but-fluffy-on-the-inside granary baked type of bread. You'll forget it doesn't have gluten.
Yardana's Rustic Granary-Style Soda Bread recipe
1 1/2 Cups all-purpose GF flour of choice*
1/2 Cup Buckwheat Flour, plus extra for dusting
1 Egg
1 Cup live active yoghurt
2 Tbsp Arrowroot powder
1 Tablespoon softened butter
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 tsp raw ACV
1 tsp lemon juice
1 tsp salt
Preheat oven to 200 degrees centigrade. In a large bowl, beat the egg. In a small, seperate bowl, stir together the yoghurt, ACV, lemon, salt and baking soda. Set aside for a moment. Measure your flours and butter and add them to the bowl with the egg. Now stir in the yoghurt culture and work the dough with your hands for several minutes, until thoroughly incorporated. Shape your dough and allow it to rise for about 5 minutes, but unlike yeast dough you will want to put it in the oven before much time has passed. Before putting it in the oven, dust your pan with flour so that it does not stick and with a knife, make several deep slots (3/4 deep-ish) or a large cross if you are making a round loaf-this is to not essential but if you do not do so, the crust of your bread will crack as it rises and not look as pretty as it otherwise could be :) You may dust the top of your bread with flour or sprinkle seeds on top if you like to make it look fancy if you want but not essential at all. Place your loaf in the oven and allow to cook for approximately 35-40 minutes, depending on your altitude.
*if using self-rising GF flour, you may need to adjust the quantity of baking soda that you add to the recipe.
I typically mix my own flour from Teff, Arrowroot, ect.To make the honey-rosemary bread in the background of this blog, use intuition plus approximately:
3 Cups all-purpose GF flour of choice
1 Egg
1 1/2 Cups yoghurt
1/4 Cup Honey
1 1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp cream of tartar
1 tsp ACV
1/2 tsp rosemary, more or less to taste.
Water, added gradually as needed, plus a bit more to smooth the top of the loaf before putting in the oven (optional)
Follow the same procedures as the recipe above to make your bread.
No comments:
Post a Comment