What the heck is gluten and what on earth can you actually eat?

I think I rushed into this blog a bit and forgot to actually explain what exactly it is Mike can't eat. Gluten is a protein found in wheat, rye, barley and possibly oats (debatable). Meaning ALL things that have those ingredients have to be completely avoided in his diet. Lots of cool substitutes out there help us out for our favorite things like bread, beer and brownies, but there are still some things we just gave up completely. It is tricky trying to avoid it out at restaurants, at friend's houses and when traveling. What's the good news though? Most foods are fine to eat and it's really easy to make gluten free food at home. Lucky for us, we cook most of our food already and didn't mind the switch very much.

Safe foods:
All fruits and veggies
All meats that aren't marinated
Rice, corn and other grains like quinoa (sorry you can tell I am obsessed with quinoa right now)
All nuts
All legumes
All dairy -- CHEESE!!! (apparently some people are weary of blue cheese as it may have bread mold on it with trace gluten... he hasn't had any symptoms from eating it so we don't stress about it much)
All alcohol besides beer

Things to avoid:
Beer
Meatballs or meatloaf mixed with breadcrumbs
Bread, cake, muffins, cookies, crackers
Soy sauce (second ingredient is wheat!)
Anything breaded (obviously)
Pasta
Soups thickened with flour
Etc, etc the list goes on

So basically, if you cook at home and know all the ingredients going into the meal are gluten free to begin with, you are pretty safe. Of course you have to be pretty careful to keep the gluten items from contaminating the gluten free foods. Some people go as far as having separate toasters... we just kinda hope for the best on that one. :)

Greek inspired quinoa salad

First, I would like to add my favorite grain, quinoa, to list of favorites we use all the time. It is about the size of cous-cous, gluten free, crunchy and delicious. Works as a substitute for rice when you get tired of it, cous-cous and you can buy it as a flour too, which I haven't tried out yet. It is supposed to be a healthier grain than wheat and rice, so definitely worth a try for even those gluten lovers out there. You can find it at Trader Joe's and Whole Foods, and I'm sure most other grocery stores have it too, but it's a bit pricier there from what I have found. The "regular" version is sort of tan colored, but it also comes in a red variety which is a bit crunchier and I like even better. Sometimes I mix the two together like I have today.

Ok, enough loving quinoa and onto the recipe. This is really just a jumble of all the last bits of produce I have for the week. I have to go shopping tomorrow. I had one cucumber ready from my mini garden (it's my first one!) and two small tomatoes.

Cucumber
2 small tomatoes
Half a big red onion
Parsley freshly chopped
2 cloves of garlic
1 cup of uncooked quinoa
Juice of one lemon
Olive oil
Salt and pepper
Low or Fat Free feta

Cook the quinoa just like rice with same water to grain ratio. I made mine in the rice cooker too, even easier. Let cool down. In the meantime, chop up all the veggies nice and small. I also took out the seed area of the tomato to cut down on the juice. Mince garlic and combine with veggies and parsley. Add the cooled quinoa and seasonings (juice, oil, S&P). Finally add the feta when salad is just ready to be served.

So serve up with some protein (we're having leftover chicken drumsticks from a BBQ) and enjoy! :)

These are a few of my favorite things...

Just a few of the things we eat regularly around here that I think are fabulous!

Yum! Corn Chex are gluten free, crunchy and used as a great sub for a lot of things in my recipes at the moment.

















Baked Tostitos are lower in fat, gluten free and great with any kind of salsa, guac or dip. A must have in our house!

















Quaker Quakes (or generic versions) are yummy, low in calories and come in a bunch of flavors. The ones I have found are all gluten free, but double check everything yourself of course just to be safe!















Trader Joe's fat free vanilla meringues (or the mini chocolate ones) are completely fabulous and have zero gluten! :) It even says so right on the side of the tub! Ps. easy hint, TJ will print out a whole list of G-Free items for you or it's on their website.








Gluten Free BEER!!!! Yes! :) Thank goodness for that. This can be found at Bevmo and Whole Foods. Stock up for hot nights, bring your own to BBQs and use it to add to homemade chili, sauces, batters, etc.















Betty Crocker Gluten Free brownies! As you can see, they are already half way gone from only yesterday! Ooops! They are beyond fabulous compared to the icky ones we tried from Trader Joes last time. These taste just as good as normal brownies. I followed the recipe exactly this time but plan to cut out most of the butter the next go around to see if it can still be good with less fat. Try these, seriously!





Gluten Free Pizza Crust- This is my first try with this brand, great tasting results but strange consistancy when trying to spread out the dough. I will give it another shot sometime soon and take pix this time! :) We found this at Whole Foods.

How it started

We recently discovered, mostly by trial and error, that my husband, Mike, can't tolerate gluten in his diet. We are mid-diagnosis, so not completely sure yet if he has Celiac's Disease or not. Regardless, this has created a whole new lifestyle around our meals, snacks and drinking. Along with some other major life changes, getting married, moving to a new house and losing my job, this has been a year of change and adaptation. I thought it may be fun to track our progress of giving up gluten in our diet and trying new recipes and ideas so our family and friends can understand what we can or can't eat. It may make it easier on people trying to accomodate for him to know where we get our supplies and if I may say so myself, some of these recipes are pretty darn good regardless of if you like gluten! Also, maybe I will find some new G-Free friends to swap ideas with as we come up with them. Please feel free to share your ideas if you have any! I could use someone with more experience for sure!

We have been making small changes over a year period, like switching to brown rice pasta and getting rid of bread on his hamburgers but after learning how serious gluten could be for him if he did indeed have Celiac's, we decided to eliminate it completely from his diet (and mostly from mine as well). I am by no means an expert chef but I do all the cooking and we both seem to enjoy what I make. If anyone out there is interested in giving gluten free living a try, I hope some of my simple ideas may be helpful to their cause. We are trying to find a great balance in a household of one gluten free eater and one gluten light. All the dinner meals we share together are fully G-Free and most of my breakfast and lunches are as well, but occasionally I sneak in a real bread sandwich or some cookies. I should also mention that we chose to eat a diet that is mostly low in fat, high in vegetables and fruit, using lots of non gluten filled whole grains, almost never eat beef or pork (we generally use chicken, fish and turkey) and at least attempting to be well balanced. We try to have most of our meals include a protein, a starch and a vegetable (or five). At least once a week I try to have a vegetarian dish. We are also tying to eat at home as many days a month as possible and keep our grocery bills relatively low. I have been following several different food blogs that do one or two of each of these things but I haven't been able to find anyone else who has all those same criteria. Maybe there are lots more people out there who want the same things nutritionally though. Speak up! :)