So....we had our first failure! Which was surprising as it was quite a well-known non-GF brand.
We were going to have Alfredo chicken with GF penne for tea tonight using the following brand:
We were disappointed to find that inside the penne became all gluggy and resembled snot, which put us off eating it. I will definitely try the San Remo brand of GF pasta again and perhaps go for something like spaghetti or spirals, that doesn't have a cavity that glugginess can hide in.
This meal ended up going from GF for both of us, to nonGF using regular pasta so that Andrew could eat it and have it for lunch tomorrow.
I on the other hand enjoyed a lovely baked potato :)
So Sunday is grocery shopping day and I managed to stock up on some new (hopefully yummy) gluten-free goodies.
Today for lunch I tried these gluten-free chicken nuggets
I was quite surprised to find they were delicious! The chicken meat appeared to be mostly if not all breast meat, it was tender and tasty. The crumbing also was nice. Had a different texture to normal nugget crumbing and if eaten without sauce had a slightly potato taste, but dip in some sauce and you probably wouldn't realise that they were gluten-free.
All in all, I was quite happy with my purchase, although at $8.99 for a box, its definitely a sometimes food.
After having been diagnosed with Coeliac it took a while for it to sink in. I would almost say I went through a miniature version of the five stages of grief. At first there was denial, where I went on a binge weekend just eating anything and everything that I figured I wouldn't be able to again. Then there was a small amount of anger in being frustrated at how much of an impact it would make on my life. I then progressed to bargaining with myself, figuring that if I ate good 95% of the time, surely it was okay if I just had a sneak of gluten-ladden food. I would have my mini-depressive episodes when I thought too much about all my favourite take-aways that I would never be able to have again, McDonalds, KFC, hot chickens, all the delicious crisp flavours. At last I came to resignation/acceptance. I decided that it wasn't worth all the heart-ache of feeling bad about it. Its not something I chose to have, nor something I can change, so I may as well embrace it.
Since those first few days I have come a long way. I am learning new ways of cooking old recipes (yay for Nana's Curried Prawn recipe still turning out awesome with the use of Tamari rather than Soy Sauce). I am trying new things, like my new love of BBQ vege chips. I am learning how too cook from scratch rather than relying on those jar sauces or sachets, which I think will definitely lead to a healthier lifesyle what with the fresh chilli and ginger etc. I am also over the moon that I can still eat a lot of the 'junk foods' that I love, including a large portion of Cadbury chocolate and Magnum icecreams.
I am also very lucky to have such a supportive partner who straight away said he didn't mind eating gluten-free food, which meant a lot less worry about how I was going to feed us both! I am more than happy for him to eat 'normal' foods which I don't normally eat anyway but its good to know that he is enjoying the new dinners we are trying.
I plan to use this blog to document new recipes that I try, review restaurants that I eat at and generally just rant away about my new found way of life as a 'Food Nazi', checking everything I eat :)
