Haven't blogged in a while so this will be a combined blog of a few things I have tried over the past few weeks, some successful, others not so successful.
When shoppng the other day, I came across a Shake n Pour GF pancake mix in a bottle. I was amazed and excited. Here is a visual of how the story went.
Pancake Mix
Pancake 1
Pancake 2
Overall....I would give them a 1/10. They were horrible and crumbly, tasted gross and really hard to cook! We had a bite each and then gave up. Although, I am not blaming this on the GF side of the product but more probably because of the egg free and dairy free component, as you generally need those to keep a mixture together!
So, my next attempt at pancakes will be with a GF plain flour substitute in a regular pancake recipe, 1 cup milk, 1 cup flour, 1 egg and 1 (or more) tablespoons of sugar. Will do an update next weekend on that one!
I have also tried a packet cake mix, which we are absolutely in LOVE with.
This is the outcome of the cake Andrew made last week. So delicious and moist, definitely my favourite thing we have baked so far! The brand is Bascos and its just a packet mix that is as simple as any other.
We also found out that our butcher up the road has mostly gluten-free products, including BBQ RIBS! Oh my....when we found this out we were in heaven and bought them straight away for tea that night.
This week I am making Potato and Leek soup with GF stock, and a GF Shepherds pie. Keep an eye out for updates on how those go :)
So whilst waiting to figure out what we are going to have for tea when I pick up my partner from the pub tonight, I was feeling a bit peckish and went to the cupboard to see what GF snacks I had picked up this week.
I came across.....
So I am actually blogging as I am about to sample, so lets see how they go...
They look very similar to regular Tim Tams...
Smell very similar to regular Tim Tams...
And whilst they don't actually taste much like a real Tim Tam....they aren't actually half bad! I guess because its a bit weird because they look so much similar to a biscuit that I loved that the bar was set pretty high, but honestly, I still wouldn't have known they were GF on doing a blind trial. I probably would have classified them as 'homebrand' but nonetheless, I am not overly disappointed. They are better than the other chocolate bisuits I had tried and I think its the nice creamy centre that gives it a bit of a different level of taste compared to the just biscuit-type chocolate biscuits I tried previously.
All in all.....I think a 7/10 is appropriate for this biscuit :)
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 :)
