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Friday, June 14, 2013

Being Gluten Free



I have been gluten free for years, I mean, way before people were even talking about it. Believe me, it was very difficult when I first started. Difficult to find anything resembling bread or anything that didn’t feel like lead in your stomach after eating it. I have spent all these years researching my favorite products and when any of my friends say they want to try going gluten-free, I’m the first to say, “Let’s go to the market together.” I’m always the 411 call from most of my friends but it is always my joy to share my favorite things with the people I care about most. So I am taking you all shopping with me! Let’s go to my favorite market P.C. Greens, the local health food store in my neighborhood and I’m going to show you what I always have on hand at home. My kids love my gluten free products and don’t even notice a difference in the taste. In fact, we have found that some of the gluten free products taste better than the wheat ones! I always say, I do the 80%/20% diet. I’m good 80% of the time and 20%, I eat what I want. Sometimes, I just can’t resist the crunchy bread that comes with the house dip at one of my favorite restaurants, Taverna Tony’s here in Malibu. Tony knows I love my bread extra crispy and keeps it in the oven longer than usual but those are rare occasions for me. I’m not celiac but eat as if I am. My boyfriend, Aaron is gluten free, My T.V. son, Max Erlich is gluten free ,My sons are about 50% Gluten free and I have finally converted my 80 year old mom and that was a tough one, let me tell you.

 Here are my favorites: Growing up in London, I have been having toast and tea for breakfast or breakie since I was a little girl. I am a stickler for good bread. My favorite is from Canyon Bakehouse, the 7 Grain Bread. I buy it in 10 loaf boxes at a time and keep it in the freezer. Remember, without Gluten, the bread will fall apart.  The bread can go from the freezer to the toaster and it tastes amazing. I use pure French butter, no more than 2-3 ingredients and raw honey.





I also love to make my own gluten free bread in my bread machine. I use coconut palm sugar to sweeten and love to add shredded zucchini and a banana.

 Aaron made the best gluten free pizza the other night with a ready made Gluten free crust. I was a little suspect as I am a huge pizza snob. It’s possibly the BEST pizza I have ever had and the crust was flaky, perfect and not over powering. 



For snacks, I’m big on Glutino Pretzels. Huge fan! They are the perfect snack but they are so good, I try to only buy the tiny snack bags as I can kill a huge bag of these in no time at all.

My other fav’s are- Hummus chip and avocado and lime oil chips...





 and Guacamole Bites by Nature Box.



 Aaron discovered Canyon Bakehouse hamburger buns for his hamburgers and I had one the other night for dinner, toasted with butter and tomato soup. Simple yet delicious!




Gluten is found in places I never would have thought, licorice, mints and soy sauce. I like to go to Sushi restaurants and I ask for Tamari and always have some at home. I happen to love the taste of Tamari better than soy sauce. It’s a little richer and is fabulous to cook with.

And now on to my favorite meal, dessert!!

I have served Tate’s gluten free chocolate chip cookies and brownies at dinner parties for awhile now and while my guest were all moaning about how good they were, I then said, they were Gluten free. 



Everyone usually looks at me like I’ve said I made them with cardboard! They can’t believe they are so good! Tate’s products are better than any gluten free cookies or brownie’s I’ve ever had.



7 comments:

  1. Hi Tracey, Thanks for this blog post. I would love to try you gluten free bread recipe. We bake tons of bread, pizza crust and buns , but I seem to have bad reaction to the bread. Maybe a gluten issue, so I have been looking for gluten free recipes. And you know how hard it is to find reliable ones on the internet. Do you have any recommendations for gluten free baking books?

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  2. What I did, is use the recipe's that came with my bread machine but just replaced the wheat with gluten free bread flour that said it was good for machine's. Plus, I aded shredded zucchini and a banana and I like to sweeten my breads with coconut palm sugar that has a low glycemic level. Let me know how it goes!

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  3. Sounds easy enough for me. Thanks

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  4. You are soooo lucky to have so many options for the Gluten Free goodies. I live in a small town in Ontario Canada and its so hard to find anything. I have RA and have drastically changed my eating lifestyle and feel sooooo much better. I'm going to look for these items when I'm in a bigger city or if we go to the states for a day trip. Thanks so much for posting :))

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  5. Traci, I am 60 and a 35 yr. watcher of y&r. I just passed my one year GF anniversary. I believe it has saved my life. It is like learning to cook and bake all over again at this point in my life but worth it for every day I feel better and stronger. Thanks for showing everyone that the whole food and clean living movement is so important for our next generations. They need good examples! Its so hard to convince some folks that we are harming our children with all the GMO food we feed them. As a grandmother I encourage all who may read this thats its not too late to take care of our bodies.

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  6. Thank you Marilyn for your great note. I agree wholeheartedly!!

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  7. Love the info here Tracey. I am gluten sensitive and just recently changing the family diet as well (Wheat Belly). Great blog :)

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