Healthy Choice: the store

Last weekend I participated in a charity event put on by a local group of ladies that I belong to.  It was a Trivia Night, and during the event we held raffles and a Silent Auction.  Prior to the night we sought out sponsors who donated a variety of items for the house, kitchen, and entertainment.  I was the "winner" of two baskets of organic, mostly gluten-free goodies, donated to the Silent Auction by the owner of Healthy Choice.  It was a real treat to come home and open the baskets, dig through and read the labels. I've been to the store before, located in the nearby district of Kebon Jeruk (means "orange garden"), but had no idea that it sold as many gluten-free items as I found in my bargain purchases.  This part of my last week has been a ray of hope to me in terms of my eating.  Another ray is that my family has agreed (and then told me) that they're all going gluten-free in terms of eating anything that crumbles or spreads (bread, flour, cookies).  This helps in that not only do I no longer have to worry about the counters and table top, I also can share their peanut butter, butter and other spreads.  Thankfully they all agree that the baking I've been experimenting with is not just edible, but actually tasty and something I can share with others.  We can eat as a family, snack as a family, and hopefully I can gain some weight and have healthier days.

Not sure how long the gluten-free family will hang in there (the gluten-free, not the family) but it's worth a try.

Just Say 'NO!' to Oats

I've read about all the confusion and differing opinions on oats and Celiac Disease, and deep down inside I had hoped that I was one of those "oat ables."  I even bought a bag of GF oats and GF oat flour when I was back in Canada.  After reading through an old recipe book and after days of dreaming of crispy-edged coconut oatmeal cookies, I made a large, slightly altered GF batch of golden cookies.  They look good, only falling apart a little (*sigh*), and they taste great.  I even had one for breakfast, since oatmeal is often the breakfast of choice for many.  That was a mistake.  It was a good thing to do in that I learned that oats are NOT my friend, but a bad thing to do on an empty stomach.  Twenty-four hours from their birth, I have already verbally given away the oats to another Celiac in the area (yeah!  Two of us around here now) and the cookies will go into the rest of my family's lunches.  Another *sigh*.

GF Rootbeer

Eureka!  Not only did I find a gluten-free rootbeer, I found one that tastes JUST like the rootbeer my Grandpa Jim used to make.  He'd make a batch every few years, bottle it into green plastic pop bottles, and  store it in the basement of his summer cabin at the lake.  This was no ordinary cabin...not only was it built by hand in the '50s, but it was built against a hill.  The end result for a child growing up in the '80s was a dank, musty-smelling, drippy basement that you entered under the back porch and literally walked partially into a hill.  The cement breathed cool and it was actually a perfect place to stand and cool down on a hot summer's day.  That's where Grandpa Jim stored his rootbeer, and it was a treasure trove.

Last weekend I was shopping at a western-type grocery store, and I found Virgil's Micro-Brewed Rootbeer.   I was intrigued just because it towered above the other sodas in a tall, brown, glass bottle.  I was thrilled when I read the ingredients (all natural) and they ended with "gluten free."  Every day I've thought about opening the bottle and enjoying it, but I had to savour the idea for a while.  Tonight was spaghetti night, with GF rounds of french bread and a tasty green salad.  Tonight was the night.  Although it says 'serve chilled (without ice),' I added a few ice cubes and it was lovely.

Living in Indonesia can be bittersweet, because it's possible that I will go back to the same store in a few weeks and this rootbeer may no longer be on the shelves.  However, if it is, I may just have to buy a few bottles to tuck away for other Friday Night Spaghetti Nights:)

GF Yellow Cake for Strawberry Shortcake

I love the internet for finding incredible recipes.  Usually I find a recipe, check out the comments, and then alter the recipe to my available ingredients.  A few family favourites are chocolate mousse made from tofu, and black bean brownies (google this and you get a variety of recipes).  The  newest in our house is a yellow cake that I found at allrecipes.com.  It's a lot like the white cake that my mom used to make for strawberry shortcake, with the perfect amount of bubbles for soaking up the strawberry juices and the right density to make it taste homemade.  This recipe calls for 2/3 cups of mayonnaise, and she had a great white cake recipe like that, too.  Maybe this is just a gluten-free version of the same.  

Thankfully, this is a cake I can make if I run out of my imported flours, because it calls for white rice flour and tapioca flour, 2 kinds that can easily be found on grocery store shelves for quite cheap here.  I did, however, add a bit of 'tropical' flour that made this yellow cake rather greeny-purple.  A strange combination, but it gives it a spice cake look.  The flour was purple sweet potato flour, and it is a very light flour that I find gives cakes a really nice lift.  Probably the 3 teaspoons of baking powder and 1 1/2 teaspoons of guar gum helped as well.

Today I used this cake as the base for a strawberry shortcake birthday cake, and it was a hit.  I love it when people say "is this gluten free???"  I mixed strawberries with a hand blender, mixed them to my already-mixed white icing (butter, icing powder, vanilla, milk), and then used this for layering the cake.  The outside topping was whipped cream and sliced fresh strawberries.  Yum!  This cake is moist enough that it stays intact when cut, which I find is unusual for most GF cake recipes.

A few years ago a friend and I decided that whenever we make things for events outside of our family, it's in our best interest to leave a few of the goodies behind for our loved ones (it only makes sense!), so I only used 3 of the 4 layers cut from the original 2 round cakes.  I cut the 4th layer in half and made half a cake that we'll eat tonight for dessert.    With the 4th layer this would be a really high layered cake, but it would be kind of neat to try!  

I think it's a down day today

It's been 9 months since my diagnosis and I thought it would get easier.  It has, in some ways.  I have a basic diet that I stick to, I fill in the gaps with new ideas, some that work and some that I won't touch again.  I love the black bean brownie recipe I found on the internet and have adjusted to my taste.  Tris' cousin sent me a super recipe for GF french bread, and my family loves it better than regular bread.  I try to eat eggs, although I think they're gross here for some reason, and eat a lot of pasta and home made soups.  Salads are quite often my mainstay during the day, and I like to make enough to last me for at least 3 or 4 days.  Beans, especially garbanzo and black, have become my new best friends in the kitchen.  I even have an iced lemon tea recipe that I make at least once a week that my family loves as well.  It's all good, but it's all happening in my own kitchen.  I'm beginning to really miss restaurants and other people's homes.  I love to entertain and it's a great challenge, one I am not afraid of, to feed others from my gluten-free (mostly) kitchen.  It just gets hard feeling like you're doing it on your  own.

I remember when I first started looking up Celiac disease on the internet.  There was one site that suggested a myriad of types of doctors and support that a Celiac needed to consider having in their lives.  The ones I remember are family doctor, specialist, nutritionist and psychologist.  I thought that the last one was kind of funny, but as time goes on, I can see why it could be a good idea.  There's a lot to sort out with being celiac, and the physical is just one of the pieces of the pie (gluten-free of course).  There's a lot of mind adjustments that have to occur, and it's difficult trying to do this on your own.

My week has been difficult, and I'm never sure if all the sleeping and illness is from something I ate or if it's from a bug that my body is fighting.  There's really no way to find out and so I eat extra-cautiously, extra bland, and I wait until this particular fight is over.

There are some really, really good, exciting things happening in my life right now, things that keep me focused on life and learning, and things that give me joy.  I am thankful for doors opening up in my life and am excited to see where life will take me in my future.  However, there's always that bit of me that holds back, always cautious, always wondering if I can make it through the day when my body is just wanting me to rest and my day is full and rest isn't an option.  There are the days when I truly feel 'frail,' a word that I used to jokingly bounce around with my husband when I wanted him to do something for me.  Now the word doesn't seem so funny.  There are other days when I feel strong, energetic, and like I can tackle the world.  Right now I'm wishing I had more of those days.

Thanks for reading.

Maltodextrin and caramel colouring...yes or no?

Imagine my excitement when I did a little research online and discovered that I can eat maltodextrin.  For 8 months now I've avoided that ingredient diligently and it was great to discover that it's a possibility for Celiacs.  I have also bounced around and read a bit about caramel colour, and it seems that it's a possibility in some products as well.  Seems that anything with maltodextrin in it that is made in the US or Canada, unless otherwise labelled, is supposedly safe.  Apparently North American companies must specify if it is wheat-based maltodextrin or not.  If it's not, I'm told it's ok to assume it's made from a different source.
According to some sites (I haven't contacted any companies myself at this point), Coke and A&W rootbeer made in North America are also made from gluten-free caramel colour.  This is great, if this is true, and it makes me want to run out and buy myself a rootbeer NOW.  Admittedly, I tried.  I had figured that A&W would be an import here in Indonesia, but unfortunately there was Indonesian on the can and no import stickers.  I'd chance it with a NA rootbeer but not with an Asian one.  Another thing to look forward to when I visit Canada next summer, and in the meantime I will do a little more research on all of this.  If it is indeed true that I can eat North American made products that have maltodextrin in them, then that opens up a lot of potential for things like ranch dressing, french onion dip, etc.  However, I'm learning not to jump into things just because of a few things I've read, and so I continue to search the net.  It's interesting to see the different perspectives given from different countries (ie/ Britain vs. Australia vs. Canada & the US), but it's very confusing, too.
And so my googling continues...

Dairy Hope!

For anyone reading this who is Celiac AND dairy-free, know that there is hope out there.  I know that just after my diagnosis I was told by many people and read on many blogs that often lactose intolerance and celiac disease go hand in hand.  That made sense, because when I stopped eating any form of dairy I confirmed that I too was lactose intolerant.  One friend told me that her Celiac brother went off dairy completely, and within 3 months was able to reintroduce various dairy items into his diet.  Unfortunately, unlike with gluten, I've not been able to completely give up dairy, especially butter on popcorn and a daily "hit" of chocolate.  It was not until I went to Canada that I was able to give up dairy completely, probably because there are so many alternatives to butter, milk and cheeses there.  As for chocolate, I haven't been able to give that up completely, but I eat it in small doses.

Now that I have returned to Indonesia, I've realized how much healthier I feel.  It hasn't been all that difficult to eat gluten-free, and I think it's because I've brought fun ingredients back with me, things like GF liquid smoke and GF worchestershire sauce.  My recipe repertoire has increased incredibly, thank goodness!  I'm not sure what I'll do when things run out, but I'll worry about that later.  Until then, I'm just enjoying grilling, baking and experimenting with new recipes.  I've been able to exercise regularly and afterwards not feel as though my day cannot go on without a rest.  I've also been able to reintroduce dairy slowly back into my diet.

As I mentioned, I've never completely given up chocolate, and I've eaten the odd batch of buttered popcorn.  Lately I've been baking with butter and have had no side effects.  Knowing that, I've also tried Greek yogourt which was a success.  That lead to regular, non-gelatin yogourt, which also hasn't given me any ill-effects.  Mozzarella has agreed with me, and so has various types of cheddar.  Today I ate some vanilla ice cream and I do have a little bit of nausea, so I'll probably stay away from too much of that.  I did have a successful ice cream cup at Burger King, but I'm not really sure I can call it ice cream! There are things I will stay away from, like too much sour cream, cream cheese, definitely milk and whipped cream, and large amounts of ice cream. However, knowing that I can bake with butter and cook with cheese again really opens up my culinary world, and although I will need to use all of the above in moderation, I'm feeling like life is really good in the kitchen right now.