Beginners Guide to Gluten-Free (and a Tasty Recipe for GF Rhubarb Scones)

All of my kids are celiacs. When the first son got the diagnosis, I was completely overwhelmed. HOW can I feed my family without bumping into wheat? It’s in everything! Then my own doctor finally convinced me that although I wasn’t experiencing the GI issues that my kids were suffering with, statistically it was very probable that many of my other health issues were due to the same little protein. Well hell….he was correct, and now I was faced with giving up ALL my favorite binge foods! Goodbye donuts, banana bread, crusty french breads, sourdoughs, pancakes, cookies….<insert leaky eyes!>

Since that time, a LOT of gluten-free product has come on to the market and a simple Google search will bring up a gazillion links….which only adds to the overwhelm if your doctor has told you to give up gluten.

What I wish I would have known waaaay back then was….going gluten-fee is just like anything- Keep It Simple, Sweetheart!

The obvious first step is to go through your kitchen and get rid of everything made with flour- pasta, breads, mixes, breading, packaged foods, seasonings and condiments (check the labels), cereals, canned soups, and frozen prepared foods. Look for hidden wheat in the ingredient list.

Common sources of hidden wheat:

Artificial flavoring, natural flavoring
Caramel color
Dextrin
Food starch
Gelatinized starch
Hydrolyzed vegetable protein (HVP)
Maltodextrin
Modified food starch
Monosodium glutamate, MSG                                                                                          Oats (may be contaminated with wheat due to agricultural cultivation practices)                      Shoyu                                                                                                                                  Soy Sauce                                                                                                                           Surimi
Teriyaki Sauce
Textured vegetable protein
Vegetable gum
Vegetable starch*

 Gluten is also found in rye and barley, so that has to go as well.

Once your kitchen is clean, the issue becomes what to eat!  Going gluten-free is much easier when you realize that the majority of your gluten consumption has most likely come from just a few places: bread, breakfast cereal, and prepared frozen meals. There are some pretty good gluten-free breads and breakfast cereals out on the market. Yes, they are more expensive, and in my not so humble opinion, not incrementally better for the money. Basically, the GF manufacturers KNOW they have us over a barrel and they plan to take advantage while they can. Solution? Make your own. Yes, you can! It’s actually MUCH easier to make GF bread than regular bread. It has fewer steps and it’s a lot less messy. You CAN do this!

A tasty and inexpensive replacement for breakfast cereal is old-school oatmeal. Make sure you buy oatmeal that is labeled gluten-free. Oats are naturally GF, but are often processed in plants with wheat, thus contaminating them. Bob’s Red Mill has a terrific GF oatmeal that is reasonably priced and goes a long way. I add chopped nuts and some dried fruit before I put mine in the mircrowave to cook. If it’s too plain, a little bit of honey helps out. I will admit that it took a couple weeks before I got used to the flavor of oatmeal that wasn’t covered up by sugar, but now I love it.

So now we get down to dinner….and this is where cooking GF can get tricky. If you LOVE pasta, there are very good/excellent rice or quinoa pastas that actually cook up with a lighter texture and don’t sit on your stomach with the same weightiness of wheat flour (semolina, whatever) pastas.

If you love breaded chicken and fish….there are GF panko bread crumbs, or make your own from the leftover GF bread. Most other recipes that use flour for thickening can safely and reliably use cornstarch.

But the easiest dinner is something simple- a protein, a veggie or two and an alternate carb source, like sweet potatoes, corn, quinoa, rice, pinto beans…..you get the idea.

The key to success is to PLAN AHEAD. Actually, that is good advice whether you have to avoid gluten or not. The time to be planning dinner is the night before, not in the car on the way home from work. If you”re anything like me, by the end of the work day I have so little brain left, it’s a wonder I can even drive home. Scary!  I found I get much better results if I can get into the habit of thinking about what I want to make for dinner the day before I make it. When i get bored with my dinner rotations, I look at ethnic food/recipes as many cultures do not use a lot of wheat. For example, Indian and Chinese foods are generally centered around rice, and  Mexican food relies heavily on corn. You don’t have to buy special cookbooks; just poke around on Pinterest for inspiration! My favorite sites for inspiration are Epicurious, Food 52, and Cooking Light.

Winding back to the beginning, going gluten-free is really more about avoiding highly processed foods and cooking more from scratch. The upside to cooking more simple/fresh food is you might lose weight! I sure did!

But life really isn’t worth living if you can’t have a treat now and again, right? And the thought of going through the rest of my life without EVER eating a chunk of crusty French bread is truly depressing……..so here’s to high-quality, utterly delicious, mouth-watering gluten free breads and goodies! Heck yeah!

The following scone recipe is SO simple and easy, your Border Collie can make it! And check out the Gluten Free tab at the top of the page for more delicious road-tested recipes!