Coeliac

Writing your own cook book and self publishing could be a big success. Many people who have been wrongly diagnosed with IBS are discovering they have coeliac disease.
My grand-daughter has found that most restaurants in England offer gluten free food, but she is not vegetarian. By the way, she gets a parcel of gluten free ingredients from the NHS each month.
In France, you would find it hard to find a restaurant that offered any kind of vegetarian meal, let alone gluten free.

GrandmaMia! Actually, as a vegetarian, you are well placed to cope. Rice, potatoes, sweetcorn, pulses, nuts, vegetables, salads, fruit, cheese milk and eggs are all fine. Obviously wheat products, including bread, cakes and pasta, are not allowed. Processed meats are no good either but that's not going to bother you. Do watch out for flour used as a thickener in canned and refined foods and ready meals. No barley-based drinks – alcoholic such as beer or non-alcoholic, such as lemon barley water – should be consumed.

Cornflour, rice flour, soya flour, potato flour (farina), chestnut flour, polenta (cornmeal), buckwheat flour, chickpea flour (gram), sago flour, tapioca can all be used as substitutes for wheat flour.

Nowadays, most supermarkets stock a range of gluten-free products but they do tend to charge through the nose.

Make sure you get whatever foods you can from the nhs. The flour makes the most amazing cakes and pancakes.

This site gives you a list of what is available.
www.coeliac.org.uk/sites/files/coeliac/prescribable_products_list_300812.pdf

I am not a coeliac but do have a problem with gluten. Phil Vickery has done a couple of books of GF recipes and there is a website called 'The Intolerant Gourmet' which has masses of recipes (and a book too, I think). The Doves Farm site has quite a lot of recipes on too. I've found lots of magazines now have the odd GF recipe in which is, I suppose, the advantage of slebs often following a GF diet.

All the flours that absent mentions need to be used with, at least, xantham gum if you want them to rise. The bread mixes are good too.

kittylester Not necessarily.
E.g.

ITALIAN ALMOND CAKE

Ingredients
butter or oil, for greasing
3 large eggs, separated
150 g caster sugar
55 g potato flour
150 g ground almonds
few drops almond extract
juice of 11/2 oranges, strained
finely grated rind of 1 orange
icing sugar, to decorate

1 Preheat the oven to 180°C or Gas Mark 4. Grease a 20-cm springform cake tin.

2 Beat the egg yolks with the caster sugar until pale and thick, then gently stir in the potato flour and ground almonds. Add 2–3 drops of the almond extract, the orange juice and orange rind and mix gently until fully incorporated.

3 Whisk the egg whites in a grease-free bowl until stiff peaks form, then fold them into the cake batter.

4 Spoon the batter into the prepared tin and bake for 45–50 minutes, until a wooden cocktail stick inserted into the centre of the cake comes out clean.

5 Remove from the oven and leave to stand for 5 minutes, then remove from the tin and leave to cool completely on a wire rack. Sprinkle with icing sugar before serving.

That sounds nice absent - will give it a try.

I do a banana cake that doesn't need xantham gum and there a few chocolate cakes made with ground almonds rather than flour but they can be quite heavy. Beating the egg whites must help in your recipe.

Thanks all, I know all the foods quoted are good, it would be nice to have a cook book to browse through. Just made some yummy G F cheese scones (one for my book, ha ha). Thanks too for the recipe very grateful.

Depends what kind of food you usually cook I guess grandmamia - avoiding foods containing flour a problem if your rely on pasta, pastry, bread etc. or if you normally make cakes. Guess you will be majoring on rice and potatoes for carbs. Good luck.

Eating vegetarian abroad has been interesting in the past, usually end up with rice and beans. Nice but not for every meal every day. Oh and eggs always with the 'you like sausage with that?' Got to laugh about it, after all there are plenty who have to go without any food.

absent might try that one myself when I'm not dieting!

You used to be able to get GF pasta on the nhs.

Yes, you can still get it on prescription. People with Coeliac disease still have to pay per line on the prescription. So better to pay 'up front'. You have an allotted number of points depending on age and different foods have different points. You can use the points as you wish.

jeni It's a classic Italian recipe. Italian cooks also use chestnut flour quite a lot.

The supermarkets have an increasing range now including pasta, cakes, biscuits,porridge, crumpets, our local health food store has a wide range of ingredients. I hope you look at the Intolerant Gourmet website as there are loads of recipes on there. My friend's niece buy stuff in bulk from Dove's farm.

I'm resurrecting this thread to say that I have just got round to trying absent's Italian Almond Cake (well we had a wedding!)and it's brilliant.

Thank you absent. If you ever write a gluten free cook book, I want one!