Mmmmm PIE

[simont]

One food I've particularly missed since being diagnosed coeliac in February is pies. I never used to eat that many of them, but I always enjoyed them a lot when I did. But gluten-free pastry is not the easiest of things to make, so I regretfully resigned myself to a pie-free life.

Yesterday I decided to make a pie regardless, using gluten-free flour for the pastry; I had found some GF flour which (a) had a pastry recipe on the side of the pack and (b) came recommended taste-wise by a non-coeliac (which tends to mean they can't easily tell the difference). Got to be worth a try, I thought.

In fact I didn't end up making the pie myself, due to mentioning the plan to Gareth and Verity on the phone; the next thing I knew it was being made at the Gallery on the grounds that they already had all the necessary equipment whereas I'd have had to go and buy it first, and also Verity did most of the work on grounds of having a lot more pastry-cooking experience. The result was definitely not indistinguishable from normal pastry; but it was undeniably a beef and mushroom pie, and it was the first pastry I'd eaten since February, and mmmmmmmm. Definitely something I'll attempt myself at some point.

In other news, this is possibly one of the more surprising ways to find out what became of one of your exes: http://icbirmingham.icnetwork.co.uk/mail/news/tm_objectid=15642946&method=full&siteid=50002&headline=mp-in-love-child-shock-name_page.html.

Comments

[rmc28]

Good grief yes!

[mooism.livejournal.com]

It was still a minor shock finding out by phone.

[simonb.livejournal.com]

Which GF flour did you use ?

[simont]

Dove's Farm Gluten Free Plain White Flour. It's a mix of all sorts: rice, potato, tapioca, maize, and sarrasin. (I'd never heard of sarrasin before; Google tells me it's another name for buckwheat, which leaves me little the wiser.)

[simonb.livejournal.com]

Ah yes, Dove's Farm flours are pretty good.

Buckwheat is, dispite its name, not related to wheat at all. Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/) has more information in its entry about buckwheat (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buckwheat).

You can pick up both roasted buckwheat grains (which are pyramid shaped) and buckwheat flour from Daily Bread (http://www.dailybread.co.uk/camb/location.htm). You can use buckwheat flour to make pancakes by just adding water to the buckwheat flour; interestingly enough this is what they made the savoury pancakes from at Hobb's Pravilion when it was still a pancake place a couple of years ago.

[womble2.livejournal.com]

Somewhat further afield, buckwheat pancakes (galettes) are commonly available in Montparnasse, Paris. Another good gluten-free basis for pancakes is chickpea flour.

[simonb.livejournal.com]

A number of Indian sundries are made from chickpea - aka chana - flour as well; for example most popadoms and decent onion bhajis will use chana flour.

[meirion.livejournal.com]

this (http://www.simon4mayor.org.uk/news/41.html) was quite unexpected too ...

-m-

[teleute.livejournal.com]

My good friend (also a gluten avoider) uses spelt flour, which she can digest, since it apparently contains an antiquated and much simpler type of gluten. She in fact believes it to make superior pastry to normal flour, and doesn't alter the recipes at all. I don't know whether you can digest spelt too, or whether it's even available in the UK, but I thought I'd mention it.

[kyte.livejournal.com]

Eek!

Good luck to them, though!

coeliac

[joshdavis]

My wife and kids are allergic to wheat and dairy. One of my kids is also allergic to gluten, which is sad since he loves oats.

It's amazing where you find wheat. It's in tomato soup as a thickener.

And then, finding breads of any type. *sigh*.

We have found that Spelt flour works well for us. It's technically a type of wheat, but doesn't trigger most wheat allergies.

I don't know how much you're experimenting, but if there is variance in reaction between wheat and oats (both high in gluten), then you MIGHT want to see if spelt affects you the same way. If not, it works just like regular wheat, though it's usually a little less overrefined.

We make pancakes, regular sandwich bread, cakes, and all sorts of other goodies with it.

If it's truly, purely the gluten and nothing else, then I wish you all sorts of luck. Not only is it hard to find commercial foods without it, it's hard to simulate/replace in homemade foods.