Gluten Free Carrot and Lentil Soup in 10 Easy Steps

Are you looking for a meal which is quick, filling, vegetarian, gluten free, dairy free, and hassle free? This soup is exactly what you're looking for. It takes just a few minutes to prepare, and then can be left to cook by itself while you go and get on with something more important. Here's a picture style recipe in glorious technicolour, to ensure this recipe is not only almost allergy-proof, but almost fool-proof as well.

Carrot and Lentil Soup

You'll need...

5 carrots

1 cup of lentils

1 tablespoon of caramelised red onions from a jar - you can buy this in places like Costco)

1250ml water (approx)

5 tablespoons of coconut cream (you can use coconut milk instead for a thinner soup, or more coconut cream for increased flavour and viscosity)

1 tsp/1 cube vegetable stock

Paprika or other spice

Salt and pepper

1. Peel carrots.

2. Chop carrots roughly.

3. Put the chopped carrots and the lentils in a medium sized sauce pan.

4.  Add everything else and give it a stir. No, it won't look attractive at this point but stick with it.

5. Bring to the boil and simmer over a low heat until the carrot chunks are cooked all the way through and the lentils have gone nice and fluffy. Stir every so often to make sure the lentils don't stick to the bottom. Cooking time will vary depending on how big you cut your carrot chunks, but will be at least 20 minutes.

6. Blend using a stick blender or a blending jug or a food processor or anything you can get your hands on.

7. Add 5 tablespoons of coconut cream or milk. 

8. Stir to combine and ensure it's heated through thoroughly. Adjust the consistency to your preference; taste and season as necessary.

9. Optional step: toast some seeds in a frying pan. Here I've got pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds and pine nuts in (probably a little too much) extra virgin olive oil.

10. Serve with the toasted seeds on top and a crusty bread roll (gluten free if necessary). 

Or, if you don't need it to be vegan or vegetarian, you could add some crispy bacon bits as well.

Et voila, soup is served. {Trying very hard to refrain from soup related puns at this point}.

This can be frozen and kept for up to 3 months, and is a useful thing to have in the freezer in case someone with Dietary Needs pops round for lunch.

Souper!

-Rachel

Review: Baja, Bedford

Baja, Bedford // ***

Style // Mexican

Where & when // Bedford only, although owned by a local restaurant group. We visited on a Saturday evening at about 7.30.
Budget // ££

Gluten free capabilities // No separate gluten free menu, and no gluten free alternatives like bread or tortillas, however quite a few of their dishes are naturally gluten free, and they offered to make me any of the burrito/fajita etc fillings without the tortilla. See the end of this post for pictures of the food and drink menu.

Food // To start we shared a bowl of nachos, which came with sour cream, guacamole, and refried beans with melted cheese on top. It was served in quite an unusual way, which led to some hilarity and more than a bit of food on the table, but overall was delicious and tided us over well until our mains came. 

I had the rump steak which came with chips and salsa. The steak was delicious, I ordered it medium rare and it came perfectly cooked. It was also well seasoned, and if you’re not one for lots of heat this is the dish for you. The chips were gluten free (cooked in their own oil) and very good. The salsa was also delicious. There weren't any puddings suitable for coeliacs, but I was so full that I wouldn't have been able to manage one anyway. Special mention to the select but very tempting cocktail menu featuring mojitos and caipirinhas.

Service // Friendly, and knew what gluten was. You may laugh, but that's not always a given!

Ambience // I thought the décor was great; quite trendy and modern. It was moderately busy when we sat down at 7.30 on a Saturday, and had filled up by the time we left. Overall a very friendly and laid back vibe, with anything from backless dresses with high heels to jeans, boots and a jumper spotted – I’ll leave you to guess which option I went for

Top tips // Book ahead, especially at the weekend, as it does get busy. Check their Twitter, where I've seen the occasional special offer listed. If you've somehow managed to spare room for pudding, head next door to Spaghetti John's and sample the gelato. You won't regret it!

Areas for improvement // A separate gluten free menu would be a help, and would assure diners that the restaurant knew what they were doing and that the kitchen staff had been trained in matters of cross contamination. Of course, the dream would be if they were able to provide gluten free wraps (B Free's ones are really very good) for diners. 

Final verdict // I'm awarding a 3, because whilst the food we did have was excellent, there wasn't a specifically gluten free menu which may put off some coeliac diners. With that being said, we had a great time and will definitely be returning.


Food menu (click to enlarge)

Drinks menu (click to enlarge)

Rant: Browsing charge?

Would you pay a fee to browse a shop? Alright, I can see the look on your face. But what if the shop was a specialist retailer? Still not so much? Even if the fee was deducted from your purchase?

A news article in the Brisbane Times was brought to my attention recently. In it, a shop owner explains the reasoning behind starting to charge prospective customers to browse. If at first your reaction was one of shock, or outrage, then I invite you to read on. 

Georgina runs a specialist shop in Brisbane supplying coeliac friendly groceries to the city. Her range is, by the looks of things, varied and extensive. Some products in her shop could probably be found at supermarkets, or online retailers, for less than she sells them. However, her shop is unique in the fact that she, who I assume is a coeliac or at least has extensive knowledge of living with the disease, runs it and provides expert guidance and assistance to her customers. She says she often spends half an hour with people who visit her shop. How many of us have had that in a supermarket? 

The browsing fee has been set at just A$5 (£2.75) and is redeemable against any purchase. Additionally, says Georgina, pensioners, children, and regulars will not be charged.

Now here's why I would be more than happy to pay a browsing fee to shop in a place like Celiac Supplies. As a coeliac, it's incredibly time consuming and frustrating to trawl multiple supermarkets looking for the products I need. Each supermarket stocks a slightly different and limited range, and I find myself needing to visit more than one supermarket just to pick up the things I need. For example, only one of the big four supermarkets near where I live stocks tamari (gluten free soy sauce). 

Alternatively, there's the online retailers. These have a much larger range of goods than the supermarkets contain, and I can get everything in one place. The delivery slots are getting more reasonable and arguably the time spent waiting for the delivery to arrive is much more pleasant than the equivalent time spent schlepping around a giant hangar-like supermarket. Except that doesn't quite work out either, because a lot of the most interesting gluten free food comes direct from independent retailers who all have their own separate shopping sites, with minimum purchase quantities and awkward delivery times. Online retailing works for products which you already know and love, but for trying new things it sucks. You can't give those nice fluffy looking bread rolls a good prod to see whether they're actually rock solid, and could very well end up with a product which bears little resemblance to the nice marketing photo on the website.

Most people's disgust at this practice, which some have called "showrooming", seems to be based on their experience of shopping for consumer goods, such as clothing or electronics. In this case, it's understandable that you might want to shop around to find a style or product specification that suits your tastes exactly. However, grocery shopping is not like that. How many times have you gone to the pasta aisle, spend a while deliberating each of the options on offer, and then decided to try a different shop because you didn't like any of the shapes? No; it's a different scenario. When you shop for groceries, you know what you need, and you go and buy it. If you're "just browsing", chances are you're price matching, or you're not in a specialist shop. Why go out of your way if you don't already know what you want?

Let me tell you, if I could go to a place where everything I needed was in one place, which was easily accessible, didn't take half an hour to cross the shop floor and locate the free from section and could be taken home immediately, all with friendly and knowledgeable customer service, you bet I'd pay a browsing fee. Especially if it was redeemed on purchase - because lets face it, us coeliacs don't browse. We go hog wild at the sight of foods which are normally off limits that we can eat without restriction.

If you were anti-browsing charge at the beginning of the article, I'd wager you're not a coeliac. And if you are, and you're still anti-browsing charge after reading this, can you please tell me where you live as I think I'd like to move there?

-Rachel

Who's ready?

I've had a little think about reviving this blog, as the more I go about my daily coeliac life in this here Great Britain the more I think it might just help out others like me. This may or may not have been shortly after I was asked whether I could eat potatoes for roughly the 7,392th time. So, coming as soon as I can manage, will be all the posts I wished I'd written but somehow never found the time.

It will be mostly restaurant reviews, but who knows what else I'll throw in there.

I hope it helps someone who needs to eat gluten free... That would make me very happy!

-Rachel

Review: Plum + Spilt Milk

Final Marks: 4 out of 5

In January I went for a meal at Plum + Spilt Milk, a new restaurant in the refurbished Kings Cross station. I went with work, which always makes me apprehensive as it means I am powerless to influence the choice of restaurant and sometimes it’s difficult to be asking questions about the menu in a large group.

We went for what I think must be their 45 minute gourmet express menu, as we had a limited choice of 3 dishes per course rather than the full menu. Again this gave me a little cause for concern, as often there’s very little choice for me even with a full menu.

However my fears were allayed by this lovely restaurant. We had an incredibly friendly and attentive waitress who made sure all our needs were catered for, and gave good advice for a choice of wine. She seemed genuinely concerned for our welfare, which does make a change. I was also pleasantly surprised to be informed that most of the options were already, or could be, gluten free. Result!

For my starter I had the creamed smoked haddock and poached hen’s egg which came straight from the oven, baked in a white sauce. It was absolutely delicious and I’m trying to devise a recipe of my own so I can eat it at home. For my main course I had pork chop with Bramley apple sauce, which is the only course I managed to get a picture of. It was a decent sized helping without being too heavy, and all cooked very well.

Now we get to pudding, my favourite course of the meal by and large. Here something strange has happened – I have completely forgotten what I had. The passage of time and perhaps the excellently chosen wine I had have clouded my memory such that it is now a blur. However, one thing I do know is that I was pleasantly surprised by being able to eat it and that it was excellent. Which means it probably involved chocolate.

Overall I’d highly recommend this restaurant. The setting is very pleasant and the service is excellent. The express meal is quite good value and this would be a great place to treat yourself before or after a long journey.

I've given this a 4 because they weren't as prepared for gluten free diners as some other places I have been to, and because the price point is slightly on the high side especially if you stick to the all day menu.

Review: Pizza Hut

Location: All across the UK and across 5 continents

Style: Chain pizza (I think that's a style in itself)

Budget: A meal can be around £10 if you don't try too hard to budget, or less if you have a coupon, of which there are usually plenty around. Prices are not inflated for gluten free products.

Gluten Free options:.A gluten free pizza base is available, and gluten free diners have full choice of all toppings and sauces*. They seem to have good kitchen practices for avoiding cross contamination. The launch was in consultation with Coeliac UK so I feel reassured that they have been given the best guidelines possible. You are served on a different type of plate with your own cutting wheel, the pizza itself is square to avoid confusion, and I think the pizzas are cooked on different trays and made in a separate part of the kitchen. There is also a salad bar with some gluten free options in it, although not all are and they are not all marked. There is ice cream which is gluten free for dessert, if you still have room.

What I ate: A gluten free pizza with extra cheese, bacon and sweetcorn. Having been a couple if times now (ahem), I find that they can sometimes come up a bit short with the cheese. I am a cheeseaholic so I like to order extra, just to be sure. I also find that sometimes, with their own pizza topping options, the ratio of topping to base to sauce sometimes isn't quite right (too much topping/not enough sauce/not enough base) so I like to make my own.

The pizza itself is pretty good. I mean, it won't win any culinary awards but I personally like it a lot. The base is thin but squidgy, the sauce and toppings are tasty, and they have all the usual options. The food arrives hot and all in all it's pretty tasty.

Service: Generally decent, although due to the fact that it's a huge chain, naturally it varies.

Good things: Pizza Hut were one of the first big chain restaurants to start offering gluten free bases back in late 2012/early 2013. 

Top Tips: Choose your own toppings for the pizza, look out for voucher codes, and book ahead if it's a busy day. I'd also call ahead just to double check whether they have gluten free bases in stock, as they have been known to run out before.

Areas for improvement: There is only one size of pizza available and, whilst it’s perfectly big enough for me and I usually have leftovers to take home, it may not be big enough for everyone. You can’t go for the buffet, which is usually the best value and most interesting option, as there are no gluten free pizzas on the buffet (which I'm very glad about – can you imagine the cross-contamination?!). I personally wouldn't risk the salad bar either, for the same reasons. If you arrive at the start of the day then perhaps you might be able to select the gluten free salad options without worrying about stray bits of croûton, but you’d be a braver person than I. Also, hardly any of the starters/sides are gluten free

Final score: I'm giving this a 3 out of 5 because whilst it has a good selection of gluten free items and is good value, arguably some of the the best bits of the restaurant are off limits (the buffet, the salad bar). Also, whilst I personally really like the pizza and the type of base, it won't appeal to everyone especially if you like a more "authentic" thin and crispy base. 

*Just checking the allergy information sheet and some toppings are marked as a risk of cross contamination from the supply chain. These are not marked on the main menu, which I think they should be.

The River Cottage Gluten Free Cookery Course

For Christmas this year I was given a place on the Gluten Free Cookery course at the River Cottage in Devon. I'm booked on this Sunday the 9th and I couldn't be more excited! We are heading down on Saturday as my parents-in-law live not too far away, so we get to see them as well.

This was booked such a long time ago that I'd almost forgotten it was coming up.... almost. I have managed to do a little bit of research into what we'll be making though, and I'm pretty excited about a couple of things on the sylllabus (I'm going to call it that; how grand), particularly the sourdough bread, and Pissaladiere tart, whatever that may be. We will also cover muffins, brownies, and buckwheat pancakes. I make brownies almost weekly in our house and muffins less regularly, so I'm looking forward to learning a new slant on an old favourite. I'm also looking forward to seeing how they make thier buckwheat pancakes and whether or not they'll be similar to the gorgeous gallettes de sarrasin we had in France when we visited last. There will also be sessions on gluten free eating and nutrition in general, different flours and how they work, and so forth. I will also get a gluten free lunch included.

I'm really looking forward to it, and as a keen baker, I know I will use the recipes time and time again. I do hope they give us the recipes to take away but I make take a note pad just in case.... I will try to take as many photos as I can during the course and will post about it after the weekend.

Wish me luck!

Review: Le Bistrot Pierre

Location: This is a small chain of about 11 restaurants spread across the country, but mostly focused around the Midlands

Style: French although probably slightly Anglicised

Budget: 3 courses and drinks for about £25 a head; often lunch offers on

The menu: A separate gluten free menu is always provided and it’s pretty extensive.

What I ate: Mini chorizos in honey for an aperitif, which were amazing as ever. I always have these, come rain or shine, as they are one of the best things on the menu. I then had the haddock risotto for my starter, which had little bits of leek in and the rice was slightly crunchy and delicious. It was a little on the filling side, though. For my main course, I chose the minute steak as the French do these like nobody else. It wasn't quite as authentic as those I have had in France but it was tasty nonetheless and the cut was of reasonable quality. No shoe leather here. For pudding I went for the chocolate mousse with meringue pieces, which came with some unannounced extras – firstly a huge dollop of cream on top which I’d have rather not had, and secondly it was actually a chocolate orange mousse which perhaps they ought to have told me first. Luckily I like chocolate orange things but others may not be so lucky! This is a minor point though and I'm being picky. It was tasty and big helping, which was very, very solid, so I couldn't finish it. They also provided gluten free bread on the side just after my starter for no extra cost.

Service: Pretty good, a little variable – sometimes too keen, sometimes absent.

Good things: the menu is great for coeliacs as there is plenty of choice. The wait staff are not surprised by gluten free requests and are pretty knowledgeable about the issue. It’s pretty good value and a relaxed ambiance which is perfect for catching up with friends or bringing the whole family

Top Tips: The mini chorizos are to die for. Ask for gluten free bread if you want it; sometimes they forget. The lunchtime offers are generally good and they do a Sunday Roast on a Sunday.

Areas for improvement: the menu has been the same for quite some time now. It’s a good menu, don’t get me wrong, but some variation would be nice.

Final score: 4.5 out of 5. Only marked down slightly because the menu is pretty static and I feel I’ve almost exhausted it. Other than that, it’s brilliant.

Review: Pizza Express

Final Marks: 4 out of 5

Last night I went for a farewell meal for one of my friends who is moving across the country soon. We will see her regularly I'm sure, but we wanted to mark the occasion with... pizza! Seeing as I've already reviewed Zizzi this evening, I thought I'd go ahead and share my experiences at Pizza Express as well.

Until fairly recently, Pizza Express was firmly on my veto list, as the last time I had been there (about 3 years ago) the only thing I could eat was, you guessed it, a mushroom risotto. I think it was the all purpose vegetarian, lactose free, gluten free option and not only was it boring, it was only a starter size! Not good.

However, they have really turned things around and now have an extensive offering of gluten free items on their menu (their website also has lots of great information, as you can see). You are now spoiled for choice between almost all of their pizzas, a salad, a famously good aubergine dish, a few starters, a pudding and even some gluten free beer. Unfortunately that mushroom risotto is still on there, but let's gloss over that.

I ordered the Toscana pizza and I'd highly recommend it. Slightly herby sausage, good mozzarella, basil leaves, amazing.

"Crumbled sausage with chilli & fennel, mozzarella and tomato finished with baby mozzarella, Gran Moravia cheese, fresh basil and extra virgin olive oil"

The base was thin and crispy, but not too tough, and fairly tasty. It's not the absolute best gluten free pizza base I've ever had, but it's top 5 for sure. I also adore the toppings, especially all that mozzarella. Sometimes I dream about mozzarella. TMI? Ok moving on...

I followed this with one of their Dolcetti, which is a mini pudding which comes with a hot drink of your choice. It's a pretty good choice because the puddings are plenty big enough, and it's good to do the hot drink thing all at the same time. I chose the chocolate brownie, because it was the only option, but I would have chosen it anyway to be honest! I had a peppermint tea with it, was was hot water with real mint leaves in it - delicious. They both were, actually. The brownie had some bits in it that looked suspiciously like chopped nuts, but didn't taste much like them, so I'm not sure what was going on there. One to check if you are nut-averse.

"Soft and chocolatey, a classic brownie recipe using gluten-free flour, topped with fresh strawberry and icing sugar"

So it's maybe not the biggest gluten free menu in the world, but it has everything on it that I could want, and the actual finished product is good as well. The service was good, and we had a 40% off voucher as well - winner. There is usually some special offer or other going on at Pizza Express which makes it excellent value, so I'd always recommend checking online before you go. All in all I'd recommend it, and I suggest you give it a try if you haven't already.

Cheers everyone!

-Rachel

Gluten Free Adventures

Well I promised you Gluten Free Adventures, didn't I...?!

This is just a quick post to say that I will be attending the Adventure Travel Show in Olympia, London tomorrow. I'm going with the aim of researching holidays which are a bit out of the ordinary but also suitable for coeliacs. I will let you know how I get on....!

I don't know about you, but I find booking holidays one of the most potentially tricky parts of being a coeliac. There are ways of minimising the uncertainty, like renting an apartment for example, but I do miss just being able to go somewhere and know that there will be something that you will be able to eat, even if it is a bit unusual. 

I will do a longer post on good holiday ideas at another time, but here's hoping I discover some great options tomorrow!

-Rachel

Review: Zizzi

Final Marks: 1.5 out of 5

Exactly two weeks ago, I went out for dinner for a long overdue catch up with two of my good friends. After much deliberation we settled on Zizzi in Covent Garden due to its vague equidistance between all three of us, the fact that they had some good offers on and crucially, the fact that I remembered them having a good gluten free menu.

Things got off to a great start as I met one of my friends, we’ll call her Stella, and we pitched up for our 7pm reservation a little early. We were given a table in the basement section, which was a bit of a shame as the street level portion of the restaurant has gorgeous big windows with views of Covent Garden – but never mind, I was there for the company and not the views. We settled in to our table and the wait for our other friend, and amused ourselves with a free glass of Prosecco, thanks to an offer on my O2 Priority Moments app. Stella ordered some free olives courtesy of a different deal, and we were beginning to feel rather pleased with ourselves.

We then got onto consulting the menu. Stella had another offer which was for 3 courses for £15, but restricted to just a few dishes. Whilst I awaited the special Gluten Free Menu, I looked through the list of dishes on the special offer and tried to second guess which would be suitable to me. The choice of starter was either bread or garlic bread, so that was obvious – neither – and then onto main courses. Most pizzas were included in the deal, and I remembered that Zizzi had a gluten free pizza base. It was at this moment that the gluten free menu arrived, and I discovered to my dismay that they no longer do gluten free pizza bases. There was no note as to why the gluten free bases had been discontinued, but whatever the reason, they had been stopped. They were no more. Woe was me.

I tried to cross reference the frankly minimal gluten free menu with the special offer. It transpired that basically my only choice was pasta and tomato sauce with a bit of cheese, which I’m sure was very nice but I decided probably wasn’t worth the £15 deal, especially as I couldn’t have the starter anyway. I figured I was lucky to have the option of some safe dishes in the first place, as it’s more than I get in other places, and settled for a tasty sounding pasta dish with chicken.

Sadly, things took a turn for the worse as a little while after placing my order, the waitress returned and informed me that due to a cross contamination issue, all their gluten free pasta had had to be discarded. So pasta was off the menu. This left risotto or salad. It was pretty late by this point, due to the slightly late arrival of my other friend and some slow service, so a salad just wasn’t going to cut it. I resigned myself to a risotto, and luckily there was more than just the standard mushroom risotto on the menu – chicken and mushroom! It was also more expensive than the pasta.

When the food arrived I have to say it was nothing special. I’m a little biased because risotto is something that I tend to make myself as a quick-and-easy-cop-out-dinner when I’ve had a long day, or with some veg in as a cheap and filling pre-payday eat. So I objected to having to pay more for something I wanted less, and I was not offered the difference as a compensation which was especially annoying as I did not have a choice in the matter. There was literally nothing else I could have chosen at the same or similar price point. I was also well and truly out of the running for the 3 courses for £15 offer, with no eligible starters or main courses included!

The saving grace was definitely the pudding. At this point I thought I’d be lucky to escape with an ice cream or possibly even a fruit salad if I was lucky, but they had a chocolate melt on the menu. Obviously I ordered it, and it was delicious: a perfectly cooked fondant with a melting centre – yum.            

So over all I left feeling disappointed and a little railroaded into a meal which I didn’t actually want (or enjoy) that much in the end. Still, they did give us three glasses of free Prosecco instead of the two contained within the offer I had, and they were very apologetic about the pasta issue. There was no use complaining really, as the staff couldn't do anything about the limited menu or the pasta situation (and also we're British, and we don't do that sort of thing). Also, that chocolate pudding was delightful. Those are the only reasons I’m giving them any marks at all, otherwise it would have been nil, sadly.

Has anyone else eaten in a Zizzi recently? Any good/bad/ugly experiences?

-Rachel

Gluten Free food on prescription

Hi everyone,

Since being diagnosed as a coeliac 5 years ago, I have been able to order various foods on prescription. I started out with a huge variety of different items on there, from flours to pastry mixes, biscuits to lasagne sheets, fusilli to penne, sliced white bread to dinner rolls, and then there were these weird things a bit like sponge fingers…

Over time I refined the list down to the things which I actually ate - surprisingly, turns out I don’t use a pre-packaged pastry mix very often, partly because I don’t often make pastry and partly because the mix already contains an unspecified amount of sugar, making it impossible to use in any normal recipe – and got things down to a pretty select list, which I would then choose a few things from every couple of months.

I generally order a large quantity of items at once, because I am too disorganised to go more frequently. Once a month?! What with the wait for prescriptions, ferrying between doctor and pharmacy, lead time for items to come in, finding the time to fetch items within normal working hours, I’d be constantly managing one part of the process. Which as a disorganised person, is too much. Does anyone have a failsafe way of managing their repeat prescription ordering? I’m considering some kind of Kanban system for low stock and a rolling reminder for the next stage of the process, using average lag time data from previous cycles… (Can you tell what type of work I do?!)

Back to the point. I have recently moved doctors, and my new doctor has fiercely cut back on the products on my repeat prescription. I now have:

• 6 loaves of Newburn Bakehouse (Warburton’s) brown sliced*
• 6 bags of Bialimenta penne pasta
• 2 boxes of Juvela lasagne. I’m not quite sure why this is on here, as I so seldom make lasagne. But never mind, it’s at least making me come up with new and inventive uses for lasagne sheets!

According to the doctor, she recommends an annual review of the items on my prescription and the opportunity to add or subtract items, as well as a general health check. This sounds fairly sensible although the thought of a year with the same few products on the list is a little daunting. I’m thoroughly sick of my 3 items, as good as they are (in particular I would recommend the Newburn bread, if you’re not already eating it by the freezerful).

I’m eagerly awaiting the latest Coeliac UK book for a list of all the products available on prescription before I book my appointment with the doctor. Then I can go armed and ready, and hopefully emerge with a couple of different things to try.

Does anyone have any recommendations for items they get on prescription and particularly enjoy?

*I’ve just read that these will soon be delivered in boxes of 4, according to Warburtons this is for greater flexibility and for those of us with smaller freezers. Any thoughts? I think this means more trips to the pharmacy for me…

-Rachel

My Favourite Supermarkets for Gluten Free Food

Evening all,

Now I know how we all feel about supermarkets- we love to loathe them, and it's a favoured Great British pastime (after discussing the weather) to complain loudly and publicly about them at any given moment. However, the reality is that most of us still do the vast majority of our shopping in them regardless. If know if I could do all my shopping at local co-ops and farmers markets I would, but sadly my resources do not stretch to such luxuries. 

I am however afforded the dubious honour of having a variety of supermarkets within striking distance of my home. Having formed an opinion of their provision of gluten free foods over the past few years, I have a definite ranking system in my mind of those which I prefer to visit. It goes something like this:

1. Sainsbury's - has the most extensive selection of gluten free wares in their aisles. In the bigger stores they have a wide variety of items from cereal to fresh bread, including frozen foods. My recommendation(s): everyday items, frozen margherita pizzas.
2. Marks and Spencer - carries the most deluxe selection of gluten free products. Sadly, this is reflected in the price, and they mix the gluten free items inamongst all the other food which can be a little frustrating. Stock is also highly variable per store. But it's worth the hunt - it's all so tasty! My recommendation(s): party food selection, seeded brown rolls.
3. Waitrose - has an interesting selection of products, mostly at the higher end. You'll find things here that you can't get anywhere else. Also most likely to have interesting chef-type ingredients. Again, you pay the price for this, but it's generally worth it. My recommendation(s): tamari (gluten free soy sauce), fresh sliced loaves.
4. Tesco - expanding as we speak, now stocking Amy's Kitchen and Udi's, as well as some of the usual suspects. Variable selection, even in the bigger supermarkets, but they do tend to carry something in most stores. My recommendation(s): Bonta D'Italia frozen salami pizza, Udi's bagels.
5. Aldi - no dedicated gluten free line as such, but a lot of their products are naturally gluten free and marked as such, which most other supermarkets don't. Everything is such good value that you could eat the best value gluten free meals from here, hands down. My recommendation(s): new milled linseed with goji berries, sunflower and sesame seeds (a sort of cereal or cereal topper), any meal cooked from scratch using good value ingredients
6. Co-op - a small range of gluten free items, and their own brand is fairly decent. But it's by no means comprehensive and it's quite expensive. My recommendation(s): ciabatta rolls, white or brown, porridge oats.
7. Asda - do carry a range of gluten free items, and in the past have introduced some interesting products like gluten free wraps, but the selection is usually small and inconsistent. My recommendation(s): BFree Multigrain Wraps.
8. Morrisons - even in the most giant hangar-sized Morrisons, there never seem to be the actual items on my shopping list, which I can't understand. I invariably end up having to go somewhere else. Their gluten free selection is patchy and contains a lot of biscuits. As much as I like sweet things, man cannot live by biscuits alone. My recommendation(s): leaving and going to Aldi instead.

I should add that I get my bread and pasta on prescription (more on that here) so I'm covered for the basics if all else fails. This does enable me to do the vast majority of my shopping in Aldi, and then top up at one of the higher-priced supermarkets for any special items not carried by my favourite low cost retailer. 

What is your favourite supermarket for buying gluten free foods?

-Rachel

Hello and Welcome

Hi there!

Pleased to make your acquaintance. Firstly, may I encourage you to go and read my About Me page? It's the tab right at the top of the page. You'll be able to get to know me a little better there. Then, why don't you leave me a comment about yourself? You can link to your blog/twitter/instagram if you like, then we can get to know each other even better. Us gluten-freaks have got to stick together, y'know.

So what's the point of all this? Well, as I reeled off a list of restaurants to my rather bemused friend the other day, detailing those which were good, bad, and just plain ugly for me to eat at, she pointed out that perhaps this knowledge may help other coeliacs, especially newly diagnosed ones, if I were to share it on the World Wide Interwebs. Selfishly, I'd also like to keep a record myself of places I've been and meals I've enjoyed, just to make sure my sieve of a brain doesn't forget anything. Finally and importantly, because that's where you come in, I'd like to find other coeliacs who love food as much as I do to celebrate new findings, commiserate dismal failures and sometimes have a good old rant with. 

If you'd like to keep on top of things, you can follow my blog with Bloglovin, find me on Twitter, or just check back here regularly for updates.

Catch y'around!

Coming soon....