Celiac Diet

In today's world, where most of us are hard pressed to find the time to cook a proper meal - or simply refuse to spend time doing so which could instead be devoted to more interesting activities - TV dinners and similar products have become pretty much the staple diet. And of course, there's the take out - pizza, burgers and the rest.

Unfortunately, flour is cheap. So it's not surprising that most ready-to-cook products are often chock full of the stuff, and obviously, in the case of pizza, there's the pastry base, and burgers come in a bun. Even Chinese meals often come with egg noodles made from wheat (although rice noodles are a good alternative) - and an added difficulty with Chinese food is the soy sauce, which contains hidden gluten because of the method of manufacture, and the extensive use of monosodium glutamate. Sweet and sour sauce, which is often included in Chinese meal deals, is made from half and half vinegar and soy sauce mixed with sugar, so even though it's generally thickened with cornflour (to get that translucent finish), it's not safe, either.

Newly diagnosed celiacs often have difficulty giving up cookies, cakes and pastry products, quite apart from favorite foods like pasta. Most of the gluten free variety of cookie are pretty dire, but there are great gluten free cakes and also some good gluten free pastas - those made by Orgran are excellent.

As for bread, there's nothing gluten free that is much like the real thing. It's not just that the texture is often closer to cake, but the taste is usually quite different. The price is likely to be up to 10 times as much, as well, so in my opinion, it's better to forget bread altogether and substitute Corn Thins from Real Foods Pty or Rösti, depending on what you're using it for.

It takes a while to get used to cooking without gluten, but once you do, it becomes a lot easier. The gluten free kitchen may contain some strange sounding ingredients, like xanthan gum, and unusual flours based on rice, buckwheat or potatoes.

Starting out, the easiest meals would be old fashioned traditional meat and 2 veg. Perhaps a grilled steak or a lamb cutlet, with some mashed potatoes (made from real potatoes, or if packet - check the label), gravy (thickened with cornstarch or rice flour and made with a gluten free stock cube), and one or two portions of vegetables, such as peas, cauliflower, carrots or whatever you like best, and maybe a green salad on the side. This is easy to prepare in the time the meat takes to cook, and worth eating once you've cooked it.

Need food fast? You can't get much faster than an omelette. Melt some butter in a small non-stick frying pan over a low heat, crack in 3 eggs, break the yolks up with a fork and mix yolk and whites together. Season with a little salt and pepper and turn the heat up to a medium setting. Then leave the mixture alone until the bottom layer has started to set. Use a palette knife to lift the edges up a couple of times and tilt the pan so that the uncooked part of the egg flows underneath. When it's almost cooked, add some grated cheese or some diced ham, loosen the sides and fold in half, then transfer to your plate (it will carry on cooking for a little while, so long as the filling isn't too cold). If you want vegetables with it, get them ready before you cook the omelette, as it literally only takes a couple of minutes - and you can't re-heat it.

Another good base for a meal is a potato baked in its skin - well, I say baked, but most people just stick it in the microwave. If you haven't done this before, you need to know that the potato skin has to be pricked all over with a fork to let the steam escape - or you can just cut a line right round the middle, which is what I do. Throw the aerated potato into the microwave and zap it for a couple of minutes, turn it over and repeat. Depending on the size, it may be cooked (press or squeeze it carefully, but take care not to burn yourself), if not, turn it over and repeat, and so on until it's nice and squeezable.

"Jacket potatoes," as my kids call them, go great with lots of things. Egg mayonnaise (hard boiled eggs chopped and mixed with mayonnaise), any kind of salad, coleslaw, bolonaise or chilli sauce. The variations are endless. I also like a baked potato without butter, served with a couple of fried eggs. Well, eggs on toast is out, so when I don't feel like cooking, this is an easy meal.

After the main course, a piece of fruit cut into pieces with a fruit yogurt poured over it (not low fat, as these mostly contain gluten) is a nice dessert, but quite often I just have a piece of fruit on its own, or some tinned fruit.

If you're just starting the celiac diet, I hope this page has given you a few ideas on where to start.