About
Dec 13th, 2006 by Mary Frances
Welcome to the Gluten Free Cooking School
Four years ago I became a wife and a gluten-free cook. Even though I had been cooking since I was able to hold a spoon, it was not an easy transition. Luckily I received Joy of Cooking
Fast forward four years and the two have become three. Shortly after John and I welcomed David into the world, I was diagnosed with IBS. I’ve never really liked to take medicine, so I decided to see if I could handle the symptoms with dietary changes. The obvious place to start was with gluten, since I was already at least 50% gluten-free. Within days my symptoms were gone. Now that I had to be gluten-free (you see, there’s really no going back once you know how painful gluten can be), I truly realized how tough a true gluten free diet was. And so, the Gluten Free Cooking School was born.
I realize what a blessing it is to have been taught to cook from a very early age. Since I knew the basics of cooking, it was relatively easy for me to learn how to cook foods without gluten. My mission with this blog is to give you the same advantage I had - basic, hands-on lessons in cooking. I hope that you will find this site to be helpful to you. I look forward to your questions, your recipe requests, and your feedback.
Mary Frances
Hi! I just found your site from another gluten free site. I just started gluten free diet about 3 months ago due to dermititis herpesiformitis (a form of celiacs). I saw you were in Alabama, as I am. Where do you get your flours? I too am trying to keep my grocery bill down to $400/month and it is pretty tough on Whole Foods prices.
Thanks!
Michelle,
I buy brown rice flour directly from Bob’s Red Mill (25 lb bag) and then buy the cornstarch, soy flour and masa harina at Walmart. Whenever I by a bag of brown rice I usually slip in a few small bags of new flours to play with….so only every 4 months or so.
Hi, I am new to the whole gluten-free world and am intriqued by your recipes. There are especially a couple that I would like to try but can’t seem to locate the recipes on your site. They are the Black Bean Chalupas and Sweet Potato Peanut Stew. I also just wanted to say thanks for all your information–it really makes the gluten-free transition much easier when you see that there are successful examples of being able to make it happen and in a tasty way!
Hi Mary Frances,
I am allergic to rice and cannot use rice flour. I am so excited about your biscuit recipe do you have a suggestion for a substitute. I use a lot of potato, tapioca, arrowroot, corn flours but they don’t make breads alone well. I use bobs redmill pancake mix which is delicious and doesn’t contain rice. Thank you for your website!
Melissa, I haven’t done much experimentation with other grain flours, but a lot of gluten free bloggers swear by sorghum flour. If you can use bean flours there are also a number of them that you could experiment with. I just got in a huge order of new flours, so hopefully I’ll be of more help after a few trial runs of my own.
Mary Frances,
I have just found your website today! I have been told that I have a wheat allergy (not celiac), but I am not pleased with my current doctor. I too, live in Alabama and was wondering if you would share the info for the allergist you were happy with when you found out you did not have celiac.
Thank You,
Lisa
Hi Mary Frances,
Nice website, love the recipes..Just wanted to share to you a website that has a list of gluten free restaurants. It has listings for the US,UK, and Australia.
Its at: http://www.menulog.co.uk/browse/gluten_free
Hope this helps..
Michael
I began a firm, Healing Through Nutrition, which teaches people about digestive wellness and how to begin eating gluten free/dairy free from a healthful perspective. There are many very good dairy free substitutions. We drink a milk product called Vance’s Original Darifree which is potato based and only has 2 grams of sugar per serving (no artificial sweeteners). We drink it and even cook with it. There is not a strong aftertaste like you find with rice milk or soy milk. I have made a delicious gluten free/casein free cheese cake that is very tasty. Good luck and stay with it — in the long run, the benefits definitely are worth the effort!
To Melissa re replacements for rice flour
Teff, sorghum (milo), millet, quinoa, montina and buckwheat all make good gluten free flours.
Our favourites are teff, sorghum and quinoa. We’re intolerant to millet but most people love it’s flavour and baking with it. You can find whole grain quinoa, millet and whole almonds in every grocery store. If you grind them well in a coffee grinder or a blender and stick to a rough formula of 1/3 whole grain like quinoa or millet, 1/3 almond meal and 1/3 starch (tapioca, potato etc) you’ll like your finished products and the nutition will be much better than using starches by themselves. We find that quinoa is better for savoury uses than sweet for sweet we use sorghum.
Hi, I am new to this whole Gluten Free/Casein Free cooking and we are also sensitive to yeast. Is there any sustitute for yeast for the bread recipes? By the way, love your site, I’m so glad I found it. I’m in desparate need of making my 3 yr old a Almond Butter and Jelly sandwich that won’t upset her system. Thanks!
Hi Michelle, To get started try my Multi-Grain Flat Bread Recipe. My son, who just turned 2, often eats a slice of this bread spread with nut butter as part of his lunch. The bread is gluten, casein and yeast free among other things. I haven’t tried any of my other recipes without yeast but I’ll definitely post about it if it works.
Mary Frances, you are amazing! i can’t believe how quickly you respond and with such great ideas. Thank you, I’m willing to most anything to get this kid to eat! Her staples used to be (we started this last Wed): pizza, chicken nuggets, and PB&J. So far I can’t get the kid to eat anything now except applesauce, bananas, chips and cookies. Nice diet, right? I appreciate all your help and look forward to trying anything.
I am so excited that I found your blog! I was on the search for some yummy GF recipes because my husband is on a GF diet, so my girls and I are too (for the most part). Thank you so much for making so many recipes available for us. I can’t thank you enough. …angela
Thank you so much for your kind compliment about the sauce for the chicken stuffed with goat cheese, spinach and sun dried tomatoes that I posted earlier this week. I am very interested to see how it turned out in your vegetarian adaptation! Please do let me know. I was very honored to hear from you, as I have been to your site several times in the past and think you do an outstanding job! It sounds like the paths that led us to gluten free cooking were very similar. Is there a private email where I can contact you? I have a website question. Thanks!
Andrea
http://tastyandglutenfree.blogspot.com