Don't Give Up!

I have spent the past couple of weeks reading through Dr. Carol Fenster’s recipe book, “Gluten-Free Quick and Easy”, and I gotta tell ya… there is absolutely nothing quick or easy about getting started.  Changing your cooking and eating habits is not easy.  My wife is physically motivated to stay wheat-free.  Her wheat intolerance has made it really easy for her to stay away from wheat products of any kind.  Or at least it seems that way to me.  Me?  I still want a cold beer, a yeasty dinner roll, and a slice or two of frozen pizza.

Give me quick and easy.  Let me pop something into the oven and pull it out all hot and gooey and ready to eat.  Yeah, I didn’t think that was gonna happen much anymore.  You can’t see it, but I’m pouting and I bet my wife is too even though she is not showing it so much.  “Gluten-Free Quick and Easy” has got to be the worst book ever written for someone who knows how to cook and wants some bread for sandwich making right now.  Oh, that was 3 weeks ago, wasn’t it?  I don’t think I have ever been so frustrated or intimidated by a cooking challenge before in my life.

Dr. Fenster, your book is mis-titled.  It should be called “Redesigning Your Life In Order To Learn Partial Recipes You’ll Need To Research Online In Order To Complete After Sharing an Emotional Meltdown With Your Partner And Spending Hundreds Of Dollars On Ingredients And Gasoline Only To Learn Main Ingredients Are Not Available Within 100 Miles And You’ll Have To Order Those Online Too”.

The potato starch should arrive via UPS in a few more days.  And for anyone who hasn’t done the research, potato starch and potato flour are not interchangeable although potato starch is sometimes sold as potato starch flour.

Until all your ingredients are on hand, please consider buying either Hodgson Mill’s or Bob’s Red Mill gluten-free mixes for your yeast bread needs.  Yes, your food costs have just risen by 200%, but you really will feel a whole lot better if you have any type of wheat intolerance.

Dr. Fenster, I will give you credit for bringing my wife and I closer emotionally and baring our insecurities to one another. 

I did make acceptable sandwich bread for us last night, but it’s still not right and as soon as I figure out the ingredients, I will share them.  In the meantime, I found a box of Hodgson Mills Bread Mix while searching desperately for more corn starch yesterday.  At least we’ll have enough bread to help us use up the sliced turkey and cheeses Cristy was good enough to pick up after work last night along with more corn starch.  

"When you get to the end of your rope, tie a knot and hang on."

Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882-1945)

Trust No One and Make No Beans About it!

One of the most important things we’ve learned so far is to trust no one.  Eating at restaurants is at best a game of roulette.  At worst, it’s a game of Russian roulette.  OK, maybe we won’t die, but the pain a good dose of hidden wheat or gluten causes makes my wife feel like she’s dying.

We have a favorite Mexican restaurant we trust, but we have to be very careful of what we order and so far, the wheat/gluten intolerance isn’t so severe that we have to worry about cross contamination from cooking surfaces.  But I have been sorely tempted to ask if I could watch the food prep.  (Mostly because the food is so good)

You can’t ask to watch food prep when you are buying packaged foods, however.  Many, many products labeled as Gluten-Free just aren’t.  As I mentioned yesterday, some ingredients like monosodium glutamate are bad.  Below is a list I found which includes many ingredients to be on the lookout for(you can click all pics to enlarge them):

http://www.lpch.org/DiseaseHealthInfo/HealthLibrary/allergy/wheat.html

Read the labels or better yet, cook it yourself.  I personally did not have to throw any jars of MSG in the trash when I was cleaning our cupboards.

That seems like a lot of don’ts.  When Cristy is getting bummed reading the labels on food she used to eat, she tends to yell, “Wheat is in Everything!!!”

Not really, Sweetie.  There are plenty of good things to eat that are both gluten free and high fiber.  Beans are a great place to start!

Beans do NOT contain wheat or gluten, are very high in insoluble fiber (the one we have trouble getting enough of) and luckily for us, taste great.  We both like beans.  And, there are lots of different kinds of beans and tons of bean recipes.

Hey!  How did they get in there? Don’t worry, they’re gluten free!

I’m going to start with two kinds of beans today: Fava and Pinto.  I was just going to make Fava beans, but it’s going to be a six day project so Pinto beans are my back up plan.

 

First things first.  All beans need to be sorted and rinsed.  I like to dump a pound of beans on a cookie sheet and wade through them with my fingers a row or two at a time.

Remove anything that looks weird.  Rocks, ugly beans (they won’t grow into swans), loose bean skins. You know.  Things that you don’t want to include in your dish.

Rinse the beans thoroughly.  There were rocks and clumps of dirt in that collection dish.

And finally, soak or quick soak the beans depending on the recipe you’re using.

That’s the basics and they need to be done for all types of beans whether they are fresh, frozen or dried.  I rarely use canned beans anymore because the dried are much less expensive.

Beans, beans, they’re good for your heart!  Indeed they are.  And they’re good for your colon too.  Let’s cook some:

Lupini Beans (Fava beans in brine)

I’ve been looking for a recipe for these for a long time.  As a kid, I used to eat them with my mother who was part Italian.  They were just a nice salty snack and a very rare treat.  Who knew they were good for me too?

1 or more pounds of Fava beans (these keep for weeks)

Water

Salt

Sort beans and pick out the stuff you don’t want to eat like rocks and dirt and ugly beans. 

Rinse them really well under running water and put them in a pot of fresh water to soak overnight (about 8 hours).  Drain, rinse again and then put them back in the pot with enough water to cover them by about 3 inches.  Bring to a boil, reduce temperature to low and simmer for one (1) hour.

Drain again, rinse and then put them in a container that will hold the beans with some room to spare.  I made room in the fridge for the pot.

Mix enough salt water to cover the beans in the container.  Use about 1 tablespoon salt per quart of water.  Refrigerate.

Change the salt water every day for 5 days or until the brine is no longer bitter.  The brining process removes the alkaloids normally destroyed through cooking.  They will cause some very serious gastric distress if not broken down.

Mom and I just popped them out of the skins and ate them like peanuts.  You can also skin them (they slip out of the skin pretty easily after brining), add some olive oil and pepper and serve them that way.  I'm going to try to can some.  Use your imagination.  Skip the liver.

Refried Beans or Frijoles Refritos

This is just a very versatile dish that goes with everything.  Spread some on a corn tortilla, slap a serving down in the middle of a salad or just enjoy a pile in a bowl with a spoon.

2 ½ cups dry pinto beans

3 quarts water

½ cup chopped onion (optional)

2 Tbsp pork lard, bacon fat or olive oil (I like to fry a little bacon and add enough soybean oil to make up the difference)

¼ cup water

Salt to taste

Sort, rinse well and cook beans in water.  I put them in a pot and cover them by several inches with filtered water.  Bring to a boil, lower heat to simmer, covered, for about 2 1/2 hours.  Beans are done when they are soft and the skin is just starting to split.  Strain the beans.  I like to do a gentle rinse at this point.

In a large skillet (I use a cast iron skillet for these) cook the onions and oil/lard until the onions are translucent.  Add the strained beans and about ¼ cup water.  You may need to add a little more water to the skillet.  With a potato masher, mash the beans until they are a rough purée.  Add enough additional water to keep the fried beans from drying out or getting too thick.  Add salt to taste.

As always, use your imagination!  Add cheese, make a bean dip, or just enjoy them the way they are.

“Failure is the condiment that gives success its flavor.” -- Truman Capote

Trash Day

  One Of These Things Just Doesn’t Belong

Fitting 35 grams of fiber into our diet is no simple feat.  Take a look at the label on your store bought loaf of bread. You’re lucky if you are getting 2 grams of fiber per slice. So one sandwich, with 2 ounces of meat, a slice of cheese and a tablespoon of mayonnaise contains… 4 grams of fiber, 405 calories and about 20 grams of fat.  Can you tell I’m a label reader?  Cristy hated my label obsession until she discovered how bad it physically hurts her when she accidentally eats something with wheat in it.  It’s really paid off.  For instance, that 405 calorie sandwich with only 4 grams of fiber isn’t going to sit on your desk or plate all by itself.  What goes great with a sandwich?  A dill pickle = 0 fiber, 0 fat.  It sounds good in combination, but in order to get even close to 35 grams of fiber I would need to eat 9 of those sandwiches.  Ummm…  I don’t think so.  That’s just insane.

So how do we do it?  And avoid wheat products?  Honestly, it isn’t easy and it takes a great deal of commitment, but it’s a challenge worth tackling.  You see, I love my wife.  I don’t have to give up wheat or gluten, but I know how difficult it is to give up something you are addicted to and have it around you all the time.  And don’t kid yourself; wheat use is an addiction worse than caffeine.  It really does trigger some sort of enzyme or something that acts in your brain just like opiates.  I know!  It’s crazy!  Give up wheat products for 2 weeks and then eat something made with it…  I found out the hard way.  The difficulties I was having even have a term.  It’s called a wheat cloud.  I couldn’t concentrate on anything for a whole day.  I couldn’t even make supper.  Me?  Unable to prepare a meal?  It was that bad.

The hardest thing we are still doing is going through the cupboards and removing anything that just doesn’t fit in with our plan.  If it has wheat, our neighbor may soon find it slung over the fence.  If it has little to no fiber, it’s going out too.  It’s just not worth it to eat empty or even poisonous calories just because they taste good.  Good bye onion rings.

Now you see why this isn’t easy.  But, it’s worth it not to have to go to the emergency room at no-o’clock in the morning.  It’s worth it to leave the migraine injections in the drawer and not use them.  It’s worth it to know my wife’s intestines are healing.  It’s worth it to take a little extra time to read the labels and re-learn how to cook. 

 

And I do mean re-learn how to cook.  That’s not an exaggeration.  Take a look at the top picture again…  How the heck do you eat those tiny black seeds?  Why is there a jar of...? What are those?  And how many people even own something to whirl enough protein and fiber into a concoction you can drink without throwing it back up?  I have gotten 26 grams of fiber into one of those drinks, but I had to eat it with a spoon.  And what the heck do you do when you want a sandwich or just a piece of toast?

It’s all trial and error.

The box of King Arthur brand Gluten-Free Bread Mix wasn’t so bad.  It was fairly easy to make, it didn’t taste like last week’s cornbread, the color was uniform and the texture, although a little spongy, was OK, and I know none of it will taste like wheat bread because it just isn’t wheat bread, but I will not buy that brand again.  The nutritional value of the bread was not nearly worth the effort or cost.  There are better options.  We're just going to have to keep trying them.

“Variety's the very spice of life, That gives it all its flavor” - William Cowper

The Challenge

My culinary skills are being put to the test!  I have had rave reviews through the years for my ability to put together some scrumptious meals, but never before have I been so thoroughly tested since we began our “new diet” strategy.  The goal:  incorporate at least 30 grams of soluble and insoluble fiber into our day.  That’s just the beginning (or the end).

Until I accidentally challenged my wife, finding major sources of fiber and actually getting them into our mouths was nearly impossible, but then I mentioned I had only been able to reach the “normal” diet requirement of 21 grams twice and I couldn’t remember ever eating so much in my life.  The doctor wants high fiber which is about 35 grams of mostly insoluble fiber.  I didn’t even know there were two types.  My wife loves a good challenge and began doing research.  The first thing I learned from her reading and internet searches was the average American only gets about 5-8 grams of fiber a day compared to the 21 gram recommended goal.  I wasn’t nearly as surprised about that as I was when she told me she had ordered some different things to add to our meals/snacks/cooking.

Beans, seeds, grains and nuts, ground and whole, began to arrive in a rather steady flow.  I’m not sure where I thought the additional fiber was going to come from or maybe I just wasn’t prepared for the super-human enthusiasm she embraced this challenge with, but I opened boxes filled with stuff I had never imagined you could eat.  Sure, we briefly had a Chia pet growing up, but I never ate the grass that grew on it.  Nor would I have considered eating the seeds.  For all I knew, they were poisonous.  Quinoa?  I pronounced it like it’s spelled (Kwee-Noah) until the mother of a vegetarian made me repeat myself 20 times and finally got me to spell it so she knew what I was talking about.  TVP?  When I used to order pizza, I always asked if the toppings were real meat rather than TVP.   Bean flour?  What do I do with that?

I’m learning.  Slowly, painfully, and with as much patience as I can muster, I am learning how to replace the less-than-optimally-nutritious components with highly-nutritious ingredients.  Chia seeds have become a ritual part of breakfast and baking.  I practically had to beg to get more quinoa on our plates and I do most of the cooking.  Bean flour?  Let’s just say it works and I know it’s good for me.  TVP?  I don’t care how it gets into my food as long as it gets there.

Why all the fuss and excitement?

It all goes back to the same reasoning no matter how we try to put a different face on it.  Smooth moves.  I’ve had rectal surgery and if my wife doesn’t do something different she will have to too.  I’ve had plates, screws and bolts put into my neck and back; I’ve had a hysterectomy due to cervical cancer; I had a tonsillectomy as an adult that wasn’t much fun either, but rectal surgery?  I will eat fiber any way I can get it to prevent having to go through that again. 

The biggest challenge is enjoying it.

We’ve also recently learned my wife/life partner may be gluten/wheat intolerant at some level.  We get the results of some biopsies today to find out just how intolerant she is, but on top of the high fiber challenge is not just the reduction of wheat and gluten containing foods, but complete removal. Even though I have shown no signs of wheat or gluten allergies or intolerance, if I continue to devour fresh baked wheat flour based bread, I could become a contaminant in my partner’s life. *waves goodbye to multigrain English muffins with 8 grams of fiber*  And surprisingly, wheat isn't very healthy for humans.

I’m going to learn to use all these ingredients in basic and gourmet cooking and let you know how it goes.  I'll also try different gluten free products and mixes and I’ll share with you my tips, failures, disgust and wherever this takes us, I’ll drag you along too if you are willing to go for the ride.

It’s all about smooth moves, no pain while you drain, and of course, a happy and healthy life together with my wife.  Oh!  And food!  We love good food.