Wednesday 31 October 2012

Gluten Free Oyster Sauce Revisited

I've removed previous posts on the subject because quite frankly there's a huge (insert expletives) problem. I've had to switch numerous brands over the years because retailers discontinue them and it's a staple ingredient for me. I discovered Maekrua Oyster Sauce via my OH who went to a local Oriental shop trying to source some as our previous brand was no longer available.

Nestle UK Gluten Free Product List - Updated December 2013

I found this list completely by accident but what a find! There's stuff on here that I didn't think I could have but now know that I can. Something to take note of is that Nestle UK guarantee that items on this list are safe so long as they are UK made, anything imported by retailers may not be safe so always check the label regardless. Always check labels!!!

Items listed are gluten free, items with a * contain 20pmm or less, the legal amount a product can contain and be labelled gluten free. I personally wouldn't eat these and wouldn't recommend eating them but they are considered to be gluten free by law so the choice is up to you.

I still think that gluten free should mean gluten free, no traces whatsoever.

Here's a new update, non underlined titles items in bold are updates or additions.

Tuesday 30 October 2012

A Blast From The Past Perfect For Halloween!

bacon bomb construction
Brain, Bacon and Cheese
Seeing as it's Halloween tomorrow I thought I would revisit a fitting recipe for the occasion. It's the Free From G Zombie Bacon Bomb! Never intended it to be a Halloween recipe it just started out that way once the minced chicken was placed on the bacon weave, it does look a bit like a brain.

Once out of the oven it had a severed limb look about it. All you need is a bit of Barbecue Sauce and you've got a creepy looking creation that tastes amazing.

Brief post today but back tomorrow with some proper Halloween goodness.

Monday 29 October 2012

Weekend Eats 15 - Bad Blogger

Great gluten free food was eaten over the weekend as per usual but I have absolutely no photographic documentation of it. We've kind of been preoccupied by some new arrivals to the Free From G abode.

free from g fish tank
We Got Fish
We did so much research to get to this stage. Who knew that choosing/keeping cold water fish could be so complicated?! All very calming and peaceful to look at now though.

Some people buy fish for their kids, we bought ours for the Persian. Thankfully she doesn't view them as dinner, just as entertainment from her spot on the bed. They had quite a relaxing effect on all of us yesterday but this morning with the full moon approaching and no fish viewing, the Persian had a heightened version of one of her hyperactive moods. Once on the bed though, calm. We should have got fish sooner.

So now you know why there's a bit of a photo drought for the rest of this blog post. The fishes did it.


Friday 26 October 2012

A Natural Alternative To Lemsip

honey and lemon cold remedy
Cold Fighter
As written about in a previous post, Lemsip's are gluten free (except for the Lemsip All In One Wild Berry and Hot Orange) but they don't agree with me. I've used natural remedies for years because as a child I was constantly on some form of medication even though I didn't have a long term illness. I just used to get everything going and I put that down to the fact that I had no immune system due to all the drugs I was given unnecessarily.

I'm not going to tempt fate but as an adult, aside from the need to be gluten free, yeah. I like natural remedies.

Pickled Onion Pom-Bear - Halloween Special Edition and More

pickled onion pom bear crisps
So Cute!
Not sure why I've never written about Pom-Bear before, I've previously eaten so many of the Pizza flavour that I don't think I could stand another. It was of course the packaging the caught my eye and I am rather partial to pickle onion flavour crisps, so I put the thoughts of the overindulgence of the other flavour to the back of my mind and had a munch.

Thursday 25 October 2012

Gluten Free Giant Chicken Kiev

gluten free chicken kiev
It Ooozed
Not the tidiest of photos but there's not much you can do once you've made the cut. A good Chicken Kiev should always have plenty of buttery goodness oozing from within, this was post oooze.

I fiddled about with incisions and using the mini breast fillet as a 'plug' on numerous occasions, but the butter always leaked during the cooking process. I don't bother with incisions anymore, this is a sure fire way to make the perfect Chicken Kiev every time, even if it may seem a weird way of going about it. This is a Free From G Kiev after all, why use traditional methods?!

Wednesday 24 October 2012

Sea Bass, Samphire, Bacon and Toms

smoked sea bass samphire bacon tomatoes
Tuesday Night Dinner
I've written about Smoked Sea Bass before, but thanks to the introduction of Samphire at Tesco this week I've been able to make the meal even better. When I used to live on the coast Samphire was readily available, since moving back to London some years ago, I've not seen it to buy anywhere. I actually squealed when I saw it on Saturday, I love this ingredient!

Tuesday 23 October 2012

Burts Potato Chips - Pesto Flavour

burts pesto crisps
Roddy Fried These*
Initially I was drawn to these because of the colour of the pack, I love it. It stood out so much just like the Firecracker Lobster ones. When I saw what the flavour was I became intruigued, Pesto? We had to give them a go, I'd never heard of Pesto crisps before and couldn't really imagine herby crisps without any other flavours to go with them.

Monday 22 October 2012

Weekend Eats 14 - Colds, Chocolates and Quiche

honey and lemon cold sweets
*Sneeze*
That photo says a lot about the weekend, there are stinky colds afoot. The lovely Glutenite got progressively worse as the weekend went on and Lemsip didn't seem to be helping, so I took my usual natural remedy approach and added a huge tablespoon of Manuka Honey to his last mug last night. Sure enough he was vastly improved by this morning.

Though Lemsips are gluten free (all but the Lemsip Max All In One Wild Berry and Hot Orange) they don't agree with me. I caved from my natural approach last year whilst suffering from flu and it made me beyond woozy, I don't like woozy. I'll stick to my hippy dippy approach thank you very much, hence the Jakemans Honey and Lemon Menthol sweets pictured above. The cold hasn't fully got me.

Friday 19 October 2012

Gluten Free Chicken Soup That Anyone Can Make

gluten free chicken soup
Chicken Soup Goodness
Provided that you have shop bought gluten free chicken stock, making this soup takes less than 5 minutes to put together. It's incredibly easy, filling and perfect for those under the weather days when you need goodness but can't be bothered to cook. I wouldn't call this cooking!

Thursday 18 October 2012

Gluten Free Cheese Straws

gluten free cheese straws
I Baked!
Finally! If you're reading this then it can be safely said that I improved them and am happy with the result. Before we go another further I'd just like to point out that these aren't the kind of cheese straws that you can pick up and snap in half, these are soft and bendy cheese straws just like the ones I used to love in the days when I didn't know what gluten was.

Wednesday 17 October 2012

Feedback On My Novice Baking Attempt

I'm yet to do what is hopefully the final experiment on the cheese straws because quite frankly, I'm afraid of eating them. I don't know where these thick people who go gluten free for weight loss get that idea from, this blog is in danger of increasing my weight quite rapidly! I'm not baking them until my Glutenite is home from work, safety in numbers.


Tuesday 16 October 2012

First Gluten Free Baking Experiment, Done!

You know what? After my last update I honestly thought that it was going to be an experimental disaster. However, 2 hours before dinner and extremely full after eating 3 of my 4 test creations (oops), I can honestly say that on first attempt, I'm almost there!!! Woo!!!


Baking Update

My foray into baking was a bit delayed due to my iPhone battery being dead and having still not unpacked everything from the move it took me an age to find a camera. Which also had a dead battery. I figured that I'd do the early stages without needing to document them photographically.

I am now at the 'dough' phase having charged my iPhone and documented a couple of steps. I have to say chaps, it's not looking good.


Weekend Eats 12 3/4

My Glutenite still doesn't believe that Roddy and his chums are actually frying the crisps. My mum does think I'm slightly mad but has some recollection of the McCain pizza toppers. Some. I think she was humouring me to be honest.

I've taken it upon myself to get to the bottom of this. I've sent a message to Roddy via the website. This is what popped up after I hit send:

email message from burts crisps

I didn't ask anything rude, naughty or stupid, I asked which other flavours were gluten free. I'll let you know if I get a reply.

Monday 15 October 2012

Oh.

Poor Roddy. He IS front page material (I knew it) just like everyone else in an alternating way when you hit refresh or go back to the fryers page. I falsely accused Burts of overlooking a much valued member of staff :/

I have since hit myself over the head with a packet of Firecracker Lobster Chips for being so hasty.

Here, have a pic of my seasonal Haribo I just ate so we can forget all about it:

haribo halloween sweets
Frogs and Spiders, A Bat and A Worm
What will tomorrow bring? ;)

Weekend Eats 12

Weekend Eats are always my favourite posts to write, if only the weekend came around quicker and lasted for longer though. They fly by way too fast for my liking. I don't always do a Weekend Eats post because lots of times we have the same meals because we love them so much, but this weekend I made some new discoveries.

Friday 12 October 2012

Sleepy Head

Late mini post due to one thing, I've been asleep for most of the day.

Not sure why, but exhaustion just crept up on me and I've not been able to keep my eyes open. I'm keeping the cold at bay and I've not ingested any gluten, so I'm at a bit of a loss as to why today I've been so tired. I feel fine except I could happily go back to sleep now, it's all a bit odd.

Normal service will be resumed on Monday. After more sleep :)

Have a wonderful weekend.

Thursday 11 October 2012

Superpowers!

I was watching the Morrissey and Stephen Colbert interview where they talked about Morrissey's militant vegetarianism and how for the day that he was on set, the entire building had to be meat free. Everyone had to adopt the vegetarian diet whilst he was around.


Initially, I was thinking, what a cheek! Then it struck me, if I could have the power to make everyone gluten free in my presence, would I?

Tesco Gluten Free Choco Snaps

tesco gluten free choco snaps
Definitely Not Aimed At My Age Demographic
I'm not a breakfast person, when I rarely have cereal it's as a snack. Seeing as these are chocolate flavour and how I've had a bit of a sweet tooth these past few weeks I thought I'd give them a go.

Wednesday 10 October 2012

The Free From G Italian Style Bacon Bomb

One of the reasons that I didn't experiment further with the onion rings last night is because dinner was calling and dinner was this:

italian bacon bomb
You Can Never Have Too Much Cheese. Or Bacon.

How To Get Batter To Stick To Onion Rings

I've made these a few times since being gluten free but they've never come out to my absolute satisfaction. I've always had issues with coating the onion rings in the batter and then ensuring that it stays on whilst cooking. Inevitably I've ended up with the onion and batter coming apart and well just not a great overall result at all. That's why I've never posted the recipe! I only ever post recipes that I'm truly content with and I have pretty high standards for my food, you'll only ever see a disaster if it's worthy of a laugh.

As this is a request from 54mu5 I figured that I needed to step my game up a bit. How can I make the batter stick to the onion rings properly? That's the only problem here, the flavours are great.

Tuesday 9 October 2012

Knorr Stock Pots Are Gluten Free!

knorr stock pots
At Last!
I can't tell you how happy I am about this, sourcing a gluten free stock that is also free from pepper has been a very hard task. I've looked at these time and time again but they've never been suitable (I'm not sure if it was gluten or pepper, I just know I couldn't have them) and it's funny because if there was one stock that I wanted, it was this. Hey, if Marco Pierre White puts his name and face to something, I'm in!


Monday 8 October 2012

The Perils Of The Gluten Free Sourcing Food Shop

So y'know, you take a wander down the world food aisles in the hope that you'll find something new and brilliant like the Cheese Bread discovery. You're scouring the various exotic looking items on offer in the hope that you'll see a gluten free label or at the very least no gluten on the ingredients list. You're just taking in everything you can in the hope that something will jump out as instinctively gluten free and you happen upon these things:

(Please note that I have no idea if these things are gluten free or not. I kind of got distracted from investigating.)

A Friendly Word Of Caution

Sourcing products that aren't branded gluten free but are safe takes time and effort. If I recommend something to you, you can be sure that I've personally researched, tried it and that it is gluten free.

If I give you a link of where to find a product, that's the only thing I'm recommending. I can't control what a site will consider to be a related product on the same page, I can only give you the name of the one that I'm recommending.

If you choose to go for a related product and not the one that I've researched and know to be safe then be sure to check the ingredients listed because a related product doesn't mean it will be gluten free.

ALWAYS, ALWAYS check ingredient lists whether you're buying in person or online.

Stay safe!

Friday 5 October 2012

Friday Fun But Not As Intended

Sorry guys, the fun thing that I had planned on posting today didn't happen so I'll be making sure that it does over the weekend to post on Monday. It requires lots of pics. Reason it didn't happen last night is because I'm not feeling great, nothing coeliac related thankfully just a touch of cold that has been threatening me with its presence for the last couple of weeks.

Thursday 4 October 2012

Happy 2nd Birthday Free From G!

Well isn't this funny, I didn't even know when I posted earlier. I was thinking about potential posts for the future when it dawned on me that Free From G was created around this time of year. Had a check back and sure enough, 2 years ago to the day my blog was born. Never celebrated the first one, oops.

I can think of no better way to celebrate other than to post some random unseen pics from the past year, hope you enjoy! Oh, and y'know, thanks for reading my rambles :)

DS Gluten Free Chicken and Mushroom Pies

ds gluten free chicken mushroom pie
It's A Pie!
I had these last year or maybe it was the year before that I can't be sure. I wasn't too keen to be honest, I fully admit that I'm very picky when it comes to the quality of food and I really wasn't impressed by the the filling of these pies. Whilst in search of the DS Salami Pizza I noticed that it said "improved recipe" on the box, so I decided to give them another go.

Wednesday 3 October 2012

Tesco Gluten Free Double Chocolate Cake Bars

tesco gluten free chocolate cake bars
The Things I Do For This Blog
If you're a regular at Free From G you will know that I've been on a bit of a sweet tooth kick recently. Were it not for the blog then I wouldn't really have an excuse to have sampled all that I have done, but seeing as all is being documented in the name of gluten free product research, I've run with it.

Have to say, I've been quite impressed with Tesco branded gluten free stuff recently, these only add to that.

Tuesday 2 October 2012

The Eliza Doolittle AKA The DS Salami Pizza

I said that I wouldn't be surprised about the topping this time, but I was. I thought there may have been a slight possibility that this one might just look a bit like the photo on the box. But, to say I was wrong is an understatement.

This time we had an extra piece of salami which meant we had a grand total of 8, now we're getting somewhere! Except, we weren't. We weren't at all.

If You've Ever Wanted To Know What I Look Like...

"I noticed something funny about having you on my lock screen" Said my Gorge in an email earlier.

lee from from g
Appled
That was attached.

Such a stunning look, moon face!

Keep eating the cakes Lee, keep on keeping on.

BTW, have a listen, so lovely;


I listened to Capital Gold when I was a kid, odd yes, but that's me. This song I heard over and over and only in the past few days at age... 20 something..., did I find out it was by the late, great George Harrison. Very weird for an ex muso.

I may go deeper into this as I have so many funny stories about musicians, but then again, I may not, we'll have to see (if I can tie it into the gluten free stuff I will. Hard task!)

Night All.

Monday 1 October 2012

Weekend Eats 11

It's been months since I wrote a Weekend Eats post so I thought it was about time for another. Only problem is that I don't have any photographs through laziness, but maybe I'll come up with something as I'm writing. It's going to be a case of scroll and see for both you and I dear reader.

Since we moved Saturdays have become pig out day for me, I've no idea why. I wake up hungry and spend pretty much the entire afternoon eating once we're back from our weekly food shop. Like I say, this has only been since we moved and is quite out of character for me as I've never been a big eater. I guess maybe I've found some contentment after months of stress and worry and my appetite is healthier. Much healthier.