Gluten-Free Storage Plan

Thanks for the welcome! I thought I would start a new topic for this and not keep it in the Welcome Thread.

Kathieo - unfortunately we can eat no gluten whatsoever. DD even has reactions if she gets it on her skin or inhales flour particles from someone else's baking. We can not even use soaps, lotions, shampoos, etc. if they contain wheat germ oil, oats or other gluten-containing items. Once I used a lip balm with wheat germ oil in it and I had blisters on my lips for days and coudln't eat citrus for at least a week.

A typical weeks menu for us as follows:

breakfast - some combination of eggs, rarely bacon, cheese, GF cereal, milk, nuts, fruit or GF breakfast bars.

lunch - usually rice noodle "ramen", leftovers from previous dinner, salad, peanut butter/jelly on rice cakes or breakfast items.

dinner - usually meat of some kind (fish, beef and chicken the most common), fresh vegetables, salad, rice, potatoes, quinoa pasta.

dessert/snacks - fruit, nuts, GF brownies, ice cream

I use crushed pork rinds and/or parmesan cheese as binders and coatings for things like meatloaf, salmon patties, etc.

Occasionally I will make a loaf of GF bread, but not often because they are not really very good, they are about $5-6 a loaf , and they start to go bad by the second day.

We often use spagetti squash instead of actual pasta, but there are a couple of GF pastas that are pretty good.

We love Asian foods (use GF tamari instead of soy sauce) and Greek flavors.

We don't do alot of casserole or one pot type dishes because so may of the ingredients contain gluten, but when I have time I make sauces, etc from scratch and do some then.

Cornstarch and arrowroot are the thickeners I use for sauces. We can also eat tapioca.

On rare occasions I will make split-pea soup or chili, but only about once a month or so because DD doesn't do well with legumes either.

We often skip a starch at meals because it gets boring eating such a limited range and we really don't miss having it.

If you haven't already, check out gfcfdiet.com. It's a gluten-free, casseine-free site with a lot of really good info.

Good luck.

Sheynath, I am in a similar position, except that I am the only (known) celiac in my household.

For what it's worth, here are some of the things that I've been doing.

For food storage; powdered milk is a great protien source for the celiac, unless that celiac is also gluten intolerant (which I sort of am).
The best bet for long-term food storage is founded on a combination of beans and rice (if you have problems with legumes, consider adding Beano to the equation, it is amazing how much it can help). This staple can sustain you with little else to supplement it since the rice is usually vitamin enhanced, and the rice/bean combo contains all essential amino acids required for your body to create protien. Of course it is always good to have variety to go with this, so look into dried fruits and canned fruits, dried and canned meats and other things like instant potatoes, rice noodles, quinoa, and GF cereals.

Here's a trick I learned about breading; if you look, you can sometimes find gluten-free crisped rice (with no malt flavoring). Crushed up, it is great for coating foods for frying and it's a great filler for meatloaf, salmon patties or crab cakes, meatballs, etc.

Gluten free bread- you can make it yourself much cheaper than you can buy the mixes for (see recipe at end of post). When I get the ingredients, I buy enough for a half dozen loaves, then I measure out the ingredients into single loaf portion ziplock baggies (all except the yeast and the wet ingredients). Then I tape a packet of yeast to each one, and when it's time for bread, I grab a baggie and use it like a pre-packaged bread mix. Just add wet ingredients and go!
For flour, I like to use Asian rice flour that you can buy in Asian markets. It is so much better than the stuff you get at whole foods markets, and much much cheaper. Not grainy or gritty. I mix this with sweet rice flour (also available cheap at Asian markets) and bean flour (you can usually find garfava flour, a mix of garbonzo and fava bean flour, at whole foods markets, although I make my own bean flour from great northern beans as it is cheaper and milder tasting). The bean flour not only makes the bread vastly more nutritious, but it also helps it bake better than the starchy rice flours alone.

When I am finished making bread, I will cut the loaf and put aside enough for a couple of days, then I'll stick wax paper between each remaining slice and freeze it in a freezer bag.

This bread recipe is for a white bread. It tastes good- I think it tastes exactly like the bread used at Schlotsky's deli. It's especially good for grilled cheese sandwiches- and it makes great bread crumbs for cooking with too.

Bread recipe;

Gluten Free White Bread
The best tasting GF bread I've found yet, and the cheapest. The ingredients are the key to this bread, so try not to substitute. The flour mix is especially important, so if possible use gluten free flour recipe #110497 (http://www.recipezaar.com/110497) to make the cheapest, best tasting gluten free bread you've ever tried. This recipe is adapted and modified from one by Bette Hagman. The biggest change to the original recipe is the flour mix used.

2 cups gluten-free flour (recommended recipe 110497)
1 1/2 teaspoons xanthan gum
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon egg substitute
1/2 teaspoon unflavored gelatin (optional)
2 tablespoons sugar
2 1/4 teaspoons dry active yeast
2 eggs, small (or 1 egg plus one egg white, medium)
3 tablespoons butter, softened
1 teaspoon vinegar (or dough enhancer)
1 cup warm water

1. Combine all dry ingredients except yeast. May be stored in this condition for months in a ziplock style bag.
2. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.
3. Grease 8 1/2 x 4 1/2" bread pan and flour with rice flour, or grease and flour muffin tins for buns.
4. In heavy duty mixer, whisk eggs and vinegar (or dough enhancer), add butter. Add about 3/4 of the warm water.
5. Combine yeast with the dry mix and slowly add to the wet ingredients with the mixer on low.
6. The mixture should be like a very thick cake mix, add more of the warm water as needed.
7. Turn mixer to high and beat for 4 minutes.
8. Turn dough out into the pan for baking.
9. Cover with plastic wrap and let rise in a warm place (on top of oven is usually a good place) until the dough has doubled in size.
10. Bake in 400F oven for 50 to 60 minutes for loaf, 30 to 40 minutes for rolls. Cover with aluminum foil after 10 minutes for light crust on top, 20 minutes for medium crust on top.
11. Remove from oven, allow to cool 20 minutes before cutting for best results.

Thank you for this excellent thread! My mother in law has a wheat/milk in tolerance, but I never thought about the actual mechanics of storing for those allergies. I'll drop her an email to see what she does for this.

Ok, got a reply from my MIL:

"Hi:

[One of my daughters] has dealt with non gluten products. I would ask her for some help. But some products that I use that are gluten free are grains like millet, teff and tapioca. Rice and rice flour is good. Of course nuts are a good thing to have on hand. The ground almond meal is wonderful to use for coating meats, in breads, pancakes, etc. I have noticed alot of products in the health food stores that say gluten free.

Good luck."

I think she was in a hurry. I have had a lot of luck cooking with millet. Teff is kinda strange but fun as well. It's the tiniest grain and is good as a breakfast porridge. Tapioca, the low sugar variety, is something my MIL eats for breakfast every now and again. We add nuts (toasted soy nuts, almonds, pecans) seeds (mostly sunflower), rainsins, dates, fruit in season. It's pretty versatile and a nice change of pace from oatmeal. We make it the night before and it lasts several days.

Ground almond meal can be found at Trader Joe's. I wasn't able to get over there when I went to CA a couple weeks ago. But it's a nice alternative to breading. I think there is a recipe from the last RSC that was chicken coated in slivered almonds. I'll have to go find it.

I'll go email my SIL. Hope this helps!

Thanks for the replies from everyone. Catfish Charlie - I plan to try your bread recipe soon. I haven't like the bean flour recipes I have tried so far, but the great northern beans are mild so maybe I will like it better.

My concern at this point is putting together a long-range storage plan. I'm not sure how much of the GF grains to try to store since I am not used to using them now, or if they should be just a small part of the plan and rely more on meats, vegetables, fruits and nuts like we do now.

I have 3-day packs with relatively little grain product - some rice crackers and some cereal. We have jerky, tuna, peanut butter, jelly, canned vegetables, fruit leather and custom (GF) trail mix. That's OK for short term, but too expensive for a long-term plan.

I agree about the bean flours, I originally made great northern bean flour to use in a pasta recipe because I didn't like the strong flavor of garbonzo bean flour in it. But it works very well in this white bread recipe too. You would never think that it has bean flour in it.

Long-term storage is definitely trickier on a GF diet. That's why mine is primarily based on beans and rice, for nutritional reasons and for budgetary ones as well. Not quite as cheap as whole grain wheat, but easier to cook with anyway!

For now, I would stick with storing what you are already used to eating and using. As you experiment and try new things, you can add to your supply the things needed to make the new items. You don't want to be stuck with something you can't or won't use in an emergency!

Don't know why, but I didn't receive notification of any of the posts on this thread (or I'd have answered sooner), but it looks like some wonderful ideas have already been given. (That's what I like about this site ).

In my experience, Kzim gave the right advice: start storing what you are presently familiar with eating and know you can tolerate. But then make it a point to try out new ideas, and if they're good for you and yours, add those ingredients to your long-term storage also.

It's easy to see that food storage in your situation could become VERY expensive unless you're able to use (and LIKE) some of the bean flours. I just ground a #10 can of Great Northern beans this morning, because I want to try some of Rita Bingham's "instant soup" ideas, and also to use as breading for her "faux chicken." I noticed the very different smell of the flour when I was done (and frankly, I didn't much care for that smell), so I followed up by grinding some wheat to clean out my mill.

Sheynath, are you able to use soy products? I didn't see any mention of them in your posts. I'm thinking of TVP, as well as soy flour and tofu-based products.

Catfish Charlie: what is xanthum gum and where do you get it? Is it in a form that can store for any length of time? Also, what purpose does it serve in the bread? (I've never made any GF bread, so this is a new area for me to think about, but I read recently that 10 percent of the population is celiac to some extent, and that's a big enough percentage to really worry about feeding!)

Catfish Charlie may have a better answer, but xanthan gum is a natural vegetable gum product that is used in GF baking to help make up the "binding" properties that gluten provides in wheat flour. If helps hold the baked product together. It usually comes in a powder form, and as long as it's kept dry it could be stored long-term. An alternate to xanthan gum is guar gum.

Where do you get it? What's the cost range? Does it store well as a powder, or do you have to give it special treatment?

I get my xanthan gum at a natural foods store near me, but it is also available at a couple of different grocery stores in my area, and Bob's Red Mill offers it on their website.

It comes in a powder form, and as long as it's kept dry nothing needs to be done to store. I buy mine in bulk, and store it in the kitchen in a plastic spice bottle.

For long term storage, it might be best to do as Catfish Charlie suggests and make up GF bread mixes (dry ingredients) including the xanthan gum, then seal each batch in a ziploc bag or vacuum seal it.

However, as long as the xanthan gum can be kept dry it should be fine stored long-term on its own. Since it is a gum, if it gets damp it tends to form a solid mass.

Cost is about $20.00 a pound where I buy mine in bulk. That's why I buy in bulk, so I can determine the amount I want. It is available is prepackaged bottles and bags of various sizes as well, but a little goes a long way so I don't usually need a large amount.

My son in law in gluten intolerant....so my daughter and I
both have learned the gluten free sites to buy from, since we live in rural Colorado...no health food stores closer than
a 4 hour drive!

We use Gluten Free Pantry County French Bread/Pizza mix
when a recipes calls for flour...and it works great! Also, www.glutenfreeda.com uses this bread mix in a lot of her recipes, and she is a gourmet cook!

Debbie C

bump