Culinary Chemistry: 10 Gluten-Free Tips for the Holiday Meals

Published by Thursday, December 15, 2011 Permalink 0




Culinary Chemistry: 10 Gluten-Free Tips for the Holiday Meals

by Jenn Oliver

The upcoming festivities are all about sharing, seeing friends and family, creating new memories and reliving old ones. It’s a time of joy, inspiration, goodwill, and laughter that I look forward to each year, while looking ahead to the New Year and the fun and exciting experiences the coming seasons will bring. We stroll around the Christmas markets tasting chocolate, nougat, mulled wine, and roasted chestnuts, flavors and delights not just for the taste buds but all five senses — and has become something I look forward to at this time every year.

But for some — such as those who are gluten intolerant or celiac — holiday festivities can bring about a certain anxiety, a stress caused by imposing dietary restrictions on those doing the cooking, or fear of gluten contamination from the grand holiday meal. Just having had a successful family Thanksgiving dinner that everyone, including the gluten free enjoyed, I thought it might be useful to share some of our tips for surviving, and keeping the holidays fun without stressing out about food. So here are 10 gluten-free tips for surviving the holidays.

  1. Be involved – The more you are involved in the process of deciding what gets made and from where everything comes from, the better chance you will have to help direct the meal towards foods and dishes that are safe for you. Being proactive from early on rather than waiting til the last minute may save a lot of stress and worry.
  2. Educate friends and family – It is beneficial for others to know about your dietary needs and what is involved in creating a safe environment. Not everyone fully understands the risks of cross contamination, or that croutons can’t just be picked off of a salad and that a knife can’t be double dipped into the apple butter when spreading on rolls.
  3. Suggest naturally gluten-free dishes – Recipes abound for a myriad lovely and flavorful courses that never contained any flour to begin with, such as salads, roast meats, vegetables. Feel free to explore/suggest dishes that require no alterations to prepare gluten free.
  4. Cook from scratch – Processed foods have a tendency to have a long list of ingredients, including some off limits and questionable ingredients, such as barley malt syrup, modified food starch, etc. Cooking from scratch gives one more control over what goes into a dish and is also easier to modify in order to make a food gluten free.
  5. Offer to host  – While hosting is often a lot of work, you know the safety status of your own kitchen with regard to holidays foods, and it may be easier to host than making sure that someone’s kitchen counter that was dusted with flour earlier that day from baking holiday cookies doesn’t end up contaminating your dinner. If you can’t host, offer to cook some of the dishes to help make it easier for the host to accommodate you, or at least to help with the cooking when you arrive so that you can help keep food prep safe for you.
  6. Make GF versions of your favorites – Many dishes require very simple substitutions to be made gluten free – stuffing can be made by just substituting GF bread; gravy and creamed sauces by substituting GF all-purpose flour, or GF cookies can be used to make your favorite cookie crumb crust for a pie.
  7. Keep GF foods completely separated from gluten foods – If you are eating at a mixed GF/gluten dinner, make sure that the foods you want to be able to eat are completely separated, so no one mistakes which serving spoons go into which dish and bread crumbs don’t find their way into the GF courses. Another idea is to serve the gluten-free folks first, before anything has a chance to get contaminated.
  8. Try new traditions and recipes – Holidays are all about traditions, but they can be as much about making traditions as keeping them. Rather than trying to replicate a longstanding favorite dish, why not try something completely different? A new set of flavors perhaps, so you don’t feel as if you are replacing your great grandmother’s heirloom recipe, but more just creating a new tradition for friends and family to enjoy in the years to come.
  9. Don’t gamble with your dinner – If you are not sure whether or not a dish is GF, it may be best to pass on it. No one enjoys being sick from having a gluten reaction over the holidays or while traveling. Depending on how long you will be there and who you are staying with, it may be a good idea to also bring some snacks just in case.
  10. Remember, it’s just a meal – There is so much more to the holidays than simply one dinner together – the holidays are also about spending time with friends and family, and sharing those special moments. If dinner doesn’t end up being the idyllic meal you had dancing around with those sugarplums in your head, remember the fun moments and spirit of the season, and the real reason for getting together in the first place.
Wishing everyone a happy and safe holiday season, and a joyous New Year!
_________________
Jenn Oliver writes our column Culinary Chemistry. She has a Ph.D. in science, and explains the scientific aspects of what really goes on when you cook (the next Harold McGee?). She’s been running a gluten-free blog, Jenn Cuisine, since 2008 and her kitchen is more like a laboratory than a kitchen. She’s focuses her chemical calculations and experiments on figuring out how to make traditionally glutinous food gluten-free.
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Food News Daily: Latest food news and trends from around the world, December 15, 2011

Published by Thursday, December 15, 2011 Permalink 0
English: Potato latke made from Manischewitz b...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

English: Potato latke made from Manischewitz b...,Super Healthy Chocolate Orange Cake with Rich Chocolate Frosting (Vegan + GF), Wine Books Worth Reading, Wine Books Worth Reading, , Choose Healthier Meat – Whole Living Daily : Whole Living, Saul’s Deli Dreams Up a Latke Truck for Hanukkah – Food Trucks, Magret de pato con mermelada especiada de mango, The 150 Healthiest Foods on Earth: The Surprising, Unbiased Truth About What You Should Eat and Why (read review in comment section), and much more.

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Spontaneous Cuisine: Parsnip Velouté with Aged Mimolette Cheese

Published by Thursday, December 15, 2011 Permalink 0

Itsy Bitsy History of the Parsnip

In the Middle Ages, Geneva was running over with parsnips, which they referred to as “white carrots”. It was almost always included in their “eternal pots” of soup, which consisted of seasonal vegetables that they just kept adding more vegetables to as needed, and a piece of meat once a week.

After World War II, many root vegetables went out of fashion in Europe, because people had had to survive on them and nothing else during the war, so farmers eventually stopped growing them. The same went for pumpkin. People in the north of France who had lived through the war and eaten pumpkin every day couldn’t bear the thought of eating pumpkin ever again.

In recent years, these old-fashioned vegetables, including parsnips, have again become available, and chefs are going crazy with new ideas on how to use them.

Parsnips are plentiful at the moment and there’s nothing better than soup to warm you up on a cold winter’s day. Eric Burkel, former financial analyst, entrepreneur and now president of his local food coop in Paris, got this recipe from one of the farmers who supplies vegetables to the coop.

Parsnip soup recipe

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Simon Says: Daily Food Quote, December 15, 2011

Published by Thursday, December 15, 2011 Permalink 0

by Simón de Swaan

Little Tommy Tucker
Sings for his supper;
What shall we give him?
White bread and butter.

Tommy Thumb’s Pretty Song Book, c 1744

Tommy Thumb’s Pretty Song Book is the earliest extant printed collection of English language nursery rhymes, published in London in 1744. It was a sequel to the lost Tommy Thumb’s Song Book and contains the oldest version of many well-known and popular rhymes, as well as several that have been largely forgotten.

 

 

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USDA: new guidelines for calculating fertilizer; runoff producing over-nutrition in waterways

Published by Wednesday, December 14, 2011 Permalink 0

Around the world, environmentalists and scientists are mobilizing to fight the plague of over-nutrition due to over-fertilization

The problem with farming today — whether fertilizer be conventional or natural — is that fertilizer runoff produces over-nutrition of waterways and other natural habitats.
USDA logo

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So around the world, environmentalists and scientists are mobilizing to fight the plague of over-nutrition. That’s where the new USDA document comes in. It lays out a host of steps that farmers can take — and will have to take, if they get funding from certain USDA programs — to minimize the spread of nutrients outside farm fields.

Essentially, it involves putting farmland on a sensible diet. Only feed the land as much as it really needs. And don’t apply fertilizer, including manure, when the crops don’t need it. Also, try to capture and store any excess nutrients. For instance, grow wintertime “cover crops” that can trap free nitrogen before it leaches into groundwater.

Click here to read this on NPR’s blog.

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The Importance of Olive Oil’s Virginity

Published by Wednesday, December 14, 2011 Permalink 0

NPR’s Losing ‘Virginity’: Olive Oil’s ‘Scandalous’ Fraud gives a good overview of the importance of olive oil labeling and the tricks used to get around the rules, with Tom Mueller, author of Extra Virginity: The Sublime and Scandalous World of Olive Oil.

English: virgin oil of aceitunas (IMPERIA) Fra...
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Food News Daily: Latest food news and trends from around the world, December 14, 2011

Published by Wednesday, December 14, 2011 Permalink 0

How Caffeine Can Galvanize Your Workout, Sweet Potato Soup With Ginger, Leek and Apple, Take a Tea Break – Whole Living Daily: Whole Living, First Write the Blog, then Write the Cookbook, Espresso Kahlúa Brownies,
Homemade Corn Tortilla and A Delightful Mixed Vegetable Cheesy Quesadilla, David Downie: Delving into the Heart of Genoa and its Food Shops and Cafés, and much more.

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Salvadoran woman making tortillas with a tradi...

 

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Simon Says: Daily Food Quote, December 14, 2011

Published by Wednesday, December 14, 2011 Permalink 0

by Simón de Swaan

The proof of the pudding is in the eating.–Miguel de Cervantes, 1615

Don Quixote was a Spanish novelist, poet, and playwright. His magnum opus, here, considered the first modern novel, is a classic of Western literature, and is regarded amongst the best works of fiction ever written.

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Food News Daily: Latest food news and trends from around the world, December 13, 2011

Published by Tuesday, December 13, 2011 Permalink 0

 

Sustainable fish ‘undermined by confusing supermarket labelling,’ Moroccan “Chili” Recipe, toasted buckwheat and beetroot salad, spicy Asian brittle, food claims | 10 Food Label Lies, and much more. Click here to continue.

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Food News: Italian police seize 2,500 tons of fake organic food

Published by Tuesday, December 13, 2011 Permalink 0

This is the real-food lover’s worst nightmare. We all know that no matter how many checks and inspections are set up, there is always a risk of runoff from other farms, dishonest sellers and middlemen, and falsely labeled organic food.

The Italian police have seized 2,500 tons of grains, fruits and soy products that were falsely labled as organic in a food fraud ring that exported phony organic products across Europe, says Boston.com, including the Netherlands, Germany, Spain, France, Belgium, Hungary, Austria and Switzerland.

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