Naturally Gluten-Free For Ever - Saturday, 18th October 2014

I began blogging about gluten-free foods with a view to creating regular foods into gluten-free items but over the last few months I've been coming round to the idea of naturally gluten-free foods, of which there are so many!!!

Also, and this ius one very great pklus for me...because I've stopped eating so many favourite items - you know the ones I mean ! - bread, cakes, biscuits, flour rich sauces and gravies, pasta etc. I've discovered a grat bonus...I can now eat small quantities of these much loved foods simply because I've abstained and cultivated other likes so, now when I'm offered, or offer myself, the joy of eating those forbidden foods, generally I can eat them without any problem at all.

I believe total abstinence just makes you miserable and downcast.  Of course, for Coeliacs, that seems to have to be an absolute "must-do" and I apologise for going on about my ability to indulge my assumed forbidden foods.

If you can't eat certain foods because they make you ill, then you just cannot, and I truly feel for your difficulties and abstinence.

Actually, I could have discovered a "cure" for myself much earlier but for the fact that I simply didn't want to own-up to the fact of my food intolerance with wheat and gluten and, for my problems with lactose irritation, I simply did not know about the cause of teenage after-breakfast nausea for years and years.  As a family, we've always eaten lots of sugar and sugar based wheat products, have always had colds, catarrh and indigestion problems which I just took to be one of the nuisances my family and I suffered from.

When working as a chef, I would consume anything up to 12 biscuits a day plus some cake etc. thinking my being a workaholic demanded extra sugary foods, and that lots of regular grazing was my right and just what I needed to keep myself propelled forward during all my busy days!!!

Tension also came into my thought process, convincing me that I was definitely tense, miserable and that sugar and wheat would always solve all my problems.

Routine also played a part in all of my thought processes too.  Being a "sickly" child with colds, catarrh etc. with resultant tummy problems, I thought that was my lot.  I needed more of the same foods always consumed, didn't listen to my body, because I didn't understand what it was saying, didn't educate myself or ask enough questions!!!.

Now, having got to this stage of awareness a little while ago, I began to realise the wonderful enormity of naturally gluten-free foods available; that I could eat my favourite foods in small amounts provided I regularly topped up my intake of draughts of fresh cold water and, most importantly, ate as much fresh, unpolluted wholesome food as possible, particularly masses of fresh vegetables, and to be careful when eating fresh fruit as the fruit sugar tends to dry out my mouth if eaten in huge quantities.  Apples and pears, my favourite hard fruits (how anyone can read any book without an apple to munch along with, is a mystery?) are often very good at this "dry-out".

I also have problems with "bought" store sauces for their high acidity, so home-made is best of all for me, which is and has always been, to make my own every-food whenever possible.  It's not always possible, is it for me or any of us, so of course, there are times when we have to resort to the "store bought items" for our daily needs.

So, I guess what I'm trying to get across to you today is, allow yourself to give up or ease-up on forbidden foods, drink good daily amounts of fresh water, eat up all your lovely greens and brightly coloured veggies, exercise, dance, walk - just whatever rocks your boat - and eat as well as you possibly can.  Oh no, I'm not a vegetarian, I do love my meat so all meals have a meat input, as the dear SO thinks "no meat" is just not an option!  Fish, eggs, pulses, seeds and nuts all have a place in my daily diet and - oh dear I could go on forever detailing my foodie favourites - (did I mention grains?).  There's always another day, another blog so enough for today and, anyway, my son's garden awaits my attention, the sun is out and there are other things to do than sit here and chat to you dear fellow gluten-free-ers!!!

Did I tell you I'm out in Australia, Heathmont, Melbourne, to be precise, for a short family stay, garden help and, since arriving here, foodie exploration and discovery with the different and new items I've seen these last few days!!!

Goodness me, lots of material for my next blog, phew!

Daisy

My lovely "welcome back" bouquet from my Australian family

Apple Harvesting - Chutney & Pickling & Apple Day - Sunday, 5th October 2014

Garden Harvest for chutney and Pickles

Well, its that time of year again.  Apples, pears and other fruit everywhere; in friends gardens, in the Supermarkets, country markets and baskets and trays of garden fruit outside garden gates everywhere, from over-burdened householders, willing for passers-by to carry off their extra apples - PLEASE TAKE THEM AWAY!

Its been a glorious year for fruit, everywhere!  Our freezers and store -cupboards are becoming "full-to-bursting" with apple concoctions, bottled fruits, pickled fruits with onions, tomatoes and herbs and spices. Jams and chutneys, savoury and sweet fruit butters and cheeses and preserves of all kinds.   Purees of fruits to be used in puddings and pies, trays of uncooked fruit, frozen whole to be bagged up and stored for the winter months.  Wild fruit - blackberries, autumn raspberries and looking forward to sloes, hazel nuts, rose-hips etc.  There's just so much fruit - oh dear, are we going to have a dreadful winter?

We do what we can to get ready for the winter months to come and enjoy what we can of our home harvests from garden and allotments, country markets, village markets and Supermarkets.  We celebrate Harvest Festival with gifts from home.  We give our produce to our favourite groups and societies, like the Women's Institute or to our children's schools for Christmas Bazaars, gifts of home-filled jars to family and friends for Christmas presents or for a prettily gift-wrapped jar of something delicious to our dinner-party hostess.

Apple Day will soon be here; our annual celebration of our own individual surroundings  instigated by the Charity Common Ground in the 1990's.  Their first Apple Day held at London's Covent Garden Market on the first celebration on Sunday, 21st October 1990 to showcase the wonderful and diverse array of apples, pears and other fruit grown and cultivated in our home gardens, our glorious countryside and within our old and sometimes, neglected, fruit orchards.  The bees and other insects which pollinate our fruit, national awareness of customs involving fruit, the loss of hundreds of different fruit varieties due to specialisation and marketing, our wild life and insect life and the interest and enthusiasm engendered by Common Ground's campaigns to make us realise what we were in danger of losing forever - our countryside and our traditions.

Apple Day has been an annual celebration to look forward to and enjoy and has since become a day for all kinds of events and activities like, fruit and tree identification, sales of fruit produce from chutneys to ciders etc. and everywhere, people honouring their local area customs, all having a wonderful time in the October sunshine, trying out unknown apples and glorying in the local and national fruit diversity of the UK.

My kitchen has been very full of apples, a prize-winning onion, marrow and beetroot, sugar, sultanas and spices, small onions from my own garden, Kilner Jars, my store of jam jars and all the equipment for making chutney and pickled fruit.  At last, it's beginning to clear and here's what I've produced -

Chutney No. 2 with minced green tomatoes, apples and onions

1st Chutney with sliced green tomatoes, apples and onions - lots of lovely texture

3rd Chutney with garden grown marrow, apples and onions

Hot Pickled Veg in Vinegar in Kilner Jars

1st Pickled Vegetables - Hot Apple & Onions in Olive Oil (in Preserving Jar) then my 1st jar of Cold Pickled Veg. in Pickling Vinegar (and Sarson's jar)

Vegetables ready for picklng...!

Happy days!!!

Daisy