I realized that being both gluten and casein free is hard. Like, really hard. At least for me, because every recipe I know from my mom's cooking has butter or some kind of dairy. In fact, I'm finding being casein-free harder than going gluten-free. Now that I'm more familiar with baking and cooking with rice flour, I'm starting to get a handle on the addition of xanthan gum and other additives. I have a lot to learn, but I think with some experimentation I can convert wheat flour recipes to gluten-free. Plus, with this recipe I found for wonton wrappers, the pelmeni will be close behind! YAY!
However, what about my old friend butter? For most of the recipes that have required a solid lipid substance, coconut oil has been the prime candidate. However, I'm not sure if coconut oil would work exactly the same for things like toffee, and then there's the taste. There are some recipes that I can't imagine without the creamy, slightly salty taste of butter. Alright, so I won't make them. Or I could use a substitute like the casein-free ghee we found a while ago, but I'm still very skeptical. Having butter without casein sounds to me like saying "It's snow, but without the frozen water crystals" or "It's Hitler, but without the genocide". It's so integral to how I perceive the object that I can't see how ghee could exist without the casein.
I'm mostly surprised because it suddenly hit me how many restrictions we have when looking for recipes. For instance, on the Gluten Free on a Shoestring website recipe page, especially the dessert section, there are so many recipes that still have butter or cornmeal. It just narrows the playing field a little more. However, there is an upside. This leaves room for experimentation. Maybe almond meal instead of cornmeal, or maybe we could find ways around using butter by taking the basic idea of the recipe but tweaking it a bit. You would have no idea how many recipes say they require butter but then only use it for caramelizing onions or a small amount of frying. We could always use oil, especially safflower oil, which tastes slightly buttery on its own.
Despite the fact that eating gluten/casein/soy/and corn free can get hard sometimes, we still have a bunch of recipes to work with. For instance, tonight we're having leftovers from the BEST SHEPARD'S PIE WE'VE MADE YET! I can't tell if it was the extra veggies, the garlic in the mashed potatoes, the tomato, or the half pound of bacon, but it's delicious. Personally, I think it was the bacon.
(image from here)
No comments:
Post a Comment