Less than 1% of the US population has Celiac Disease, somewhere in the market (pun intended) of 5-10% of the population reports an intolerance for gluten. This has generated a whole new category of products on store shelves and Billions in sales.
Even though I think overall this gluten-intolerance "thing" is a fad, I won't deny for a second that it exists....just not for as many people as there are those reporting it. This could be inflated somewhat by the practice of testing for gluten intolerance by simply eliminating it from your diet for a specified period to see how your body reacts. A friend of mine doesn't have Celiac, but she was having one helluva time with gastrointestinal issues that were serious enough to warrant ER visits. Going gluten-free seems to have helped her out big-time.
Going Devil's Advocate here for a second, even if my friend's issues were not gluten-related and it was all in her head, I wouldn't deny her the peace granted by eating gluten-free.
Nor would I deny anyone else that same comfort, which is why I'm sharing/re-sharing a couple of recipes:
The first is for my gluten-free flour mix. I'd eaten several gluten-free breads that were just "ok". At least one was pretty good, but not compared to what it was supposed to replicate. The problem I'd been given was trying to use a specific gluten-free flour. Evidently each flour has it's own issues (even the wheat flours), so I blended a few flours together to get something different that might work out a bit better. I've had some very good luck with it so far. All these flours were easily, and relatively cheaply, obtained from the Asian Food markets. If you shop for this stuff at your regular store you will pay out through the nose....assuming you can find it at all.
This recipe was originally posted back in November.
Christopher's Gluten-Free Flour Mix
All parts are by weight
4 Parts Corn Flour
5 Parts FuFu (Plantain) Flour
1 Part Tapioca Flour
1 Part Rice Flour
1 Part Mung Bean Flour
Sift together well. When using, mix in approximately 1/2 teaspoon Xanthan Gum per 1 Cup Flour.
One of my favorite things to make this time of year is zucchini bread. I really don't know why I bother planting my own because I can usually get enough from people who have planted some, but I take the excess and shred it. The shredded zucchini I end up freezing in recipe-sized batches so I can make this whenever I feel like it.
3 eggs
2 C sugar
1 C oil
3 C Gluten-free flour
1 tsp salt
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1 1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1 Tbsp vanilla
3 C grated zucchini
1 C chopped walnuts (can be omitted, but I wouldn't....)
Cream eggs into sugar and oil, stir in everything else. Pour into 2 well greased bread loaf pans and bake in preheated 350* oven for one hour. Let cool in pans.
One thing I like to do is flour the pans with powdered sugar because the gluten-free version of this recipe tends to stick in the pan a bit more for some reason.
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