I need to put 'beat illness lethargy' on my checklist. Sheesh.

Well, ybunny goes to Norway tomorrow.
So, as a send off, we made spoonbread.

Every wondered how to use cornmeal to your best advantage?

( Spoonbread recipe )

It's delish. :)

Had a lovely day in Balmedie. Thus, FF is coming in just under the wire...


How to eat together, Coeliac Style.¹

When drjoan discovered she had Coeliac Disease about 7 years ago, it seemed like the most restrictive dietary problem possible.

No bread. No pasta. No pretzels, crackers, or cookies/biscuits. Zero. Zip. Zilch.

We ate a lot of rice. There were lots of potatoes.

For those of you who don't know what I've been going on about with the gluten free thing, Coeliac Disease is an autoimmune disease caused by the reaction of the small intestine to a gluten protein called gliadin. This causes the villi of the small intestine to become stunted as the immune response is against the body's own tissue. Basically, you lose the ability to absorb the nutrients your body needs. This isn't a complete inability to process food...but, if will make you quite sick, moreso the longer it goes untreated. Diagnosis is often missed because it seems like other digestive ailments.

Coeliacs cannot eat foods containing gluten: wheat, barley, rye, spelt, and any other variations of Triticeae.

Since 2000, we've learned that rice pasta can taste just as good as regular, gluten free breadmaking is a subtle art, and that some substitutes for gluteny snacks are truly disgusting and others are better than the original.

However, eating gluten free can be more expensive than eating in a 'regular' fashion. Therefore, there will be times when a family containing a coeliac will still eat gluten.

Here's the thing, it isn't easy being the odd one out. While not coeliac myself, I've learned how to make things easier for the coeliacs near me.

1. When eating out, don't choose a place coeliac unfriendly. For example: Chinese/Thai/Vietnamese= good choice. The cuisine is high in rice and rice products. There will be choices that will suit a wide variety of tastes and many of them are gluten free. Italian/American = usually a bad choice. Italian cuisine is based on a lot of bread and pasta. Even if there is a choice that is, or can be made gluten free, the possibility of contamination is quite high.²

2. When eating in, be highly aware of labels. There is no mark that alerts the buyer to the presence of gluten in products. The UK is better than the US about marking products with warnings, but even in the UK, not everything is clearly marked. Even things that seem innocuous may turn out to be a no-no. For example, some pre-shredded cheeses are powdered with flour to keep them from sticking overly much. Cheese= gluten free. Cheese powdered with flour = not gluten free.³

Gluten is everywhere. It's like The Shadow.

I don't really have a question for this week.
I'll leave you with the links for the US and UK Celiac/Coeliac sites.
If you have any symptoms of coeliac disease, get checked. Life with gluten can be a killer if your body is fighting it.

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¹- This may not prove true for the Coeliac near you. However, when in doubt, this may prove handy.
²- Interestingly, in Italy proper, there are many coeliacs. It is possible to get gluten free pasta/bread at restaurants and there is special training in place to make chefs aware of what needs to be done to accommodate the gluten free.
³- On a side note, some shampoos/conditioners contain hydrolyzed wheat protein. Not that you're eating shampoo/conditioner, but it's still a problem for coeliacs.

A friend of mine¹ mentioned that when you've not been vegetarian and you're trying it on for size, it's difficult to decide how to plan your week's meals/grocery list.

I've gotten most of my meal planning from my mother and grandmother. They've always been about simple, healthy meals. This is what I default to when I'm doing meal planning. I can cook big, elaborate meals, but you know...I'm not being paid to cook, so I've got to be economical with time during regular days.

The biggest thing to remember, for anyone planning a meal for vegetarians, is that you cannot directly substitute meat from meals with vegetables.

For example, if you take a beef stew and change it to be zucchini/courgette stew, it won't have the same sticking power. Put another way, you're probably not going to feel as full. Why? You taken away the fat and protein from the dish.²

So, when you plan your meals, think of what you will use for protein, and yes, fat, in each dish. If you can't think of a way to alter a recipe to include protein/fat, have some nuts or a bit of cheese as a side dish.

So, a sample week.

I do meal planning from Friday to Friday because I like to have the best selection in my pantry/something already prepared for Sabbath.

Also, in case you're wondering, this list is largely gluten free. I'll indicate any places that would need substitution.

I'm not including lunch/breakfasts, for the most part. I eat very little other than fruit/cheese/raw veg for those meals, so there isn't much I can tell you about them.

Friday: Put some beans on to soak in the am. (Pinto or black, black for preference.) In the afternoon, boil them and have some of those beans with some rice for supper.
If you're not into beans, have some lentils over the rice instead.
( Beans or Lentil recipe )

While you're preparing for Friday's dinner, make up a casserole with the rest of the beans, if you've made them. If you're not into making your own beans, you can cut corners and use the Heinz Mexican beans/pinto beans in water that come tinned.
( Tortilla casserole recipe )

Saturday/Sabbath:
Bake casserole. Eat. (Ah, simplicity.)³

Sunday:
This usually ends up to be an eating out sort of day.
If it isn't, I make some sort of curry.
( Fast curry recipes: Thai and Indian )

Monday:
You will have leftovers from something from the weekend.
Eat those. Leftover curry is brilliant.

Tuesday:
Pasta. Use rice pasta if going gluten free.
Serve with sauce.
Have a side of carrots.

Wednesday:
Soup.
Serve with a cheese toastie/grilled cheese sandwich. I make gluten free bread in my breadmaker when needed, but you can buy it very easily in the UK and relatively easily in the US.

Thursday:
Eggs, sausage, peas, and oven browned potatoes.
( Oven browned potatoes recipe )
I prefer the Cauldron Cumberland Sausages, though they aren't gluten free. drjoan has a fantastic burger/sausage recipe. Perhaps she'll post it... She did, there it is.

So, that's a sample week. Hope it's helpful.

I'll be sending more recipes along to him via email, but I'll ask:
Got a good vegetarian recipe you'd like to share to get him started?

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¹- percible, for the curious.
²- Yes, I know that fat is teh evilz, but we need a bit of it every now and then.
³- I eat my biggest meal at lunch time on Sabbath.
⁴- The firm kind. Seriously, if you get silken tofu and try to put it in things, it will fall apart. Such is the way of silken tofu. Trust me on this.
⁵- I love burnt things. I don't know why. It's genetic. drjoan does too.

Vegetarianism is by no means a new phenomenon. It seems that vegetarian restaurants are not new either.
However, that doesn't mean that I'm unsurprised when I see one.

percible happened to see a review in one of the Edinburgh papers on the vegetarian restaurants in the Scottish capitol.

We tried out two on Thursday.

The first, David Bann's is a 'vegetarian restaurant bar' that doesn't affiliate itself with any particular cuisine.

David Bann
56-58 St Mary's Street
Edinburgh, EH1 1SX
Tel: 0131 556 5888



The restaurant itself is gorgeous...dark wood and sparkling lights with heavy cutlery and real cloth napkins. We were seated immediately, but the fact that they asked if we had a reservation at lunch time leads me to believe they are quite popular.

We settled in to read out menus; I had a latte, percible had a glass of warm port.

It is a truly bizarre experience, and one that I find difficult to describe, to read through the entirety of a menu. My usual dining routine is to find the 2, perhaps 3 choices for vegetarians on the menu, and then mentally flip a coin (yes, three sided...it's in my head, people!) when the waiter asks for my order.

Even picky vegetarians would have an embarrassment of wealth in choices.

After asking for more time, we finally made up our minds.
I had a starter of smoked, panfried tofu with plum sauce and a main of pistachio, chickpea and sweetpotato fillets with saffron curry sauce and a side of mixed vegetable raita (pictured above).

Gordon opted for the Thai fritters to begin and then the mushroom strudel with beetroot and baby potatoes.

To say that the food was good would be to suggest that perhaps Julia Child knew a thing or two about cooking.

For the next 45 minutes or so, percible sat with a bemused look on his face while I all but sang to my food. (Okay, literally sang to it at some points.)

The star of the meal was the tofu. Firm, yet silky, it was just crispy on the edges and not watery at all. The sauce that accompanied it was bursting with fresh plum taste and had the unusual sensory impact of mustard seeds.

On the way out, I enquired about gluten free options and was told that both of my choices were and that they always have at least two if not three gluten free choices for main as well as 50% of the starters.

What more can I say? How are you already not there?

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I feel as though I'm doing a disservice to our dinner restaurant by placing it after David Bann's, but I had to start somewhere...and chronological order seems logical.

Ana Purna doesn't have a website, so I can't link you to the menu, unfortunately.

Ana Purna
44-45 St. Patrick Square
Edinburgh, EH8 9ET
Tel: 0131 662 1807


Apologizes for the blurriness


Ana Purna is one of those great restaurants that you always find out via a friend of a friend. The thanks go to dreema, who ate there frequently with work mates while working in Edinburgh.

The service was very friendly and helpful. The owners of the restaurant are obviously out in front interacting with the customers.

I decided to cut my losses with the menu (still overwhelmed by the 'you can eat anything you want' feeling) and just ordered the Thali (pictured above).

For the ever so reasonable price of £12.50, we were served with 2 starters, 3 curries, dahl, rice, dessert, bread, and rice crackers.

I'm continually disappointed with British samosas, but I should just accept that I was spoiled by the handmade pastry they were packed into when I was eating Indian in Chattanooga. The filling on these made up for the filo packaging, however.

The other starter, a green leaf packed with savouries and topped with grated coconut, more than made up for it. We tried to figure out what the green leaf reminded us of...the closest we came was ginger bread.

The thali arrived with almond nut cutlets in a yogurt sauce, aubergine and potato curry, chana masala (chickpea curry), dahl (stewed lentils), pilau rice, pooris (puffed bread), rice crackers (great for dipping), and a dessert of mango puree mixed with nuts.

I really have no words for this. Any thali that includes chickpeas has my vote and the unusual inclusion of pooris instead of naan bread was a nice change.

I've never had a bad eating experience in Edinburgh, and with restaurants like this...you can see why. :)

Incidentally, the current music possibly my favorite piece ever. Then again, it is Bach. :)

I actually have no interesting food notes for today. I'm actually close to out of food (I definitely have no produce), I've not been out to eat in a while, and the only thing I've done out of the ordinary was to make popovers for breakfast this morning.

Popovers hold a special place in my heart.

My favourite meal is breakfast in any case and popovers were one of the dishes that my mother reserved for Sabbath mornings.* They're crispy yet soft, eggy, bready, and savoury.

I think some people will know them as Yorkshire puddings, but I believe the taste remains the same.

I don't know what my mother's recipe is, after the parents household switched to gluten-free alternatives, I'd never bothered making the gluten ones anymore.

However, there's no point in spending the money on gluten-free flour when you don't need to, so shortly after moving to Aberdeen, I decided it was time to suss out my own recipe.

( .:Popover Recipe:. )

The thing is, they are ridiculously easy to make. I don't know why I don't have them more often. They work so well for breakfast with fake bacon and butter or for supper with sausages and peas.
I'm not sure what you're meant to put with Yorkshire pudding, but I'm guessing beef plays a role.**

What food, that you make yourself, do you wish you ate more often?

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*Until they moved church to an earlier time and now it's always bagels on Saturday morning.
** Not to stereotype Yorkshire, or anything. :)