Cooking gluten free

It's hard for a bread-and-pasta lover like myself to imagine meals without these staples. But folks with celiac disease (an autoimmune disorder which requires a gluten-free diet) and those with wheat or gluten intolerances have to make those adjustments. The good news is that ice cream can stay on the menu.

The bad news is lots of other foods -- from mustard to canned vegetables -- have to come off. .

I got interested in the subject of wheat-free and gluten-free cooking (gluten is a protein found in wheat, rye and barley) when Chelsea Hall, a friend of my 14-year-old daughter, was diagnosed with a wheat intolerance, and a friend of my son started undergoing tests for celiac disease.

Both of the kids' families are in the process of making serious culinary changes; traditional staples like bread, pasta, pizza, cookies, and cakes are verboten, along with many foods one wouldn't suspect of containing gluten --soy sauce, many bottled salad dressings, various sausages and store-bought sauces, to name a few.

Chelsea's mother, Robyn Hall, has figured out how to make mac 'n' cheese with rice noodles and flourless-roux, and how to bake corn bread without wheat flour.

For her sake, I was delighted to find a copy of "Wheat-Free, Gluten-Free," a straightforward and user-friendly cookbook by Michelle Berriedale-Johnson (Surrey Books, 2002). The book is a soup-to-nuts guide for gluten-free cooking. Especially of note are the chapters on pasta, desserts, cookies, cakes and breads, and special dishes for Easter and Christmas. There are a number of good books for special diets out there; another that caught my eye is "The Gluten-Free Gourmet: Living Well Without Wheat" by Bette Hagman (Owl Books, 2000).

One caveat, from Berriedale-Johnson's book: "Whatever you do, do not set off on any kind of exclusion diet without qualified medical advice … . It is particularly important when dealing with a possible food allergy or intolerance that one maintain a balanced and varied diet, and to achieve this when you are cutting out a large swathe of what you normally eat will require experienced professional advice."

The wheat- and gluten-free pantry obviously needs stocking with specialty items, most of which can be found in health food stores, such as garbanzo (chick pea) flour, which is widely used in Indian cooking and is often found mixed with fava bean flour (the combination works fine), potato flour, buckwheat flour, cornstarch, and wheat- and gluten-free pastas (such as rice noodles). Read packages well -- Robyn Hall's daughter found gluten in bagels labeled "wheat free" and even in some ice cream.

Gluten-free recipes

PANCAKES

For the pancakes:

2 cups garbanzo (chick pea) flour (or garbanzo/fava bean flour)

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 cup water, or more, as needed

Canola, sunflower or other vegetable oil, for greasing skillet

For topping:

Juice of 2 lemons

1/4 cup superfine sugar or pure maple syrup

Mix the flour, salt and water in a food processor, and then allow the mixture to stand for 10 to 15 minutes. If too thick, add a bit more water, and process to blend. Lightly grease a skillet, and set it over medium heat. When hot, pour 1 small ladleful of the mixture into the pan, and cook quickly on both sides.

If the pancakes are to be eaten at once, serve them from the pan with sugar and lemon juice or maple syrup. If they are to be used later, stack them with plastic wrap in between each pancake, cover them and freeze — just peel off as many as you need, and heat them in a pan or toaster.

Yield: 8 medium pancakes, or 4 servings.

Recipe adapted from "Wheat-Free, Gluten-Free," by Michelle Berriedale-Johnson (Surrey Books, 2002).

PIZZA

About 2 cups garbanzo (chickpea) flour (or garbanzo/fava bean flour)

1/2 teaspoon salt

1-1/2 teaspoons active dry yeast (or half of a 1/4-ounce packet)

1 tablespoon olive oil

6 tablespoons lukewarm water

1 (14-ounce) can whole or chopped tomatoes

1 large clove garlic, peeled and chopped

1/2 teaspoon dried basil

pinch dried oregano

pinch dried parsley

salt and pepper to taste

Toppings of your choice: mozzarella cheese, olives, capers, mushroom, diced peppers,

Mix the 1-1/2 cups flour, salt and yeast in a bowl. Make a well in the middle, and add the oil. Then, gradually, stirring all the time with a fork, add the water. Continue to mix until you have a rough ball of dough. It will be sticky — add more flour as needed, up to 2 cups. Once the dough has come together in a bowl, take it out, and knead for 8 to 10 minutes on a surface dusted with chickpea flour. It will be quite elastic.

Clean the bowl, return the dough to the bowl, cut an X on the top, and cover with plastic wrap. Let rise in a warm place, until double in bulk — 1 to 3 hours, depending on the temperature.

Put the tomatoes and garlic in a pan over low heat, and cook gently for 20 minutes. Add the herbs, and continue to cook for 20 to 30 minutes more, until tomatoes are well reduced and sauce is thick. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

Preheat oven to 400 F. On a work surface dusted with chickpea flour, knead the dough briefly, and then flatten with your hands. Roll the dough out with a rolling pin to form a 10-to-12-inch circle. Place on a flat baking sheet.

Spread with tomato sauce and desired toppings (if using any sausage topping, check label for gluten content). Cook 12 minutes or until topping and base are cooked. Serve immediately.

Yield: Serves 3 to 4.

Recipe adapted from "Wheat-Free, Gluten-Free," by Michelle Berriedale-Johnson (Surrey Books, 2002).

CORN BREAD

2 cups cornmeal

2 cups oat bran flour (see note at end of recipe)

2 tablespoons baking powder (check the package to make sure it is wheat and gluten-free)

2 teaspoons salt

2/3 cup pure maple syrup

1/2 cup vegetable oil

2 cups milk

2 eggs

Preheat oven to 350 F. Lightly grease an 8-inch cake pan.

In a large bowl, mix the cornmeal, oat flour, baking powder and salt.

In a separate bowl, combine the syrup, oil, milk and eggs. Add to the dry ingredients, and mix just until well blended.

Scrape into the prepared pan, and cook between 20 and 30 minutes, until light brown on top and a tester inserted in the center comes out nearly clean (a few crumbs clinging is good — you don't want to over-bake)

Note: Oats do not contain gluten, but they do contain a gluten-like substance. Medical opinion is divided over whether persons suffering from celiac disease can eat oats or oat flour. Ask your doctor.

Recipe from Robyn Hall, East Montpelier, Vt.

Yield: 1 8-inch round cornbread, or about 6 nice-sized servings.