A Week Of Eating Very Well
A lot of people think that the diet of a coeliac is rather difficult. If I look back at last week nothing could be further from the truth.
On Sunday, I cooked a late lunch or dinner of pork with asparagus and shiitake mushrooms. It was the first time, I’d cooked the Japanese mushrooms and they made a change.
Monday, I ate out in Pizza Express, as I wanted a quick meal, to get back in time for the football. The fact that this numerous chain now does gluten free food is going to transform my eating as I travel around the UK.
Tuesday, I had dinner with my son at Carluccio’s in Market Place.
Wednesday, I cooked a fish supper for a friend.
Thursday, I ate with the fried in Cote in Islington, before going to the theatre.
Friday, I was in Geneva and ate at La Tavola.
Saturday, I had a very good meal of lamb cutlets in the restaurant attached to my hotel.
And that was just the evening meals!
Haddock On A Bed Of Asparagus
It seems that the shops have a surfeit of asparagus. As I had some haddock, I looked for a suitable recipe and found this one here on SparkPeople. It took me about half-an-hour to cook it.
For two people you need the following.
2 fillets of haddock
1 pack of asparagus
2 cups of frozen peas.
1 large onion (finely chopped)
2 tomatoes (chopped into quarters)
Salt, freshly-ground black pepper.
1 tbsp olive oil
2 tbsp vegetable stock powder.
As it was 2 small fillets, just for me, I used a pack of English asparagus tips. None of your air-freighted stuff for me!
I started by heating the oil in a saucepan and then adding the onion.
Cooking The Onion
I cooked it, until the onion was reasonably cooked. I then added the tomatoes, seasoned it all with black pepper and let it cook on a gentle heat for a minute or so.
Adding The Tomatoes
I then added a cup of water, the vegetable stock powder and the frozen peas (from frozen).
I left the peas to cook for five minutes before adding the haddock fillets to the sauce.
Cooking The Haddock In The Sauce
After another five minutes the haddock was cooked.
As the haddock c0oked, a cooked the asparagus in the way that Heston Blumenthal used in this recipe.
Cooking The Asparagus
I just fried them in a little olive oil with some seasoning.
It was then just a matter of arranging the asparagus on a plate, putting the haddock on top and then adding the sauce and some of the peas.
Haddock On A Bed Of Asparagus
I also added some potatoes.
I think others might modify this to their taste, perhaps by adding lemon juice. But I liked it the way it came.
I Don’t Dip In Olive Oil Anyway
This piece of EU legislation reported on the BBC must be the silliest. Here’s the first paragraph.
The European Commission is to ban the use of refillable bottles and dipping bowls of olive oil at restaurant tables from next year.
From 1 January 2014, restaurants may only serve olive oil in tamper-proof packaging, labelled to EU standards.
The Commission, the EU’s executive branch, says the move will protect consumers and improve hygiene.
It won’t improve my hygiene, as I’ve never anything in dipped olive oil and as very few places serve gluten-free bread, it will affect me about as much as the EU saying restaurants couldn’t use light blue tablecloths.
It’s ideas like this that mean UKIP and the other silly parties all over Europe prosper.
Let’s have some serious legislation that says that all restaurants must have a gluten free policy, shown on the menu.
Lunch At CERN
I arrived early, so I had time for a quick lunch. I walked out the back to the cafeteria, through an area populated by various equipment from finished experiments.
Past Experiments
It was fascinating. Although, of course, I had no idea what the various equipment and structures were for. They also weren’t labelled.
Lunch was pretty good, with a meal, with the price based on how much you took.
Lunch At CERN
As everything was plain, it was ideal for coeliacs like me.
I am a man, whose eyes are his prime resource and on this walk for lunch, I took two pictures that fascinated me. Here’s one.
The other I’ll show later.
EatNakd Bars At Gatwick
I searched everywhere and couldn’t find any, or in fact any other gluten-free snacks to take with me on the trip.
I had thought I’d forgotten to pack any, but luckily it turned out I was mistaken.
But obtaining gluten-free snacks on the move is always difficult.
Pizza Express and Aspall Cyder
I went back to Pizza Express at the Angel, this evening.
No problems at all, but the pizza seemed to be better than the last time. Not that it was bad in any way then.
The waitress was a bit worried that I drank the Aspall Cyder, as it is not marked as gluten-free on their menu.
I have had assurances from one of the owners of the manufacturers that it is gluten-free. But even if it is not, it certainly doesn’t affect me.
Last summer, I had a full allergy test, to try to get to the bottom of my rhinitis. They couldn’t find any traces of gluten in my body, and as I drink quite a bit of Aspall cyder, it would have showed up positive, if any gluten had been present.
You can’t blame the waitress for being careful. But I just don’t like the Green’s beer!
Anyway, I was conceived in Suffolk, just like Aspall’s cyder.
As I write this post, I’ve got another bottle of Aspall on the go!
Grilled Pork With Asparagus And Shiitake Mushrooms
This recipe was taken from Saturday’s Times and I cooked it for lunch for myself today.
The paper says that for four people you need the following.
4 French trimmed pork cutlets
Knob of unsalted butter
2 crushed cloves of garlic
20 shiitake mushrooms, stalks removed
20 spears of asparagus, cleaned and trimmed
Seasoning
1 hard cheese, I used a French sheep’s one.
Lemon juice and olive oil
I did half quantity and just used pork steaks, as my Waitrose isn’t a posh one, that does French-trimmed pork cutlets. Here’s the pork, mushrooms and asparagus, ready to cook.
Pork, Mushrooms and Asparagus
The asparagus was of course English. I just snapped the ends off.
I cooked the pork in my chargrill pan for a few minutes each side.
Cooking The Pork
After they were cooked I put them in the top oven to keep warm.
I then melted a good knob of butter in my frying pan and when it was very hot, put the garlic and the mushrooms in and cooked them for nearly a minute. I then added the asparagus and gave it another minute.
Cooking The Mushrooms And Asparagus
I then arranged it over the meat, with a few potatoes and scrapings of the cheese and some lemon juice.
Ready to Eat
I did find the two steaks I cooked rather a lot for me, so one will be tomorrow’s lunch. but it was a pleasant change to have the mushrooms and asparagus with pork.
I Thought Tandoori Chicken Was Gluten Free
But obviously not this junk food.
I Thought Tandoori Chicken Was Gluten Free
Subway is one of these shops that should be made by law to serve at least something that is gluten-free.
The First Asparagus Of Summer
I bought some fresh English asparagus yesterday in Waitrose.
I just fried it in a little olive oil, with some seasoning for five minutes. It was delicious.
It’s certainly one of those ‘posh’ foods worth eating!
Gluten-Free Pizza At Pizza Express
For many years, Sunday afternoons and evenings for C and myself had a rhymn. We would go to the cinema at either the Cambridge Picturehouse or the Cineworld and then we’d go for a pizza in Pizza Express, often at the Pitt Club, where I always had a Capricciosa. This pattern stopped in the early 2000s, when I was diagnosed as a coeliac, so sometimes I would have a salad Niçoise, or more likely we’d go to an Indian restaurant.
But all that has now changed, in that Pizza Express have produced a new very coeliac-friendly menu. This is the gluten-free page.
Last night, I went with two friends to the newly-refurbished Pizza Express at The Angel in Islington. We sat upstairs and for an avid street watcher like myself, it is a great place to sit.
I started with a bottle of my favourite long drink; Aspall Cyder.
Aspall Cyder At Pizza Express
They also have Green’s gluten-free beer, but I do prefer my Celia, when it comes to beer. The cyder is better than both with pizza.
I also had a Capricciosa, for the first time in perhaps ten years.
Gluten-Free Pizza At Pizza Express
It tasted just like it did all of those years ago.
I think a personal tradition of a film followed by pizza is going to be revived. all I need now is an attractive lady with whom to enjoy the experience.
I think too, you can’t accuse Pizza Express of being backward about going forward.
Advertising In Stereo
These two signs were outside.
My only problem, is that near me, there isn’t a Pizza Express with the quality of building of the Pitt Club in Cambridge.
I have a feeling that in a few years time, this will rate as one of the most significant events in dining out for coeliacs in the UK.
I wasn’t diagnosed as a child, but it must be very difficult, for both a coeliac child and their parents, when say at a birthday party, they get invited to a family restaurant. Now they can at least eat pizza.
I think it is going to start a ripple in the various chains of restaurants, as they’ll have to follow suit. After all, Carluccio’s and Jamie’s Italian, already operate a sensible policy on gluten-free food, and I suspect others do.
It’ll certainly make things much easier for me on my travels. It’s already happened in Ipswich, in that the town has two Pizza Express restaurants. It’s just a pity, neither is close to Portman Road.
This will probably mean that the UK, will become one of the most coeliac-friendly countries for coeliacs to visit.
The Anonymous Widower 