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A year ago or so I discovered I am intolerant for wheat. I started eating gluten-free and feel so much better now. But it’s not easy to be creative in the kitchen, cooking a variety of gluten-free meals that also taste good.

I can buy gluten-free products in my supermarket, but it is almost three times as expensive compared to the normal product and the choices are very limited. You won’t be able to find gluten-free products in discount stores where low-income groups shop for their groceries. Is food intolerance a rich man problem only?

Going Low Budget

I am not exactly rich, but I manage to work around the wheat by choosing oatmeal for breakfast, eat a lot of rice crackers, go Asian or Dutch for dinner. For example, this week I will be eating potatoes and vegetables in gravy with a piece of meat for dinner. Nothing fancy, but cheap and it doesn’t contain wheat. After a while, eating the same things over and over again gets boring, so I have been looking for some alternative recipes.

Paleo Comfort Foods

One of my friends, Lyn, sent me a book with gluten-free recipes: Paleo Comfort Foods: Home Style Cooking For A Gluten-Free Kitchen by Julie and Charles Mayfield*. The title makes it sound like there’s caveman recipes in the book, but in fact the recipes are very American. There are recipes for Maryland Crab Cakes,  Morning Glory Muffins in the  starters section; Jambalaya in the soup and sauce section; paleo grits on the side; strawberry shortcake for dessert. None of this kind of stuff would be around in Europe.

The nice thing about the recipes is that they use both metric and imperial, it’s very easy for me to make it as well, the only problem is that the ingredients are very hard to get. I have never seen almond flour or canned pumpkin in the stores here, for example. I will try to see if I can find a workaround for this. I can always try to find the ingredients in a German hypermarket, much like Walmart in the US, size-wise.

At any rate, I can’t wait to try out some of the recipes! Thank you so much, Lyn!

 

* Indicates an affiliated link to the US Kindle Store