The Healthy Celiac Podcast

My Essentials for a Gluten Free Kitchen Ep. 86

December 05, 2022 Belinda Whelan Season 1 Episode 86
The Healthy Celiac Podcast
My Essentials for a Gluten Free Kitchen Ep. 86
Show Notes Transcript

There are some key items that I love in order to have a safer gluten free kitchen.
Today I am sharing those with you to inspire you to cook more and enjoy your space.

Learn more about Ultimate Celiac System here
 
www.belindawhelan.com/ultimateceliacsystem

 Join my free community and grab your copy of 11 Mistakes People Make Living Gluten Free here www.belindawhelan.myflodesk.com/11mistakes


And I would love to connect with you on Instagram thehealthyceliac

If you have a spare moment, please pop over to Apple Podcasts and leave me a review. Thank you!



Music Credit bensound.com 

Speaker 1:

Welcome back to this week's show. And on today's show I am sharing with you some of my essential items that make living with Celiac disease and having to eat gluten free easier and better for me and my family, and some ideas that I think will help you as well. So first up, I wanna just say a quick disclaimer. I'm not an affiliate for anything that I'm sharing with you today. There is nothing here that I'm selling. This is purely my favorite things in the kitchen and I just wanted to share them with you and especially talk about the thermo mix because it's something that people message me about all the time. And I've received messages from people for a good nearly 10 years now, asking me about the thermo. So I'm gonna give you my little spill on that and what I think about it so that you can make an informed decision if it's right for you. And then I'm gonna talk about some other things that I love in my kitchen. All right, so the first thing that you must have, so, so important is sharp knives. I'm not even joking with you. This is such a simple thing, but not everyone has sharp knives. It makes cooking so much more enjoyable, so much more of a breeze. It makes it quicker, it makes it easier, and it makes you want to be in the kitchen more. Now, quick story about knives. When my best friend was having her 30th birthday, well over a decade ago, we were making a whole heap of Indian curries and we had a whole hip of crop pots and we were making, I can't even remember how many, but it was heaps and heaps of curries for the night. And there was a group of us there and we started cutting up the food and getting ready and I started cutting up chicken and her knives were so blunt that I was struggling to get through the chicken. It was doing my head in that I actually jumped in my car, drove home and grabbed my knives from home and took'em back to her house to finish prepping for her birthday because it was just ridiculous. And I just felt so much happier having knives that worked, that actually cut through the chicken than standing there having a carve at this meat that I couldn't get through. So if you haven't got decent knives, I suggest you buy one or two and just see if that makes a difference to your cooking. Now something I do wanna point out is you don't have to spend heaps on knives. I always had it in my head that good knives were expensive and it's not always the case. We did buy a set of really expensive knives quite a few years ago and we got them sharpened probably last year. And the guy that sharpened them thought that we must have cut up bones or something with it because he said they were in the most ridiculous condition they

Speaker 2:

Had had chips out of them, they were terrible and we'd only use them in the kitchen. And we have since bought this knife, which was cheap<laugh>. It was like less than$20. It's just a wheelchair brand and it is one of our favorite knives in the kitchen. My husband loves using it, I love using it. It's a fantastic knife. So you don't have to spend heaps, but just make sure you have a really sharp knife, one or two really good knives, just make it easier in the kitchen. Now, you may or may not know, but I am massive on cooking from scratch. I think if you can cook most of your meals and food from scratch, you are going to be so much healthier for it and feel better, better and thrive with celiac disease because you are cutting out a lot of sugars, you're cutting out a lot of nasty ingredients, msg, different things that we don't need in our body. So it's important to have access to things that add in flavor when we're cooking meals from scratch. And that's where garlic comes in. I love garlic for adding to a lot of meals. And I have this garlic crusher, which is a Tupperware brand one, and I've had this for, I'm gonna say well over 20 years. I've definitely had this for well over 20 years and it's brilliant. It crushes the garlic amazingly, and it gets used every week guaranteed. Um, if you find yourself cutting up garlic, it can be a little bit tedious. So a crush garlic crusher is an essential in a gluten-free kitchen. If you ask me now when we're talking about knives, what are we cutting on? We are cutting on a chopping board. I recommend a wooden chopping board that is des designated gluten-free. It is only for gluten-free food. That way you have got no risk of cross-contamination going on. I personally prefer cutting on wood than um, cutting on glass or plastic. I've tried both in the past. We do also have plastic chopping boards that we use. Occasionally, if someone else is using the wooden chopping board and there's other people working in the kitchen, we will use our plastic ones and they go in the dishwasher. Not my favorite, but it's just there because we do use them. So we bought this shopping board in Tasmania many, many years ago, and it has been fantastic. It was quite pricey, but it has been worth every scent. We use it every single day. It gets used multiple times a day. And I know that it's safe for me and my son, and I love having this out on our bench. It doesn't get put away. We keep it over on our prep area and it's always there to use. It gets cleaned, wiped down. It's, you know, it's just a wonderful chopping board. So if you haven't got a decent chopping board, it does make cooking so much more enjoyable. So I highly recommend that you invest in a good chopping board. Now, when it comes to storage, I do use plastic. I wish that I didn't. I would rather use all glass, but you know, it's just, it's cost, it's money.

Speaker 3:

It's, you know, having children that need plastic for school, um, rather than taking glass. So I, I love glass containers where possible. So I have a lot of storage containers. I love my glass storage containers the most. And the reason that I love having a lot of these types of things is because you can cook once and eat twice, which basically just means you cook more food than you need for that one meal, and then you put it in the freezer or you put it in the fridge for the next day. Okay? That's a game changer for your health. It's a game changer for your mindset and your lifestyle because you're not having to cook every single day. You, you might have backup plans for those days that you're busy or that you don't feel like cooking. So they are fantastic for that. And then if you've never heard of stache bags, I love stache bags. So what stache bags are, they are a silicon bag. So they're a pouch. They kind of think of like a Ziploc bag and they're like that, but they're silicon and they're water tight. So you can seal this bad boy up and you can even cook in this. So it's safe to cook in. So you can, um, boil food in a, in a source bin in boiled water. Um, you can put them in the microwave, you can put them in the freezer, you can keep things in the fridge, you can use them in the pantry. You know, you could put a sandwich in that and send to school with the kids. You, there's so many options. These get used constantly. I'm actually surprised I had an empty one to show you and talk about with today. But yes, stash of bags, if you haven't checked them out, I highly recommend that you find them online or in your local kitchen store and grab some and and just give them a go. They come in different sizes, but they are brilliant. Can't talk highly enough of a stash of bag. Now the next thing is having lots and lots of condiments and options to cooked with. So if you are very new to living with celiac disease, you will need to go through your pantry and replace everything with gluten-free options. If you haven't done that yet, I recommend that you get onto that as soon as possible and having things in your pantry that you can make meals with very, very quickly. So we always have powdered stock. Powdered stock is way better than liquid stock because it's much more economical and it's better on the environment cuz you're just buying a small tin or jarel, um, rather than, you know, the U h T bottles that generally come with two liters and you know, you use that in no time, whereas this tends to last longer than, than buying it that way. Um, and gravy's as well. So you can make your own gravy from gravy powder, um, you can use that to thicken meals. You can use that in so many different recipes as well. We also are big on herbs and spices in this family. We've always been massive on herbs and spices. Um, I am, I guess, I guess I feel that if you cook from scratch, you are not using things in a packet that have already got all those flavorings added to them. You are adding your own natural flavorings with herbs and spices. So just over here in my kitchen I have an entire drawer that is full of herbs and spices and I love cooking with herbs and spices. You can change up the flavor of things, you can make them your own, you can make them unique like they're just, they're just so great to cook with. Um, I buy my um, herbs and spices from a company called G Fresh. They are an Australian, uh, well they're actually South Australian even better. So local South Australian company to me. And many of their products that they sell, they have other products as well. Many of their products are gluten free. So you might have seen me recently share that some herbs and spices have gluten in them. Um, this is usually due to cross-contamination or um, the risk of, you know, they, they may be mixed up with gluten somehow because of the processing lines, things like that. Whereas G Fresh, they actually have on a lot of their products gluten-free and if you look on their website it also says, um, gluten-free for a lot of their products on there as well. So I really love that we've got that option. Um, I did have a lady recently reach out to me asking about about which herbs and spices I use. She lives in Sydney and I told her and she jumped online and she did a big order with them. So that is so cool that she was able to do that cuz she was struggling with finding gluten-free herbs and spices. So if you are in Australia, check out G Fresh and, and yeah, see if you can stock up your pantry with some safe options for you. Now another thing is making sure that all of your cooking ingredients are safely stored and safely labeled. So if you, if you have a kitchen where you are sharing with others or you are still um, I guess you still have gluten products or gluten food ingredients, things like that in your kitchen, it's so important that you label everything and that way you can clearly see that there's no risk of um, grabbing the wrong thing or making sure that people aren't using your ingredients and things like that. So I personally love keeping all of my pantry items I guess in jars. So I recycle um, a cone of coffee jars. I don't drink Mona coffee but I have managed to get my hands on a ton of these jars. My mom get heaps of them for me through her church and I clean them up and then I label them. So I've got my plain flour and I've got my big GF sticker on there. And then same with everything, everything in my pantry, even silly things,<laugh> like sugar, I still put gluten-free on it. I can't help it if it's gluten-free,

Speaker 4:

It's got a gluten-free label on it. That's pretty much how my kitchen works and this is mostly for my son's benefit as well. As he gets older, I want him to know that he can look at something and go, yep, that's gluten-free, that's safe. You know, he can, he can get that education as the years go on and he start to get more exposed to different things. We have a um, entire cupboard, well I guess it's cupboard. Yeah we have a cupboard in our um, kitchen that's all for snacks. So this is where my daughter packs her school lunches in the morning. So she gets all her recess goodies outta there. She grabs fruit from the fruit basket and she makes herself a sandwich. And all of our bins up in that cupboard are labeled with gluten-free stickers if there's gluten-free in there. So that way my son, he will get a step letter and he'll stand up at this cupboard and he can pull out the bins that are gluten-free and grab an option without having to double check with me. So he's really good in that way, like he still has to check that he's allowed to eat snacks during the day but he's still very switched on because of the labeling. So he can see very clearly with the little GF stickers what's safe for him. The other day he pulled down one of your sister's bins and straight away he went, oh that's not mine, it's not got a gluten-free sticker on it and put it back. So it's that visual and it's being able to see what's safe. So that could be an option for you as well if you've got yeah, non, non gluten-free items. So gluten items in your kitchen, this is something I've always done as well. So with bread<laugh>, I don't know why but gluten-free bread, they seem to package in this stupid packaging that you can't seal. I don't know if you've noticed that, but many gluten-free breads have got this plastic packaging that you basically peel off the top layer and then you can't reseal it again. So I keep my bread in a decor container and again I've labeled it bred gluten free, it's sealed, nothing can get in there, it's all good and it's safe for myself and my son. So I really like that that keeps that fresh and safe. Um, before my son came along, I didn't even keep bread out of the freezer because I barely went through it. It'd always get chucked in the bin cuz it would go moldy. Um, so a freezer you could put that in the freezer, no problems, same thing. But for me we go through so much bread now cuz he eats a lot for a four year old, I'm like, God no he is not even four God, he's five. The years are going<laugh>. So he eats a lot for a five year old and you might have heard me say, I'm really scared for when that kid's a teenager because wow he can eat<laugh>. So yeah, so that's really great way to store your bread and keep it safe. And so the last thing that has been an absolute game changer for me living with celiac disease is my thermo mix. I'm actually onto my second thermo mix. I recently upgraded

Speaker 5:

To the latest model and I know this might sound ridiculous, but when we renovated our kitchen, we did everything black and my old white thermo mix didn't quite look as nice in our kitchen. So my husband bought me rotten and bought me the black one for my birthday. So it looked so nice in our kitchen and I'm so grateful and it's just amazing. But the difference is with a thermo mix compared to like a blender or a vi mix, things like that is it doesn't just blend up food you can cook in it as well. So a little quick rundown of what a thermo mix is, if you don't know what it is, it can weigh your food. So I was able to get rid of scales, you can blend in it. So I was able to get rid of my blender. You can, um, steam food on the top. So it comes with an extra attachment I guess you can call it. It's a verona, it sits on top and you can steam food in it. Um, I boil eggs in it, you can cook rice in it, you can cook in Thai mules in it. Um, I blend up things for like bliss balls when my husband used to make me bread in the very early days, he would make all his own flowers from scratch. He would grind up everything in there to make flowers from seeds and yeah, all different types of things to make me flower. Like it's just incredible what you can do in it. You can make nu milks like it's, I could just go on and on about all the different things that you can make in it, but we have saved so much money from using a thermo mix because of the different things that we can make from scratch. And yes, you can make things from scratch with other appliances and utensils. Absolutely. I'm not saying that you can't, but I've just found that this is so easy to use and it's just, yeah, it's just been a game changer and I think that it has definitely made my journey with celiac disease so much better and easier because of having a thermo mix. So, um, if you can afford it, they're pretty pricey. If you can afford it, I would say get yourself one, you will not regret it. If you are young and you haven't even moved outta home yet, this baby will replace so many different gadgets and appliances and different things in your kitchen that it would probably pay for itself in no time by you not buying all of those other things. If I was a uni student, this would be a game changer for me. Like if you were in college or you're in university and you were on campus, you could cook in this in your dorm room, you could do so much in this in your dorm room, it would just be insane to have. So yeah, definitely worth checking out. They're only available to purchase through a consultant, so you need to actually get onto a sales consultant to be able to buy one. They're not available in stores. So yeah, you do need to find someone local to you that you can

Speaker 6:

Buy it it through and they will deliver it to you and teach you how to use it. Um, there's so many YouTube videos and things online where you can learn how to use it, but yeah, that, that would be my, my biggest game changer for people with celiac disease. So yeah, if you can get yourself one, if not, maybe work towards it and, and aim to buy yourself one at some stage in your life because I think you'll really, really enjoy it and get so much value out of having a thermo mix in your life because yeah, like I said, they're brilliant. I could totally be a sales consultant for thermo mixed, but that's just not my jam anymore. So, but yeah, it, I honestly cannot speak highly enough of this machine. So yeah, have a look online if it's something that interests you further and, and yeah, find a sales consultant that can answer all your questions. But yeah, I wanted to talk about it because it is something that, like I said, I get asked about all the time and my answer without a shadow of a doubt is yes, it is worth every cent and I love it<laugh>. So I hope that helps you to sort of understand what helps me in my kitchen and living with celiac disease and eating gluten free and inspires you to grab a few things that maybe you didn't already have for your own cooking journey. So thanks for what checking out at this episode and I look forward to talking with you again at very soon. Take care. Bye.