GREENE – Carol LePage cooks gluten-free meals for herself because she has celiac disease, also known as gluten intolerance.
This disease is an autoimmune disorder in which a person’s body cannot tolerate a group of grains containing gluten. These grains consist of wheat, rye, barley and sometimes oats.
The only treatment is a strict adherence to a 100 percent gluten-free diet. Otherwise, symptoms include crampy stomach pain, fatigue, weight loss and diarrhea. Celiac disease may also present itself with constipation, and with vitamin and mineral deficiencies that result from malabsorption.
LePage has found ways to adapt her favorite recipes so that they taste good and she can enjoy them gluten-free.
She has always enjoyed baking. “For Christmas, I give out a lot of care packages.” Making the recipes taste good has involved some trial and error.
“I tried to make a cake using gluten-free cake mix that I bought locally, and it was bad,” LePage said. One place where she has found gluten-free products that taste good is www.dietspec.com. She also cites “Pamela’s Products” as a good name brand that is sometimes carried in local stores.
LePage often uses a mix when cooking gluten-free. “The problem with making gluten-free from scratch is that you have to mix all kinds of different flour together,” says LePage.
In LePage’s kitchen, you’ll find her stainless steel Emeril cookware, lots of spices and a bunch of French cookbooks. “I went to France a couple of years ago, and I had some extra French money in the airport so I bought some cookbooks,” says LePage.
The people in LePage’s household aren’t the only ones eating from a special diet. Her four dogs were on a special low-calorie diet because one of them had bladder stones. According to LePage, the special food was making their teeth go bad. So, she took her dogs’ health into her own hands and started making them homemade dog food.
“They were gaining weight on the special low-calorie food, but now they’re all healthily losing weight on the homemade,” she said.
LePage and her husband, David, have a grown daughter, Kerry. Carol LePage works at Maine Standards as a lab researcher. LePage enjoys reading, photography and watercolor painting in her free time. She and a group of 14 other women get together each summer on the coast of Maine where they rent a home and paint for a week. This past year, she painted in Blue Hill; next year, they’re headed to East Boothbay.
For more information on celiac disease, readers can check out the Celiac Disease Foundation on its Web site www.celiac.org.
Glorious beef stew
Ingredients:
2 pounds stew beef
¼ cup gluten-free flour, can be a combination of white rice flour, brown rice flour, potato flour and tapioca flour
¼ cup olive oil
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon celery salt
½ teaspoon pepper
1 clove garlic, minced
2 teaspoons instant minced onion
1 bay leaf
1 can (8 ounces) tomato sauce
1 pound carrots, cut up
3 onions
1 package frozen peas
1 pound fresh mushrooms
Method:
Add flour to a plastic bag along with stew beef to cover the beef with flour. In hot oil in a large Dutch oven, brown beef on all sides; this takes about 10 minutes. Stir in salts, pepper, garlic, minced onion, bay leaf, tomato sauce and 1 cup water. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat; simmer covered for 1½ hours, stirring occasionally, until meat is tender. Add onions, carrots, mushrooms and potatoes. Bring to a boil, then turn down to simmer until vegetables are tender. Add frozen peas and simmer for another 10 minutes.
Famous rum cake
Cake ingredients:
1 cup chopped walnuts
1 package yellow or white cake mix (gluten-free)
3.75-ounce package instant vanilla pudding mix (modified cornstarch only)
4 eggs
½ cup cold water
½ cup oil
½ cup rum
Glaze ingredients:
¼ pound butter
¼ cup water
1 cup granulated sugar
½ cup rum
Method:
Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Grease and flour a Bundt pan. Use gluten-free flour or gluten-free cake mix to flour pan. Mix cake ingredients together; add chopped walnuts. Pour batter into pan. Bake 1 hour. Cool. Invert on serving plate, prick top with a large toothpick. Drizzle glaze over top and sides. Repeat until glaze is used up.
Glaze:
Melt butter in saucepan. Stir in water and sugar. Boil 5 minutes. Remove from heat. Stir in rum.
Carol’s notes: Use a high-quality, gluten-free cake mix. Most gluten-free cake mixes purchased in local grocery stores will result in a disappointing experience. Try www.dietspec.com for great gluten-free products as well as www.pamelasproducts.com.
Nutritious dog food
Ingredients:
1 pound liver
2 pounds chicken, turkey or beef hamburger
3 cups brown rice (7 cups cooked)
2 cups white rice (5 cups cooked)
1 pound raw shredded carrots
Method:
Using olive oil, cook liver and hamburger. Cut liver into small pieces. Add to a large mixing container with the cooked white and brown rice. Add shredded carrots. Makes enough food for four small dogs for an entire week.
Carol’s notes: Freeze enough food for a couple of days in containers and thaw as needed. Make sure that you start thawing a day before use. When serving the food, I usually add a bit of yogurt to each serving as well as some fruits that my dogs enjoy (bananas, watermelon and berries).
I also sometimes add bran flake cereal when serving. My dogs love this food so much that they have become kitchen cooks, standing at my feet while I prepare their food, making sure that I am doing it right and waiting for their handouts. Since I put my dogs on this food, I have noticed that they have trimmed out quite well.
Comments are no longer available on this story