Contents
Cover
Title Page
Introduction
Where I Am
How I Got Here
Ready, Steady, Go
THE MOST IMPORTANT MEAL OF THE DAY
Everyday Staples
Ready, Steady Regression Porridge
Oat Yeah, Baby
Danish Breakfast Brød
Poached Eggs on Toast with Green Things
Costa del Granola
Buckwheat Date Chocolate Heaven … er, sorry … Granola
Mother Hubbard’s Bare Cupboard Granola
The Three in One
Moroccan Surfer’s Breakfast
Broke-Student Breakfast Muffins
Muscle-Maker Breakfasts
Baywatch Breakfast Proats
Malibu Muscle Barbie Proats
Reese’s Cup Proats
Popeye Protein Pancakes
Protein Power Yogurt
Chocolate Almond Breakfast Mug Cake
Slightly Less Saintly Breakfasts
The Trudeau
The Classic Frenchie
The Gallant Galette with Gruyère and Crispy Ham
Churros con Chocolate
Fry Not?
Why I Surf
Surf Playlist
Snack Attack
LUNCH
Breads
No-Amish-Beard-Required Corn Bread
Irish-Mammy-Approved Country Soda Bread
Soups
Lean and Green Courgette Soup
White Winter-Veg Soup
Disco Barbie Beetroot Soup
Mysteriously Mexican Soup
Thai Not? Carrot, Coriander and Coconut Soup
Salads
The Ariel Special – Prawn Soba Noodle Salad
She Sells Seashells by the Seashore – Cockle Salsa Salad
Sunny Summer Quinoa Salad
Sexy-Skin Roast Veggie Salad
All the Other Tasty Lunch Stuff
Brie, Cranberry and Stuffing Sambo
Saucy Spanish Tortilla
Jose’s Game-Changing Chicken Wrap
Surf Instructor’s Club Sambo
Canadian Boxing Day Lunch Sandwich
Oh, Mon Dieu, French Toast
Faked Baked Beans
Meal Prep Magic
DINNER TIME
Vitamin Sea Dishes
Garlic-Butter Breaded Mussels
Poseidon’s Fingers
Pae-Eile
Irish Malaysian Noodle Soup
Siren Sea Spaghetti with Smoked Salmon
Veggie Delights
Meatless Balls with Spicy Tomato Sauce
Mexican-ish Sweet Potato Pie
One-Week Veggie Lasagne
Meat Lovers’ Meals
Butch Burgers with Cheesy Polenta Fries
The Ultimate Roast Chicken Dinner
I Can’t Believe It’s Not Cardboard – Thick Crust Pizza
Chimichanga
Healthy Taco Fries
No Carbs before Marbs – Protein Pizza
Crispy Balsamic Ribs with Honey Roast Parsnip Chips
Less Boozy Beef Bourguignon
Deep & Meaningfuls – What’s Important to Me
A Little List of Life’s Simple Pleasures
JUST DESSERTS
Cork Winter Drizzle Blasters
Yahoo, I Can Still Have Crumble
Lazy Man’s Pear Crumble
Elderflower and Redcurrant Muffins
Protein Muffin
Coconut Banana Muffins with Molten Dark-Chocolate Core
Lemon Curd Almond Cups
Coconut Banana Cake
Pumpkin-less Pie
Brown Bread Ice-Cream
Cha Cha Carrot Cake with Zesty Orange Icing
Lime Cheesecake Cups
Sod of Turf Brownies
Everyone Ice-Cream
Raspberry Upside-Down Cake
Bold Bread and Butter Pudding with Marmalade Glaze
Toasted Coconut Banoffee Pie
Calami-tea – Chilled-out Entertaining without the Meltdown
Cooking, Baking and Farming Playlists
ENTERTAINING AND TRAVELLING GLUTEN FREE
My Ride-or-Die Products
Tips for Thrifty Healthy Eating
PRESERVES, SAUCES AND THINGS THAT LIKE TO LIVE IN YOUR FRIDGE
Rosemary Stuffing
Croutons
Preserves
Pickled Red Cabbage
Stupidly Simple Sauerkraut
Cucumber Pickles
Preserved Lemons
Sauces
Béchamel Sauce
Herby Tomato Sauce
White Bean and Mint Spread
French Dressing
Chilli and Lime Sauce
Roast Garlic and Preserved Lemon Hummus
Almond Vegan Paleo Pesto
Tequila-less Salsa
Dracula-Friendly Guac
Berry Couli-ish
Cardamom and Vanilla Apple Sauce
Banana Sauce
Cranberry Sauce
Gin Bourbon Vanilla Extract
Why I Exercise
DRINKS
Pillowcase Almond Milk
Middle Eastern Cardamom Coffee
Chilli Hot Chocolate
Beefcake Coffee
Sangria
Watermelon Slushie
Oh, Bollox, I’m a Coeliac – How to Make Good Choices and Deal with the Social Anxiety around Eating Out
Acknowledgements
Imprint Page
About the Author
About Gill Books
Introduction
Where I Am
Over the past few years I’ve begun to understand how a healthy life fits together. I’ve no idea why when I was younger I couldn’t see how the food I ate affected how I performed in sports, how the fuel you put in affects the performance of the machine. It took me a longer time still to see this on a bigger scale. Your whole lifestyle – where you live, what you eat, what you do, how you exercise and the people you surround yourself with – has to work together to make a happy, healthy human.
In the winter of 2015, I was living on the east coast of Ireland and feeling first-hand what it’s like when you don’t have these aspects in balance. Though I was fairly pleased with myself at the time – I had set up as a sole trader, I was writing this book and I was doing some work with a really cool restaurant in Dublin – I felt lonely, frustrated and unfulfilled.
In terms of a balanced life, I had the food sorted (I was eating really well) and the exercise down (I was working with a personal trainer so I could get into competitive powerlifting) and I was doing work that I loved. But I still felt off – my friends were scattered across the country (I had gone to college in Galway and Cork) and I was back living at home for the first time since before college. I was sitting there in my mid-twenties with debt from a master’s degree that I wasn’t even using and getting up at obscene times to make the long commute into Dublin, and when I finished work I felt like I had no core group of friends to relax or go out with.
To top it all off, my favourite sport, passion, pastime – surfing – was totally off the cards, as there are no regular waves on the east coast! And while that might not sound like a big deal to some, it was a huge loss for me. I’m a water baby, plain and simple. I’ve generally never lived more than a mile or two from the sea. I studied ocean science and marine biology and I used to work in an aquarium. Some of my address names have included The Quays, Kinvarra, Crest of the Wave and Ocean Wave. Sure my name is Finn, for goodness sake!
It was time for a change.
Having gained confidence from my cooking and baking jobs, I started looking at culinary arts courses. A wonderful opportunity arose when I received a scholarship for a full culinary programme in St Angela’s College in Sligo.
On the introductory day for the course I happened to sit next to a girl who lived in Bundoran. Bundoran is a little surfing town in the south of Donegal where I had spent a very happy summer living in a cottage and surfing while I wrote up my master’s thesis. When I asked her if she was moving temporarily for the course, she pointed out that it was just 20 minutes from Bundoran to the culinary school. A massive flash went off in my mind – I swear it was like my brain did a flip.
I could live in a town I loved, with a wonderful community of people I already knew, and I could surf any time and go on hikes in the mountains, all while doing my course and writing my book. And I could afford to stay afterwards, as I wouldn’t be dealing with Dublin commuter-belt rent prices. It’s amazing how a few small choices can change your entire life. Fast forward a few months and life’s set-up looks something like this: I’ve an apartment with an office and a beautiful kitchen that looks over one of Ireland’s best-known reef breaks. I’ve no morning commute so my petrol gets saved for surf trips.
It’s my first time living alone and I’ve never been less lonely. There’s a wonderful, vibrant community in this little town on the wild Atlantic, many of whom have their own start-up businesses too. There’s always someone keen to go for a surf, to a yoga class, for a hike up in the mountains or listen to some live music and grab a sneaky pint in one of the pubs.
On the foodie front I’ve lucked out with great food suppliers, local farms and craft butchers. Sligo town is not too far away for odder items and there are great beaches and woods nearby for foraging bits as well. I love cooking for friends in my little blue-and-white-tiled kitchen and during the summer months there are lots of barbecues and parties to cater for around the town. But why did I end up swapping a long-term career plan in marine science for food and going from an early college diet of pizza and cereal to healthy, home-cooked food?
How I Got Here
I’m a small, bubbly blonde with the energy levels of a Labrador and the sense of humour of a teenage boy. I was always a happy, active kid, swimming in the lake or sea, climbing trees and building forts, but there were also bouts of unexplained stomach problems and a shoddy immune system that led to regular colds and flus. I was brought to doctors, specialists, herbalists and homoeopaths. They had all sorts of answers: abdominal migraines, an imbalance in my gut flora, over-anxious personality … maybe it was all in my head!
When I shipped off to college, things began to spiral downwards. My diet had been pretty healthy at home. There were never fizzy drinks or sweets in the house and, as my friends said, we ate a lot of ‘weird food’ i.e. tofu, falafel and unusual-looking vegetables. Now fending for myself in a student apartment, what I had been taught growing up didn’t gel with the priorities of an 18-year-old who wanted to spend her money on sports gear and socialising.
I ate cereal for breakfast, toasties for lunch and for dinner I had pizza-eating competitions with my 6-foot-4 rugby-player housemate.
Wheat, wheat and more wheat!
My energy started to disappear, my stomach cramped uncontrollably whenever I ate, dark circles appeared under my eyes and, sometimes, ulcers in my mouth. As I lost strength and weight, I gave up all the sports I loved so much and I started to look like a bobble-head doll on the dashboard of a car.
I went to my local GP, who suggested cutting out wheat and dairy. Being a vegetarian already, my food choices were now severely restricted. I started including more rye and barley in my diet.
I thought I was healthy, but I looked like death. The energy dips got worse. Eventually I couldn’t carry a stack of plates up the stairs in the vegetarian restaurant where I was working: a far cry from the little girl who used to challenge her godfather to an arm wrestle and who could almost lift up her mum.
Something had to change. I went for a consultation at the Irish Institute of Nutrition and Health. A wonderful woman there connected with the kid inside me who used to put on Darina Allen-inspired cookery shows for Mum and Dad. I was given recipes for breads, protein bars and simple meals that cut out wheat, dairy and refined sugars. They were tasty but they couldn’t replace the junk food I craved on the weekends.
When I snuck two slices of pizza one night, my stomach cramped so badly I could see the muscles moving. I returned to the doctor. It was suggested I might have Crohn’s Disease. I freaked. (Never google any ailment, ever – it will convince you that you’re going to die!)
I was put on a waiting list for scope tests. On the day of my appointment, there was a strike and all the hospitals were closed. My mother was so worried about the Crohn’s threat, she paid to fast track me in a private hospital. At this point I had been off gluten for six months. I had a double scope test and then consultations with a gastroenterologist.
Oh, bollox, I’m a coeliac.
Armed with the notes from the nutritionist and some new kitchen gadgets from my aunty, I started to experiment. But back in college, I was so tired and there were so few food options for me, I decided to eat meat again. I would prep the veg and my friend Tommy would bring the meat. (Insert dirty joke here.) I made fruity quinoa bars to nibble on during lectures. But I was still floundering.
My grocery bills sky-rocketed as I stocked up on gluten-free breads, pastas, sauces, cereals and snacks. I needed a part-time job just to cover food. And I was still getting poisoned in restaurants because I was too embarrassed to explain coeliac disease to the waiters.
Still, things were on the up. I was back to being the bionic bunny. I returned to surfing and I joined the college gym, where I took up weightlifting again. I attended all my early morning lectures and partied at night too. I no longer hurt when I ate. I was alive!
However, I wasn’t invincible. Never mind the restaurants, I occasionally poisoned myself – usually with sauces, sometimes with booze. Barley was the most common culprit. I was tired of all my favourite foods being off the menu. This is when I first dreamed of writing a cookbook.
I started making lists of all the things I missed so much – lasagne, chowder, pizza, pasta tuna bake, banana bread, doughnuts, hamburgers, apple crumble. And I thought about the new foods I would never get to try, like the fresh Cornish pasties everyone was raving about in Galway that summer.
I put my scientist’s hat on, turned my kitchen into a laboratory and pondered what percentages of fats versus proteins would give the best texture to cakes. Some recipes were an instant hit – check out Coconut Banana Muffins with Molten Dark-Chocolate Core – while others went straight to the recipe graveyard. So long, Hemp Protein Muffins!
I had always been a baker. Now, dish by dish, I became a cook. I grew more and more fascinated with flavours and ingredients. It was no longer simply an exercise in making gluten-free food – it became a search for taste and the optimum fuel to feed my body.
As I became more confident with my recipes, I started guerrilla testing on friends and family. I would show up at their houses with baked treats which I pretended I couldn’t eat myself. It wasn’t until they’d scoffed the lot and felt sorry for me that I told them the truth.
I began cooking for events at the Gyreum Ecolodge in Sligo, making most of the recipes gluten free, with many dairy free and vegan as well. No one noticed that they were eating ‘free from’ food. They just made happy noises and asked me later why they didn’t have puffy bellies or feel sluggish and sleepy!
At St Angela’s, which I graduated from with extra honours in 2016, the chefs who ran the course were amazing forward thinkers and allowed me to adapt every single recipe on the course to a gluten-free version. This way, myself and the rest of the class got to see just how tasty gluten free could be. I may have been the first person in the country to have ever completed a full culinary arts programme entirely gluten free.
I still can’t believe my luck, sometimes, that I got my place in St Angela’s and was able to fulfil my culinary-studies dream. Life looks very different now than I had pictured it coming out of college and, while there have been a fair few bumps and dips along the way, I wouldn’t change a thing. Woolly hats and wet hair are the name of the game now, and my high heels have been hung up as decoration for the time being. While it might seem bonkers to many that I swapped my pursuit of science to food, I must say that my early-onset midlife crisis couldn’t have come too soon. Waking up every morning knowing I’m doing what I love, surrounded by good people, with the ocean at my door and mountains at my back is the best feeling in the world! That’s all from me for now, folks – get cracking into the recipes and, if you need me, I’ll be in the sea!
Ready, Steady, Go
So where do you start?
After I found out I was a coeliac, I simply focused on the food, pining forlornly for baguettes and stumbling around trying to make all my favourite dishes gluten free (though that did largely work out in the end).
If I could go back and mentor 19-year-old me, besides telling her to stop bleaching her hair, I would say take a more well-rounded approach to cooking healthy food, and not to go spending every cent on silly pre-packaged gluten-free (GF) fodder or to obsess over the calories and carbs. Simple healthy food, for me, is all about balance. Yes, I eat homemade food that’s ideally sustainably sourced and organic where possible. But I also won’t beat myself up if I have a few drinks and a big bag of chipper chips afterwards.
A NOTE ON MEASUREMENTS
As you go on, you’ll notice that the recipes are listed in cups, tablespoons and teaspoons as well as grams and mls. It is really important to me that recipes are easy and quick to make – that way you get to spend more time enjoying good food and less time squinting at the numbers on the scales.
So that there’s no confusion, I use a set of standard American cups. I have a couple of different sets of these – plastic ones on a ring that are handy and portable and a snazzy china set that were a gift from my best friend. But if I’m being honest, once I got the knack of measuring things out, I didn’t worry about it so much. Now I’ll use the normal teacups, tablespoons and teaspoons that are in any old kitchen if I don’t have my measuring cups to hand. There are just a few recipes where the measurements need to be super, super exact – e.g. the churros recipe here goes nutso if you don’t measure the xanthan gum right!
Having said all that, sometimes, especially with a recipe you’ve never tried before, it can be reassuring to have the exactness of the scales. I got my little digital one in a run-of-the-mill supermarket for less than €15 and the batteries are cheap to replace. If you’re not too familiar with using scales, just look up handy tips online about things like ‘zero balancing’ to speed you up as you cook and bake. For me, this was a handy skill left over from measuring things in chemistry labs!
I believe taste is a very personal thing. I like flavours to be intense, spicy, salty and sweet. I would recommend that the first time you make any recipe you go with the quantities given, see how you like the flavour and adjust accordingly. For soups and sauces, different quantities of liquid will give you a thicker or thinner consistency, so again adjust as you like.
A NOTE ON INGREDIENTS
As you will see below, I think it’s downright daft how much we spend on food these days, especially food that’s poor quality. So I won’t say anything about good foods or bad foods but, where possible and affordable, I always try to get sustainably caught/farmed seafood and organic meat. I only ever buy free-range eggs, and all the egg-loving recipes in this book have been created with medium-sized organic free-range eggs. (Have you seen the life of a battery hen? The stuff of nightmares.) I try to get organic veggies too, but if I’m feeling thrifty this will apply more to the salad department than things with thick skin – e.g. lemons, avocados, butternut squash and so on.
RESOURCES
YouTube
Funny one, I know, but it’s how I found Lean Secrets and Tone It Up. While both these sites are more for fitness and fat loss, they were also the first places I saw non-coeliacs choosing to go GF for health reasons. Having a bubbly person chat you through tasty recipes is a lot more fun than reading lists of things you can’t eat. Go explore. There are literally thousands of YouTubers talking about all kinds of delicious food.
Friends and family
My family were a huge support during that rough year of diagnosis and my friends have been diligent in taste-testing dishes so that the recipes are not just ‘oh, that’s not bad for gluten-free stuff’ but instead are ‘holy crap, can I stuff all this in my face?’ scrumptious. Your best chance of speedy, successful implementation of a gluten-free diet is getting others to help. I’m not saying they all need to go GF, but getting to eat the same meal as the other people in your house can make it feel a bit more comfortable and normal when you’re starting out. I’m now sending my girls home with jars of Costa del Granola (here) after surf trips and muffins (here) for the car journey!
Health food stores
Long associated in my brain with hippies and incense, this was where I went in the early days to escape the sawdust pharmacy bread. I now buy my staples in the supermarket (more on that below) because they’re half the price. However, for good-quality healthy fats (virgin coconut oil and fish-oil supplements) and tasty GF flavour boosts (Worcestershire sauce or miso paste), this is the place to go. For lazy days, it can also be good to stock up on things like high-quality tinned soups or fresh GF ravioli.
Asian markets
I’ve Susan Jane White to thank for this inspiration. I’ve long been the eejit spending a ton on things like spices, goji berries, gluten-free noodles and rose water (yeah, that one’s for skincare but whatever) in supermarkets and health shops. These things can be literally half the price in the delicious-smelling Asian markets, where potentially boring things like grocery shopping are made far more exciting; it’s also a great way to expand your taste horizons.
Aldi
Yep, you read that right. Seems strange to tout a big, bad supermarket, right? Wrong. Aldi is basically my best mate who’s like, ‘Here, Finn, I hear you’re a bit strapped for cash but want tasty food to eat. I’ll sort you out!’ These lads are at the forefront of decent gluten-free sections and their free-from range also tends to be organic. Tick and tick. Now, after many years, I’ve pretty much gotten to the food-snob place where I only eat healthy homemade treats, but feck that if you’re just getting into the swing of things. These guys do great biscuits (the ginger ones are my fave), an Irish soda bread that is possibly the closest thing to ‘real’ bread I’ve tasted from a shop in a long time and, finally, the pancakes. While terribly bold, they taste just like the ones my nana used to give me when I was little. Extra brownie points for recreating happy childhood memories! Finally, their GF oats are the cheapest ones I’ve found so far that actually come in a decent quantity. For the more savvy shopper, this is also where I pick up my pantry essentials like chia seeds, milled linseeds, ground almonds and maple syrup, which you will later see are fairly crucial!
YOUR KITCHEN
Yep, you guessed it! A bit of clever prepping will set you flying and with this book you’ll be whipping things up faster than Gordon Ramsey can say f***.
There are some important things to think about if you’re coeliac or wheat intolerant and non-gluten-free folk are using the same kitchen. Cross-contamination is a bitch; It’s the source of most poisonings. To be safe:
• Keep GF carbs, breads, pastas, crackers, etc. away from the wheaty ones.
• Use plastic chopping boards instead of wooden ones – sneaky flour stays in the cracks.
• Keep a GF butter dish separate from the main one.
• If you’re a toast fiend, get your own toaster or use the grill.
• Don’t prepare extremely wheat-floury recipes for other people. It took me five years to not be this thick. I love to bake and every year I make gingerbread houses and themed cakes (think The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe and Frozen Elsa-doll cakes) for my cousin’s kids. Last Christmas I managed to inhale a ton of flour (which subsequently went into my tummy) while making the Elsa cake and knocked myself out of the festival humour for a solid two days. If you simply must make non-GF stuff – you work in a restaurant baking/are too skint to bake for others with GF flour – then a) get someone else to do the measuring, sifting and stirring in of the flour or b) wear a surgical-type mask. It’ll look a little odd (for comic effect, draw an eyeball on it) but at least your insides won’t get damaged and you won’t feel like shit!
ARMOURY
If prior to this you thought preparing a meal was taking food out of a takeaway container and putting it on a plate, you will be pleased to know that the recipes in this book are extremely straightforward. No soufflés and nothing so complicated that it requires you to sweat excessively with worry. You will need some basics, but they’re inexpensive enough:
• Plastic chopping boards
• Big and small sharp knives
• Large mixing bowl
• Medium-sized mixing bowl
• Hand blender – otherwise known as a stick or immersion blender (and most likely referred to hereafter as the ssssghhh machine, since that’s the noise it makes)
• Rectangular casserole dish, Pyrex or ceramic (33cm x 23 cm), which can be used for pasta bakes, roasts or tray bakes like brownies
• Bread tin (1lb) – standard smaller size
• Springform baking tin (23cm or 25cm) – don’t look at me like that: it’s not fancy. I got mine in Lidl and it’s brilliant. I also use the bottom bit by itself for roasting sweet potatoes
• Round pie dish (23cm) – also useful for baking chicken breasts
• Muffin tray – because who doesn’t like muffins?
• Decent non-stick frying pan – too many pancakes are lost every day to crap frying pans
• Proper measuring-cup set – I have nice ones a friend from America gave me, but ordinary ones can be easily sourced from the €2 shop (classy, I know, but much more accurate than bog standard teacups, tablespoons and teaspoons)
Fancy extras:
Waffle iron or toasty maker (don’t share these with non-GF users); silicon ice-cube trays (can also be used as chocolate moulds for cool shapes).
Useful consumables:
Baking parchment; tin foil; leftover glass jars from sauces (good for storing dry goods or as a hipster drinking glass and lunch-transportation device); string (for tying up things wrapped in baking parchment). I’m a bit anti cling film and plastic bags – bad for the enviro and the fishies and all that.
The Most Important
Meal of the Day
Also known as breakfast, or the time when you get to eat stuff smothered in syrup and no one bats an eyelid …
Breakfast can be a bit of a minefield for eating gluten free. Things that should be safe in theory, well, aren’t. The main culprits are rice- and corn-based cereals that are actually sweetened with barley malt or oats. Oats are naturally GF but they are generally grown in the same fields and processed in the same factories as wheat, making them a no-go. Then there are all the breads, croissants, Danishes and other pastry delights (apple lattices were my downfall) that are off the menu.
So what’s left, you ask? Plenty! The wonderful twist is that many of those old favourites are also the source of the dreaded energy crash that usually hits around 11 a.m. The recipes here should have you hopping out of bed and looking forward to breakfast, not skipping it. Since no two days are the same, the breakfasts are split up into my everyday staples, the muscle makers (for days off and after heavy training sessions) and the less saintly ones (for weekend treats and special occasions).
A personal favourite is the churros here, which I like to serve with strong coffee, a good read and some of my very broken Spanish.