General Discussion Thread

[Mélusine]

Ha, sharing a house, and these marvelous moments saying "But we had (this) !" while looking for something we need to cook this evening's meal without finding it... *Looks suspiciously at one of her housemates, the one who was thinking that her tea in a metal box had pasted its used-by date "because there is no date on the box"*

[Mersey]

Ha, sharing a house, and these marvelous moments saying "But we had (this) !" while looking for something we need to cook this evening's meal without finding it... *Looks suspiciously at one of her housemates, the one who was thinking that her tea in a metal box had pasted its used-by date "because there is no date on the box"*

I feel this ;^;. I just moved into a place where the other flatmates have lived for 2 years prior BUT apparently their last roommate made off with at least 90% of their kitchen utensils? So anytime we try to cook it goes like "But I thought we had a cutting board/cheese grater/FORK??" We have 4 forks total. I am also missing my entire fork stash somehow. Moving is weird.

[Mélusine]

*Pats pats Mersey*
My suspected housemate told us that he must have throw it. Honestly ? Semolina ? How could it have pasted its used-by date ? *Sighs* But my crumble was especially good, so all is fine in the end

[Mersey]

*Pats pats Mersey*
My suspected housemate told us that he must have throw it. Honestly ? Semolina ? How could it have pasted its used-by date ? *Sighs* But my crumble was especially good, so all is fine in the end

*O* crumble!! that sounds delicious, regardless of the sacrifices you had to make lol. do you bake often?
(i dont myself bc i am lazy + baking without gluten and dairy is hard)

[Mélusine]

*O* crumble!! that sounds delicious, regardless of the sacrifices you had to make lol. do you bake often?
(i dont myself bc i am lazy + baking without gluten and dairy is hard)

It depends, I think I'm better with biscuits, but I have some recipes of meal I like to cook Unfortunately for you, there is goat cheese with the zucchinis and mint in my crumble... :/

[urbicande]

It depends, I think I'm better with biscuits, but I have some recipes of meal I like to cook Unfortunately for you, there is goat cheese with the zucchinis and mint in my crumble... :/

Wait, how is that unfortunate?  That sounds tasty!

[Mélusine]

Wait, how is that unfortunate?  That sounds tasty!

Unfortunate for Mersey because problems with dairy may include cheese ? But we have some leftovers, if you're interested, urbicande

[Mersey]

Wait, how is that unfortunate?  That sounds tasty!

it sounds SUPER GOOD I just have a large variety of auto-immune issues/gastro diseases that make eating hard haha

[Mélusine]

Note to myself : find a way to cook hot meal for a next meet-up

[Purple Wyrm]

They're predicting hurricane conditions for South Australia today - hope you and your garden will be OK Róisín 

[Róisín]

So do I mate - thanks for the thought! Hubby has to drive in it, to somewhere about an hour away, so I'll be worrying until he comes home. I'm volunteering at the community garden, so not far to travel. But I think we'll be working under shelter - potting shed, sorting seeds and the like. Which is a pity, because I came back from last night's Rare Fruit Society meeting with a mass of new plants for the garden.

Bigger storms are forecast than with the last lot, which is a worry, because the ground is already saturated, and in some areas we have already had more than the usual year's worth of rainfall in less than a month. Sandbag time, I think. Talk about 'droughts and flooding rains' - grrr!

[Kiraly]

(i dont myself bc i am lazy + baking without gluten and dairy is hard)

it sounds SUPER GOOD I just have a large variety of auto-immune issues/gastro diseases that make eating hard haha

*gluten-free auto-immune gastro disease high-five!* (Celiac over here). I manage to do some gluten-free baking every now and then, but I don't have to worry about dairy to further complicate things.

[Mersey]

*gluten-free auto-immune gastro disease high-five!* (Celiac over here). I manage to do some gluten-free baking every now and then, but I don't have to worry about dairy to further complicate things.

!!! I'm celiac too! (along with fun crap like ulcerative colitis + lactose intolerance) if you have any secrets to baking i would love to know!

generally I make gentle curries/soup non-stop, that's my way out of the restrictions hahaa

Also wow Róisín, Rare Fruit Society? That sounds fascinating (what kind of work do they do?) I'm vaguely aware of seed archiving bc of rural Appalachian crops but not much more than that. (Also be as safe as you can!)

[Kiraly]

!!! I'm celiac too! (along with fun crap like ulcerative colitis + lactose intolerance) if you have any secrets to baking i would love to know!

generally I make gentle curries/soup non-stop, that's my way out of the restrictions hahaa

Oof, yeah, that doesn't sound like a fun combination! I'm lucky that my other autoimmune stuff doesn't come with any additional dietary restrictions (type 1 diabetes and a hypothyroid thing) so I only have gluten to worry about. But I know delicious gluten-free, dairy-free stuff is possible because there's a bakery here that is both - and for the first year that I was eating their stuff I had NO idea it was also dairy-free.

My main baking advice is basically: find a decent gluten-free replacement flour if you can (I don't know if the ulcerative colitis prevents certain foods) because it's SO much easier than buying like four kinds of flour and combining them. I don't bake a ton of really complicated things like cakes though (mostly cookies) so I don't know if it will work for everything. A lot of flour mixes will have advice on the package.

I also find that gluten-free oats (if you can tolerate them - I know not everyone can) can help with the texture of cookies. My favorite recipe is for gluten-free oatmeal white chocolate cranberry cookies, and I think the oats keep them from having the grainy texture you sometimes get with gluten-free baking. They'd probably be pretty easy to make dairy-free too, if you used shortening or lard instead of butter and found dairy-free chocolate chips (which I know exist.)

Also, in poking around for butter substitutes just now, I found this article on the subject which might be helpful. (I bookmarked it for my own use, because who knows, maybe I'll need to bake for a dairy-free person at some point!)

[Mersey]

My main baking advice is basically: find a decent gluten-free replacement flour if you can (I don't know if the ulcerative colitis prevents certain foods) because it's SO much easier than buying like four kinds of flour and combining them. I don't bake a ton of really complicated things like cakes though (mostly cookies) so I don't know if it will work for everything. A lot of flour mixes will have advice on the package.

I also find that gluten-free oats (if you can tolerate them - I know not everyone can) can help with the texture of cookies. My favorite recipe is for gluten-free oatmeal white chocolate cranberry cookies, and I think the oats keep them from having the grainy texture you sometimes get with gluten-free baking. They'd probably be pretty easy to make dairy-free too, if you used shortening or lard instead of butter and found dairy-free chocolate chips (which I know exist.)

Also, in poking around for butter substitutes just now, I found this article on the subject which might be helpful. (I bookmarked it for my own use, because who knows, maybe I'll need to bake for a dairy-free person at some point!)

These are such good resources, thank you!! (as for a UC diet, it really depends on  the person and their history of flare-ups. After lots of testing, mine was determined to center on fat (meat and dairy fats) and seeds?? I can eat seeds I just have to chop them up? It's weird.)

I am REALLY EXCITED about the butter though!! I usually just use olive oil to cook now (which is fine...but sometimes you need butter!)