Last night, I had the opportunity to cook dinner with our oldest son! My husband and our youngest son were attending an awards banquet where our son received an award from the Michigan Auto Racing Fan Club for his championships in Quarter Midget racing! So, that left my oldest son and I to delve into making a dinner which we would enjoy that perhaps the missing family members would be glad to miss! Our youngest son has an undeveloped palate as of yet (which will probably--hopefully--change when he goes off to college) so I usually have to keep foods simple when he's home for dinner!
What would we fix for dinner? With the cold weather outside and trying to seep into our comfortably warm home, we felt that this was a good time to look at soups. So, what soups? My husband had just come back from a business trip to Boston and admitted that he had partaken in a bowl of Clam Chowder (he, unfortunately, has to eat gluten-filled foods) which he described in words of ecstasy. After hearing about that, we decided on trying our hand at making a dairy-free gluten-free creamy clam chowder! In fact, we ended up making two variations, but both being gluten-free and dairy-free! They each were delicious and satisfying although on our next versions we're thinking of trying to make the soups creamier. The chowders didn't seem as creamy as what we had remembered from our gluten-filled days. We used dairy-free margarine and coconut milk in place of using milk or half-and-half as most recipes call for in making chowders! Wish you all could have joined us for a tasting with our gluten-free dairy-free crackers! We were quite impressed with our products! I had feared that the coconut flavor would be too strong, but turned out you couldn't even tell that it was coconut milk at all! Clam juice is the perfect accompaniment, so you don't need to fear dabbling with coconut milk when you're using stronger flavors as well! To add to the thickness of what we remembered from our past? Perhaps adding dairy-free sour cream would help? I believe that's what we'll try next! But the flavor was there! That's what we'll keep! Wouldn't you love to walk into your local grocery store and be able to take home a delicious bowl of creamy gf/df Clam Chowder? Perhaps that day will come! Maybe that will be our first product from our company?
You know, it's truly amazing how the gluten-free food niche has now become so large and entering the mainstream for so many people! But yet, we have a long way to go to get more ready-made foods in the market for those of us who lead such busy lives that we need safe, healthy and delicious food quickly! Sometimes I feel like one of those actors in the TV commercial showing the actors screaming out their windows, "And I want it now!" Only instead of money, which I know we could all use more of, I'd be screaming for gluten-free dairy-free foods so that more people would be able to eat the foods they've grown up with and loved for so long! I don't know what it is we're doing to ourselves in this world, but something's changed and there are more people, even at younger ages, developing allergies, food and even chemical sensitivities than ever before! Are we genetically modifying ourselves to death? Or are we slowly modifying our immune systems due to the chemical additives, etc., in our foods or, perhaps, our water? Something's happened, and I do not believe that it's just our diagnostic advances which have allowed us to diagnose more diseases earlier. I read a report on that. I will look it up and post it later to share it with you. It's a real eye-opener, I think!
Perhaps my next post will go over the various symptoms which have been reported by people who have gluten sensitivities or celiac disease? They are so varied and I've found it to be so hard to find all the symptoms listed in one place! People need to know that it's not just bloating, flatulence or diarrhea. Some people never have those symptoms but yet still have a problem with gluten! That is something that needs to be published -- all the possible symptoms that have been reported with gluten sensitivities/celiac disease in order to help more people consider the possibility of using a gluten-free diet to relieve their ever-present symptoms which they've had for YEARS without know the true cause!
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