kitchen

Creating a Gluten-Free Kitchen

by
A basket of gluten-free flours and baking ingredients, with a set of measuring spoons and cups on top.
RV life required downsizing a large cupboard of baking ingredients. It turns out that everything I need will fit into this basket in the cabinet over the stove. It took some trial and error to find my favorite flours, but nowadays I prefer teff, sorghum, and arrowroot. Psyllium husk and xanthan gum provide some of the binding that gluten normally provides in baked goods, but they’re not required and they’re used so sparingly that a small package lasts for years.

When I realized it was going to be impossible to avoid gluten contamination if I lived with a gluten-eater, we immediately decided to make the whole house gluten-free.

I wish I could say a mixed-gluten kitchen was easier in a sticks-and-bricks home, but our apartment kitchen at the time was a little smaller than our RV’s kitchen, so that’s not true. The fact is, it’s extremely difficult to maintain a mixed kitchen, and impossible for us personally. So in preparation for a very a deep cleaning, we sorted everything in the kitchen to decide what could stay and what must go.

Maybe this post will help you if you find yourself in a similar situation, following a celiac diagnosis or eliminating gluten for other health reasons.

Read the rest of this post.

Gluten-Free Travel

by

Finding gluten-free food on the road can be tough. This is not a post about finding gluten-free restaurants, or about all the magical gluten-free dining experiences a traveler with celiac disease might find if only they were brave enough or bold enough. I am a super sensitive celiac. I am more sensitive than the average celiac, and it takes me longer to bounce back than many of my celiac peers. Once, I was glutened so badly by a careless restaurant that it took me over a year to feel “normal” again. Consequently, we don’t eat out much. So this is a post about where to find gluten-free groceries while traveling. Even before RV life, when we traveled, we brought a suitcase for our clothes and a suitcase for our food. (The food suitcase was usually bigger.) RV travel has made eating on the road MUCH easier and simpler, but there’s …

Read the rest of this post.

Grocery delivery while RVing?

by

With food allergies and severe celiac disease, we don’t go to restaurants very often. Going out to eat requires a great deal of preliminary research and phone calls to restaurant managers, and even then it’s a gamble whether or not a business is going to be “gluten-free enough” for someone like me. Getting contaminated by a careless restaurant can cause me a health setback that will require weeks or even months of recovery. To play it safe, we cook at home almost exclusively, and have a great time doing it. One of the greatest things about taking our kitchen on the road is that we always have our favorite gadgets and snacks, and we know they will always be safe and clean. We think our Keystone Laredo 335MK has an enormous kitchen, with more fridge and counter space than my first apartment. It’s actually enjoyable to cook in it! Consequently, …

Read the rest of this post.

Preserve Tableware: Recycled Eco-Friendly Dishes

by

For about three years before moving into our RV, we regularly complained about our dishes. We were tired of our ten-year-old, inexpensive, drab gray, and super heavy Ikea set, but we didn’t have a good reason to replace them. They were still doing what they were designed to do, even if we were tired of looking at them. It seemed wasteful to replace dishes just because they weren’t pretty any more. But after counting the chips and cracks in that old set, and considering the unnecessary added weight, moving into our RV was a doubly exciting time for us: time to get new dishes! (We enjoy our simple pleasures.) After lots of research, we first decided on Corel because of their designs, weight, and durability, but we weren’t ready to commit to a pattern (or a price tag), so we looked for something inexpensive and environmentally friendly that would last …

Read the rest of this post.