Wow, I can't believe it's Friday and Day 5 of the Gluten Free Challenge is here! I made it! Well, I've still got today to get through though, haven't I......
Here is Day 4's sum up in words and pictures!
Breakfast: I enjoyed my Day 3 dessert so much I recreated it (sans chocolate!) for breakfast. I made a bowl of yoghurt (a mixture of Activia cherry yoghurt and TOTAL 0%) and layered in some raspberries, nectarines, blueberries and strawberries, finishing with a sprinkling of Linwoods flax, sunflower, pumpkin and sesame seeds and goji berries mix. Delish!
Lunch: I turned last night's leftover rice and green vegetables into a fried rice with egg, chilli, black sesame seeds, tamari, spring onions and coriander. Scrumptious.
Tom and I often get a similar dish at Wagamamas, which is served with pickles and miso soup. I had some miso paste hanging around and I thought a cup of soup to go with this would be very nice indeed, given it had started pouring with rain! But the package was all in Japanese (which I can't read) and 15 minutes of googling left me still wondering...is miso soup gluten free? Some sites I checked seemed to think yes but it depends on the type of grain used in the miso. I had no way of knowing for sure. So I decided to play it safe and leave it, which is what someone following a gluten-free diet for medical reasons would have to do, and it really hit me how fortunate I am to be able to do this by choice.
Snack: I had some rice cakes with hummus and a mug of spiced Drink Me Chai, with extra cinnamon, made with Tesco Free From chocolate coconut milk. I really love the chocolate coconut chai combination. Drink Me Chai is gluten free too :)
Dinner: The plan originally was to go in to London to see my my friend for gluten free burgers and beer in Brixton, but as she was unwell that plan was shelved for another day. I hadn't planned anything for dinner though, so Tom and I thought we would try to find a gluten free dining experience in the local area. We weren't all that confident at first, as we live in a small country town, but I googled "gluten free restaurants Buckinghamshire" and the fourth place on the list was where we ended up going. Their web site prominently displays that they are coeliac friendly and I was won over when I read through the menu online and saw that nearly everything on the menu could be made wheat or gluten free....even their stone-baked pizza!
So we rolled up to The Village Gate not quite sure what to expect and were blown away:
This is the Bianca pizza, which was one of two vegetarian options (goat's cheese, caramelised red onion, olives, sundried tomatoes and rocket) on a gluten free base. Tom had the other vegetarian option (Margherita) but on a "normal" base.
My pizza was absolutely stunning! The topping combination was delicious and the base was surprisingly "doughy" yet crisp. I needed Tom's help to finish, I was quite full by the end. Yet not "stuffed".
There were chips too:
We also shared a side salad, and I had a glass of Australian shiraz.
The menu had a few other vegetarian options which I was assured could have all been made gluten free if need be. I had a chat with our server about how impressed I was that the menu was so accommodating and she told me that she has a gluten intolerance, and so does the wife of the guy who owns the pub, so therefore it was very important to them to offer the gluten free alternatives so that everyone can enjoy going there.
Eating out was something Tom and I used to do pretty much every week when we lived in London but these days it is a rare luxury. Nothing makes me happier than having an evening out where the food, wine and company is sublime....and to find somewhere local that accommodated this temporary special diet of mine was just fantastic. We'll definitely be returning to The Village Gate and if you're ever in the area I highly recommend it.
I like their sense of humour too - on the menu it said "all dishes may contain traces of nuts. Fish dishes may contain bones. All puddings will contain calories." Bwahahaha!
Day 4 highlight: Dinner, without a doubt!
Day 4 challenge: The miso soup conundrum. I believe Clearspring do a gluten free version so I might seek that out.
Day 4 sum up: I got a real kick out of finding a local place that did gluten free food, it's great to see more and more places accommodating those with intolerances and special diets. Sometimes I find being vegetarian hard enough, hence why I still used to eat the occasional bit of fish, sometimes it all just got a bit hard and the last thing I felt like was yet another bloody mushroom risotto ;) I really enjoyed today. And overall, I'm still feeling light and nourished and cleansed, for want of a better word. I do feel like my system has had a good old clean out. It feels good.
If you are gluten free, do you ever find eating out a challenge?
PS: A great blog I've discovered, Gluten Free Mrs D, has an excellent GF guide to eating out in London (and various other parts of the world).