London, Manchester, Leeds, Birmingham, Sheffield, UK (PRWEB UK) 23 October 2011

Oh how my life has changed…. Growing up my mum always taught me to cook with any opportunity she had. I remember particularly every Sunday, spending time in the kitchen watching and learning. My mum had a clear ability as many mums do, to just cook… Effortlessly. She never measured anything and if my siblings or I ever mentioned a certain dish, she just knew how to make it. It all just came so naturally to her. As soon as one of us asked her to cook something she had experience with or not, it was almost like her brain drew out the ingredients, method and images of how it would look before going ahead and preparing it. There isn’t one time that I can remember that it didn’t turn out right.

I guess you could say, that I took on this natural talent from my mum. I remember growing up enjoying home economics, baking flap jacks, cakes and whatever I could make at home. I genuinely loved it. I took this passion clearly into adulthood. I remember at university being the only one who could actually cook. Being able to make a Sunday roast, bake a cake or produce a stir fry was like gold dust when it came to my fellow house mates. I remember them mostly opting for ready meals, microwave food and anything with ease. I never got that, as that was so far from my up bringing.

I found myself being mother hen and cooking regularly for us all. When I say for us all, I don’t just mean the other four girls in my apartment, I also mean the 5 boys across the hall and a few of the guys from the apartment below. I have to say, I secretly enjoyed it I loved cooking and making people happy with food. My love of cooking followed me through to my early 20s, again cooking for fellow house mates and experimenting regularly with ingredients and recipes that I’d made up.

It wasn’t until I turned 24 that this all changed. As soon as I found out I had a range of food intolerances and allergies, everything changed. My brain seemed to stop working and I looked at food preparation with pure confusion. It was like I’d never cooked, I suddenly didn’t understand what worked together, how food could taste. I found myself opting for easy to prepare foods like beans on toast (which became a favorite) and shop bought biscuits, cakes etc all gluten free of course. I thoroughly missed my days, in the kitchen cooking for the masses. I guess what happened was that it became a ‘just me’ situation. I was the only one around me who was Gluten free and I didn’t know how to adapt my passion for cooking into the gluten free world. Everything seemed so different. It was no longer about dashing to the corner shop and picking up self raising or plain flour etc to make something I just fancied. Now I had to use different types of ingredients, but how? What? These early days were certainly my most confusing.

I remember at the start of my gluten free journey feeling so lost and overwhelmed with confusion. Not only was I coping with and trying to understand this intolerance in my body, but to top it off, I didn’t know what on earth to eat. I’d buy free from cook books but nothing made sense as it wasn’t what I was used to having or using. Things weren’t as readily available as they are now in the shops, so shopping for food didn’t come easy.

I can’t say that I’m totally cured of my fear of cooking gluten free, but everyday I try that little bit more and actually I’m at the point now when it’s exciting again. It’s interesting learning to cook, trying new things and surprising myself and those around me about just how amazing gluten free food can really taste. In my early days of being gluten free, I used to wish that I could go back to before and be like everyone else, eat what I liked, when I liked. Now though I’m happy to be gluten free. I’m not going to say that it’s easy every day, but I can say it gets better everyday. Look out on our website for my cooking tips and cooking videos. I’ll be trying out the latest easy to prepare packet foods and recipes from scratch.

We’d love it if you could share your favorite recipes with us and others via our website. We want to help as many people as possible to make life easier for anybody eating free from. It doesn’t matter what you’re free from, we want to hear from you. Just simply state what your recipe is free of, whether gluten, wheat, dairy, soya etc.

You can submit your recipes complete with a picture to us here or by emailing recipes(at)foodsyoucan(dot)co(dot)uk.

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