Toastitbags

[dgshelton]

Has anyone tried theses bags?

The website is www.toastitbags.com.

We are going on vacation in July and will be staying in a condo. This would allow me to have toast without having to bring my own toaster.

I have also been trying to find a decent fried chicken recipe that is gluten, egg, dairy and soy free. It can be either oven or panned fried. Has anyone tried one?

[sarkin]

Denise,

Traveling with a toaster - I hadn't even worried about that yet!

My husband makes an amazing oven-roasted chicken, but the secret to a crispy skin is a super-hot oven (at least 500 degrees), and you can't count on a condo to provide that much heat. I'll run your question by him, and see if he takes it as a personal challenge ;)

Zizzle mentioned using sorghum flour to fry zucchini - that's a food I haven't tried yet, but anything with "fried" and "zucchini" in it sounds wonderful to me. I used to use chickpea flour for frying (people raved about the texture and flavor), but because it's a legume, probably not right for you (not sure it's ideal for me, either).

Dee's kitchen has some recipes for crispy chicken, and for a GF bread-crumb-like coating... I haven't tried them yet.

Those bags look worth a try, though price-y. At that price, I wouldn't hand one to someone in a restaurant and trust it would come back GF (on the site they suggest that). Definitely useful for breakfast in a vacation condo, though - what a relief.

Good luck
Sara

[dgshelton]

Sara - The bags are pricey, but I think I'll get some to use on vacation. The problem I'm finding with the chicken recipes are that they all call for either eggs or milk to make the flour stick. I don't know if the egg replacement or cooconut milk would work. What do you think?

[bevfromwa]

I have used an oven fried chicken recipe that works well with our problems.

Make a mixture of chopped garlic, GF bread crumbs, herbs of your choice such as thyme, oregano, basil, etc., salt and pepper if desired.

Meanwhile briefly soak chicken parts (skin removed if you wish) in whatever DF milk you use. Then drain pieces, roll in the crumb mixture, place in oiled pan and bake at 350 for 20 minutes, turn and bake 20-25 more minutes until done. If you like oven fried potatoes you can do them along side the chicken, might take a bit longer so put the potatoes on first.

Hope this helps. Regards, Beverly

[dgshelton]

Thank you, Beverly. I had hoped someone had tried dairy free milk.

[sarkin]

Denise,

Since you are doing well with coconut - I can recommend the brand "So Delicious" (thank you, Mary Beth!!!) T

They have a lot of flavors, but I've only used the unsweetened so far. I must admit that some of the flavored ones look really tasty, though. My next project is a banana-coconut freezer-pop. I'm making it up, so it may take a few batches to get the recipe worthy of sharing, but I *will* get there, and I will let you know.

I bet punching up the coconut flavor (from the milk) with shredded coconut or coconut oil would be nice with chicken. Anyway, Beverly's recipe sounds wonderful for your vacation, even if you have to pack the coconut milk you like best. I saw multi-packs today in a local health-food store (kind of like a juice-box size), and am thinking I might throw a few in my suitcase.

Happy fried chicken,

Sara

[JoAnn]

Denise, can you eat corn? I use Masa for all my fried foods now and find I like it even better than the previous flour I used. I've been avoiding chicken for awhile, but used it to fry some for my family and they loved it. It's great for fish, too. I breaded some pork chops last Sunday and they turned out great. It might be something you could try and see if it's a good substitute for you.
JoAnn

[Bifcus16]

I have tried a similar variety of bag. Mine are black, and cost $15 for 2.

I have used them for toast in the toaster, and the bread seemed to take a while to toast. It works, but it is easier to just put my bread under the grill (broiler??) when I am at home.

Today I had a toasted ham, cheese and olive sandwich made using one of these bags. Not in a regular toaster though - used the sandwich press at work (the sort with two flat hotplates, where your sandwich lies flat and gets squashed). GD/DF ingredients of course.

That worked a treat. Only challenge was picking up the hot bag and tipping the sandwich out. Very hard to do that without touching the outside (gluteny) part of the bag. If you have a go, a pair of tongs for handling the hot bag might be handy to have around. And make sure you are ready to treat the bag as contaminated until you can wash it properly.

The same material is used for BBQ liners - to make it safe to use a public BBQ. I haven't got one, but friends extol their virtues.

Lyn

[dgshelton]

Sara - I love the idea adding some coconut and I did get some coconut oil. I'm going to have to try that!

JoAnn - I don't have a problem with corn, so the masa would work. Is it just finely ground cornmeal?

Lyn - I read that it takes longer to toast bread with the bags. I don't know why I didn't think about doing the toast in the oven. I've never made toast in the oven without butter, but I guess it would work the same. I forgot all about grilling! The condos have grills that everyone uses, so I guess I to figure something out for that too.

Thanks for all of the suggestions!

[tex]

Is it just finely ground cornmeal?

No, masa is made from corn that has been steeped in heated lye-water, (or steam), to remove most of the pericarp, (hull), and loosen the germ, (the part of the seed that germinates, if the seed is planted). The corn is then drained, and rinsed with water, to flush away the pericarp and germ residue, and most of the lye. It is then wet-milled, (without any drying), and the result is masa, which is the corn equivalent of dough, (what's left of the partially-dissolved pericarp makes an excellent binder for the dough - basically, it's corn gluten).

The wet masa is used immediately for making tortillas, and/or fried or baked tortilla chips. It can also be dehydrated and dried, and then pulverized, (or reground), to make flour, known as masa flour. The masa flour is the product that JoAnn uses. Cornmeal is much coarser, because it also contains all of the ground up pericarp, (which is so hard that it's indigestible), except that some of the larger granules of pericarp, and the germ from the seed, are sifted out before the bagging process, to eliminate some of the coarseness.

In a pinch, heavy duty aluminum foil can be used to prevent your meat from touching a contaminated grill. Be sure to place the foil so that the shiny side is up, to help with heat transfer to the meat. You won't get classic grill marks, nor browning/searing this way, but it will keep your meat safe. You can also turn the edges up, (sort of form a shallow pan), if you want, to retain the juices, and to help protect your meat from contacting any other items on the grill.

I have used a grill, (my own), at a campsite, where it was used by others who regularly contaminated it with gluten, (flour tortillas, hamburger buns, etc.), and so whenever I used it, I prepped the grid by completely burning off any old residue with high heat. My grill has an adjustable grate, so that I can raise the coals right up to the grid, for burning off the crud, completely. I do this while the briquettes are beginning to burn, and I position the grid over the fire so that it burns off in sections, (rather than waiting until the briquettes are scattered, so as to save time). Then I scrub the burned residue off the top of the grid with a wad of aluminum foil, (you can bet that any brass or stainless steel brush left there will be contaminated with gluten, by the first person who uses the grill after you use it, because most people just do a half-hearted job of burning off the grid, so there will still be viable gluten present when they brush it). After that, I wipe what's left of the loose residue off, with a wad of paper towels, and the grill is ready to use, (after scattering the briquettes, and lowering the grate to about 9 or 10 inches below the grid).

The problem is, you can't properly, (safely), burn off a grid, unless you can position it very close to the fire, (which can't be done, on some conventional grills), but maybe you can find a way to work around it. That's why I built my own grill.

Of course, you only have to clean the section of the grid where you will cook your own food - the rest is not critical, (if you don't want to burn off the whole thing). Just don't forget and allow your food to contact the rest of the grid, and don't allow it to come in contact with anything that touches the rest of the grid. Use a separate, clean, pair of tongs for your food, and don't let anyone else touch it, because they will probably have gluten on their hands, and you sure don't want anyone to use it to turn a hamburger bun, or something that contains gluten. It can be a real PITA trying to cook with someone who insists on putting gluten on the grill at the same time that your GF food is on there. That's why I always did the grilling in camp, when I was there, (and since it was my grill, I could insist), and if anyone wanted to heat, (or cook), something that contained gluten, they could do that after I finished my part of the cooking. Basically, when I was there, everyone ate what I cooked, and when I was absent, they cooked whatever they wanted. If you're the best cook in camp, then you usually won't get any argument.

Tex

[dgshelton]

Thanks, Tex! There are so many things to learn with this gluten free diet! Reynolds makes some aluminum that is made for grilling. It has some holes in it to let the heat get through. I wonder if it would work, or would I have to worry about gluten getting through the holes?

Hugs,

[Zizzle]

Denise,
In addition to sorghum flour, I've fried fish with a delicious arborio rice coating that my husband made once. It's just finely ground arborio rice. He may have ground it in a blender or a spice mill. Makes for extra crispiness. Brown rice bread crumbs are a must-have too. To help it stick, use a GF milk like coconut milk, and use 1/3 corn starch in the flour mixture.

[tex]

I wonder if it would work, or would I have to worry about gluten getting through the holes?

I haven't seen that product in the small stores that are available around here. Unless the holes are far enough apart that you can dodge them with whatever you're grilling, or they're very tiny in diameter, I would be afraid of it. That said, the risk would probably be low, and it would definitely be better than nothing, and it would probably allow some degree of browning, more like normal grilling. If luck is in your favor, it might cut the risk of cross-contamination down to below the 20 parts per million tolerance level, that's used as a limit for GF certification.

Please let us know how it works out, if you decide to try it.

Hugs,
Tex

[sarkin]

Denise,

Not that I want to stray from the important topic of delicious food - but I think you raise an interesting question. We do know that some people are more sensitive to smaller amounts of gluten than others (a couple of people dropped out of a study because it made them too sick... heartless S.O.B.s just threw out their statistics and concluded that more gluten was OK 'for most').

But I don't believe that anyone has looked at whether that difference corresponds to celiac vs. non-celiac, or which of the genes, or what stage of healing, how long someone was sick before Dx, how long they've been GF. Thinking of you, I'd bet that last week, you were a ticking bomb for a teensy crumb, and this week you're more resilient. And maybe even more so by the time you fire up that grill at your vacation condo, but not as much as you will be in a year's time.

Maybe eventually gluten researchers will think of better questions than "how much gluten can someone who can't eat gluten eat?"

I eat the same meal at the same restaurant every week on Monday evenings after my choral rehearsal - and I *always* forget to ask them to skip the toasted french bread with delicious herbs on top of my salad. (They don't bring bread to the table any more - I need to extend my communication to the kitchen end of the process.) I have been plucking it off and handing it to my husband, along with the few leaves it has touched. I know they rest it on top after the whole thing is assembled (I've seen them do it)... and so far so good. I may not need to shed as many lettuce leaves as I do... if I get brave enough to test that theory, I will let you know my results!

Love,
Sara

[sarkin]

P.S. - Zizzle (see how long I can stop thinking about delicious food?) - those crispiness suggestions are great, thanks!