Actually, it's pretty easy, my daughter just got diagnosed as being celiac and I reminded her that she can eat meat, eggs, sugar, fruit, vegetables, rice, quinoa, lots of things.

Breakfast? Bacon or sausage, eggs, potatoes, fruit. Frittata is good, or omelets, red flannel hash, a fruit cup, oatmeal is naturally gluten free as long as it's processed in a facility that's gluten free, lots of cold cereals like Rice Chex are available. And then there's grits.....

Dinner? Steak or a pork roast, potatoes or rice pilaf, as many vegetables as you care to cook. Pudding or custard for dessert, or fruit compote, ice cream, homemade fudge, and that's without even hitting the gluten free aisle in your local market!

Have fun.

Annie

Trader joes has a large selection of well priced gluten free options. Brown rice pasta in a Mac and cheese boxed dinner is one. Check their website for a list of gf offers.

Just look up the hidden gluten. Most soy sauce is made with wheat, for instance.

Gluten is in wheat, rye and barley. Also things made out of those grains that have other names, so check ingredients. Also beware of ingredients called "starch" unless identified specifically (e.g., corn starch) as from a non-glutenous source.

Try not to prepare anything with flour on the same day you're making gluten free since the dust can linger in the air. OTOH, since this person can eat in your home, he probably doesn't have problems with traces.

If you're making a sauce or a dredge, use tapioca starch, potato starch or corn starch rather than wheat or barley (Wondra) flour. You can make a béchamel with starch instead of flour, too, but I don't know if that works for a brown roux.

If you normally serve bread, get a loaf of gluten free bread for your guest. My experience with making gluten free pie crust is that it's pretty disgusting. Better to forget the crust altogether and make a compote or a cobbler with a gluten free crumble. You can make a quiche in a glass or pyroceram pie plate without a crust and it comes out fine. If you were thinking pasta, there is decent gluten free pasta, but even better is black bean pasta which is very delicious and higher in protein than even high protein wheat pasta. Read the ingredients, of course. The kind I have is just black beans. Make sure there's no incidental gluten in the sauce!

Potential menu outlines:

Roasted meat or chicken
Green salad with nut slivers instead of croutons
Green beans
Baked potatoes
Fresh fruit
Frozen yoghurt

Scrambled eggs or omelette or fritata
Toast (inc. gluten free bread)
Sliced melon

OR

Lasagna made with gluten free pasta (GF ;asagna pasta is weird but pretty decent) -- if you use besciamella, make with starch instead of flour, or baked black bean penne casserole
Green salad
Mixed steamed vegetables and mini-potatoes with garlic sauce (instead of garlic bread)
Baked pears with caramel sauce and pecans

Gluten free muesli (for everybody--they won't know the difference)
Greek yoghurt
Fresh berries

For little quiches with no pastry, try making individual ones and use ham in the base instead of pastry.

Thanks so much for all the info! Lots of foods without glutens.... Lol my son made it sound like I had to cook some special food in a text saying one of them is allergic to glutens.
I could have looked the definition up, but more fun to get creative answers from real people :) cheers

>If you're making a sauce or a dredge, use tapioca starch, potato starch or corn starch rather than wheat or barley (Wondra) flour

Just a note that a lot of recipes that call for dredging/flouring often throw in a note that you can make the recipe gluten-free by using rice flour (sometimes with a helpful addendum that you can make your own by grinding up rice in your food processor or coffee mill), but these folks obviously just saw that somewhere and never tried it. It produces wretched results. Stick to plllog's list

Another dessert idea is apple crisp. I make it by using the gluten-free biscuit mix mixed with the oatmeal instead of A.P. flour. It tastes just the same and my gluten-free friends loved it. King Arthur has a pretty good gluten-free muffin mix. Just add fresh blueberries to it. I also used the gluten-free biscuit mix to make a crumble topping for the muffins and I use the biscuit mix to make Jimmy Deans sausage balls gluten-free for a make-ahead-appetizer.. Tastes just the same as the original recipe.

It's actually pretty easy. Just be sure to read the labels on any "not-raw" stuff you buy.

Don't try to make the "gluten-free" versions of foods that need wheat to be good - they suck. Make food that isn't trying to be fake and recipes that donâÂÂt use wheat-based ingredients.

Vegetables
Salad (read dressing labels carefully!)
meats and fish and chicken
most cheeses
potatoes
mushrooms
rice
fruit
Ice cream

So chicken/porkchops/fish with steamed or roasted vegetables and potatoes and a salad would work nicely. Ice cream for dessert, or fruit.

Or a Chinese stir-fry over rice (check the sauces for gluten)

Put bread on the table for the rest of you, marked with skull and crossbones.

Breakfast - omelet, oatmeal, bacon, fruit, yogurt with honey

I am gluten free. Just use whole foods all the time, though I also use white rice.

I have a friend with celiac, so when they come for dinner, I focus on meats and vegetables. Before dinner, a platter of cheeses, fruit, vegetable sticks with hummus, or corn chips with salsa. I use potatoes or winter squash for starch. If I really want a bread, I will make my own corn bread with just corn meal. For dessert, I will have macerated fruit with ice cream or make a rice pudding in a crock pot and serve with whipped cream. Maybe some GF cookies on the side.

Breakfast can be eggs and bacon, yogurt and fruit, cream of rice cereal.

I often buy gluten free pasta to mix it up, but it is expensive and not as good as the wheat stuff, IMHO. So what I do for an Italian twist is often serve a chunky tomato sauce filled with veggies and also either turkey or fake italian sausage, (I'm a mostly vegetarian so feel free to use the kind of Italian sausage you like) maybe some cannellini beans if you like them, over polenta. Top with a sprinkle of parmesean cheese. I love me some polenta! I make it and either serve it in a nice puddle, or spread it out in a flat pan to cool and then slice and fry in olive oil. You can also serve polenta with a white sauce topping, it's great with spinach or kale, mushrooms and a bit of cream and feta. Again, can always add sausage to that if you're a big meat fan.

BTW, I like Schaar brand gluten free pasta when I do splurge on it.

I love rice pudding and I would sure feel treated special if someone made that for me. I eat it maybe every three years. It actually makes a pretty nice breakfast if you are splurging . . . I also have to watch my sugar so I have to pick and choose my sweets.

Ok, as a celiac person -- don't use teflon pans to cook for your son's friend -- the nonstick can retain gluten.

Tacos -- use 100% corn tortilla
Nacos -- again 100% corn chips

Hot wings -- Franks hot wing sauce is GF
BBQ -- Sweet Baby Rays sauce is GF

For soy sauce I like SanJ-- a bit more expensive but good flavor and they do make a teriyaki sauce too.

Lettuce wraps for sandwiches if you don't want to get GF bread -- if making corn bread -- watch the flour!

Some Gluten Sensitive and Celiac individuals cannot tolerate Oats (I unfortunately am one) so while tasty find out about the oats before planning a oat streusel topping on desserts.

Some lunch meats are "enhanced" by using broth containing Gluten -- Boars Head does not and a few other brands. Research!

But as I read above -- making a meal based on a nice grilled or roasted meat, potato or rice and fresh veggies/salad (be careful not to add croutons and check the salad dressing) is good -- use fresh herbs rather than ground and no worry if they added gluten as an anti caking agent. (Plus, fresh is SO TASTY!)

Some cheeses are not GF -- anything with mold is suspect -- esp in the US -- fast way to produce Bue is to grow molds on bread then scrape and mix in -- Gluten is retained. Mushrooms are an issue if not cleansed or grown on GF materials -- sent the study on that to a friend with Microbiology degree -- real science -- so I buy from known source of NON Gluten growing material . . . Love my mushrooms!

For breakfast I saw a note about a frittata -- filling and yummy! crustless quiche . . . beware of flavored sausages and bacons but there are some normal priced brands labeled GF so just read packaging.

A veggie and cheese tray, to start or for nibbles is good (and healthy option to some other types of apps)

SIDE NOTE -- check on your hand and body soap -- some do have gluten and if having finger foods this could cause Cross Contamination.

But most of all is is nice as someone GF to eat the SAME meal as everyone else -- so stick with basics and as I surmise you to be --be warm and welcoming and that will ensure a pleasant visit to all your guests.

Too many thoughts running through my head . . . message me if you want more info

Susan

A friend who visits us several times a year doesn't have celiac disease, but has a severe wheat allergy, so from a cooking standpoint, it is a similar situation.

At different times when she has visited, I've made broiled fish, roast pork tenderloins, risotto, steamed cauliflower/broccoli, mashed potatoes. So there are many many choices available.

Also it may be useful to get an idea of the severity and scope of the problem. My friend would sit at the counter while I was cooking, and be slicing pieces of brie, and putting them on wheat based crackers for her husband or daughter or for us, and then use the same knife to slice more brie for herself and either eat it straight or put it on a rice-based cracker, and she had no problem. Whereas for someone with celiac disease, it seems even one stray molecule of gluten will cause one-molecules-worth of long- term damage.

On the other hand, if this person does not have celiac disease, and does not have a wheat allergy, and has merely self-diagnosed as "gluten intolerant" based on reading some fad-diet book or some internet postings, then I would still avoid wheat-based pasta, or regular wheat-based bread (because I wouldn't want to be a bad host) but I also wouldn't go to the great lengths that Susan describes.

SusieinNC, I just read this thread today and noticed that you wrote "Naco" instead of "Nacho", which I am sure is what you mean. The word "Naco" is extremely derogatory in Mexico and is used by the upper class or pure Spanish to describe a Mestizo who has horrible taste (especially in clothes) and is trying to pass for European and deny his native heritage. If you want to start a fight in Mexico, call someone a "Naco" and fists will fly! It is kind of a snobbish insider word and very seldom used, except to humiliate someone.

I like your idea of using corn tortillas and corn chips, however, and I use them frequently. For breakfast, they can be used to make Migas, but there is an endless variety of tacos that can be made as well. I often make quesadillas with masa, fill them with leftover vegetables plus cheese and then deep fry them, much like empanadas.

I love grits for breakfast, and usually mix chilies and garlic in the grits with Cajun herbs. If I have sausage, I add that to the cooked grits along with some eggs and cheese and then bake it in a casserole.

You can make Vietnamese summer rolls with rice paper, and those are also very good, but it takes a bit of time to get used to working with rice paper. I make Pad Thai using bean noodles and use corn starch for a thickener. When making sauces, I often use potato starch instead of a rue as a thickener.

We normally eat rice or potatoes as our starch, and it takes us a week to consume one loaf of bread. I also prefer cornbread made with all cornmeal and no flour and no sugar.

Cuisines that have a lot of gluten-free dishes include Japanese, Mexican, Indian, Thai, Vietnamese, and Chinese. I mention those because they are my favorites, but there are many more. I think that most wheat is probably consumed in Europe, N. America, North Africa, Middle East, and Australia/New Zealand.

Lars

Grilled meats, rice, tossed salad, corn quesadilas, black beans, fruit salad, ice cream, ...the menu doesn't have to be weird or avoid many mainstream foods. Watch closely at how you prepare each item, i.e. soy sauce, some ice creams, but it doesn't have to be hard. And, if you have enough non gluten foods, it's ok to throw in some that are not.

As I am naturally a pleaser, I tend to set up "bars" for nearly everything: salad, ice cream, condiments, toppings, sauces ...
So, I would have nearly everything "on the side" for those who can partake and those who can't.

Publickman-- you are right typo, thank you for the educational note -- and why the heck didn't spell check catch that?