Kitchen Essentials

Gluten Free and Vegan cooking and baking doesn’t have to be traumatic.  In fact, it’s a lot of fun and if you find your inner geek about it, you may even traumatize your friends a little.  Which is always a good idea.  Especially if you really like them 

You can always make it up to them by all the good food that you will make them eat and like despite themselves.  I have friends who would swear that they can tell the difference, eat food I make and then argue that it can’t possibly be vegan and gluten free.  Sometimes, I don’t tell them, because well, I have a strong Scorpio streak and why ruin the fun?! 

So how do you do this?

The way you do this is by optimizing your work space and by having the ingredients and the tools you need around for just in case.  It also helps to know how to prepare foods that perhaps you weren’t raised with, or in my case, foods that were viewed with suspicious contempt. 

Keep big power tools out

If you have enough room, keep some things out rather than putting them away.  I keep my blender on the counter at all times because I do 2 smoothies a day, use it for blending dinner, etc.  It may be counter intuitive to how we normally set up our kitchens, but realistically, I use my blender more often than I use my coffee maker (which is used every morning!) 

Get bulk jars for dry goods

I bought on eBay some old 2 quart blue Ball and Atlas canning jars with the zinc lids and then bought some split ring tags which I attached with rubber bands.    I have a shelf I purchased from Costco that houses the bulk bins in the garage that I used to refill them and a deep freeze for other items. 

I sterilized the jars and the lids and then picked the top 15 or so dry goods I use pretty often (and a few that I don’t but didn’t want to go bad) into these jars.  

 It can be hard to remember that life is joyful when your body isn’t working well.  For me, the jars actually seem happy and when I look at them (while I drink an awesome cup of coffee) this bit of history reminds me that life is good!  Not to mention, with diet and little luck it’s just going to keep on getting better. 

Get big bins for items that you eat often

These are gallon sized apothecary jars that I found on the cheap somewhere for my oatmeal and soy curls.  I go through so much of these through the week that bigger containers are worth the fuss.

And most importantly, let it be fun!