Oats, Dark Rye Bread...and something new!

When I lose my drive to keep cooking up new things and keep eating a variety of things I start eating lazy, shabby things. I lose my energy, and what happens is I fall back on trying to emulate the things I was eating before I knew I had celiac disease, and I invariably fail. That's when I know I need new inspiration to get to that place where I don't see all the restrictions, but all the possibilities.

Real oats and heavy, dark rye bread full of grains are about the two only things that can still spark some serious food envy in me when I look at what the "normies" are eating. Probably it's no use trying to convince non-Danes who didn't grow up with the rye bread phenomenon that it's any good, but hey, Oprah was here and it's said out there on the web that she was converted and brought some back to the states. Sorry, tried to google for some links on that, but I just fell in to a long and useless joyride through different versions of rye bread recipes... I've tried making rye bread since going glutenfree of course. I've made a recipe from Thorbjørg Haffsteinsdottir (in Danish), whom I've mentioned before, and it hits the spot and looks like bread when I want to blend in on a social occasion, but that's about the only times I make that kind of bread these days. Also, it's not raw, and I wouldn't dream of trying out for a raw version! I found a recipe with prunes and psyllium seed shells that works fairly well too, and I have one more (in Danish again) noted down that I haven't tried yet, but I've faced the fact that none of these will ever taste like "real" rye bread (for starters, there's no rye in there). When I want bread these days I'll much rather turn to some of my favorite raw bread or cracker recipes - and when I see how many more exiting recipes are out there I forget all about the few things I can not eat anymore.

Those alluring horizons of yet un-tried recipes! I felt a bit daunted when I discovered kefir, but overcame my fear of yeasty, chemical processes in the kitchen to welcome more good bacteria into my diet and my tummy. To begin with, I was intrigued by the photos and the deeelish photos here at Green and Crunchy, but Averies step by step (and like she says, "ridiculously easy"!) breakdown of coconut milk kefir really spoke to me so I've tried that. Now I'm almost sorry that I did - :-) well, of course I'm not, but as it turns out it's both sooo good AND rather expensive. Terrible combo... I'm trying almond milk kefir but I'm dreading it'll lack the sweet coconutty taste. Well, I'll have to make coconut kefir one of those indulgences for special occasions like Sundays. And Mondays. And maybe Wednesdays...

By the way, expensive foodstuffs happens a lot here in Denmark: a non-scientific but never the less fairly thorough survey carried out by journalists posted all over the world for a Danish newspaper recently revealed (article in Danish) that we have the world's most expensive caffe latte!

For those thinking of shopping in Denmark: I got my coconut water from a health store but I'm thinking of getting my next batch from an internet shop maybe here or here, to save a few kroner. The kefir starter I got from this place, they had nice service, shipped it the next day and the starter works beautifully.