This is not an article about gluten free cooking, about celiac, or even how to live a gluten free life. It’s more about facing the challenges that come with the condition.

Someone once told me that “The challenges that we face, day to day, are just opportunities to overcome”. The magnitude and circumstance may vary, but the challenge remains the same.

We all have our victories, as we also have our setbacks.
How we handle either is an indication of how
much we have developed inside.

If the severity of your gluten intolerance is extreme and your ability to deal with the emotional and physical issues at hand are pushed to their limits, then it’s the “inner game” that becomes your most potent field of play.  

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This dish is one of our favorites. It is quick, simple, very nourishing and awesomely tasty.  The liquid base for this recipe is a good quality chicken broth, that we almost always have on hand either in the fridge or freezer. (for those unfamiliar with the best way to make broth, we’ll demonstrate the method we use at a later time).

We also like to use Sea Vegetables as much as possible. Arame (the black slivers you see in the photo) was used for this recipe. It is available in most healthfood stores or Japanese food outlets. It is very mild to the taste, is one of the richest sources of iodine and also high in calcium and iron. It has lots of applications and is very easy to work with.

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I’ve actually been trying some things I’ve never quite done before (in this way), so it has been my opportunity to have some fun. (It is also my excuse to get to have more time in the kitchen as well…… “Move over sweety, I’ve got some more of my millet project to do !!”

I find it interesting that I tend to see lots of fancy, gluten free recipes out there, but very little of the simple stuff. Maybe I’m only one of a few who feel it is important to get to learn to work with basic, wholefood ingredients first.

Maybe it’s just a reflection of the complicated culture that we live in, but this simple approach doesn’t seem to get talked about much. So, I invite you to join me and try these simple recipes too. So much can be done with so little.

I hope by now you would have tried out the basic millet recipe in the previous post. It was a wonderful plain, fluffy millet and both Karen and I thoroughly enjoyed a nice portion of that as part of an evening meal. It was a wonderful change from what we had been having.

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Now that you have the right kind of Millet as described in the previous post, you can feel confident that if you follow the directions in this blog you’re going to end up with a delicious and wholesome dish that just about anyone would enjoy.

Most Westerners, unfortunately,  still associate millet with bird seed and it might take a little while to adjust to the idea of using it. The use of this gluten free grain, however, goes back thousands of years in Asia, Eastern Europe and parts of the African continent.

We were first attracted to using it ourselves years ago because we were looking for ways of including more alkalizing foods in our diet, while at the same time getting a bit more variety and excitement into our meals. We were surprised to find millet to be a versatile and “friendly” grain suitable for many types of occasions.

Millet has an Alkalizing Effect on the Body:
As you probably know, the Western diet tends to be more acid forming and an overly acid system means “trouble”, stressing the body’s reserves of alkaline minerals and resulting in many and varied states of dis-ease. The good news is that millet plays its part in helping to restore balance in this regard (along with most land vegetables, sea vegetables, good quality sea salt, and a list of other special foods).
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Has this happened to you ? You decide to make something different, something a bit more exotic. …….. Like Millet Pilaf !  (yes, that sounds like a great idea) . You expect something relatively light, almost, “melt in you mouth”. Like the recipe says, right? ….. and the result is that you end up with a dish less palatable than you expected and annoying, “bits and pieces” stuck between your teeth.

Well, don’t despair. You are not alone. We have had this kind of a comment so many times from those attempting to work with this wonderful, gluten free grain. It’s likely that you did everything right, except that you had the wrong kind of millet to work with.

If you are experiencing this problem then it is likely that you have bought Un-hulled Millet.

Yes, aside from the specific variety, there are essentially TWO kinds of millet. Hulled and Un hulled. It is the Un hulled that is virtually impossible to make a pleasant dish out of. (it is that form that is commonly sold as birdseed, and not really suitable for cooking). (more…)