Breakfasts

So you've got a coeliac friend who's coming over for breakfast. Gosh, every kind of breakfast food you know is made of wheat. What to do?

In a pinch, fruit and plain yoghurt (and maple syrup, say) will do fine, provided the yoghurt is one of those I mentioned. But you can do better.

Toast

Toast is easy. Toast is actually the instance where gluten-free bread makes the best impression of being real bread. So you need to have gluten-free bread handy (or the Glutino bagels, they're excellent), and a clean toaster. I mention this because you shouldn't serve wheat crumbs with the toast. Check the butter too.

Cereal

Cereal is trickier. Most regular brand cereal, and that includes Rice Crispies and Corn flakes, contain wheat. That's right, you probably have nothing in the house that will do. Fortunately, there is now a large selection of Gluten-free breakfast cereals, hot and cold, available at health food stores and Loblaws.

Oatmeal? Oatmeal is the subject of hot debate. Oats are not supposed to contain gluten, but it seems it is difficult to obtain pure oats, since usually wheat and oats are rotating crops, that is they are grown in the same fields and hence you may find wheat in your oats. At least that's what I hear. I just avoid them.

A substitute to oatmeal is quinoa. You can get "quinoa flakes" (available in health food stores) that serves pretty much the same function as instant oatmeal. I think I now prefer cooking up whole quinoa (like rice, twice the amount of water than quinoa) and dressing it up copiously with fried apples and bananas and cream and sugar. Recipe to follow.

Pancakes

Here is another application where a rice flour mix can do a very decent job at replacing wheat flour. I use the same flour mix for everything, it's the one I've given below. I haven't tried waffles, but I don't see why it wouldn't work. Obviously you need separate pans if you're going to make gluten-full pancakes for yourself.

Eggs and bacon

If the gluten-free market were big enough, you'd see a label saying that eggs and bacon are "naturally gluten free". Of course you can serve those! As for peameal bacon, I don't know. Who makes that peameal anyway? Just get ordinary bacon.