coeliac Archives - Page 3 of 3

saharasplash2 February, 2016

A Twist on Toast with Kent and Fraser

It’s time for a good old gluten free blog post! I am raving about these new toasties from Kent and Fraser. Kent and Fraser are a London-based bakery who specialise in creating fabulous gluten and wheat free treats. These vary from biscuits and shortbread, to the all new toast range which I am so thrilled to talk to you guys about. Here’s to gluten free goodness as I look into a twist on toast with Kent and Fraser.

I have always been one for a chocolate or five during those days where you wake up and then carry on with your day as usual. It is fairly safe to say that I love it, sometimes a bit more than I should. So what really got me was how Kent and Fraser managed to turn a savoury snack into my new favourite guilty pleasure. Instead of reaching for the belgian seashells, I have been happily munching away on my crunchy toast slices. They are so unique and innovative as they put together flavours which you never think could work- but they really do!

Kent and Fraser have three mouthwatering flavours to choose from-

Cherry, Pecan and Poppyseed

Cranberry and Almond

Olive, Walnut and Pimenton

All three have such a luscious and rich flavour, you can eat them au natural or they are great served with traditional cheese and butter. The cherry pecan and cranberry almond really do satisfy my sweet tooth and I’m finding that I don’t need to reach for anything else after my main meal. They are chewy and crispy at the same time and the fruit really comes through to compliment the twice-baked toast slices. I like to eat these as they come- you don’t need anything extra as you can see, each slice is packed full of nuts and fruit.

Olives and walnuts are not two ingredients that I have in my cupboards, and it’s safe to say that I have never eaten a walnut on its own in my life. But I cannot get enough of these little green beauties. The pimenton comes through too but it’s not a harsh taste at all. The ingredients are perfectly balanced to create an artisan masterpiece, and for gluten free food that is definitely worthy of a hearty commendation. I love the olive and walnut toast with my favourite soft cheese- applewood cheddar. The smokey flavours of the applewood on the toast makes for one scrumptious snack!

I decided that I would have a little shoot in my London kitchen. I had so much fun eating the remainder of the toast snacks while photos were taken for about half an hour- aren’t the boxes just so colourful and bright? And then they were gone, oops! I’ve not enjoyed a gluten free snack like this in a long time, and Kent and Fraser are definitely worth trying out for gluten/wheat free goers and coeliacs.

The packs are only £3.35 each and are available to buy from the Honeyrose bakery website here. I really recommend trying all three out even if you are not partial to certain ingredients used in the toast. They really did surprise me in the best way by creating this wonderful twist on toast- so thank you Kent and Fraser! They also have a wonderful selection of biscuits, cookies and shortbread too!

Saharasplash x

If you liked this post, go and check out what else I’ve been up to recently by visiting the homepage to see what’s trending 🙂

I received this product for free for my honest opinion and review

saharasplash20 January, 2016

Gluten Free Travel Tips | How To Travel The World On A Gluten Free Diet

Tips for gluten free travellers – the best cruises to go on, the most accommodating all-inclusive resorts and a surprise gluten-free friendly country to visit.

Do you have a medical condition such as Coeliac’s Disease that prevents you from eating gluten? Or perhaps you’re simply interested in the latest diet that promises weight loss if you cut it out? Whatever the reason for your gluten-free lifestyle, the idea of travelling whilst avoiding eating wheat can be a daunting one. But rest assured, it is perfectly possible to enjoy a fantastic holiday if you follow these tips and put a little planning into your gluten-free holiday.

Visit Gluten-Free Friendly Resorts

Package deal operators such as Sandals pride themselves on their approach to catering for gluten-free customers at all of their resorts. Typically, their culinary teams would meet with guests upon arrival to discuss their individual dietary needs for their entire vacation. Similarly, Disney World is extremely accommodating towards those with a gluten intolerance. They even have a Special Dietary Requests team that you can call or email to request information about menus either in advance of your stay, or after you’ve arrived.

Go Self-Catering

Of course the obvious choice when choosing to eat a gluten-free diet on your travels is to book self-catering accommodation such as a villa, cottage or city apartment. This way you can visit the local supermarket and prepare all your meals yourself to be absolutely sure that none of your ingredients have become cross-contaminated.

Dining Out

However, if you would understandably prefer to dine out on your vacation, then you’ll need to know the whereabouts of some decent gluten-free restaurants. Zomato lists restaurants in 10,000 cities across 23 countries and has a mission to ensure that nobody ever has a bad meal. You’ll find a wide range of global gluten-free dining on their site.
If you’re travelling in a non-speaking country, then it’s a good idea to have printed out a dining card in the native language listing what you can and cannot eat. You can show this to the staff at your restaurant and they’ll be able to better assist you.

Cruise Lines

Many lines cater for passengers who are cruising with gluten-free dietary requirements. Carnival Cruise Lines offer gluten-free bread, pasta, cake and pizza on request. Celebrity Cruises clearly marks dishes on the main dining menu that are gluten-free. A little more effort is required whilst cruising with Royal Caribbean, as they request that you meet with the restaurant manager each evening to discuss menu options for the following day, but most dishes can be prepared gluten-free.

Visit Italy

It will come as a surprise to many that a country that is synonymous with heavenly pizza and pasta dishes could be so friendly towards gluten-free travellers. Yet happily this is the case. Italians take gluten intolerance extremely seriously and even give a generous monthly food allowance to Coeliac sufferers so that they’re able to purchase gluten-free food. So Italy is actually extremely tolerant towards this particular dietary request and many restaurants will list dishes ‘per celiaci’ on their main menus.
So long as you’re prepared to put in a little background research, there’s no reason why your gluten-free diet needs to prevent you from travelling extensively and seeing the world. However, if you do have a medical condition such as Coeliac disease, it is imperative that you take out some annual multi trip insurance to ensure that you’re covered for medical bills in the event that you have a reaction and need to see an emergency doctor. It’s always better to be safe than sorry where your health is concerned.

Saharasplash x

This post is brought to you by Avanti!

saharasplash22 December, 2015

Walking in a Blogger’s Wonderland

I want to tell you all about what a fantastic time I had on the 5^th December when I went to the Blogger’s Xmas event organised by Soeursdeluxe. The London air was very biting that day, so I layered up with a polo neck dress, faux fur cardigan and coat before heading to Moorgate station. I was early (for once) and found myself getting there well ahead of schedule to meet my friends, so I decided to go in alone and get started! The venue was so pretty! I was immediately greeted by Jasmine of Soeursdeluxe with a programme and my very own customised keyring from AlohaLolaCards. As I took the Finch’s pub in and all of the amazing stalls it really did feel as if I were walking in a blogger’s wonderland.

Selfie sticks and props adorned tables, goodies and sweets too, but I headed straight to the bar where I could see the most wonderful thing brewing- mulled cider! I was shocked as I got my wallet out to pay that the cider was in fact already paid for, I had only been in the door 5 minutes and I felt so relaxed and happy. I cannot thank Jasmine and Kirsty enough for organising such a great blogging event!

As I waited with my mulled cider in hand for my friends to arrive, I had a flick through the programme so I could see who was attending. I was shocked yet again to discover that I had a little shout out in the programme, as earlier on in the year I had put a favourite jewellery brand of mine in contact with Soeursdeluxe as they were looking to exhibit more in London. Miglio Jewellery were on the guestlist sure enough, and I am really glad I met them and have worked with them since. They are a fabulous company and their innovative styles had all the cameras snap snapping away at their stall.

Another stall I was happy to see there was the Blogosphere magazine. As I am in the publishing industry at work, I have a great respect for printed magazines and this one directed at bloggers specifically is just brilliant. We each went home with a copy of the latest edition of the quarterly mag, and it is so well presented I am itching to get some ideas over to them in the new year to be in with a shot of getting featured! Well worth following these guys on Twitter!

I think my favourite new brand would have to be Aroma Cake Boutique. Founded by Krupali Patel, the Aroma Cake Boutique is a lovely homemade cake company with an Indian twist. I found myself ogling at all the amazing bite size treats laid out for us to try, and all of them were gluten free!

Krupali explained how she and her mother use traditional Indian spices to infuse the cupcakes and the icing. Their masala chai and rose flavour cupcake was like nothing I’d ever tasted before, it was heavenly. Aroma Cake Boutique were kind enough to let me take home a box- they were all gone in less than a day and I didn’t share much either! You can find out more about Aroma Cake Boutique via their website here.

I must also mention another sweet treat which were exhibiting at the Bloggers Xmas event, this time we’re talking cheesecakes!

Sweet Cheesus (great name!) offer 6 different flavours of cheesecake, 2 of which happen to be gluten free! I tried both the white chocolate & summer fruits as well as the salted caramel- both were sublime! I hope to work with them in the new year, so send through your ideas of what you want to see to my Twitter page @saharasplash !

Enough about food, and over to fashion and beauty!

I met a wonderful designer of vintage boxer shorts- House of Dreadful.

These are traditionally men’s boxer shorts, but as I saw them I just knew I had to do a photoshoot with my girls at Petite Model Management. For those of you who don’t know, this year I started up a London-based agency for petite models, and House of Dreadful is definitely on the list of ones to work with for 2016! I’ve already started collecting inspiration over on my Pinterest so check it out- I would love any recommendations too so hit me up with your pins!

And last but certainly not least, my fav lash brand, Lash Perfect were there.

I met their marketing exec Aisha at the beauty blogger awards back in October, and it was great to catch up with her and the luscious lashes. We were spoilt for choice and could take our pick from the lash box- what more does a blogger want?!

I will let you in on a little secret though- this event was the first time I put lashes on myself. Usually I have makeup artists who put them on me, so I was shocked when I tried them out and they worked first time! I went over them with eye liner, here’s a close up of the result:

I will definitely be using my Lash Perfect lashes this season!

So if you are still with me on this 11^th paragraph, I want to thank you, the brands above and the fabulous duo that is soeursdeluxe for making this blog post so amazing. I will continue to support my local blogger events and meet new brands as this is what my blog is all about. It is events like this that give me great content so I can keep on blogging and keep on growing- so thank you.

Saharasplash x

If you haven’t had enough, head to my festive post on an evening with LaRoche-Posay, it’s a good one!

saharasplash9 December, 2015

Why I love being gluten free | Featuring Snackly

I’m really excited about this post, as this is my first ever post about being a coeliac! For those of you who don’t know, Coeliac’s Disease is an auto-immune disease, much like diabetes. It isn’t an intolerance or an allergy where I can pick and choose what days I’m going to be good and what days I’m going to be naughty, it is for life. As soon as I tell someone that I’m a coeliac, their natural reaction is to say ‘oh, I’m sorry’. I really want to nip this in the bud and say to you all don’t apologise, I’m really happy with my coeliacs, I wouldn’t have it any other way, and this is why I love being gluten free, featuring Snackly!

I’m excited to send my message out into the world and have teamed up with snackly to do so. I hope that this helps not only those who know about their conditions and intolerances, but those who are having issues with food who may be putting off doing something about it because they are scared of what the doctor might say. Cutting out gluten isn’t nearly as tough as people think these days, though there is definitely a stigma labelled to those of us who can’t eat gluten/wheat/dairy. I remember a time, a dark time where there were hardly any products on the supermarket shelves, and if you did want anything decent you had to order it on prescription (this was back in 2008). I am glad to say that those days do not exist anymore, the world has realised the extent of the gluten free community and they wish to help us to feel like we can fit in again. This is exactly what snackly is all about, they aim to bring the gluten free a diverse range of carefully selected products so that we can always try something new, something good.

Even though it seems that people are being more picky nowadays because of the phenomenal amount of options around, I believe that it is the increased awareness that is causing so many of us to get diagnosed or cut out certain foods from our diet because of issues which is a great thing. I am constantly being sought out by friends and even strangers for advice on their diets, and I hold my hands up and say I am no dietician, but I like to think that I have a good knowledge of how my coeliacs affects me so I can share what I have learnt with others along the way to help guide them to feeling better. I embrace food, I love it, and I want to share with you my positive message of why I love being gluten free by telling you all about what snackly sent me in the post last week.

Snackly are a concept similar to the ever so popular graze boxes, but they are 100% gluten free. You can order an individual box each month or sign up for a monthly subscription too and they will send you lots of fabulous goodies to try. I’m so happy that the gluten free lifestyle is working its way into the industry more and more and Snackly are a great company to explore new products which you may not see in regular supermarkets. Here’s what happened when I opened my box:

The packaging was so cute, I felt like I was opening an early Christmas present! The items were carefully wrapped in tissue paper and it came with a sweet thank you card- no, thank you snackly! I opened it up and found 6 gorgeous gluten free goodies inside:

Multiseed gourmet cracker from The Foods of Athenry, Ireland

These crunchy crackers were made from a toasted seedy sourdough and very tasty! They would go perfectly with pate or crumbled up in a hot soup.

Snact apple and mango jerky, London

I really liked the tasty strips of apple and mango puree. They only used fruit to make the jerky, nothing else at all so really clean and healthy. I would have liked to have had a few more strips in the bag- there were 8 strips but bite size.

Honeyrose Triple Chocolate cookie, London

This cookie was really intense, a little bit too sugary for my liking but tasted great! Who doesn’t like chocolate cookies?!

Melting Pot salted caramel fudge, Blackthorn Foods

I adored the salted caramel fudge. It melted in my mouth and I could eat this every day. It was the perfect size for an afternoon pick me up at work.

Teapigs Peppermint

I’m a big advocate of tea, and teapigs are one of my favourites after trying them at hummingbirds cafe (where you must try the gluten free red velvet cupcakes). The peppermint tea went so well with my fudge!

Peanut Butter Protein balls, The Protein Ball co.

These are a great item to have handy in your bag if you find yourself caught short in a cafe that only sells sarnies and cakes! I loved the little bite size balls and you have 6 of them in a pack!

I would like to add that having an intolerance or auto-immune disease can really open a lot of doors. It is like being a part of a community, and through this community I have met many people that I wouldn’t have met otherwise. I am also grateful to companies like snackly who want to work with gluten free bloggers like myself so that we can promote the amazing brands and help other gluten free foodies discover new and exciting things to eat.

So my parting message to the world is, don’t be sorry for us, be interested. Your interest will make us happy that we can talk openly about our diets without feeling like we are different just because of our DNA. And that is simply why I love being gluten free featuring snackly. Hands up and virtual high fives to all my gluten free readers and to the awesome snackly!

Saharasplash x

I received this product for free for my honest opinion and review

If you liked this post, check out what I got up to on Brick Lane recently!

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