Kokova Magazine

Do you struggle to find gluten and dairy free recipes? Are you finding it increasingly difficult to follow an egg and soy free diet?

Or do you need to be 'free-from' them all?

If so, then Brannigan's Bergerie may just have the answer.

Australian entrepreneur Bryr (like 'brier' rose), has been living in the UK for the past seven years and has recently launched her own business, offering over 60 recipes of baked goods and sweets - with EACH and EVERY recipe completely free from gluten, wheat, yeast, dairy, eggs and soy.

We asked Bryr to tell us a little bit about where she is coming from... and going to!

The recipes have been designed by myself, with exception to 2 or 3 which were adapted from elsewhere - and all, except the ice cream and smoothies, can be made without a food processor.

My mum had a very blasé approach to cooking, I learned a lot of invaluable principles from her and my approaches are very simple and practical. I love people and my heart is to encourage and help them to the best of my ability.

I grew up with a fairly rural, small town background and subsequently we grew up eating reasonable amounts of meat, milk and cheese.

Though sweets weren't an every day thing, we did enjoy them when they came around.

As a child, I couldn't tolerate cow's milk or red food colouring, and I suffered from asthma. I eventually 'grew out' of these problems by the time I was a young adult. Aside from some bronchial problems, I considered myself fairly healthy.

By my mid 20's I was diagnosed with chronic tonsillitis, but just thought "I'll be alright, get a tonsillectomy". Due to this mindset, I was completely oblivious to the symptoms that were screaming at me that something wasn't right - "I'm not doing anything wrong, I eat meat and veg, muesli, milk and cheese, not too many sweets...".

A few years after that, my mum was diagnosed with cancer and I went back home to care for her. We have a fairly positive outlook on life in my family and in my mind cancer is beatable.

At the time, I'd just started dating someone in the UK and he decided to stick with me even though I had to go back to Oz indefinitely. Just before I left, he was getting sick quite regularly and when I was in Australia, he discovered he was intolerant to gluten, wheat, yeast, eggs and dairy.

While I was with Mum, I decided to fast and pray. As I had to care for my mum, plus keep our little hobby farm in order, a complete food fast wasn't a sensible idea.

Instead I decided to do what is called a Daniel Fast. No meat, dairy, eggs, yeast, coffee, tea, sugar, honey, preservatives, or artificial colours or flavours...

"What's left" you ask? As much fruit, veg, nuts, beans, lentils, grains, herbs and spices as you want (so vegan without the sugar).

Dealing with being completely vegan when you've grown up an unweaned carnivore?!!!... Anyone who knows me knows I LOVE food, so I learned to cook around the Daniel Fast rather quickly.

With a little common sense and some experimentation I soon had it worked out. Since I was already cooking yeast, dairy, egg and sugar free, to take it one step further and remove the gluten and soy wasn't too difficult once I got the knack of it.

I enjoy a challenge and I figured if I might be marrying this guy I may as well learn to cook around him "coz blowed if I'm gonna be making two lots of food for two different people".

Two things occurred on the fast, I lost 2 stone (about 15kgs) in about 4wks, and my general health improved. Though I haven't remained vegan, because of the dramatic change in my weight and the improvement in my health, I have maintained a lot of the principles.

I enjoy farming, but was made redundant from my last farming job, I then drove taxis for a friend's business for 18 months. Since I love helping people and didn't wish to be driving taxis for the rest of my life, I figured why not set up my own business with these recipes.

After putting in some hard yards, I finished up with the taxis and here I am. I currently offer my recipe book for sale on my website as a downloadable PDF. Along with this comes video tutorials for some of the recipes, access to all of the recipes online, access to any new recipes released and a discussion forum.

I am more than happy to answer questions, and any members of the forum who may have suggestions to offer are more than welcome to comment as well.

My market is global and I have done my best to cater to both metric and imperial measuring systems. There is an 'in depth hints and tips' section and a glossary of terms and suggested substitutes -these are available both in the book and on the website.

The PDF and video tutorials are also available on a CD.

I am currently researching a print on demand service so the book can be available in print but in the meantime I am looking to release this as an eBook.

There will be a wheat based version of the recipe book (still yeast, egg, dairy and soy free) so as to make it available as a healthy option for those without gluten sensitivities. Further plans are to develop the book into Apps for both Apple and Android systems.

One day I want to be running training courses; have cooking days for Mums, schools, caring facilities or anyone just plain interested and progress to training others to train.

I do have further plans beyond this, however this will keep me busy for the present moment!

www.brani.co.uk

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