I can’t remember ever being too consistently busy to cook for myself. Until now.

I’ve missed a few nights in the kitchen here and there as the social life, family or work commitments had me dining elsewhere... but I’ve always made time to eat well and enjoy the process of putting a meal together.

For the past four weeks I’ve barely set foot in my kitchen and that has this particular foodie in culinary upheaval.

Granted, I have opened my first shop and that has consumed every waking hour of late (and a good portion of normal sleeping hours). But it has interrupted my ability to prepare decent meals for myself. The only reason I haven’t got scurvy or some other food-related malady is purely because my mum and sister kept me and my army of shop-fit out volunteers fed during the late nights of plastering, painting and shelf-stacking!

Being a Coeliac doesn’t make it easy to rely on the take-away food industry and I confess I’ve not been a fan of ready-made meals like pasta sauces and curries. Also, until now.

One of the joys of opening a physical shop front has been that bricks and mortar apparently give producers and suppliers the confidence to introduce their gluten free wares (our online launch last year didn’t spark a fraction as many treats to sample)!

And being a little short on time has put me in the right head – and stomach – space to explore the ready-made meal market.

I was particularly delighted with last night’s meal. So quick, so simple and so utterly tasty that I’m a convert to sauce-in-a-jar. Feeling especially hungry, I brushed a GF pizza base with a little olive oil and crushed garlic, sprinkled it with parmesan and baked until toasty. Meanwhile, my favourite GF rigatoni bubbled away in a pot and I opened a jar of temptingly-named Roast Vegetable Chilli Pasta Sauce from the Raw Materials team. Ten minutes later, I was in foodie heaven. It was such a rich, heart-warming sauce, flavourful with no acidic bottle-sauce aftertaste. I could feel that vege goodness undoing a few weeks of poor behaviour, and the garlic pizza and glass of Merlot restored my equilibrium.

Now I’m learning patience. There are so many good Australian gluten free products out there that I can’t stock my shelves fast enough.

I’ve had to take a deep breath and celebrate the little ‘wins’, like the delivery of our display freezers to carry scrumptious pies and pastries (from next week) and meeting fabulous smaller producers who have only one thing on their minds – creating sensational gluten free food to share.

That’s where the excitement really kicks in and I can’t wait to share that foodie joy with you over the next few months.

PS the pasta reheated beautifully for today’s lunch, so that’s an added gluten free bonus!