I had a great tip off from my mum this week. She was extremely excited to tell me that she’d been in Marks and Spencer and put in an order for all sorts of gluten free goodies for our pre-Christmas get together.

Now obviously M&S isn’t the cheapest, and if you like everything home-made, it’s not for you. But it’s nice to have a treat at Christmas, and it’s just great that there are so many gluten free options to choose from.

I spent quite a while browsing through the sections on the website, where all the items are helpfully labelled with icons for “suitable for freezing”, “table presentable” (love it!) and “gluten free”. They’ve also highlighted items containing nuts. However, only things that might contain gluten are actually labelled GF. You have to use your common sense and look at the ingredients of some of the other things, if you’re not sure. For example, the cheeses and meat platters aren’t labelled GF, and some of the pates but they probably are going off the ingredients.

So, the most surprising things on there? Well, I wasn’t expecting to find much in the canapes, but there is a 66 piece gluten free party canape selection, which includes BBQ pork belly squares, smoked salmon and prawn appetisers, mini chicken kievs, sticky Asian chicken lollipops and mini toad in the hole with onion chutney. Exactly the sort of thing I can’t normally have, indulgent and lazy, so perfect for Christmas.

It also looks like all of the stuffed turkeys are gluten free and there are 3 bird roasts, 4 bird roasts, various stuffed joints of meat. Accompaniments include a platter of sausages wrapped in bacon with chestnut stuffing balls!

There’s not so much in the dessert sections, but happily, they do have a gluten free Christmas pudding and a gluten free Christmas cake, which is great.

For Christmas food, you need to order by 15th December, and 20th December for New Year.

Get stuck in!