This recipe makes a great vegetable party dip. I normally set out assorted bell peppers, sugar snap peas, baby carrots, and celery. Tortilla chips could also be used here, but the vegetable assortment is always popular and looks great on the table. If you are making party dips, make sure everything served at the party is gluten-free so there are no cross-contamination issues.

SUN-DRIED TOMATO DIP

8 ounces cream cheese, softened

1/4 cup oil-packed sun-dried tomatoes, chopped

1/2 cup mayonnaise

1/2 cup sour cream

1 green onion green and white parts, chopped

1 1/2 teaspoons Frank’s Hot Sauce (gluten-free at time of post-always check)

3/4 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon pepper

DIRECTIONS:

Combine all ingredients in a food processor and process until pureed. Chill, covered until serving time. Bring to room temperature before serving. The dip can be made up to two days ahead of time.

Makes 2 cups.

** I got this recipe from a co-worker a few years back. Not sure where she got the recipe, but it has been altered to suit my tastes over the years**

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Posted by Natalie
Filed under: Appetizer Recipes | 6 Comments »

This recipe tastes exactly like a gluten-loaded Otis Spunkmeyer blueberry muffin. It is pretty uncanny actually (in my long-ago memory anyway) and I sat there thinking, “is that really a good thing?” tee hee. I have eaten two servings already, so I suppose it is a good thing! This blueberry cake makes a great gluten-free breakfast coffee cake. The cake is wonderful warm but can be served later if wrapped tightly and stored at room temperature. I normally make mine at night and serve the cake for a special breakfast. Another good way to eat this cake is toasted with a little bit of lemon curd or cream cheese.

BLUEBERRY BREAKFAST CAKE

4 eggs, separated

1 3/4 cups sugar

1 cup butter or butter substitute, softened (2 sticks)

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 Tablespoon vanilla extract

3 cups gluten free flour - Sift together and reserve 1/2 cup to mix with blueberries.

2 teaspoons baking powder

2 teaspoons xanthan gum

1 cup milk (maybe more- look at your batter)

10-12 oz. fresh or frozen blueberries (I prefer frozen organic blueberries in this recipe to be honest)

DIRECTIONS:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease a 9 x 13 cake pan. In a medium bowl, sift together the dry ingredients (minus the sugar). Reserve 1/2 cup of your flour mix to mix with your blueberries. In a separate medium bowl, beat 4 egg whites until stiff. Once the egg whites are stiff, gradually add 1/2 cup sugar and beat until blended. In a large bowl, cream the butter until light and fluffy. Add remaining sugar gradually. Add vanilla. Add egg yolks and beat until well blended. Add 2 1/2 cups of flour mix and 1 cup milk alternately until throughly combined. Fold in egg whites. Mix the 1/2 cup reserved flour with blueberries. Fold in blueberry mixture. Pour into prepared cake pan. Bake for 50-60 minutes or until the sides pull away and a toothpick comes clean.

Note: Raw sugar may be added to the top for garnish.

The recipe halves well and can be baked in an 8 inch cake pan.

Makes 12 servings

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Posted by Natalie
Filed under: Cake Recipes | 21 Comments »

One of my favorite gluten-free blogs is Cindalou’s Kitchen Blues. Cindy and Jon author this fantastic gluten-free blog that focuses on healthy gluten-free, dairy-free, and low carb recipes. I think of Cindy as a gluten-free Rose Levy Beranbaum because she approaches gluten-free cooking from a scientific angle. I love that! I admit that I completely forgot about the Adopt-A-Blogger event until umm…like today. I had planned on making her Mexi Beef with Collards and Kale (still plan on making it), but time was clearly running just a tad bit short.

Luckily, I had the ingredients to make her Flourless Espresso Chocolate Cake.

My changes to her delicious recipe:

1) I used butter instead of Earth Balance because I do not have a dairy restriction on my diet and so butter is what I had on hand.

2) I used sugar (1 and 1/2 cups) instead of stevia because that is my sweetener of choice. I thought her addition of pineapple juice with the stevia was brilliant though.

3) I used Starbuck’s coffee in my espresso cake. My favorite Starbucks coffee is the extra bold Sumatra.

4) I used chopped bittersweet chocolate because that is what I had on hand.

5) I do not have a big food processor so I melted the chocolate over a double boiler and melted my butter in the microwave. After that I just mixed all the rest of the ingredients together.

6) I used a 10 inch springform pan lined with parchment paper.

The end result was a fabulously, crazy-rich, gluten free flourless chocolate cake. My cake turned out a little fudgy because I baked it for 50 minutes (impatience on my end), but I probably should have left it in for another 5-10 minutes. I especially liked Cindalou’s addition of the cinnamon because it complimented the cake very well. Thank you Sea at Book of Yum for hosting Adopt-a-Blogger and thank you Cindy and Jon for a fabulous flourless chocolate cake recipe. Yum!!!

Go visit Cindy and Jon at Cindalou’s Kitchen Blues !
I follow this blog via Cindalou’s RSS feed for a number of reasons:

1) The recipes are delicious 2) Cindy and Jon are articulate and frequently hilarious 3) I often learn something new from their recipe posts and their health-oriented posts 4) And Cindy and Jon are local!

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Posted by Natalie
Filed under: Cake Recipes, Chocolate | 7 Comments »

I often get emails from new celiacs praising me about how perfect I seem at living gluten-free. Ha! The truth is it takes a little bit of planning and work to maintain a gluten-free lifestyle despite the fact that I have gotten better at working through the challenges. So since it is Friday, I decided to post a few dumb mistakes I have made on the gluten-free diet that have left me in hives or otherwise uncomfortable. Doh!

10. Fries at a fast food restaurant- French fries at a fast food restaurant are not a good plan. It doesn’t matter if McDonald’s french fries are or are not fried in oil derived from wheat… If you order fries from a place that makes fried food you will eventually end up with a cross-contamination issue. It also gets tiresome asking restaurant employees to make sure things are cooked in a separate fryer. And so I have had the craving for french fries (especially as a crying hungry pregnant woman) and gotten burned for it. It may turn out that you don’t “get gluten-ed” today, but chances are you will eventually if you eat french fries at a fast food restaurant. Do as I say, not as I do…

9. Peanut Butter Jar- Sad but true. I have been “gluten-ed” by this rather simple error. I have heard some people on the gluten free diet say that they institute a “don’t double dip” rule with a single peanut butter jar. This makes me laugh really hard. The last thing I want to do is nag about double dipping to my husband and children. Two peanut butter jars really didn’t work for us either, so now we use the homemade gluten-free bread that I make which makes everyone happy.

8. Chicken Broth- Campbell’s Chicken Broth is definitely, without a question, NOT gluten-free. My mother-in-law (whom I love dearly) made me a chicken tortilla soup and I ended up with really, really bad hives. She still has not forgiven herself for this, but I wish she would because I was never upset! It was a really easy mistake! Now we go over every ingredient together. My advice is to make your own chicken broth or buy one you trust like the gluten-free brand, Pacific Foods.

7. Hand Sanitizer- I admit that the “gluten in beauty products” thing eluded me at first. This is probably the area that I make the most silly mistakes. My first (not last) experience was with hand sanitizer. It pretty much scalded my hands. So FYI, pretty much everything at Bath and Body Works has wheat germ oil in it. We all need to form a coalition against giving people this stuff as gifts. Just my two cents.

6. Phantom Croutons on My Salad- To all the waiters and other restaurant staff (who still manage to sleep at night) who simply toss my croutons off my salad after being told that I have celiac disease and a wheat allergy, beware!

5. Vitamins- Working with your doctor on the right vitamin to take can be tricky. It is best to be proactive and talk with your doctor, the pharmacist, and the vitamin manufacturer to make sure the product you are taking is gluten free. This is a mistake I made when I was newly pregnant with my first son (scary!) but luckily I threw most of those vitamins right back up again.

4 . Flavored Coffee- Most coffee is naturally gluten free! That is good news for me. I have been “gluten-ed” by some flavorings and flavored coffees, so coffee lovers beware of these hidden glutens. And no one should go near instant coffee because it isn’t the real thing, but watch those brands if you are making a recipe that calls for it.

3. Sour Cream- I hate it when I accidentally bring home the light sour cream instead of the full fat sour cream. I have been hurt by the light sour cream, so if you are still eating dairy, make sure you bring the right kind of sour cream home. Most sour cream is gluten-free, but some brands of full fat/light sour cream are not. Restaurant sour cream is the worst. On the Border‘s sour cream is not gluten-free (last I checked) and I had to send my food back because they automatically put it on my salad even though I asked for the salad off the gluten free menu. Be very specific even when ordering from a gf menu!

2. Shampoo- I used to get my hair cut at an Aveda salon, but had to change when the products bothered me. Since the potion for these shampoos changes all the time, you may want to just wash your hair before you go. Most salons have rules against bringing your own products in, but you may get away with it in a smaller, local place. Shampoo may not bother everybody, but if you are taking a shower there is a chance the shampoo might wind up in your mouth (gross!).

1. Cadbury Cream Eggs- This is my dumbest and most recent mistake. I am kinda embarrassed to admit this craving, but these things were my favorite Easter candy as a kid. Anyway, I really thought these things were gluten-free, but it turns out that they are not! I forgot to check the label, and ingested one of these cream egg things. I read the label after eating my old favorite Easter candy (rookie mistake!) and ‘wheat’ was written as clear as day on the label. Yuck! I swear these things were gluten-free before in the U.S. (I could be wrong) but clearly they aren’t now. Things change, so make sure you read the labels every time. UPDATE: Kate at Gluten Free Gobsmacked just wrote to tell me that someone on the listserve wrote to say that those Cadbury eggs do have ‘wheat’ on the label, but they are in fact still gluten free. Apparently, the ‘wheat’ is the starter for the glucose syrup and the end result renders them gluten free- sort of like the distillation process and vinegar. So, I am not sure what to tell you about those Cadbury eggs. Maybe I will avoid them because they are bad for the waistline. I am not sure I can get over the ‘wheat’ on the label.

DISCLAIMER**** I call these ‘silly’ mistakes, but they are serious mistakes for anyone on the gluten free diet with celiac disease and/or food allergies. I call them ‘silly’ because I should have known better and to illustrate how these mistakes sneak up on you even after you have been on the gluten-free diet for years. ******

Read how I found the gluten free diet!

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Posted by Natalie
Filed under: Support | 54 Comments »

This bread is one of my favorite recipes. I am going to feature it on my Easter brunch menu this year. It needs no toasting and it doesn’t need butter, honey, or any other condiment. The taste is wonderful- I encourage all of you to try this bread with the millet flour and the almond meal. This bread will rise beautifully because of the carbonated water but it may fall slightly when cooling- don’t worry about that. This bread has a sweet taste that makes it an excellent breakfast bread or dessert bread. You may want to double this recipe because it won’t last long.

ALMOND HONEY YEAST BREAD

1/2 cup millet flour

1 cup brown rice flour (or mix of white and brown rice flour)

1/2 cup tapioca flour

1/2 cup almond meal

2 1/4 teaspoons yeast

1/4 cup honey

2 Tablespoons granulated sugar

1 1/2 teaspoons salt

1 tsp vinegar

1 tsp almond extract

1/2 cup carbonated water (room temperature or warmer)

1/4 cup warm whole milk or casein free milk substitute (120 degrees)

1 Tablespoon xanthan gum

4 Tablespoons butter or butter substitute, melted

2 eggs, beaten

a little almond oil for shaping dough (you can easily substitute another oil)

DIRECTIONS:

Sift your flours and dry ingredients together in the bowl of your stand mixer. In a separate medium bowl, combine beaten eggs, honey, melted butter, almond extract, vinegar, and warm carbonated water. Mix yeast with warm milk- make sure the yeast will proof then continue with recipe. If it doesn’t- start over with new yeast. Pour the egg/carbonated water mixture in the dry ingredients and combine. Add the yeast mixture. If you need to add more water, make sure it is room temperature. If your dough is too wet, add more gf flour mix. The bread dough should look like stiff cake batter and hold the twirls of the mixer. I used a 10 inch springform pan lined with parchment paper for this recipe. I greased the bottom of the parchment paper with a little almond oil before working with the dough. I used the almond oil to help shape the dough into a circular loaf. I let my loaf rise until doubled in bulk- about 1 1/2 hours. Yours my rise in less time depending on the environment of your kitchen. Don’t overproof the yeast because you want the bread to rise when it bakes. I wanted my bread to have a soft, pulled bread texture so I baked mine at 350 degrees for about 35 minutes. I topped my bread with a few sliced almonds for garnish. This bread is not suited for sandwiches, but makes an excellent breakfast or dessert bread.

Makes one loaf

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Posted by Natalie
Filed under: Bread Recipes | 19 Comments »