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Gluten-Free Thanksgiving Survival Tips

Last Updated on by the Celiac-Disease.com Staff Leave a Comment

One of my absolute favorite things to eat is cornbread dressing. I’ve been making my Grandmother’s recipe for many years and I make a double batch so there is plenty left over to enjoy the week after Thanksgiving. It was with great excitement that I found out that the cornbread made with the Southern Cornbread recipe on the Pamela’s Products website was absolutely divine! In fact, it’s probably some of the best cornbread I’ve ever had. The main ingredient in cornbread dressing is cornbread so as long as you have that, you can make a phenomenal cornbread dressing – ‘nuff said!

Most sweet potato casserole recipes don’t call for flour, but the crumble topping might. We leave the flour out now but you can use a gluten-free flour mix if you really want to use flour in the topping mixture. Some people like candied yams and I’ve never heard of a recipe that calls for any gluten but doesn’t assume something is gluten-free on the buffet table. As always, it’s best to check before scarfing down something seemingly safe and paying the consequences later if the dish contains gluten.

My second favorite Thanksgiving dish is green bean casserole. Obviously, I’m super excited to be able to use the new condensed soup from Pacific Natural Foods for the first time this year. In previous years I had to thicken non-condensed soups down and while it’s easy to do, it’s just one more thing to do in the kitchen and one more pan to clean. Who needs that? The new condensed soups are not quite as thick as Campbell’s so no milk will be needed in the casserole recipe. The good news is that the Pacific Natural Foods cream of mushroom soup tastes much better than the one made by Campbell’s.

If you like fried onions and in your green bean casserole, it’s easy to fry up your own with gluten-free flour. I’ve used the gluten-free Pantry and Jules Gluten-Free flour mixes for the onions and they both work perfectly. I make the onions the weekend before Thanksgiving and store them in an airtight container like the ones from Snapware. They are really good though, so make extra or you won’t have enough for the casserole when you go to make it.

By far, the pie crust for my pecan (pronounced pacon in our neck of the woods, not pee-can as in Paula Deen country) pie was my biggest challenge to reproduce gluten-free. I tried every ready-made gluten-free crust and none of them floated our boat, so to speak. Finally, I tried the mix from Breads from Anna which contains no rice flour. It was wonderful and I’ve used it many times for many pies. Eventually, I settled on the basic crust recipe on the Pamela’s Products website. The almond flour in the mix seems to offer the best overall pie crust in terms of taste and texture (to me) and it’s very easy to work with. To say the crust is better than the frozen Pet Ritz gluten crust I used in the past is an understatement, to say the least.

Basic dinner rolls for Thanksgiving are something we’ve not found a perfect replacement for. When I was growing up, we used those airly white rolls with lines on top. If you want some ready-made dinner rolls, there are a few brands I can recommend highly. Challah rolls from Katz gluten-free are wonderful as are basic dinner rolls from The Grainless Baker. If you want something with a twist, try a Brazilian cheese roll from Sweet Oven and Company, a Georgia-based company.

Though you might read over and over a tip about saving bread that you don’t like to use in your dressing (or stuffing) recipe during the holidays, I agree with the advice in the article from Gluten-Free Living that spoke to that exact tip. If you don’t like a certain gluten-free bread in the first place, there is no reason to think it will taste better in any recipe you use it in. Don’t ruin your dressing by using that trick – just don’t do it.

In the end, remember to enjoy yourself, make sure you have plenty of great food to eat (even if you have to make it all yourself), and have fun with your loved ones. After all, you never know how many of them will be gluten-free next year.

Seeking Thanksgiving recipes? Check out our Gluten-Free Thanksgiving recipes.

Recipe: Gluten-Free Dark Chocolate & Cherry Brownies

Last Updated on by the Celiac-Disease.com Staff Leave a Comment

Every year for Christmas my Mom gets me a subscription to Cooking Light Magazine. I love to browse new recipes and prefer healthy cooking because it really seems to fit best with the gluten-free lifestyle. This recipe for brownies jumped out at me because it uses cherry preserves, a favorite of mine. I love Polaner All Fruit Spreads, especially the black cherry. There are only 155 calories and 5 grams of fat per brownie, so these are a healthier option when you just have to get that chocolate fix.

These are simple to make and adapt to gluten-free. I used an all-purpose flour mix of rice flour, potato starch (not flour) and tapioca starch. These were amazing! I really can’t put into words how good they are. They are moist and chocolaty. I am not sure why they are called dark chocolate, because there is no dark chocolate added to the recipe. The black cherry preserves add a nice, subtle flavor and definitely help keep the brownies moist.

Dark Chocolate and Cherry Brownies

3/4 cup all-purpose gluten-free flour
1 cup sugar
A little less than 1 tsp of Xanthan Gum
3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa (Hershey’s dark chocolate cocoa can be used)
1 tsp baking powder
3/4 tsp salt
1/3 cup cherry preserves
1/3 cup water
5 TBSP butter
1 large egg, slightly beaten
1 large egg white
1/3 cup semisweet chocolate chips
powdered sugar (optional)

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350
2. Line a 9-inch square pan with parchment paper and spray with PAM ( if you don’t have parchment paper, just spray the pan with PAM).
3. Lightly spoon flour into dry measuring cups; level with a knife. Combine flour, xanthan gum, sugar, cocoa, baking powder and salt in a large bowl; stir with a whisk. Combine cherry preserves, butter and water in a saucepan and bring to a boil. Add preserves mixture to flour mixture; stir well. Add egg & egg white; stir until smooth. Stir in chocolate chips. Scrape batter into prepared pan. Bake at 350 for 25 minutes or until a wooden pick inserted into center comes out with a few moist crumbs. Cool in pan on wire rack. Garnish with powdered sugar, if desired.

Yield: 16 servings. Calories: 155; Fat grams: 5.4.

Perfect way to end the day!

Recipe: Oatmeal Raisin Bars

Last Updated on by the Celiac-Disease.com Staff 14 Comments

In my recent quest to add more iron-rich foods to my diet, I brought back an old favorite recipe to help me out – Oatmeal Raisin Bars. The combination of oatmeal & raisins has always been appealing to me, so these bars are just the perfect snack!

I like to use Bob’s Red Mill Gluten-Free Rolled Oats. Not only do they have great fiber & protein stats, but they contain 15% of the RDA of iron. Most people with Celiac Disease tolerate oats just fine, but there is a small percentage who don’t. If you haven’t yet introduced oats to your gluten-free diet, please make sure to do so slowly. Raisins are another decent source of iron with 6% of the RDA in one serving (1/4 cup).

Oatmeal Raisin Bars

Ingredients:

  • 2 cups dry oats (Bob’s Red Mill GF Oats)
  • 3/4 cup all-purpose flour (I used Pamela’s Baking & Pancake Mix; if you use a regular GF Flour Mix, make sure to add 1/2 tsp xanthan gum, if it isn’t in the mix)
  • 1/2 cup packed brown sugar
  • 1/4 cup sugar
  • 1/2 cup canola oil
  • 2 eggs
  • 1/2 tsp salt
  • 1/2 tsp cinnamon
  • 1 cup raisins

Directions:

  1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Spray 8-inch square baking pan with non-stick cooking spray.
  2. In a large mixing bowl, combine ingredients until smooth.
  3. Spread batter in prepared baking pan, and bake for approximately 25-30 minutes until bars are cooked all the way through.
  4. Let bars cool completely in pan before cutting.

Makes 9 bars

Review: Gluten-Free Cheese Crackers

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Cheez-It crackers were one of my favorite crackers when I was growing up. As an adult, I tended to buy gourmet type cheese straws, but if someone was serving Cheez-It crackers, I’d definitely nosh on them. After an extensive two year search, I found the best gluten-free version of a Cheez-It I’ve had to date, but the bakery that made them discontinued them. They were really fabulous and still rank number one in my book.

There are several gluten-free cheese crackers worth trying. Only two of them are items I’ve bought more than once, but everyone has different tastes. Aside from the discontinued crackers, The Grainless Baker has the best cheese crackers around. At least that’s true of the brands I’ve tried. Their Cheddar Snackers are delicious! The old version was more like a cheese straw (except for the shape) and the new version is more like a gourmet crispy cheese cracker.

Glutino makes cheese crackers which to me don’t have a very cheesy flavor. I’m a cheese snob of sorts and I think that I’m a cheese cracker snob too. Many people love the Glutino Cheese Crackers and when I tasted them, I thought I’d purchased the plain version by mistake. By contrast, the Glutino Vegetable Crackers are divine. Interestingly, they look like a cheese cracker due to the tomatoes in them.

Recently, when heading into town to meet a friend for lunch, I realized I would drive right by Return to Eden so I popped in quickly to pick up the Schar Cheese Bites. I’d heard good things about them and I enjoy many items from the Italian company. Their gluten-free pasta is divine! The small bag of Schar cheese crackers was kind of pricey, but right in line with other gluten-free cracker prices.

When I opened the Schar crackers, I noticed there were different shapes of them. I thought about how nice they would look in a serving dish for a party. If only the snack tasted as good as it looked. It was the fourth best gluten-free cheese cracker I’ve had, though it runs circles around the Glutino version. However, it was not good enough for me to buy again. There is an unpleasant aftertaste that I can’t quite finger. I’m hoping to use up the rest of the bag in a recipe that calls for cheese cracker crumbs. Otherwise, I’ll have to give them away because my husband doesn’t like crackers of any kind.

I’ve made these cheese straws before with the all-purpose flour from gluten-free Pantry and they were phenomenal. They’re a great option for a party. When only one person in the house eats crackers they are not a reasonable option to make as they do not freeze well. The Kitchen Table Bakers Cheese Crisps are absolutely superb and I’m looking forward to trying the smaller size crisps they recently released.

It’s wonderful to have so many gluten-free cheese cracker options, but for now, the gluten-free Cheez-It still eludes me. If anyone knows of another gluten-free cheese cracker (that I don’t have to make myself), I’d love to hear about it!

Review: Trader Joe’s Baked Cheese Crunchies

Last Updated on by the Celiac-Disease.com Staff Leave a Comment

When I was growing up, Cheetos were my favorite snack. We had those value packs that included various Frito-Lay products in the house at all times. As an adult, I was more likely to indulge in potato chips and onion dip than Cheetos, but when I was diagnosed with celiac I was relieved to find out that Cheetos were indeed gluten-free.

Shortly after I started eating gluten-free, I figured out (with the help of a gluten-eating friend) that MSG didn’t like me anymore. I’m sure I ate more than my fair share of the additive without issue for years. However, it’s common for people who start eating clean (consuming mostly whole foods and items made with real ingredients) to react to additives that didn’t bother them before. It was unfortunate when I found out that Cheetos had MSG in them. Eventually, a healthier version of Cheetos came out, but they were not the same as the original version for obvious reasons.

Frito-Lay Cheetos are still gluten-free and there are many Cheetos-type products on the market that are labeled gluten-free that don’t contain MSG. I’ve tried most of them and haven’t been blown away enough to purchase any of the products again. So, naturally, when I noticed the gluten-free (or ‘g’ symbol) on something that looked like Cheetos at Trader Joes, I threw the bag in the cart. It wasn’t until after I got home that I found out that the product was marked as reduced fat or something to that effect.

Not surprisingly, the Baked Cheese Crunchies were not very good. They tasted a little like low-fat Cheetos. The snack was dry and not very cheesy, despite the very Cheetos-like color. It’s a good thing that overall the snack is fairly healthy, but if something doesn’t taste good, it’s not for me. Life is too short to eat food you don’t like whether you can eat gluten or not.

I’m actually glad that the Trader Joe’s snack didn’t appeal to me. After a previous shopping trip where I’d picked up multiple bags of chip-type snacks, my husband asked if I was planning on opening a 7-Eleven store. Yes, I need another snack food like I need a hole in the head. Gluten-free chips and snacks are not hard to come by these days. Some are labeled gluten-free and some are not but either way, there is definitely something to appeal to everyone.