Gluten-Free – Page 3

Gluten-Free Cranberry-Pecan Drops

December 22, 2011 by Carey Jane Clark

Pumpkin really likes these cookies, although my GF girl, not as much. She’s not crazy about dried fruit. This one was a variation on the original recipe that called for pineapple, which I didn’t think was very festive. They’re definitely yummy, but not quite as from-scratch as I’m accustomed to making. They use a gluten-free cake mix. I’m not as crazy about doing that because I can’t control the sugars. I typically replace all the sugar for honey (1/2 cup honey to 1 cup sugar) to avoid refined sugars. Every bit as yummy, and better for you. Cream butter and “sugar” as usual, but if you’re adding it later on, mix it in with the wet, not the dry ingredients. For brown sugar, add a small amount (1/2 to 1 teaspoon) of molasses to get the brown sugar flavor. This works just about every time. The only notable exception is cinnamon rolls, for which I use maple sugar.

Ingredients:

1/2 cup ricotta cheese
1/2 cup butter
1/8 cup plus 1 tbsp honey
1/2 tsp. molasses
1 egg
1/2 tsp. dried lemon peel
1 pouch GF white cake mix
1/2 cup pecans
1-2 tbsp fruit juice (I used two)
1/2 cup dried cranberries

Method:

Preheat oven to 375°F.
In a large mixing bowl, cream the ricotta cheese, butter and honey.
Add the egg and dried lemon peel.
Add all the cake mix except 1/2 cup to the batter. Stir thoroughly.
Mix the remaining cake mix with the fruit and nuts. Stir into the batter.
Drop onto ungreased cookie sheets by the teaspoon full, two inches apart.
Bake for 10-12 minutes. Remove from cookie sheeet while still hot.

Makes 5 1/2 dozen 1 1/2-inch cookies.

Is it too early in the day to eat one?

Gluten-Free Orange Shortbread Cookies

December 15, 2011 by Carey Jane Clark

First things first: Don’t miss the review of After the Snow Falls at My Only Vice today! And don’t miss tomorrow’s post at the same location. There will be a giveaway for a free digital copy.

This year is the first year we are eating gluten-free for Christmas. Though our GF girl complained recently about how difficult it’s been to go to Christmas functions and refuse things, I must say she’s been very good about it, and we can see two notable changes for her:

She sleeps better–at night and even during the day in the car while we were away when we’d been up late the night before. This was previously unheard of for her. She didn’t seem to be able to shut off.
She obeys more immediately more of the time and with a better attitude.

So I would say it’s definitely been worth the experiment. And not awful, although admittedly sometimes inconvenient. I’ve resorted to buying bread mixes for the bread, but they’re pretty good and about the same price as a loaf I could make at home without the challenge of mixing all the flours because let’s face it, gluten-free cooking is a bit of a science–or an art form.

I say “resorted” not because they’re not yummy. They are. It’s just that I’m really a homemade girl at heart, and I have a hard time taking the easy route. I think someone should pat me on the back for this, come to think of it.

If you read my blog post the other day, you’ll know that we were supposed to be at my inlaws’ already. However, two out of three of the kids decided to get a cold and since we didn’t want to infect great-grandma, we decided to take a couple more days at home to recover before heading north. To keep everyone busy and help them get over the disappointment, we continued our Truth in the Tinsel crafts and made Christmas cookies. Gluten-Free Christmas Cookies!

Orange Shortbread Cookies

Rating: 5 spoons up
These were nothing short of amazing. Of the three recipes I tried, these were hands-down the favorites for me, JavaMan and Pumpkin. The taste and texture were incredible, and they were a breeze to make, with the possible exception of the stiffness of the dough you need to spread out in the pan prior to baking.

1 ¼ cups of four-flour bean mix* (pictured here is garfava bean flour–see below)
1 tsp. xanthan gum
¼ tsp. salt
Grated rind of one orange
1 c. butter
1/4 c. honey

Preheat oven to 300°F

In a medium bowl, whisk together flour mix, xanthan gum, salt and orange rind. Set aside.
In the bowl of your mixer, cream the butter and honey. With the mixer on low, blend in the dry ingredients. Finish blending with your hands.
Pat the dough into an 8 x 12″ oblong pan and bake for 25-30 minutes. The top will brown only slightly.
While still warm, cut into 1-1 ½ inch cookies.

Yield: 2 ½ dozen cookies.

* To make four bean flour mix, mix together 2/3 cup garfava bean flour, 1/3 part sorghum flour, 1 part arrowroot flour, 1 part tapioca flour (You will have some mix leftover after making this recipe, but you might just want to make it again!)

Sorry there’s no scratch and sniff here. I know they look very ordinary sitting there in the pan (you’ll notice we couldn’t quite get the camera out in time, they were so irresistable). It’s a shame there’s no scratch-and-sniff on the internet, because you can’t get within a foot of them and not drool. Seriously that good. But this is still not a food blog.

Makes you Wonder…

November 10, 2011 by Carey Jane Clark

Even before we began eating gluten-free, we avoided wheat and ate whole grains. When we moved into this house in the middle of August and needed freezer space, we pulled out the loaf of bread that was already in the freezer. We stuck it on a small table in the corner of the kitchen. At the time, I said maybe we could feed the ducks with it or something (thinking like a regular city person, ’cause the ducks out here are well-fed all on their own).

To be fair, I’m not completely certain that the bread-pulling occurred then. It may have happened as late as the Tuesday after the Labor Day weekend, when we finally settled in and needed the freezer space. Before that, we’d been on a roadtrip.

All of that to say it really makes me wonder what is actually in a loaf of Wonder Bread because that thing is still on that corner table waiting for ducks, and there is not a single spot of mold on it. Anywhere.

Sandwich, anyone?

Going Gluten-Free

October 17, 2011 by Carey Jane Clark

It is with great reluctance that we head down this path. In addressing some of our health issues, it seems I can’t escape the suggestion that our family go gluten-free (dairy free has also been suggested—for the most part we eliminated that years ago, but while we’ve been in Canada, where it’s a little easier to get our hands on cheese, I must admit to a little—no a lot—of cheating in this area.).

This is not the first time this course of action has been suggested. I have resisted for several reasons:

We already eat a gluten-reduced diet, since we use flours like Kamut and Spelt that are low in gluten. That was something of an adjustment in the first place, but now something we’re very comfortable with (read: something we don’t want to change).
I want to eat whole grains, and many gluten-free recipes aren’t whole grain or use grains/flours I am not excited about using, like potato and corn.
It means saying goodbye to some favorite foods, and it seems unfair to “penalize” other members of the family whose diets don’t necessarily need altering.
This kind of diet is very hard to sustain when we move back to China, so what’s the point of shifting everything? It’s a lot of learning and unlearning for the family cook. (Sigh.)
Just how do you live without bread? Really. Some of the baked goods are easy enough to get rid of—they’re not necessary items. But say goodbye to toast AND sandwiches AND garlic bread…this seems a bit crazy, and hard to explain to a child. I’ve made attempts at baking gluten-free loaves before, and in China managed to gather up all the necessary ingredients (which meant importing my own xanthan gum), but all my loaves failed miserably. They looked glorious when I pulled them out of the oven, but moments later they crashed in the middle and were a disgusting mess. We sold our bread machine when we packed up for China, so I need old-fashioned bread-making recipes, and almost all the gluten-free baking recipes seem to be made for the breadmaker.
I can’t help feeling there is a better way. Is eliminating most of a food group really the best way to handle this situation?

Note: I had planned this post to this point until this past weekend when we had two experiences that changed my heart on this matter:

The kids and I made a successful and tasty gluten-free bread for home economics on Friday. I’ll share more about that tomorrow.
On the weekend, we visited with some friends we haven’t seen since college. Another friend was present who is violently allergic to gluten, so the subject came up. The friends from college shared their experiences going gluten-free for two years to help their daughter, who was having difficulties with attention in school and behavior at home. The problems they described were severe, but we have seen shades of every issue they described in one of our children. JavaMan, one of the biggest holdouts in this whole gluten-free thing immediately became more supportive to the idea.

So we’re going gluten-free. It was tough on the weekend, because I’m still not thinking that way completely, and after church there was cake and I had arranged no substitute. With our motivation firmly in mind, though, we’re going to make this work. I welcome suggestions and advice!

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