Cooking It Up GF Style

My oldest son, Peyton, came home from school the other day with a cookbook he'd gotten out of the library.  






He was so excited to make something, at first.  "I probably can't make anything in here because it all has gluten," he realized flipping through the pages.






But never fear!  Gluten-free flour is here!  I am so grateful that it is so easy to make "normal" dishes gluten free.  From cookbook dishes to my grandmother's brownie recipe, most recipes can be transformed into gluten free goodness.


With a quick flour switcheroo, a once gluten-filled tasty treat is now a gluten-free tasty treat that the whole family can enjoy.

This is our favorite GF flour brand.  Love it.

And my whole family did enjoy the treat--cupcakes.

And I enjoyed watching the kids figure out the recipe and work together.

And a few other things...


Politically, I don't have anything in common with Elizabeth Hasselbeck.  We in fact couldn't be more different.  But I admit, I liked her book, The GFree Diet.  I didn't buy it, just checked it out from the library.  I just might put all my political stuff aside and buy her new cookbook Deliciously G-Free that was featured on The View last week.  I mean if Joy can hang out with her, I can buy her cookbook.  Plus the food looks pretty good and I like her idea of keeping old family recipes alive and well.




Click here for more information about her books. 

Also check out this:

I am loving Kin Community channel on YouTube.  They have great videos on fashion and cooking.  This one caught my eye because it is Gluten Free.  And because it looks so good.

I Finally Did It-I Xanthan Gummed

I have been fearful of cooking, baking or having anything to do with making something gluten free from scratch.  That is why I am so reliant on baking mixes and pre-made meals. 


Using ingredients like Sorghum flour and xanthan gum sounded far too exotic to be going into biscuits.  And honestly, the ingredients are too damn expensive to screw up a recipe with them.  I mean you can buy a bag of good old-fashioned flour for under a $2 and if you mess up the cookies, no biggie.  But when the specialty flour costs $6 and the other specialty ingredients cost $9 a pop, you don't want to go messin with it.  We joke that GF Bisquick is like gold or a precious gem, handled with great care.  You get it?  There are no cutesy flour throwing scenes in our kitchen.


One of my new year's resolutions was to start baking without the mix.  And I did it!  Sure it was last year's resolution, so technically I am a year late, but I did it.  

I xanthan gummed a recipe and wait for it....it was good.

New Year's Day breakfast consisted of gluten free chocolate chip scones and gluten free bagels and lox. 

And it wasn't hard.  It did take a little extra time, but it wasn't hard and everything tasted good.


I got the recipes from a day before Christmas purchase in the bargain books aisle at Barnes & Noble.  

But guess what you can get it for even cheaper on Amazon. Click here to take a look and buy it.

Click here for a quick link to the Chocolate Chip Scone Recipe.
So here's to a new year and a whole lot more Xanthan Gum.
2012 is gonna be good.

We Survived the Holidays-Gluten Free

We made it through it all the holiday parties, all the traveling, without any gluten problems.  I consider that a mini miracle considering the kindergarten Thanksgiving party was a disaster (the one where my kid with Celiac ate a gluten-filled cookie so he wouldn't feel left out).


But I didn't do it alone.  That whole it takes a village thing was in full effect.  From my son's amazing kindergarten teacher who said "Let's just have fruits and vegetables at our party, it will be great, they don't care about the food anyway."  And you know what?  The kids weren't upset about the menu and look how beautiful it was.  What a gift.  I feel very lucky that my son has this kind, inclusive teacher.

A classroom mom made gluten free, sugar free cupcakes (there is a little girl in the class that has diabetes) and the kids REALLY loved those.  

Christmas Eve was spent at my mother-in-law's who called ahead to make sure certain spices were gluten free.  Visiting my dad in Pittsburgh the week after Christmas went well too, he had gone gluten free shopping and had plenty of GF pasta and bread that JT could eat.  It was so nice not to worry.


It was also nice to have support and understanding.  It was nice to have the village.  
No one saying "well, it's not that bad if he has a little gluten" or "one cookie won't kill him, whatever, his throat won't close up or anything."  


The holidays were successful because my village didn't judge or make any of us feel uncomfortable.  


We even made post-Christmas Christmas cookies.  And they were good.  Really good.  "THESE are gluten free?" we all kept asking in dis-belief.  Yup, they were that good.

A GOOD READ:
This is an oldish post from October, but I love it.  I have been a big Joel Stein fan for a long time.  But it turns out Joel Stein has a wife and she is funny and lovable too...Cassandra Barry.  She and Joel have a blog on Babble Voices and they have a kid with a peanut allergy.  This was a great post she wrote and it makes me grateful for my kid's teacher and school.
 "My kid's nut allergy is bringing you down"