Chocolate Chip Cookies...G-Free, Egg Free with the real taste!

There are so many Gluten Free recipes for cookies and many are specific to a certain brand of flour or are full of multiple expensive ingredients and too many steps. I decided to use my favorite cookie recipe with slight modifications to prove that you can make anything you love to eat with small changes.

There are other modifications you can make to suit your needs, such as removal of eggs or changing to vegan butter or chips. And you'll notice that my special ingredient to delicious cookies include the addition of butterscotch chips to add extra dimension and sweetness. They really help these cookies taste just like the real thing!

Charlese's Chocolate Chip Cookies (Gluten Free)

MAKES 16 COOKIES

1 and 1/4c Gluten Free Flour of choice

1/4 tsp baking soda 

1/8 tsp salt

1/2c sugar

1/2c brown sugar

1/2c butter (or vegan oil substitute)

1 egg (*or substitute)

2 tsp vanilla

1/2c - 1c Chocolate Chips (I use milk chocolate)

1/4c - 1/2c Butterscotch Chips

Optional:

1/2c chopped nuts

*Egg substitutes: Use Egg Replacer from the box and mix as stated OR use ground Flaxmeal, 3Tbs water to 1Tbs Flaxmeal for each egg.

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Set oven to preheat at 300 degrees.

In a medium bowl mix together flour, baking soda, and salt. 

Use electric mixer to combine the sugars and butter, scraping the sides of the bowl. Add egg and vanilla, but to not overmix.

Stir in chips and nuts.

Form into 16 balls and bake 22-28 minutes. 

Enjoy!

Can you do Fondue?

The short answer is YES! Fondue is amazing and delicious and old school comfort food that you share with your favorite friends. Go out for a night of fondue or make it at home...

Gluten Free eaters can safely eat at fondue restaurants, but have to be aware of the food being served. If you have problems with cross contamination, don't go. The pots they use are covered constantly in beer and other glutens. Recently at a fondue dinner I found out that they coat the cheese in flour for it to melt better with the wine or beer and they serve bread for dipping. To fix this, stress the fact that you cannot ingest glutens of any type and remind them for the cheese base to have no added flour or beer. It took longer to mix with the wine and separated since they prepared it wrong in the first place. Politely reminding your fondue server before mixing will help with this. Also, ask for corn tortilla chips and extra fruit/veggies for dipping.

Make sure all your boiling bases are also free of malt vinegars, beer, and thickeners and that the meat is not coated as well. Finally, when enjoying your chocolate course remember that cookie crumbs and crust flavored chocolate are gluten-ous, so go as plain as possible. Sometimes they light a high proof alcohol for effect, this won't affect most g-free eaters. Use strawberries, bananas, marshmallows and avoid the cakes, brownies, and other flour based desserts they serve for chocolate dipping! Most importantly, enjoy the cheese and chocolate indulgence...it's so tasty!



















At home, you have much more say in what you use. Trader Joe's has a non-beer based swiss cheese made just for fondue melting and chocolate chips for the chocolate that are all labeled Gluten Free. Making your own requires clean up, but way less worry about cross contaminations. And it's fun to invite your pals over for dipping!

Mac n Cheese!

I get a lot of questions about comfort foods and favorites. Many people ask if I miss them. There's very few things you can't make or find in a delicious gluten free version. The ones I can't find I am working on here. For Macaroni and Cheese-the ultimate comfort food, especially on these rainy days you can buy Amy's gluten free Mac and Cheese, frozen and microwaveable...or you can make it your way.

I decided to make it with brown rice pasta for extra heartiness and whole grain health. You have your choice of cheese...but use a melty texture no matter what cheese or cheeses. To make it Vegan or dairy free, head over to Whole Foods or Mother's for tasty vegan cheese. Now decide if you want stovetop or baked style mac and cheese. I decided to do both. 

Mac and Cheese Both Ways

2 c Gluten Free Pasta

6-12oz cheese of choice, grated or cubed for melty-ness

1/4 c milk of choice

2-4oz grated cheese of choice (optional)

Boil the pasta (2 minutes short of the package directions if you are going to make it baked too). Drain and rinse. Add the cheese. (I used Velveeta). Then slowly add your milk and keep stirring until your desired consistency. Either serve as is or...

Fill mac and cheese into 8x8 oven safe glass pan. Top with grated cheese and bake at 350 degrees until crusty and melted. You can also save this step for day 2 to warm up leftovers.

Use as a side dish or add chicken and veggies for a delicious meal!

Cousin's Gluten Free Salmon Pasta

While in Seattle last month my cousin made a special delicious pasta dish. It's easily modified for multiple tastes. I didn't get a chance to take a photo of it...but it was delicious. What is gluten free pasta about? It's usually white or brown rice based, sometimes corn. Use your favorite or mix this recipe up with fried rice or risotto and add or change any veggies you feel like. 

Cousin's G-Free Salmon Pasta

Sauce:

1/4 c olive oil

2 Tbs Balsamic Vinegar

2 cloves Garlic, minced

1 Tbs Red Pepper flakes

1/2 c lemon juice

1/2 pound smoked salmon, peppered

1 red onion, chopped

1 tomato, chopped

1 c mushrooms, chopped

1 c peas

1lb spinach, sauteed

Garnish:

basil

grated parmesan

avocado

1lb pasta of choice

Start by boiling the pasta in salted water, according to package directions. Saute vegetables and start the sauce. To make sauce, add all ingredients from olive oil to red onion in a large bowl and stir well. Add vegetables and pasta, then mix again. Salt and pepper to taste, garnish with basil, cheese, and avocado. Easy! Feeds 6-8.

Again, add to or take away from the vegetables and garnishments in this recipe as desired, but keep the main idea of smoked salmon, veggies, and pasta or rice. The possibilities are endless and lo-cal. 

Adventures in Everyday Cooking-StirFry

A lot of people ask me what gluten is and when they hear that I can't have wheat....they ask, well then what do you eat? And my reply? "Everything else!"

But there are small things that one wouldn't necessarily realize are riddled with gluten in the processing. There is a lot of gum on the market that are dipped in a gluten based preservative, vanilla flavorings, and of course: soy sauce.

I love Chinese food and soy sauce is the perfect condiment for that asian, salty flavor. However, it's made with wheat. So since stir fry is a great low cal, fast way to cook lot's of veggies, with meat and brown rice...all things I love to eat, how do I give it that Chinese flavor? With Tamari sauce, soy sauce's wheat free cousin. It's salty and delicious, just like soy sauce. Today's lunch meal was an easy throw together combination that I stirfried. Organic Tamari, brown rice, broccoli slaw and leftover rotisserie chicken breast were my ingredients, thrown into 1 teaspoon of warm olive oil in my pan. I tossed them in without the Tamari, waiting until each was warmed completely before adding the sauce... and the finished product? Delicious Gluten Free Chinese Chicken Stir-Fry. And for more fun, add MaiFun or SaiFun Rice Noodles instead!

(Only about 300 calories)

First Recipe: Vanilla Cupcakes, Buttercream Frosting

I decided it's time to try to bake some Gluten Free recipes and get the show on the road. Forget that I have a million things to do. Forget that I don't have all the ingredients. Forget all that and let's just begin baking the Babycakes (TM) Vanilla Cupcakes!!!

Off to the ingredient store: Hmmm...Coconut Oil? Ok, that's not cheap. But necessary. Next, Agave Nectar? Wait, there's three flavors? Help!! Ok, lady at Henry's says to go with "light". Wow, not cheap either. And on to...Xanthan gum. $13 for some ingredient that starts with an x? Where does a xanthan grow? This ingredient is very necessary as well, for all Gluten Free baking.

Rounding up my $50+ worth of ingredients that I plan to use on many recipes. Holy Babycakes, Batman, these amounts are huge! Ok, there goes half the Coconut Oil I bought, all the Agave Nectar and yes, all but a bit of Arrowroot. Sigh... Uh oh, Applesauce- I only have one of those kids lunch cups of applesauce in the bottom drawer! Yeah, that looks like 3/4 cup to me.

Time to get to work. 325 degree oven and start with the dry mix first. Open bag of Xanthan Gum...Uh oh, scissors too close to finger...and..snip there goes my fingertip. (Short break for bandaging). Then add all the wet ingredients. They don't mix like typical cupcake ingredients-my arm hurts! Hot water bath to melt coconut oil, which isn't an oil so much as a blob. A delicious smelling blob.

Hmm, this smells like...beans. Must be the garbanzo bean flour. Rename to Vanilla Falafel Cakes? I even changed the recipe a bit to compensate, but I think next time I will completely eliminate the garbanzo bean flour and use only G-Free All Purpose flour instead. Here's the recipe as I made it:

GlutieCakes White Cupcake/Muffin Base*

*gluten-free, diary-free, egg-free, soy-free

Dry Ingredients

1.5 c Bob's Red Mill Gluten Free flour

1.5 c Garbanzo Bean flour

1 c Potato Starch
1 Tbs & 1.5 tsp Baking Powder
1/2 tsp Baking Soda

1/2 c Arrowroot

1 tsp Xanthan Gum
2 tsp salt

Wet Ingredients
2/3 c coconut oil

3/4 c Applesauce

3 Tbs Pure G-free Vanilla

1 c hot water

Whisk dry list together, add wet list  to dry (except water), then slowly add hot water. Pour into 24 standard size cupcake liners in tins, and pop them in the oven. Bake for 15 minutes, turn the pans, then bake up to 7 more. Allow to cool before frosting!

Buttercream Frosting 

1/2 c butter (opt. to use vegan vegetable oil spread)

1.5 c powdered sugar

2 Tbs Pure G-free Vanilla

1 tsp Lemon Zest (opt)

Cream ingredients together with electric mixer, smear on cupcakes. Eat the rest with your finger!


I learned that I don't enjoy the baking process as much as I enjoy the results. This recipe was delicious and with different frostings, added flavors, or even some berries this base can be so much more than just vanilla cupcakes. Imagine the possibilities and have fun experimenting!

PS-Caloric count coming soon!!!

Day One...years later

I am one of two good friends who can't eat gluten. We met two years ago. I was married, she married our best friend. It's been great...especially for her when she helped me to discover and come to terms with the fact that my stomach issues were related to the ingestion of wheat gluten. Then we were in the same boat and cooking dinners together would become interesting.

The fun part for me was not only feeling much better after changing my diet, but in the quest to find new and delicious foods to replace the old stand-bys and comfort foods that now made me sick.

Then I had a problem...it turns out that gluten free foods on the market today tend to have a higher caloric content than their gluten containing counterparts. So now I was getting fat! My lifelong struggle with weight loss just got more complicated because all the "fun" I was having with these new foods was, well, a little too fun. 

Naturally occurring gluten free foods are actually healthy foods...fruits and veggies, lean meats, corn tortillas, quinoa, polenta-most of which are all lower calorie choices. But what about eating while busy or on the road? What about dinner at friends' houses? What about baked goods, desserts, and delicious Italian food?

I decided it's enough...I want to eat what I want (within reason), enjoy life (with balance), and not get fat (maybe even lose weight). So my quest to create delicious foods that happen to not be filled with gluten and high calories is the new thing I am doing with my life. My friend? She's along for the ride as her allergies are broader than mine to include eggs, yeast, and sometimes dairy. We are doing this for us and for our friends and those we haven't met yet who will benefit from our extensive and sometimes tasty research.

Day one...start the blog and our new path.