New Favorites

I can't believe I haven't posted on this blog for over 4 years! Once I caught the vision of Pinterest, I found I was keeping track of my recipes that way (which was the original purpose of this blog) instead of typing them up here. I still get asked for recipes and recommendations all the time, so I plan to post some of my favorite recipes soon. For now, I want to tell you about my favorite gluten-free cookbooks. This is not a paid post, this is just my true opinion.

The America's Test Kitchen "How Can it Be Gluten-Free" cookbooks:

The How Can It Be Gluten Free Cookbook: Revolutionary Techniques. Groundbreaking Recipes.

The How Can It Be Gluten Free Cookbook Volume 2: New Whole-Grain Flour Blend, 75+ Dairy-Free Recipes

These books have completely changed my life. EVERYTHING I have made in them is good. If I follow the directions, things turn out great every time. I love that the recipes all use their gf flour blend and I can just scoop flour out of one container and move on. Yesssssssss!

I'm kind of a simple girl, so I don't like recipes that call for a bunch of stuff that I've never heard of. A few of these recipes call or psyllium husk, which is about as exotic as this book gets. That's the only one I had never bought before.

If you're looking for a good recipe for dinner rolls, brownies, cake, chicken & dumplings, blondies (OH my gosh!!!!), muffins, waffles, PIE CRUST, key lime bars, I mean you name it... These are fabulous recipes.

You won't regret adding these books to your GF collection. ;)

Quinoa Pancakes

My friend Chelsee raved about these new pancakes she made and loved, so I decided to try to make the recipe gluten free. The results were awesome. I’ve made them for breakfast, lunch, and dinner (on different days =). My kids and husband love them, too. A word about the batter… The first time I tried this, I took one look at the batter and figured this was going to be a total disaster.  It looked kind of like cooked tapioca pudding, thick-ish like that. Don’t be scared, they turned out great. Plus, quinoa is super healthy so these are a great option. Enjoy!



Quinoa Pancakes

1 cup cooked quinoa
1/2 cup rice flour
1/4 cup tapioca flour
1/4 teaspoon xanthan gum
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon coarse salt
1 large egg, plus 1 large egg white
1 tablespoon unsalted butter, melted, plus more for skillet
1/4 cup low-fat milk (I’ve used cow and almond, both are good)
2 tablespoons pure maple syrup, plus more for serving
Fresh fruit or fruit preserves (optional), for serving

Directions
In a medium bowl, whisk together quinoa, flour, baking powder, and salt. In another medium bowl, whisk together egg, egg white, butter, milk, and syrup until smooth. Add egg mixture to flour mixture and whisk to combine.
Lightly coat a large nonstick skillet or griddle with butter and heat over medium-high. Drop batter by 1/4 cup-fulls onto skillet. Cook until bubbles appear on top, 2 minutes. Flip cakes and cook until golden brown on underside, 2 minutes. Wipe skillet clean and repeat with more melted butter and remaining batter (reduce heat to medium if overbrowning). Serve with maple syrup and fresh fruit.

Gluten Free Waffles

I love waffles, and it's been a real struggle for me to find a good recipe. Back in June when I had baby #3, my friend Jessica brought these waffles to our family for dinner one night. It was like absolute heaven!! She brought berries and whipped cream to have on top and it was so great. My husband and kids even loved them. The best part about this recipe is that it seems to be very forgiving. I've used the flour mixtures listed below, but when I was low on something or out, I just substituted some corn starch or sorghum flour here and there and still had great results. In my experience, they do need a little longer to cook than "regular" waffles, so when the light on my waffle maker comes on, I just wait another minute or so. You'll love these!

Gluten Free Waffles


1 1/4 cups rice flour
1/4 cup tapioca starch
1/4 cup potato starch
1/2 teaspoon xanthan gum
2 Tablespoons sugar
1/4 tsp salt
1 tablespoon baking powder
2 eggs
1 3/4 cups milk (I've used cow, vanilla soy, and vanilla almond...ALL good)
1/2 cup cooking oil or butter, melted
 1 teaspoon vanilla

Mix dry ingredients together.  In separate bowl, mix wet ingredients together.  
Then add wet ingredients to dry and mix until well blended and there are no lumps.  Spoon batter onto waffle iron and follow your waffle iron's directions.
Makes 12 to 16 (4-inch) waffles.  






THANK YOU, JESSICA!!!

Gluten-Free Corn Bread

I love winter comfort foods. My favorite thing to pair with a good soup is corn bread, but I have struggled for years to find a good recipe. Today was cold, so I had soup cooking for dinner. On a whim I decided to give corn bread another whirl. It turned out so incredibly great. I played with an old recipe and it ended up being fantastic. Even my husband thinks so, and he’s quite opinionated when it comes to gluten-free breads. I think we’ll be eating this a lot this winter.

Gluten-Free Corn Bread
Combine dry ingredients in a medium bowl:
1/2 C. Rice flour
1/2 C. Tapioca flour
1 C. Yellow cornmeal
1/2 tsp Xanthan gum
2 Tbs Sugar
1 tsp Baking soda
1 tsp Baking powder
1 tsp Salt

In a separate bowl, combine wet ingredients:
2 eggs
1 egg white
1 C. plain yogurt
2 Tbsp melted butter (I did pureed beans)
1/4 C. water

Slowly add the dry ingredients to the wet and stir to combine. Spoon into a greased 8” pan (mine was dirty so I did it in a 9” round pan and that worked well, too) and bake at 400 for 20-25 min. The top should “spring” when you press on it.

Gluten Free Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies

I have survived moving across the country 5 weeks after having baby #3, and I’m finally ready to start making new things again. Hooray for that! I’ve tried a few new recipes I hope to post soon, but first I am posting this recipe for my favorite Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies. I’m kind of amazed that it’s taken me this long to do it, since I’ve had the recipe since 2003. It’s in my recipe binder but suddenly I feel greatly inconvenienced when I can’t pull up a recipe I want online. =) Anyway…These are good cookies. I love them because they’re easy and very forgiving. I’ve used all sorts of flour blends depending on what I have and they turn out great. Also, they don’t require xanthan gum. Because I’m super cheap, that’s important to me. I love these cookies fresh out of the oven or out of the fridge, but my VERY FAVORITE way to eat these is warm with vanilla ice cream on top. Amazing.


Gluten-Free Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies
Combine:
1/4 C. butter (softened)
1 1/2 C. sugar
(beat ‘til fluffy)

Add:
1 egg
1 1/2 C. pumpkin puree
1 tsp vanilla
(mix well)

In a separate bowl, whisk together:
2 1/2 C GF flour (I used 1 C Rice, 1 C Oat, and 1/2 C. Corn starch, but I’ve used several different combos with Tapioca flour, potato startch, sorghum flour, etc. Use what you have.)
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp nutmeg
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 C. chocolate chips (I like the mini)
1/2 C. chopped walnuts (optional, but super good)

Slowly add dry mixture to wet ingredients and mix well. The batter should be pretty moist. Spoon batter by tablespoon onto greased baking sheet. Bake at 350 for 15-17 min.

Gluten-Free Pancakes

• Last year I found a bunch of GF Bisquick on serious clearance at Smith's. I bought 13 boxes. I love that stuff so much. Last week I used the last box and I was so sad. I can't bring myself to spend nearly $5 for 3 cups of pancake mix. I just can't do it. So....I started looking for a new recipe. Lots of GF pancake recipes are too dense or gritty for me. This one has great texture, by my standards. I adapted it from a recipe on allrecipes.com.

Gluten Free Pancakes

• 1 cup rice flour
• 5 tablespoons tapioca flour
• 1/3 cup potato starch
• 1 Tbsp sugar (optional)
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon xanthan gum
• 2 eggs
• 3 tablespoons canola oil
• 2 cups milk

Combine dry ingredients in a medium mixing bowl. Mix well. Add eggs, oil and milk and stir to combine. Cook on a well-sprayed skillet....like you would any normal pancake. I feel like a goober writing pancake instructions. Happy breakfast to you!

Gluten Free Tomato Soup

One of the “regular foods” I miss the most in the winter time is canned tomato soup with grilled cheese sandwiches. I’ve tried a few recipes for tomato soup and never quite loved it. This is a mix of several recipes I’ve tried and I think it’s awesome. I made this with my 4 year old daughter one afternoon last week and we had so much fun.

Tomato Soup

3 (15 oz) cans tomatoes (you can use whole, diced, whatever…it’s just going in the blender)

1 (8 oz) can tomato sauce

1 cup chicken broth

1 Tbsp sugar

1 Tbsp dried basil

1/2-1  cup chopped onion (I only did 1/2 cup but next time I’ll do more)

4 garlic cloves, minced

1/2 cup skim milk

Put all ingredients except the milk into large pot and bring to boil. Reduce heat to low and simmer for about 20 minutes. Pour soup into a blender (I did this in 2 batches) and blend on low for about 30 seconds, until smooth. Return to pot and add milk. Eat with grilled cheese sandwiches. =)