Cooking gluten and diary free... because everyone deserves a cookie!
Need some ideas and recipes for back to school eats? Head over to the Snap Fitness blog for recipes for Gluten Free Breakfast Cookies, Hummus with variations, and a Cucumber Sub “Sandwich.” Enjoy!
You’ll find the recipes over at the Snap Fitness blog today.
I like making pancakes for the family. Simple to make, delicious enough to please everyone, pancakes can also be dressed up with different flavors to reflect the flavors of the season. Carrot cake pancakes are a perfect example of this. While I have made these tender, fluffy, cinnamon kissed pancakes many times, this dressed up version topped with pineapple, toasted coconut, pecans and maple-glazed sautéed carrots elevate the humble pancake to something elegant enough to serve for Easter brunch. You’ll find Gluten and Dairy Free Carrot Cake Pancakes over at the Snap Fitness blog today. Enjoy!
It is time again for Secret Recipe Club reveal day! Woo-hoo! What is the Secret Recipe Club? It’s a lot like Secret Santa, but with recipes. Each month you are assigned a blog. After selecting a recipe from that bloggers repertoire, you make and post it on reveal day. It is a great way to find fun recipes and blogs. I like how it gets me to actually sit down and go through another person’s blog. Blogs are a lot of work and take time to put together. Instead of skimming through just the new stuff (as is usually easier when we see a new blog) it is fun to really sit down and go through what else the blog has to offer. Fun stuff!
My assignment this month was Andrea’s blog, Adventures In All Things Food. On her site she has all sorts of lovely cooking (like Homemade Pumpkin Syrup, Apple Walnut Waffles, Corn Tortillas, Tzitziki Sauce, and Creamy Sweet Potato Hummus), crafting (check out this unbelievably cute Easter Bunny Onesie and these awesome Felted Pumpkins), and peeks into their life on a farm (including their chickens, so you KNOW I love that). I checked with my littlest helper who wanted to help with my challenge this month and her choice was Zucchini Cake Pancakes. YUM!
My big changes were to make the recipe gluten and dairy free (of course) and increasing the vanilla a touch. The biggest issue I faced was that zucchini is not in season, so wasn’t as juicy as peek season zucchini AND I needed to have more liquid for the batter as I was working with a gluten free flour blend. The big thing to watch for is to make the batter thin enough for pancakes so that it cooks all the way through and doesn’t stay doughy in the center.
My recommendation is to make a single pancake to see if it cooks though and if you need to adjust the liquid balance of the batter. Gluten free flour blends can be weird like that… 🙂 We loved the flavor of these and will make them again using other gluten free flour blends until we find the one that works the best. I’ll update this post when that happens, because I think this recipe is a keeper!
I’ve got a fun smoothie for you today over at The Balanced Platter. It may be packed with good-for-you greens, but it taste like creamy, dreamy pumpkin pie. Yum! Enjoy!
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Edit: The Balanced Platter is no longer up, so here is the post and recipe for you to enjoy!
With the start of a new year, and after the extra treats of the holiday season, I like to focus on filling my plate with more vegetable-packed meals. However, even while eating healthier, I do like indulgent-tasting treats. Fortunately, this creamy dairy-free smoothie is not only a wonderful start for your day or after workout pick-me-up, it also tastes fantastic. It may look green, but it tastes similar to a creamy, dreamy pumpkin pie.
Many dairy-free smoothies use frozen banana to give body and creaminess, however my low-carb eating husband challenged me to come up with an alternative ingredient. Instead of banana, Green Pumpkin Pie Smoothie gets it’s smooth texture from avocado, decreasing the sugar and carb content from what is found in the typical smoothie. A typical avocado has about 14 grams of fiber, much more than other fruits. The fiber, along with its healthy monounsaturated fat, and higher protein content than most fruits, make avocados a great energy source that keep you feeling full and satisfied longer.
Rounding out the ingredient list for this simple to blend smoothie are pumpkin and spinach. Rich in potassium, a nutrient that helps maintain blood pressure and kidney function, pumpkin is also high in fiber and contains a fair share of vitamin C, an antioxidant essential for healthy skin and gums. The dark leafy green of spinach is a nutritional powerhouse all on its own. There are few food sources that offer more vitamin K than spinach, essential for blood clotting and bone health. Recent research also shows that vitamin K may help decrease inflammation in the body. Other important nutrients found in spinach are beta-caroteen, lutein, folate, and magnesium.
If you have family members on the fence about green smoothies, give this one a try. The creamy texture and pumpkin pie flavors might just win them over. Even my 10-year-old loves this smoothie as an after school snack and considers it a treat!
Other Green Smoothie Recipes:
Good-for-You Green Pumpkin Pie Smoothie
Serves 2 to 3
What are your favorite after workout treats? Do you have a delicious veggie-filled smoothie or snack to share? We would love to hear about it!
This time of year, with all the activities that accompany the start of school (and the fees that go with those activities), I like to have a few quick to pull together, budget friendly meals up my sleeve. Frittata is always a welcome one dish meal in my house, especially when studded with end-of-summer produce.
Frittatas are so simple to pull together, even the teens in my house can lend a hand at dinner time when it’s on the menu. Frittatas are similar to a crustless quiche, filled with a variety of pre-cooked meats, beans or your favorite veggies, however frittatas cook up so much quicker. The secret to this one-pan egg dish is to pre-cook any veggies on the stove top in an oven-safe pan. After the vegetables are cooked, add egg mixture to the hot pan. This begins to set and cook the egg. Then, simply pop the entire pan into a pre-heated oven to finish cooking. Toss together a simple salad while the frittata has its final bake and dinner is on the table in half an hour. Perfect for busy weeknights!
Frittatas help me to stretch my food budget. I often use up bits of leftover cooked and seasoned chicken, sautéed vegetables or greens that need to be eaten by tossing them in a frittata. Leftovers don’t taste like leftovers when presented in a new way!
Other Egg Dishes:
Late Summer Frittata with Cherry Tomato Salad
Serves 6
Frittata:
Tomato Salad:
Instructions:
What is your favorite quick weeknight meal?
At the Balanced Platter yesterday (oops! I forgot to post about it yesterday) I shared Chai Spiced Coconut Quinoa Cereal. Try this delicious, creamy cereal this fall for a breakfast that will stick with your kids during their school day. Our area is in the middle of a heat wave. BUT in just a few short weeks it will be fall and time for warming breakfasts. Chai Spiced Coconut Quinoa Cereal is pre-soaked for increase digestibility and to speed the morning cooking. Coconut milk adds creaminess and maple syrup and chai inspired spices add sweetness.
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With two children in high school and one in elementary school, our mornings can be quite hectic on school mornings with all the different schedules. However, no matter how busy our mornings, one thing I insist on is a good breakfast before my kids start their day. Quinoa, with it’s high-nutrient profile and fiber, cooked with coconut milk makes a wonderful, stick-to-your-ribs breakfast that cooks up with a creamy texture similar to rice pudding that is supremely satisfying.
Pre-soaking quinoa helps the already quick-cooking grain to cook even quicker, and there is much evidence that pre-soaking helps make the nutrients more absorbable and easier to digest. Depending on the day and what we have on hand, we add toasted nuts, chopped dates or berries. As coconut milk has a naturally sweeter taste, all I need is to add just a touch of maple syrup, but feel free to skip it or to use the sweetener you prefer.
source: Angela Litzinger
Quinoa needs to be rinsed very well to remove the bitter coating. The double rinsing and soaking in the recipe guarantees well rinsed quinoa, so all you taste is the nutty flavor of quinoa.
Other Breakfast Recipes:
What do you like to eat to start your day?
Chai Spiced Coconut Quinoa Hot Cereal
Serves 4
- 1 cup uncooked quinoa
- 2 cups water
- 1 tablespoon cider vinegar
- 1 3/4 cups full fat coconut milk (about one 14 ounce can)
- 2 tablespoons maple syrup
- 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- 1/4 teaspoon ground cardamon
- 1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
- 1/8 teaspoon ground ginger
- Using a fine meshed sieve, rinse the quinoa well under running water. Place quinoa into a saucepan with the 2 cups water and cider vinegar. Stir well and cover the pan. Allow to sit overnight.
- In the morning, pour off water and rinse quinoa again using the fine meshed sieve. In a saucepan, stir together quinoa, coconut milk, maple syrup, cinnamon, cardamon, nutmeg and ginger. Cook over medium-high heat and bring to a simmer. Stir often, simmering until thick and creamy, about 15 minutes.
- Serve plain or with toasted coconut or nuts, berries, chopped dates, a bit of dairy free milk, brown sugar or maple syrup.
- Any left over cereal freezes beautifully. Portion cooled quinoa cereal into freezer safe containers and seal well before freezing. To serve, simply use your favorite method of re-heating, adding more liquid if needed.
Angela is the author and recipe developer behind the gluten-free dairy-free website, Angela’s Kitchen. She loves cooking up whole food budget friendly family favorites, while balancing her role as master food preserver, gluten- and dairy-free cooking instructor and as a mother of three kids and a flock of spunky chickens. Due to a passion to bring families back to the dinner table, Angela’s Kitchen features free weekly menus with grocery lists, freezer cooking and slow cooker recipes, with seasonal food preservation ideas.
So, what’s a girl to do when she finally get’s her hands on a WonderMill? Well, I threw the toughest challenges I could think of by having it grind garbanzo beans (they are HUGE, bumpy and really, really hard) and tapioca beads (I wanted a finely ground powder). Opposite ends of the gluten free flour spectrum to say the least! To see how the WonderMill faired and the recipe for Gluten Free Dairy Free Overnight Yeasted Pancakes I developed for the WonderMill challenge, head on over to GrainMillWagon.com and say “Hi!”
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I was so thrilled to experiment with my nifty WonderMill. However, because I am just the sort of person to see how much I can get a new appliance to do, I decided to throw the toughest thing I could think of at it: garbanzo beans. Garbanzo beans (or you might call them chickpeas) are so tough when dried I figured it would be a great test for the grinding power of the WonderMill.
I did discover that because of the shape and nature of the garbanzo bean (all those bumps and angles!) they do call for a little trick to help keep the beans from getting hung up on each other or rebounding out of the mill. It is so simple, however… just drop one or two at a time into the mill (you can do this quite quickly) and you have a beautiful fresh ground garbanzo flour. I found a great video tutorial that shows the technique along with another using a modified cup. I am trying the cup technique next so that I can get my beans ground even faster. I am so impressed that there was no need at all to sift the flour or to sort out any larger bits when grinding garbanzo beans with the WonderMill. The resulting flour was perfectly ground and so much fresher with no off taste from sitting on a shelf at the store. You gotta love that!
Roasted garbanzo beans, cooled and ready to grind.
Toasted chickpea flour is wonderful in savory applications and so easy to make. Simply toast dry chickpeas in a preheated 400 degree F for 15-20 minutes or until the chickpeas are lightly browned and have a toasted aroma. Allow the chickpeas to cool before grinding.
So, what recipe to use my garbanzo flour in? I decided on gluten and dairy free pancakes. I already have a gluten free dairy free pancake that my family loves, so I decided to try mixing it up a bit and make a yeasted pancake that sits overnight. I find allowing bean flours to presoak a bit helps them be more digestible and mellows their flavors. Yeasted pancakes are light and fluffy, with a tender crumb. They hold their shape well and are wonderful drizzled with maple syrup or a fruit compote. And the best part? Because the batter is made the night before, Gluten Free Dairy Free Overnight Yeasted Pancakes are a snap to cook off in the morning when you are still bundled up in your robe waiting for your coffee to brew.
Yeasted Overnight Pancakes, Gluten Free/Dairy Free
