I know I will be making this turkey in a few weeks for at least one of our various Christmas gatherings, but it seems kind of pointless to post it long after the major turkey holiday, when everyone needs it most. On the other hand, there’s no way I can justify cooking an entire turkey for my household twice in one month, on top of the piles of yummy leftovers my aunt will no doubt send us home with.

So here’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to post just the text of the recipe, and after I actually cook it in December I’ll come back and update with pictures for future reference. Sound good? Good.

The thing that makes this recipe great is you make the gravy from scratch right alongside the turkey. On the one hand, it’s a teeny-tiny bit of extra work, but on the other hand, you’re not going to find a premade gravy or mix of any kind that’s gluten-free, so you’re kind of stuck doing that anyway. And trust me, if you’ve never had truly homemade gravy, prepare to be blown away by the difference in taste.

But first, the turkey. You’re going to want one that’s about 16-18 pounds, and comes with the giblets included. Pull that little package of giblets out of the cavity of the turkey, and set it aside. Then rinse the whole turkey off under the faucet, and pat it dry with paper towels. You will look ridiculous trying to strongarm this huge bird in and out of the sink, so don’t even try not to. When you set it on the rack, tuck the wings down underneath the legs, and tie the ends of the drumsticks together with a bit of string so it’s not flopping bird parts all over the place.

If you’re not the kind of person who ever buys fresh herbs, now is really the time to give in. You’ll need a handful each of fresh rosemary and sage. Stick one or two sprigs of each into the turkey cavity, and finely chop up the rest. Throw a couple pinches of salt and pepper into the cavity too, for good measure.

In a small pot, melt 4 Tablespoons of Fleischmann’s Unsalted margarine - not the “Original” (salted) flavor, which has casein. [As always, the brands I use were GFCF at the time of posting, but manufacturers can change formulas without notice. Always check your labels!] Mix in 3 Tablespoons each of chopped rosemary and sage, 1 Tablespoon of black pepper, and 4 teaspoons of salt.

Now here’s the fun part. Take another two Tablespoons of margarine, and cut each one into fourths. Make tiny cuts all over the skin of your turkey, and insert these little knobs of margarine underneath. Just shove them right in there between the skin and the meat, so they look like a mouse under a rug. Once it goes in the oven they’ll melt and spread out, and you will end up with the most amazingly moist turkey you ever sank your teeth into.

By now your herb-margarine concoction on the stove should be nice and melty, so it’s time to brush it all over the surface of the turkey. Go ahead and use it all, even if it’s dripping down the sides already. No use letting it go to waste.

Place your turkey in a 325 degree oven, and let it roast untouched for 1 hour. After that, reach in and baste it every 20-30 minutes or so while it cooks for another 2 hours and 45 minutes. Adjust by 15 minutes in either direction if you have a slightly smaller or slightly larger turkey; in any case it’s done when a meat thermometer jabbed into the thigh reads 180 degrees.

But don’t walk away from the kitchen just yet! You probably have some other side dishes you want to start working on, yes? You can do that for now, but later, when the turkey has about an hour and a half left to cook, it’s time to get started on the gravy.

In a large pot, dump in the contents of your giblets bag, along with 5 1/2 cups of gluten-free chicken broth, one onion cut into quarters, and one bay leaf. Bring this to a boil and let it simmer for about an hour. It should hopefully be reduced to about 3 cups of liquid in this time. Strain all the big pieces out and throw them away.

In a large pan, melt another 6 Tablespoons of dairy-free margarine. Dice up two more onions as finely as you can manage, and start sauteeing them over low heat. About ten minutes in, add 1 Tablespoon each of rosemary and sage, and continue sauteeing until the onions are golden brown and carmelized. Sprinkle in 1/3 cup of the gluten-free flour of your choice (I’ll probably be using Bob’s Red Mill All-Purpose, but I may end up trying sorghum flour this time since it’s a little finer-grained. The onion and herbs should overpower any slight flavor your flour might impart, so it shouldn’t really matter what you use.)

Give the flour about a minute to cook while you stir continuously, and then gradually whisk the turkey stock into the pan with the onions. Remember the turkey stock? Hopefully it’s still sitting back there on your stove, and hasn’t been stolen for a delectable soup by some roving chef.

Simmer the gravy pan for a few minutes to thicken it. Add in another teaspoon of rosemary and sage if you’re so inclined.

Now then! Your kitchen should be smelling amazing at this point, and the turkey should be about ready to come out of the oven. Carefully transfer that behemoth to your serving plate, and make a tent out of foil to keep it warm until it’s time to eat. Then carefully, carefully pour the juices from the roasting pan into a large measuring cup. After it’s been sitting for a few minutes, the fat will all rise to the top and you can scoop it right off with a spoon and throw it away.

While your pan juices are resting and separating, pour 1/2 cup of balsamic vinegar into a small saucepan, and simmer until it’s reduced to 1/4 cup, which should only take 3-4 minutes.

Here comes the tricky part. Once you’ve skimmed off the fat, start pouring your turkey juices into the gravy, but hold some back if it looks like it’s going to get too watery. Then, start adding the balsamic vinegar one Tablespoon at a time until you have a taste you like. It’s very hard to give an exact measurement, because it’s impossible to know if your turkey stock reduced to exactly three cups, or how much juice came off your particular turkey. But be brave and don’t skip it altogether, because it really adds an incredible depth to the gravy. And of course, make sure you’re using real 100% balsamic vinegar, and not some weird “balsamic-flavored” vinegar that might contain gluten.

Pour the gravy into some nice boat-like serving container, carve your turkey, and make sure Uncle Wally doesn’t take all the mashed potatoes before everyone else has had a chance. And then be prepared for a lot of lavish thanks, as your family admires your astoundingly awesome Thanksgiving turkey.

Happy Eating!

GFCF Thanksgiving Turkey with Balsamic Onion Gravy

For the turkey:
1 16-18 lb. turkey (with giblets)
6 Tbs Fleischmann’s Unsalted Margarine, divided
3 Tbs fresh rosemary, plus a whole sprig
3 Tbs fresh sage, plus a whole sprig
1 Tbs black pepper
4 tsp salt

For the gravy:
5 1/2 cups GF chicken broth
giblets from turkey
1 onion, quartered
1 bay leaf

6 Tbs Fleischmann’s Unsalted Margarine
2 onions, diced finely
1 Tbs rosemary
1 Tbs sage
1/3 cup Bob’s All-Purpose GF flour
1/2 cup balsamic vinegar

Look closely and you’ll see they’re (mostly) in alphabetical order. And does it bug me that those four spices on the left aren’t the same brand as all the others? You bet it does. But McCormick just doesn’t make those spices in this line of bottles, so I’m out of luck.

Anyway, the point I’m getting to is, while sometimes this level of organization can be indicative of a mental condition, sometimes it can also be really helpful when your dietary lifestyle requires so much more cooking and meal planning than most people’s.

Witness, for example, my collection of baking mixes. Once I’ve already got all the ingredients out for making waffles, or bread, or whathaveyou, it takes virtually no extra time at all to scoop out a second, third, or even fourth dose of everything into little plastic containers on the side. Then a week later, when I’m flustered at the idea that it’s already time to make muffins again, I remember with joy that half the work is already done! Even if you’re not baking as often as I am, the dry ingredients will keep in the pantry just as well mixed together as they do separately, so why not?

This is actually a pretty diverse collection for me right now; usually you’d see more duplicates of the staples in my cabinet. The teff bread is a new experiment (just using my standard bread recipe, but substituting teff flour,) so we’ll see how that one turns out some afternoon when I’m feeling adventurous.

But here’s where the real neurosis kicks in. This, ladies and gentlemen, is the left half of my refrigerator. (Don’t you just love my frog pen-holder? So do I.) This is like the Gutenburg Bible of meal planning. I have a little magnet for every meal and side our family routinely eats, and I just pull whatever I want out of the main collection in the middle, and lay it out in the weekly schedule above.

This is helpful from a general meal-planning standpoint of course, in the sense that I have to know what I’m making when I go buy groceries. But the real reason this system works for me is because I have all my options laid out in front of me at all times. I have a big problem with inspiration in the kitchen — like the proverbial woman who stands in her closet saying “I have nothing to wear,” I can stand in a kitchen chock full of groceries and have no idea what to make with them. I’ve had great recipes fall off my radar for months at a time, because I just forgot about them. Now, instead of having to flip through my entire recipe box every week, I can take everything in with a quick glance. What’s more, when I move stuff down out of the week again, I put it at the bottom of the stack, so the items at the top are always the ones I haven’t made in awhile. It’s important to rotate your product!

But where, you may ask, did I get a magnetic poetry kit of my own recipe box? Why, I made it myself! Avery makes these great magnetic paper sheets, ready to load right into the printer. It’s $10 for 5 pages, which seems like a lot per page, but I used just a little over half of one page to print everything I needed for this project. Rather than try to run weird sizes of paper through my printer, I cut the rest of the remaining page into blank strips, and now when a new recipe comes along, I just handwrite a magnet for it. I also have a useful little marker for “New Recipe” and “New Side” for the schedule, so if the recipe’s a dud I haven’t wasted any magnetic paper on it.

…

Since school lunches are kind of a different beast altogether, I color-coded all those standard items in green and keep them organized down the right hand side by food group, so it’s easier to be sure the kids have a balanced lunchbox.

In a few more years I’m hoping I can get them to start helping to make their own lunches, and when that time comes I’m thinking I’ll reprint all the lunch choices in a bigger font and tell the kids they can pick whatever they want as long as they get one item from each group.

The magnet paper is great for other things too — memorable business cards, little school fundraiser items, picture puzzles… I don’t know about you, but there’s no limit to the number of things I can stick to my fridge.

Happy Organizing!

Start with one cup of pure corn meal.

Then add one cup of brown rice flour (or white rice flour, or some other gluten-free blend if you prefer. But I dig the brown rice flour in this recipe, personally.)

2 Tablespoons of sugar,

1 Tablespoon of gluten-free baking powder,

1 teaspoon of salt, and 1/2 teaspoon of xanthan gum to round out our dry ingredients.

In a separate bowl, prepare your wet ingredients. Start with 1/3 cup of canola oil. Incidentally, I’m a complete sucker for photos of liquid in motion. It’s my inner physics nerd.

And this one’s even better! How cool is that? It’s one cup of almond milk, by the way.

And one egg. Beat everything together well, and then dump it into your bowl of dry ingredients.

Now stir like you mean it!

Eventually, you’ll be ready to scrape your dough into a greased 9″x9″ baking dish. Don’t cop out early, you want everything to be nice and blended. And hey, who doesn’t want shapely biceps, right?

As usual, the dough will be thick, and you’ll need to press it down into place with a very wet hand. When it’s nice and smooth, just pop it in a 350 degree oven for 30 minutes.

How easy was that! The texture on these is pretty decent, but I’ll tell you a secret: it is way, way better the second day. Save half of them in an airtight container on the countertop (not in the fridge) and see if you don’t think they’re better the next day too.

Happy Eating!

GFCF Corn Bread

1 cup corn meal
1 cup brown rice flour
2 TBS sugar
1 TBS baking powder
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp xanthan gum
1/3 cup canola oil
1 cup almond milk
1 egg

Imagine how shocked I was to discover that I actually like these gluten-free muffins! I mean, I really like them–I sneak them between meals when the kids aren’t looking, which is the highest compliment I can pay a food.

This may have something to do with it: the recipe starts with 1 cup of sugar. (Actually I know for a fact the sugar plays a big role in my appreciation, because the first time I attempted this recipe I was dumb and forgot the sugar, and they came out inedible. Fortunately I realized my mistake before I threw out the recipe altogether.)

Then mix in 1 cup of applesauce. Applesauce is one of those things that any sane person would want to assume is gluten-free, but as you’ve probably figured out by now, food manufacturers are anything but sane. Check your labels and make sure it’s got nothing but apples in it.

Next, mix up this neato slurry of 4 Tablespoons of potato starch in 2 Tablespoons of water. The result will be this kind of gooey consistency that is a liquid if you are gentle but resists if you try to move it too fast. You may have even played with something like this in school when you were a kid like I did. Anyway, this is actually a basic egg substitute, so if you’d rather toss in two beaten eggs instead, you could do that too. But the potato starch mixture is good for those with egg allergies or concerned about cholesterol.

Then add 1/3 cup canola oil…

And 1/2 teaspoon each of cinnamon and ground cloves.

Also, 1/2 teaspoon each of gluten-free baking powder, and baking soda.

Now, mix in 1 1/4 cups of gluten-free flour. Bob’s Red Mill All-Purpose Blend is usually my go-to choice, but in this case that’s actually amaranth flour up there. I’ve made it with several different types, and they all come out good, so use whatever you want.

Drop the batter by spoonfuls into muffin cups. I like making mini-muffins, because they make better serving sizes. You can have 2 or 3 at breakfast, or toss just one in a lunchbox… or snack on however many you want between meals, for example. They aren’t going to rise much, so fill them about 3/4 full. I usually end up with about a tray and a half’s worth of these mini-muffin size.

I also smooth out the tops with a wet finger. It just makes them look better, and appearance is important when you’re trying to get a kid to try something new. It might look tedious, but it goes really quickly if you just put a cup of water right next to the tray. Dip, dab-dab-dab, dip, dab-dab-dab… takes 30 seconds. Of course ugly muffins still taste good, too.

Bake at 400 degrees for 22 minutes. If you’re making larger muffins, you’ll need to extend the baking time a bit. They’ll be done when a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean, just like everything else. Let them cool as long as possible before digging in, because they’re so moist the middles stay hot for a surprisingly long time. They’ll store for several days in a tupperware, or you can go so far as to freeze them for future use.

Also, unless you’re trying to take a picture of them, don’t bother with the kind of restraint I’m showing here. Pop them in your mouth all in one bite. It’s the best way, I promise you.

Happy Eating!

Applesauce Muffins

1 cup sugar
1 cup unsweetened applesauce
4 TBS potato starch in 2 TBS water
       (OR 2 eggs)
1/3 cup canola oil
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground cloves
1/2 tsp GF baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 1/4 cups GF flour

It’s a pretty standard culinary concept in Asia to stuff a ball of dough with various fillings and steam the whole thing into a delicious bun. There are over a dozen variations of this, and even though mine aren’t really all that similar to the traditional Vietnamese version that banh bao officially refers to, that’s what I call them because that’s the first name I learned for them.

First the dough, and then the filling. So we start with 3/4 cup sugar in a bowl, and add 2 tsp of salt.

Add 2 Tablespoons of baking powder, and one cup of your milk substitute of choice. Make sure your baking powder is gluten-free. I use a generic brand, but Clabber Girl is one safe national brand. [As always, the brands I use were GFCF at the time of posting, but manufacturers can change formulas without notice. Always check your labels!]

Also add in 2 teaspoons of xanthan gum, and mix well to dissolve the sugar.

Now, we’re going to add in a total of 4 cups of brown rice flour, but it has to be added slowly.

Start with two cups, and mix well until it looks like the above. Then add in cup number three and get ready to get messy.

Fold and squoosh everything through your fingers again and again until it’s nice and mixed.

You’ll probably want to have the fourth cup of flour already measured out and waiting, so you don’t have to wash your hands an extra time. After you add the fourth cup it should start to be thick enough that you can’t really squoosh it anymore, you’ll have to start doing more proper kneading. Just fold the far edge towards you…

And mash it down again. Repeat until there’s no more loose flour in the bowl.

It’s still not mixed well enough yet, but at this point I lift the cohesive dough unit out and move it to a cutting board on the kitchen table. I do this because it’s lower than my kitchen counter, and I can get much better leverage for pushing down as I knead.

Just keep folding and mashing, folding and mashing, for a good five minutes at least.

And eventually you will end up with a smooth, even ball of dough. Now, set it aside in a bowl covered with a dishtowel while you mix the filling. I don’t actually know why it needs to be covered with a dishtowel, but my original recipe said to do it, so I do it.

Alright, we’re ready for the filling. That’s a head of baby bok choy up there, which is kind of like an Asian spinach with a very distinct flavor. Chop the leaves off, and throw the stalk away.

The leaves are very firm, so you can chop it up pretty easily without all the bits flying everywhere.

Once you have the baby bok choy in little confetti pieces, add in 2 chopped green onions, and 1 Tablespoon of grated ginger.

Then add 1 teaspoon of salt, and a pinch of white pepper. It’s probably not something you’ll use very often, but I’ve tried making it with black pepper and with no pepper, and the taste just isn’t as good. Use the white pepper.

We’re almost there. Add 2 Tablespoons of water…

1 Tablespoon of cooking sherry (which should naturally be GFCF since it’s made of grapes, but make sure you don’t accidentally pick up something weird like sherry-flavored grain alcohol…)

And 2 teaspoons of sesame oil.

Okay! Now you can mix in one pound of ground pork, and your filling is ready to go.

This being a fancy recipe and all, it does require a bit of special equipment. You can get a bamboo steamer at any Asian market, and it comes as a set of large stackable trays that you can combine to be as tall as you want. The other thing you’ll need to prep is these little squares of parchment paper. Traditionally you would use lettuce leaves to keep the dough from sticking to the tray, but then you just end up with a bunch of wilted lettuce. I mean, if you like super-wilted greens, go for it, but I would just be throwing them away, so I use somehing that’s cheaper and easier to clean up.

Pull off a piece of the dough and roll it into a ball about 1 to 1.5 inches in diameter.

Then roll it out flat on a cutting board sprinkled liberally with more brown rice flour to keep it from sticking. Remember to get yourself a new rolling pin that you’ve never rolled in gluten flours before, or you’ll risk significant cross-contamination issues. If you look at the scale of my hand, you’ll realize this is a teeny tiny rolling pin that’s only maybe 6-8 inches long. Fits right in my utensil drawer with all the other junk.

Now spoon about a tablespoon of meat into the middle of your circle of dough…

And fold all the edges up around it.

Pinch everything together so it holds, and place it on top of a parchment square in your bamboo tray.

Repeat about 20 times. It’s important that the parchment be in small pieces like this and not just one large cover, because the steam has to be able to come up in between the spaces and cook the buns.

Somehow I always end up with more meat than dough, so I roll up any leftovers into little meatballs and toss them in the oven for about half an hour. They make for a great lunch the next day.

Fill a large pan with water, and balance your bamboo steamer on top. Once the steam really gets going, put the lid on and let it cook for about 20-25 minutes.

And they’re done! These typically should be dipped in some kind of sauce, but what kind is entirely up to you. We like a sweet chili sauce that they sell in the Asian section of our grocery store, but you could also do a sweet-n-sour sauce, straight soy sauce (gluten-free, of course,) or even a barbecue sauce.

Happy Eating!

Banh Bao

3/4 cup sugar
2 tsp salt
2 TBS baking powder
1 cup milk substitute
4 cups brown rice flour

1 lb. ground pork
1 head baby bok choy
2 green onions
1 TBS grated ginger
1 tsp salt
pinch white pepper
2 TBS water
1 TBS sherry
2 tsp sesame oil

Oh, decadence. How long I spent without thee.

Don’t get me wrong, you can make some GFCF cakes and cookies that are passable, even darn passable. But that gooey moistness they always promise me never seemed to materialize, until I finally figured out that I should just quit trying to make these ridiculous gluten-free flours and milk-free milks do things they’re not capable of doing. There are plenty of foods on this planet that fall into the category of gooey, and it turns out that more than a few of them are good for baking.

Like pumpkin, for example!

We’ll still need flour, of course, we’re just taking the goo burden off its shoulders. I make these with amaranth flour, but that’s only because we’re attempting to rotate our flours around here for food sensitivity’s sake. (Before I started adapting it left and right, the original recipe came from The Kid-Friendly ADHD & Autism Cookbook.) Bob’s All-Purpose Flour will work just fine too, or pretty much any other gluten-free flour you have on hand, because the taste won’t be coming through in the end. Truth be told, the amaranth flour goes in this recipe specifically because it’s apparently “yucky” in everything else I bake with it, but they never notice it here.

Right, so! Two cups of GF flour, and 1/2 teaspoon of xanthan gum.

Then 3/4 cup of sugar. Like most of the things I make, that’s just the starting amount. Once the kids acknowledged that they liked them, I started scaling back the sugar with each batch.

2 teaspoons of gluten-free baking powder…

1 teaspoon of cinnamon…

1/2 teaspoon of baking soda…

And 1/2 teaspoon of salt.

Then 8 Tablespoons of potato starch, and it’s finally time to blend all the dry ingredients thoroughly.

Now for the wet ingredients! Add 1/2 cup of canola oil to one 15-ounce can of pumpkin puree. Make sure you use one that’s just plain pumpkin and not some pre-flavored “pumpkin pie mix,” because you can never be sure what weird gluten-y stuff gets put into that sort of thing.

Then add 1/4 cup of almond milk.

Mix it all together thoroughly, then dump it in the bowl of flour and mix it all together thoroughly some more. If you’re not going to use an electric mixer, be prepared to do a fair amount of work getting it all evenly blended. On the upside, you will end up with massively ripped biceps like me.

And just in case the sugar content wasn’t enough to convince the kids, you can throw in 1/2 cup of GFCF chocolate chips to tempt them. (Enjoy Life and Tropical Source are two good brands.) You could also use GFCF mini-marshmallows, or even your favorite gluten-free crispy-rice cereal for added crunch.

Also, add in 1 Tablespoon of water. Why didn’t I add this earlier with the other wet ingredients? I forgot. Don’t tell anyone.

Spray a 9×13 baking dish liberally with canola oil, and scrape in the batter.

Then use a very wet hand to moosh the batter into place. You will probably need to shove your hand back under the faucet periodically to keep the batter from sticking to your fingers.

I can be pretty neurotic about getting the surface totally smooth. I certainly can’t imagine where my son got his OCD genes from…

Bake in a 350-degree oven for 35-40 minutes, until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Set the pan on a wire rack and let it cool completely before slicing. I like to cut them into long bars, because it helps me pretend they’re more of a snack than a straight-up dessert. Ooh, you know what else these are great for? Halloween treats! Don’t kid yourself, it will be October before you know it.

Happy Eating!

Pumpkin Bars

2 cups amaranth (or other gluten-free) flour
1/2 tsp xanthan gum
3/4 cup sugar
2 tsp GF baking powder
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
8 TBS potato starch

1 15-oz. can pumpkin puree
1/2 cup canola oil
1/4 cup almond milk
1 TBS water
1/2 cup GFCF chocolate chips

Until now! Here I will present to you the best sandwich bread recipe I have ever come across, by far. We start with Fleischmann’s active dry yeast. [As always, the brands I use were GFCF at the time of posting, but manufacturers can change their formulas without notice. Always check your labels!]

Pour one packet into a small bowl with 1 Tablespoon of sugar.

Now, heat up 1 1/3 cups of water to between 105 and 110 degrees. About 40 seconds in the microwave should do it, but do test it if you have a kitchen thermometer available. Yeast is a delicate little creature, and if the water is too hot, it will kill it, and if it’s too cold, the yeast won’t fully activate, and both of these will result in a bad loaf of bread.

Pour the warm water into the bowl with the yeast and sugar. Give everything a good stir, then set it aside while you mix the rest of the ingredients. As it sits, a thick foam should start to appear in the bowl. This is good, it means the yeast is going to work.

In a large bowl, mix 2 1/2 cups of Bob’s Red Mill All-Purpose Gluten Free flour, 1 teaspoon of salt…

And 2 teaspoons of xanthan gum.

Next, add in 4 Tablespoons of potato starch, and whisk everything together very thoroughly. If you have a flour sifter, that’s even better, but you can get the job done with a plain ol’ fork, if you work at it enough.

Now, measure out 1 1/2 Tablespoons of your preferred type of oil. You don’t actually have to get another bowl dirty for this, I was just setting things out methodically for this post. You can dump it straight into the flour.

And the other liquid ingredient, 1 teaspoon of apple cider vinegar. This stuff is critical for the baking process, it’s some kind of chemical reaction thing with the yeast. I don’t understand how it works, but I know it’s necessary. Bragg apple cider vinegar is definitely the best option since it’s minimally processed, but other brands will work too–just make sure it is actually “apple cider vinegar” and not “apple cider flavored vinegar,” because the latter very likely contains gluten.

Now your yeast bowl should be nice and frothy. If it doesn’t look like this, something’s wrong. There’s absolutely no point in trying to bake this loaf if your yeast hasn’t foamed, because that means it’s dead. Try and figure out what happened–you don’t, for example, want to microwave the water with the yeast already mixed in. Not that I ever did that, or anything. Yeah.

Dump the bowl of yeast right into your flour mixture, and the oil and vinegar as well if you haven’t already done so.

And get to stirring! I find that a whisk just fills up with dough in the middle and doesn’t mix things together very well at all, a fork is really what you want to use. Make sure you scrape along all the sides and bottom underneath the dough to get all the flour nice and blended in.

Now scrape your dough into a greased 9×5 dish. You’re going to want a spatula to get it all out, because it’s a sticky, gooey mess.

Now, get your hands very wet, and press the dough downward into the dish and smooth it out. As soon as the dough starts sticking to your fingers, go put them under the faucet again. I just leave the faucet running on very low, as I usually need to re-wet two or three times before the loaf is in place.

See? Nice and pretty.

Place a wet paper towel over the top, and set the dish aside in a dark, moderately warm location for about an hour so it can rise. I usually put it in the laundry room with the door closed (but not while the machines are running, because the vibrations will cause the bubbles to pop, instead of filling up our dough with fluffiness.)

See? Nice and tall. Now pop it in a 375 degree oven for one hour…

And you will have bread! You’ll know it’s done when the top is hard and the sides have pulled away from the dish.

Turn it out onto a wire rack, and let it cool completely before slicing. Doesn’t that look delicious? It’s a little smaller than a typical bread loaf, but about the same size as a store-bought gluten-free loaf. You can always make two sandwiches, if you need to.

Happy Eating!

GFCF (and Soy-free and Egg-free too!) Sandwich Bread

1 packet of Fleischmann’s active dry yeast
1 TBS sugar
1 1/3 cups water

2 1/2 cups Bob’s Red Mill All-Purpose GF Flour
1 tsp salt
2 tsp xanthan gum
4 TBS potato starch

1 1/2 TBS oil
1 tsp Bragg apple cider vinegar

Lamb! If that gives you an initial shudder, just remember: a baby lamb is no cuter than a baby cow, and we cook those little guys up all the time, right? Right. I get this stuff frozen at my normal grocery store, and I bet yours has it too. You just have to ask someone who works in the meat department, because it’s not going to be on some big obvious display. In an ideal homage to Greek food, it would actually be a lamb roast rather than ground lamb, but the important thing is the flavor.

Season it with 1/2 teaspoon of paprika, and 1/2 teaspoon of oregano.

Also add in 1 Tablespoon of dried, minced onion (or onion powder, whatever you have.)

Mash it all together so the seasonings are evenly distributed. Really stab at it; cooking is a great way to let your aggression out.

Okay, while that browns, we’re going to prepare the tzatziki, that yummy cucumber yogurt sauce that is a necessity for Greek food. Start by peeling one whole cucumber. You could use a peeler, but I find that with such a thick skin, it’s pretty easy to just cut it in half and then slice downward around the edges with a sharp knife.

Then we want to cut the seeds out. First quarter your long pieces…

And again, slice vertically to neatly remove the core of seeds all at once. (Don’t go thinking I do this one-handed though, I just paused mid-cut to take a photo. You do have to brace the top with your fingers for this to work right.)

Throw away the seeds and peel, and dice up everything you have left.

Now, you could just blend this into a pre-made casein-free yogurt and call it a day. But for us, that doesn’t work. I personally think soy yogurt is the most disgusting thing on the planet–I seriously can’t even stand to smell it in the kitchen. I don’t know what it is, but my tastebuds completely reject all soy “dairy” products on a very intense level. And while the flavor of the cucumber might not clash too badly with the mild flavor of coconut milk yogurt, the GFCF Boy is severely allergic to coconut, so that option is out for us too. But if it works for you, go for it!

Instead, I just make a modified version of my Ranch dressing. You can’t see it, but underneath the cucumber is 1/4 cup of Bob’s Red Mill finely ground almond meal. Then on top we add 1/2 Tablespoon of canola oil…

1/2 Tablespoon of potato starch, 1/2 teaspoon of salt…

And 1/4 cup of water. (This is less water than the dressing recipe uses, because the cucumber is going to add a ton of liquid to the mix.) You should also add in 1/4 tsp of garlic powder for a more authentic flavor–we’ve recently discovered that one of the GFCF Boy’s other longstanding, hard-to-pin-down allergies is garlic, so we’re avoiding it for now, but please don’t skimp on flavor just on my account.

Blend thoroughly, and pour into a small saucepan.

Cook over low heat for a few minutes until it has thickened to the right consistency, stirring frequently. As with the Ranch dressing, this is not a perfectly smooth dip, there is a little bit of graininess to the texture. But the flavor is great, and when it’s all mixed up with the other ingredients in the wrap it shouldn’t be an issue.

Oh yeah, did you forget we were making wraps, here? Your meat should be about done by now, and man, does it smell good. Just like Tino’s! (But I wouldn’t say that where he can hear you.)

I have tried and tried, but so far all of my GF pita experiments have been whopping failures. I’ve basically given up at this point, especially because these Food For Life brown rice tortillas are awesome. Even the GFCF Husband raved about how good they were. It’s not a thick doughy pita, it’s true, but for a GF bread product, it’s a darn good substitute.

One other tip, if you’re not using all the tortillas at once, don’t try to separate them in the package while they’re still frozen, you’ll just break them. Microwave the whole stack (outside of the plastic bag, of course) for about 15 seconds until you can peel off the number you need, and then refreeze the rest. It won’t hurt ‘em.

Add in some diced tomato and greens and you’re ready to go! Strictly speaking, romaine lettuce is the most authentic, but I just use the same baby greens I make salads out of. And if you have any tzatziki left over, it makes a great dip for chips or carrot sticks, or even a sandwich spread.

Happy Eating!

Greek Wraps with Cucumber Tzatziki

1 lb. ground lamb
1/2 tsp paprika
1/2 tsp oregano
1 TBS dried minced onion (or onion powder)

1 cucumber, peeled and seeded
1/4 cup Bob’s Red Mill almond meal
1/2 TBS canola oil
1/2 TBS potato starch
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 cup water
1/4 tsp garlic powder (optional)

tomatoes
lettuce
Food For Life brown rice tortillas

The first thing she had me do was cut back on the sugar in the old recipe. So now we start with 3 eggs, and only 3 Tablespoons of sugar. TheGFCFBoy never missed it.

Then came a major change: she wanted me to switch flours to one that is higher in protein. “But I don’t use flour,” I protested, “I use a baking mix.”

“Pah!” she said. “That’s just flour with xanthan gum, salt, and baking soda mixed in. You can do that, no sweat.” And she was right! So add 1 1/2 teaspoons of xanthan gum…

1 1/2 teaspoons of salt…

And 2 Tablespoons of baking powder. Make sure your baking powder is gluten-free–mine’s a generic brand, but Clabber Girl is one national brand that’s also GF. [As always, the brands I use were GFCF at the time of posting, but manufacturers can change formulas without notice. Always check your labels!]

Give it all a good stir, and add 3/4 cup of grapeseed oil. (Or stick with canola oil like in the original recipe. I don’t even remember at this point why grapeseed oil was supposed to be better. Sometimes I think our nutritionist is deliberately making me hunt down weird things for her own personal entertainment.)

Now apparently, even though I switched flours to one that’s higher in protein, this still wasn’t enough to appease the protein gods. (In all seriousness, the majority of kids don’t get enough protein, especially early in the day. Turns out a big breakfast of ham and eggs is actually really good for a growing kid. Too bad my kid won’t eat either of them.) So we supplement the mixture with 1/3 cup protein powder. Yes, it’s hemp. No, it doesn’t make you high. Moving on… This does make the final product ever so slightly green-tinted, unfortunately. I started small and added a little more each time I made a batch so he didn’t notice. You could instead use rice protein powder or golden pea protein powder if the color is going to be an insurmountable issue, but the hemp powder has the most bang for the buck.

The other thing we supplement our waffles with is calcium. Being dairy-free means it’s hard to get enough calcium, and adding this completely tasteless powder into their waffles meant the kids had one less vitamin to take each day. Just 2 Tablespoons ends up being 500 mg of calcium per waffle, which is a lot.

Incidentally, please remember that nothing on this website is intended to be taken as medical advice. Always consult a professional nutritionist or physician (one who’s DAN certified, if you want my personal opinion on the matter.)

Whew! Okay, we’re finally ready for the flour. And hey, turns out it’s the same stuff we use any other time we need a flour substitute, so that’s really handy. Who knew Bob’s All-Purpose was so high in protein? (Well, the nutritionist did, I suppose.) Add 4 1/2 cups to the mixing bowl, and stir it about gently with a fork until it’s a gooey, clumpy mess.

Somewhere along the way, I stopped having trouble getting the lumps out of my batter. I think part of it is just the consistency of the new ingredients, but part of it is I started adding the water gradually instead of all at once. So add just two cups of water to the bowl…

And mix as well as you can with a hand mixer. Then add another cup…

Mix again, and add one more cup of water, for a total of 4 cups.

Now, here’s another incredibly important lesson I’ve learned recently: it’s all about the waffle iron. The quality of your waffle iron will 100% determine the quality of your waffles, end of story. You can tweak your recipe forever looking for a better texture, but the day you get a professional-grade waffle iron you will realize just how meaningless it all was. Say it with me now. It’s all about the waffle iron.

Now, let me warn you, this King of All Wafflemakers is not cheap. Not at all. But you get what you pay for, as I learned the hard way. In just six months, I broke no less than 3 different mid-priced waffle irons–that is, I wasted over $100 on junk–before I decided it was time to get serious about the value of my product. I’ve actually been using this one for a few months now (which is a new record for this house,) because I wanted to make sure it would last before I officially recommended it. But even if there had been a problem, this one comes with a complete no-questions-asked one-year warranty, so already it’s cheaper than a new $35 waffle iron every 2 months. And that’s before you even get to all the reasons why this one’s better than all the others!

Reason number one: when they say nonstick, they actually mean nonstick. You do not have to spray this waffle iron with oil of any kind, ever. No, I am not kidding.

Reason number two: see that little digital timer? That’s the actual amount of time it will take to cook these waffles. The cheap waffle irons all took about 10-12 minutes to cook each set–just think about that time difference for a moment. I can make an entire batch of waffles (including cleanup!) in under 30 minutes now, as opposed to an hour and a half. I don’t know how often you have to restock on waffles, but in my house it’s about every 10 days, so this is a huge quality-of-life improvement for me.

You can manually adjust the cooking time, by the way, and there are settings for both texture and color. I like it on “crisp exterior, soft interior” and halfway between 3 and 4, myself.

There is one drawback to this model, however. The timer beeps very loudly, and there doesn’t seem to be any way to turn the sound off. You can just imagine that if this were in a busy cafe somewhere, it would need to be heard over the din of cooking and customers and everything else, but in my kitchen it’s pretty startling.

The waffles come out as one giant waffle, but they tear apart really easily. You may notice this wafflemaker makes very tall waffles; that is, the squares are very deep. So these new waffles don’t lend themselves as well to making sandwiches as some of my old waffle iron shapes did. Then again, those are broken, and this one’s not. Firmly squashing the waffles into a flatter shape with my palm seems to work just fine.

I’ve also figured out a better way to store them in the freezer, separating the stacks with strips of parchment paper rather than wrapping the whole bundle in plastic wrap. Cheaper and less waste this way.

Oh, and here’s how you clean a waffle iron, which I completely neglected to mention at all last time. After you’ve pulled your last waffle off, dump a Tablespoon of water on the grill and immediately close the lid. Any remaining residue in the crevices will be steamed right out. But there won’t be much, because like I said, there’s no need to oil it, so there’s no oil leftover.

And here’s my soldier line of waffles, ready to go into the freezer. I only get 25 out of a batch nowadays, but on the other hand, with the hemp powder they are definitely more filling, so the kids almost never eat more than one anymore.

Happy Eating!

The GFCFLady’s Waffles

3 eggs
3 TBS sugar
1 1/2 tsp xanthan gum
1 1/2 tsp salt
2 TBS baking powder
1/3 cup hemp protein powder (optional)
2 TBS Kirkman’s unflavored calcium powder (optional)
4 1/2 cups Bob’s Red Mill All-Purpose Flour blend
4 cups water

As promised, here is a handy little cilantro pesto recipe, good for using up leftover bunches, sneaking cilantro into your children’s diet for its detoxifying effects, or both. You may notice I was relying heavily on the “use it up” excuse this time, as my cilantro was getting a little wilty. So much so, that I figured it wasn’t even worth it to try to pick out the good parts from the bottom half, I just chopped it right off.

Of course, even when you try to take the lazy way out, you still end up having to pick out tons of thick stems from the top part. Learn from the error of my ways, people.

Once you’ve got a tightly-packed cup’s worth of usable leaves, throw them in the blender, and add 1/2 cup of Bob’s Red Mill ground almond meal. Or grind up your own almonds in the food processor, but really, that’s so much more work. And you already did all that work pulling out the stems, you deserve a break.

Add one clove of minced garlic…

2 Tablespoons of lemon juice…

And 6 Tablespoons of olive oil.

Now make a bunch of noise with your blender, and pray it doesn’t wake the kids up from their nap.

If it’s too thick, you can add a little more liquid. Just remember to keep the ratio of lemon juice to oil at 1:3. So one 1/4 teaspoon of lemon juice…

And three 1/4 teaspoons of oil.

Repeat as necessary until you have a lovely green paste. The lemon juice acts as a preservative, so it will keep in an airtight container in the fridge for weeks. Dip tortilla chips in it, use it as a spread for burgers, add some extra oil and toss it with rice pasta, or mix it into ground meat–whatever your kids will let you get away with.

Happy Eating!

Cilantro Pesto

1 cup packed fresh cilantro
1/2 cup of Bob’s Red Mill almond meal
1 clove of garlic
2 tablespoons lemon juice
6 tablespoons olive oil