But with the return of school comes the return of social events, and parties and extracurriculars can of course be a nightmare for a GFCF parent. Our school has actually put in a complete no-food policy for all class parties, thanks to skyrocketing food allergies, but there are still plenty of other opportunities for disaster. The short answer is always, you bring your own. These days you will very likely find that you are not the only parent having to do so.

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But really, who in their right mind would whip up a whole batch of cupcakes every time you have a birthday party to go to? If you find a parent with that kind of time on their hands, send them over to my house; I’ve got some chores they can do. No, the trick is to make one batch, and cleverly dole them out one at a time as necessary. First, we start with 2 cups of almond flour, and 1/4 cup of tapioca starch.

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(Note that tapioca flour and tapioca starch are the same thing, while potato flour and potato starch are not the same thing. Just another one of those illogical facts you’ve got to memorize.) Now add 1/2 teaspoon of salt, and 1/2 teaspoon of baking soda, and blend together evenly.

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In another bowl, mix your wet ingredients. First, 1/4 cup of grapeseed oil.

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Next, 1/2 cup of agave nectar. You can also use honey instead if you don’t have agave nectar available at your health food store, and you don’t want to order it online.

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And finally, 1/3 cup of unsweetened plain applesauce.

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Pour the wet ingredients into the dry, and mix everything into a sticky batter.

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Glop spoonfuls of the batter into muffin cups, leaving each one about 2/3 full. No need to smooth out the tops, the bumps will melt out in the oven. I’m not sure where I found these cupcake papers that have an outer foil wrapper so they will stand up on their own, but they’re kind of handy if your muffin tin is dirty, or already filled with batter.

Bake your cupcakes at 350 degrees for about 20 minutes, until the tops are golden. Make sure to let them cool completely before trying to pull them out of the muffin tin. Then put them in a Ziplock bag in the freezer for future use. You’ll probably want to taste-test one, though. Or three.

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Fast-forward several weeks or months, when your beloved offspring has been invited to celebrate the longevity of someone else’s beloved offspring. Pull one frozen cupcake out of the freezer, and while it’s thawing (or very gently microwaving up to room temperature, if you’re running behind schedule,) mix up a single serving of icing.

That’s 2 Tablespoons of powdered sugar, 1/2 Tablespoon of grapeseed oil, and 1/4 teaspoon of almond milk. You may notice that this is basically just our standard buttercream frosting recipe, scaled way down. Math is your friend! Granted, the one thing that won’t scale down well from the original recipe is the vanilla. If you’ve got an eyedropper available, feel free to put 6 and 1/4 drops of McCormick vanilla extract in as well. But honestly, it’s gonna taste just fine even if you skip it.

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As you whip everything vigorously with a fork, you will likely end up with this kind of mealy-textured mess. Now is the time to add tiny, tiny smidges of almond milk until you achieve a smooth texture. It shouldn’t be more than 1/4 teaspoon extra. If you go overboard and it gets too runny (or if it was too runny from the start,) sprinkle in more powdered sugar a pinch at a time until it’s right.

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I don’t know what was up with my lighting in this shot, but I promise you my icing was white, not gray. And my cupcake wasn’t burnt to a crisp either. Golden cupcake, white icing, that’s what you should be seeing here. Do not adjust your monitors.

For the record, it is in theory possible to make a full batch of frosting and freeze the cupcakes in an already-decorated state. But there are two potential problems with this approach. One, you will have to freeze them standing upright in a single layer rather than crammed in a plastic baggie, and you may or may not have the freezer space for this. And two, you will not be able to warm up the cupcake you need on the day of the party any faster than thawing at room temperature, because any added heat will make the frosting melt and break down.

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Pop it in a little tupperware container, and you’re ready to go! Don’t feel like you have to be limited to the cake portion of the birthday party, either. Just ask the birthday party hostess what she’ll be serving — chances are 99% it’s either pizza, or hamburgers and hot dogs, and you can easily bring along your own version of those for your child as well. Being GFCF doesn’t mean you have to be left out, not even for a moment.

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Happy Partying!

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Almond Flour Cupcakes

2 cups blanched almond flour
1/4 cup tapioca starch
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 cup grapeseed oil
1/2 cup agave nectar (or honey)
1/3 cup plain applesauce

Single Serving of Frosting

2 Tbs powdered sugar
1/2 Tbs grapeseed oil
1/4 tsp almond milk, up to 1/4 tsp more

Of course ours isn’t truly Buttered Chicken, but Margarined Chicken just doesn’t have the same ring to it. I hope you can understand why I called this recipe decadent a second ago: the first step is to melt an entire stick of Fleischmann’s Unsalted (not Original) Margarine in a very large pan. Yes, an entire stick. Just remind yourself how glad you are that it’s not an entire stick of real butter going straight to your hips. [As always, the brands I use were GFCF at the time of posting, but manufacturers can change formulas without warning. Always check your labels!]

As a side note, you could also use the traditional Indian butter known as ghee, which is what truly authentic Buttered Chicken recipes call for. While ghee is made with real dairy butter, the cooking process that makes it into ghee removes the casein. You have to balance how sensitive your kids are to dairy, and how much you trust the manufacturer to really process out every last molecule of casein. I have known families that use it with absolutely no ill effects, but we don’t bother with it.

Meanwhile, dice up two onions, and toss them in with the margarine over low heat so they can start getting nice and golden.

One of the defining features of Indian cuisine is the ridiculous number of spices (especially when you consider the fact that garam masala is a blend of spices in and of itself!) But if your family ends up loving this recipe as much as mine does, you can measure out a second little container of all these spices as you’re going along so you’ll already have one pre-made for the next time. We’re going to use 2 tsp garam masala, 2 tsp cilantro (also known as coriander,) 1 tsp cumin, 1 tsp chili powder, 1 tsp cardamom, 1/2 tsp black pepper, and 1 tsp salt. Whew!

You’re also going to add in 1 teaspoon each of minced garlic and ginger. If you want to do the extra work and mince it fresh yourself, be my guest. Me, I’ve got laundry to do. Among other things.

Just in the last year, the GFCF community has been granted a huge gift in the form of this new coconut milk yogurt by So Delicious. Of course, various soy yogurts have been around forever, and you could still use one of those in this recipe if you prefer. But can I tell you? I do not prefer. I really, really hate the taste of soy-based anything. I can smell that stuff across the room, and it is not my cup of tea. Plus, soy is one of the top 8 major allergens, so it’s really nice to have an alternative, or at least one that you don’t have to ferment yourself in your own yogurt machine. Conveniently, we need exactly one container, but if you happen to be working with a larger tub of yogurt, it’s going to be roughly 2/3 cup.

Then add 2 Tablespoons of tomato paste, stir vigorously, and your sauce is ready. See, that wasn’t so hard, was it? Do double-check that your tomato paste brand is gluten-free. There should be nothing in that can but tomatoes.

Cut up 4 chicken breasts, and combine with the sauce so everything’s nice and coated. Yes, this is kind of a large recipe. On the one hand, you could easily cut it in half. But on the other hand, it reheats extremely well, so leftovers are a great choice too.

By now your onions should be looking good, so you can go ahead and turn up the heat a bit and stir the chicken mixture into the pan rapidly. You don’t want to cook the little pieces all the way through yet, just get the outsides seared — maybe 5-8 minutes, max.

Then pour in 1/2 cup of water…

And snuggle two bay leaves under the surface. Let them simmer in their fragrant little hot tub for 30 minutes, stirring occasionally.

After your dish has been simmering for 30 minutes, it’s time to start your rice. (Do yourself a favor and buy a rice cooker, if you haven’t already. You can’t put a price on perfectly-cooked rice.) I usually prepare about 1 1/2 cups, but my plan is never to have leftover rice, just leftover buttered chicken. So if you’ve made peace with the texture of reheated rice — obviously I haven’t — you may want to make more so your leftovers are in equal amounts.

Stir in 1/3 cup of almond milk, and allow it to simmer for another 15-20 minutes, until the rice is done.

Don’t forget to fish those bay leaves out of the pot before you serve it though. The kids might think you’re trying to poison them if they find plants hidden in their meal.

Happy Eating!

The GFCF Lady’s Buttered Chicken

2 tsp garam masala
2 tsp cilantro (coriander)
1 tsp cumin
1 tsp chili powder
1 tsp cardamom
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp black pepper
2/3 cup coconut milk yogurt
2 Tbs tomato paste

1 stick (8 TBS) Fleischmann’s Unsalted margarine
2 onions
4 chicken breasts
1/2 cup water
2 bay leaves
1/3 cup almond milk

First, start with one onion and one shallot. A shallot is like the unholy love child of onion and garlic, so I like to think of this as a little mother-and-son family portrait. Well, if you pretend the knife isn’t there I guess. That does make it kind of weird.

Chop them up and start to sautee them with some olive oil, in the bottom of whatever passes for a giant soup pot in your kitchen.

While those cook, it’s time to prep the tomatoes. You’re going to want about 15 to 18 standard-sized hothouse tomatoes. You could also use roma tomatoes, but you’d probably want to toss in some extras to make up for the size difference. First, cut the tops off, then cut them into fourths. You may notice I messed up and forgot to cut the top off this one first, but the picture came out so nicely I decided to use it anyway.

Now, stand them on their flat side, and run the knife through in a C-shape to remove the inner guts. It’s a lot of cuts, but it goes pretty fast this way. If your tomatoes are super ripe, you won’t even need the knife, you can just swipe your thumb through and it’ll come right out.

Also roughly chop up about six to ten leaves of fresh basil.

When the onions are translucent, dump in all the tomatoes and the basil, and add 4 cups of gluten-free chicken broth. [As always, the brands I use were GFCF at the time of posting, but manufacturers can change formulas without warning. Always check your labels!]

Bring to a boil, and simmer uncovered for 30 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Now whip out your immersion blender, and start pureeing everything in sight. Would it be possible to transfer portions of this to a regular blender and do it that way? Maybe, but I’m pretty sure you’d be left with big chunks of tomato and basil in there. At the very least, you would probably want to peel the tomatoes before cooking them if you’re going to do it that way. (You would do that by plunging them into rapidly boiling water for about a minute, after which the skins should slide right off and you can add them to the soup pot for simmering.) But it’s a wasted effort if you’re using the immersion blender, because those things can pulverize everything you throw at them.

Now add 2 teaspoons of balsamic vinegar. Real balsamic vinegar ought to be gluten free, but it’s always a good idea to double check. Make sure it’s not really just “flavored” vinegar, and it doesn’t have the word “malt” anywhere in it.

Then add one cup of almond milk. It will probably need about 1/2 teaspoon of salt as well, but that will depend on how salty your brand of chicken broth is, so you may need to adjust that measurement a bit.

I’ve already expressed my feelings on fake cheeses, but if your kids like them, by all means, bust out the gluten-free bread and make it a classic grilled cheese and tomato soup meal. I like it with these slightly spicy Rice & Adzuki Bean chips, personally.

Happy Eating!

Tomato Basil Soup

1 onion
1 shallot
15-18 whole tomatoes
4 cups GF chicken broth
6-10 leaves fresh basil
2 tsp balsamic vinegar
1 cup almond milk

So what’s a GFCF mom to do? Well, making great homemade mashed potatoes isn’t hard at all, if you have a good recipe. And hey, if we’re bothering to make our own mashed potatoes, we might as well make them perfectly, right?

First, peel your pile of potatoes. (And say that ten times fast.) This is approximately 2.5 pounds of potatoes, based on the fact that it’s about half of a standard 5-pound bag. Use the other half for Potato Salad or Tandoori Chicken later in the week. Or, double the recipe and save the leftovers for Shepherd’s Pie. Oh humble potato, is there anything you can’t do?

Chop them into decent-sized chunks, and boil for about 20-30 minutes, until they are really thoroughly cooked. When you stab a fork in to check them, the piece should pretty much just fall in half. This is more cooked than you would want for, say, potato salad, where you expect the potatoes to retain a little firmness.

Drain the potatoes and return them to the pot. See how they’re all falling apart on their own back there? Now add 4 Tablespoons (aka 1/4 cup) of Fleischmann’s Unsalted Margarine. Make sure you do not use the Original flavor; only the unsalted kind is dairy-free. [As always, the brands I use were GFCF at the time of posting, but manufacturers can change formulas without warning. Always check your labels!]

Stir everything around until the margarine is melted, then pour in about 1/3 to 1/2 cup of almond milk. You’re never going to get exactly the same amount of potatoes in any given batch, and the threshold between dry and soupy can be very thin. So start with a little less and add with caution as needed.

Look at that fluffy, perfectly smooth texture! You’d never believe I managed that with a spoon and a bicep. Actually, that’s because I didn’t, I used the hand mixer like any normal human being. That thing will hunt down and decimate any remaining lumps in no time flat. If you have persistent lumps, that’s a good indication that the potatoes weren’t boiled for long enough. It’s really very hard to overboil potatoes.

You’ll want to add at least 1/2 teaspoon of salt, especially since we used unsalted margarine. Some people may prefer more, but 1/2 teaspoon is a good starting point.

And if you want to be all snazzy, add a teaspoon of parsley and declare them to be herbed mashed potatoes.

You could also add a teaspoon of minced garlic if that’s your thing, but I like them just the way they are: perfect.

Happy Eating!

Perfect Mashed Potatoes

2.5 pounds russet potatoes
4 TBS Fleischmann’s unsalted margarine (NOT Original flavor)
1/3 cup almond milk
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp parsley

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

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

We start with two cans of pears in 100% juice. Drain the first can into a glass and set it aside, because we’re going to use it for the sauce. The other one can go down the sink, unless you feel like making your kids drink pear juice at breakfast or something.

Start sauteeing the pears in 2 Tablespoons of Fleischmann’s unsalted margarine (not the “original” flavor.) [As always, the brands I use were GFCF at the time of posting, but manufacturers can change their recipes at any time. Always check your labels!] Give them a good 5-7 minutes on each side, until they start getting a nice brown color.

Meanwhile, dice up two shallots. If you’ve never used shallots, they’re like the illegitimate love child of onion and garlic. Little clove shapes like garlic, with layered insides like an onion, and the taste… well, it’s like onion and garlic together. It’s amazingly delicious, is what I’m saying.

Once the pears are golden, set them aside.

In the same pan the pears came from, add another two Tablespoons of margarine and the shallots.

Sprinkle in a rounded teaspoon of thyme, and sautee everything together until the shallots are softened, about 2-3 minutes.

Meanwhile, start your pork chops in a second pan. (You could also do this with chicken breasts instead, if you want.) Just salt both sides and sautee them over medium heat in a little olive oil, nothing fancy. We’re saving all our fancy for the sauce, you see.

Add 1/4 cup of sweet white cooking wine to the pan of shallots, and let it boil off for a few minutes until it’s reduced to a glaze.

Once it’s nice and gooey, then add in 1/3 cup of the pear juice you saved…

…and also 1 cup of almond milk.

Don’t forget to flip your pork chops, by the way.

Keep simmering the sauce until it thickens. You should be able to drag a spoon through it and leave a hole.

Now I will be the first to admit, this meal is not particularly visually appealing. The three colors are each fine by themselves, I guess, but put together they look terrible. I blame the almond milk; it just makes for an ugly sauce, every time. But please don’t let that stop you from trying this, because the taste–oh, the taste is heaven. The shallots, and the sweetness of the pears, and… seriously, eat the first bite with your eyes closed and try to tell me I’m wrong. You won’t be able to, because you’ll be too busy cramming bites 2, 3 and 4 into your mouth one after the other. It’s that good.

Happy Eating!

Pork Chops with Pears

2-4 pork chops
4 TBS Fleischmann’s unsalted margarine
2 cans of pears in 100% juice
2 shallots
1 rounded tsp. thyme
1/4 cup sweet white cooking wine
1 cup almond milk
1/3 cup pear juice from can

I think this is perhaps my favorite photo I have ever taken (excluding certain photos of my adorable offspring, towards which I have an obvious bias.) Just goes to show that if you take enough pictures, some are going to turn out great no matter how mediocre of a photographer you are. Funny side note: a friend of mine asked me recently about what sort of lighting I use for the photos on this site. Uh, it’s just my kitchen fluorescents and the camera flash, y’all. I mean, I love you and everything, but I’m not going to work that hard at it. I’ve got food to cook!

Here’s a less gorgeous photo of that same pasta so you can see what the bag looks like. I think we’ve settled on this as our favorite GF pasta, but I reserve the right to change my opinion in the future.

So, while we boil about 8 oz. of that pasta, let’s make the sauce. The base is Marie’s Coleslaw dressing, which is absolutely delicious. It’s over in the refrigerated section with the pre-bagged lettuce in my grocery store, not on the shelf with the other dressings. Not all Marie’s flavors are dairy-free, so don’t just grab one willy-nilly, it has to be the Coleslaw flavor. [As always, the brands I use were GFCF at the time of posting, but manufacturers can change formulas without warning. Always check your labels!]

Pour half the jar into a bowl, and save the rest for a salad (or another batch of this pasta, once you discover your family has devoured it all.) Then add 6 Tablespoons of Hellmann’s mayonnaise.

1 Tablespoon of sugar…

And 1 Tablespoon of almond milk.

Then, dice 2 ribs of celery. I like the pieces pretty small, so I cut the stalk into fourths before dicing along the ends.

Then add 1/2 cup of dried cranberries. If you use a different brand, make sure you double-check that they’re not dusted with flour to prevent sticking.

Finally, add 1/2 a teaspoon of dried, minced onion. (Onion powder would work too.)

Now, meanwhile, your pasta will have produced this nasty sludge, because that’s what GF pastas do.

I actually like to drain it about halfway through, give it a really good rinse, and refill the pot with new water before returning it to the heat.

This gives the pasta a chance to clear the coooked-rice sludge out of the middle of the tubes while it finishes cooking, which I think helps the flavor and texture dramatically. Plus, it just looks a lot less gross sitting there on the stove.

See? All clean! When the pasta’s really done cooking, make sure you rinse it in the strainer until it’s not hot anymore, otherwise it will do funky things to the mayonnaise.

Now this step is critical: cover it and put it in the fridge for at least 6-8 hours. It needs time for the flavors to blend and mellow, especially the cranberries and the celery. Plus, the sauce will thicken, which is good because right now you’re going to be thinking, “What the heck is this nonsense? It’s way too watery!” Trust me, the cranberries and celery are going to soak up all that extra moisture.

I wish I had a picture of this all displayed nicely on a plate, but the truth is, I took it to a potluck that night, and it was basically all eaten. And keep in mind, this was not some weird GFCF potluck, I just put this on the table next to all the other food and only the people who knew it was mine had any idea.

Happy Eating!

The GFCF Lady’s Pasta Salad

8 oz. GF pasta elbows
1/2 jar (6 oz.) Marie’s Coleslaw dressing
6 TBS Hellmann’s mayonnaise
1 TBS sugar
1 TBS almond milk
2 ribs celery
1/2 cup dried cranberries
1/2 tsp dried, minced onion (or onion powder)

First, some spices: 1/2 teaspoon of ginger, 1/8 teaspoon paprika, 1 teaspoon of garlic powder, and 1 teaspoon of Five Spice. If you’ve never heard of Five Spice, it’s a Chinese blend of cinnamon, anise, ginger, fennel and pepper. There are some traditional regional variations, but it should always include the key flavors of cinnamon and anise. If you’re lucky you might be able to find it at your grocery store, but if not any Asian market should have it. It’s so good, there are areas of Hawaii where it’s just served on the table right alongside the salt and pepper.

Chop up two chicken breasts (make sure they’re not injected with suspect “broth” in the packaging) and toss them with the spices until everything is evenly coated.

Set the chicken aside for a moment while you get out half a cup of dried cranberries. Like chicken breasts, dried fruit is another tricky ingredient that they can sneak gluten into–make sure yours aren’t dusted with flour to prevent sticking. [As always, the brands I use were GFCF at the time of posting, but manufacturers can change recipes without warning. Always check your labels!] We don’t really want them to be totally dried in this dish though, so fill the little cup with water and let them soak while you cook the rest of the meal.

While the cranberries soak, you can start sauteeing the chicken pieces in some olive oil.

Once they’re opaque (but not necessarily cooked through all the way,) add in about 8 oz. of mushrooms. Fresh is better, of course, but when you’re desperate, canned works too. As it turns out, I’m often desperate because I’m really no good at planning ahead.

Then, start to boil your pasta. This is 8 oz. of Tinkyada brown rice pasta, but I forget what cute name the Italians gave to this shape. I’m pretty sure it doesn’t count as penne, even though that’s what the package said, because penne is supposed to be ridged lengthwise and cut diagonally at the ends. But anyway, pretty much anything other than spaghetti will work–macaroni, fusilli, those little twistie shapes that I also can’t remember the name of…

Now! While your pasta is boiling, and your chicken and mushrooms are continuing to sautee, and your cranberries are still soaking over on the counter, it’s time to toast some almonds. Put half a cup of slivered almonds in a bowl, and microwave it for one minute at a time, stirring them around a bit in between. It should be around 2-3 minutes, but you’ll know when they’re done because they will start to smell good, and when you bite into one it will crunch instead of squeak.

This was the part of the recipe I was terrified to try to emulate. Used to be, we’d be pouring in 2 cups of half-and-half at this point. Is it any wonder we loved the dish? How could a milk substitute ever hope to compare? But I’m over the grieving process. I am completely and totally happy using 2 cups of almond milk instead. Mostly.

Fortunately this part didn’t have to change: 1/4 cup of Grey Poupon dijon mustard.

And 2 Tablespoons of honey.

Of course plain almond milk is just not robust enough to make a cream sauce by itself, so add in 1 Tablespoon of potato starch to thicken it up (and like corn starch, you want to dissolve it in a minimal amount of water before pouring it into your pan, otherwise you’ll never get the lumps to dissolve properly.)

Drain your cranberries, and add them to the pan while the sauce thickens.

Only add the pasta once the sauce is the right consistency, or it will continue to cook in the sauce and get mushy.

Toss in the nuts just before serving so they stay crunchy. And there you have it! I will admit, it’s much less visually-appealing than it used to be. Rice pasta just has a kind of grayish tint to it that no amount of sauce seems to be able to cover. But the kids agree that the taste is pretty close to the original, so I put it in the win column.

Happy Eating!

Creamy Penne Pasta

1 tsp. garlic powder
1/2 tsp. ginger
1/8 tsp. paprika
1 tsp. Five Spice
2 organic chicken breasts
8 oz. rice pasta
1/2 cup slivered almonds
1/2 cup dried sweetened cranberries
2 cups almond milk
1/4 cup Grey Poupon
2 TBS honey