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

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

But in this recipe, it’s at least a reasonably fair moniker, because it does include some very Southwestern ingredients. If you’d rather call it Arizona Chicken Soup to promote diversity among the Southwestern states, that’s fine by me. We start with about one pound of plain old chicken. (And I do mean plain–stay away from broth-injected packaged chicken, unless you like to gamble with your gluten content, which I’d hope you wouldn’t, being on this site and all.) These are some extra tenders I had leftover in the freezer, but you could do any kind of light or dark meat, it doesn’t matter. Boil them until they’re cooked through, about 15 minutes depending on the thickness of your pieces.

Drain the chicken and set the pieces aside. In the same pot (it doesn’t have to be the same pot, but why get extra dishes dirty?) pour in 4 cups of gluten-free chicken stock. Pacific Foods makes a good one. [As always, the brands I use were GFCF at the time of posting, but manufacturers can change formulas at any time. Always double-check your lablels.]

While the stock is warming up, shred the chicken pieces with two forks.

Also, measure out 1 1/2 cups of gluten-free salsa. The spice level is entirely up to you (and what your kids will tolerate.) They make some salsas that are as mild as ketchup, and others that will take a few layers of skin off your mouth. Mine is a local brand, so you’re unlikely to be able to find it in your area, but Tostitos (All-Natural line of flavors only) is another option that’s sold pretty much everywhere.

Oh and look, this one even calls itself Texasalsa. In my defense, I used to prefer a different flavor of Jardine’s 7J Ranch salsa, but that one had gluten in it, alas. Just goes to show, you can’t mentally mark whole brands as safe or not, you have to verify each individual product.

Add the chicken and salsa to the pot, and toss in some frozen corn. I guess this is probably about a cup, I just give the bag a couple of shakes until it looks right.

Also add in 2 Tablespoons of lime juice. You can cut back on this if your salsa is already on the acidic side. Mine is, but I like the extra bite anyway. And yes, the GFCFBoy likes it this way too–he’s got sensory issues with his mouth, and loves extremely spicy or sour flavors. Used to eat wasabi peas as a toddler, no joke.

Chop up about 1/4 cup of fresh cilantro. If you don’t have fresh, just skip it, don’t even bother with the dried stuff for this. Chances are decent your salsa already has some of that in it anyway. Fresh makes all the difference in the flavor here. Plus, there is evidence that cilantro is a natural detoxifier, among its many other health benefits. Some even go so far as to suggest that in the right doses it can be as effective as chelation drugs at removing heavy metals from the body, which is a topic of interest to many parents of autistic children. (And if you’re looking for other places to sneak cilantro into the diet of you or your offspring, I’ve got a nice cilantro pesto recipe that I promise I’ll post sometime soon.)

Now, I know that cilantro is a very polarizing herb; people either love it or they hate it. There are even some scientific studies confirming that a portion of the population has a genetic variance in their tongues’ chemical receptors, which sadly makes cilantro taste absolutely horrid to them. If you’re one of these people, don’t worry, there’s a community just for you. Also, if you’re one of these people, just try using parsley in this recipe instead. It won’t be the same as my soup, but I’d imagine that’s kind of what you’re going for.

Jeez, enough with the cilantro already, eh? Just scrape it into the pot and get on with it! Okay, I hear you. We’re almost done.

Season with salt to suit your tastes. Again, this depends on the base flavor of your salsa. I use about a teaspoon or so.

At this point what we’ve got is pretty thin. If you like it that way, great, but I tend to like my soups to be just a little thicker. So I mix a Tablespoon of potato starch in the minimal amount of water needed to dissolve it, and add that to the simmering pot. Sometimes I’m impatient and add two, it just depends. Another thing you can do if you want to stretch the soup further is add a cup or two of cooked white rice.

Let it simmer and reduce for as long as you like. Me, I usually just barely get everything warm enough before I start greedily ladling it into my bowl. This goes great with tortilla chips (make sure they’re 100% corn,) and even better with a side of guacamole. I gotta tell you, guacamole absolutely saved me when we first started this diet. It had that perfect creamy texture I was craving–everything that used to get cheese or sour cream on it got a heaping glop of guacamole instead. I’ll spare you the details, but suffice it to say that no combination was too weird. I was a guacamole fiend for weeks on end.

Happy Eating!

Texas Chicken Soup

1 lb. boneless chicken pieces
4 cups Pacific Foods chicken stock
1 1/2 cups GF salsa
1 cup frozen corn
1/4 cup fresh cilantro

OPTIONAL:
2 TBS lime juice
1 tsp salt
1 TBS potato starch dissolved in water
1 cup cooked rice

I make this in pretty small batches, but you can double it for a more reasonable quantity. Start with 1/4 cup of finely ground almond meal. You could use cashews or sunflower seeds if you prefer, but then you’d have to grind them yourself in a food processor. I already have this stuff on hand, so that’s what I use.

Then, 1/2 Tablespoon of potato starch. I don’t recommend substituting corn starch here, because it just doesn’t get as smooth, and this recipe needs all the smoothness it can get. Actually, I often end up using potato starch in my recipes that call for corn starch for this very reason. It’s one of the few specialty ingredients that costs about the same as its mainstream counterpart, so why not?

If you want, you can blend it a little at this point, just to see if you can get that almond meal any smoother. I can’t really decide if it helps or not, since I’m usually not the one eating it. Then add 1/2 teaspoon of salt. Please note that this photo is not incredibly washed-out, it is actually an artistic statement on the blinding simplicity of our most fundamental seasoning. I did it on purpose, I swear.

Then 1/2 Tablespoon of canola oil…

And about 1/2 cup of water. I tend to leave it a little on the short side, because you can always add more later if it’s too thick, but you don’t want to have to cook it for too long trying to thicken a mixture that’s too thin.

And 1/4 teaspoon of garlic powder.

And blend away!  (Man, my kids and I could spend all day watching videos on that site. Brutal destruction of objects never gets old.) You could also do this in a food processor, it’s your choice. Blend for at least a few minutes on the highest speed, in order to get it as smooth as possible.

Pour the resulting mixture into a small pan, and cook over low heat while stirring constantly.

Okay, not quite constantly, you can take a few seconds to add in the seasonings. This is 1/4 teaspoon of parsley.

1/4 teaspoon of dried chives…

And just a pinch of dill. Or a couple of shakes, or whatever. A really tiny amount.

It will look like too much seasoning at first, because everything will be floating on the top. But don’t worry, as the sauce thickens the little green flecks will settle into the middle and bottom of it too, and have a more balanced appearance. And speaking of thickening, it should be starting to do that already, so make sure you keep stirring. Burning the bottom of this is the last thing you want to do.

Once it’s nice and thick like Ranch dressing ought to be, pour it into a container of your choice and chill it in the fridge. This little plastic tub actually came from a specialty food store in my neighborhood, and I tricked my kid and just kept refilling it after I figured out how to make this stuff myself–at a much cheaper price, I might add. You know how much that original container cost me? $9.00. … Nine. Dollars. I had no choice but to learn how to make it myself, after I ran out of arms and legs.

Happy Eating!

GFCF Ranch Dressing

1/4 cup Bob’s Red Mill Almond Meal
1/2 TBS potato starch
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 TBS canola oil
1/2 cup water
1/4 tsp garlic powder
1/4 tsp parsley flakes
1/4 tsp dried chives
pinch dried dill