Potato Corn Chowder--A Gluten-Free, Vegetarian Warmer-Upper Recipe

I'm not a vegetarian myself, but my grandmother was, and I believe this recipe is one of hers. I learned it from her oldest daughter, my aunt Bertha.

Potato Corn Chowder Recipe (Gluten-Free and Meat-Free)

Images: iClipart

Ingredients:

• 1 14-oz. can of creamed corn
• 1 garlic clove
• 4 potatoes, peeled
• 1 carrot, shredded
• 1/2 small yellow onion, diced
• 14 oz. of cold milk (just use the creamed corn can to measure)
• 1 tbsp. potato starch flour
• 1 tbsp. rice flour (brown or white)
• 1 tsp. (that's right tsp. not Tbsp.) tapioca flour
• salt and pepper to taste

Directions:
1. Cube the potatoes and boil them until tender. Drain and set aside.
2. In a 2-qt. sauce pan, mix creamed corn, garlic (minced), carrot bits, onion, and most of the milk.
3.With about 1/4 cup of the milk leftover, mix all three gluten-free flours--potato starch, rice flour, and tapioca flour--into the milk until they're no longer lumpy. This will be your thickener. Set it aside for now. But when the time comes, only use as much as you feel you need.
4. Place corn mixture on the stove and heat it slowly and evenly (medium low temperature or medium, depending on your stove), stirring pretty much constantly to keep milk from burning to the bottom. Once corn mixture is warm, add spuds.
5. Gradually add thickener (milk and flour mixture). Cook until the potatoes are warm inside and the soup is thick enough to your taste.

If you want to make this a non-vegetarian dish, just add chopped ham or cooked bacon bits to the soup when you add the spuds.

This soup is a yummy way to warm up the whole family on a cold December afternoon. It makes about 4 bowls of chowder. It goes great with garlic toast, corn meal muffins, or Glutino crackers.

Next week I'll post my instructions on how to make garlic toast on a cookie sheet with 1/2 gluten-free toast and 1/2 gluten-normal toast. That was a tricky thing to figure out when I first got started cooking GF.

Gluten-Free Chocolate-Dipped Pretzels--Is It Even Possible? YES!

When Christmas rolls around, my GF kid always requests my gluten-free chocolate-dipped pretzels. Did you know there was such a thing as gluten-free pretzels? My favorite brands are Glutino and Ener-G. They're good as plain ol' pretzels, but they're even better dipped in chocolate and rolled in sugar sprinkles. Here's how you do it...

Gluten-Free Chocolate-Dipped Pretzels

Image: iClipart

Ingredients:

• 1 pkg. GF pretzels
• 1 monster-big Hershey's milk chocolate bar
• GF candy sprinkles (we use Betty Crocker)

Directions:
1. Clean out a tin can that once held a gluten-free food (like canned corn). Make sure it's perfectly dry inside.
2. Break up the Hershey bar into small chunks and put them in the bottom of the tin can.
3. Put an inch of water in the bottom of a sauce pan. Place this on the stove and bring to a boil.
4. Using protection so your hands don't get burned (I use an OveGlove), hold the tin can of chocolate in one hand and a spoon in the other. Place the base of the tin can in the sauce pan of water and hold it there (it tends to want to float on the water, but you must press it down and keep it in the pan--don't let water seep into the tin can at all) while stirring the chocolate with the other hand.
5. You may need to reduce the heat on your sauce pan, so you don't burn yourself. Keep stirring the chocolate in your tin can until it has all turned fluid.
6. Remove the tin can from the sauce pan and turn off the stove. Be careful not to let any water drip into the tin can of chocolate.
7. Fill a saucer with candy sprinkles and spread a sheet of wax paper out on the kitchen counter. Use a pair of tongs to dip each individual pretzel in the can of chocolate, then in the candy sprinkles. Allow it to cool until hardened on the wax paper.
8. Do this over and over again, with each individual pretzel, until you run out of either chocolate or pretzels. Unused chocolate can be discarded, tin can and all, in the trash.

You know how your GF kid never gets to eat any of those yummy cookies and candies everyone has on display at their house at Christmas time? Well this is a handy substitute. Put half a dozen of these chocolate-covered pretzels in a mini-Rubbermaid food container, in your purse. When you get to that party where your kid can't have any of the food, whip out your home-made pretzels, and voila! Your GF child is the envy of everyone there.

Gluten-Free Ham Sandwiches and a Recipe for a Gluten-Free Egg McMuffin

Image: iClipart

There are lots of ways to make a ham sandwich appealing to a kid. One is the cookie cutter sandwich, like the ones I posted about back in October. (See image.) These are perfect for lunchboxes. You can go with a theme (like cutting them in pumpkin shapes for Thanksgiving/harvest time), or just offer a variety of shapes and let the child use his/her imagination with whatever you send to school.

Another ham sandwich favorite is the gluten-free toasted ham and cheese sandwich. For this, you just layer ham and cheese inside your sandwich; butter the outside of your sandwich; and grill it, like you would with a grilled cheese sandwich. These aren't good re-heated though, so save this sandwich for weekends and Thanksgiving vacation, when the kids are at home.

Finally, remember that breads come in a variety of shapes and sizes. Sandwhiches can be made on gluten-free biscuits, gluten-free cornmeal muffins, and even crackers. (Look back at my post on gluten-free home-made lunchables for more on that.)

Which hams are safe? Not all, of course. Read labels to be sure. But at the time when I wrote this post, the following hams were safe:
Many Hormel Hams
Some Canadian Bacons
Carl Buddig Hams and Other Lunch Meats 

I also sometimes buy my GF daughter those expensive GF English muffins made by Food For Life, and we make her Egg McMuffins A-la Mom. To make Egg McMuffins, this is all you need to do:

Gluten Free Egg McMuffins

Ingredients:

• 1 egg
• 1 capful of apple cider vinegar
• water
• 1 slice GF ham
• 1 slice cheddar cheese
• butter or margarine (to taste)
• Food for Life GF English muffin

Directions:

1. Poach an egg in a cup of water and a capful of cider vinegar. (I just boil it directly in the water/vinegar mix, but I know ritzy people have real poachers.)
2. Pull the poached egg out of the pan of water and set it on something to dry (I use paper towels, but the egg sometimes sticks to that). Fry a slice of GF ham in a skillet and set a slice of cheddar cheese on top to melt.
3. Meanwhile, slice your Food for Life GF English Muffin in half and toast it until crisp (they usually take longer than GF bread does for some reason). When they're done in the toaster, spread butter or margarine on both slices.
4. Layer ham, cheese, and egg between the two slices of English muffin, making a breakfast sandwich. I usually salt and pepper my egg, but my GF daughter just likes hers plain.

Gluten-Free Fruit Smoothie Recipe--for the Kid Who Needs a Little Vitamin C

Your kid catch the crud this winter? Did you know strawberries are high in Vitamin C? That's right. And a strawberry smoothie goes down pretty easy, even when it's tough to swallow. Here's the recipe I use:

Image: iClipart

Gluten-Free Strawberry Smoothie

Ingredients:

• 8 oz. pre-mixed (already prepared) Hawaii's Own Guava Strawberry Juice
• 4-6 frozen strawberries (they can vary greatly in size, so I usually eyeball it)
• 6 oz. container of Yoplait strawberry yogurt (it says gluten-free right on the label now)

Directions:
1. Place 8 oz. of guava strawberry juice (again, it's already been mixed--no longer in its frozen concentrated state) in a blender with 4 frozen strawberries.
2. Mix on medium to high, depending on your blender's durability. When the strawberries have turned all mushy, shut the blender off and check the consistency of the fluid in the blender. Is it still very watery? Does it have a moist but less watery consistency? If it's really watery, add another strawberry or two until it's more like the consistency of a root beer float that's been all stirred up.
3. While the blender is off, dip your spoon in there and check to see if any strawberry chunks are settling to the bottom. If so, put the lid back on it and give it a bit longer to finish mixing. You don't want any strawberry icicles choking your child!
4. Shut off the blender again before adding the yogurt. Once you've mixed that in, it should really have the consistency of a milkshake.

This recipe makes enough smoothie for two small ones or one mega-smoothie. But be careful, drinking a mega-smoothie often leads to brain freeze!

Gluten-Free Nachos with Home-Made Guacamole Dip (Recipe)--Part 2

You know how to make the nachos now. You experimented with it last week, right? Here's the recipe for yummy guacamole dip that goes great with your party nachos:

Gluten-Free Guacamole Dip

Image: iClipart

Ingredients:
1-2 tbsp. fresh-squeezed lime juice (to taste)
1/4 tsp. salt
1 garlic clove, crushed
3 tbsp. fresh cilantro, diced up finely
3 very ripe avacados
1/4 cup finely diced onions
1/8 tsp. chili powder (read label to make sure it's gluten-free)

Directions:
1. Peel, pit, and slice the avacados.
2. Put the slices in a small food processor and blend or mash them with a fork. Add lime and continue smooshing it until it has a pasty consistency.
3. Add all other ingredients and blend well.

Like I said, this is an ideal dip for nachos, but it's also yummy inside a Spanish omelet. It's great in tacos too. Buritos? Same thing. I've even put it on a baked potato, with tasty results.

The bummer about guacamole dip, is that it doesn't last very long. The lime helps keep it from turning brown, but if it sits in your fridge for more than 24 hours, it will look pretty icky. And we all know how children feel about eating something that looks bad. Not. Gonna. Happen. So use it up quickly.

Gluten-Free Nachos with Home-Made Guacamole Dip (Recipe)--Part 1

Nachos are easy. But when I first started cooking gluten-free, I didn't know diddley. Heck, I couldn't even make gravy from scratch, much less a plate of nachos. So here's the scoop on nachos...

Gluten-Free Nachos

Image: iClipart

Ingredients:

• GF corn tortilla chips
• hamburger
• cheese
• veggies for toppings

Directions:
1. Brown the hamburger in a skillet (or we usually just use leftover hamburger from the tacos we made the night before). It's fine to season your hamburger with GF chili powder, GF garlic, and salt, if you like. Those, by the way, are the main ingredients in those packets of taco seasoning that people buy at the grocery story. The packets contain wheat, so I don't recommend you use those.
2. Spread corn tortilla chips out on a platter. Sprinkle hamburger over the top. Coat the whole thing with a thin layer of grated cheese.
3. Microwave for 30 seconds to one minute, until cheese melts. (Keep an eye on it, so the cheese doesn't burn.)

Of course you can add whatever veggies you like to your nachos, but most people like olives, onions, green peppers, jalapenos, and tomatoes. Some people add lettuce, but in my opinion, that just makes it a taco salad. It's also possible to top your platter of nachos with sour cream, refried beans, or both, just to make the whole thing look pretty.

That was Part 1. Next week I'll offer up my recipe for home-made guac. It goes great with a plate full of nachos. You can make nachos for a party finger food, a side dish to accompany an enchilada dinner, or a quick lunch for one.

Figuring Out What to Put in My Gluten-Free Kid's Lunchbox Is a Real Devil!

So why fight against the flow of things? Make deviled eggs!

We all know that deviled eggs are a delicacy on Easter Sunday. So why wait for Easter? Eggs are cheap. Mayo is too. Three eggs makes half a dozen deviled halves. They're nutritional and high in protein. And YUM! You won't hear kids complaining about that. Here's the recipe I use:

Ingredients:

• 3 eggs
• 1/4 tsp. salt
• 2 1/2 tbsp. mayo (I sort of just eyeball it)
• paprika (if you like)

Directions:
1. Boil eggs in a pot of water for 12 minutes, to ensure they are hard-boiled. It's a good idea to put the eggs in the water before it begins to boil, but don't start counting the minutes until you've got the water boiling. If you put the eggs into the water while it boils, then they're more likely to crack while cooking.
2. Once cooked, remove the pot of eggs from the stove. Drain out the hot water, but leave the eggs in the pan. Place ice cubes over the hot eggs and re-fill the pan with cold water. Soaking the eggs in ice water helps make it easier to peel the shells off the eggs without damaging them.
3. Once cool, remove the eggs, one at a time, from the ice water and peel the shells off of them. Slice them in half with a sharp knife. If you own a deviled egg display tray, put the halves in that while you work.
4. Carefully pop the hard yolk out of the center of each egg half, and place the yolks in a small mixing bowl.
5. Use a fork to mash the yolks with the salt and mayo. (My mom once gave me advice to avoid mustard in my deviled eggs, but a lot of people like the flavor of a touch of mustard in theirs. Go with whatever you like.)
6. Using a spatula, plop the mashed up yolks back inside the "bowl" portions of the eggs (i.e. the white part). If you won't be transporting your eggs to school, then you can use a pastry press to make the yolk centers look flowery, then sprinkle the tops with paprika. But this is optional.
7. If you're going to send the deviled eggs to school with your kids, try this: now that you've got the yolk mix inside the eggs, put the two halves of each egg back together and wrap the whole egg in plastic wrap. Twist the ends like a peppermint candy and tie them off with those paper-covered wires that are sometimes used to seal bread bags. Now they can easily be sent off to school in your kid's lunchbox without making too much mess.

Quick and Easy Gluten-Free Tater Tot Casserole Recipe

This one of my favorite dishes to make, because it's so quick and easy to throw together. It's a good one for that day when nothing has gone right at work, and you wish you could just do the pre-gluten-free "Hamburger Helper" thing, but of course, that's not even a consideration these days.

So here's my recipe for...

Gluten-Free Tater Tot Casserole

Ingredients:
1 1/2 lbs. hamburger
Pacific Natural Foods' condensed GF cream of mushroom soup (12 oz. container)
1/4 cup finely diced onions
2 lb. bag of gluten-free tater tots*
1/2 cup grated cheddar cheese
GF cooking spray (read labels to verify)

Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 450 degrees F. Brown the hamburger in a skillet and drain off excess fat.
2. Add onions and cook a little longer, just to warm up the onions.
3. Place meet and onions in a mixing bowl. Add cheese and cream of mushroom soup.
4. Mix well.
5. Spray a 9x11-inch casserole dish.
6. Pour meat-and-cheesy mix into prepared casserole dish. Top with tater tots,* making sure you cover all of the meat mixture's surface with tots.
7. Bake for 20 minutes.
8. Let it cool for a couple of minutes before you serve it to kids, as their mouths can easily be burned by oven-hot food!

*Note that not all tater tots are gluten-free. Read labels carefully. Barley can be disguised as "maltodextrin" and some tater tot companies actually coat tots in wheat to keep them from sticking together. If the label is unclear, call the company or contact them via the Internet, to make sure the product you're serving/eating is, in fact, gluten-free.

Lunchbox Surprises: A Gluten-Free School Lunch that Sticks With You

I like to offer a number of different surprises in my gluten-free kid's lunchbox. One is what we call...

Stick Day!
2 mazarella cheese sticks
2 cheddar cheese sticks
2 Old Wisconsin pepperoni sticks
2 celery sticks
2 carrot sticks
a small container of Glutino gluten-free breadsticks
2 Yoplait Go-Gurts

Yes! These items are all gluten-free, and they make eating lunch fun, when they all show up in my kid's lunchbox on the same day, for Stick Day.

Last time I checked, Otter Pops were also gluten-free, and they make a nice substitute for juice in a lunchbox. I haven't looked into that in quite a while though, so read labels before you add that stick to your stick collection.

A New Shape for Peanut Butter and Jelly--The Old Lunchbox Standby

I hear it all the time. "My gluten-free kid won't eat sandwiches. She hates them."

For all kids, whether they're gluten-free or gluteniverous, they're drawn to food that's pretty to look at. Want to punish your kids? Try applying green food coloring to everything they eat! Want to make them whine about tasting something because they want it so bad? Make it gorgeous!

When I send my daughter a PB&J in her school lunch box, I dress it up. There are two ways to do this:

1. You've heard of the cookie cutter sandwich, right? Make an ordinary peanut butter and jelly sandwich on gluten-free bread. Then use a cookie cutter to cut the sandwich into a fun shape, like a bear, a star, a Christmas tree, whatever you like.

2. Try PB&J "Lunchables". A lot of celiacs just don't like bread. But our celiac kids still have to have their daily grains/starches from the required food groups. So put peanut butter in a mini-Tupperware and different flavors of jelly in another mini-Tupperware; send different kinds of crackers and a plastic knife in their lunchbox too. Now they can make their own do-it-yourself PB&J "Lunchables". It's important, once again, to make the whole thing PRETTY. We own, for example, Tinkerbell snap-tite containers for our crackers. I also sometimes include sliced pickles for peanut-butter-and-pickle and/or honey, because let's face it, kids love to get sticky! Be sure and pack your gluten-free wipes with that lunch!

GF Pesto Pasta with Chicken

Ingredients:

·        1 (16 ounce) package gluten-free spiral pasta

·        1 teaspoon olive oil

·        2 cloves garlic, minced

·        2 boneless skinless chicken breasts, cut into bite-sized pieces

·        crushed red pepper flakes to taste

·        1/3 cup oil-packed sun-dried tomatoes, drained and cut into strips (always check labels to make sure it’s GF)

·        1/2 cup pesto sauce

Directions:

Bring a large pot of lightly salted water to a boil. Add pasta and cook for 8 to 10 minutes or until al dente; drain. Heat oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Sauté garlic until tender, then stir in chicken. Season with red pepper flakes. Cook until chicken is golden, and cooked through. In a large bowl, combine pasta, chicken, sun-dried tomatoes and pesto. Toss to coat evenly.

Gluten-Free Oatmeal Cookies--Dip 'em in Milk for an After-School Treat

A lot of celiacs still haven't heard that Bob's Red Mill now offers gluten-free oats. As long as your child's stomach can tolerate them, these oats are raised and processed away from contaminates. You see, it's not the oats themselves that contain the offending gluten, as I understand it. The problem has always been in the processing of oats. They're typically stored in the same bins and silos as wheat, rye, and barley, so they've always been a big no-no for celiacs.

But now you can buy certified oats. As long as your stomach isn't too sensitive, these oats don't contain the usual glutens. So here's the recipe I've used with my kiddo:

Gluten-Free Oatmeal Cookies

Dry Ingredients:
1 1/2 cups gluten-free flour (I use a mix of rice flour, potato starch flour, corn starch, and tapioca starch, with more rice flour than the others)
1 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
1 tsp. cinnamon
1 tsp. xanthan gum

Other Ingredients
1 cup butter (softened)
1 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1 tsp. gluten-free vanilla (I use Rodelle)
2 eggs (room temperature)
1 cup raisins (optional)
3 cups gluten-free oats from Bob's Red Mill

 

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 F.

2. Use stand mixer to blend butter and sugars together.

3. Add vanilla and eggs and mix well.

4. In a separate bowl, blend the items listed as "dry ingredients" above.

5. Mix dry ingredients with all other ingredients, including the raisins and oats.

6. Drop rounded spoonfuls of cookie dough onto an ungreased cookie sheet. Bake for 9 to 12 minutes, until golden brown. Cool for a bit before you transfer them to a wire rack (if you don't they fall apart).

Makes 4 dozen cookies or so.

Gluten-Free Ham and Bean Soup--A Warm-You-Up Solution to Cold September Days

I first made this recipe after we'd had a horde of family over for Easter dinner. We had leftover ham in abundance, and I couldn't think of what to do with all of it. Here's the solution:

Gluten-Free Ham and Bean Soup

Ingredients:

• 1 ½ cups mixed dried beans
• 8 cups water
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 ham hock
• 1 cup chopped carrots
• 1/2 cup celery, chopped
• 1 whole chopped leek (don’t chop the grassy tip up though, only the bulb end)
• 1 fat clove of garlic, minced or two medium cloves, minced
• ½ teaspoon of onion powder
• 2 bay leaves
• 2 cups chopped ham (in addition to the hock)
• 1/2 teaspoon ground pepper

Instructions:

1.     Add all ingredients to a crock pot except carrots and celery.

2.     Cook 6 to 8 hours on low heat, stirring occasionally to keep it from burning at the bottom.

3.     Remove some of the beans and mash them or puree them in a food processor, then return them to the stock. Blend. (This thickens the soup.)

4.     Add celery and carrots.

5.     Cook for another 30-45 minutes on a low setting, until carrots are al dente.

6.     Serve warm with crackers, cornbread, garlic bread, or muffins.

Gluten Free Jalapeño Poppers--A Recipe to Add Zzzzing to Your Life!

Ingredients

• 25 fresh jalapeno peppers
• 14-16 ounces cream cheese
• 2 cups shredded cheddar cheese
• 2 (16 ounce) packages bacon

Directions

·        Cut stems off of peppers and cut them all in half longways.

·        Remove seeds from peppers.

·        Fill each pepper with cream cheese and sprinkle cheddar cheese on top.

·        Wrap 1/2 slice of bacon around each pepper half and secure it there with a toothpick.

·        Place on baking sheets and place in 450 degree oven for 10 to 15 minutes or until bacon is fully cooked.

·        Remove and serve when cooled.

This makes quite a large number of poppers (50), but if you remember the days before you lived gluten-free, those frozen poppers usually came in a package of 15 to 20, right? And you never seemed to get enough to fill you up. So if you're bringing this treat to a pot luck, you'll want to follow this oversized recipe, to make sure everyone gets their fill. If, however, you're just including poppers as a side dish at meal time, then I'd cut the recipe in half or even thirds.

I use this recipe for pot lucks, but I always warn people that poppers can be HOT.

It is possible to make this recipe with milder peppers, so younger kids will want to eat them. The trick to keeping a pepper mild is this: remove all seeds. I'm told that's where the heat comes from.

Gluten-Free Curry Chicken & Broccoli Casserole Even Your Kids Will LOVE!

Ingredients:

2 frozen chicken breasts

½ cup grated cheddar cheese

½ cup sour cream

12 oz. pkg. of frozen broccoli florets

½ cup GF cream of mushroom soup*

1 tsp. GF curry powder**

Instructions:

1.    Boil chicken breasts until cooked through. Cut into ½ inch cubes.

2.    In a mixing bowl, combine cheddar cheese, sour cream, cream of mushroom soup, and curry powder.

3.    Use a GF spray cooking oil (or butter or Crisco) to lightly grease the bottom of a 9X11-inch casserole dish.

4.    Line the bottom of the casserole dish with cubed chicken. Then spread frozen broccoli over the chicken.

5.    Top the whole thing off with the creamy curry mixture.

6.    Bake in a 400 degree F oven for 25-30 minutes, until casserole mixture is bubbling.

* I use Pacific Natural Foods organic condensed cream of mushroom soup, which can be found in health food stores and some regular grocery stores (in the health food section).

** Be aware that imported spices do not have to follow US guidelines. McCormick spice company, I understand, is a trusted company, meaning that they clearly label any gluten ingredients on their products.

Double this recipe to use it as a main dish, feeding a family of four, or keep it as is, for a side dish.

Gluten-Free Banana Pecan Muffin Recipe--A Great Snack When Monkeying Around

If your kiddo is allergic to nuts, just opt to bake these muffins without the nuts. You can still have loads of fun monkeying around!

Dry Ingredients:
1/2 Cup Sorghum Flour
1/2 Cup White Rice Flour
1/2 Cup Brown Rice Flour
1/2 Cup Corn Starch
2 tsp Xanthan Gum
1 tsp baking soda

Other Ingredients:
1/2 Cup Butter
1 Cup Sugar
2 Eggs
3 Ripe Bananas
3 Tbs Milk
1 Cup chopped Pecans


In a medium bowl, mix dry ingredients. Whisk well to aerate the flours as they mix.

In a separate bowl, cream butter and sugar together. Add the eggs and bananas. Mix until bananas are well mashed. Add milk and flour. Mix until combined.

Fold in Pecans.

Fill muffin pan with liners. Scoop dough into liners to 2/3rds full.

Bake in a preheated 350 degree F oven for 30 minutes. For a decorative touch, once they’re cooled, sprinkle them with powdered sugar.

Gluten-Free Pumpkin Bars Recipe--a Harvest-Time Special

Ingredients:
¾ cup sugar
1 egg
½ cup pumpkin
½ cup vegetable oil
1/6 cup water
½ teaspoon salt
1 cup flour (I used super fluffy GF flour mix—see recipe in the margin)
¼ teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon baking soda
¼ teaspoon each: ground cloves, nutmeg, cinnamon

Gluten-Free Bar Directions:
Beat egg and add other wet ingredients and mix well. Add dry ingredients. Bake at 350 F in a glass 9” x 13” pan about 15-20 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean. Bars will be slightly browned, very thin, and moist. Let cool before frosting. (I use Betty Crocker's gluten-free vanilla frosting. It says "gluten-free" on the back of the package.)

Special Tip:

I have made these with canned pumpkin, and they turned out just fine. But honestly, the very best ones we've ever made, were made with our own home-grown pumpkins (not the jack-o-lantern kind, but the sweeter garden pumpkins). To make your own pumpkin mush, just cut the pumpkins in half, clean out all the stringy stuff and seeds, and bake upside down (skin up) in a casserole dish or on a cookie sheet. You'll know they're done baking when they turn soft, just like with any other baked squash. You scrape out their meat, drain off some of the moisture, make sure you get all the stringy-strings out of the pulp, and measure it out.

Want Some Gluten-Free Lunchbox Ideas for Back-to-School? Here You Go:

I'm just going to list all kinds of goodies I put in my kiddo's lunchbox. Read labels on everything, because, for example, Yoplait yogurts say "gluten-free" on some of the labels, but not all. Some contain glutens. So be careful. Read labels every time!

I'm not suggesting you put all of these foods in your child's lunchbox at once, but here are some great GF treats for lunchboxes:

Glutino breadsticks
home-made muffins
Yoplait yogurts or Go-Gurts
Del Monte fruit cups/jello fruit cups
plain Jell-o cups
pudding cups
carrot sticks
celery sticks
peanut butter celery sticks
a can of Easy Cheese (but the bacon one has gluten)
Fritos
Lays Stax
cottage cheese
cheese sticks
Old Wisconsin beef sticks
Old Wisconsin summer sausage
Hormel Canadian bacon
Hormel pepperoni slices
K-Toos (Oreo-style cookies)
boiled eggs
deviled eggs
egg salad with crackers to spread it on
Cheetos
Juicy-Juice
Shasta sodas
raisins
yogurt-covered raisins
home-made trail mix
EnviroKids rice "granola" bars
bag of GF cereal
Fruity Pebble/Cocoa Pebble Treats
Popcorn
Popcorn balls made with Kraft marshmellows
Kraft colored mini-marshmellows
PB&J made on Glutino crackers
Jell-o Knox blocks
apple slices
Glutino pretzels or EnerG pretzels

I hope this helps!

Super-Fluffy Gluten-Free Flour Recipe

Image: iClipart

When I first started baking things GF, I thought, "Mix flours? What the heck are they talking about? That's crazy talk!" Then I tried making my first batch of GF sugar cookies with only rice flour. Pretty much, what I ended up with, was some sugar cookies that looked like crackers and tasted like Chinese fortune cookies. Bleck!

So after six years of baking GF, I've finally discovered a mixture that seems to work well. It keeps most things fluffy without having them fall apart. Here's what I call my Super-Fluffy Gluten-Free Flour Mix:

Super Fluffy Gluten-Free Flour Mixture:
2 cups tapioca starch
2 cups cornstarch
2 cups rice flour
2 Tbs. potato flour (NOT potato starch--that's different)

I keep a tub of it on my kitchen counter, and I dip into it for many of my recipes. It makes things fluffy! YAY!

Gluten-Free Peach Cobbler--a Summer Dessert Delight

Here's my recipe for a yummy guten-free peach cobbler. I took a few pictures and posted them as well.

Crust Ingredients:

• 1 cup Jules GF All-Purpose Flour (or rice flour will work okay in a pinch)
• ½ cup potato starch
• ½ cup tapioca flour
• ¼ tsp. salt
• 6 tbsp. cold butter, cut into tiny pieces
• 1 egg, beaten
• 1 tbsp. apple cider vinegar

• 2 ½ tbsp. ice water (no more—to maintain crumbly texture)

Cobbler Filling Ingredients:

• 3/4 cup white granulated sugar
• 2 tbsp. cornstarch
• ¼ tsp. cinnamon
• tiny dash of allspice
• 6 cups peaches, peeled, pitted, sliced, and diced up small (I used eight store-bought peaches, which are rather large)
• 1 heaping tbsp. frozen concentrated lemonade

Instructions for Crust:

Prepare the pie crust first, as follows: combine flours and salt in a stand mixer. Cut in butter with a pastry blender (I just used my stand mixer’s whisk attachment) until mixture is crumbly like coarse ground meal. Add egg and vinegar and blend. Add ice water, a little at a time. You may not need all 2 ½ tbsp. of water. Just watch to make sure it’s a crumbly mixture that almost holds together. That’s what you want, is a sort of crumbly, almost pie crust. Wrap your crumbly crust mixture in plastic wrap and keep it chilled in the refrigerator until later.

Instructions for Cobbler:

Combine all filling ingredients in a sauce pan. Cook on medium heat, stirring constantly, until it thickens to about the consistency of gravy. (It takes me about 15 minutes, but different stoves will have different cook times.) Generously butter the sides and bottom of a 9x11 inch casserole dish. Pour hot peach mixture into prepared casserole dish. Sprinkle crumbly pie crust over the top. Bake at 375 F for 30-35 minutes, or until golden brown on top.

Serves Approx. 8 People

Gluten-free Tuna Melt Sandwich Recipe -- GF Lunches for Kids

You would think everybody knows how to put together a tuna melt, right? Wrong. Moms who grew up on boxed mac-N-cheese and Ramen noodles when they were kids are more common than you think. Heck, I'm one of 'em! But once Annie was diagnosed with celiac disease, I had to stop hiding behind boxes of preservative-filled foods and re-learn these old standbys.

So here's my recipe for GF tuna melt:

INGREDIENTS:
2 slices gluten-free bread (my favorite is Sun Flour Mills' mix)
2 thin slices of cheddar cheese
gluten-free margarine *
one can of tuna**
2-3 tablespoons of mayonnaise (to taste)
one pickle, diced, or one Tbsp. diced red onion***

DIRECTIONS:
1. Open tuna and drain excess fluids from the can. In a bowl, mix together tuna, mayonnaise, and (if you want them) onions/pickles.***
2. Spread margarine on both slices of bread. Set the bread on a plate, margarine-side down. (Yes, this will make the plate all gooey. That's okay. Before you set your finished sandwich back on the plate, clean the goo off.)
3. Spoon tuna mixture onto one of the slices of bread. This will make it so there's margarine on one side and tuna on the other.
4. Set both slices of cheddar cheese on top of the tuna, one beside the other. It may only take one slice of cheese to cover the tuna, if your bread loaf is small-ish.
5. Place the other piece of bread over the top of the cheese-tuna layers, with the margarine-side up. Now your sandwich has margarine on the bottom and margarine on the top.
6. Place your sandwich in a frying pan and cook on medium heat. Covering the pan with a lid can make the bread more moist, so if you don't like that, avoid the lid. However, covering the pan with a lid also makes the sandwich cook faster and allows the cheese to melt thoroughly. You can decide whether or not the extra moisture is bothersome.
7. Brown the sandwich on both sides, flipping it once.
8. Serve it on a plate with a side of chips. Some of Annie's favorite gluten-free chips are Lays Stax, Funyuns, and Lays regular potato chips. However, chips can sometimes have cross-contamination issues at the factory, so be wary of any chips that are manufactured by large companies like that.

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*At the time of this posting, Country Crock was labeling their "Calcium" enriched Shedd Spread margarine with "Gluten-Free" at the bottom of the ingredients list.
**Can you believe it? Gluten can even be found in a can of tuna! It usually only contains gluten if there's MSG or vegetable broth involved in the processing, but read carefully.
***Younger kids don't usually like pickles or onions, so this ingredient is optional. I only add them for my own GF tuna melt sandwiches. Annie likes hers without.

Gluten-Free Scones for Breakfast

Annie and I had gluten-free scones for breakfast. I used a Gluten-Free Pantry boxed muffin and scone mix for this, but I'll go ahead and post the from-scratch scone recipe that I have:

Start with my favorite Super Fluffy Gluten-Free Flour:
2 cups tapioca starch
2 cups cornstarch
2 cups rice flour
2 Tbs. potato flour (NOT potato starch--that's different)

I like to use this Super Fluffy GF Flour in a lot of things, so I keep a tub of it on my kitchen counter, and I dip into it for many of my recipes. It makes things fluffy! YAY!

DRY INGREDIENTS:
2 cups Super Fluffy GF Flour (see above)
1/4 cup sugar
2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. xanthan gum
1/2 tsp. salt

WET INGREDIENTS:
1 stick (1/2 cup) very cold butter, cut into small chunks
2 large eggs
1/3 cup cold milk
bowl of water

DIRECTIONS:
1. Mix all the dry ingredients together in a stand mixer.
2. Add butter chunks. Use wire whisk attachment to mix the butter in. You're ready to move to step 3 when the stuff in your stand mixer looks sort of like super-gritty corn meal.
3. Mix the eggs and cold milk together in a separate bowl, using a fork. Switch your stand mixer's gadget to a paddle instead of a wire whisk. Blend the egg-milk mixture into the dry ingredients, using the paddle attachment, but don't let it get too creamy. Stop mixing after 2 minutes or so, allowing the ingredients to become just blended.
4. If you want to add nuts or dried fruit, do so now. Blend it for one more minute, until the additional ingredient is well-incorporated.
5. Preheat the oven to 350 F. Moisten your hands in the bowl of water. Use wet, clean hands to scoop out batter. Shape scones into triangular biscuit-like shapes. The batter will be gooey like muffin mix, but as long as your hands are wet, you will be able to shape the scones into triangular or biscuit-like shapes. Place scones 2 inches apart on a parchment-lined cookie sheet.
6. Bake in 350 degree (F) oven for approx. 15 minutes, or until golden brown. Makes 18-20 scones, depending on size.