Holiday Gluten-Free and Dairy-Free Gingerbread Recipe

I'm not sure about baking this gingerbread cake with dairy-free ingredients. This year I'm going to try it dairy-free for the first time, substituting the regular milk for soy milk, and see how it turns out. If I forget to post my results, message me at esthersparhawk (at) gmail (dot) com. I'll let you know whether it works out or not.

Anyway, here's the recipe I'm going to use:

Gluten-Free Gingerbread Recipe

Ingredients:
1/2 cup shortening (or Earth Balance if you're going dairy-free)
1/3 cup sugar
2 eggs
1 cup molasses
1 tsp. ginger
1 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 tsp. salt
1 cup rice flour
1 cup potato starch flour
1/2 cup tapioca flour
1 tsp. xanthan gum
3/4 cup milk (I'll be substituting with soy milk this year)

Directions:
1. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees F (approx. 175 degrees C). Beat together the shortening, eggs, and sugar in a large mixer.
2. Add the molasses, ginger, cinnamon, salt, and xanthan gum.
3. Blend your flours together in a separate bowl.
4. Mix the flours and the milk together with the rest. Make sure it's thoroughly blended, no lumps.
5. Pour into a greased 9x13 inch pan, and bake at 350 degrees F (175 C) for 30 minutes.
6. Sift a little powdered sugar (confectioner's sugar) on top, if you like. It can make it look pretty.

Wish me luck! I'm hoping this holiday season I can enjoy my gingerbread without worrying about gluten or dairy...

A Thanksgiving Dessert Recipe That's Gluten-free and Dairy-free: Pumpkin Bars!

This is actually a re-post, because my family loves my pumpkin bars as much as (if not more than) my pumpkin pie. And since Thanksgiving is right around the corner, I figured it's time to post our favorite Thanksgiving GF and DF dessert... Pumpkin bars!

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 (175 degrees C) 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. (If you're not worried about dairy, you can 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.

Gluten-Free, Dairy-Free French Toast Recipe

French toast is my daughter, Annie's favorite breakfast! Here's how we make it GF and DF:

Ingredients:
2 eggs
1 tbsp. soy milk
dash of ground cinnamon
GF bread of your choice (we like Udi's)
GF syrup (you're safe with pure maple, but some other brands are GF and DF too)
Earth Balance "margarine" or another dairy-free spread

Directions:
1. Mix the eggs, soy milk, and cinnamon together in a pie plate or flat-bottom casserole dish.
2. Melt a little DF "margarine" in a frying pan (or use olive oil or vegetable oil).
3. Dip a slice of bread in the egg/soy milk mixture, coating both sides with eggy stuff.
4. Fry bread on medium heat, until light brown on one side. Flip and brown the other side.
5. Spread with GF/DF margarine and top with GF/DF syrup.

Dairy-Free Ranch Dressing Recipe

For a long time, after I went dairy-free, I had to go without Ranch dressing altogether. I couldn't find anything in the grocery store that acted as a fair substitute, and I didn't have any idea how to make it have that wonderful "ranch" flavor. (The mix packets seemed to contain either gluten ingredients or dairy ingredients.)

Then I ran across some stuff at Fred Meyer grocery stores called "California Seasoning Blend" (made by Kroger). It has only four magical ingredients, and none of those ingredients are diary or gluten.

Amen brothers and sisters! Just what I needed!

So I experimented with this seasoning until I came up with a yummy GF/DF substitute for ranch dressing. And here it is:

Ingredients:
1/4 cup soy milk
squeeze of lemon juice
3/4 cup GF/DF mayonnaise
1/2 tsp. California Seasoning Blend
dash of pepper to taste
extra dash of garlic if you like yours heavy on the garlic

Directions:
1. Mix the soy milk and lemon juice to create DF buttermilk. I start with a little squeeze of lemon juice and keep adding more until it tastes and looks like buttermilk, more or less.
2. Blend this with the mayonnaise until it reaches the consistency of salad dressing. Add more mayo if you like your dressing thicker. Less mayo if you like your dressing thinner.
3. Add seasonings and taste. If you have a sweet tooth, you may wish to add a dash of sugar. I prefer a little more zing to my Ranch dressing, so I add a bit of cracked black pepper and a little extra garlic.
4. Spread over salad or use as a dipping sauce.

Makes one cup of Ranch-style dressing.

More Gluten-free Lunchbox Ideas for Kids

School is about to get underway again. We parents of kids with celiac disease struggle, every year, brainstorming new things to put in our kids' lunchbox. There's only so many times a kid can eat a PB & J with Fritos before they lose their minds!

So this is my list of the many great things you can put in your kid's lunchbox. They're all GF, and many of them are things a working mom can just purchase at a grocery store, so you're not spending a half hour every morning, rushing to get that lunch made:

beef strips cut from leftover pot roast (send them some BBQ sauce for dipping)

California roll (sushi nori) home-made with tuna instead of raw meat (for safety)

cream cheese celery sticks (read labels on the cream cheese)
Easy Cheese (but the bacon one has gluten)
Fritos
Lays Stax
cottage cheese
cheese sticks
Old Wisconsin beef sticks
Old Wisconsin summer sausage (check for GF label)
Hormel Canadian bacon
Hormel pepperoni slices
K-Toos (Oreo-style cookies)
boiled eggs
deviled eggs
egg salad with GF crackers to spread it on
Cheetos
Juicy-Juice
Shasta sodas
raisins
yogurt-covered raisins
home-made trail mix (find my recipe on this site under "lunches")
EnviroKids rice "granola" bars
bag of GF cereal
Fruity Pebble/Cocoa Pebble Treats (now available in stores)
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

fresh fruit

GF fruit chew snacks (read labels)

Glutino bagel chips (YUM!)

Glutino breadsticks

Quaker GF rice cakes

S'moreables graham crackers

thermos of soup (see my "soups" recipes for ideas)

Udi's cinnamon rolls
Yoplait yogurts (read labels) or Go-Gurts 
Del Monte fruit cups/jello fruit cups
plain Jell-o cups
pudding cups (read labels)
carrot sticks
celery sticks
peanut butter celery sticks

Udi's muffins

I post recipes for some of this stuff on this site, so follow me, and you'll get a new recipe once a month. My specialty is the lunchbox-stuffer, but I sometimes offer recipes for other meals and desserts as well.

Happy lunch-boxing!

Holiday Gluten-Free and Dairy-Free Rice Krispie Treats

Please note that I do not use regular Rice Krispies, because I'm told there's a cross-contamination problem at the factory. If that changes, somebody let me know. But honestly, my daughter Annie is so sensitive, even the slightest bit of gluten makes her really sick.

So we use Nature's Path Crispy Rice, a whole grain brown rice cereal, for our Rice Krispies.

It's also a good idea to check the label on your marshmallows, as well as the food coloring you use. Currently we use Kraft marshmallows and Betty Crocker food coloring, but that may change. I just keep an eye on labels to make sure we're staying GF.

The "margarine" I use for this is Earth Balance natural shortening. It comes in cubes as well as a margarine tub, but I use the cubes for my recipe.

We made these Rice Krispie treats for the 4th of July this year, but you can change the colors to red and green for Christmas, pastel colors for Easter, etc... And here's the recipe:

Ingredients:

• 1 bag of regular GF marshmallows--divide them into equal thirds
• 1/2 cube of GF/DF margarine--divide it in thirds
• extra margerine for greasing the bottom and sides of a 9x9-inch pan or casserole dish
• 1 box of GF crisp rice cereal of your choice
• food coloring

Directions:

1. Follow the directions on the back of a package of Kraft regular-sized marshmallows, except divide the DF margarine and marshmallows equally into three bowls. Add red food coloring to one bowl, blue food coloring to another bowl, and for the third bowl, leave it the regular white color that marshmallows normally have.

2. After cooking one batch of marshmallows (say, the blue batch for example) in the microwave as directed, mix in one third of your crisp rice cereal. Then have a greased pan ready to fold in your blue marshmallow/crispy mixture (i.e. have it pre-greased when the marshmallows come out of the microwave). Flatten and spread the mixture all across the bottom of the pan (I use well-greased fingers to do this).

3. Do the same with each color. On the bottom, layer the blue Rice Krispies; next layer the white Rice Krispies; on top, layer the red Rice Krispies.

4. Once cool, cut the Rice Krispies into two-inch cubes, and your patriotic layering will then become visible. You may wish to poke a toothpick down inside each one, with a US flag design on it for the Fourth of July. (Or a Santa toothpick for Christmas, or a shamrock for St. Patrick's Day--whatever.)

5. Put the Rice Krispy squares on a holiday-designed paper plate (or one you buy at the dollar store) and cover it with Saran Wrap or cellophane to keep your treats from drying out.

Yum! Everyone loves Rice Krispies!