Gluten-free French Dip Sandwiches

It's possible to make your own French bread for French dip sandwiches, and I know that Gluten-Free Pantry has a pretty good French bread mix. I'm told Gluten-Free Goddess' recipe is tasty too. It uses one of the Pamela's bread mixes, which are a favorite of mine.

But whenever we have French dip sandwiches, we like to buy Udi's Gluten-free Baguettes. They're a little spendy, but they make the best French dip sandwiches, in my opinion. They're sort of like those almost-cooked baguettes you can buy at the grocery store; all you have to do is stick 'em in the oven for a couple minutes and they're nicely browned.

I usually make French dip after baking a beef pot roast at home the night before. Slice the leftover pot roast as thin as possible. Fill a sauce pan 1/2 full with Swanson's gluten-free beef broth (read labels to make sure it's GF) and bring the broth to a boil. Add the sliced beef to the broth. Return it to a boil, but then reduce the heat and simmer it a couple of minutes with a lid on it.

When you set your table, give each person a little au jus bowl. Ladle out the broth into the au jus bowls and remove meat with tongs.

Cut baguettes length-wise, like hot dog buns. Place sliced meat inside. Individuals can then dip their hot sandwich in the au jus before eating.

Some additions that can make a French dip taste extra yummy:

• Saute onions
• Swiss cheese
• Mustard
• French fries

Gluten-Free and Dairy-Free Reuben Sandwich Recipe for St. Patrick's Day

Any time I've ever shopped for a package of corned beef to cook in my crock pot, I've found them to be gluten-free and dairy-free. But do check labels anyway. We all know it's a good idea to be careful, when you have to eat GF and DF. 

Once you've cooked your traditional corned beef and cabbage in the crock pot, though, what do you do with all the left over corned beef? Make yummy Reuben sandwiches! (I'm going to make this recipe for a single serving, but you just double it for two, quadruple it for four, etc.)

Ingredients:

2 slices of GF bread (I prefer Udi's for this recipe, as it tastes the most authentic)

1 Tbs. GF/DF ketchup

1 Tbs. GF/DF mayonnaise

1/4 cup Steinfeld's Homestyle Sauerkraut

1 Tbs. Tofutti Better Than Cream Cheese OR goat's milk cheese sliced (if you can tolerate it)

1 Tbs. Earth Balance Spread

Directions:

1. Spread Tofutti's Better Than Cream Cheese on one side of each piece of the bread. (If your stomach can tolerate goat's milk cheese instead, skip this step.)

2. Mix the ketchup and mayonnaise in a bowl. Spread it over the top of the Tofutti Better Than Cream Cheese. We'll call this the "inside" side of the bread slices, because this spread will go inside the sandwich once it's made.

3. If you're planning to use goat's milk cheese, this is when you add your cheese slices to the inside part of the bread, covering the ketchup/mayo spread (only put cheese on one slice of bread). You don't need both Tofutti Better Than Cream Cheese and goat's milk cheese; just pick one or the other. If you're not worried about going dairy free, substitute the goat's milk cheese for Swiss cheese.

4. Drain the sauerkraut in a colander. Really drain it! I use a paper towel to smoosh it down into the colander until all the juice is gone from it. If you don't do this, your Reuben sandwich will be soggy.

5. If you're using real cheese (goat's milk or Swiss), place the sauerkraut over the top of the cheese, but if you're using the Tofutti cream-cheese substitute, it doesn't matter which slice of bread you put the sauerkraut on.

6. Lay slices of corned beef over the top of the sauerkraut. Then put the other slice of bread on top, with the ketchup-mayo mixture on the inside of the sandwich.

7. Spread Earth Balance margarine substitute on the outside of both sides of the sandwich. Place your sandwich in a frying pan and brown it on both sides.

Now you have a Reuben sandwich that even Saint Paddy himself would approve of! It goes great with chips and fruit. The one pictured above was made in the summer, so I had watermelon with it. Make sure you've got plenty of liquids to drink because a Reuben sandwich makes you thirsty!

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.

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!

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.