is the title of the article in the April 1, 2010 edition of Family Circle magazine containing an assortment of gluten free recipes.  There are cook-from-scratch and product options.

Each of the recipes below are available on the Family Circle website, but you will need to register to see them.  Registration is free.

The recipes in the article include:

• Baked Penne with Turkey Meatballs.  Be careful, this recipe calls for cornflakes and many brands are coated with a malt syrup, which is not gluten free.  You will also need a package of gluten free Penne
• Chicken Scaloppine Al Marsala
• Thai Pork Wraps
• Glazed Chicken Drumsticks with Quinoa
• Southwestern Pizza.  You will need 2 9″ pre-made gluten free pizza crust for this recipe.  Whole Foods Market is recommended,  or you can always make your own.
• Tomatillo Shrimp Enchiladas

The title says it all.  King Arthur Flour has introduced a line of gluten free baking products.  As a big fan of the rest of their line I am glad to see this addition.  Baking was once one of my mainstays but I have not had a lot of success so far with gluten-free mixes or from scratch recipes.

King Arthur’s Gluten Free Line

After trying some of the commercial gluten free beer options, none of them were very satisfying.  For my adult beverage choices I’m not much of a liquor or cocktail fan.  That leaves wine or cider as the main, commercially available, choices.  As much as I like both, beer was a mainstay.

That left me searching for a homebrew option.  Thankfully, for Christmas, my wife was nice enough to give me a collection of vinting, brewing, and meadmaking books.  One of those was Sacred and Herbal Healing Beers, by Stephen Buhner.  In one of the appendices he references using 8oz of brown sugar and 12oz of molasses per gallon of base beer.  That lead me to put together the following recipe based on my previous experiences.

It went together in a few hours and the first signs of life are appearing in the airlock.  Initial gravity was 1.052.

I’ll let you know my results as the experiment continues.  If anyone has experience with something like this, or tries experimenting with it, let me know.  Gluten free brewing is a new world.

This is for a 1 gallon batch:

12oz Blackstrap (full flavor) Molasses
8oz Light Brown Sugar
1/5oz U.K. Fuggles pelletized hops
1/5oz U.K. Kent Golding pelletized hops
2g Safale S-04 yeast.
Enough water to equal one gallon.

Combine the molasses, sugar, and water in an 8 quart, or larger, pot.
Bring to a boil and add the Fuggles hops.
Boil for 50 minutes and then add the Golding.
Boil for 10 more minutes, remove from heat, and cool quickly to 70 degrees.
Pour into your primary fermenter, filtering off the hops in the process.
Add enough water to make sure you have a gallon.
Double check the temp.  If it is around 70 degrees, pitch the yeast, attach lid and airlock.

I have had some problems when locating gluten free seafood products.  Gorton’s is clear about the ingredients of their products, but they seem to change.  Obviously, the breaded products are right out.  Much to my surprise, so are many of the products that include sauces.  From my first research on their website it looked like quite a few items were safe.  Only when I started grabbing them and bringing them home did I realize, much to my chagrin, re-reading the labels revealed unidentified food starch and yeast extracts.  With my sensitivity I can’t trust them to be pure so passed on eating them.

As I sit down to write this I have three different boxes of Gorton’s Grilled fish.  They are current production purchased this past weekend. Below is each product and the latest ingredient list.  I hope this helps you eat better, allergen free.

Grilled Salmon – Lemon Butter

Wild Salmon, Water, Canola Oil, Salt, Butter (Cream, Salt, Annatto Color), Natural Flavor, Sugar, Fructose, Citric Acid, Monosodium Glutamate, Dehydrated Lemon Peel, Gum Arabic, Maltodextrin, Nonfat Milk, Dehydrated Parsley, Whey, Sodium Caseinate, Lemon Juice Solids, Xanthan Gum, Disodium Inosinate, Disodium Guanylate, Soy Protein Isolate, Turmeric Color, Sodium Tripolyphosphate (To Retain Fish Moisture), Propyl Gallate (added to Protect Flavor)

Contains: Salmon, Milk and Soy.

Grilled Fillets – Garlic Butter

Pollock, Water, Olive Oil, Canola Oil, Sea Salt, Corn Starch, Nonfat Milk, Butter Solids (Cream, Salt) Garlic Powder, Spice, Gum Arabic, Parsley, Sugar, Xanthan Gum, Natural Flavoring, Tocopherol (added to Protect Flavor)

Contains: Pollock, Milk.

Grilled Tilapia – Roasted Garlic and Butter

Tilapia, Water, Canola Oil, Salt, Roasted Farlic Powder, Modified Corn Starch, Butter Solids, Natural Flavor, Spice, Maltodextrin, Parsley, Hydroxypropyl Methycellulose, Monosodium Glutamate, Citric Acid, Nonfat Milk, Whey, Xanthan Gum, Sodium Caseinate, Caramel Color, Sodium Tripolyphosphate (To Retain Fish Moisture), Enzyme Modified Butter, Calcium hydroxide, Annatto and Paprika Extract Color, Propyl Gallate (to protect Flavor), Carrageenan, Ascorbic Acid, Tocopherol.

I use roux primarily for making dried beef gravy to be served over fried potatoes.  Making it with masa harina is just as effective as doing it with wheat based flours, but you must be mindful that the flavor is much different.  As it starts to take on color and lose the raw taste, it will start to taste like a fresh corn tortilla.  As it darkens it will become more nutty and develop an earthy undertone.

Ingredients:

Equal parts butter and masa.   1T of each per cup of liquid in the final dish is a good rule of thumb.  If you don’t like how it turns out, raise or lower that figure as appropriate.

In a heavy skillet or dutch oven melt the butter over medium-low heat.  Once it is melted slowly stir in the masa, stirring constantly, until well blended.  Cook until you reach your desired color, this can be anywhere from the light golden color of the just combined ingredients all the way through until it is the color of an old penny.  I like it a golden brown, as it has a nice roasted corn flavor.  Do not rush this process by turning up the heat!  You want a nice slow cook and color change to really bring out the flavor.

Once it has reached the color you like add it to the pot you wish to thicken and let it work it’s magic.

If you want to cook the roux ahead of time and save for future use, you can.  Put it in a tightly sealed container in your fridge and it will last a few weeks, but I prefer to cook it fresh as needed.  That rich smell of buttered corn is addicting.

Be safe and eat well.

After reading a New England Journal of Medicine article that looked at oat consumption among celiac patients (available here) and researching for pure sources, I started to reintroduce oats into my diet.  The only brand of locally available gluten free oats that I have been able to find are those by Bob’s Redmill which are grown in dedicated oat fields and rigorously tested to be gluten free.

http://www.bobsredmill.com/gluten-free-rolled-oats.html

It has been made into crumb topping for a wide variety of fruit cobblers and crisps or cooked up over the stove top for a hot bowl of oatmeal.  Though it is only an anecdote from my own experiences, none of these foods have caused any problems for me to speak of, even though cross contamination has caused some of my worst reactions since going on a gluten-free.

As always, exercise caution as even the purest of oats can cause a reaction in some people due to a reaction to avenin. The risk appears to be 1 patient in 165, so check with your doctor before adding oats to your diet.

If you want more information about the R5 ELISA test used to check for gluten in Bob’s GF oats, the following link is helpful:

http://www.medwire-news.md/news/article.aspx?k=41&id=39126

This has quickly become the new favorite dessert in our house, surpassing even my New York style cheesecake.  Peeling and slicing all of the apples can be time consuming, but overall it is a fairly simple. As the apples bake the released juices form a nice syrup in the bottom of the pan that is great over vanilla ice cream.

Give it a try and let me know what you think.  As always, be safe and eat well.

Filling:

12 large baking apples.
1/2c dried fruit.  Lately I’ve been using zante currants and dried cranberries.
1/2c brandy.
1c demerara sugar.
2T apple pie spice.
2T lemon juice.

Topping:

1c Oatmeal.  I have had no issue with Bob’s Red Mill Gluten Free Oats.
1 stick butter.
1/2c brown sugar.
2T gluten free flour.

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.  Lightly grease a 9×13″ pan.
2.  In a small bowl, combine the topping ingredients and mix until they resemble large coarse crumbs.
3.  In a large bowl mix everything but the apples and set aside.
4.  Core, peel, and slice the apples 1/4″ thick.
5.  Toss apples well with the sugar, fruit, and brand mixture.
6.  Spoon into the baking pan and cover with topping.
7.  Bake until the apples are tender, about 30-45 minutes.
8.  Serve immediately and enjoy.

I’ll admit it.  I ate the whole package.  By myself.  Why?  Because these are the best gluten free cookies I have eaten since being diagnosed with Celiac Disease.

Finding tasty quality products when on a restricted diet can be difficult and when you find something worth buying it is important to share that information with others.  So here I am recommending to anyone with a gluten issue to try Quinoa Qookies.

From reading my earlier cookie reviews, you know my biggest complaint so far is texture.  Thankfully, that is not a problem with these.  They nail a soft baked cookie nearly perfectly: soft, chewy, and with a light delicate crumb.  Combine that with a flavor that starts as coconut and honey, ending with brown sugar and molasses and this is a winner.  A pleasurable, high quality winner.

If you are on a gluten free diet, give Quinoa Qookies a try.  They are comparable in price to other similar items and more than worth it.  They are better than anything else I have found on the market yet.

Price: $4.95 for 3 Qookies.
Purchase at: http://www.quinoaqookies.com/

Note:  I did receive my Qookies as a sample from the maker, James Sklar.  This did not however influence my review.  If I didn’t like them I would not have written about them.

I have not had good luck in the finding an acceptable gluten free pizza dough recipe or pre-made crust, so widened my net to look for other sources.  In going through the freezer section of the grocery store I saw McCain Ellio’s pizza so contacted the manufacturer to see if they offered a gluten-free pizza at all, or had plans to develop one.

Here is my response from Customer Service:

Thank you for contacting the Consumer Affairs Group with the Quality Assurance Department for Ellio’s Pizza. It’s always nice to hear from consumers like you who take the time to contact our company when you have a comment, suggestion, or question regarding our product.

McCain has no plans at this time to manufacture a gluten-free pizza. However, I will pass your suggestion along to our R&D and Marketing departments for their consideration. They are always interested in consumer feedback.

http://www.ellios.com/

On opening the package the first thing I noticed was the smell of peanut butter.  It was very appealing and a great start to an otherwise uninteresting cookie.  As some of you who have eaten gluten free baked goods for a while know, the lack of gluten can lead to a coarse gritty texture in some baked goods.  In the case of these cookies it was too much.  They did not hold together well enough to make it from the package to my mouth, so I was left picking up little pieces out of the pack, off the carpet, and anywhere else they decided to disintegrating while I tried to eat them.  Determined that I would keep get through the whole package eventually, even if it required a spoon, the box went back into my cabinet to be tried again.

On the second day, I grabbed another cookie and was surprised by the overnight transformation.  After picking up some moisture from the air, they held together and weren’t as gritty.  This was what I had hoped for in the first place.  Regretfully, it didn’t last and on day three they were back to self-destructing.  By the time I reached the third well in the pack, it was nothing but a pile of crumbs and I was forced to get that spoon.

I will give Pamela’s another go in the future to give the products a fair shake, but the initial impression left me unimpressed.

http://www.pamelasproducts.com/