Gluten-Free Stuffing

My Thanksgiving guests this year said that this gluten-free stuffing was as good as any they’d ever had!  Since I used pre-made stuffing cubes from Whole Foods, it was as easy as any I’d ever made too!  It made me wonder why I only make stuffing during the holidays.

I used this recipe from wholfoodsmarket.com, substituting more celery instead of carrots, and using a full 4 cups of broth to make the stuffing more moist.  I made it the night before, so that the broth would fully soak into the bread, but you can make it right before baking too.  I increased the baking time to about 45 minutes to give the broth time to cook into the bread.  If you cannot get the pre-made cubes, just make a loaf of gluten-free bread, then cube and toast it.   

Matzo Bread

Matzo Bread is part of the Passover Celebration, remembering the story of God freeing the Jewish people from Egyptian slavery.  They left in such haste that they didn’t even have time for their bread to rise.  Matzo is made with no yeast, and is more like a cracker than bread.

I made it especially for Passover, but it was so good and so easy, I’ll be using this recipe now all year to make these light, flaky crackers.  I can’t wait to try it with soups, dips, cheese, and all the other things that usually marry crackers.  This would also be a fun thing to send in a lunch box with meat and cheese – Lunchables style.

The recipe is from julesglutenfree.com and uses her wonderful flour blend, which you can find again at the end of this post.  My added tip is to score the dough with a pizza cutter where you want to break the pieces apart before baking.  They will break into even rectangles instead of random places.  Also, I just pressed the dough right onto the parchment paper I had lining my baking sheet.  It worked fine.

Thanks, Jules, for another terrific recipe!  You’ve taken one more thing off my list of “things I wish I could still eat” with this addition of gluten-free crackers.

Ingredients:

• 1 cup Jules Gluten Free™ All Purpose Flour
• ½ cup almond flour
• 4 Tbs. extra virgin olive oil
• 3 Tbs. water
• ¹⁄₂ tsp. sea salt or kosher salt

Directions:

Preheat oven to 450° F (static) 425° F (convection).

Whisk together Jules Gluten Free™ All Purpose Flour and almond flour then add in the liquid slowly while stirring with a fork or pastry cutter. If the dough is too dry, add additional water by the ¹⁄₂ teaspoonful in order to get dough wet enough to form a ball but not be sticky.

Form a ball with the dough and pat out onto a clean surface or pastry mat dusted with Jules Gluten Free™ All Purpose Flour. Pat with your fingers to flatten the dough and roll to the thickness of a saltine cracker, then prick all over with a fork. Sprinkle with additional coarse kosher salt, if desired.

Bake for 10 minutes on a parchment-lined baking sheet, or just until slightly browned.

Holiday Sugar Cookies

Making Christmas Cookies is one of our favorite traditions, and we always share the creativity with my Mom.  The boys love each part of it:  rolling out the dough, pressing the cookie cutters into it, and of course, adding icing and sprinkles.

We used the recipe from Jules Gluten Free and had great results.  I doubled it, making all the cookies but only icing a few.  The rest I’ll put into the freezer to pull out a little at a time so we can have fresh cookies throughout the month.  I put the  icing in individual baggies with about 1/2 C. in each baggie to pull out of the freezer at the same time.  You can find Jules’ recipe below for the cookies.  For the icing, I just use the recipe on the powdered sugar box.

This Cookies Cutter set will give you any shape you’ll need to make cut-out cookies any time of year.  They’re fun to make for any occasion – even if the occasion is just a happy day.  🙂

Holiday Cut-Out Cookies

Ingredients:

¹⁄₄ cup shortening (e.g. Earth Balance® or Spectrum® Palm Oil Shortening)

¹⁄₄ cup canola oil

²⁄₃ cup granulated cane sugar

2 egg yolks

2 tsp. gluten-free vanilla extract

1 ³⁄₄ cup Jules Gluten Free™ All Purpose Flour (recipe for mix below)

¹⁄₂ tsp. salt

3 Tbs. water (as needed)

food coloring (optional)

colored sugar or frosting (optional – see below)

Directions:

Cream shortening, sugar and oil several minutes with an electric mixer, until very fluffy. Add egg yolks, vanilla extract and food coloring. Mix in the dry ingredients, adding in tablespoons of water only as needed to keep the dough together and avoid dryness (err on the side of this dough being wetter so that after refrigeration, it’s not too dry). Pat the dough into a disc shape, cover tightly with plastic wrap and refrigerate the dough until very cold, at least 3-5 hours (overnight is best).

Preheat oven to 350 F (static) or 325 F (convection).

Lightly flour a clean rolling surface with Jules Gluten Free™ All Purpose Flour. Roll the dough to approximately 1/8 inch thickness and dust cookie cutters with flour before using to cut out shapes. You may also roll thin coils of dough of different colors and braid into candy cane or other fun shapes.

Place cookies onto parchment-lined cookie sheets and decorate with colored sugar, if desired. Bake approximately 8-10 minutes, or until they begin to lightly brown at the edges. Cool on a cooling rack and frost with gluten-free frosting, if desired.

Jules Nearly Normal Flour Mixture:

1 C. rice flour

1 C. potato starch

1 C. cornstarch

1/2 C. corn flour

1/2 C. tapioca flour

4t. xanthan gum

Christmas Tree Brownies

Here’s a super easy and super fun Christmas Treat!  I brought these to our family Christmas, because I needed something easier to make than pie.

You start with the Betty Crocker Brownie Mix and bake it in a pie pan.  Top with icing and green sprinkles or green icing.  I brought it to the gathering this way, so that the kids could decorate their own tree with M&M ornaments and a gluten-free pretzel tree trunk.   Thanks, Betty Crocker, for this great idea!

A Gluten-free Thanksgiving Feast

I clearly remember my first gluten-free Thanksgiving.  Preparing the traditional meal is daunting enough, but trying to do it gluten-free while maintaining all the favorites for everyone seemed to me like just a taste of what those early Pilgrims must have gone through!  They too were in a whole new world with foreign foods, learning to cook, prepare, and adjust to their new way of life.  I’m sure they had a few meltdowns like I did with moments of panic that they would never eat normally again.  But, I’m also sure that they made it through, learning and growing with each step, and persevering to create health for their families and a heart of thanksgiving for all that their Creator had provided.

This gluten-free life means lots of adjusting, and I’ve found that the attitude adjustment is the first and hardest step.  Once I’ve let go of expectations and just been willing to enjoy the foods I can eat, my taste buds get in line rather quickly.  If my heart is thankful, my taste buds seems to follow suite.

Thanksgiving may seem like a long list of “can’t – haves”, but actually it is so easy to make gluten-free.  Now that I have my system down, no one could tell that there are any differences at all.

Here is my meal plan with some tips toward a gluten-free feast:

Turkey – make sure you buy a gluten-free turkey without any added ingredients containing gluten

Gravy – made like normal, but using cornstarch to thicken instead of flour

Mashed potatoes – your own version or this one

Sweet Potato Casserole – I use a recipe similar to this

Stuffing – don’t panic!  Just make a loaf of gluten-free bread (I’d recommend getting an easy mix like “The Gluten-Free Pantry’s Favorite Sandwich Bread”) gluten-free cornbread (my favorite recipe is in here, but I’d cut the sugar just a little for using it in stuffing) and use them to make this recipe.  Stuffing seems intimidating, but it’s super easy!

Green Beans – cook them with a few tablespoons of butter and some chopped garlic

Layered Salad – recipe found here

Acorn squash

Gluten-free Green Bean Casserole – if you’re used to the version with cream of mushroom soup and fried onions, you could substitute that with Health Valley Cream of Mushroom Soup and Funyuns.  How easy is that?!

Rolls – I buy mine from Whole Foods in their gluten-free freezer section.  You could also use this recipe.

Pies – I buy these at Whole Foods too.  If you want to make your own, Gluten-Free Pantry makes a “Perfect Pie Crust Mix”.  Or you could try this one. (scroll down in the post for the recipe)

And, there you have it!  A gluten-free feast!  Enjoy your food this year, but enjoy the heart of it more.  Be thankful!

Free Thanksgiving e-book

This is a great FREE e-book on how to host or attend a Thanksgiving meal with delicious GF food.  The recipes are by Jules Gluten Free, and they use her special flour blend.

Go HERE to order, but hurry, you only have until Oct. 5th!