Gluten-Free Frugally

I make buckwheat pancakes and eggs for breakfast most mornings…ask my husband who likes variety. He’ll tell you. Pancakes and eggs – that’s what you’ll find around here. I usually eat coconut bread with my eggs or sometimes butternut squash with olive oil and salt or steamed broccoli. Well, before I went gluten free, I used to feed the rest of the family oatmeal. After reading all the stuff about cross contamination with oats, we haven’t done them since. In the name of variety, I’ve been thinking about bringing back oats…gluten free oats from Bob’s Red Mill that is. : )

Ok, so I’ve been thinking about it for a bit but I also have rice and millet in my other fridge that I got on sale at EarthFare a while back planning to use them in a specific recipe. I haven’t ended up making it as much as I thought, so they’ve mostly been sitting there. I have used them some, but I needed a way to use them more. So, I found this recipe on AllRecipes.com for rice pudding. Mmmm…the boys really liked it for breakfast…kinda like oatmeal…so I think I’m gonna hold off on the oats until we eat some more of the rice and maybe the millet…gotta find another good use for that.

I used coconut milk instead of cow’s milk and omitted the sugar and used vanilla stevia and regular raisins.

Well, they weren’t absolutely amazing but they were good for all the diet restrictions around here. I’m gluten free, trying dairy free and as low carb as possible. My son is gluten free and I’m keeping him off of foods that I think upset his stomach/intestines like beans, broccoli and oranges. So, I made these with low-carb tortillas for me and “regular” gluten free tortillas for the boys. I found a cool recipe for low carb torillas in a forum (I can’t remember where) and they worked pretty well. I’ll probably keep looking for a chewier recipe. I thought about adding a little almond meal for texture? These are a bit “eggy”…I think they would work well for breakfast burritos.

Ingredients
1 Large Egg
1 tbsp Golden Flax Meal  (I used 1/2TB of chia meal)
1 tbsp Organic Coconut Flour
1-2 tbsp Water* (more or less depending on thickness) – 3 TB seems to work the best
big pinch of salt

Directions:

Beat egg and add a little salt then add flax ( I used chia meal)  and coconut flour. Let sit 2-3 minutes then add water to thin. You want a thick but pourable “pancake” type batter.

Heat a non-stick skillet over medium heat. I used this great non-stick, non-toxic skillet from Amazon.  Spread mixture thinly and evenly.  Be patient about flipping them. They seemed to work best when the pan was hot enough for them to sizzle when I poured the batter in. Then, I waited for them to be able to move around in the pan before I flipped them.

Cook well. Use while still hot for best flexibility.

I used this recipe for the enchilada sauce…I wasn’t amazed by it but it is my first time making it. I think I’ll look for a different recipe for this. I didn’t like the cumin in it and it needed a deeper flavor. I didn’t use any hot sauce…maybe that’s what it needed?

I found another recipe online for the inspiration for the enchiladas themselves but tweaked it quite a bit. I used chicken with taco seasoning, avacado and sliced olives for the filling. The recipe I looked at called for refried beans. I think that would be good but I’m not doing beans for my 8 year old right now so I left those out.

Use the enchilada sauce on the bottom of the pan so they don’t stick. Then fill each tortilla, roll and place them seam side down in the pan. Spoon some enchilada sauce on top and bake for 15-20 minutes until hot. If you’re not dairy free, cheese would be amazing on these!

My kid’s liked the recipe…I did too but I’ll be thinking about some tweaks… : )

I really liked the lemon bars I made yesterday but I wanted to try making them with Stevia instead of Xylitol. It is less expensive and doesn’t have the intestinal affects that Xylitol can have. I seem to be ok with Xylitol but my 8 year old seems to not be. He’s been 90% gluten free for a year now but he still got it ’cause I was going on intuition instead of testing. We finally got him tested and he is gluten intolerant so we’ve been doing strict GF for only a few weeks. All that to say, I’m wanting to keep a good handle on the diarrhea to see how he seems to be healing and I don’t want Xylitol to be causing any intestinal problems and me to think it is gluten. So…to make a long story short, I wanted to try to make them with Stevia. I think they were quite successful but I will probably tweak them a bit still. I used mostly the same recipe but used less coconut oil and 1/2 tsp of NOW’s Better Stevia powder. I think I’ll use a bit less Stevia next time ’cause the tartness of the lemon didn’t come through as much in the Stevia version. We’ll see?

On another fun note. I made buckwheat waffles in my new cast iron waffle maker. Yay! My old electric Teflon one died probably a year and half ago and I just haven’t replaced it. I wanted to try to stay away from Teflon and I’m really liking this one. It is from Lehman’s.com. So fun! I was also listening to the HoldTheGluten.net podcast and heard Maureen talk about using GF waffles for sandwiches sort of like panini’s. I already use buckwheat pancakes as sandwich “rounds” like the regular flatbread you can buy at the store and we like that around here but the waffles would make nice and crispy little sandwiches. : )

Well, that’s all from my GF adventure for today. Until next time….

I’ve looked at the recipes at Elanaspantry.com many times…just enjoying the photos and thinking about how good they would be. I finally checked out her book The Gluten Free Almond Flour Cookbook from the library and have made 4 of her recipes so far. I actually ordered almond meal instead of the almond flour (cost) and it has worked well for 2 of the recipes. One was the salmon burgers and the other was the chicken fingers. They were both amazing! I tried the biscuits and they didn’t work very well with the meal. And tonight, I just pulled the lemon bars out of the oven. They have to cool for 30 minutes and then set up in the fridge for 2 hours so I’ll probably get to taste them in the morning. Mmmm…I love sweet and sour so I think I’m going to like them. I subbed coconut oil for the grapeseed oil and xylitol for the agave nectar.

Thanks to my sweet husband for setting up my blog for me…I’m looking forward to posting when I can. : )