Gluten-Free Frugally

My favorite low carb gluten free bread recipe…

Rachel — Tue, 03 Apr 2012 02:52:33 +0000

…this one is floating out there on the web in quite a few places but it is my favorite. It reminds me of pound cake without all the carbs and sugar. I did add 1 TB of carob powder to it recently and that made it even better. I’ve been doing the very best I can to follow an anti candida diet for a while now so I’m doing carob instead of cocoa. I also added the carob to my pumpkin shake and to what I call “oreo cereal”…an adaptation of one of Ricki Heller’s recipes…I’ll have to tell you about that one later.

In the last week or so I’ve decided to try egg free for at least a little while to see if it might clear up the redness on my face. I am gluten free since Jan of 2011 and dairy free since Fall 2011. The dairy free really helped clear up my cystic acne but my face is still quite red and blotchy. Before going egg free, I ate TONS of eggs so even if I don’t stay egg free permanently, I think taking a break might help. I think egg free is almost harder than dairy free because it is hard to use coconut flour without eggs. I’ve used chia seeds in a couple recipes and in 1 of the recipes, chia worked “ok” but in the other one it was not good. So, I’ll have to keep experimenting. But oh how I miss my coconut bread. That was my “go to” snack food when I was hungry. I kept a loaf on the counter and just grabbed a slice.

Oh well…we’ll see how the egg free thing goes? : )

Here’s the recipe:

6 eggs

1/2 cup butter…I use melted coconut oil…warm your eggs so the coconut oil won’t harden – I’ve also used melted grass fed beef fat

2 TB xylitol

1/2 tsp sea salt

3/4 cup coconut flour

1tsp baking soda

1/2 cup water

1TB carob powder, optional

Beat eggs and then add other ingredients. Pour into a loaf pan and bake on 350 until knife comes out clean. I bake it in my toaster oven to save energy and to keep the kitchen cool in the summer.

I’m sorry I don’t have any photos. : (

Gluten Free Red Thai Coconut Sauce Beef and Broccoli

Rachel — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 03:46:51 +0000

That’s what we had for supper tonight. My kiddos didn’t like the Thai sauce…it was quite spicy so one of them just had Bragg’s Liquid Aminos on his beef and then had peas instead of broccoli and one of them just had plain beef and peas. I was inspired to try something like this after watching JJ Virgin talk about low carb dinners on About.com. I’ve heard JJ before on the SavingDinner podcast. I listen to that a lot and have learned so much! Anyway, JJ was talking about using Red Thai sauce over veggies and chicken to make a yummy dinner. I only had a whole frozen chicken and didn’t have time to thaw and cook it so I used some stew beef instead and added broccoli to the plate. It was quite good! My husband liked it as well so I’ll probably make it again. : )

Here’s the recipe for the Red Thai Coconut sauce:

½ cup canned tomatoes

grated Coriander about 3/4-1tsp

1tsp Cumin

1tsp Ginger

1TB +1tsp Xylitol

1TB lemon juice

3TB coconut milk

1TB chili powder

1/4tsp cinnamon

8 jalapeno pepper slices out of the freezer

¼ cup shredded coconut…I have Bob’s Red Mill dried so I added a bit of water and warmed it in my toaster oven before I added it.

Puree all in food processor.

I use the word “Thai” very loosely seeing as how I am not an expert of Thai food. I should probably say it is “Thai inspired”

I also made Elana’s coconut flour muffins but instead of using cranberries, I used blackberries. Yum!

Salmon patties, steamed green beans and garlic cheese biscuits

Rachel — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 00:57:20 +0000

Yum! I made an all gluten free supper tonight. I usually don’t make “bread” with our suppers but my husband loves it so tonight I made some garlic cheese biscuits. I adapted a recipe off the back of my Bob’s Red Mill sorghum flour bag. They have a great gluten free scone recipe that my family all likes. I left out the sugar and raisins and added garlic powder, onion powder and cheddar cheese.

I get my Bob’s Red Mill sorghum flour from Vitacost.com. It is fairly reasonable for a gluten free flour – comparable to the bulk organic buckwheat groats that I get from a health food store for 2.00/lb.

Ingredients:

1 3/4 cup sorghum flour

2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp sea salt

1 tsp xanthan gum

1/2 tsp garlic powder

1/2 tsp onion powder

1/2 cup shredded cheddar cheese (approx)

1/2 cup coconut milk (cows milk should work fine too) or 2/3 cup plain yogurt (I had to add dashes of coconut milk until the dough barely held together…you don’t want it to be too wet)

4 TB cold butter cut into 1/2 inch slices

1 large egg, beaten

Directions:

Mix dry ingredients. Cut butter into dry ingredients. Add cheese. Add beaten egg and milk. Mix all together and mash a bit with your hands until the dough forms a ball. Turn out onto cutting board and press until 1/2-1″ thick. Cut out with biscuit cutter or ring for a mason jar. Place on cookie sheet or stone. Bake at 400 degrees for 12/15 minutes. MMmmmmm….

My entire supper menu was gluten free salmon patties, organic steamed green beans and gluten free garlic cheese biscuits. I used the Salmon Dill Burger recipe from Elana’s The Gluten Free Almond Flour Cookbook. I used lemon juice instead of lemon zest, minced garlic instead of dill, almond meal instead of almond flour and canned salmon instead of fresh. I love this recipe, though. The almond meal gives it a crunch when fried! I love to use grassfed beef fat to fry in…SO GOOD!!!

Gluten Free Ice Cream Sandwiches Review

Rachel — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 02:52:54 +0000

This weekend we went to a birthday party and the cake was not going to be gluten free so I needed to come up with something else for my kiddos to eat. I had some GF brownies in the freezer leftover from the Super Bowl but I thought they might like to try something new. So I was at EarthFare and found these great little GF ice cream sandwiches. They are made with almost all organic ingredients. What I didn’t realize until just now is that they are made in a facility that uses wheat. : ( We’re still pretty new to the gluten free journey. I’ve been doing it for a year now and the boys have been 90% for a year but I’ve just started in the last month with a strict gluten free diet. I try to read labels carefully but sometimes my eyes and brain just get tired. I know some Celiacs don’t get reactions from stuff made in facilities that use wheat and some do. My boys aren’t Celiac that I know but I’m trying to be as careful as I can without being obsessive.

Anyway, the ice cream sandwiches were really good and the boys were glad to have them when everyone else was eating cake. I’m on a no sugar diet so I just ate my cucumbers and buckwheat pancakes. : ) I do love being able to have stevia. I especially love Sweet Leaf’s flavored stevias. I just ordered the berry and grape flavors from iHerb.Ok…”Squirrel” : )

Details: Julies Organic Ice Cream Glutenfreeda Gluten Free Organic Cookes. $5.99 at Earth Fare for 4 sandwiches. Total 14oz. www.juliesorganic.com

Gluten free rice pudding

Rachel — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 06:22:00 +0000

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.

Gluten free, Dairy free, Low Carb chicken enchiladas…

Rachel — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 00:20:38 +0000

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… : )

Version 2 of Elana’s Lemon Bars

Rachel — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 02:39:32 +0000

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….

Lemon Bars by Elana

Rachel — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 03:20:45 +0000

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. : )