January 16, 2011 · 1:08 pm

Gluten-Free Peanut Butter Kiss Cookies

Gluten-Free Peanut Butter Kiss Cookies

Gluten-Free Peanut Butter Kiss Cookies

These easy-to-make gluten-free peanut butter cookies are sealed with a kiss – Hershey’s Kisses placed on the cookies while they are still warm from the oven.

The bonus: The cookies are naturally gluten free, with no flour at all, making them good crowd-pleasers. Plus, the peanut butter packs a protein punch, which we’re always looking for in our house. Thank you to my friend Rebecca who provided the flourless peanut butter cookie recipe. I just added a kiss.

Peanut butter jars can easily become contaminated by bread crumbs spread on a sandwich knife. We always have two jars of peanut butter and two jars of jelly in our house, marked in permanent marker: GF ONLY and NOT GF. My mother has a squeeze bottle of jelly, so crumbs don’t get in the jar.

I’m a crunchy, natural peanut butter fan. True, natural peanut butter is a pain. The oil separates, so you need to plunge your knife into the jar to mix it up, inevitably resulting in an overflowing mess.

Still, one look at the ingredients and you’ll be convinced to go natural. Most peanut butters contain sugar and hydrogenated vegetable oil. Even mainstream natural brands like Skippy Natural and Jiff Natural contain added sugar, palm oil and salt.

By contrast, Trader Joe’s organic crunchy unsalted peanut butter has one ingredient: peanuts. And the Whole Foods 365 Everyday PB has two ingredients: peanuts and salt (though, curiously, their 365 Organic brand has added palm oil).

While you’re at it, check your jam or jelly. Most contain high-fructose corn syrup. Who needs that? Buy a brand that contains simply fruit or is sweetened with other fruit juices.

Click for Gluten-Free Peanut Butter Kiss Cookies recipe

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December 30, 2010 · 12:06 am

News and Notes

I wanted to share some good gluten-free experiences we’ve had recently, with a Harry & David gluten-free gift box, King Arthur gluten-free cake mix, and four restaurants in Chicago: Hub 51, Wilde, Lula Cafe and Nano Sushi.

Harry & David Gluten-Free Goodies

Harry & David Gluten-Free Hat Box
Harry & David Gluten-Free Hat Box

– The good folks at MB Limited, who help us out with our computers, sent us a Harry & David Gluten-Free Hat Box. It’s always exciting to open a Harry & David gift tower, so it was fun to unwrap the two hat boxes. Imagine our delight when we discovered that the hat boxes were filled with gluten-free brownies and cookies.

The brownies were some of the most scrumptious brownies I’ve ever had — gluten-free or regular. I looked at the ingredients and was surprised to see that they used black bean powder instead of flour. I was also surprised to see the high amount of fat, but let’s not go there (on the positive side, they had high protein). The gluten-free brownies — two fudge brownies, two walnut brownies and two chocolate chunk brownies — were rich and thick and chocolate.

The gluten-free cookie assortment included two macaroons, two chocolate chip cookies, two peanut butter cookies and two mint chocolate cookies. They were quite good, but the brownies were definitely our favorite. I sent Harry & David an email, asking if their gluten-free goodies were made in a dedicated gluten-free area etc., but I did not hear back.

UPDATE 10/29/11: I just found out that Harry & David has discontinued their gluten-free brownies and cookies. Unfortunately, there’s no explanation from them. I’m sad, those brownies were really delicious.

King Arthur gluten-free birthday cake

gluten-free birthday cake
Birthday cake made with King Arthur gluten-free chocolate cake mix

– Speaking of rich desserts, it was recently my older daughter’s birthday. Although she does not have celiac and usually orders a bakery cake, she requested that I bake her cake this year. I told her it would have to be a gluten-free cake, as I don’t bake with regular flour any more since flour can remain airborne for a few hours and settle on kitchen appliances and counters.

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December 22, 2010 · 2:08 pm

Navigating holiday parties, gluten-free

pomegranate bark2

Gluten-free pomegranate bark, perfect to bring to a holiday party.

When you’re on a gluten-free diet, the holidays can seem like a minefield of tempting foods with unknown ingredients. A few easy strategies, as well as a few great gluten-free recipes, can make holiday get-togethers much easier.

When going to a holiday party or other event:

    – Understand that you will need to find your holiday cheer in the good company and conversation, not necessarily in the food.

    – Eat before you leave home, so you’re not overly hungry at the party. This will reduce the temptation to eat something that is not safe.

    – Bring your own dish or dessert to share (like the gluten-free lemon bars below), so you are assured there will be something you can eat.

    – Bring a gluten-free granola bar or nut bar (Larabars and Kind bars are tasty and filling), so you can sneak away and have a quick snack if there’s nothing safe for you to eat.

    – Be an early bird. Food left on a buffet table easily can become contaminated when guests use the wrong serving spoon, dip their pita in otherwise gluten-free hummus, or break bread over the salad. If you are at the party early, you can go into the kitchen and reserve untouched portions for yourself. You’ll also be able to read package labels.

    – Let your host know in advance that you cannot eat anything made with wheat, rye, barley and oats. Tell the host that she doesn’t need to make special foods, you would just like to determine which foods will be safe for you to eat. If you can find out the menu, focus on two or three dishes that seem likely to be gluten-free and ask about the ingredients in those specific dishes. If the party will have a buffet, ask the host to put aside uncontaminated portions for you in advance.

    – When in doubt, leave it out. Don’t eat food unless you are certain it is gluten-free.

For easy desserts to bring to holiday get-togethers, check out these Gluten Free Nosh recipes:

Cheers!

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December 4, 2010 · 4:08 pm

Gluten-Free Potato Latkes

Gluten-Free Potato Latkes

Gluten-Free Potato Latkes

Happy Hanukkah!

Sorry that I’ve been neglecting this blog, but things have been busy and it seems there’s always something to do. In the past few months, we sold our condo (thankfully!), moved into a new (well, a rehabbed 100-year-old) house in Chicago, transitioned to a new neighborhood after 20 years in the old ‘hood, and changed our daughters to a new school.

Things are settling down now, and we are enjoying Hanukkah in our new home. And while Hanukkah may mean candles, dreidels and gifts to the kids, it means potato latkes to me.

Many homemade and store-bought latkes contain flour or matza meal. However, since the amount of flour is small, it’s pretty easy to adapt latkes to be gluten-free. If you’re looking to buy latkes, Kineret frozen potato latkes do not contain gluten.

This year, my family concurred that my latkes were the best ever. I used three russet potatoes and one sweet potato, which added a golden orange color and hint of sweetness. After I grated the potatoes, I let them sit in a colander to drain extra liquid. And I used potato starch instead of flour. Don’t listen to people who claim you have to hand-grate the potatoes; a food processor works just fine.

Even if your arteries harden at the sight of a thick layer of oil in a frying pan, don’t be stingy with the oil. To make the latkes brown and crisp, you need a generous layer of oil covering the bottom of the pan. Keep the pan hot to prevent the latkes from absorbing too much oil, but not so hot that you set off the smoke alarm.

Enjoy the remaining days of Hanukkah!

Click for Gluten-Free Potato Latkes recipe

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July 13, 2010 · 6:37 pm

Sesame-Free Hummus

sesame-free hummus

Sesame-free hummus

My father is violently allergic to sesame seeds. When I was a kid, my brother and I — well, I like to think it was mostly me — would sit at the kitchen table, scanning the bottoms of bagels for hitchhiking sesame seeds. We knew from ugly experience that eating even one sesame seed could send my father into scary gagging spasms.

Back then, it was a highly unusual allergy – whoever heard of being allergic to tiny sesame seeds?! Recently, however, I started hearing of more kids being diagnosed with sesame allergy. One doctor even called it the new “hot” allergy.

I wrote a story about the increase in sesame allergy for the June/July issue of Living Without, a national allergy magazine. If you’re not familiar with Living Without, it’s a great resource for people with food allergies and sensitivities, especially for those on a gluten-free diet. The story included my recipe for sesame-free hummus, which is also naturally gluten-free.  

Not that Dad would eat hummus anyway, even if I swore up and down that it was sesame-free. But my husband and kids eat hummus, so I made it for them and served it with gluten-free pitas from Rose’s Wheat-Free Bakery. (FYI, Rose’s pitas are flat; they do not open like pocket pitas.) We were grilling out that day, so we brushed the gluten-free pitas with olive oil and heated them briefly on the grill — perfection!
Click for the recipe

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June 29, 2010 · 11:48 pm

Chinese Chicken Salad

When I worked on Michigan Avenue, in downtown Chicago, we’d frequently go across the street to Nordstrom for lunch. I know it’s rude, but I’ve always poked fun at one-dish people – you know, the people who go to a restaurant and always order the same dish time after time (but, yes, Melissa, I love you anyway). However, the Chinese Chicken Salad at Cafe Nordstrom is so very, very good that I order it every single time.

I’ve created my own gluten-free version. I feel funny calling it Chinese Chicken Salad, since there’s nothing Chinese about it, except the inclusion of bok choy (a Chinese cabbage) and a dressing made with rice vinegar, sesame oil and soy sauce.

BTW, in case you didn’t know, soy sauce is a hidden source of gluten, since it is fermented with wheat. In fact, some soy sauces contain 50 percent wheat. Instead of soy sauce, I use San-J Wheat-Free Tamari, which is certified gluten-free by the Gluten-Free Certification Organization. La Choy Soy Sauce is also gluten-free, though I’m not fond of some of its ingredients: hydrolyzed soy protein, corn syrup and caramel color.

This colorful salad is a great take-along dish for picnics and barbecues, and it makes a satisfying, no-cook summertime meal. For ease of preparation, I use rotisserie chicken, though you could grill a chicken breast and dice it. Most rotisserie chickens are gluten-free, but check the ingredients to be sure.

My kids will actually eat this green salad. The sweet mandarin oranges, crunchy almonds and abundant veggies camouflage the chicken sufficiently for my chicken-hating older daughter.

As a fun variation, I’ve added gluten-free chow mein noodles that I bought at Passover (I doubt you’d be able to find them now). Add them tableside, as you serve each portion, or else they’ll quickly turn into soggy strips.

Click for Chinese Chicken Salad recipe

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June 22, 2010 · 1:17 pm

Great Gluten-Free Dining

We had two great gluten-free dining experiences recently. I only wish I had brought my camera.

Last week, relatives were visiting from out of town, and we met them at Mon Ami Gabi, a French bistro in Chicago. We chose Mon Ami Gabi because it’s not far from our home and, since it’s a Lettuce Entertain You restaurant, I felt reasonably confident they could handle a gluten-free request.

Little did I know that Mon Ami Gabi has a full gluten-free menu, with steaks, chicken, salmon and more. The real surprise came when the waiter brought out a gluten-free baguette nestled inside a long paper sleeve. My daughter quickly gobbled up the fresh, warm bread. Though it didn’t have the crispy crust or chewy interior of a real French baguette, my husband declared it the best gluten-free bread he’s ever had.
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