It’s often hard to get meals during the holiday due to our increased activities. We are doing extra shopping, decorating, and attending social activities.  It’s also hard to attend so many social activities knowing that much of the special, yummy party food is off limits for a Celiac.

I’ve compiled a list of Holiday Survival tips for anyone newly diagnosed. My first Gluten free Holiday was very emotional for me and the holidays still can be sometimes. I wasn’t able to have all the special comfort foods I grew up with and it really hurt. I felt really deprived.  No one around me understood how I felt, either. It never occurred to anyone around me that it would be hard for me to get through the holidays without the foods that they take for granted. Now I have my own set of coping preparations (more…)

I’ve made this a few times now. It is pretty simple and sets up pretty fast so there is no need to make it the night before.  I was originally trying to make a chocolate frosting using real melted chocolate chips and what resulted was a really tasty chocolate pudding. The kids loved it.  Last week I used it as a filling in a double layered gluten-free chocolate cake I made using Cherrybrook Kitchen’s box mix.

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Mychalina, my mother, would always make the best kolacky’s. She would be in the kitchen for hours on end, making dozens and dozens for holidays, church socials, for birthdays, graduations, you name it. Well into her 80’s she would make them for us, even for the neighbors who mowed here lawn and shoveled her snow. That’s the kind of wonderful and generous person she was. Before she recently passed away my family and I made it a point to get all her favorite recipes. It is a good thing because she never wrote anything down.

Kolacky’s were my favorite recipe of hers. Her prune and apricot kolackys were the best. In one sitting I could eat a dozen. Now since my recent diagnose of Celiac, I thought I would never be able to eat another kolacky again. But thanks to my husband’s niece and the use of her kitchen, we successfully made a GF version of my mother’s kolackys. Trust me it wasn’t easy. After many failed attempts and many long hours in the kitchen, we finally had an edible kolacky that was pretty close to my mother’s original recipe. According to my family, and my niece’s 5 year-old diagnosed son, they were delicious. So if you are gluten intolerant and you think you can’t ever eat a kolacky again, here’s a recipe for you to try. I hope you like it. (more…)

Just received a bag of organic apples yesterday through our co-op. Rather than make a whole pie, I decided to do a quick cobbler. The filling wasn’t too moist and the topping was sweet and crunchy, just the way I remembered it when my mom used to make it with Bisquick years ago. This recipe takes about 45 minutes and includes a few extra steps but I think it is worth it. (more…)

About two months ago, while we were on holidays in Ireland, I took my 3 1/2 yr old with me to the grocery store. He got very excited when he saw a picture of jam cookies on a packaged box and was mad about getting them. I explained that they had wheat, and that we couldn’t get them. He just pointed his finger at me and said exuberantly, “But YOU could MAKE them!” (more…)

My husband says this is better than real ice cream, but we think that’s going a bit too far. It is super rich, creamy and delicious!

While this recipe does contain milk, it’s in the form of yogurt, so it will work for those who cannot have liquid milk, but who can have yogurt and cheese.

To make this frozen yogurt, you’ll need an ice cream machine. I have the Cuisinart electric ice cream and frozen yogurt maker. (more…)

I waited until the last minute to get together something for my son’s Mother’s Day Tea Party. Wanting to make these cookies as healthy as possible by avoiding all sugars, even maple syrup, I decided to check out Pecanbread.com, a website devoted to helping folks following a Specific Carbohydrate Diet. There I found a handful of recipes. One in particular peaked my interest because I had all the ingredients for it on hand. This was my first attempt to bake cookies without any flour or sugar and I was very surprised at the results. The kids loved them, and for anyone not familiar with the SCD diet, as it is often referred as, this recipe is gluten-free, corn-free, dairy-free, soy-free, and Feingold approved. Oh, and one last thing I forgot to mention–delicious! (more…)

This dessert is easy to put together and only takes about a half-hour. It is gluten-free, corn and soy-free, and can be dairy-free if you simply substitute the butter for spectrum palm oil. (more…)

If you have drooled over the Starbucks bakery display or have dreamed of having just one more scone again, I am here to tell you that it is time to wake up and get cooking! Little chef and I bought a scone pan from Nordicware while at our local Dominick’s store, a Safeway affiliate. It wasn’t cheap, and I hesitated to buy it, but at the last minute I gave in to my little chef’s cajoling.

This morning we decided it was time to try it out. The pan is made out of heavy cast aluminum and it makes eight large triangular shaped scones. We altered the recipe supplied by Nordicware and had tremendous success! All three boys thought it was delicious, and I even caught little chef picking the crumbs off of his plate. I think our version was a bit on the sweet side (well at least for our tastes, as we have been low sugar for about a year now). But it may be perfectly suitable for the average sweet-tooth. To put it into perspective, my diagnosed son wanted to know why we were allowed to eat dessert for breakfast….. (more…)

My mom’s most requested cake is just a simple angel food cake with fresh fruit and whipped cream. She wanted me to bake her something I could eat too, so we decided to take a chance on baking an angel food cake with an alternative flour.

We thought it would work, since angel food cake only uses 1 cup of flour, and all the leavening comes from the dozen eggs in the recipe. But just in case, we bought a back-up cake at the grocery store.

You know what that means — it worked! Any time you’re ready with the back-up, you don’t need it, right? (more…)