Skywriter's Guide To A Gluten-Free World

Conte's gluten-free ravioli holds together and tastes good!

Fri, 19 Mar 2010 23:39:51 +0000

I recently had the pleasure of meeting Mike Conte, the man behind Conte's Pasta Company. He really has a dedication to making great-tasting gluten-free products so that everyone can enjoy his family's Italian tradition. (The company added gluten-free products in 2007.) He explained to me how difficult it was to make a gluten-free pinched ravioli that didn't break along the inside seam where the filling puffs it out.

I had this in mind as I cooked the the Cheese Ravioli. I cooked it for longer than the recommended cooking time of 6-8 minutes because the thick outside dough wasn't getting soft enough. I watched it closely, though, thinking about what Mike Conte had said about that inside seam. Despite my longer cooking time, the ravioli stayed perfectly intact! And such pretty ravioli they are -- it was fun to sppon them out onto a plate and top with sauce.

They have a very good texture -- the dough a bit firm, and the insides soft. I could have used a little more flavor in the ravioli, even if just a little salt, but of course you can liven them up with your own special sauce. And perhaps that is what these ravioli are intended to be, but I still wanted them to have a little more taste.

Overall, if you are looking for a good gluten-free ravioli, I would recommend trying these, or the Spinach and Cheese Ravioli. Conte's also makes Cheese-Stuffed Shells, Potato/Onion Pierogies, Potato/Cheese/Onion Pierogies, Gnocchi, Manicotti, and Lasagna.

I found the Cheese Ravioli in the freezer section of Whole Foods. They can also be ordered online (and shipped frozen) on Gluten Free Mall.

Better batter Gluten-Free Flour Review

Fri, 12 Mar 2010 06:32:05 +0000

I am so excited about this! Back in December I received a complimentary sample of Better Batter Gluten Free Flour to review on my blog. It arrived on Christmas Eve, just in time to make cinnamon rolls for Christmas morning! I made the Pillsbury Cinnamon Roll Clone recipe that I found on the Better Batter Website. As I was rolling out the dough for the cinnamon rolls, I had to stop and just enjoy rolling the “real” dough between my fingers. I never thought I would ever experience that feeling again after my celiac diagnosis 5 years ago.

When the boys came down to see what “Santa” had brought the most amazing thing happened. They could smell the cinnamon aroma coming from the kitchen and they pitter-pattered right past all the loot and asked me what I was making. As I pulled the tray of hot gooey cinnamon rolls out of the oven, their eyes grew about an inch. We took a pause from the impending chaos of opening presents and just sat at the kitchen table and enjoyed our fluffy pillows of warm cinnamon goodness. The only sound that could be heard was of little lips smacking with delight. Our gluten-free life is now complete, there is nothing that we cannot have if we want it bad enough (Better Batter even has a recipe for GF Filo (or phyllo) Dough and GF Pizza Rolls… like the Totino’s Pizza Rolls!). This is a very powerful thing for me (and hopefully for Sam) because knowing we can have something if we want it, makes sticking to a permanent dietary regimen a lot easier to accept and embrace. I don’t know about you, but for me, if I know I cannot have something… it just makes me want it all the more (even if it is something I didn’t normally eat pre-gluten free, like Twinkies!). We were so into the cinnamon rolls that I forgot to take a picture!

I have also made the Cinnabon Clone Cinnamon Rolls (click here for the vegan version of the recipe), and I do have a picture to show you:

I was so impressed with Better Batter’s Gluten Free Flour, that I ordered a 25 lb. bag of flour before I was even finished with my sample package! That 25 lbs. is now gone too… it “left the building” a week after I got it! Mike just ordered me another 25 lbs. today!

I also made Pigs in a Blanket using Better Batter’s Super Versatile Bread Dough recipe.

This is where most of my 25 lbs. of Better Batter Flour went! My husband can eat his entire body weight's worth in one sitting and Mike is not a big eater (he is 6'5" and 180 lbs., he is a pretty thin guy!). I have a ton of these in my deep freezer, ready to pull out when needed!

Then there was the Better Batter Flour Tortillas! Oh my gosh, these are the best! I wholeheartedly believe they taste better that the store-bought glutinous flour tortillas. Not a doubt in my mind. They are super easy to make and by making your own, you can easily sub out the lard or fully and partially hydrogenated oil that is in Crisco. I used Spectrum Shortening which is non-hydrogenated.

Real Chicken Soft Tacos have re-entered our gluten-free meal time! WOO-HOO!

We have also made GF Breakfast Burritos, Huevos Rancheros and Burritos! Yum.

The dinner rolls I made came from a recipe I found on Recipezaar, I wanted to try out the Better Batter Gluten-Free Flour in other recipes to see if it worked just as well. So far, so good!

Check out the Double Chocolate Peanut Butter Cookies I made yesterday:

And the Gluten-Free “Nutter Butter” Cookies:

I think they taste just like Nabisco's, even if they don't look the same!

And this has been this biggest seller of all to me: Gluten-Free Puff Pastry! Yes, you heard me right, GF Puff Pastry…

Now, please keep in mind that I have never made Puff Pastry in my life, gluten-free or otherwise! Another thing to keep in mind is that this was not well thought out by me in advance. I am quite often driven by impulse, a sidekick companion to my ADD. There are positive sides to this trait of mine and some not-so positive sides. One positive? I can watch the movie Julie and Julia (GREAT movie by the way!!) on a Sunday night and wake up on Monday morning ready to tackle GF Puff Pastry, having not taken the time to think it through and risk talking myself out of it! The downside? I can get so involved in a project like this that I completely miss an appointment! I am currently working on some tactics to overcome this issue of mine and I think I will start by taking some wardrobe advice from Flava Flav (I might even do the hat!). Just call me Flava GF Mom! :

See what I mean? ADD tangent! Back to the GF Puff Pastry…

I watched an online video of Michele Richard and Julia Child making the gluten version of puff pastry and followed another blogger’s (Irina at Pastry Pal) tutorial for making glutenous puff pastry. Okay, so as I am sitting here writing this post, and copying links from the Pastry Pal’s blog to show you where I got my inspiration, I just happened to go to Irina’s home page and guess what I found? A recipe for Nanimo Bars that are gluten-free! The Nanimo Bars recipe was part of a 2010 Daring Baker’s Challenge hosted by Lauren of The Celiac Teen! Apparently, Irina has a wheat sensitivity and is going to be making more gluten-free recipes! That is either total dumb luck on my part or we really do live in a small world!

This is my first attempt at Gluten-Free Puff Pastry using Better Batter Gluten-Free Flour

For comparison purposes, here is Irina’s gluten puff pastry from the Pastry Pal Website:

This is Wheat Based Homemade Puff Pastry that Irina of PastryPal.com made.

My Gluten-Free Puff Pastry is not quite as “poofy,” as the wheat based puff pastry but I am not willing to chalk that up to it not having any gluten, not yet anyway. Right now I would say the “poof-lite” outcome is due to operator error. I am going to keep practicing to see if I can’t make the GF puff pastry equally as puffy as the gluten version. Outside of the puffy factor, the taste was AMAZING! I used it last night to make Chicken Pot Pies (using a Rachael Ray Recipe), check it out:

I made a bunch of these and put them in individual foil pie plates and froze them! Homemade Gluten-Free “Fast Food!”

One last example. I really miss Shrimp Gumbo. Pappadeaux’s Shrimp Gumbo to be specific. I cannot find a “copycat” recipe anywhere to do a “GF recycling.” I know it has a really dark base but every time I have tried to make a dark roux using different GF flour blends, it always comes out a light beige, at best. I found a recipe for Dark Roux on the Better Batter website:

Better Batter Gluten Free Dark Roux

Not quite as dark as Pappadeaux's, but much more visually appealing than a white gumbo! It was yummy!

I also use Better Batter GF Flour in my Gluten-Free Magic Mix, which I use in my gluten-free condensed soup recipes.

But don’t just take my word for it, check out Kim Bouldin’s Review of Better Batter Gluten Free Flour on her blog, “Gluten-Free Is Life.”

Namaste Foods Gluten-Free Chocolate Cake Mix Quick Tip by cherylene

Sun, 7 Mar 2010 23:52:24 +0000

This cake was moist and delicious.

A very rich grown-up chocolate cake

Thu, 25 Feb 2010 20:58:24 +0000

There are chocolate cakes and there are chocolate cakes. Namaste Foods Chocolate Cake mix makes one that is dark, rich, moist. It sticks to your fork, in a good way. It is a cake that you would serve to dinner guests or at a bridal shower or for a friend's birthday. Of course, you could just make it any old time you want, but it has an "I'm an extra-special-chocolate-cake" taste to it.

And did I mention that it's gluten-free?

This would be a good basic chocolate cake for any kind of recipe variation that you want to try, such as German Chocolate Cake or Chocolate Cake with a Raspberry Filling.

I made this chocolate cake with the Vanilla Toffee Frosting Mix, also made by Namaste Foods. It tasted like a big giant decadent Skor bar! In fact, I broke up Skor bars (also gluten-free) and sprinkled them around the edge of the cake. Sooo good.

Moist, delicious and satisfying gluten-free oatmeal chocolate chip cookies!

Fri, 12 Feb 2010 17:45:34 +0000

I LOVE this cookie recipe, which I adapted from the bag of Namaste Perfect Flour Blend to make them dairy-free, soy-free and egg-free in addition to gluten-free. This is definitely my go-to cookie recipe because the cookies stay moist and have a great texture with the oats.

Notes:

Chocolate chips:
I use Enjoy Life chocolate chips which are teeny tiny chips, which I like because the chocolate gets dotted througout the cookie. Of course, you could use raisins instead of the chocolate chips, but that would be much more... raisin-y!

Flour:
I have used both the Namaste Flour Blend and Bob's Red Mill. I prefer the Namaste, but it is harder to find. And if you can't find a packaged gf flour blend, you can make your own using a combination of flours. The classic gluten-free flour blend consists of 2 cups brown rice flour, 2/3 cups potato starch, 1/3 cup tapioca flour (you would need to reduce the overall mixture for the recipe). There are many other recommended gluten-free flour blends out there, and because the recipe only calls for 3/4 cup flour, you might be able to get away with more when it comes to which ones to use.

Another idea!
These are great cookies for ice cream sandwiches... like an It's It! I used to love those... sigh.

Make gluten-free cornbread even gluten-eaters will love!

Thu, 4 Feb 2010 06:05:20 +0000

Pamela's has done it again! The new gluten-free mix, the Cornbread & Muffin Mix, has lived up to my expectations. It even contains organic corn, which is a must in my book.

So far I have only made the regular sweet cornbread recipe on the package. I was a little worried that it would be too sweet and considered cutting the sugar as the recipe suggested as an alternative, but I decided to make the recipe exactly as written (there is no sugar in the mix itself). I am so glad I did because the level of sweetness in the cornbread was PERFECT. The texture and flavor was to me exactly as cornbread should be.

I have made mini-muffins with this mix for several parties. All the non-gluten-free people love them and can't stop eating them. People always ask to take muffins home for their kids.

The recipe calls for butter, but you could easily use a dairy-free margarine like Earth Balance, or substitute oil as the recipe states. There is not an egg-free recipe on this mix (as there is with other Pamela's mixes) because Pamela said she wasn’t happy with how it turned out without eggs (she’s a perfectionist, that one).

Something that I really like about Pamela’s mixes is that there are so many recipes on each package. The Cornbread & Muffin Mix has suggestions for cornbread variations, including Buttermilk, Cheddar Cheese, Green Chili Cheese, Green Onion and Sour Cream, Corn Kernel and Sweet Pepper Cornbreads. Other recipes include Southern Skillet Cornbread, Southern Cornbread Dressing, Cranberry Orange Corn Muffins, and a Tart Crust, either savory or sweet. I am looking forward to trying the tart crust — anyone have ideas of what to put inside?

My opinion overall is that this is how cornbread should taste, gluten-free or not. Be sure to try it — you won’t be disappointed!