Gluten Free Grilled Cheese

Such a simple thing but Grilled Cheese is something you might crave when going gluten free!  Luckily, I actually think that Gluten Free Grilled Cheese is better than regular grilled cheese!

Our favorite bread in the house is Udi’s Gluten Free Bread. The great thing about their bread is that it has all these nice holes in it!  This is perfect for grilled cheese!  All that cheese seeps into the holes and makes it so gooey!  Most highly processed breads that are full of gluten are so processed and manufactured that they take out these nice small-medium holes and have tiny ones that the cheese can’t get into.

Ingredients:

  • 2 pats of butter
  • 2 slices of your favorite cheese (gluten free!)
  • 2 slices of your favorite gluten free bread

Heat 1 pat of butter on low-medium, place bread, cheese, then bread and then the last pat of butter on top.  Cook for a few minutes until the bottom piece of bread is nice and golden brown.  Flip sandwich over taking care that the butter on top ends up on bottom.  Cook for a few more minutes until gold brown and cheese is melted.  Enjoy!

 

Our Favorite Gluten Free Cereals

Most American families are used to eating processed foods for breakfast.  This can be a great issue for those trying to learn to be gluten free.  Fortunately we have many options when it comes to safe cereals!

I’ve included links to all of them on Amazon so you can see what they look like.  I get these though at our local store for a reasonable price.

Our Favorite Gluten Free Cereals:

Below is a list of cereals you might think are gluten free but actually aren’t!  Always look at all the ingredients!  Many cereals contain ‘malt flavoring’ which is made from barley!

NOT Gluten Free:

  • Kellog’s Frosted Flakes (malt flavoring)
  • Kellog’s Corn Flakes (malt flavoring)
  • Rice Krispies (malt flavoring..except for the specially marked Gluten Free ones!)
  • Cheerios (non certified GF oats plus wheat starch)
  • Corn Pops (wheat starch)

Always check ingredients lists every time you buy!  Ingredients change frequently.  Also be cautious of getting store brand cereals.  They don’t always have the same ingredients as brand names!

 

Gluten Free Home Made Spaghetti

I’ve adapted this from what my Grandmother did over the years and now use Gluten Free Pasta to make it safe for us.  I never measured anything though for this, as that’s how my Grandmother did it, so I’m giving approximate measurements and you can tweak the spices to your liking!

I can usually have this on the dinner table in about 20-25 minutes from start to finish!  Who needs that jarred stuff!

Gluten Free Spaghetti

Gluten Free Spaghetti

Meat Sauce Ingredients:

  • About 1.5 pounds Ground Beef (turkey, etc, you can even skip this!)
  • 1 can Tomato Sauce
  • 1 can of mushrooms
  • About 1/3 cup water
  • About 1/2 small yellow onion chopped fine
  • About 2 stalks celery
  • About 1-2 cloves of garlic
  • About 1-2 teaspoons dried oregano to taste
  • Salt & Pepper to taste

For the pasta, my favorite is Schar Pasta.  It’s texture is very close to ‘regular’ pasta and the kids don’t even know the difference!  I like to get this pack of 5 on Amazon as the price is great and I always have enough pasta around then. Schar Naturally Gluten-Free Spaghetti, 12-Ounce Packages (Pack of 5)

First start the water to boil while putting together the sauce.  Heat a large frying pan, add a layer of salt and pepper.  Add the ground beef when it’s hot and brown the beef.  I like to more add salt and pepper onto the ground beef while it’s cooking and before I turn it.  Once brown, drain away any fat in the pan.  Add the can of tomato sauce and the water.  Use as much or as little water depending on how thick you like it.  It will cook down and get thicker so keep that in mind.  Also add the celery, mushrooms, garlic, onion and oregano.  Cover and allow this to simmer on low.

Usually by this time the water is boiling so you can add the pasta and cook (the one I get takes 11 minutes).  Be sure to follow the directions on the package and taste test before deciding the pasta is done!  I like to taste test the sauce as the pasta is cooking and add more salt or pepper as needed or any of the other spices.

Serve with freshly grated Parmesan cheese.  We’ve been skipping the packaged stuff here because of the risk of fillers and just getting a wedge of Parmesan cheese and grating it ourselves.  This is working well and the kids love putting it on their spaghetti!

When I make this for dinner, the dinner table is quiet because the kids are gobbling this up!

TIP:  Double the recipe and freeze or refrigerate the leftovers!  This sauce warms back up very nicely.

TIP: I like to keep dried chopped onion and dried celery flakes on hand in case I don’t have either of these fresh.  They are a good substitute but you get the full flavor if you cook with these as fresh vegetables.

Note: I have tried fresh mushrooms before and it just didn’t turn out as good.  There’s something about the salty canned mushrooms!  You can try fresh if you like though!

 

Enjoy!

Gluten Free Spaghetti

Gluten Free Spaghetti

Gluten Free Soy Sauce

One of the items that is typically not gluten free that surprises people is Soy Sauce.  Look at your favorite soy sauce.  Almost all of them have wheat as the 1st or 2nd ingredient!  This makes eating out at Chinese restaurants pretty tricky for those needing to be gluten free!

To solve this we’ve been making a lot of Chinese dishes at home.  Our main staple is San-J’s Gluten Free Tamari soy sauce.  It’s very reasonably priced at our grocery store.  It’s the same as ‘regular’ soy sauce as far as price goes and I think tastes better!

San-J also has a line of other sauces.  I’ve also tried the Szechuan Cooking Sauce.  I love this sauce!  It’s nice and spicy with good flavor at the same time.  I can’t go crazy with it though because my body can’t handle too spicy.  I’m assuming it is from all the damage to my system.  So be careful if you’ve been undiagnosed for a while and use sparingly until you know how your body will handle the spicy.

I hope this is helpful to you.  Feel free to comment on what your favorite brand is!