Gluten Free Double Delicious Cookies

I have had these bar cookies that I’ve made since High School that everyone loves.  When I learned of my gluten issues, I stopped making them.  Problem is they have graham crackers in them.  I finally found a great Gluten Free Graham Cracker Crumbs by Kinnikinnick so I can make these cookies again!

Ingredients:

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350.  While oven is heating, cut up butter in a 9×13 pyrex pan and melt butter in the oven.  Once butter is melted, evenly layer the Gluten Free Graham Cracker Crumbs on butter.  Next layer the Sweetened Condensed Milk followed by the semi-sweet chips and peanut butter chips.  Lightly press down.  Bake for 20-25 minutes or until the edges are bubbly and slightly golden brown.  Let fully cool before cutting!

These are so good and rich be careful eating too many at once!!  Enjoy!

Gluten Free Pizza – Tastes like Delivery!

One thing you might miss when going gluten free is Delivery Pizza!  This is actually pretty simple to do at home if you just make one simple tweak to how you normally make pizza at home!

First I start with Udi’s Gluten Free Crust.  I can find this at our local Kroger’s for a pretty reasonable price (almost the same as gluten crust!)


Next I use a very simple, jarred pizza sauce.  By simple I mean something with very small number and natural ingredients.   I like to use Mid’s pizza sauce.  It’s usually just a few dollars in our Krogers.


Next you can put on any toppings you like.

Here’s how I made the pizza below.

Delivery tasting Gluten Free Pizza

Delivery tasting Gluten Free Pizza

Ingredients:

  • 1 Udi’s Gluten Free Pizza Crust
  • 1-3 tbs Mid’s Pizza Sauce
  • Shredded Cheese (sometimes I use Mexican style…no seasonings.., sometimes just mozzarella)
  • Hormel Pepperoni
  • Fresh Green Pepper
  • Canned Mushrooms (I prefer canned to fresh for some reason!)
  • Cooked Bacon (I just use leftover I’ve frozen or refrigerated)
  • Garlic Powder to taste (optional)
  • Onion Powder to taste (optional)

Preheat oven to 375.  Layer pizza sauce, garlic & onion powder, cheese, then toppings onto gluten free pizza crust.  Bake for 7-10 minutes.  Once cheese looks nice and melted and toppings hot, switch your oven to broil for 1-2 minutes.  It’s important to keep an eye on the pizza at this point!  Watch until the cheese really starts to bubble and the edges of the pizza turn a golden brown.

Optionally: When you get ready to switch to broil, add a sprinkle of fresh cheese on top to help hold all the toppings together.

Ultimate Taste Test!  So for our oldest’s birthday party, I made these Gluten Free Pizzas for all the kids.  They were simpler with just cheese or pepperoni since that’s what they preferred.  I got lots of compliments from the 10-11 year olds on the pizza!

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!

 

Black Beans and Rice – Naturally Gluten Free

This is a great side dish that’s naturally gluten free!  It’s simple and the hubby loves this one!

Ingredients:

  • 1 can Black Beans undrained
  • 1 can tomatoes (I like petite diced)
  • 1 cup or so rice
  • 1/2 small onion finely chopped
  • 1-2 garlic cloves
  • 1-2 tsp dried oregano
  • 1 tbs olive oil
  • Salt to taste

Sweat onions and garlic in a sauce pan with the olive oil on low to medium low.  Once translucent, add the black beans, tomatoes  and oregano. Cook for 7-10 minutes to get everything hot and the flavors extracted.  If you are using instant rice add this in the last few minutes for the time allotted on the instructions for it.  I prefer to use freshly made rice in a rice cooker or leftover rice I have in the fridge.  I just add it at the last minute to warm up and soak up some of the sauce.  Add salt to taste at the end and you’re done!

TIP: Add in cooked chicken at the last minute to make a complete meal or your meat of choice!

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 Peanut Butter Cookies

I’ve personally never been a peanut butter cookie fan, however these peanut butter cookies are the best I’ve ever eaten!  They are nice and moist and chewy, not dry and crunchy!  A super plus is that they are gluten free and minimal  ingredients!  I get told frequently that these are the best peanut butter cookies they’ve ever eaten and I’d have to agree.

Ingredients

  • 1 Cup Peanut Butter
  • 1 Cup Packed Light Brown Sugar
  • 1 Egg

Preheat oven to 350.  Slightly beat the egg so it mixes in well.  Add the sugar and peanut butter and mix well.  I usually use an electric mixer for this.  Roll into 1-2 inch balls and place on a slightly greased pan.  Flatten with a fork.  Bake for 10-12 minutes.

Note: I usually double this recipe and add some extra peanut butter by mounding the cups instead of making them level.

Note:  Be sure to use a ‘clean’ peanut butter jar with no potential for cross contamination.  Especially if you are making these for someone with Celiac disease.  So make sure the PB jar has never been used to make sandwiches on regular bread, etc.

Gluten Free Egg Sausage Sandwich

We are always looking for interesting things to make.  I finally found some gluten free sausage in our local Krogers so I decided to make some Gluten Free Egg Sausage Sandwiches for myself and our oldest son.

Gluten Free Sausage Egg Sandwich

Gluten Free Sausage Egg Sandwich

Ingredients:

  • 2 slices Gluten Free Bread (We prefer Udi’s)
  • 1 or 2 Sausage Patties (I used Williams Sausage, or Tennessee Pride found in our Freezer Section of Krogers)
  • 1 or 2 Egg Whites or 1 Egg (If you prefer a scramble)

Prepare sausage as directed.  If you use Williams, it is frozen so you just cook it about 4 minutes per side.  I cook mine in a cast iron skillet.  When the sausage is almost done, toast the bread and fry the egg white or make a small scrambled egg omelet. This way they are all warm and ready about the same time.  Layer the cooked ingredients on your toasted bread and you are all set!  You could optionally add cheese or any toppings.  We think it’s great just like this.  It took me about a total of 10 minutes to produce something that tastes better than breakfast sandwiches you can get at those fast food places!  🙂

About the Products I Used

Udi’s Gluten Free Bread

We really enjoy Udi’s Gluten Free Bread.  It has the consistency of regular bread and holds up well for just about anything (sandwiches, french toast, making bread crumbs, etc).  You can find it on Amazon if you can’t find it in your local stores. Udi’s Gluten Free White Sandwich Bread (1 Case)

Williams Sausage

I was so thrilled to find this in our local store.  It has only 5 ingredients!!  Pork, Water, Less than 2% of Salt, Spices and MSG.  Now I really try to stay away from MSG as it gives me similar symptoms as getting gluten.  However it’s the last ingredient and in the less than 2% list so I make an exception for this one occasionally.  It’s so hard to find sausage without gluten and without MSG.

Gluten Free Sausage Egg Sandwich

Happy Son with Gluten Free Sausage Egg Sandwich

 

Update!

Krogers no longer as of this posting has the Williams Sausage anymore.  However they do now have Tennessee Pride which is very good and lists their sausage as gluten free on their website!
Here’s what to look for: