Gluten Free Recipes
Easy Tuna Rice Casserole
By Trina Astor-Stewart ©
This casserole has stood me in good stead over the years when I really didn’t feel much like cooking and needed something easy, quick and delicious to fill the tummies in my family. You can easily ‘stretch’ or cut down the recipe to fit your family.
Prepare a large casserole dish by oiling or buttering it so the casserole won’t stick. Start a kettle of water to boil. Preheat the oven to 350F .
Place the following ingredients in a separate bowl and toss together well.
2 cups of white rice (you can use brown, but as brown rice takes longer to cook, you may want to parboil it first)
4 tablespoons mayonnaise
1 large onion chopped
2 small tins of tuna packed in water
1 cup of cheddar cheese cubed – approx.
2 cups mixed frozen vegetables or peas
Dash salt and pepper
Spread the tuna mixture on the bottom of the casserole pan. Pour boiling water over to cover, about 6 cups.
Grate more cheddar or mozzarella cheese on top and place in the oven. As soon as the rice is cooked, you can eat! Takes about 30 to 40 minutes.
Quick and Easy Gluten Free Recipes for Crackers
By Trina Astor-Stewart (c)
My son ate up these really quick crackers and asked for more the next day. I wish I'd had these to take along on our last trip. I sure will next time!
Yeast free, nut free, egg free, gluten free, soy free, salt free, corn free, rice free.
Quick and easy to make whenever you like. If you miss having some cheese and crackers now and then, this is the recipe for you. Kids will love taking these along to school as a nice healthy snack. The Flax Seeds are hardly noticed in the final cracker, and add much needed nutrition to this easy and quick Gluten Free Cracker. This is an unleavened cracker, but you can add a scant teaspoon of baking soda if you prefer a puffier 'soda cracker'.
Step One:
Grind ½ cup blond flax seeds ( for light looking crackers) in a coffee grinder until very fine. Mix with
¾ cup cold water in a sauce pan and gently heat until the mixture thickens, stirring occasionally. Takes about 1 minute, mixture does not need to come to a boil. Set aside.
Blend well in a separate bowl
1 ¼ cups of potato starch ( not the same as potato flour)
1 cup of corn starch (or arrowroot flour)
1/4 cup of potato flour
Reserve 1 cup of this flour mixture to sprinkle on the counter to roll out the dough, add to cracker dough if needed, and save for another batch.
To the rest of the flour mixture add:
¼ teaspoon Xanthan Gum
¼ teaspoon salt (optional)
2 tablespoons sunflower seed oil
2 tablespoons honey
and all of the still slightly warm flax seed mixture. ( about ¾ cup)
Blend well and knead into a ball of dough, place some of the reserved flour mixture on a counter top and knead to make a dough that you can roll out in a thin sheet. If the mixture is too dry add a tablespoon of water at a time until workable.
Roll the dough out as thinly as you can and then cut into squares, triangles or cut out with rounds or any shape you like. Place crackers on a parchment paper lined baking sheet and prick each cracker 2 or 3 times with a fork.
Bake in a pre-heated 350 F oven until crackers are puffy and the edges are nicely browned.
Chocolate Pecan Dreams
By Trina Astor-Stewart © www.glutenfreetrina.com
Chocolate Pecan Dreams are a light and delectable cookie, elegant enough to be served at the most posh event yet simple and fun to make with the kids for a Sunday afternoon treat. Really good with the filling or without.
An excellent accompaniment to a dish of ice cream. Makes about 1 dozen cookies.
Place in a separate bowl and blend thoroughly then set aside
¼ cup potato flour
2 tablespoons arrowroot flour (or cornstarch)
3 tablespoons cocoa
1/8th teaspoon Xanthan gum
Dash salt,
dash cinnamon
10 pecan halves or about ½ cup.
Grind pecans in a coffee grinder to make a fine powder. (It helps to add a bit of the above flour mixture as you grind)
In an electric Mixer bowl beat until very thick and light lemon colored
3 eggs
3/4 cup sugar (start beating the eggs adding a little sugar at a time)
1 tablespoon vanilla sugar (sugar which has been stored with a vanilla bean in it optonal)
Gently fold the dry mixture into the beaten eggs until blended. Drop tablespoonfuls of batter onto a parchment paper lined cookie sheet. The batter is a thin consistency, it won’t spread much more than the size of the cookie batter on the sheet. Each cookie should be about an inch and a half across approximately. You can also pour the batter into a piping bag and gently pipe cookie rounds onto the parchment paper.
Bake in a 350 F Oven for 5 minutes. (cookies are starting to brown at edges) Remove from oven and let cool until they lift easily off the parchment paper.
Filling:
Melt about ½ cup pure bittersweet chocolate and place in a piping bag.
Melt about ¼ cup white chocolate and place in a piping bag.
Pipe dark chocolate onto the bottom of cookie, place another cookie on top. Bottoms together so that chocolate is in the middle. Place each cookie on a tray. Drizzle with a little white chocolate. Let chocolate set. Store in a tightly closed container.
Spinach Crepe Layered Casserole
By Trina Astor-Stewart ©
A delicious lasagna style casserole that melts in your mouth. Easy and quick to prepare, you will certainly get raves for this one!
Prepare a medium sized casserole dish by oiling or buttering the pan. Pre-heat the oven to 400 F.
Crepe Batter
Blend together well in a separate bowl,
¾ cup Trina’s Rice Flour Mix #1
½ teaspoon salt
Dash nutmeg
1 teaspoon Xanthan Gum
In a mixing bowl whisk together slightly
3 eggs
2 cups milk ( a little more to reach desired thinness)
Add the dry mix to the wet and beat some more with the whisk until all is incorporated together and bubbles form in the batter. Set aside. Whisk again slightly before using in recipe.
Cheese layers
2 cups either, Cottage or Ricotta cheese, pureed to a thick pourable consistency with a little cream and Grated Mozzarella Cheese.
Spinach layer
Saute in sauce pan until lightly golden stage
1 chopped onion in a little olive oil
1 finely chopped sweet red pepper
½ teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon black pepper
Mushroom Layer
1 lb sliced mushrooms
½ cup walnut pieces
Dash salt and cayenne pepper
Saute mushrooms until golden brown.
Toss in a few handfuls of freshly washed spinach and Toss lightly to mix together and remove from heat once the spinach is wilted sufficiently. Puree in a blender for greater ease in spreading.
Assemble Casserole
1. First layer is a thin layer of Crepe Batter.
2. Now pour on a layer of the pureed spinach, gently spreading ii as evenly as possible on top of the crepe batter.
3. Spoon some mushrooms on top of spinach layer
4. Drizzle with another thin layer of crepe batter
5. Pour cheese mixture on top
6. Repeat until casserole dish is filled.
7. Drizzle grated mozzarella cheese on top
Place the casserole in the oven and bake for about 30 to 40 minutes, until heated through and bubbly.
Remove from oven, let rest about 5 minutes and serve hot, with a slice of Trina’s crusty gluten free Italian Bida Bread garlic toast. Heaven! PS, if you just love tomatoes, add a layer of tomato sauce for even more joy.
Delicious Apple Raisin Fritters
A couple of weeks ago, I asked one of my sons if there was anything special that he would like me to make. Something his friends take for granted that we can't have. There are so many delicious things out there and everyone has a hankering now and then for something different!
Well he replied, That he would just love to have some Apple Fritters! Apparently, way back when we could eat, or thought we could eat at doughnut shops, his favorite was Apple Fritters.
So I experimented and came up with this new gluten free recipe. The fritters were delicious, I even made a huge batch to take with us on a trip, we were meeting people two hours from where we live and didn't know if there would be any place to get a gf snack. When we got there, everyone was hungry, traffic had been awful, and our friends who met us there and are not on a gf diet, loved them too!
Gluten Free Apple Raisin Fritters
Take my recipe for either Braided Artisan Bread Mix, in the Christmas Edition, Trina's Yeast Bread Dry Mix in "Health & Nutrition, or the Pizza Dough Dry Mix from 'A Sampler'.
Place
4 Cups of Trina's Yeast Dough Dry Mix in a bowl
1 1/2 cups cold water
3 eggs beaten ( or flax seed egg substitute)
Blend well together and then add:
2 apples cut up in small chunks
1/2 cup raisins
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1/4 cup sugar
Mix well again and let mixture rest for 2 hours at room temperature or over night in the fridge.The dough will keep in the fridge uncooked for 2 days.
Prepare a deep fryer or wok with about 2 inches of sunflower seed oil. Heat gently, when oil is hot place about 4 or 5 large spoonfuls of the dough at a time, into the hot oil and fry gently on both sides.ntil golden brown. ( If dough has been refrigerated, let stand for half hour to warm a bit) Using a slotted spoon remove the fritters from the hot oil and drain on a paper to well. Sprinkle with cinnamon sugar, and enjoy them warm or cold.
Makes a dozen or so apple fritters. You can double the recipe ...and you may have to, they are soooo good!
Tip: For extra nutrition in my Yeast Breads, you can add other whole grain flours like Teff, Millet, or Mesquite. See the recipe for dark whole gf grain, 'Farmer's Brown Bread' in Health & Nutrition.
If you are going to be entertaining someone on a gluten free diet.
These Chocolate Pecan Dream Cookies are easy tio make with only a few ingredients. Please make sure your guests can tollerate nuts, (or replace nuts with double the cocoa and arrowroot) and if they are corn intolerant, be sure and use arrowroot flour otherwise corn starch is ok.
Also make sure you don't have any gluten containing items such as wheat, barley, oats, etc. where they can contaminate the cookies. Best to make them in a thoroughly clean area. Use parchment paper to line the cookie sheet.
There are many things you can serve your gluten free guests, the rice casserole is so easy and tasty as a main course with a salad. Put the salad dressing on the side. A plain oil vinegrette is best, bear in mind that malt vinegar is not gluten free. You can substitute lemon juice for vinegar and be safe if you are not sure if your vinegar is gluten free. Pure spices are normally gluten free, but seasonings can have hidden fillers. Grind peppercorns in a coffee grinder, as pepper is often sold with a filler.
Plain Vinegrette - Sunflower oil, lemon juice, salt and pepper
Plain Fruits, Vegetables and unprocessed meats are a good choice. Anything processed or in a package as a mix, tin soups etc. can pose a problem for someone who is gluten intolerant or has another food intolerance.
Relax, it is easier than it sounds. and your gluten intolerant or celiac guests will surely appreciate your efforts.
If you are in the food industry or have a B&B or other establishment that needs to cater to those with a gluten intolerance, someone who is celiac, or someone with an additional food intollerance and you need help.
Perhaps a child will be attending a camp or event and you need help to be able to assure they have a safe and enjoyable diet while in your care.
Please write to me and I will be happy to help you.
Did you know you can use
Trina's Rice Flour Mix #1
to dredge meats in before you pan fry them? Try adding salt and pepper and dredging liver and then pan frying. Delicious. Also good for chicken or pork chops.