Kudos to Taste of Home magazine!

I was thumbing through the most recent issue (Oct-Nov '10) of "Taste of Home" as the delicious looking turkey on the front called my name. I love the excitement I get from looking at a magazine with new recipes; especially when there are holiday cookie recipes..... yummm.


So many yummy looking pictures with easy to follow directions. 

At this point, I'm also realizing that hey, this was my last issue.... (I must renew soon)


Anyways... I'm flipping through the magazine and I happened upon the "Mom's Best" section. I read the tagline to the article/recipes ... "When this teen learned he was gluten- and dairy- sensitive, ......." I immediately had to read and glanced at the pictures and recipes. Of course, as you all know, Ashton is gluten- and dairy-free. Finding unique, but yummy recipes for a gluten- and dairy-free lifestyle is not easy as I'm sure many of you know. Finding recipes with pictures are even harder to come by as many gluten- and dairy-free foods are just not that appetizing, let alone mouth-watering delicious. 

There are four recipes: chocolate-chip-banana belgian waffles, grilled peach bbq chicken wings, spaghetti and meatballs with garlic crumbs and penny's apple-brown sugar coffee cake. Wow.... they all sound so delicious and even the pictures make my mouth water. I might try the coffee cake, as that's what Ashton is most likely going to be willing to eat.

After reading the entire article, I realize that the woman who came up with these recipes, Silvana Nardone, has published a book, called Cooking for Isaiah: Gluten-Free & Dairy-Free Recipes for Easy Delicious Meals. I think I might have to see about getting this, if by the four recipes printed in "Taste of Home" is any indication on how yummy they might be. I then realized, after reading the Amazon page, she also has a blog, Dish Towel Diaries (by the way, I absolutely love the name of her blog), which I started to look around at and realized she has many delicious recipes posted there!  

So - huge kudos to "Taste of Home" for posting not just one, but several specialty recipes that are geared towards the gluten- and dairy-intolerant people of the world. Not just the autistic people, or the celiacs, but to letting others see that specialty foods for dietary needs can be just as to make as recipes they are used to and just as appetizing as well.

Have a good one!

GFCF Mac & Cheese!!!

Doesn't this creamy-looking dish look delicious?! Would you have guessed that it was gluten-free & casein-free? If I hadn't been the one to make it last night, I'm not sure that I would have known!! :)

What kid doesn't love a creamy, warm, satisfying bowl of macaroni & cheese once in a while? But for some children (my older son, Ashton, included) having that satisfying bowl of creamy macaroni & cheese can make them seriously ill, or even lead to a severe allergic reaction! I will let this lead me to say that prior to going on the gluten-free, casein-free diet, my son was the lover of all things macaroni & cheese. If it looked like macaroni & cheese, he'd eat it! But when, on a whim, we decided to try the gluten-free, casein-free (otherwise known as GFCF) diet for him, he could no longer have this creamy, yellow goodness! I found lots of substitutes (every one of which, Ashton would eat) but I found them to be less than stellar and some, downright disgusting! Some even smelled like dirty socks out of the package, YUCK! I was determined to find SOMETHING that I could feed to my son that didn't leave me gagging or with the desire to throw it in the trash before he dug in. So that leads me to last night.....

Well, this delicious looking bowl of creamy goodness came pretty close and was a HUGE hit with Ashton last night! I had went to Navan Foods earlier this week and saw that they now carried both the mozzarella and cheddar forms of the Teese cheese substitutes. I, being the adventurous soul that I am, decided to try the cheddar form and use it to make my son some macaroni & cheese. As I've previously said, I find that most mac & cheese subs just look nasty and smell even worse and I have no clue how they taste because I will NOT taste them, AT ALL. In one word, I find that most are N.A.S.T.Y! Well, I knew I had the pasta at home and wasn't really sure what I would use to make it but I set off with a mission in hand; to make my son a delicious bowl of mac & cheese that wasn't gross and that *I* didn't mind looking at!

So, last night was the night I decided to make it.....

I set out my ingredients

Andean Dream Quinoa Macaroni, Teese cheddar style, Earth Balance spread and Pacific chicken broth

And then I set out to make my son the most

yunmiest mac & cheese *EVER*! :)

Here is the recipe I used (I followed a tip from a fellow GFCF mom and used the broth instead of a dairy-free milk substitute .. that helped, A LOT, in regards to taste I think!)

1 box of Andean Dream quinoa pasta

1 roll of Teese (cheddar style)

2oz Pacific Organic Free-Range Chicken Broth

2 TB of Earth Balance Soy-free spread

sea salt, ground black pepper, onion powder and garlic powder (season to taste)

At this point, you get cooking! ;) I boiled the pasta according to the directions on the box. While waiting for the pasta to finish, I cut up the teese (which by the way, doesn't smell all that awful straight from the package like I was fearing it would) into small chunks and placed them in a smaller sauce pan. I then mixed in the earth balance spread as well as the chicken broth and let them simmer until the cheese was melted. Once melted, I added in the sea salt, pepper and garlic and onion powders and let it all simmer while the pasta finished.

cheddar sauce once melted .... it looks pretty runny, right?

Admittedly, I was a bit perplexed at how this watery cheese sauce was going to properly cover the pasta to give my son the macaroni & cheese I was envisioning for him.

But alas, once the pasta was drained (and I rinsed it just a tiny bit) and then mixed with the the cheese sauce, I had my beautiful looking mac & cheese!! Can you believe it?!

I WAS SHOCKED!!!!

It LOOKED like normal, gluten & casein laden, processed macaroni & cheese from a box! And even better, *I* could tolerate the smell of it! It didn't smell like Kraft, but it certainly did not smell horrible either. I even tasted the sauce (that's how impressed I was, I NEVER would taste most of the subs) and I was quite impressed! It had a creamy texture/flavor and it tasted pretty good! Sure, I like my Kraft or Velveeta mac & cheese anytime, but for my son who can't have those, this was certainly what *I* considered to be a suitable replacement!

Here, you can see, that he's enjoying his macaroni & cheese! He wouldn't smile for me because well, he was too busy eating and was getting mad that I was making him look at me! LOL!

Anyways, I hope this recipe helps any that are looking for a good recipe for some good-tasting and good-looking macaroni & cheese. Since I made the entire box of pasta and the whole roll of teese, he's got plenty for leftovers and is asking to eat more of it for today's lunch, which I will let him indulge in. Now I am anxious to try the mozzarella teese for pizza and as a topping for spaghetti, yummy!!! Thanks for looking and stopping by! :)

GFCFSF Chocolate chip Sun butter cookies

I found THIS recipe while surfing for a GFCF Sun butter cookie recipe for Ashton; it was found on Karina's Kitchen. I made a few modifications... here's what *I* did for this recipe...... 1 cup sunflower butter, stirred 1 cup light brown sugar, packed 1 egg, beaten 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract (I used Meraby's brand; it's gluten AND corn free) 1 teaspoon baking soda 1/3 cup GFCFSF chocolate chips (I used Enjoy Life brand chocolate chips) 1 tablespoon milk (I used Living Harvest Original Hemo Milk; use whatever dairy-free milk substitute you like)) 1 tablespoon of ground milled flax seed 1/3 cup of granulated sugar in a bowl A small pinch of sea salt 1. Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit 2. Combine the sunflower butter, light brown sugar and beaten egg in a mixing bowl. 3. Add vanilla, baking soda and salt; mix well with a wooden spoon. 4. Cover batter mixture and set in refridgerator for 1 hour to allow the mixture to firm up a bit. 5. Pull off pieces of the dough with oiled hands and roll into 1-inch balls. 6. Roll each ball in granulated sugar and place the balls on a foil-lined or parchment-lined baking sheet. 7. Using a fork, press the balls slightly to make a criss-cross pattern- making the cookies roughly 1 1/2 inches. 8. Bake for 9-11minutes or until cookies are brown on the edges. 9. Let set for 5minutes, then remove to cooling racks to completely cool. Just some notes The milk was to keep the cookies from being so dry/crumbly (which I had read was a problem). It served it's purpose and didn't take away from the yumminess of the cookies! Flaxseed was added to add some nutritional aspect to the cookies (lots of good for you things in Flaxseed!). I rolled the cookie balls into sugar to add to the taste; they MADE these cookies!! In hindsight, I would have added 1/2 cup of chocolate chips... not enough chocolate taste for my liking, but still QUITE yummy! ENJOY!