January 31, 2012

At football parties, few things frustrate me more than a plate of piping hot pigs in a blanket that I can't eat. (My team losing would be the #1 thing that frustrates me. I'm looking at you Green Bay.) A few years ago, I grew tired of this--it was time for a gluten-free version.

Traditional wheat-based pigs in a blanket are often made with store-bought dough, usually crescent dough or puff pastry. Those of us on the gluten-free diet currently don't have the option of using pre-made dough. While not as easy as popping open a can of dough, this gluten-free pastry isn't tough to make.

To prepare the dough, simply cut some butter (or shortening) into dry ingredients, add an egg and some milk and stir until a firm dough forms. That's it.

These can also be made ahead of time and frozen. After wrapping each wiener in dough, place them on a baking sheet. Place the baking sheet in the freezer for about three hours, until they're firm. Then place the pigs in a blanket in a plastic bag and return to the freezer.

When you're ready to serve, preheat the oven and bake from frozen. . . . keep reading

November 21, 2001

A few years ago, when one of my readers asked me to create a gluten-free version of Campbell's green bean casserole, I was excited. Until then, I had never eaten the classic Thanksgiving side. After perfecting the recipe, a funny thing happened: several of my friends revealed themselves to be secret green bean casserole lovers. Now I make this for Thanksgiving every year. Another huge part of the tradition is munching on the freshly fried onion strips.

July 9, 2011

I love coleslaw. But I don't love all coleslaws. First, I'm allergic to carrots. So many versions of coleslaw are off-limits to me. And I don't love soggy 'slaw.

This recipe, which uses red peppers and onions, is carrot-free, of course. Plus it uses mayo but not too much. It's also really easy to make. From start to finish, it took me about ten minutes. . . . keep reading

June 29, 2011

Thanks to a mix, it takes only minutes to whip up a batch of these cute cupcakes for the Fourth of July. . . . keep reading

My favorite ricotta cheesecake kicks off "Cake of the Month". It's lighter in both taste and texture than cream cheese cheesecakes. And, if you've never had one before, you might be surprised by the texture. It's slightly "gritty". But not in a bad way, I promise!

I like this cheesecake flavored with . . . keep reading

Each month I'm making a new cake for my "Gluten-Free Cake of the Month" column. Bake along with me and you could win a great prize!

This month we're making a lemony ricotta cheesecake! Let's get started! . . . keep reading

Have you ever eaten Italian Wedding Soup at a wedding? Probably not, and there's a good reason why: the name for this dish most likely comes from a mistranslation of the classic Neapolitan soup Minestra Maritato, which translates to "married soup". The soup's name doesn't refer to a marriage between people, but to how well the meat and greens work together in the soup.

Like Minestra Maritata, Italian Wedding Soup combines meat and greens, usually meatballs and spinach. My version is fairly simple to make. Just keep a few things in mind and . . . keep reading

A great pancake-waffle divide exists in my home. I'm a pancake person. My husband? He loves waffles.

For years I made waffles that I adored. They were delicate, with a slightly crisp exterior and a soufflé-like interior, and, thanks to a bit of buttermilk, they had a mild tang.

One morning my husband looked down at his plate and said, "You know, I don't love these. They're too soft, too pancake-like. I like waffles to be more, I don't know, waffley." You know you're in trouble when someone needs to make up a word like "waffley" to describe what they don't like about your cooking.

Looking at the recipe, I noticed that it contained a high percentage of wet ingredients. I decided to tighten the batter by increasing the amount of dry ingredients. This worked: the resulting waffles were crisp and no longer pancake-like. I made one more change. I swapped the buttermilk for milk in order to lose the buttermilk pancake-flavor. Now the waffles tasted, well, waffley!

These waffles are fantastically easy to prepare. Unlike some recipes, you don't need to whip the egg whites to lighten the batter. A generous amount of baking powder provides the lift, giving you a light, crispy waffle.

To make preparing the waffles even easier, measure the . . . keep reading

Have you ever made crackers? Even though my love of crackers began at an early age, I'd never made a batch until I started baking gluten-free. I don't know why, but making crackers seemed mysterious to me. Turns out, it isn't mysterious at all! Making the dough is easy, especially if you have a food processor. You just need to cut the fat (butter or shortening) into the dry ingredients. Like making a pie crust, this creates little layers of fat that leave the crackers flaky when baked. But crackers need a little more than just cutting the fat into the flour to achieve the correct texture.

After a few batches, I realized the key to making crackers is rolling the dough thin. Really thin. If you don't get the dough thin enough, the crackers resemble a savory shortbread more than a true cracker. Enter parchment paper! When you roll the dough between two pieces of parchment, you can roll it super-thin without any hassle. After rolling, slide the parchment, dough and all, onto a baking sheet. Then just pull the top piece of parchment away and score the dough. Since the crackers are baked on the parchment, they break apart easily once baked. (And if this technique seems familiar, it's because we used it to make graham crackers this summer.)

Made with a combination of brown rice flour and sorghum flour, these crackers remind me a little of Wheat Thins, only better. They'd be perfect with any cheese you might be serving on New Year's.

Want flavored crackers? Add about one . . . keep reading

A few years ago, while at a Christmas Open House hosted by a fantastic local art shop, I noticed a little sign next to a coffee urn that said, Chocolate Eggnog. "Well, that is either terribly amazing or amazingly terrible," I thought. I mean, the components are all there. You've got eggnog (good) and chocolate (great) Yet with food just because components work separately does not mean they are all that great combined---like spaghetti tacos, for instance.

After checking out the ingredients, I tied a sample. And it was…amazing. The spiciness of the eggnog worked really well with the chocolate.

For some silly reason, I didn't ask Beth, the owner, for the recipe. At home I tried to recreate this drink. I failed. My attempted version of the recipe (eggnog and cocoa powder) was just off. When I headed to Artifacts this year, I was determined to get that recipe!

The recipe Beth provided looked deceptively simple: eggnog, hot fudge sauce, nutmeg, and vanilla. But over the years I've learned that chocolate-anything (bars, cocoa powder) varies from brand to brand. A Hershey bar is very, very different from a 70% Cocoa Dark chocolate bar, even though they are both chocolate. Therefore, I wanted the fudge sauce Beth used in her recipe.

I love gingerbread in all its different incarnations. Got gingerbread cookies? Quick breads? Pancakes? Hand 'em over. I never tire of gingerbread, especially this time of year!

Since I've been so busy (my holiday shopping is not done!), I've yet to make my beloved gingerbread cookies. That's okay; I can console myself with a slice of this gingerbread loaf. (I've been tempted to call this "gingerbread bread" but that just sounds clunky, don't you think?)

Like most quick bread, this recipe is easy to make. Quick, too! Since it's dairy-free, you don't even need to worry about softening or creaming butter.

To make this non-cookie gingerbread, simply . . . keep reading

To me, Christmas morning smells like burnt panettone. After spending Christmas Eve cooking a huge meal, my mom did not make Christmas breakfast. Instead she burned panettone. And I loved it. I'm sure she didn't mean to burn the panettone. But the Italian holiday fruit bread never seemed to make it out of the toaster without singeing--sometimes a little, sometimes a lot. Looking back, I can see that paper-thin slices of a sweetened, rich bread never stood a chance in our toaster. And now, it's hard to find a gluten-free way to recreate that taste memory.

Unless, of course, I made my own gluten-free panettone. With a little patience (this bread takes about 16 hours from start to finish), a sturdy mixer, and a few gluten-free flours, homemade gluten-free panettone is fairly easy.

If you've never made gluten-free bread before, you might want to check out my recipe for sandwich bread for a few tips on gluten-free bread baking.

Getting Ready

Traditional panettone uses a biga--a pre-ferment made from a mixture of flour, yeast and water that ferments overnight--to achieve a high rise and a nice deep flavor. This is good news for gluten-free baking--thanks to the lack of gluten and the amount of fat and sugar in the dough, this loaf needs all the help rising it can get. (By the way, the biga doesn't work alone. The finished loaf contains a generous amount of active dry yeast and a little baking powder to aid its rise.)

To get the full benefit of the biga, mix it about twelve to fifteen hours before you plan on baking. Just stir the ingredients together and let the yeast do its thing while you sleep. You might find the consistency of the biga a little startling. This gluten-free biga is wet, thick, and sticky. It looks a bit like marshmallow fluff.

After mixing my biga, I combine my dried fruits with lemon and vanilla extract.Macerating the fruits overnight infuses them with flavor. Since many people dislike the classic panettone fruits of citron and candied lemon and orange peel, I've include a list of alternative dried fruit options for the recipe. No matter which fruits you choose, all benefit from an overnight soak.

Mixing the Dough . . . keep reading

I'm always looking for an easy Christmas cookie recipe. These fit the bill perfectly. They don't take long to put together; yet, they taste really special. If you're squeezed for time but still have the hankering to bake some cookies, this is the recipe for you! . . . keep reading

The classic green bean casserole recipe is a Thanksgiving tradition, but it is loaded with gluten. Here is a gluten-free version that tastes even better than the original. . . . keep reading

Here is a confession: Until recently, I'd never had the classic marshmallow-topped sweet potato casserole. Sure, we had sweet potatoes on Thanksgiving but they were roasted and not marshmallow topped.

Apparently the sweet potato fairy decided that I needed to try this dish. So I looked up some recipes. Most of the recipes I found started with a can of candied yams. To that, they added copious amounts of sugar or coca cola/ginger ale and, of course, marshmallows. I know that this is classically a really sweet side dish. However, for my tastes, the recipes I found looked a bit too sweet. I decided that I wanted to honor this dish but make it without using a canned sweet potatoes, soda or a ton of sugar. . . . keep reading