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Breakfast

Apple Pecan Breakfast Cake

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This recipe for a very moist breakfast cake comes from the specific carbohydrate diet. It has been adjusted by Gf-Zing! to include some gluten free flour. It contains no white sugar, using only honey as a sweetener.

In a large bowl, mix up and set aside:

2 cups finely ground pecans
1 cup gluten free cookie flour mix
3 cups coarsely grated baking apples

In a food processor, mix well:

2/3 cup honey
1/3 cup butter
1/2 teaspoon salt
4 large eggs
2 teaspoons cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
1 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
1 teaspoon baking soda

Grease a heavy bundt pan extremely well. Mix the contents of the food processor with the apples, ground pecans and gluten free flour. Pour the batter into the prepared bundt pan. Bake for one hour at 350 degrees, until cake tester or toothpick comes out clean. The edges of the cake will be pulled away from the sides of the pan some, and the top will be brown.

Let cool for 10 minutes, then loosen the edges of the cake from the pan if necessary and turn the cake out on a rack to cool.

Use all gluten-free ingredients!

Lemon Rice Pudding

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In a large bowl, mix the following ingredients:

2 eggs
1/3 cup brown sugar
1/4 teaspoon finely grated fresh lemon zest
2 Tablespoons fresh lemon juice
1/4 teaspoon gluten free vanilla

Cook one cup of dry, long-grain rice with 1/2 teaspoon of salt, until done. You can use a rice cooker, or do it on top of the stove. While the cooked rice is still very hot, stir it quickly and vigorously into the bowl with the eggs and seasonings. Stir quickly so the eggs don’t cook before the mixture is all mixed up. The hot rice will cook the eggs.

Transfer to a serving dish; sprinkle the top with gluten free cinnamon.

Cool the pudding to room temperature or colder before serving.
Make sure all your ingredients are gluten free.

The original version of this recipe is from Still Life With Menu, by Molly Katzen, published in 1988.

Yeast-raised Buckwheat Pancakes

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This recipe has been developed and tested for the gluten free community by Gf-Zing!

Mix in a large bowl:

1 cup gluten free cookie flour
1 cup buckwheat flour (this is not wheat)
1 package (about a tablespoon) gluten free fast-rising yeast
2 Tablespoons gluten free buttermilk powder
1 Tablespoon sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt

Stir this up, then add 2 cups lukewarm water. Mix well and set on a radiator or other warm place for 1 hour.

After an hour of rising, add

2 eggs
3 Tablespoons oil
1/2 teaspoon gluten free baking powder

Mix well. Then let the complete mixture rise for another 15 minutes or more.

Adjust the thickness of the batter to your liking by adding additional water for thinner pancakes. Heat a heavy skillet nice and hot. Add some butter. Spoon in some batter in the size you like. When each pancake has bubbles on the top that have popped, and the top of the pancake looks kind of dry, flip the pancake. Cook on the other side. The pancakes will be a dark color because of the buckwheat flour. Serve hot with butter and grade B pure Maple Syrup.

Store the leftover batter in the fridge over night – the pancakes you make the second day will be even better than the first day’s pancakes.

Make sure all of your ingredients are gluten free!

Cornmeal Almond Cake with Orange Syrup

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The original recipe that this comes from was written in metric weights. It is interesting that 190 grams of corn meal is 1 cup, and the same weight of almond meal is 2 cups (loosely packed). There is not an error in the measurements – this is just how it worked out! This recipe has been modified and tested for the gluten free community by Gf-Zing!

1 1/3 cups sugar
4 large eggs
1/2 teaspoon salt
grated zest and juice from a navel orange
1 cup extra light olive oil
1 cup corn meal (or 190 grams)
2 cups almond meal (or 190 grams)
1 1/2 teaspoons gluten free baking powder

Beat the eggs with the sugar and salt, using an electric mixer, for 3 minutes, until light in color and fluffy. Beat in the zest and orange juice, and then the extra light olive oil. This creates a sort of mayonnaise-like substance, with the eggs acting as an emulsifier.

Mix the corn meal, almond meal and baking powder together and fold into the egg mixture. The batter will look like corn meal mush.

Grease a 9-inch spring-form pan, line it (bottom and sides) with wax paper, then grease the wax paper. Pour the batter in to the lined pan and bake at 350 for 1 hour and five minutes. The cake will be dark brown on the top. Remove it from the oven.

Syrup:

Make a syrup of 1/2 cup sugar, 1/2 cup water, 6 tablespoons fresh orange juice (1 orange). Simmer this syrup for 8 minutes. Skim off any foam. Add 2 Tablespoons of gluten free orange liqueur, if desired. Poke holes all over the top of the cake with a skewer, then pour the hot syrup over the cake, while the cake is still in the pan. The cake will soak up the syrup almost immediately.

As soon as possible after pouring the syrup on the cake, remove the sides of the cake pan and transfer the cake to a plate. Use the wax paper to help you in moving the cake, and make sure to remove the metal bottom of the pan too. If you leave the syrupy cake in contact with the pan for much time at all, the acidic syrup will interact with the metal pan and cause the cake to have a metallic flavor.

Chill the cake completely before serving. When completely finished, the cake will be about 1 1/2 inches tall and will serve 12.

Use all gluten-free ingredients!

Pumpkin Pie – dairy and gluten free

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This recipe has been developed and tested for the gluten free community by Gf-Zing!

A one-crust unbaked gluten free pie shell (9-inch deep-dish glass pie plate is perfect)

Filling:

1 can pure pumpkin (1 pound size – the “one-pie” size)
4 large eggs
2/3 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 teaspoons cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon allspice
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
1 1/2 cups almond milk

For a standard pumpkin pie, made with evaporated milk or heavy cream, the recipe would use fewer eggs. For this pie, which uses almond milk instead, more eggs are required to set the filling. This pie also includes less sugar than standard recipes.

Mix all the ingredients for the pie filling together with a whisk, electric mixer or food processor until thorouhly mixed. You can mix the pie filling in the same food processor that you mixed the pie crust in, and any left-over crust ingredients will just get mixed in to the filling with no ill effects on the pie.

Anyway, after the filling is thoroughly mixed, pour it in to the unbaked pie shell set in a glass pie plate. The filling will be quite thick and there will be enough for a deep dish pie. Bake in a preheated 425 degree oven for 10 minutes, then reduce the heat to 350 and bake for another 35 minutes or more, until the filling is set. If the pie is 9-inches and deep dish, it may take as much as an additional 20 minutes before the filling is set. To test the pie, dip a clean, dry, knife-blade in to the center of the pie. The knife should come out nearly clean, but little bits of filling clinging to the knife are ok. The top of the pie will start to crack.

Remove the pie from the oven. Cool completely. Pumpkin pie is an egg-based custard pie, so it should be kept chilled when not being served, and then brought to serving temperature.

If you prefer, you can use a one-pie can of squash, or 1 1/2 cups of home-cooked, mashed, drained pumpkin or winter squash (butternut, buttercup etc.). To use winter squash or sugar pumpkin, halve them and seed them, then bake or microwave until tender.  Finally, remove it from the skin, allow it to sit overnight, then strain it thoroughly to remove excess liquid.

If you don’t care about using dairy but want to use less fat, you can substitute 1 2/3 cups of 1% skim milk or gluten-free fat-free evaporated milk for the almond milk, and use 2 eggs plus 1/2 cup of gluten-free eggbeaters product for the eggs. Make sure the product is gluten free.
Make sure all the ingredients, including the spices, are guaranteed gluten free by the manufacturer. Certain manufacturers guarantee the gluten-free quality and accurate labeling of their spices. Read the internet gluten-free lists to find out which manufacturers are currently maintaining this level of quality.

The original concept of this recipe is from the Victory Garden Cookbook by Morash.  There, the recipe was a an old-fashioned winter squash pie, and called for milk or cream.

Gluten Free or GF Pie Crust

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We tried mixes, and recipes, and had almost given up on ever having a decent pie again, when we discovered this method for making gluten free pie crust. Let’s just mention that pie was one of the most important foods in our repertoire, and we used to be very proud of our pie crust, and then we entered the parallel universe of gluten free cooking, for medical reasons. We went in to pie withdrawal – depression, cold shakes, somber mood…..after all, what were we going to have for breakfast, if we couldn’t eat left-over pie?

Well, the news is good – you can have your pie and eat it too!

Use the Dream Pastry Recipe from Bette Hagman’s More From the Gluten-Free Gourmet. A very similar recipe is also called “Donna Jo’s pie crust” and is available on the internet. (Be careful about the recipes on the internet, which are sometimes missing key ingredients in the list of flours, such as the sweet rice flour, for example!) Of course, we don’t exactly follow the recipe anyway, so we have printed here the method we are using at the moment…..

We prefer the flavor of lemon juice to the flavor of vinegar, so we use fresh lemon juice in the recipe. Also, we use one stick of gluten free margarine and one of butter (we don’t like Crisco so much). Lastly, we sprinkle the top of a two crust fruit pie liberally with sugar.

To save time and aggravation when hand-mixing the pie dough, we use a large cheese grater to grate the butter into the dry ingredients. This makes it much easier to get the “lima bean” sized pieces of butter called for in the recipe. We have also used a Braun food processor to make this crust, and it was acceptable, you just have to be careful not to overmix the butter.

Here are the ingredients for one two-crust pie shell:

Dry ingredients:

1/2 cup tapioca flour (tapioca starch) – make sure this is the flavorless kind, not the fermented find
1/2 cup cornstarch
1/4 cup potato starch (katakuriko in Japanese stores – this is NOT the same as potato flour)
1 cup sweet rice flour (mochiko flour – not the same as white rice flour)
1 teaspoon xanthan gum
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 teaspoon sugar

Shortening:
1/2 cup gluten free margarine or butter
1/2 cup butter

(we use all butter)

Liquid ingredients:

1 egg
1 Tablespoon fresh lemon juice
1 Tablespoon ice water

wax paper
sweet rice flour to sprinkle on the wax paper
lots of sugar for sprinkling on the top of the pie

Put the dry ingredients in a bowl and mix them thoroughly with a fork. If you own a sifter, you could sift them together, but it is not necessary. Grate in the butter and margarine using a large cheese grater. Mix the dry ingredients and the shortenings up with a fork until the pieces of butter are distributed evenly – you don’t need to get the pieces of butter as small as they would be in a wheat crust. The size of “lima beans” may be a little large, but don’t go smaller than kidney beans! Anyway, mix up the liquid ingredients until well combined, then pour them in to the dry ingredients and mix together. Squish the dough into a ball and wrap it up to store in the refrigerator for one hour. (For the record, we have made this crust in the winter and gone straight to rolling it out, without refrigerating it. You wouldn’t do this when the air is warm in the summer, but it is ok to do this in the winter when it is cold.)

Divide the dough in half.

To roll out this crust, spread out a piece of wax paper, dust it with sweet rice flour or GF flour mix, or whatever comes handy, put one piece of the dough on top, sprinkle with more flour, spread another piece of wax paper on top of the dough, and roll out with a rolling pin. * The dough is now contained between two sheets of wax paper. Peel off the top piece of wax paper, flip the crust on top of the pie plate, adjust it to fit the dish and remove the other piece of wax paper. Your counter is clean, and your pie crust did not fall to pieces when you tried to put it in the pie dish! You rock!

Fill your pie, then repeat the pie crust rolling maneuver for the top crust. Cut pretty holes in the top crust before transferring it to the pie, if you wish. After putting the top crust on the pie, sprinkle the top crust liberally with sugar – maybe 2 – 4 Tablespoons! Cut steam vent holes in the crust, if you forgot to do it before, and then bake the pie. This crust gets nice and brown and crispy, and it has a delicious buttery flavor! You bake it as you would any other pie crust (about 50 minutes at 400 degrees, for a filled two-crust fruit pie.)

*Note about the rolling pin: We use a piece of dowel from the hardware store – makes a perfect rolling pin, and costs very little. The piece we purchased was being sold as “closet pole” and is 1″ in diameter and 18 inches long.

Some Pies to Try:

See this post for yet more thoughts on gluten free pie crust: Click here.

Make sure to use all gluten free ingredients!

New England Apple Pie

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Use the Dream Pastry Recipe from Bette Hagman’s More From the Gluten-Free Gourmet. We use one stick of gluten free margarine and one of butter. We use 1 Tablespoon lemon juice in place of the vinegar, for the flavor.

2-crust unbaked pie shell

8 apples – Use a mix of varieties like Northern Spy, a few Russet, Baldwin, Golden Delicious, a few Granny Smith and peel, core and slice them. Don’t use MacIntosh or Macoun varieties unless you use maybe only one of each – they don’t hold their shape when cooked and are better for making apple sauce.

1/2 cup dark brown sugar
1/2 cup white sugar
2 Tablespoons tapioca starch (available at health food or asian groceries)
1/2 teaspoon gluten free ground cinnamon

Line a glass pie dish with one piece of the pastry. Mix the apples with all the other ingredients until thoroughly mixed. Load up the pie shell with the apple mixture. Put the other crust on top, and cut several steam holes in the top crust.

Now, sprinkle the top crust with at least 2 Tablespoons of additional white sugar. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Place a cookie sheet as a drip tray in the oven to catch any overflowing juices.

Place the pie in the oven, above the drip tray. Bake for 50 minutes, and then check to see if the top is getting golden. The pie is done when the crust is becoming golden and the juices are starting to bubble up in a thickened sort of way. Some of the juices may be dripping over on the drip tray, and that is at is should be.

You can serve a slice of apple pie with cheddar cheese on the side, or melted on the top. That is always good. Also, you can serve pie for breakfast and it will be better for you than a sugary breakfast cereal – also, you will be happier.

Mexican Hot Chocolate with Cayenne (non-dairy)

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Boil 2 cups of water with one dried whole cayenne pepper until reduced to one cup. Remove the pepper. The water will be spicy!

Add 2 ounces of unsweetened gluten free chocolate and stir until melted. Add 3 Tablespoons honey and a pinch of salt. Stir well while adding another three cups of hot water. Add a pinch of cinnamon or a cinnamon stick to each serving.

Note: We grow cayenne peppers just so we will have them around for producing this drink. It is an excellent breakfast drink.

Make sure all your ingredients are gluten free!

Cornbread – without gluten or dairy

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Mixture A:
1 cup almond milk
1 egg
1 /4 cup vegetable oil
1/4 teaspoon GF vinegar

Mixture B:
1/3 cup potato starch (this is not the same as potato flour)
1/2 cup cornstarch
1 teaspoon salt (or less depending on your taste)
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
3 teaspoons GF baking powder
3/4 cup cornmeal
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon xantham gum (available at health food stores)

Oven: 375 degrees. Grease an 8-inch square baking pan.

Combine Mixture A with Mixture B. Mix with a whisk to remove lumps. Pour batter into the prepared pan. Bake for 3o minutes (roughly) until a cake tester tests clean.

Allow to cool for 10 minutes at least, but serve while it is still hot.

Make sure all your ingredients are gluten-free!

Pumpkin Pie with Coconut Milk

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The recipe is adapted from one at www.Celiac.com. Here, the pie has additional spices and coconut milk instead of cream.

Make an uncooked one-crust gluten-free pie crust and use it to line a glass pie dish.

Bottom of pie:
1/3 cup finely chopped pecans
1/3 cup dark brown sugar
3 Tablespoons gluten free margarine (for dairy, use butter)

Filling:
3 large eggs, stirred
1/3 cup dark brown sugar
1/3 cup white or turbinado sugar
2 Tablespoons cornstarch
1 1/2 teaspoons GF cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon GF ginger
1/2 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon GF allspice
1/4 teaspoon GF cloves
1/2 teaspoon salt
16 ounces GF canned pumpkin, or freshly cooked pumpkin, blended and strained to remove excess water
1 cup coconut milk

Mix pecans, sugar and butter and distribute in the bottom of the uncooked pie shell. Prick the part of the pie shell that goes up the side of the pie plate with a fork in several places so it won’t balloon out while cooking. Bake at 450 for 10 minutes and then allow to cool for another 5 minutes.

Mix the filling ingredients in a food processor or blender. Pour the mixture into the partially cooked pie shell, on top of the nut layer. Bake for 45-50 minutes at 350 degrees. A knife inserted into the center of the pie should come out nearly clean. Cool completely before cutting, although we often end up eating pie when it is warm because we can’t wait.

This is a custard pie, and should be refrigerated because of the eggs.

Try this pie for breakfast – it is sure to be more healthy than any breakfast cereal!

Make sure all of your ingredients, including the spices, are gluten free.

Cornmeal Coconut Maple Cake

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2 sticks butter or margarine
1 cup grade B pure maple syrup (this is the darker maple syrup)
3 eggs
2 teaspoons gluten free vanilla extract
zest of one orange, grated
1 1/4 cups GF cookie flour mix
3/4 cornmeal
1 Tablespoon gluten free baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cups shredded sweet coconut
3/4 cup of almond milk mixed with the juice of 1/2 a lime
1 cup raisins

Grease a large 10-inch bundt pan. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Cream butter and maple syrup in food processor. Gradually add the eggs, vanilla and orange zest.

Sift dry ingredients in another bowl, and then add the coconut. Add the dry ingredient/coconut mixture to the food processor alternately with the almond milk/lime juice mixture and process just until mixed. Remove the dough to a bowl and mix in the raisins. Transfer the dough to the prepared pan, and bake for 50-60 minutes until a toothpick comes out clean. Cool for ten minutes in the pan, then turn out on to a cooling rack and cool.

Banana Raisin Bread

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A friend at work gave Gf-Zing! an excellent recipe for banana bread – it is from the specific carbohydrate diet. It is truly a fine quick bread. We used half almond flour and half GF flour mixture, and some super ripe bananas, and added a teaspoon of GF vanilla and upped the salt to 1/2 teaspoon – just great! You can slice this bread quite thinly and it is indistinguishable from wheat-based bread, possibly a little better. This bread does not crumble into bits, and it is not dry like the Sahara desert either!

BANANA RAISIN BREAD
*Ingredients*

2 1/2 cups almond flour (we used half almond flour and half GF flour mix – see below)

2 mashed super-ripe bananas

1 Teaspoon GF vanilla

3 eggs

1/4 cup melted butter or margarine

1/4 cup honey

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon cider vinegar

1/2 – 3/4 cup raisins.

*Instructions*

Mash bananas and vanilla thoroughly with a potato masher. Add eggs and beat until
smooth and creamy. Add melted butter, honey, salt, baking soda and mix well. Add almond flour, GF flour and vinegar. Stir in raisins and mix well.

Grease a loaf pan, then line bottom of loaf pan with baking paper and grease again. Pour dough into pan. Bake 350 F. for about 50 to 55 mins until toothpick or knife comes out clean.

Cool for 10 minutes, more or less, in the pan, then transfer to a wire rack to cool.

Here’s the GF Flour mixture we used for part of the almond flour:

2 c brown rice flour
2 c white rice flour
1 1/2 c sweet rice flour
1 1/3 c tapioca starch or tapioca flour
2/3 c corn starch
1/2 c rice bran or rice polish
2 tsp xanthan gum

If you are serving food to gluten-free friends, check carefully with the manufacturers, or on the reputable internet-based gluten free food lists, to make sure that all ingredients are gluten free. Or, ask your friends which brands are safe for them to eat.

Homemade Pork Breakfast Sausage

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Irish sausage gfzing.com 2011

2 egg whites (or 1 large egg)
1 Tablespoon of GF dijon-style prepared mustard or other GF mustard
1 pound of pork rib roast (boneless) or boneless country-style ribs
1/4 cup of GF bread crumbs (GF rolls, or GF bread of any kind will do – 2 end slices of Udi’s for example)
2 Tablespoons water
2 Tablespoons minced fresh sage
1 or 1.5 teaspoons of salt
1/4 teaspoon ground coriander
1/4 teaspoon fresh ground pepper (or more, to taste)

Put everything in the food processor and process until smooth. Make into patties of the size you prefer and fry in 2 Tablespoons of hot oil for 3-5 minutes on each side until cooked through. Use a non-stick pan.

These gluten free sausage patties are delicious and so much better than the store-bought sausage!

Note: if you don’t have fresh sage then use 1 Tablespoon of dried sage. If you want to use turkey or chicken in place of the pork, you can. Turkey or chicken sausage made this way is quite good, not too dry, due to the egg whites and mustard.

If you are serving food to gluten-free friends, check carefully with the manufacturers, or on the reputable internet-based gluten free food lists, to make sure that all ingredients are gluten free. Or, ask your friends which brands are safe for them to eat.

Alice’s Buckwheat Blueberry Pancakes

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1/2 cup dark buckwheat flour – you can get it at a natural grocery store – and buckwheat is NOT wheat!
1/2 cup Namaste white vanilla cake mix (this might work with other gf cake mixes too)
2 teaspoons GF baking powder
2 teaspoons sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
4 Tablespoons melted butter or other butter-like GF product
2 large eggs
1 cup gluten free almond milk
frozen blueberries

Mix everything except the blueberries with a whisk. If you add the blueberries to the batter, the batter will turn purple. It is best to sprinkle the berries on the pancakes while the pancakes are cooking.

Heat a heavy pan to medium high, melt some butter in there and fry up some pancakes – sprinkle the frozen berries on top of the pancakes while the batter is still cooking. When the pancakes show bubbles that are popped on the top of the pancakes, they are ready to flip. These are a little more tricky to flip than a wheat pancake, so be dextrous and be patient – don’t try to flip too soon!!!! Cook the other side, then serve with grade B maple syrup in vast quantities!!!!

This is a tender, gluten-free pancake, without a strong buckwheat taste – We were actually hoping for a more buckwheat intensive experience – but it is a fine pancake which will satisfy even your non-GF friends. Because of the sugar in the cake mix and the recipe, the pancakes will brown nicely.

If you are serving food to gluten-free friends, check carefully with the manufacturers, or on the reputable internet-based gluten free food lists, to make sure that all ingredients are gluten free. Or, ask your friends which brands are safe for them to eat.