lpellegr

You could try Amy's frozen rice mac and cheese or rice lasagna and rice crust pizza. There are probably frozen gluten-free bagels and Van's waffles as well as lots of gluten-free cereals - you could ask for the ones like Rice Krispies or like Cheerios to steer your designated shopper. Plenty of gluten-free cookies (Pamela's are good) as well. Greek yogurt is wonderful. There are also muffins and other baked goods from Whole Foods' own bakery in the freezer. Don't forget canned tuna and baked beans (Bush and B&M are safe, but I don't remember if WF carries them). Blocks of cheddar or other cheese.

You can also spin the rolled oats in a food processor to get them in smaller pieces - instant oatmeal is much thinner and more chopped up than regular non-instant rolled oats. Be careful you don't go too far or you will have made oat flour. Steel cut oats (like McCann's) are just going to be chewier - that's their appeal. I miss oats - I bought the gluten-free ones but I reacted to them. Now I have a bunch left and don't have a use for them. What irony after 30 years of three bowls of Cheerios every morning.

I'm pretty sure my kids are eventually going to have to go gluten-free, but being teenagers it will be hard for them. I want to stock the freezer with homemade stuff in single servings that can be microwaved, but I can't find anything similar to the disposable paper trays that something like Amy's comes in. I'll probably have to go with plastic non-disposable. Any suggestions for a brand that holds up well in the freezer or a restaurant supply place with something useful, disposable or not?

Easy microwave hot chocolate, use any milk or sweetening you desire. The trick is to start with 2t of cocoa powder, 2T or to taste of sugar (your favorite substitute here), and a few spoonfuls of water. Mix, microwave for 30 seconds or so. Stir to make a chocolate syrup with everything dry already dissolved. Fill cup with white liquid of choice and microwave until hot enough.

If you grew up in Pennsylvania, you eat your apple butter with cottage cheese! Looks like dog barf, but it's one of those sweet/salty combinations that really works.

I found some at our Whole Foods that didn't - I believe they were Zitner's. All it took was one to satisfy my craving - love 'em!

I tried the Cream Hill oats in this recipe and was terribly disappointed to find that I reacted to them, but these scones were so good I went ahead and ate the rest anyway (why not, I was still going to feel crappy whether I ate them or not!). This is the original recipe with gluten flour, but I think I just subbed my usual gluten-free flour (Bette Hagman) and some xanthan gum.

Oatmeal scones

1-1/4 c flour

1 t baking powder

1/2 t baking soda

1/4 t salt

1/4 c sugar

Combine the above. Blend in with pastry cutter: 4 T butter and 1/4 c Crisco

Add 1 c oats and 1/3 c raisins (optional).

Add 1/3 c buttermilk or "sour" milk (put 1 t vinegar in cup and fill to 1/3 with milk) and mix just until moistened. Knead 7-8 times on a floured surface. Pat into 7" circle and cut into 8 wedges. Transfer wedges to ungreased baking sheet. Brush tops with melted butter. Bake at 375 for 15 minutes. Serve warm.

If you search through this forum and the internet in general, you can probably find recipes that are adaptations of the dishes you're familiar with. You didn't say what it was you want to eat, so it will be harder to give you specific answers. You can also call ahead of time to the places you will be eating and see what they can do to accomodate you. Some people are very willing to help, others not so much. See if they can get a turkey that's gluten free and not stuff it, or you could offer to bring some side dishes to share and then make sure that yours is the first spoon in the dish before some idiot, I mean clueless relative, cross-contaminates it. Ask for what you can get (but ask a lot of questions before you eat it), and bring what you can't. Be prepared to explain over and over why you can't eat what everyone else does and that it's not an insult to anyone's cooking, but you'd rather not (make up dramatic symptoms here) all over their house after you eat. If you can't cook, you still have time to find edible things at Whole Foods or order something over the internet.

I haven't made stuffing from gluten-free bread yet, but I do dry it for croutons and crumbs. I made two loaves today, one for crumbs, one for croutons. For both, I cut the bread into slices, then cubes, then put into oven at 250 and check and stir about every 15-30 minutes until I don't feel any more moisture. These should stay dry for a few days in a plastic bag or some Rubbermaid container with the lid on at room temp. In my family we never liked mushy stuffing (the first time I had Stove-Top at someone else's house I couldn't figure out what this had to do with stuffing because ours was not mushy), so we don't cook it in the bird. My mom would mix the dry bread cubes with the onions, seasoning, broth, etc in a big roasting pan and bake after the bird was done. I think it was covered with foil most of the time, but uncovered at the end to get the top cubes crunchy. My guess would be that if the gluten-free bread cubes come in contact with much moisture, they will collapse into bread mush. If you can stand to have gluten in the house, you could make a pan of regular stuffing for the guests (and explain the quarantine procedures to everyone - I did this and left that stuffing across the room and made them get it last to avoid cross-contaminating the serving utensils, then made them get a clean plate for seconds for the same reason), making a small batch of gluten-free stuffing for the gluten-free folks. No stuffing in the bird, so it's safe to eat for all. Otherwise I'd say keep the gluten-free stuffing out of the bird and it will probably not mush down. Good luck! Maybe you should make a small batch ahead of time and test it out.

BTW, to make croutons after drying the cubes, drizzle with olive oil, sprinkle with seasoning, toss, and back into the oven at 250 - 350 until as brown and crunchy as you like. Store at room temp in closed container once cooled. To make crumbs from the dry cubes, throw them into a food processor. Store in freezer in zip bag just in case they're not dry enough to avoid mold over time.

Greek yogurt is fantastic - very thick and creamy. Go for the Fage brand - the Oikos brand only comes in non-fat as far as I have seen, and it doesn't thicken up like the kind with fat. The Fage 2% or 5% are both wonderful, especially with honey drizzled on top. Don't buy the one with the separate cup of honey, you get less yogurt for the same price. Add your own.

You do know that celiacs shouldn't eat oats, don't you?

I was hoping that I was one of those who could eat oats if not contaminated, so I bought a bag ($$$$$!) of gluten-free oats and made oat scones. Sigh. Guess I can't eat oats no matter what. But since I had already messed up my guts, I went ahead and ate all of the oat scones because they were so good and I was screwed whether I did or didn't. Now if I could just find a use for the rest of them......

I should have read through the site first - I just posted about the TV commercials and how ironic it is that they mention no gluten, then show a sandwich being made. Looks like a bunch of us were amused by that!

I had bought some of the Tinkyada big shells over the internet, but I found that many of them were broken in each box. I cooked them up anyway, filled the ones that were whole, then made lumps of filling in the dish and covered them with the pieces of broken shell. It worked great, but it made me wonder why I went to the bother of stuffing shells when I could just cover the filling with any kind of pasta and get the same general result! Kind of like, why make all the layers of lasagna, when the same ingredients mixed together (subbing ziti for flat noodles) makes baked ziti, which tastes the same.

Have you seen the new commercials for Boar's Head meats and cheeses? They include gluten in the list of things they don't have in their products, then show them being lovingly layered onto a slice of white bread to make a sandwich. Always makes me smile - I'm glad they say the word "gluten" out loud, thus making non-celiac people think (possibly), but if you care about gluten in your food, you're not likely to be making a sandwich! As I stand at the deli counter to buy stuff for the rest of my family, I read the Boar's Head labels and see that they proudly proclaim "gluten-free", but I never get them because I don't know what else has been on the slicers. I'll stick to Oscar Meyer or Hillshire Farms prepackaged.

I think Don Pepino's might be an east coast thing or even less widespread, because Don Pepino himself lives in New Jersey. My husband (soon to be ex-husband, woohoo!) met him once in Princeton, where he presented him with a can of sauce. It is really good sauce, except for all the tomato seeds. Nice flavor, too much crunch.

Our sauce (and we like lots of sauce, and thick): spread the crust with tomato puree, sprinkle on garlic powder, onion powder, and oregano. That's it. Add the cheese for the last 4-5 minutes of baking if you don't want it to brown.

I second the King Arthur Flour website for high quality pans for all kinds of bread shapes, but be warned they will put you on their mailing list and send you their catalog full of pictures of glutenous bread! It's like celiac porn.

Pork - country spareribs or tenderloin or chops - just dump in crockpot with sauerkraut to cover, let cook on low all day. Serve with mashed potatoes. Might be an acquired taste if you weren't raised on Pennsylvania Dutch or German cooking.

Also works well: pork with barbecue sauce.

Slice chicken breasts thin, then coat with a mixture of your favorite mustard (we use brown mustard) beaten with an egg, then bread with a mixture of half gluten-free bread crumbs and half finely chopped walnuts or pecans, seasoned with nutmeg and salt. Saute in olive oil and butter 50/50 until brown on both sides and cooked through. Magnificent!

I bought a box of Cream Hill gluten-free oats and modified an old recipe to try them out. It came out great, and I don't know yet whether the oats will make me sorry, but it was worth it. They were so good I had to share the recipe.

Oatmeal scones

1-1/4c gluten-free flour (I used Bette Hagman's basic mix)

1 t baking powder

1/2 t baking soda

1/4 t salt

1/4 c sugar

1 t xanthan gum

Mix the above. Cut in:

1/4 c butter or margarine

1/4 c crisco

until you have oatmeal sized flakes of shortening.

Add 1 c gluten-free rolled oats

(optional: I added two big teaspoons of ground flax meal for fiber)

Add 1/3 c buttermilk or "sour" milk (1 t vinegar in cup, fill with milk to 1/3c) and mix until just moistened. Use gluten-free-floured hands to gently squeeze into a ball and knead a few times. Pat into a 7" circle on a floured surface and cut into 8 wedges. Transfer wedges to an ungreased baking sheet and brush with melted butter (you can skip this, no harm done). Bake in preheated 375 oven for 15 minutes. Serve warm.

They came out moist and chewy and I hope the oats really are gluten-free and that my body doesn't object to oats. I'd love to make oatmeal cookies but I'd be surprised if the texture came out the way I remember. At the price of those oats, I'll find some way to use them all.

Sorry I didn't get back right away with the recipe - I've been away. If you are experienced making pie crust, this should be easy. Here's Bette Hagman's Vinegar Pastry, which makes two crusts:

1 c white rice flour

3/4 c tapioca flour

3/4 c cornstarch

1 rounded teaspoon xanthan gum

3/4 t salt

1 T sugar

Mix these together in a bowl.

Using a pastry blender, cut in 3/4 c of shortening.

Blend together 1 egg, lightly beaten, and 1 T vinegar. Add this to the flour mixture and blend together with a fork.

1 T at a time, add ice water, tossing with the fork, until all the dry ingredients are starting to stick together and form a ball. It will probably only take 3 or 4 T. To test if it's enough, squeeze it into a ball with your hand. It should stick together but not be wet. Cut it in half. At this point you could wrap each and freeze or refrigerate until ready to use. If using right away, it helps to refrigerate for half an hour at this point.

Sprinkle a few drops of water on the counter to adhere a piece of wax paper or parchment and keep it from sliding. Dust with gluten-free flour of your choice. Pat one of the halves of the dough into a flat circle, place it on the wax paper, dust with flour, and roll out with your floured rolling pin. If you prefer, put some wax paper or plastic wrap on top before rolling. It may stick to the rolling pin a little, if so just dust a little more. When big enough, slip your left hand under the wax paper, turn the pie pan upside down over it all, then flip it over to get the dough into the pan. Tuck it in, trim and flute the edge. Prebake at 450 for 10-12 minutes after pricking all over with fork, or add your filling to the unbaked dough and follow directions for that kind of pie.

I used to bake pies from scratch all the time and got high praise for my flaky crusts. The best gluten-free recipe I've found so far is Bette Hagman's Vinegar Pastry in the revised edition of The Gluten-Free Gourmet. It handles exactly like wheat flour pie dough - you can roll it out just like you would normal pie dough. I roll it out on a sheet of wax paper (use a few drops of water to make it stick to the counter) dusted with rice flour or gluten-free flour mix, pat the chilled dough into a circle, dust the top with said flour, and roll out with a floured rolling pin. Pick up the wax paper with the dough on it, put the upside down pie pan over it, flip the whole thing over, and the dough's in the pan in one piece. My relatives all agreed at Thanksgiving over the last few years that they couldn't tell the difference from my old crusts.

Save it for crumbs and croutons! That the sole reason I bake bread, I refuse to pay ridiculous prices for gluten-free crumbs, and I love breaded cutlets, meatballs, etc that need bread crumbs. And lately I have been cutting the sliced bread into 1/2" cubes, drying it in a 250 oven, then tossing in a frying pan with olive oil and seasonings for croutons for my salads! I gotta hide these from the rest of the family. Or use dried cubes for stuffing, or for chocolate bread pudding. I gave up on sliced bread long ago. I always liked the filling better than the bread for sandwiches anyway.

Try the four-flour bread recipe from her first book, the Gluten-Free Gourmet. This only has 2 cups of flour and it is much more successful in my hands. I think Bette has magical bread pans that hold more than the laws of physics allow. Or split your usual recipe - fill your bread pan part of the way, then use the rest of the dough to make buns or rolls. Some of these recipes you can just plop scoops of dough onto parchment paper, let them rise, and call them dinner rolls and smack anybody who laughs at them.

Don't worry too much about the rising time specified in the recipe - go by how high the dough has risen, not the time. It could take more or less time on different days, depending on many environmental factors, but if you go for a consistent dough height, you will have more consistent results.

King Arthur flour's website is definitely the place for all that stuff, but be warned that you will then be on their mailing list and start getting their catalog, which I always think of as celiac porn - you'll be drooling over all the luscious pictures of stuff you can't have....