We all know San-J as the people who bring us gluten free, wheat free soy sauces!  But did you know they now also produce GLUTEN FREE GRILLING SAUCES?  That’s right, the people who made it not only possible but easy for us gluten intolerant folks to enjoy sushi, have now made it just as easy to enjoy grilling and barbequing.   And you don’t have to do a lot of hunting to find these grilling sauces, they are right there on your regular grocery store shelves.

It was my pleasure to develop gluten free recipes for San-J as a part of their overall effort to provide convenient and delicious solutions for those on a gluten-free diet.   It was an equally momentous pleasure to become, if only for a couple of weeks, the grill-master of our household!

In our family, my husband is the self-proclaimed grill-master and while the food he “cooks over fire” is always sumptuous, it lacks a certain…hmmm…., let’s say…refinement.   Don’t get me wrong, I love big hunks of cooked meat thrown on a platter just as much as the next person -  it makes for a terrific backyard barbeque with paper plates and all but is missing the aesthetic quality I would want for say, a dinner party.

This swordfish recipe is beautiful and elegant and yet so easy to prepare. I used San-J Orange Sauce as both the marinade for the swordfish and in the dressing for the lovely, bright salad.

Who is the grill-master in your family?

Swordfish with Orange Fennel Salad

Ingredients

4 – 6 ounce swordfish fillets
¼ cup plus 2 tablespoons San-J Orange Sauce, use divided
2 large oranges, peeled
1 large fennel
¼ cup olive oil
1 teaspoon kosher or fine sea salt
½ teaspoon black pepper

Directions

Place the swordfish fillets in a large plastic storage bag. Add ¼ cup San-J Orange Sauce and gently shake to coat the fillets with sauce.  Marinate in the refrigerator for 30 minutes.  Heat grill to medium-high heat (450 degrees).

Cut the oranges into segments over a plate or bowl to catch the juice.  Measure 1 tablespoon of orange juice and combine with 2 tablespoons San-J Orange Sauce, olive oil, salt and pepper in a medium mixing bowl.  Add the sliced fennel and toss gently to combine.  Cover and refrigerate until serving time.

Remove swordfish from marinade and discard marinade.  Brush grates of the grill with some oil.  Grill for 8 minutes with the lid closed, turning once.

Place the orange and fennel salad on plates and top with the swordfish fillets and serve.

A gluten free recipe that serves 4 people.

Want to know more about your favorite Gluten Free Recipe or how to avoid being bothered by Celiac with our range of Gluten Free Recipes which are made from Gluten Free raw material feel free to visit us at: http://www.simplygluten-free.com

Article Source : http://simplygluten-free.com/blog/2011/08/gluten-free-grilled-swordfish-with-orange-fennel-salad-recipe.html

Before you decide I have completely lost my sanity by presenting a gluten free recipe for a cookie that is not only baked once but twice in the dead heat of summer, hear me out. I think I can convince you that biscotti are in fact the ideal cookies to bake in the summer.

The word biscotti originates from Medieval Latin and means twice baked or cooked. They are dry Italian cookies which have been made for centuries and were originally baked twice to ensure a long shelf life in the days of extended journeys and no refrigeration.

The dryness makes them the ideal cookie for dunking and it also makes them quite portable – perfect for picnics and such. They are low in fat which makes them a good dessert alternative with a glass of Vin Santo – a sweet Italian wine. The thought of sitting on the patio at the end of a light summer meal sharing biscotti and a glass of wine or cup of coffee just cries “summer” to me.

OK, do you see where I am going with all this? I am not saying to stop baking biscotti in the winter, tins of Christmas biscotti studded with pistachios and cranberries dipped in dark chocolate makes for a fabulous gift, I am just saying that we need to start thinking of this as a summer cookie as well.

I like my biscotti dry enough to dip without falling apart but not so hard that they chip a tooth and this recipe results in a cookie that hits that balance quite nicely. I love the combination of fragrant lemon peel and salty pistachios mixed into the barely sweet biscuit. And may I just say that if you do dare to turn on the oven during the heat of summer to bake these, you will be rewarded with not only fantastic gluten free biscotti but your home will smell a little bit like Heaven.

Gluten Free Lemon Pistachio Biscotti

Ingredients

1¾ cup pastry quality gluten-free flour blend with xanthan gum*
¼ teaspoon kosher or fine sea salt
1 teaspoon baking powder
¼ cup olive oil
¾ cup light brown sugar
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
Zest of 1 large lemon
2 large eggs
1 ½ cups roasted, salted pistachios (if using unsalted pistachios increase the salt in the recipe to ¾ teaspoon), roughly chopped

* make your own gluten free flour blend by whisking together 1 cup superfine white rice flour with ½ cup superfine sweet rice flour, ¼ cup tapioca starch and 1 teaspoon xanthan gum.

Directions

Preheat oven to 300 degrees. Line a baking sheet with a silicon baking mat or parchment paper.

In a mixing bowl, whisk together the gluten free flour, salt and baking powder.

In a mixer fitted with a whisk attachment or with a handheld at medium speed, beat the olive oil with the sugar, vanilla, lemon zest and eggs until well combined. Turn mixer to low, gradually add the flour mixture. Add the pistachios and stir by hand to combine. Place dough on prepared baking sheet and form into a log which is roughly 12 inches long by 4 inches wide and ½ inch high. If dough is too sticky, wet your hands with water. Bake for 50 minutes or until golden brown. Remove from oven, increase heat to 350 degrees and cover the biscotti with two tea towels and let cool for 10 minutes.

Remove the log from the baking sheet and place on a cutting board. Using a thin, sharp knife, cut the biscotti on a diagonal into ¾ inch slices and place the slices back on the baking sheet. Bake for 10 minutes or until the biscotti are golden brown.

Store in an airtight container, especially important if the air is humid.

A gluten free recipe that makes about 18 cookies.

Want to know more about your favorite Gluten Free Recipe or how to avoid being bothered by Celiac with our range of Gluten Free Recipes which are made from Gluten Free raw material feel free to visit us at: http://www.simplygluten-free.com

Article Source : http://simplygluten-free.com/blog/2011/08/gluten-free-lemon-pistachio-biscotti.html

I have a confession to make – I have been just plain lazy lately. Honestly, there have been no miles logged on the treadmill, projects I started lay there half done and my oven has seen very little use.

I blame the heat. It is seriously hot out there! And it is not, as my friends who live in the desert can say, a dry heat. Oh no, it is a sticky, yucky, energy-zapping, wet, humid heat. We are talking 96 degrees and 96 percent humidity. I swear little slits have starting opening up on my neck and gills are forming.

No matter how hot it is outside, apparently we still need to eat. This is a lovely, Greek inspired, gluten-free recipe for a cold soup that is perfect for summer. You don’t have to turn on the stove, it requires you expend very little energy and it will help keep you in bathing suit shape with no fat and only about 100 calories in a bowl if you use fat free Greek Yogurt. If making it dairy free and using either soy or coconut yogurt the fat and calories will be higher.

I love this Cold Cucumber Soup for lunch, with a hearty salad for dinner or as a starter for barbeque.

Do you have any go-to, beat the heat, gluten-free recipes?

Cold Cucumber Soup

Ingredients

3 English or European Cucumbers (also called seedless cucumbers), peeled and chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 green onions, chopped
¼ cup fresh mint leaves
Juice of 1 lemon
½ cup water
½ cup fat-free Greek yogurt (for vegan or dairy free use dairy free yogurt)
1 teaspoon kosher or fine sea salt
½ teaspoon black pepper

Directions

Place the cucumbers, garlic, green onions and mint leaves in a blender or food processor and process until smooth. Add the lemon juice, water, yogurt, salt and pepper and process to combine.

Chill in the refrigerator for about 3 hours or until cold. To serve right away, pour the soup into a large mixing bowl and set that bowl into a larger bowl filled with ice and water. Stir occasionally until chilled, about 10 minutes.

A gluten free recipe that serves 4 people.

Want to know more about your favorite Gluten Free Recipe or how to avoid being bothered by Celiac with our range of Gluten Free Recipes which are made from Gluten Free raw material feel free to visit us at: http://www.simplygluten-free.com

Article Source : http://simplygluten-free.com/blog/2011/08/gluten-free-cold-cucumber-soup-recipe.html

Simple, gluten free recipes often already exist if we look outside of our own culture. When my friend Claudia, who is from Ecuador, told me about a delicious little cheesy biscuit-type bread called “Pan de Yuca”, I just knew I had to try them. Made with tapioca flour, these could not be simpler – there is no combining different flours, no xanthan or guar gum, no special equipment and no gluten free baking anxiety.
In Ecuador, yuca bread is sold in small shops and street stands everywhere along with fruit yogurt. I love the bread but honestly am not a fan of eating cheese bread with yogurt. I don’t know why, I guess I am just not Ecuadorian enough. So I decided to come up with my own compliment to these easy, cheesy breads – a spicy mango marmalade.
The marmalade is as simple as the yuca bread, 4 ingredients, 15 minutes, no pectin, and no sugar. Don’t we just love that? The sweetness of the mangoes is enhanced with Wholesome Sweeteners Organic Raw Blue Agave Nectar and then to balance it out, I added the juice and zest of 1 lime and a red chili pepper (picked from my own garden!) The marmalade is sweet, with a little heat, and a little acid – perfect! I was really lazy and used a one pound package of frozen mango chunks but feel free to use fresh mangoes.
This combo of the gluten free yuca breads and the sugar free spicy mango marmalade is the perfect breakfast combo and the whole thing can be put together in under half an hour. Get the marmalade started and while it is simmering away, make and bake the yucca breads. There is even enough time in there to sip a cup of coffee!
Thank you Claudia for introducing me to this simple, naturally gluten free recipe from Ecuador and for your appreciation of me putting my own spin on it with my sugar free spicy marmalade!
Spicy Mango Marmalade
Ingredients
1 – 1 pound bag frozen mango chunks or 3 fresh mangoes cut into 1 inch chunks½ cup Organic Agave NectarZest of lime, finely gratedJuice of 1 lime1 red chili pepper (cayenne or Thai) seeds and veins removes and minced
Directions
Combine all ingredients in a heavy saucepan. Bring to boil, mash the mangoes with the back of a spoon or a potato masher. Reduce heat and let the mixture boil gently until thick, about 15 minutes. Let cool, mixture will thicken up more as it cools. Will keep for up to a week in the refrigerator.
This gluten free recipe makes about 1½ cups of marmalade.
Gluten Free Yuca Bread
Ingredients
1½ cups tapioca flour (also called tapioca starch) plus more for kneading1½ teaspoons baking powder½ teaspoon kosher or fine sea salt2 large eggs2 ½ cups mozzarella cheese (low moisture part skim seems to work best), grated½ cup Parmesan cheese, grated¼ cup milk
Directions
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line a baking sheet with a silicon baking mat or a piece of parchment paper that is sprayed with gluten free non-stick cooking spray.
Whisk the tapioca flour, baking powder and salt together in a large mixing bowl. Add the eggs, cheeses and milk. Using your hands, mix the ingredients together until it starts to form a dough. Dust a work surface with more tapioca flour, dump the mixture out onto the work surface and knead until the dough is not sticky, you may need to add a little more tapioca. Roll the dough into golf ball sized balls and place on prepared baking sheet. Bake for 18 – 22 minutes or until the breads are golden brown and feel firm to the touch.
This gluten free recipe makes 14 – 16 breads.
Want to know more about your favorite Gluten Free Recipe or how to avoid being bothered by Celiac with our range of Gluten Free Recipes which are made from Gluten Free raw material feel free to visit us at: http://www.simplygluten-free.com
Article Source : http://simplygluten-free.com/blog/2011/08/gluten-free-yuca-bread-with-spicy-sugar-free-mango-marmalade.html

I was a skinny kid. Actually it is not uncommon for people with gluten issues, who should be gluten free, to be skinny, especially those with Celiac Disease. We have issues with digestion and do not properly obtain nutrients from our food. But I was a seemingly healthy kid, so it was not too much of an issue.  Occasionally some doctor would tell my mother that she needed to fatten me up and so she would feed me extra bananas and make me down milkshakes packed with ice cream for awhile. Not such a bad deal!  I loved bananas, but the shakes were a little harder to handle – I always preferred food lower in fat – I would pick ice milk over ice cream any day, preferred non-fat milk to regular and wanted all visible fat removed from meat (on second thought maybe there was something wrong with me!). But I ate like a race horse so at the end of the day everyone left me alone and just chalked my boniness up to genetics.

I never minded being called skinny; it was just a part of who I was – “The Skinny Girl”. I was a skinny teenager and a skinny young woman, even after birthing two children. As time went by the girls and women we admired became skinnier and I went from being considered skinny to “normal”.

And then I got diagnosed as gluten intolerant and probably for the first time in my life was actually digesting the food I consumed in such great quantities. Combined with hormonal and metabolism changes I gained more weight than I was comfortable with.

I was in my thirties and had never dieted in my life; I had no clue what to do so I just cut down what I ate to next to nothing  and lost the weight. At the time I thought I was so clever but in truth, nothing was further from the truth. Not eating is not the way to properly loose weight if you want to keep it off. And so the craziness began.

After a few years of trying to recapture what I thought of as my identity – The Skinny Girl – I smartened up. I am now happy to be The Healthy Gluten Free Girl.

Eighty percent or so of my diet is really good – tons of organic vegetables, lean protein, whole grains, fresh fruit, some seeds and nuts.   I do eat desserts, I put cream in my coffee (organic cream, organic coffee) and I will even have a little bit of (GASP!) sugar now and again. But I believe nothing thrives in deprivation, so I never deprive myself.

I look at my body like a bank account and I try not to write checks I can’t cover. I keep my body fueled so it will keep going for me. If I indulge a little more than I should then I eat salad for the next meal or I will exercise a bit more. It is all about checks and balances.

I will admit this bank account point of view is a new concept for me. Previously I had been known to occasionally get real busy and forget to eat until late at night and then eat everything in sight and collapse into bed. (Seriously? I am a food blogger – how do I forget to eat?) In essence I was overdrawing my “bank account” and being assessed overdraft fees in the form of extra pounds around the middle.

Nowadays I try to keep my blood sugar even and so I eat often through out the day. I am still busy so I rely on some conveniences. I carry SOYJOY bars in my purse, have some stashed in my glove box and desk drawer and in my gym bag.

Before I was approached by SOYJOY to try their bars I stayed away from nutrition bars either because they contained gluten, tasted nasty or were made with soy isolate. SOYJOY bars are made from real, whole soy (not soy isolate) and real, whole fruit.

One of my favorite flavors is banana – ironic huh? My mom used to feed me bananas to try and fatten me up and now I eat banana SOYJOY bars to keep from getting fat!

I am grateful to SOYJOY for their commitment to making gluten free nutrition bars which are free from soy isolate, providing me a way to keep my body bank account balanced and be a healthy gluten free girl.

Want to know more about your favorite Gluten Free Recipe or how to avoid being bothered by Celiac with our range of Gluten Free Recipes which are made from Gluten Free raw material feel free to visit us at: http://www.simplygluten-free.com

Article Source : http://simplygluten-free.com/blog/2011/08/confessions-of-a-skinny-gluten-free-girl.html

Before the internet, people had to keep recipes and menu ideas somewhere – somewhere real, not virtual. For most it was a recipe box. For me it was, and is, a recipe scrapbook. The scrapbook was actually started by my mother and I love it. It is a treasure trove of magazine articles, newspaper clippings and index cards just waiting to be converted into gluten free recipes. But it is more than that, there are notes about dinner parties, recipes written on the scraps of paper and the back of envelopes, all in my Mom’s handwriting. It is also insight into my mother’s tastes and culinary aspirations. There are also some interesting attempts at complicated long division problems, presumably cutting down the serving sizes of certain recipes.

Over the years I added my own clippings, recipes and notes and it has become a journal of my life; the punch I made for my wedding is in there along with a favorite recipe for clam dip I got from my best friend in high school. Sometimes the notes include the date I made the dish, who I tried the recipe on and the results such as “so good!” or “needs more salt”.

There are arguments that I should scan all these into the computer and make a virtual scrapbook but I never will. I love holding the very piece of paper my mother wrote out her ideas for a Spanish dinner party on or the cookie recipe she clipped from the paper with full intentions of making someday.

I pulled out a clipping the other day that I never recall my mother making for “Iced Cherry Rings” – shortbread type cookie studded with candied cherries and drizzled with a sweet glaze. The date for the clipping was gone but it is obvious it was from a time when good women stayed home and baked cookies for their children to have after school. I can see why my mother, an English woman and fruitcake lover, would pull out this recipe to try. I however am not a fan of candied fruit so I used maraschino cherries, in fact I used a natural, dye and corn syrup free maraschino cherry. I cut out the center in a heart shape instead of a circle, just a little tribute to Mom. Obviously the original recipe was not gluten-free but it was easy enough to convert with the use of good quality gluten free flour and adjusting the baking time and temperature. I also added some vanilla and salt because, well, I just had to.

The dough for these cookies is really interesting; it is dry and crumbly almost like sand until you work it with your hands, then it comes together into workable dough. I love the fact that our hands literally transform ingredients into cookies.

These are charming cookies and I am happy to have finally fulfilled one of my mother’s culinary dreams.

Ingredients

½ cup unsalted butter, plus more for greasing the pans
½ cup sugar
1 egg yolk
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
Finely grated zest of 1 lemon
1½ cups gluten-free flour (be sure to use one that includes either xanthan or guar gum, if not add 1 teaspoon)
¼ cup maraschino cherries, dried well and chopped
½ cup confectioners’ sugar
1½ tablespoons freshly squeezed lemon juice (more or less)
2 -3 drops maraschino cherry liquid

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Lightly grease 2 baking sheets with butter (or line with silicon baking mats).

Cream together the butter and sugar until pale and fluffy, about 2 minutes. Add the egg yolk, lemon zest and vanilla, mix well. Stir in the flour, add the cherries and mix with your hands until it forms a soft dough.

Lightly flour a surface, roll out the dough to a ¼ inch thickness and cut into 3 inch rounds with a cookie cutter. Cut out the center of each cookie with a 1 inch cookie cutter. Place the rings on the prepared baking sheets. Re-roll any trimmings and cut more cookies. Bake the cookies in preheated oven for 15 minutes or until they are firm and just beginning to color. Let cool on baking sheets for 5 minutes then transfer to a wire rack to finish cooling.

Mix the confectioners’ sugar with lemon juice and maraschino cherry juice until it becomes a smooth paste. It may take a little less of more lemon juice so start with less and add a little at a time. Drizzle over the cooled cookies and let stand until the icing sets, about 30 minutes.

This Gluten Free recipe makes 10 – 15 cookies.

To Know more about Gluten Free Recipes and Celiac feel free to visit our website : http://www.simplygluten-free.com

Article Source : http://simplygluten-free.com/blog/2011/07/gluten-free-iced-cherry-ring-cookies.html