2010: Day 1 Chocolate Gooey Butter Cookies

12 Days of Cookies Begins!!

Day 1: Paula's Chocolate Gooey Butter Cookies

For a simple and irresistible cookie, Paula dolls up chocolate cake mix with cream cheese and butter.

Ingredients

• 1 (8-ounce) brick cream cheese, room temperature
• 1 stick butter, at room temperature
• 1 egg
• 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
• 1 (22-ounce) box King Arthur Gluten-Free Chocolate Cake Mix minus 1 cup.
• Confectioners' sugar, for dusting

Directions

In a large bowl with an electric mixer, cream the cream cheese and butter until smooth. Beat in the egg. Then beat in the vanilla extract. Beat in the cake mix. Cover and refrigerate for 2 hours to firm up so that you can roll the batter into balls.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

Roll the chilled batter into tablespoon sized balls and then roll them in confectioner's sugar. Place on an ungreased cookie sheet, 2 inches apart. Bake 12 minutes. The cookies will remain soft and "gooey." Cool completely and sprinkle with more confectioners' sugar, if desired.

Be careful not to overcook. Put on the timer!!

Delicious Gluten-Free Walnut Cookies

I came upon this recipe while putting together a menu for a feast I prepared for my mother-in-law, who is Armenian. This recipe comes from Simply Armenian, a wonderful cookbook by Barbara Ghazarian. These cookies were a hit and are delicious with coffee and/or ice cream.

Walnut Cookies

Barbara Ghazourian

Simply Armenian

Makes about 30

Ingredients:

Non-stick cooking spray (I just rubbed the cookie sheet with butter)

1 large egg

1 cup powdered sugar, plus more for topping

2 teaspoons baking powder

Zest of 1/2 lemon or more to taste

1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract

2 cups ground walnuts (I ran them through the food processor)

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Grease a few cookie sheets with cooking spray and set aside

2. Beat the egg and one cup powdered sugar together with an electric mixer until combined. Add the baking powder, zest, vanilla and ground walnuts. Mix well. The dough will form a firm but sticky paste.

3. Form small spoonfuls of dough into balls the size of small walnuts and roll in a dish of powdered sugar

4. Arrange the powdered dough balls 1 1/2 inches apart on the prepared sheets

5. Bake the cookies in the middle of the oven for 15 minutes or until golden. Remove immediately to a wire rack to cool.

Happy cooking!

Rudi's Multigrain Bread

I will just start by saying... WOW

This bread is unbelievably good, I was able to make myself a grilled cheese sandwich this morning that actually tasted like grilled cheese. I loved it so much that I went online to see if there is anywhere closer that I can get it and THERE IS!!! According to Rudi's site I can buy it at the gluten free store near the house!

I am looking forward to trying their "original" bread which according to the site is like the typical gluten filled bread. More to come!

Catch-Up: Buckeyes

I'm realizing that I haven't posted in a while and I have come up with a fun way to redeem myself!

The food network each year has done their 12 days of cookies. Which I look forward to each year. Ok wait that isn't true I definitely completely forget about it until I get the e-mail from them reminding me that it's almost time. What happens is that you get 12 recipes in your e-mail, spread out over time. I'm not sure what the frequency is but they're always very good.

We'll do a gluten-free 12 days of Christmas! This is a huge promise but I'll try to convert each recipe to a gluten-free recipe and hopefully we'll get a few recipes that are amazing! (I'm hoping for a little assistance from the rest of the Lunmans since I'm sure others will want to try some recipes too!)

Let's start with a family favorite to tide us all over until then. I don't even need to experiment with this one!

BUCKEYES (Grandma Teed's Recipe!)

1 lb powdered sugar
3 cups GF rice crispies
2 cups peanut butter
⅓ pound butter
12 ounces semi sweet chocolate chips (Nestle Tollhouse is safe)
⅓ bar paraffin wax


Mix together first four ingredients until evenly combined.

Roll into small bite-sized balls.

In a double boiler melt chocolate and wax until smooth. The wax is to make the balls shiny and finished looking. You could skip this and they are just as delicious. You might instead want to get a special dipping chocolate which will also dry shiny but I can't promise they would be gluten free.

Use toothpicks or slotted spoon to dip balls in the melted chocolate, completely coat. Set chocolate on wax paper to cool.

Enjoy! You'll want to freeze or refrigerate these otherwise the Crispies will get soggy because the peanut butter will soften. They do freeze wonderfully and the freezer is also a perfect hiding place.

Mrs. Leeper's Creamy Tuna and Mac and Cheese

I am very behind on my posting so much more should be coming soon. I recently took a trip to my local Ocean State Job Lot and found both the creamy tuna and mac and cheese for $1.50. I had never seen this brand before but figured you can't go wrong for $1.50. Boy was I right.

For one person, these boxes contain too much product for even a dinner. It was wonderful because I was able to get another dinner out of it. (They still taste great reheated)

The creamy tuna has an alfredo type sauce with it, which goes great with the tuna. I was a little weary because I do not usually like tuna in anything other than tuna salad, but this was delicious.

The mac and cheese had a slightly different taste than the typical "blue box" mac and cheese. But it was still delicious and it seems as though one box of Mrs. Leeper's mac and cheese contains about three times the pasta that a box of kraft macaroni and cheese contains. For much less as well.

Now you must be weary... In Stop and Shop yesterday I saw the Mrs. Leeper's brand again for somewhere between 3 and 4 dollars. At this point you could probably create something just as good for less, but for the convenience it might still be worth it.

Frito-Lay products

I think I need to apologize in advance for this post. I just wanted to double check that Smartfood popcorn is gluten free (IT IS!) and ran into this amazing interactive list and this amazing comprehensive list.

Every frito-lay item and its allergy information.

Oh man.. Oh man..

Gluten Free Labels

I had made an assumption and recently learned its a faulty assumption. I assumed that if a brand labels an item Gluten-Free that it'll label all its gluten free items as Gluten Free.

I recently noticed that Nestle Tollhouse Semi-Sweet chocolate morsels and chocolate chunks say on the bag that they are gluten free. I squatted on the floor of my grocery store the other day for about five minutes looking at the bags of white chocolate staring to see if they're gluten free. I convinced myself that they must have gluten in them because the semi-sweet was labeled gluten free and the white chocolate wasn't.

I WAS WRONG! :D (and thank goodness!!)

I found this which lists lots of gluten free nestle products but most importantly these ones:

LIBBY’S® 100% Pure Pumpkin
LIBBY’S® Easy Pumpkin Pie Mix

NESTLÉ TOLL HOUSE Semi-Sweet Morsels
NESTLÉ TOLL HOUSE Semi-Sweet Chocolate Chunks
NESTLÉ TOLL HOUSE Semi-Sweet Chocolate Mini Morsels
NESTLÉ TOLL HOUSE Milk Chocolate Morsels
NESTLÉ TOLL HOUSE Premier White Morsels
NESTLÉ TOLL HOUSE Peanut Butter & Milk Chocolate Morsels
NESTLÉ TOLL HOUSE Milk Chocolate & Peanut Butter Swirled Morsels
NESTLÉ TOLL HOUSE Semi-Sweet Chocolate & Premier White Swirled Morsels

NESTLÉ CARNATION® Evaporated Milk
NESTLÉ CARNATION® Low Fat Evaporated Milk
NESTLÉ CARNATION® Fat Free Evaporated Milk
NESTLÉ CARNATION® Sweetened Condensed Milk
NESTLÉ CARNATION® Instant Nonfat Dry Milk

Oh and ps. I made Rice Crispy Treats dipped in chocolate. YUM YUM YUM! Wait don't be mislead I didn't use RiceCrispies(Not Gluten Free!), I used a gluten free brown rice cereal that is practically identical.

Van Harden Pizza

I wonder if the only reason this pizza is available to me is because I live in Omaha and it comes from Des Moines. It says it retails at 9.99 while its 7.99 at my grocery store and supposedly on sale for 6.99.

It's called Van Harden and its a pizza without a crust. You could say it has a cheese crust and I would say I'm just eating fried cheese flavored like pizza.

Is it healthy? NO
Is it delicious? YES
Is it salty? YES
-To counteract the saltiness some suggest adding diced tomatoes or fresh basil.

Check it out if you're interested!

Van Harden pizza

Mmmmm Mmmm Larabar

Ok, first off I need to start off by saying Larabars are AMAZING. The isn't news to most people. I know when I stayed at Carolyn's house a few years ago they had a big box of apple pie. YUM! Currently I am eating the Ginger Snap.

Today I was at my favorite grocery store which has recently expanded and  now has an ENTIRE ISLE of gluten free goodies. For the first time ever I found Larabars somewhere other than Whole Foods. I had no idea they were gluten free. Then something even better hit me (in my head.. not literally...)

I HAVE A RECIPE THAT IS SOOOO SIMILAR TO LARABAR!

Sugarplums (Chocolate Larabars)
½ cup slivered almonds
4 ounces dried figs
2 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa
½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
3 tablespoons honey
Grated zest from 1 orange (1 tablespoon)
½ teaspoon almond extract
¾ cup granulated sugar

In a small skillet over medium heat, toast the almonds to bring out their flavor. Remove from heat; cool. Combine the figs, cocoa, cinnamon, and almonds in a food processor, pulsing until peppercorn-size balls form. Add the honey, orange zest, and almond extract. Pulse 3 or 4 times more until well mixed. Spread the sugar in a shallow dish. Form the sugarplums into 1-inch balls and roll in sugar.

Or Press into a pan and cut into bars!


Enjoy, I know I will!

Amazon is having a Celiac Awareness Sale

lsAmazon is offering 30% off a lot of gluten free products.

It doesn't hurt to browse!

Amazon's Gluten Free Sale

Enjoy! Let me know if you notice any excellent deals there!

Whole Foods Coupons!

I just found these because of a local omaha website: http://www.michellesmoneysavers.com/ that posts local sales but the author just happens to be eating Gluten Free.

She posted this link which I will check often. I just printed off 8 coupons! And they aren't local you can use them too! Also they don't expire until the end of the year!


Whole Foods Coupons and Deals:
http://www.wholefoodsmarket.com/coupons/

Enjoy

EDIT: Their green tea is on sale 2/$5 so with the $1 off coupon you can buy some really good celestial seasonings green tea for only $1.50!! Cha-Ching (Natually gluten free, but it also says so on the package if that makes you more comfortable)

CHEESE CRACKERS!

Ok, so we know crackers are super expensive and the pickings are slim.

Want super tasty cheez-it-esque crackers!?!?!

I found a simple delicious cracker recipe. Of course it calls for regular flour so we'll switch it up. I replaced the flour with my usual flour mix and some brown rice flour. I think next time I'll try all brown rice flour. You can't really do wrong with this recipe, you could even use ground up shoe leather (as Guy Fieri would say who Dusty and I no longer like...  mostly because we saw him in Bass Pro Shop and he was a jerk) in place of flour and it would be delicious.

Ingredients:
1/4 cup butter softened
1/4 tsp. Sea Salt
1 cup Finely Grated Cheddar Cheese (at room temperature)
1/2 cup GF Flour Mix
1/2 cup Brown Rice Flour
1/4 tsp. Baking Powder
1/8 tsp. Xanthan Gum
1 tbl. Cold Water

Instructions:
Use beaters or food processor (my mixer worked fine with the paddle attachment)  to mix butter and salt until creamy. Add Cheese. Mix Well. Gradually add flour, baking powder, xanthan gum and water mixing until dough begins to form a ball. Form dough into a ball with hands.

Roll the dough into 1/8 inch thickness onto a cookie sheet. Roll between two pieces of parchment or wax paper otherwise you may have dough sticking to the board. Cut the dough into shapes of your choice and make sure they aren't touching. This is very important. I cut mine with a pizza cutter but didn't separate them and when i took them out of the oven they were fused back together (this was a duh moment!).

Bake 15 minutes at 350 or until lightly browned. Turn off the oven and leave the crackers inside to crisp up. Store tightly covered.



Enjoy!!

The only reason I made these was because I was making chex mix and needed a cracker so it wasn't just chex and nuts. It was perfect. I have never tasted anything so cheeeeesy. I may make them every week!

Halloween is Coming!

I have some really important information here regarding candy bars that are gluten free!

Summary

Nestle

• Milk chocolate bar
• Baby Ruth
• Bit-O-Honey
• Butterfinger
• Goobers
• Nops
• Oh Henry!
• Raisinets
• Sno-Caps

Mars

• M&M's (except pretzel obviously)
• Snickers (Dark and Milk)
• Dove products

Jelly Belly

• All Jelly beans are gluten free!

Don't be stupid! Please look at the ingredients before eating!!!

Pumpkin Muffins

I made my favorite fall chocolate almond pumpkin muffins last weekend. They turned out just like the real thing! I used Mama's Coconut Blend which I found at my favorite grocery store plus xanthan gum. Unfortunately it calls for alot of butter and they gave me a belly ache (so did the real thing last year) so I'm not going to post the recipe until I try it out with Apple Sauce instead of butter.

Earlier this week when I went grocery shopping there was no canned pumpkin, probably due to the Great Pumpkin Shortage of 2010. Luckily when I went to my favorite grocery store AGAIN they had tons of Libby's so I got one huge double can and a bunch of smaller cans since they'll last a really long time. Maybe the shortage is over but I didn't want to take that chance since pumpkin (other than apples) is my favorite food of fall.

I think what I am trying to tell you is 'Stock up just in case!!!' though it seems that we've had a really good year for crops. Last year lots of farmers around here lost crops because we had snow early.

Finally can I just say that it's so nice that things say gluten-free now. I don't know people did it before it because the fad Hollywood diet. Thai kitchen is my favorite, they even labels their coconut milk 'naturally gluten free'. Almost as awesome as my peanut butter jar that says under 'Ingredients: Peanuts' wait for it... 'Contains Peanuts.'

Love Love

Rice Cake Sale

ATTENTION! Whole foods is having a sale on those really hearty rice cakes! 2/$4.

Lundberg Organic. Regularly just under $4.

Also I picked up the boinature (sp?)

It cost me an arm and a leg. So we'll have ziti for supper tonight, but I don't plan on buying it too often.

King Arthur Flour Gluten Free Muffin Mix

I tried this new muffin mix yesterday, it is a vanilla base and you can choose what to add in. I decided to go with frozen blueberries.

The muffins themselves are absolutely delicious and easy to make. Could probably pass as cupcakes if you left them plain and put frosting on top. There isn't much of the typical gritty texture that is found in most gluten free baked goods. The one problem that I noticed is that it calls for 1.5 cups of whatever else you want to add. So I added that many frozen blueberries. I think this was way too much.

The bottom of my muffin was mostly blueberries and does not stick together well. I had to get a spatula to remove it from the pan. This may also be because the blueberries added so much moisture to the batter. If I were to do it again I would definitely put in paper muffin cups to remedy the situation, either that or decrease the amount of blueberries added.

These muffins end up being perfect for my needs. I put a few in the fridge (the box says they only last about 3 days in the fridge) and the rest are in the freezer in seperate baggies. All I have to do before leaving for school in the morning is pull a bag out of the freezer. By the time I am ready to eat it the muffin has defrosted wonderfully and is perfect to fix my lunch time hunger.

I would definitely make them again with the few alterations.

Rice Cakes

Rice Cakes have been confusing me.

Especially if you shop at Whole Foods there are many options for Rice Cakes. I just bought the cheapest plain lightly salted ones I could find, but I couldn't help but notice they weren't the cheapest per ounce, just the cheapest per cake. There were cakes that were twice as heavy.

Now that I've been eating rice cakes for breakfast lunch and dinner, ok not really for dinner, just with peanut butter and jelly for breakfast and with Artichoke spinach hummus for lunch, I'm wondering if I would be more satisfied if my rice cakes were brown rice and heartier.

I'll just have to find out and go to the grocery store after work today.

To the grocery store (I keep NEEDING to add Batman at the end of proposition statements like this. You know 'To the grocery store Batman' I don't know why. It doesn't make sense really, especially because I'm sure NO ONE can tell Batman what to do. Odd...

Waffles: I knew it wouldn't be this easy.

Oh my where to start... The Hodgson Mill Gluten Free Baking Mix DOES NOT make good waffles. In fact I feel sick. The search is still on, but I have some ideas. (Hodgson Mill does have a pancake/waffle mix but I'm going to move away from mixes.) The next waffle task:

http://glutenfreegirl.blogspot.com/2008/05/monday-mornings-are-for-waffles.html

But until I build up my arsenal of different flours I'm going to put this mission on hold.

The Hodgson Mill Gluten Free pasta is however very good! It's more expensive than all the others though so I don't see an advantage to it yet.

Chocolate Cake and Chocolate Chip Cookies

So, I decided that today I would pick out the dessert I will make for next weekend for my birthday. Today I made both chocolate chip cookies and chocolate cake.

Betty Crocker Gluten Free Chocolate Chip cookies
These were very easy to make, combine the mix with butter, eggs, and gf vanilla. They cook for 8-10 minutes and are done. They came out delicious and tasting just like normal chocolate chip cookies. The only issue is that when they first come out they are very flakey and difficult to get off the pan in one piece, but after they cool they stick together much better and are scrumptious.

Bob's Red Mill Gluten Free Chocolate Chip cookies
These also had only a few of the normal ingredients, butter eggs etc. They came out more cakey than cookie like though. Also, you could tell that they were gluten free, meaning that they had a different taste than normal chocolate chip cookies. They were okay, but not high on my list of baked goods.

Betty Crocker Gluten Free Devil's Food Cake Mix
I haven't had a slice yet, but have been picking at the pieces and it seems to taste like normal cake. The cake did not really rise like most do, so it ended up being to fairly thin circles of cake, but once I put one on top of the other it will be more like a single layer cake. The recipe called for butter, eggs, and water which compared to the other chocolate cake I have had is a very easy recipe. The ultimate test will be to see what the boy thinks of it, the last chocolate cake I made tasted different, not good or bad, just different and he didn't really like it because of that. So I am hoping that this one will fair better because it is no fun eating your birthday cake alone. :)

Gluten Free Pantry Decadent Chocolate Cake
This was the cake made at the boy's house for Easter, the website doesn't give the same ingredients so I am not exactly sure, but I do know that it called for yogurt and some other weird stuff which was odd and ended up making the cake more expensive. It had a different taste to it like stated above, but it did rise unlike the betty crocker cake. I am not exactly sure which cake wins in this fight, but for me I would choose Betty Crocker for being inexpensive and it's good taste.

So in summary, Betty Crocker wins! :) For me at least, you may have to try these yourselves and make your own decisions though. But the good news that comes out of this is that you can have those delicious desserts that you are used to and get the taste to be pretty close to what you are craving!

My breakfast today

I was thinking maybe it would be helpful to post ideas for yummy, simple gluten-free food. I'll start posting pictures at some point, I guess.

OK, so breakfast today was both yummy and easy. I chopped a sweet potato into about quarter inch pieces and sauteed it with some olive oil, salt, pepper, chili powder, cumin and a smidgen of cayenne pepper. Once the potatoes were soft, I moved them to the side of the pan and fried an egg over easy in the remainder of the spices and olive oil on the pan. When it was almost done I sliced a very thin slice of cheddar cheese on the potatoes to melt it. Put the egg on top, put it on a plate and then, because I am a glutton for punishment, I topped it with Sriracha hot sauce. Salsa would be just as good. Took me maybe 10 minutes in total.

Easy, peasey gluten-free breakfast.

Product Review: Ancient Harvest Quinoa Rotelle Pasta

This was delicious. I both oiled and salted the water when I cooked it. I paired it with a fresh tomato I'd taken the skin off of and smooshed, spinach from the farmer's market, a bit of Trader Joe's pasta sauce, feta cheese and spices. Delicious.

Darrell knew it was gluten-free pasta, but couldn't tell by the taste or texture. He really liked it. Success!

It's on sale at my Whole Foods right now 2 for $4. Well worth it. Glad I stopped there on my way back from the farmer's market!

Cati gave me these awesome awesome tips!

Letter from Cati F when she found out that we are also doing the no gluten jig! So awesomely helpful! Enjoy!!


This was my guiding light during the first few months:
http://www.amazon.com/Living-Gluten-Free-Dummies-Danna-Korn/dp/0471773832

Here's a good blog, she's also written a book on the subject and her and her chef husband are writing another one with better recipes.
http://www.glutenfreegirl.blogspot.com/

Tinkyada rice pasta is fairly good (although a little chewy)
http://www.tinkyada.com/

My favorite pasta currently is Bionaturae it's from Italy so we know it's good ;)
http://www.bionaturae.com/gluten.html

I've had less luck with GF bread...most of them have such a strong flavor that it overwhelms everything else but I actually had a decent roll this past week from a bakery in Glastonbury . If your family is still in Tolland, tell them to take a drive down to:
http://www.deesonesmartcookie.com/

Betty Crocker actually just started a GF line and they're actually really good:
http://www.bettycrocker.com/products/gluten-free-baking-mixes

This is another local bakery out of CT, not as good as Dee's but there stuff is available in Stop and Shop in CT. I buy their gluten free crutons and smash them up for bread crumbs :)
http://www.aleias.com/

I live on Amy's GF frozen meals at work...or just when I'm super lazy. I love the Penne pasta, rice mac and cheese, enchiladas and veggie lasagna:
http://www.amyskitchen.com/products/search_results.php?form_glutenfree=1

last week the Advocate had a really good article on GF places in CT (sorry I know you're not out here but it will be good when you come visit!)
http://www.hartfordadvocate.com/dining/gluten-free-ct

Ok, I'll stop my little Gluten-free product seizure for now...more to come :)

Gluten-Free Deli Meat

Did you know that most deli meat has gluten in it? It's not one of the things that I would think would, but I'm learning there is no assuming in gluten-free eating.

There are two brands I know for sure do not have any gluten in their deli meat: Applegate Farms and Boars Head.

There may be others and some brands may have some items that are gluten-free, but Applegate Farms and Boars Head deli meat are all 100% gluten free.

Breakfast is the worst

Finding tasty breakfast's to eat gets very difficult. The cereals that I thought I could eat don't taste good at all. Oats are a no-no, they are usually made in places with other gluten products and there are still studies going on to determine whether oats actually affect people or not. Well unless it was the yogurt I was eating it in, oats do not work well with me. Maybe I should find some gf oats. Anyways, the most amazing thing I have found so far are Van's gf toaster waffles. The same brand also makes pancakes and does all different flavors of them. When you put a tiny bit of syrup on them they taste exactly the same as regular waffles, and they only take toaster time to cook! I used to eat two every morning, but I have been getting away with eating one, and being able to get more breakfasts out of the box. Gluten free stuff isn't the cheapest unfortunately. Although some of the big brands of stuff have sections on their websites for gf stuff. For example, cheetos and cheez doodles and stuff are gluten free which I found out by searching the frito lay website. It was exciting news when I found out! :)

But I don't have any gluten free pasta!

I came home tonight CRAVING some pasta with bacon and cheese.

After ignoring the craving and taking the dog to the park I couldn't put off making supper any longer. So I pulled out the rice cooker and threw in a serving of rice and a couple tablespoons of bacon bits (I got a huge bag of real bacon bits at costco a while ago. It's perfect to throw into things like this, or a side of vegetables or a scrambled egg, The best part is that I don't have to worry about cooking bacon before it goes bad!) then I loaded it with my aged cheeses!

It easily fixed my craving!

Special K is a no-no

Today I sadly learned that special K is a big no no... Today will be the last day I eat special K with strawberries. You might think wait aren't those corn flakes? Well yes, technically they are as the first ingredient is CORN, but the second is Whole grain wheat and the third? Wheat Gluten. Though obviously the presence of Whole grain wheat implies wheat gluten is there anyway.

This cereal now belongs to Dusty and I am jealous.. no more buying giant family size boxes at Costco!

New Task: Find real Corn flakes to put in my yogurt that happen to be gluten free!

About Us

Our family recently learned that at least one of us has the gene for Celiac Disease. In response we have all decided to go Gluten Free (GF). To help us along this journey we're recording any information, links, recipes, and experiences we encounter along the way.