Tag Archives: Side dishes

If you think being on a gluten free diet means never eating some of your favorite foods, think again. There has been an explosion of gluten free products over the past few years so become familiar with the brands that work for you. Bionaturae has many options for pasta like elbows, spaghetti and penne rigate.

Here are important tips to cooking good gluten free pasta:

• Make sure there is plenty of water when boiling.
• Add salt to the boiling water.
• Start testing the pasta 1 minute before the recommended time. If it’s not done, test in 1 minute intervals.
• Don’t over mix or over cook gluten free pasta; it will fall apart.

The key to a satisfying macaroni and cheese is learning to make a good cheese sauce. By making a few adjustments from a traditional recipe, you’ll soon be in business. Read More »

What better way to spend those wintry days than curled up with a delicious bowl of Gluten-free Butternut Squash Soup?

This recipe, courtesy of Emeril Lagasse, has a twist on the traditional Butternut Squash soup by adding in peanut oil and jalapeno.  While this soup may not be the lightest fare, it’s sure to warm you up and fill you up on those cool fall evenings.

The recipe below is easy to make and takes about 40 minutes. Read More »

Recipes shouldn’t just be a list of ingredients with obscure directions. A recipe needs to teach the recipient how to recreate the dish the writer has made.

Gnocchi can be intimidating to many people but with a good set of instructions and the consistency of dough, you’ll want to make it all of the time.

Although the base for gnocchi (pronounced nywak-ee) is potato, regular all-purpose flour is usually also added. When eating gluten free, you may feel like you’ll never be able to enjoy these tender dumplings again. But, there is hope. Read More »

Fall is the time of year when we need quick and easy, nutritious comfort foods to get us through our hectic lives.  Picadillo is a traditional Cuban chili.  You can make it with less spice (cut back on the cumin, chili powder and garlic) and the children will love it.

Picadillos have some spice but also sweetness.    This can be served over Read More »

Fall is here and that means pumpkins are starting to appear on your neighbor’s door step and in grocery stores, which is the universal signal to start carving and cooking pumpkin. Why is it most of us tend to cook with pumpkin only around Halloween and Thanksgiving?  Pumpkin is loaded with vitamin A, fiber and it is low in calories, so we should find ways to work it into our diet throughout the year.

Pumpkin is very versatile to cook with, so it can be used in both sweet and savory recipes.  This Examiner did a little research for gluten-free pumpkin recipes and was amazed at all of the drool-worthy recipes we found.  Listed below are just a fraction of the gluten-free pumpkin recipes available online.

What is your favorite way to cook with pumpkin?

Pumpkin – General Recipes

• About.com has an extensive list of gluten-free pumpkin recipes
• Foodista has a list of 5 Savory Pumpkin Recipes and a list of 5 Must Try Gluten Free Pumpkin Recipe
• Gluten-free pumpkin recipes from The Gluten-Free Homemaker Read More »

Baked Mac & Cheese Photo: Kimberly Bouldin

Macaroni and cheese is a great comfort food. When I eat it, I remember those days when my mom would surprise us with her baked macaroni and cheese. This wasn’t just any macaroni and cheese, this was the real deal, made from scratch!

After starting the gluten-free diet, pasta dishes were a little tougher to make. Some pastas don’t hold up well to being cooked in boiling water and then baked. I have found that Read More »

This side dish is sort of the unique Irish twist on mashed potatoes. Though most versions of this recipe seem to call for cream, we toned it down by adding yogurt instead, and cutting down the amount of butter used. Light and creamy, with chopped green onions, and our further addition of fresh cilantro, our version of champ is a great twist on a simple dish. Read More »

This is a hearty dish perfect for late fall or winter. It’s also wonderful with any root vegetable like turnip, carrot, parsnip, rutabaga, and sweet potato. If you don’t want to bother cutting the squash many stores offer it pre-cut.
Read More »

When Sarah Henkin and I were trying to come up with a menu item for samples at the Ferry Plaza Farmer’s Market FoodWise booth, we decided to make delicious, late summer tomatoes the centerpiece. We needed to keep the dish simple since there were some other events happening that day. Roasted tomatoes on top of something seemed like a good option to me.

Since we eat gluten-free, I tend to not think about using bread with tomatoes (although the thought does leave me with pangs of longing for Acme). My standard fallback is usually polenta. I made a similar dish last year with roasted veggies and gorgonzola (see that post here) so this needed to be different. Read More »