Gluten Free Hummus Recipe

It’s Holiday time! Tis the season to be jolly. To eat, drink and be merry. To gain 10 pounds, do serious damage to your waist line and quite possibly your liver.
Don’t get me wrong. I love Holiday Parties. Houses twinkle, guests glitter and drinks clink. But all that partying can take its toll on our health. It is hard to navigate all the drinking and eating and still maintain the good health that you need to maintain the energy required to be truly merry.

Gluten is just lurking around every corner. And even if you manage to find gluten free goodies to munch on the sugar and fat can kill ya!

I have decided to add some healthy appetizers to my holiday party this year. Which brings me to the lowly hummus.

Hummus gets a bad wrap sometimes. It can be bland and may have a hippie conotation but really there is a lot to like about hummus. When seasoned properly it is delicious, it is packed with fiber, good fat and when served with fresh veggies it actual is very healing to your liver, which let’s face it can use a break this time of year.
I know you can buy fairly decent hummus almost anywhere these days but you make it yourself you can ensure it is packed with flavor and is indeed a healthful snack. And it is a snap to make.

To boost the healthy factor I use organic garbanzo beans and add some flax seed oil. Flax seed oil is amazingly good for you and it gives the hummus a great nutty undertone.

Skip the pita, serve with fresh veggies or even apples (don’t cringe, it is actually quite yummy) and if you want to elevate it to high status, pipe it onto the veggies for a pretty presentation. This hummus is definitely not hippie food!

Hummus

2 cans organic garbanzo beans, liquid drained and reserved
1 ½ teaspoons course sea salt
4 cloves garlic, minced
1/3 cup tahini (sesame paste)
Juice of 2 lemons
10 dashes Tabasco sauce
2 tablespoons flax seed oil
½ cup liquid from garbanzo beans
½ cup extra virgin olive oil

Put all the ingredients except olive oil in a strong blender or food processor and process until pureed. Add olive oil and process until smooth. Taste for seasoning, add more salt or Tabasco if necessary.

Serve as a gluten free dip with fresh vegetables or pipe onto veggies.

Simply…Gluten Free Desserts is now available, with over 135 recipes not featured in my blog.

Available at bookstores including Barnes & Noble, Borders, Powells, Books-a-Million and Amazon. You can get it also HERE.

Resource:

http://simplygluten-free.com/blog/2008/12/hummus.html

Gluten Free Guilt Free Fudge Sauce Recipe

I just can’t think about February without thinking about chocolate. Hmmm… I wonder why? Is it because Valentine’s Day is sitting right there in the middle of the month threatening to derail all of our good diet intentions with its bounty of fancy truffles, chocolate dipped strawberries and other fabulous, chocolate-laden gluten free (and many not so gluten free) treats?

It must be a plot of some sort. After all, we start the year with our resolutions – to lose weight, eat healthier, cut sugar out of our diets, eat less fat, exercise more…the list goes on.  So we eagerly get started with great resolve, it is new and we are determined. And most of us, while we face challenges, start to feel better by the end of the January. This keeps us going a little longer. And then right there, smack dab in the middle of February, is a day that basically revolves around chocolate and sugar with some hearts thrown in.

If we just ate a nice chocolate or treat on the day, that would be no problem, but we don’t. We eat half a box (at least) of chocolates because, well, it’s a gift after all and we don’t want to be rude do we? And then maybe we celebrate the day with a special, calorie and fat laden meal that ends with, yep!… more chocolate.  And if we don’t have someone special in our lives to give us chocolates and take us out to dinner, we may fill the void with pints of ice cream topped with fudge sauce or whatever the sugar-filled, fat laden food of our choice is.

If we just stepped off the path of healthier eating for the one day, it wouldn’t be that big of a deal – the problem is that once we meander off the path, sometimes it seems much more interesting to continue in that direction and it can be a very difficult time getting back on it.

Am I saying don’t have chocolate on Valentine’s Day.  NO!  After all that, would be paramount to heresy. What I am saying is eat one of those lovely truffles and hide the rest in your freezer. Have those chocolate dipped strawberries or ice cream with fudge sauce but do it in a more health-minded manner. In other words indulge guilt free.

This is a guilt free fudge sauce that feels and tastes indulgent but is actually refined sugar free and practically fat free! It takes under 10 minutes to prepare and lasts about 10 days in the fridge.

This sauce gets its rich flavor and luxurious texture thanks to a combo of unsweetened cocoa powder, coconut sugar, a touch of instant espresso powder (not essential but it really deepens the chocolate flavor), pure vanilla extract and dark, almost caramelly organic raw blue agave from Wholesome Sweeteners.

Dip strawberries (or any fruit really) into it, spoon it on top of ice cream (for a really guilt free dessert try making a sundae with my almost instant cherry frozen yogurt) or just lick it off a spoon. You will feel all the fudgy chocolate love without bouncing off the walls or derailing all your good dietary progress.

Gluten Free Guilt Free Fudge Sauce

Ingredients

1 cup water
½ cup coconut sugar
½ cup organic raw blue agave (dark agave)
¾ cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 tablespoon instant espresso powder (optional)
1 tablespoon pure vanilla extract

Directions

Combine the water, coconut sugar, agave, cocoa powder and espresso powder (if using) in a heavy sauce pan and bring to a boil over medium heat stirring until smooth. Boil for 5 minutes or until it starts to thicken. Whisk in the vanilla and let cool for about an hour – the sauce will thicken more as it cools.

Store in a covered container in the fridge for up to 10 days. Serve warm or cold. The sauce can be re-heated for a hot fudge sauce by microwaving for a minute or so on high power.

A gluten free, refined sugar free recipe that makes about 1½ cups of sauce.

Ready for more dessert?

Simply…Gluten-Free Desserts is now available, with over 135 recipes not featured in my blog.

Available at bookstores including Barnes & Noble, Borders, Powells, Books-a-Million and Amazon. You can get it also HERE.

Resource :
http://simplygluten-free.com/blog/2012/02/gluten-free-guilt-free-fudge-sauce-recipe.html

Gluten Free Scalloped Tomatoes Recipe

You may think it is strange for me to be posting a tomato recipe in the dead of winter but before you purists who only eat tomatoes at their peak of ripeness and perfection (late summer) get all up in arms, let me explain.
I guess I need to start with a confession, so here goes. “Hi, my name is Carol and I am a tomato addict. And that’s not all; I have passed my addiction along to everyone in my family.” Seriously, we could be out of milk, eggs and gluten free bread and I am still not hopping in the car to run to the store, but just let us run out of tomatoes and I am off to the market before you can blink. A good portion of my grocery budget goes to tomatoes every week! We have even tried to support our habit by growing our own tomatoes – no luck yet but we are still trying.

So as you can see, I am not going to let a little thing like “out of season” get in my way of eating tomatoes. While tomatoes may be available all year round, they do tend to be pretty flavorless when not in season. The solution? Roasting them!

Roasting is a great way to bring out the natural sweetness of any vegetable and it works great with tomatoes. But for this recipe I took it one step further – in essence I scalloped them. With a bit of balsamic vinegar, garlic and rosemary, the tomatoes become a fabulous winter side dish or vegan main course. In the summer, fresh basil would be a great substitution of the rosemary. All the lovely, flavorful, aromatic juices exuded by roasting the tomatoes are soaked up with Kinnikinnick’s Gluten Free Panko Style Bread Crumbs which also provides a nice crunchy topping.

If you have any leftover scalloped tomatoes, serving with them with a poached egg on top is pure bliss. In fact, next time I make this recipe I am not counting on leftovers – I am making it specifically for topping with an egg because, yep, it really is that good!



Do you have a food addiction?


Gluten Free Scalloped Tomatoes

Ingredients

2 pound plum tomatoes
1 tablespoon fresh rosemary, minced
2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
2 tablespoons olive oil
5 garlic cloves, minced or grated
2 teaspoons kosher or fine sea salt
1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1 ½ cups Kinnikinnick gluten free panko style bread crumbs – use divided

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Cut the tomatoes into roughly 1 inch pieces. Place in a 8 inch by 8 inch (or similar sized) baking dish. Add the rosemary, balsamic vinegar, olive oil, minced garlic cloves, salt, pepper and 1 cup of the bread crumbs, toss well. Sprinkle the remaining bread crumbs on top and bake for 25 minutes. Top with the remaining ½ cup of bread crumbs and cook for 10 more minutes or until the top is nicely browned.

A gluten free recipe that serves 6 people.

Ready for dessert?

Simply…Gluten-Free Desserts is now available, with over 135 recipes not featured in my blog.

Available at bookstores including Barnes & Noble, Borders, Powells, Books-a-Million and Amazon. You can get it also HERE.

Resource :
http://simplygluten-free.com/blog/2012/01/gluten-free-scalloped-tomatoes-recipe.html