Best Vodka for a Gluten free diet is most certainly Ciroc Vodka.

Ciroc is distilled from Grapes and hella delicious. It tastes much smoother and lighter than most Vodka’s from potato or wheat origin and mixes better too.

Avoid the messy distillation debate all together, (Is drinking distilled vodka safe or not because the distillation process supposedly removes reaction inducing proteins?)

The truth is that after one distillation, all impurities that will be removed have been removed. Multiple distillations are for show and a reason to raise prices.

But a drink made from wheat, barley or rye (most vodkas) is usually never a good choice for someone with Celiac disease.

Ciroc tastes like any other vodka and mixes much better with fruit drinks because it has a sweeter flavor.

* Ciroc Drink Recipes:

Long Island:

1. Fill martini shaker with ice, ½ oz (Half of a shot) of Vodka (Ciroc or Club), ½ oz Clear Tequila, Rum, and Gin.

2. The Gin will not be missed if you extract it from your recipe.

3. Shake in a martini mixer with ice. Strain out over a tall glass filled with Ice. Add some gluten free “Simply Lemonade” and Coca-Cola, which is also gluten free.

Cosmopolitan

1. Fill shaker with ice.

2. Pour ½ oz. of Ciroc Vodka (obvi) into shaker.

3. Add 2 ounces of Cranberry Juice and 1 ounce of Cointreau.

Other good stuff: Try Ciroc Raspberry Vodka. Mixes well with Canada Dry Ginger Ale.

The author of this article is Justin Spilker. If you would like to share with the gluten free hub you can get in touch with us by visitng our contact page  or facebook

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I have recently received requests for gluten-free salads and dressings. Below is a great start! It is rather easy to make, with a simple, but tasty vinaigrette dressing recipe that you can use on most of your salads. I will post more recipes as I receive them. Also provided is a link to the recipe for the polenta croutons. Enjoy!

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C’mon, admit it. You would like to eat a warm, delicious and chewy brownie, right now if you had one, right? You know that you want one. You just avoid them because they either have gluten ingredients or your worried about the calories and/or the fat that you don’t want. Well here’s a solution for you from Elizabeth Kaplan, CEO of  The Pure Pantry  These brownies are easy to make, low-fat, low-calorie and high on the tasty meter! If you want to make these, then follow this link and order her organic all purpose baking mix right now, so that you can make these brownies ASAP, and also use the baking mix for many of the other awesome recipes that she has in her cookbook. Share some of these brownies with family and friends. Don’t eat them all yourself, just because they are practically “guilt-free”!

FYI –  Elizabeth, along with her delicious gluten-free recipe cookbook was just on the Martha Stewart Whole living Radio Show. Check it out!

Summary: Makes 16 brownies

Ingredients

2 egg whites
1/2 cup agave syrup
1/2 cup applesauce
1/2 cup melted chocolate chips (bittersweet or semi-sweet)
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 1/2 cups The Pure Pantry All Purpose Baking Mix

In a mixing bowl beat egg whites with agave syrup until blended.  Add applesauce and melted chocolate.  Sift in unsweetened cocoa powder.  Add baking mix and blend until smooth.  Add 1 t. vanilla.

Grease a 9×11 baking pan. Spread batter evenly in pan using a spatula.  Batter will be thick.  Bake at 350 for 20 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

Let cool completely before cutting into bars – this is very important because gluten-free baked goods tend to crumble more, especially when warm.

Calories: 92 each
Fat grams: 0.3

Recipe and photo courtesy of: The Pure Pantry – gluten-free baking products and recipes

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I, (like many of you I am sure) are always looking for something good to eat that tastes great, and of course, gluten free! So, I would like to share with you a recipe, that I just received from a new friend at The Pure Pantry.

Elizabeth Kaplan, founder and CEO, has a great website filled with her wonderful recipes that she has created with everything you could want from dinner to dessert. Her recipes focus on fresh, full-flavored and nutrient-dense foods. The images made me really hungry! Check out her website, where you can view her products, like pancake and cookie mix, her cookbook and if you happen to live anywhere near Carlsbad, California maybe you might want to sign up for one of her cooking classes.  I am going to make some this weekend!

Ingredients

2 1/4 cups The Pure Pantry Buckwheat Flax Baking Mix

1/4 cup packed brown sugar

2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

3 tablespoons chilled butter or Earth Balance margarine

2/3 cup chopped pitted dates

1/3 cup chopped pecans or walnuts

2/3 cup vanilla low-fat yogurt (or soy or coconut yogurt)

2 egg whites, lightly beaten (or egg replacer)

Instructions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Combine baking mix, brown sugar, cinnamon in large mixing bowl.  Grate butter into bowl using large holes part of a grater.  Blend butter with fork or your finger until it resembled course meal.  Add dates, yogurt and egg whites, stirring just until dry ingredients are moistened.  Dough will be sticky.

Lightly dust a work surface with rice flour.  Dust hands with rice flour and turn dough out onto work surface.  Knead lightly and pat dough into an 8 inch circle shape and place on parchment paper on a baking sheet.  Score top of circle with knife, creating 10 wedges but not cutting all the way through dough.  Bake at 350 F for 25 minutes or until scones are golden brown. Cool completely.  Cut into 10 scones and serve.

Makes 10 scones.

Calories: 186

Protein: 5.4 g

Fat: 4 g

Carbs: 34.6

Fiber: 4.6 g

Iron: 15 mg

Sodium: 304 mg

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I hadn’t eaten a peanut butter cup since I was diagnosed with celiac disease… until my aunt Ellen sent me a homemade one of her own.  It was to die for. Rich, creamy, with the right balance of peanut and chocolate. The chocolate is high quality, melt-in-your-mouth-delicious. The best part? It was completely gluten free.

Ellen has been making chocolates for several years, and she recently began selling them locally around Farmington, New York. She understands gluten free cooking because both her mother and daughter must follow a strict gluten free diet. So, when I received her package in the mail, I knew that her chocolates would be safe and free of any cross contamination.

Along with the peanut butter cups, she sent me a box of chocolate covered gluten-free pretzels. Usually I’m not a fan of gluten-free pretzels, but cover them in chocolate, and they’re suddenly quite tasty. Somehow the chocolate on Ellen’s pretzels remains creamy, so the pretzel tastes more like it was just dipped into melted chocolate than like is was shellacked with the hard, crunchy chocolate of most commercially available varieties. In fact, she has sent me two boxes of pretzels now, and I must confess that I have shared only a couple of bites with Drew and have hoarded the rest for myself. They are completely addiction worthy – it’s something about the crunchy, saltiness of the pretzels combined with the sweet, creaminess of the chocolate.

She also sent along some chocolate covered turtles with pecans and caramel and some nut clusters that were amazing. I mean, how can you really go wrong with nuts and chocolate?

Ellen doesn’t have to be your aunt in order to get your hands on her delicious chocolate. You don’t even have to live in New York to get them because she has recently started selling her chocolate online at Ellen’s Chocolate Creations! I can vouch for the fact that it ships well because it has arrived to me in Iowa perfectly intact and tasting delicious as ever.  A couple of suggestions for ordering: Ellen’s chocolate covered strawberries are perfect for weddings, and her peanut butter cups and gluten-free pretzels make perfect birthday and holiday gifts. But if you’re like me, then diets be damned: any day is occasion enough for delicious chocolate.

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Our friend Jack from Atlas in Iowa City recommended this delicious Jamie Oliver recipe for Tender and Crisp Chicken Legs and Sweet Tomatoes. We tried it, and it was so fabulous that we made the dish for my family’s Christmas dinner, which we hosted this year. The flavors are rich, but the dish is fairly light. The thing that bothered me, though, is that none of the vegetables are in season here during the winter and spring. So, I created two other variations of the dish both to accommodate the different seasons and to keep us from getting tired of eating the same thing every week. Yes, I have literally been making a variation on this dish once a week because it’s so easy, tastes amazing, and it makes several servings (4-6). It’s also incredibly healthy because it’s rich with vitamins and fiber. Also, if you prefer white meat, you can substitute chicken breasts for the hind quarters.

Artichoke, Chicken and Olives

• 4 bone-in chicken thighs
• 4 bone-in chicken drumsticks
• 1 cup sliced mushrooms
• 1 can artichokes, drained
• 8-10 roma tomatoes, quartered
• 1 chopped red onion
• 1 chopped jalepeno
• 1 jar pitted Kalamata olives
• ¼ tsp dried thyme (or fresh)
• 1 head of garlic (broken up, leave cloves whole)
• salt and pepper to taste (a generous amount of each)

Preheat your oven to 180°C/350°F/gas 4. Season your chicken pieces all over and put them into a snug-fitting pan in one layer. Throw in all the vegetables and olives, then chuck in your tomatoes. Scatter the garlic cloves into the pan and drizzle over some olive oil. Mix around a bit, pushing the tomatoes underneath. Place in the oven for 1½ hours, turning the tomatoes halfway through, until the chicken skin is crisp and the meat falls off the bone.

This recipe makes a lot of broth, so you may want to serve it over pasta or rice.

Seasonal Root Vegetables and Chicken

• 4 bone-in chicken thighs
• 4 bone-in chicken drumsticks
• 3 beets, peeled and chopped
• 2-3 sweet potatoes, chunked
• 1 leek, sliced
• ½ onion, chopped
• 1 parsnip, chopped
• 1 rutabaga, chopped
• 1 head of garlic (broken up, leave cloves whole)
• salt and pepper to taste (a generous amount of each)

Preheat your oven to 180°C/350°F/gas 4. Season your chicken pieces all over and put them into a snug-fitting pan in one layer. Throw in all the vegetables and olives, then chuck in your tomatoes. Scatter the garlic cloves into the pan and drizzle over some olive oil. Mix around a bit, pushing the tomatoes underneath. Place in the oven for 1½ hours, turning the tomatoes halfway through, until the chicken skin is crisp and the meat falls off the bone.

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Recently my sister discovered that she is allergic to gluten (but does not have celiac disease), and she introduced me to Schär, a line of gluten free products that only recently became available in the Midwest. My mom bought me some of their gluten free pizza crusts and penne pasta which I am looking forward to trying. The pizza crusts do not need to be frozen or refrigerated, which seems pretty rare as far as I can tell.

Drew and I made pizza using the Schär gluten free pizza crusts the other night. We were a little skeptical when we removed them from the box. They were the color of cardboard and the texture seemed a little weird (dry, flaky, rubbery). But, we were up to the challenge so we pushed forward.

We first brushed each crust with olive oil, then layered sliced fresh mozzarella, sliced tomatoes, diced garlic, pepperoni, diced yellow onion, and diced jalapeño on top, with a little sea salt to taste. Then we drizzled a little honey around the edge of the crust and put them in the oven on a pizza stone.

The result was nothing short of amazing. The crusts were fluffy and soft on the inside and crisp on the edges. The texture was perfect, not grainy at all. It tasted like real hand-tossed pizza crust. It was so delicious that we each ate a full pizza (each box contains two crusts). Success!

The Schär website is terrific. They have a bunch of gluten-free offerings, including bread, crackers, cookies, and mixes. I will definitely be going back for more!

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A couple of weeks ago, Drew and I visited with Anna Sobaski, creator of Breads From Anna, and took a tour of her production facility. We even got to sample a new mix that she’s perfecting (in our opinion it’s delicious already). Anna shared with us some tips for gluten-free baking, her favorite recipes for the holidays, and a few mixes to try at home.

Breads From Anna makes nutritious, affordable mixes, and their product line includes bread, pancake, muffin, and piecrust mixes. They are amazingly delicious and the bread has a light, fluffy texture that is disarmingly similar to bread made with gluten. We especially love the piecrust mix.

Anna is interested in the idea of food as medicine, and her culinary degree came from the Natural Gourmet Institute, which focuses on nutrition and health. All of the Breads From Anna mixes contain healthy grains, and the resulting products contain a lot of protein and fiber without any fillers or a lot of sugar. These breads are nutritious and delicious for anyone—not just for those of us with dietary restrictions.

Breads From Anna mixes are all gluten, soy, nut, and rice free, which is great for people with multiple allergies. Many of the mixes are also yeast, dairy, and corn free as well. The production facility is setup to ensure that there is no cross contamination between mixes.

For the purpose of quality control, Breads From Anna bakes a loaf of bread from each batch of mix that they prepare and package (they mix in small batches—only enough for 100 loaves at a time—to ensure high quality). Because Anna bakes a loaf of bread every day, she has tested many bread machines over the years. Her favorite is the Zojirushi Home Bakery Supreme Breadmaker, which would be a terrific addition to your Christmas wish list.

Anna also gave us some great ideas about how to use her mixes for the holidays:

• Make a savory Chicken Pot Pie using the Pie Crust Mix.
• Make the Classic Herb Bread Mix into stuffing (this is what we plan to do for Thanksgiving). I baked a loaf of this bread last week and it was so good that just thinking about it makes my mouth water!
• Make a triple berry pie with the Pie Crust Mix and filling it with a mixture of fresh cranberries, raspberries, and blueberries and a little sugar or maple.
• Add walnuts to the Pumpkin Bread Mix and make the batter into muffins. Finish with cream cheese frosting.

Anna gave us a Pumpkin Bread Mix to make at home, and although I’m not much of a cook, the muffins came out moist and delicious. I followed her suggestion and added walnuts. I was inspired by the quality of Anna’s mix to create a higher quality frosting. So, I adapted my old frosting recipe using better quality ingredients, and the result was nothing short of amazing. Here’s my new recipe for cream cheese frosting:

Cream Cheese Frosting (makes more than enough)

• 8 oz. cold cream cheese (Philadelphia is gluten-free)
• 5 Tbsp. softened salt-free organic butter
• 2 tsp. vanilla (Nielsen-Massey’s Madagascar Bourbon Pure Organic Vanilla – it’s certified gluten-free, and it’s simply the best)
• 2 C. organic powdered sugar
• pinch of Kosher salt

Beat the cream cheese, butter, and vanilla until combined (but do not whip). Add salt. Gradually add powdered sugar with the mixer on slow until the desired consistency and sweetness is achieved.

Visit the Breads From Anna website for more great recipe ideas!

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Drew and I went to a seminar last weekend about improving immunity through nutrition and lifestyle choices. We learned that there are a lot of things about our health and nutrition that we can improve. Dr. Bevacqua recommends drinking a lot of water, breathing deeply, and sweating on a regular basis to cleanse the body (exercise 30 minutes a day, five days a week!). She also recommends eating tons of fruits and vegetables, which is something that Drew and I have been trying to do anyway. Her presentation also highlighted the importance of eating fiber and protein at every meal.

Eating enough fiber can be difficult on the gluten-free diet. Of course, some of the best sources of fiber are whole grains, and we obviously can’t eat many of those. She shared with us a recipe for breakfast cereal that is high in fiber and protein, but it contained wheat, barley, and rye. The gluten trifecta! So, I have adapted her recipe into something just as nutritious, but without the gluten.

Healthy Gluten-Free Breakfast (Makes 5 Servings)

• 1 cup Bob’s Red Mill Gluten Free Rolled Oats
• ¼ cup flax seed
• ½ cup raw organic pecans (crushed)
• ½ cup raw organic almonds (crushed or ground)
• 2 tbsp cinnamon (Tones is gluten free)
• Vanilla extract to taste (Tones is gluten free)
• Almond milk

Grind flax seeds using a coffee grinder (flax seed is only properly digested when ground). Mix together all dry ingredients and store in an airtight container in the freezer. One serving is ¼ to ½ cup. Add vanilla and almond milk before serving. Do not cook. Serve cold or warm (30 seconds in the microwave max).

I chopped up a pear with it this morning and then put it in the microwave for 30 seconds (don’t put it in for longer or it will become a soggy mess). It was like having a fruit crisp for breakfast (yum!), and it was totally guilt-free, which is even better.

This breakfast mix is high in protein, fiber, and antioxidants. Cinnamon is really good for you, too. Hope you enjoy!

Photo credit: filtran

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Crystal’s birthday was over the weekend, so I decided to try my hand at baking one of her very favorites: Red Velvet Cupcakes.

I’m much more of a cook than a baker, but as I mentioned in my last cupcake post, I learned a great deal about doctoring cake mixes from my mother, the Cake Mix Queen. Knowing the basics of red velvet (white flour, vanilla, cocoa and tons of red food coloring), I set out to doctor Betty Crocker’s Gluten Free Yellow Cake Mix.

These cupcakes are delicious, easy, quick and beautiful. What more could a wife ask for on her birthday?

Easy Gluten Free Red Velvet Cupcakes (makes about 15)

• 1 box Betty Crocker Gluten Free Yellow Cake Mix
• 1 package chocolate-flavored instant pudding/pie filling (Jello brand is gluten free)
• 1 stick of butter, softened
• 8 oz. sour cream
• 3 eggs
• 2/3 milk or plain soy milk
• 2 tbsp. red food coloring (Tones is gluten free)

Preheat oven to 350° F. Combine all ingredients in a large mixing bowl at medium speed until smooth, about 2 minutes (watch out for the food coloring—it stains anything it touches!). Once combined, spoon the mixture into muffin pans lined with cupcake liners. Bake for 16 – 20 minutes, until a toothpick comes out clean when you stick it in the center.

Let the cupcakes cool in the pans for five minutes, then carefully remove them and place them on cooling racks.

Cream Cheese Frosting

This is the same cream cheese frosting we used on our gluten free lemon poppyseed cupcakes.

Cream Cheese Frosting (makes more than enough)

• 8 oz. cold cream cheese (Philadelphia is gluten-free)
• 5 Tbsp. softened butter
• 2 tsp. vanilla (Tones is gluten-free)
• 3 C. powdered sugar
• pinch of salt

Beat the cream cheese, butter, and vanilla until combined (but do not whip). Add salt. Gradually add powdered sugar with the mixer on slow until the desired consistency and sweetness is achieved.

Remember that because of the cream cheese frosting, these cupcakes should be kept in the refrigerator if they aren’t eaten within 12-24 hours. Enjoy!

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