Some Gluten-Free Easter Brunch + Advice

Happy spring/early day off at work/long weekend/Easter!

Personally I’m taking advantage of the half-day to make a gigantic gluten-free rainbow cake. That’s right, Pinterest has lured me in again. So while you all can wait in anticipation for that wonder of the gluten-free world, in the meantime I’ll tell you how to put together a gluten-free Easter brunch that won’t rely all that heavily on hard-boiled eggs. Because, cholesterol. And lack of variety. And (kind of) yuck.

Also, here is my oft-quoted holiday advice for the gluten-free: Stay home. Unless you bring every food item you want, or are going to an amazing friend or family’s members house who totally gets it, stay home. Whip up these gluten-free dishes, and hide colored eggs all around your house. The only thing that will make you sick is that rotten egg someone discovers three months from now. Happy Easter!

Gluten-Free Gefilte Fish for Passover . . . Yeah

There are many foods out there that cause you to wonder, “Who in the hell decided to eat this?” Like say, the pomegranate. Who opened that up and instead of planting it in the beds of their enemies, said, “Let’s eat!” Same goes for a goat. On a much more minor scale, who thought, “Hey, do you know what would be great on celery? Peanut butter.” Sure it’s a tasty treat, but it’s just not intuitive. Gefilte fish is, for me, is the king of those foods.

Granted, I married into the tribe rather than being raised on Manischewitz and whitefish. Since every other family member I have LOVES this bizarro Passover tradition, and one of you super readers even asked me how to make gluten-free gefilte fish, clearly I just don’t get it. But in preparation for a Passover seder tonight, as well as in service to my chosen readers, I just spent a huge amount of time making something that I won’t even eat. And then scrubbing down my kitchen and opening up all of the windows so I did not have that “gefilte fish” smell in my home. You’re excited about this recipe aren’t you?

This is also one of the first (and hopefully only) times I’ve made something that I’ve never eaten before. Oh, except for that gluten-free deep fried Kool-Aid, but I had an idea of what that should taste like. Doesn’t everyone?

I didn’t even understand that gefilte fish even had gluten in it, then learned about the matzo meal. So I bought my Yehuda gluten-free matzo, and ground it all up real fine in the blender. That worked out well, then came the fish stock. Which I couldn’t find and was unwilling to make. Did I mention I wasn’t even going to be eating this? I substituted gluten-free vegetable stock, even though no one suggests you should do this. No one. Also, apparently some recipes for gefilte fish include sugar, which I can’t even.You guys, I didn’t even know what it was supposed to look like. But I did enjoy this presentation before putting the whole mess into the oven.

The recipe I used had you boil a cabbage (because whitefish does not give enough of an odor, apparently) and use the cabbage leaves to wrap up your gefilte fish. Then you slice and dice your leeks and carrots on top. My husband informed me that “leeks are the rich man’s onion” so, okay. I think this looks fun. I’m still not going to eat it, but my husband tried one and he proclaimed it, “Better than normal gefilte fish.” I don’t even know what that means, but I do know it does not look like the stuff in the jar. Although my husband did admit to missing that gelatinous feel. GAH.

Here’s the thing. When I roll in with this gluten-free gefilte fish everyone at the seder is going to know that 1) I’m the gluten-free weirdo, and 2) I’m the shiksa.

Get your Passover on, people.

My Fantasy Gluten-Free Christmas Menu

How WE do Christmas

Merry Almost Christmas, everybody! Are you all stocked up and ready to cook and/or armed with takeout menus? Me? Well, I’m getting excited about making entirely too much food and hoping it all goes well since I’ll probably start drinking about an hour before the guests arrive to combat that anxiety I have when serving up gluten-free food to people who can totally eat gluten. So let’s roll the dice and see how it goes, shall we?

Instead of sticking with family tradition, I’ve been stalking some recipes that I’d like to try. More like, 50–100 recipes, because I’m a dreamer. Hence, the reason this is a gluten-free fantasy menu:  I have no idea what I’m making yet for Christmas dinner. I do know what I’d like to make, so let’s see what my guests may or may not enjoy on December 25.

I’d Much Rather Talk About Gluten

These guys are worth more than your so-called freedom.

I don’t want to stray from my whole “gluten is evil” schtick to talk about one of the most horrific events in our country’s history. I really don’t want to, especially since I’m doing this super fun video segment LIVE tonight about holiday cocktails and apps, but I have to.  I’d much rather be promoting that, and you all would much rather be reading lighthearted fare about how to get knackered this holiday season, than the wails of another parent who cannot begin to wrap her head around a tragedy of this magnitude where children were gunned down in cold blood.

I don’t even want to think about this anymore, and consider the numbers of 6- and 7-year-olds that are now gone — brutally murdered — and then calculate that this massacre would have completely wiped out my daughter’s first grade class, but I will. And you will. And anyone with a heart (most of us?) will not be able to stop thinking about those 20 babies and 6 incredibly brave women who tried to protect their charges. I would much rather show you this gluten-free snack box I chowed down on while flying JetBlue.

See? Isn’t that much easier to take?

But the fact is, if we shrug our shoulders and move along while simply chalking it up to one random crazy, this type of unthinkable violence will continue. If we don’t get really fucking pissed about how many times disturbed people pick up firearms and slaughter innocents, we might as well just be prepared to be gunned down ourselves along with our children. Because it just keeps happening. And as I let my 6-year-old watch TV while she’s home sick today (I’m sure there are thousands of grade schoolers who are “home sick” today as well), I just keep getting more and more angry. Crazy angry.

Gluten-Free Christmas Treats Don’t Get Any Easier Than This

Tada! It’s a Christmas miracle. I just got these mini gluten-free treats on the table in 7 minutes, and 2 of those minutes were sent searching for the gluten-free peppermints that were hiding on the top shelf in my pantry. By the way, aren’t all peppermints gluten-free? This is an assumption I made, then someone was all, “You can’t eat peppermints!” So I went home to confirm that mine were, in fact, free of the g word. Who is out there putting gluten in peppermints? That is bullshit.

So I got these dark chocolate brownie bites from Udi’s when I was celebrating the holiday and learning how to use knives properly. But I’ve also seen them all over Whole Foods, so you should pick up a package for any holiday emergencies. Or life emergencies. Or any non-emergency situation you may find yourself in that still requires gluten-free brownies. Naturally, I have a whipped cream in a can on hand as well (also gluten-free). This is a given.

Combine those three elements and bam, you’ve got a peppermint brownie to serve your hungry guests, and/or that empty hole in your heart. The bonus part of this exercise is you get to put peppermints in a plastic bag and whack the holy hell out of them to make these peppermint crumbs. Isn’t your holiday getting better by the gluten-free second?

Only, one very important note. While we didn’t eat every single brownie up right away (there was one sad brownie left) if you let these sit around at room temperature, that whipped cream from a can will wilt. Solution? Add more!!!

Here’s all you have to do to make this happen.

Gluten-Free Christmas: Booze & Apps

Well now, doesn’t that look all Christmas-y? We trimmed that tree, and enjoyed some festive snacking yesterday so now I’m going to tell YOU how you can start your winter holiday season off with a gluten-free bang. Of course it involves booze and snacks. Of course it does.

One of my fave holiday snacks is the gluten-free cracker topped with smoked salmon, creme fraiche, and chives. It’s incredibly simple, and you’ll want to eat the entire plate-full. I recommend you share, but you don’t always have to take my recommendations as you are your own person and I respect that.

Next, I thought I’d get crafty while fantasizing about how many Pinterest shares I would get and did these Gluten-Free Peppermint Pretzel Sticks™. Not shockingly, my attempt at culinary craftiness did not go as smoothly as I anticipated, so this is exactly how many Gluten-Free Peppermint Pretzel Sticks™ I wound up with, instead of say, 50.

I tend to lose patience when I’m getting crafty also, which is just another reason I’ll never be a Pinterest star. Later I realized a nice ribbon around the shot glass would have really nailed it. Sigh. Still, I ate an entire shot glass full of white chocolate and peppermint covered pretzels. Eat your failures, people. Eat ‘em up. They are delicious.

Anyhoo! There are so many fun things you can make for a tree trimming party. I just did three, however, and one of those thing was an incredibly strong cocktail, the Sazerac. Kind of like an Old-Fashioned, but without the gooey cherries, and with a lemon twist, a classic Sazerac can be served over a giant ice cube (you have those, right?) or straight up in a martini glass. I will say it goes very well with a shot glass full of Gluten-Free Peppermint Pretzel Sticks™.

Here’s how you can pair those yummy things together and fill yourself with some holiday cheer.

How to Cook Gluten-Free Thanksgiving Turkey Two Ways

Okay, so this is chicken. Because how many turkeys was I supposed to make in one month? Really?

Turkey. It’s the elephant in the room, that is actually a bird, that you eat. The least exciting, yet most important, part of your Thanksgiving meal; attention must be paid. Especially for those of us who have the sprue, because turkeys can be easily contaminated with that devil gluten, and you’ll wind up in the bathroom all night long and not because Aunt Sylvia called you a fat communist again during Thanksgiving dinner.

So take care when prepping that hulking bird, and remember two important things:  Always gluten-free your stuffing; and skip the flour for crispy turkey skin. Now, how about you check out two delicious ways to prep that turkey? One of which, is almost like practicing medicine!

Ultimate Gluten-Free Holiday Gift Guide, For Real

They’re here! The holidays are all lined up and ready to kick your butt. And if you have a gluten-free cooking, food loving, slightly neurotic on your holiday list like my family does, you might want some gluten-free gift suggestions. Ten, in fact.

Okay, eleven. As there seems to be a very special gluten-free book available for pre-order on Amazon.

Of course, you have to wait until May 7th to enjoy that holiday gift. Which means it’s really more of a May Day gift. If people celebrated May Day by going heavily into debt. Still — !!!!!!!!!

So in addition to that delayed gratification, here’s what everyone wants under their tree and/or menorah this year. Swearsies.

Gluten-Free Labor Day Should Include Tacos & Beer

I mean, duh. Quite frankly, every weekend should include this combo and it’s no mistake that the first meal I made when I got back stateside included both tacos and beer, since those were the two things I missed most. But of course finding gluten-free beer that keeps up with the gluten-filled Joneses can be difficult. Meet my new favorite brew, the Off Grid Pale Ale via New Planet. It’s almost totally like normal beer!

Tacos, of course, are not so difficult to enjoy gluten-free, but I did discover something that makes your tacos even more awesome: Stubb’s Green Chile Marinade.

This bit of awesomeness wound up in my mail on account of the gluten-freeness of it, and the fact that the nice people at Stubb’s found my blog. Plus, I used to spend an incredible amount of time at Stubb’s in Austin whether at a show or enjoying their Sunday gospel brunch. So I was already on board with just about anything Stubb’s had to offer.

This New Planet beer? Same kind of thing. I KNOW. I’m the luckiest blogger in the whole world. So naturally I put the two of these things together and had a kick-off in grand gluten-free style for the holiday weekend. Then, I passed right out because jet lag is hard.

So fire up the grill, celebrate America, work, and tacos with this super duper taco toppings that are soooo gluten-free.

Gluten-Free 4th of July Party in Your Mouth

For someone who hasn’t been invited to even one 4th of July shindig (ahem), I sure have been planning what I would bring if that were to happen. Something gluten-free, n’est-ce pas? (I realize how un-American that just was.) Even if our plan is to stay home and grill up gluten-free hot dogs and burgers, sans bun (there I go again with the Francais!) I’m still going to make this delicious watermelon, cucumber, and mint salad that’s become a fave of mine in the summertime. Hers too -

I originally got this recipe from Gourmet but started to skip the tzatziki when I realized I really don’t like yogurt that doesn’t come frozen. So I just let it freeball without a dipping sauce. But if you enjoy that kind of thing, there’s a lovely recipe for tzatziki here. Dip your melon, and have an awesome fourth. Or take this naturally gluten-free recipe to a Labor Day party. I don’t care how you get your party on, or when. Just do it.

Here’s how to throw the ingredients together.