Gluten Free Cooking School

Free Menu Plan: As promised, here is a free menu plan for the first week of your gluten free diet. The menu ended up being chicken-centric, which I apologize for. I was trying to pick recipes that wouldn’t require any ingredients that aren’t widely available, and it wasn’t until I finished that I realized I’d only picked chicken recipes. Hopefully you can manage it for one week, or substitute other meats in if you want =) Oh, and all the recipes are casein optional!

Soy Sauce Substitute: If you can’t find gluten free soy sauce or tamari
, use an equivalent amount of the following mixture in the Cashew Nut Chicken recipe:

3 Tbsp beef bouillon* (or 9 cubes) - I use Better than Bouillon
2 tsp balsamic vinegar
2 tsp maple syrup
1/4 tsp ground ginger
1 pinch black pepper
1 pinch garlic powder”
1.5 c water

*please do read the label

Discount on Gluten Free Suppers Menu Plan: If you find that the menu plan works well for you, I hope that you will consider subscribing to Gluten Free Supppers or purchasing some of my other menu plans.  During June, you can click here in order to subscribe for $7.95/month instead of the regular price of $9.95. (This special price is to celebrate my 2nd blogging anniversary - woohoo!)

Each menu has the recipes for 6 suppers as well as a grocery shopping list. The menus do use a variety of meats, focusing on less expensive cuts. During the summer I am choosing recipes that can be cooked on the grill or stovetop so that you’re not heating up your house with the oven. And there will also generally be one salad-based meal and one vegetarian meal each week. And probably most important to you the recipes are written so that dairy products (casein) is optional. If you have any questions about the plan, please comment below and I’ll get back to you as soon as possible =)

Tags: gluten free diet, menu plan, soy sauce, tamari

This is the second post in a series on Starting the Gluten Free Diet. Click here for a list of the other posts in the series. To make sure that you get all of the posts in the series sign up for free email updates in the right sidebar.

Making a Grocery List:
After reading the first post you should have a good idea of what you will be eating for each meal this first week. The next step is to make your grocery list.  If you’ve never done this before, start by grabbing a sheet of paper and listing categories that match the general layout of your grocery store. I usually use PRODUCE, FROZEN, DAIRY, MEAT, CANNED GOODS, DRY GOODS, and HOUSEHOLD.

Now, go through the list of your meals and write down each ingredient that you need to buy. If you’ve followed the instructions in What to Eat on a Gluten Free Diet, then there will be a lot of whole foods listed on your sheet and very few processed foods, if any.

Remember, on this first shopping trip the goal is to read as few labels as possible. If you will be using foods that you already own in this week’s menu, be sure to check to see if they are marked “GLUTEN FREE”. If they are not and they contain any processed products I would strongly recommend that you change your menu to not include these foods. Reading labels is the most depressing and tedious part of a gluten free diet and I’d love for you to be able to avoid that until you’ve had at least a week to adjust and do some reading.

If there are some essentials that you need to replace - like mayo, ketchup, etc., consider shopping at Walmart this week. Walmart’s store brand, Great Value, is very good about clearly  marking all of the gluten free products on the label.

Absolute No-Nos:
Wheat is so ubiquitous in the Standard American Diet that we often forget that we are eating it. Here are a few foods that you may not realize contain wheat.

• all-purpose flour
• self-rising flour
• semolina (the flour used in most pasta)
• couscous
• most soy sauce
• Campbell’s Cream of ______  Soup
• cornbread mix
• most cold cereals (barley malt flavoring)

At the Grocery Store:
The best tips that I can give you for the grocery store are to stick to the outside aisles and whole, unprocessed foods. Follow your grocery list and look forward to feeling better during the coming week. While you’re there ask the service desk if they have a list of gluten free foods that they stock. Also check to see if you they have a special location for gluten free foods, or if they shelve them near their gluten-filled counterparts. This knowledge will help you plan for next week’s shopping trip.

You may feel that my advice to only eat unprocessed foods and foods that are clearly marked “Gluten Free” is overly restrictive. But I really do want you to feel better quickly, and the easiest way to accomplish that is to get ALL of the gluten out of your diet. And it’s only for a week. By next week you’ll have learned more about identifying gluten in foods, what foods are naturally gluten free, and where to buy gluten free foods that your local grocery doesn’t stock.

Tags: gluten free diet, grocery shopping

Long-time readers will know that I don’t bake sweets that often (because I have no will power). Given that I have recently polished off Double Chocolate Brownies, a Hershey Pie, and a batch of chocolate chip cookies (the new Betty Crocker mix to be released this summer), you probably won’t be getting any more sweet recipes from me for a while. Luckily for you, Jeanne Basye , the Gluten Free Cookie Lady, agreed to write a guest post featuring one of the cookies from her cookbook, “Gluten Free Cookies“. Please welcome Jean in the comments and check out her cookbook.
~Mary Frances

Hello from Arizona!

My name is Jeanne Basye, happily called The Gluten Free Cookie Lady. It’s 100 degrees outside today and my grandkids and I are in the kitchen baking gluten free cookies. Care to join us? We are making one of their favorite cookies, Peanut Butter Lollipops. They like these cookies because they are big, their favorite candy bar is hidden inside and they are fun to eat because the cookie is on a stick! Hey, I love them too and my favorite candy bar is Baby Ruth.

If you are like me, making cookies with my grandkids (ages 2 ½ -11 years) are fun and so rewarding. Teaching them how to crack eggs, measure ingredients, mix properly, and make uniform-size dough balls are baking lessons for a lifetime. Fun in the kitchen is our goal as are the kitchen cleanup chores! However, the best lesson cookie baking offers in our home is how to share with others. We make cookies, decorate boxes to hold them and give them away.

As we deliver our cookie boxes, there is always a smile and big thank you on the receiving end. Baking cookies is a lifetime skill that can make so many people happy. Plus we educate people about celiac disease through our cookies. How fun is that!

Are you ready to bake? As I tell the grandkids… first wash your hands. Be sure to read the recipe and set out all the ingredients. Select your favorite snack-size candy bar. Almond Joys, Snickers, Mars, 3 Musketeers, Oh Henry, Payday and Baby Ruths are ready to be prepared in our kitchen. Continue Reading »

Tags: gluten free cookies, peanut butter cookie