Thanksgiving is full of gluten-filled landmines. If this is your first Thanksgiving on a gluten free diet, you might not realize the challenge that awaits you. Read this list and make sure you’re ready to stay gluten free this Thanksgiving.

Even if you’re not new to the gluten free diet, a refresher of the potential pitfalls is valuable. How do you think I came up with this list anyway?

10. Eat a turkey that’s been shot up with gluten filled flavorings. Make sure that your turkey is gluten free.

9. Eat cornbread dressing that was made with non-GF cornmeal. Go the extra step and buy certified GF cornmeal to make sure that you’re not getting cornmeal that was processed in a facility that also processes wheat.

8. Attempt to scrape the pie filling out of the pie without catching any crumbs. I’ve tried it – many times. I dare say that it’s not possible.

7. Eating vegetable dishes without asking about the ingredients. Creamed corn is a great example – sometimes it’s made with cornstarch, but it’s often thickened with wheat flour.

6. Let someone use the same spoon to serve the GF and non-GF stuffings. Big no-no. Even little bits of gluten cause damage.

5. Eat a creamy casserole that you didn’t make yourself. Chances are overwhelming that a can of Campbell’s soup was included.

4. Not having a back-up plan for overwhelming temptation, e.g., a can of chocolate icing in your purse.

3. Pouring gravy over your stuffing without checking ingredients. You know gravy is often thickened with wheat flour, right? And that not all cornstarch is GF?

2. Nosh on the veggie dip appetizers that your aunt set out for the early arrivers. Salad dressings and spinach dips seem so innocuous, but read the label before dipping.

1. Getting overwhelmed before you even get to Turkey Day and deciding that you’ll just cheat so that you can enjoy the day. I know some of you are thinking that, so STOP IT! Get busy and figure out what you can cook so that your Thanksgiving meal will be enjoyable.

Related Posts:

• An Amazing Brined Gluten Free Turkey Recipe for Thanksgiving
• Gluten Free, Casein Free Bread Stuffing for Thanksgiving
• Green Bean Casserole (Gluten Free & Casein Free)
• Am I Gluten Intolerant? How To Find Out
• 10 Reasons You’re Not Staying on a GF Diet

In my last post I mentioned that I was going to experiment with gluten free ratios and start weighing out my recipes.  To hold myself accountable (because we all see how well I’ve done with posting my bread experiments) I decided to join the Gluten Free Ratio Rally that Shauna Ahern of Gluten Free Girl started last month.  The Rally experiment for this month was quickbread. The challenge was to make a gluten free quickbread using the ratio specified in Michael Ruhlman’s book, Ratio: The Simple Codes Behind the Craft of Everyday Cooking.

Silvana of Silvana’s Kitchen and author of Cooking for Isaiah is hosting the Gluten Free Ratio Rally Roundup, so go by her site to see the full list (and links) of everyone who participated.

Recipe Creation

The ratio for quickbread is 2 parts flour, 2 parts liquid, 1 part egg, and 1 part butter.  Since I was late getting signed up for this month’s challenge I didn’t have the benefit of reading about the other bloggers’ experiments and using the community spreadsheet to work on my recipe calculations.  I just started with the formula, said a prayer**, and then started working out the recipe amounts. Here’s a step-by-step analysis of how I came up with the final recipe.

First I considered the flour.  This is where normal baking ratios get tricky for those of us who are doing gluten free baking.  For the ratio (and the recipe) to work then your flour mix needs to act like the wheat flour does.  And how the wheat flour acts differs depending on the type of recipe. For example, if you’re making bread then you want the gluten in the wheat flour to develop and create the structure for the loaf of bread. However, if you’re making quickbread or muffins, then you do not want the gluten to activate because that will make the bread/muffin tough.

The flour mix that I usually use has not fared well in my sandwich bread ratio experiments thus far. It seems to be much more absorbent than wheat flour in bread recipes, requiring far more liquids than is called for in the bread ratio. However, I’ve also used that flour recipes to successfully convert other baked goods recipes on a 1:1 basis. I only had one shot at getting this recipe right due to the Rally deadline, so rather than play with new flours I decided to use Mary’s Gluten Free All Purpose Flour Mix without any added xanthan gum.  I did substitute coconut flour for the masa harina because I like to use coconut flour in sweet baked goods.  Coconut flour and masa harina are both very absorbent, so doing a 1:1 substitution is fine.

With that decided I looked through my pantry, freezer, and refrigerator for some inspiration for the flavor of the quickbread.  Two bags of whole cranberries have been hanging out in my freezer since November.  Everytime I see them I think, “I should use those for something.” and then I close the door and go about whatever I was doing and the cranberries continue to sit. Enough with that.  The time had come to make a cranberry flavored quick bread.

Most baked recipes use dried cranberries, rather than whole uncooked cranberries. I knew the flavor would be tart, but I was okay with that since I planned on topping the bread with a cream cheese icing. I also knew that cranberries contain pectin (pectin is what makes jam (n.) jam (v.), and that the pectin would keep the bread from being crumbly. The pectin was my insurance policy against a crumbly mess, since I had planned on not using any gums, or ground flax seeds for this recipe.

Deciding on Amounts

Finally I needed to decide how much of each ingredient should be in the recipe.  I looked at a few quickbread recipes online and they all had around 2 c. of flour. I know that my flour mix weighs 4.5 oz. when I measure it out, so I started with 9.0 oz of flour.  (Since my flour mix is a 9 part ratio, this also meant that I could pour the flours directly into the bowl, measuring them by weight, and not have to make up a batch of flour mix).

The quickbread ratio is 2 parts flour, 2 parts liquid, 1 part egg, and 1 part butter. Since I had chosen 9 oz of flour, I also needed 9 oz. of liquids, 4.5 oz of egg and 4.5 oz of butter.  For the liquids I went with the juice of one orange, which ended up being 3 oz and 6 oz. of water.

Large eggs are supposed to weigh 2 oz. (and so one would usually start figuring out amounts by deciding how many whole eggs you want in your recipe), but all of the eggs that I have weighed have been less than that. I cracked 3 eggs into a bowl set on my digital scale and them removed one yolk and some whites until the weight was down to 4.5 oz.  I ended up using the leftover egg for another recipe later that day.

A stick of butter weighs about 4.0 oz, so I used one stick of butter and 0.5 oz. of canola oil.

Now that I had decided on the main components of the recipe, I filled in the amounts of salt and baking powder from the standard recipe in Ruhlman’s book.  I added a bit of vanilla and orange extract and baking soda because it seemed like the right thing to do.  The amount of sugar for the recipe is not addressed by the ratio as you are supposed to alter it based on how sweet  you want the bread to be and the tartness of your other ingredients. I knew that I’d need a good bit of sugar to balance the tartness of the cranberries, but I wasn’t sure how much. I checked the back of the bag of cranberries and used the amount (1 c.) recommended for cranberry relish. With that my recipe was complete, and it was time to bake it and see what happened.

As you can see from the pictures, the bread turned out really well. It was tart as expected, but I thought that was a perfect excuse to pile on more icing.  The natural pectin in the cranberries did a great job of holding the bread together – very moist and dense which is how I like quickbread.  John, who is not a huge fan of cranberries, ate a whole slice without stopping to even put it on a plate.

Recipes are rarely done after one attempt, and this recipe is not “finished”.  Next time I’ll reduce the amount of cranberries and increase the sugar. The bread itself did not taste sweet and I think that there should be at least a hint of sweetness. I’ll also increase the amount of orange extract in the bread and icing, and top the icing with a few sprinkles of orange zest.  This is going to make a very nice holiday bread after a few more tweaks.

**For many years I questioned the usefulness of prayer. I never doubted that my prayers were heard, but I never felt like I received any answers. The problem turned out to be that I wasn’t listening and looking for answers. Over the past few years I’ve realized that God often answers my prayers by giving me an idea that I wouldn’t have otherwise had.

For example, before I started this bread I asked God to help me write a good recipe because I knew that I’d only have time to bake one loaf this weekend.  Then at key points while I was writing the recipe I mentally stopped to listen.  When I was feeling uneasy about the flour mix, I remembered the cranberries and how they release pectin when you boil them.  When I felt uneasy about whether the amount of liquids needed to be adjusted after I boiled the cranberries, I remembered that I could just weigh the liquid and make sure that it was the right amount.  These may seem like obvious steps to take, but I promise you that before I stopped to mentally listen for a thought from God I was completely frustrated and unsure.  Then He gave me an insight and I was able to go on confidently.

God answers my prayers like this all the time. Sometimes the answer is a thought. Sometimes it’s a Bible verse that I am able to understand in a new say. And the more that we live by faith and depend on God (not our own efforts) for our daily bread, the more we’re able to see him answering prayer through physical means.**

Gluten Free Cranberry Orange Quickbread

3 oz. brown rice flour
3 oz. corn starch
2 oz. sorghum flour
1 oz. coconut flour

1 tsp. salt
2 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. baking soda
4.0 oz. unsalted butter

3 oz. orange juice
6 oz. water
7.5 oz. sugar
12.0 oz. whole cranberries

4.5 oz. egg
0.5 oz. canola oil
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1/4 tsp. orange extract

Instructions:

Step One: Measure the water, orange juice, sugar and cranberries into a small saucepan and bring to a boil. Stir until sugar is dissolved and then reduce heat to bring the mixture down to a simmer. Simmer until the berries began to pop – 10 to 12 minutes. Set the berry mixture aside to start cooling.

Step Two: Measure the flours, baking powder, baking soda, and salt and mix thoroughly with a fork. Cut the butter into the flour mixture until the butter lumps are the size of peas.

Step Three: Measure out 4.5 oz of egg.  A large egg is supposed to weight about 2 oz.  I used 3 eggs and then removed a yolk and some whites to bring the weight down to 4.5 oz. Whisk the eggs until no whites are obvious. Add the oil (approximately 1 Tbsp) and extracts and mix again.

Step Four: Pour the cranberry mixture (still pretty warm) into the flour mixture.  While whisking the eggs add a small amount (2 – 3 Tbsp) of the batter to the eggs to temper them.  Repeat this twice and then add the eggs into the batter. Stir thoroughly.

Step Five:  Grease a loaf pan. Pour the batter into the loaf pan and bake the bread at 350 degrees F for 50  minutes. The bread should have slightly browned around the edges and the loaf top will be spring back when touched.

Random Posts:

Why I Decided to Use a Scale:

Before I can figure out exactly how these ratios work with my flour mix, I had to start using a digital scale to measure how much flour I was using in my recipes. I had resisted buying a scale for a while. My recipes worked fine for me, so why would I need one?

I finally changed my mind for two reasons. First, even though my recipes work well for me, there is always someone that they don’t work for. For every 20 favorable comments on my gluten free biscuits post, there is probably one comment from someone who ended up with gloopy, runny dough. Why? Because when they measured out 2.5 cups of flour, they did not end up with the same amount of flour as I do when I measure out 2.5 cups of flour.

In Ratio, Ruhlman says that 1 cup of flour can weigh anywhere from 4 – 6 oz. If you’re making a recipe that calls for 4 cups of flour, as my gluten free bagel recipes does, then you may end up using somewhere between 16 oz of flour and 24 oz of flour. The person that measures out 24 oz. of flour is using 50% more flour than the person who measured out 16 oz. That’s a BIG difference.

Since gluten free flours are so very expensive, I wanted to be able to write recipes that everyone could follow EXACTLY, if they chose too. If they choose to follow the weight measurements, then they are much more likely to get the same results that I do….and to get consistent results each time they make that recipe.

The second reason that I’ve started using a kitchen scale, is that it’s so much freakin’ fun. I love understanding how recipes work, and when you measure what flours you’re using and what the relative ratios of ingredients are. This make is easier to learn about gluten free baking.

Here’s an example: The ratio that Ruhlman gives for bread is 5 parts flour, 3 parts water (plus yeast and salt). When I measured the ingredients in Finally, Really Good Sandwich Bread, the ratios were 5 parts flour to 5 parts water. What does that mean? Well, I think it means that my flour mix is more absorbent than all-purpose wheat flour.

Knowing this informs my choice of how to adjust other recipes. When I switched out the masa harina in my flour mix with almond flour, I knew that I would need to decrease the water in my recipe because almond flour is less absorbent than masa harina. This saved me at least one failed loaf of bread bread!

Why You Should Start Using a Scale:

The more I learn about gluten free baking, the more that I wish we would all use weight measurements. I truly believe that doing so would exponentially increase the rate at which we, as a gluten free community, discover how to make gluten free baking truly shine. And, I think that using scales would greatly decrease the frustration and wasted money that many of you have experienced when you’ve tried to bake.

I saw a discussion on Facebook the other night in which a group of gluten free individuals were discussing the relative merits of using a scale or continuing with measuring cups. I was really surprised by how many people had a negative view of using a digital scale. The tone of the conversation seemed to be, “I’ve been doing it this way for 10 years and it’s worked just fine, so why change? Or, “Good cooks don’t need to measure, they just know when it’s right.”

I’ll admit, I can see their point of view. Heaven knows, I don’t measure when I’m cooking. And I’ve already said that it took me a while to see the value in using a scale. But how do you know that using a scale is not better, if you haven’t tried it? And all of those people that can make biscuits without measuring anything, can only do that because they used to measure it and they’ve measured it so many times that they know how much flour and milk and butter to use, and how to adjust if they put in a little too much flour.

And let’s be honest. There are plenty of people who are not comfortable in the kitchen without a recipe to follow. And they want to follow it exactly. The thought of improvising ingredients or not measuring every teaspoon of salt, yeast and sugar completely freaks them out. For these people especially, recipes written by weight would be an extra comfort.

Using a scale doesn’t make me a better cook or baker than anyone else. It’s just a tool that helps me learn and helps me gain consistent results. A good quality digital kitchen scale that tares (resets to zero when you already have something on the scale) can be purchased for less than $30. That is not out of the price range for most home cooks. And if having that digital scale prevents you from making two or three gluten free doorstops over the course of the year, then it’s paid for itself.

What I’ll Do Now: So for now, I’m making all of my new recipes by weight. Though, I’ll still figure out the volumetric measurements too, for those who want to stick to cups. And, as I cook my old recipes, I’ll be figuring out the weight measurements for those too. If you’ve been thinking about buying a digital scale, that links goes to the one that I have and it’s only $25 and has free shipping with Amazon Prime.

Random Posts:

Loaf #7: Gluten Free, Soy Free, Corn Free Trial #4:
So, the best laid plans all fail when you realize that it’s 2:30 and that you need to be out of the house, with bread in hand, by 5:00. I had planned to make a double loaf of bread today and bake one in the bread machine and the other in the oven after a 2 hour rise on top of the stove. That did not happen.

When I started to measure out the flour I discovered that I only had 20 oz. of the flour mix made up. Two full loaves would require 25 oz. I’m not really sure why, but rather than just making one 12.5 oz. loaf, I decided to make one 20 oz. loaf and just back in the water measurements based on the ratio of flour:water that I had been using.

After a little math on the back of a scrap of paper, I determined that I needed 15 oz. of water for 20 oz. of flour or a 4:3 flour to water ratio. This is still a little off from the 5:3 ratio that wheat bread uses (see yesterday’s newsletter on more about that). In Ratio, Ruhlman says that the amount of yeast and salt in a recipe can be variable, so I didn’t bother to measure those out with measuring spoons. (I has in a hurry!!) I still wanted a pretty quick rise so I estimated about 1.5 Tbsp yeast, 1 tsp. sugar and 1.5 tsp. salt. I did measure the xanthan gum and used a heaping tablespoon.

By this time, I wasn’t following any recipe strictly and I still needed to make a decision about how many eggs to add and how much oil and vinegar to use. Ruhlman does not address whether water portion of the bread ratio (5 flour: 3 water + yeast and salt) needs to be adjusted if you add eggs and oil, so I wasn’t sure what do to. I ended up just sticking with the 3 eggs and 1 tsp of vinegar that is in my usual recipe and leaving the oil out.

The dough was a little on the dry side (for gluten free dough) when I mixed it all up, so I added 1/8 c. water (1 oz) and that got the dough to just the consistency that I was looking for. Since I wasn’t sure if my loaf pan would hold this much dough, I put it all into my largest bowl, which I had greased first, and left it out to rise for 1.5 hours. This first picture is the dough before it has started to rise.

The dough rose magnificently. I didn’t get a picture, but it easily doubled. Maybe more than that. I had this bright idea that I’d separate the dough into 4 pieces and make little round mini-loaves.

That was a disaster!

I ended up with hands covered in sticky dough that would not come together into anything.  The children also chose this time to squash one another’s fingers in the cabinet, explore electrical outlets and try to climb up my body.

Thankfully, my sweet husband rescued them and me, and fixed up a baking sheet with a nice thick layer of GF cornmeal. I scraped all of the dough back into the greased bowl, formed something of a round shape with a wet spoon and then dumped it onto the baking sheet.

Into the oven at 400 with a prayer that something edible will result and some time later this is what came out of the oven.

We headed out to the car immediately after I took these pictures, but I managed to snitch a couple of bites with Lucy while we were driving. The crust was so crunchy! And the interior was so soft! It was the perfect loaf of bread to just tear a hunk off of and dip in olive oil. Which is what I expect that we will be doing today =)

Related Posts:

• Gluten Free Bread Experiments – A Loaf of Gluten Free Bread Every Day
• Gluten Free Southern Cornbread
• Hot, Steamy, Wonderful Gluten Free Yeast Rolls
• Impossibly Easy Sweet Potato Pie
• The Gluten Free Casein Free Diet – Butter Substitutions

Loaf #5 – Gluten Free, Corn Free, Soy Free
Perfecting gluten free baking ofter requires several trials. The first two pictures are trial #3 of my new gluten free, soy free, corn free sandwich bread recipe. I think that it’s probably 2 or 3 more trials away from being ready to share with you. So far, the flavor and texture of the bread are great. I’d like to get a bit more rise on it though.

In this loaf I tried a few new techniques that are supposed to help the dough rise. The first is autolysis, a process in which you mix the flour and water and let it sit for 30 minutes before you add the remainder of the ingredients. I also added steam to my oven before baking and baked the loaf on top of a baking stone to provide more contant heat. Disappointingly, I didn’t notice a big change from earlier versions.

Trial #2 of this bread was made into gluten free hoagie rolls and they turned out really well.

Next up for this bread is a turn through the bread machine, which I haven’t tried yet. My bread machine loaves usually rise higher than my conventional oven loaves. Is there some magic to the bread machine? No. The bread machine pan is just not as long as my oven loaf pan, and the sides go up higher. As a result, the dough is forced up as it rises and you get a taller loaf.

I’m also going to experiment with different rising times. Perhaps this bread needs to rise for 2 or 3 hours, rather than the 1 hour that I’ve been doing. We’ll see =)

Loaf #6: Gluten Free, Corn Free, Soy Free, Egg Free

Now, these last two pictures are  trial 2 of the egg free version. I’m using ground flaxseed to replace the eggs in this recipe. So far this bread has great flavor, but the insides are gummy. I made one change to the recipe for this 2nd trial and the bread is less gummy, so I’ll completely eliminate the suspected culprit the next time that I make this bread.

As you can see, this loaf completely caved in. It rose beautifully to the top of the pan, and then crashed when I put it into the oven. I guessed that this would happen when I was mixing the dough because the dough was wetter than the doughs that have turned out well in the past. When the dough is too wet it rises too fast and  doesn’t have the structure that it needs to stay high when it’s put into the oven. The next version of this recipe will definitely have less liquids!

Hopefully, I’ll get around to loaves #7 and #8 today. The kids are headed to my parents for a few days for Spring Break and I want to send some bread with them.

Random Posts:

Let me give you a brief sketch of what life is like right now.  John and I both work at home. He works on his internet marketing business in the morning. I work on Gluten Free Cooking School in the afternoon. Except for the days that we switch.

Whoever is not working is taking care of the kids. Lucy (10 mo), Grant (23 months), David (4 yrs) are all at home all the time now too. None of their nap schedules completely overlap. And none of them are at quite the right age to play happily together for more than 5 minutes.  It’s sometimes crazy. To say the least.

Last week I wrote out a huge schedule to follow when I’m in charge of the kids.  I think that it is the secret to maintaining my sanity. And right smack dab in the middle of it is 20 minutes that are allotted for bread baking.

Bread baking is one of my favorite parts of the morning. The kids are generally ready to have a snack in the kitchen and watch Mom bake.  David and Grant both like to help. David, who is almost 5, has been helping me bake since he was 18 months and is an old hand at whisking eggs and mixing the dough.  For me, it’s time to spend on something that I’m interested in.

So far, we’ve made 4 loaves of bread. I’m currently working on refining  two different versions of Finally, Really Good Sandwich Bread (“FRGSB”). One will be gluten free, corn free. The other gluten free, corn free, and egg free.  Many, many of you have asked for these variations and I’ve finally figure out how to work the necessary experimentation into my schedule.  After that, I’ll move on to other variations. I know that I want to do a sourdough recipe and a yeast free recipe. I’d also like to experiment with some more strongly flavored loaves.  What sort of bread recipes would you like to see? Email me at maryfrances [at] glutenfreecookingschool [dot] com and put Bread Recipe Request in the subject line.

I’m tentatively planning to start taking pictures and blogging about each day’s loaf. We’ll see how long I manage to stick with that. But so far, I’ve been reminded of a few interesting things.

1. Changing one flour in a recipe can dramatically change the required amounts of other liquids. I’ve always been aware that different flour are more or less able to absorb liquids, but this is the first time that I’ve actually measured that effect. The bread I’ve baked with my new gluten free, corn free flour mix only needs 2/3 of the amount of water as FRGSB.

2. Rising temperature is important. My first batch of gluten free, corn free bread did not rise very much at all. The culprit was that I put it in the oven to rise (because it was too cool in our house) and the oven was too hot. The top of the bread made a crust before the interior of the bread had time to fully rise.

3. Measurements matter. I’m also much more of a cook than a baker. I like to create recipes on the fly and rarely measure anything when I’m cooking. Baking has to be more exact if you want consistent results. John gave me a digital kitchen scale for Christmas and I’ve had a lot of fun scooping out my flour in measuring cups like I normally would and then measuring the flour by weight.  You’d be amazed at how much difference it make whether you scoop the flour and then shake off the excess, scoop the flour and then scrape the excess against the bag, or spoon the flour into the cup and then level with a straight edge.  I’ve also been intrigued by seeing how 1 cup of brown rice flour is a different weight than 1 c. of corn starch.

Related Posts:

• Gluten Free, Corn Free Flour Mix
• Gluten Free Bread Experiments: Free Form
• Gluten Free All-Purpose Flour Mixes
• Gluten Free, Soy Free All Purpose Flour Mix
• Gluten Free Southern Cornbread

I get a lot of questions from readers who are concerned about the nutritional value and glycemic load of gluten free flour mixes.  If there is one item of nutritional data that most Americans know, its that you should eat whole grain bread.

Eating whole grain bread may seem to be nearly impossible on a gluten free diet since most gluten free flour mixes and gluten free bread mixes rely heavily on cornstarch, tapioca starch, and potato starch.  These starch flours contain little if any nutritional value.

Many of you know that I created my own gluten free flour mix years ago because I wanted to make sure that my family was getting as much fiber and protein from the bread that I baked. But how does my flour mp mix stack up s against the wheat flours that you were accustomed to using?  Today I found out.

You can analyze the nutritional content of recipes at www.nutritiondata.com. I used their analysis tool on my Gluten Free All Purpose flour mix recipe (I’ve been having trouble finding gluten free soy flour recently, so I used the garfava flour version), and was very pleased with the results.  Here is how the recipe stacks up against King Arthur Plain Flour and King Arthur White Wheat flour.  (Bold emphasis is mine)

Related Posts:

• Gluten Free All-Purpose Flour Mixes
• Gluten Free, Corn Free Flour Mix
• Gluten Free Bread Experiments – A Loaf of Gluten Free Bread Every Day
• Gluten Free Bread: Banana Bread
• How to Use Bean Flours

Cookie baking seems like it should be simple. You just have to take the cookie dough out of the freezer and plop it on a baking sheet, right?

Baking cookies from scratch is not quite so simple. Here are some cookie baking tips from the cookie research that I did this morning before my  sugar cookie baking bonanza.

Gluten Free Sugar Cookies

Cookie Baking Tips

1. When making rolled cookies be careful not to overflour or overwork the dough. Roll the dough out between wax or parchment paper to prevent sticking.

2. Cool cookie sheets completely between batches to prevent the pan from warming the dough to much.   A warm cookie sheet can cause the cookies to flatten and spread. Use several cookie sheets so that you can rotate through them as you bake batches of cookies.

3. Do not bake partial sheets of cookies. If you only have  a little bit of cookie dough left for the last batch, bake them on an inverted metal pie pan or a smaller cookie sheet.  Baking partial sheets or not using the correct spacing of the cookie dough can affect spreading, browning, crisping, and baking time.

4. Don’t substitute white sugar for brown sugar in cookie recipes that call for baking soda. Baking soda will not activate unless there is an acidic ingredient in the dough, and for many cookies the acidic ingredient is baking soda.

5. Don’t substitute tub margarine or “spread” for the butter in a recipe. The products contain much more water than butter which could greatly affect the appearance of the cookies. If you’re looking for a healthier or less expensive butter substitute, stick with margarine sticks.

If you have more questions about cookie baking or anything else related to the holidays, please join us for an online chat Saturday, December 18th from 8 – 10 PM CST.  Go here for more details.

Random Posts:

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.

For more help getting started on a gluten free diet, make sure to read my ebook, The Gluten Free Survival Guide. It’s packed full of practical strategies to help you keep your sanity as you go gluten free!

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.

Related Posts:

• 10 Ways to Accidentally Gluten Yourself at Thanksgiving
• Am I Gluten Intolerant? How To Find Out
• 10 Reasons You’re Not Staying on a GF Diet
• “I’m Starting A Gluten Free Diet. When Will I Feel Better?”
• Pasta, Po’Boys and Pineapple: What’s on our table

The hardest part of the gluten free diet is probably when you realize that wheat is in almost every processed food imaginable. So don’t think about that now! Give yourself a week to mourn the fact that you can’t buy normal bread and pasta, and that Campbell’s soup can no longer dwell in  your pantry. Mourn the obvious losses – we’ll deal with the rest later. For the first week, just focus on eating whole, unprocessed gluten free food.

(For more information on what to eat the first week of a gluten free diet, check out my ebook, The Gluten Free Survival Guide. It’s packed full of practical tips and strategies to help you get started and stay gluten free successfully.)

So, what are whole, unprocessed foods?

• Fruits and vegetables that do not come in a package.
• Meats that the butcher has processed in the store and that have not been puffed full of saline solution and seasonings.
• Grains that only have one ingredient listed on the packaging, e.g,. “Rice” and do not say “Contains Wheat” or “is processed in a facility that also processes wheat”.
• And since you always have to break the rules you create, any processed food that is CLEARLY marked as gluten free.

Most people are not used to cooking with whole, unprocessed foods or for looking for gluten in their foods, so don’t freak out if you still can’t figure out what to eat. I’m going to give you some ideas for breakfast and lunch and a menu plan (with shopping list) for your suppers.

Breakfast:

If you usually eat cold cereal for breakfast, then this week try Rice Chex, Corn Chex, Cinnamon Chex, Honey Nut Chex, Chocolate Chex,  or Strawberry Chex. These Chex cereals are the only mainstream gluten free cereals. If you live near an urban center, you may find that your grocery store carries other gluten free specialty cereals, and if they do then feel free to try them. The advantage of starting with Chex is that it’s widely available, less expensive than other gluten free cereals, and familiar/

If you usually eat a breakfast bar for breakfast, first check to see if your usual bar is marked gluten free. If not, then I’d suggest switching to cereal or fresh fruit for a week. You’ll be tempted to read the labels on all of the breakfast bars in the grocery store, but that’s just going to depress you. Save that for next week. Unless your store carries Larabars – those are all gluten free.

If you usually eat a hot breakfast, then see how many eggs recipes that you can come up with. A few that I can think of off the top of my head are: scrambled, fried, poached, omelette with veggies, and frittatas. Bacon, sausage, and hot cereals are all processed and should be avoided this week unless they are marked gluten free.

Lunch:

If you have access to a microwave at lunch, then the easiest option is to eat leftovers from last night’s meal for lunch. Add a salad or fresh fruit if you need to round out the meal. Lunch is easily the most bread-centric meal of the day, so don’t freak out when everyone around you is having sandwiches. You will be able to eat good bread again.

If you don’t have access to a microwave, then pack a large salad and some fresh fruit. I like to add chickpeas to my salad as the protein – that way I don’t have to worry if I forget to take my lunch to the refrigerator. A lot of salad dressings contain gluten; an easy solution is to make your own vinaigrette at home and take that with you to dress your salad. Check out these recipes from Michael Ruhlman’s new book, Ratio, if you need some guidance.

If you have to go out for lunch, please try to get the lunch moved to a restaurant that has a gluten free menu or has a chef that is very familiar with the diet. You are new to gluten free foods and you are very likely to slip up if you try to identify the gluten foods on your own.

Call the restaurant before hand and talk to the manager or the chef and explain to them that you have to eat gluten free, but that you’re going to need their help since you are new to the diet. They should be able to tell you which items from their menu are gluten free, or can be prepared gluten free. The manager at a good restaurant should also be willing to oversee the preparation of your food to make sure no one slips up. And, if you call ahead, hopefully all of this can take place discreetly in the background, especially if it’s a business meeting.

Supper: To make supper easy for you, I think you’ve basically got two options. The first option is to prepare simple meals of a meat (seasoned with salt, pepper, and/or other herbs),  a side of fresh vegetables, and a side of rice and potatoes. The second option is to print off the free menu plan that I’ll be publishing later this week, and follow it. It will have recipes for 6 meals, a cookie recipe, and a shopping list.

The point of these options is to keep you from having to search for recipes and then make sure that all of the ingredients in the recipes are gluten free. That would be way too frustrating for the first week of the diet. Option one will probably work best for those people that are accustomed to cooking without a recipe and feel comfortable dealing with unprocessed foods. Option two, the menu plan, should work for everyone else.

Homework: Make a list of what you want to eat for each day of next week. Here’s an example:

Monday: Rice Chex and banana for breakfast, green salad (with chickpeas) and balsamic vinaigrette dressing for lunch; cheddar cheese slices and an apple for snack; baked chicken breast, mashed potatoes, and roasted veggies for supper.

Related Posts:

• 10 Ways to Accidentally Gluten Yourself at Thanksgiving
• Am I Gluten Intolerant? How To Find Out
• 10 Reasons You’re Not Staying on a GF Diet
• “I’m Starting A Gluten Free Diet. When Will I Feel Better?”
• Pasta, Po’Boys and Pineapple: What’s on our table