Gluten Free Cooking School » breakfast

Gluten Free Waffles

Mary Frances — Sat, 29 Aug 2009 20:10:29 +0000

Our family has found a new favorite weekend breakfast – gluten free waffles! You all know that we’ve been on the gluten free diet for years now, so that first bite of homemade waffles was absolute heaven! We stuffed ourselves!

The recipe is a conversion of the “Basic Waffles” recipe in Joy of Cooking. The only change that I made was to swap my gluten free flour mix for the all-purpose flour used in the original recipe. The original recipes lets you adjust the butter from as little a 4 Tbsp for a low-fat waffle to 16 Tbsp for a super yummy, my mouth is in bliss waffle. We’ve tried 8 and 16 Tbsp and 16 is definitely the way to go.

Gluten Free Waffles

1 3/4 cups all-purpose gluten free flour mix
1 Tbsp. baking powder
1 Tbsp. sugar
1/2 tsp. salt

3 large eggs
16 Tbsp unsalted butter, melted
1 1/2 c. milk (soy, cow, rice, etc)

Cooking Directions:
1. Mix first four ingredients together in large mixing bowl.
2. Beat the eggs together until frothy. Add the milk and stir again.
3. Slowly pour the melted butter into the egg/milk mixture. Stir constantly to prevent the eggs from cooking.
4. Now add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and mix just until all of the flour is wet. You don’t have to get all of the lumps out.
5. Pour the batter onto a hot waffle iron. Follow the affle iron manufacturer’s directions for cooking. For ours we use 1/2 c. batter and let the waffle’s cook until there is no more steam coming out.

Additional Notes:
1. Let your eggs and milk come to room temperature. If the eggs and milk are cold, then they will resolidify the melted butter when you mix them together.
2. These waffles are not sweet, so you can add sweet or savory toppings to them. You could also 1/4 – 1/2 cup of raisins, cheese, bacon, nuts, sliced bananas, grated coconut to the batter before cooking.

Breakfast on a Budget – Cream of Corn Cereal

Mary Frances — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 14:29:49 +0000

The theme for January’s posts is Kitchen Management – things like gluten free grocery shopping on a budget, stocking a gluten free pantry, and how to clean a messy kitchen. The posts will be shorter and more frequent than normal (since I won’t have to multi-test as many recipes) and there will be several chances for you to chime in with questions, opinions, and tips.

Yesterday we made a short trip to Whole Foods for fresh produce and soymilk (we’re going through fruit like crazy since John got a juicer for Christmas) and I ended up talking to another couple that looking at the gluten free cereals. They were trying to decide if a small bag of granola was worth $5.

And while I have paid more than that for the same brand of granola (what can I say, I’m pregnant and I was craving granola), we usually don’t by packaged cereal at all. The gluten free cold cereals are expensive, and I don’t think that they are worth the price. Instead we rotate through a pretty extensive selection of hot cereals: grits, oatmeal, kasha, cream of corn, cream of rice. We add a variety of spices and dried fruits to the cereal to provide even more variety.

Here is the recipe for Cream of Corn (or Corn Mush if you have kids that are Goodnight Moon fans). What do you eat for breakfast?

Cream of Corn (aka Corn Mush)
(yields: 4 c. or 4 servings)

1 c. corn meal (we use Hodgson Mill**)
2 c. milk (we use plain soymilk)
2 c. water

Cooking Instructions:
1. Bring 1 c. milk and 2 c. water to boil in a medium saucepan.
2. While the water is heating, mix the remaining 1 c. milk with the cornmeal. 3. When the milk/water mixture is boiling, turn the heat to low and slowly pour in the wet cornmeal. Whisk the mixture continuously while you add the cornmeal to prevent lumps.
4. Cook the cereal over low heat for 20 – 25 minutes, stirring every five minutes or so to prevent scorching. The cereal is ready when it has thickened to the consistency of cream of wheat.
5. Serve in large bowls and top with butter (or CF sub) and salt, and your choice of sweetener. (I’m partial to maple syrup)

Change it Up: If you want to add some variety, try adding 1/2 – 1 c. dried fruit to the liquid mixture in Step 1. Or top the cereal with sliced fruit after serving. We really like sliced bananas on our Cream of Corn, and I think that fresh peaches would be delicious in the summer.

** If you’re tired of looking at the label of every single brand of cornmeal trying to find one that is gluten free, then I would suggest that you buy The Essential Gluten-Free Grocery Guide. I refer to it regularly and its a great help in quickly identifying the brands/items that are gluten free.

Eggnog French Toast

Mary Frances — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 04:01:21 +0000

This is a picture of my stove the morning after Christmas.

The monkey bread that I made on Christmas morning was a little dry and the only milk-like substance in the house was a half empty carton of Silk Eggnog.

So my little elf helper and I pulled out “Joy of Cooking” (picture a dirty white cookbook with a disintegrating spine and round burn marks from where I accidentally turned on the wrong stove burner) and improvised a recipe for Eggnog French Toast.

It was delicious!

Eggnog French Toast
(6 servings unless you have a two year old bottomless pit)

2/3 c. Silk Eggnog
4 large eggs
1 Tbsp. maple syrup
1 tsp. vanilla
1/4 tsp. salt
6 thick slices of gluten free bread
butter or margarine

1. Mix the eggnog, eggs, syrup, vanilla, and salt in a shallow dish.
2. Soak the slices of bread in the mixture until completely saturated.
3. Heat a large skillet or griddle over medium heat and add a dab of butter.
4. Place the bread into the skillet (don’t overcrowd; you’re going to need flipping room) and cook until the underside is golden. Then flip the French Toast and cook until the second side is golden (it doesn’t take nearly as long).
5. Serve hot with maple syrup and any other sweet things you can find in the pantry (but don’t tell my husband that this is why our chocolate chips disappeared!)

If you haven’t found a gluten free bread that you like, try my recipe for Finally, Really Good Sandwich Bread.

Light and Fluffy Gluten Free Biscuits

Mary Frances — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 06:14:32 +0000

A happy accident a few weeks ago led to yet another change in my gluten free drop biscuits recipe. I ran out of soy flour and added an additional 1/2 c. of cornstarch to make up for the shortfall. The result. . . fluffy, tender biscuits that I would put up against anyone’s gluten filled biscuit.

These biscuits freeze really well too. I usually make a batch on Saturday morning, cook 6 for our breakfast and then freeze the remaining 10 biscuits in two pans. These pans eventually find their way into our oven during the week. Just bake for 30 minutes while you get dressed, and breakfast is done.

Light and Fluffy Gluten Free Biscuits
(Yield: 16 large biscuits)

1 1/2 c. brown rice flour
2 c. corn starch*
1/2 c. soy flour or sorghum flour
2 tsp. baking powder
2 tsp. salt
1 1/2 tsp. baking soda
2 tsp. xanthan gum

1 stick of butter* (chilled in the freezer)
1 1/4 c. soy milk*
1 1/4 c. water
1 Tbsp. cider vinegar*
1 egg, beaten (or the equivalent amount of your favorite egg replacement)

1. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.

2. In a large mixing bowl thoroughly combine the flours, baking powder, salt, baking soda, and xanthan gum.

3. Grate the butter into the flour using the small holed side of a box grater. Mix the butter into the flour so that there are no large balls of grated butter.

4. Add the soy milk, water, vinegar and beaten egg to the flour and stir until the dry and liquid ingredients are combined.

5. Using a large spoon, drop the dough onto a greased pan to make 16 biscuits. Cook at 350 degrees for 15 minutes or until golden brown.

Cook’s Notes:

1. If you’re not vegan or dairy free, feel free to use 1 c. buttermilk in place of the soy milk and vinegar. If you’re allergic to soy, try using your usual milk substitute and keep the vinegar in the recipe.

2. You may substitute potato starch or tapioca flour for the cornstarch.

3. 1 stick of butter = 8 Tbsp. = 1/2 c. = 1/4 lb. = 115 grams

4. Earth Balance Buttery Sticks should work if you need this to be casein free. I just checked their website and the sticks are gluten and dairy free.

5. Thanks to Kate at Gluten Free Gobsmacked for the tip on grating the butter. It was a lot of fun and decreased my prep time by quite a bit.

Fresh Blueberry Scones – Gluten Free, Casein Free

Mary Frances — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 03:06:33 +0000

A few weeks ago I posted a lesson on How to Make Gluten Free Scones Like a Bakery. Several of you asked for my scone recipe, so I made it again this weekend so that I could take pictures for the post. It was a close thing on the pictures though. I had to snatch the serving dish away to snap a few shots before John and David had seconds. The final scone count was John – 4, David – 2, Mary Frances – 2.

Fresh Blueberry Scones

Ingredients:
2 c. Gluten Free, Soy Free All Purpose Flour Mix
1/3 c. sugar
1 Tbsp. baking powder
1 tsp. xanthan gum
1/2 tsp. salt
6 Tbsp. vegetable shortening
1 large egg, beaten
1/2 c. soy or rice milk
1/2 c. frozen blueberries
Cinnamon Sugar

Directions:
1. Mix all of the dry ingredients in a large mixing bowl.
2. Cut the vegetable shortening (or vegan butter) into the dry ingredients until the largest crumbs are the size of peas.
3. Add the egg and soy milk to the dry ingredients, and mix until everything is thoroughly combined.
4. Fold the blueberries into the dough and knead a few times so that they are evenly distributed.
5. Cut your scones into wedges and place on a lightly greased baking sheet. Drizzle melted butter over the top and sprinkle with Cinnamon Sugar.
6. Bake at 350 degrees for approximately 20 minutes.
7. Hide your share of the scones before the scone-starved husband and child realize they are out of the oven!

Minty Purple Peach Smoothie

Mary Frances — Sun, 01 Jun 2008 14:13:10 +0000

Today is the first day of the 6 week Eat to Live trial and I opted for a fruit smoothie for breakfast. I picked up fresh Chilton County peaches at the produce stand yesterday and decided to pair them with frozen blueberries and fresh mint for a very refreshing start to the morning. I could easily have doubled this recipe and still eaten it all myself. And check out the nutritional info below – eating lots of fruits and vegetables is the easiest way to get fiber on a gluten free diet. Who needs All-Bran when you can have a smoothie instead!

Minty Purple Peach Smoothie
2 peaches, unpeeled
1 c. blueberries, frozen
5-6 mint leaves
1/2 c. soy milk*

Roughly chop the peaches and place them in the blender with all other ingredients. Pulse the blender a few times to get the blueberries going, and then let it run for 30 – 60 seconds. Pour into a tall glass and enjoy.

*This is an estimate – I forgot to measure =)

Makes 1 serving. Per serving: 273 Calories (kcal); 4g Total Fat; (12% calories from fat); 7g Protein; 60g Carbohydrate; 0mg Cholesterol; 62mg Sodium; 10g Fiber

If you’re looking to find more about the health benefits of fresh fruit and fresh juice, check out this great juicer recipes site.

A Gluten Free Breakfast for Mother’s Day

Mary Frances — Sat, 10 May 2008 03:38:40 +0000

Are you looking for recipes for a special gluten-free Mother’s Day breakfast or brunch? Give these recipes a try:

"Light and Fluffy Gluten Free Biscuits"
"Gluten Free Banana Nut Pancakes"
"Gluten Free Spiced Apple Pancakes"
"Mushroom & Broccoli Quiche Recipe"

Gluten Free Breakfast Scones

Mary Frances — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 13:24:51 +0000

Please welcome a new guest author, Kristina Kofski, who shares her recipe for gluten free scones ~ Mary Frances

I am not a morning person.

In fact, I’ve been known to hit the snooze button for a good 45 minutes in the morning, until my poor fiancé is ready to throw the alarm clock (or me) out the window. If I could, I’d sleep in until the sun was high in the sky each day…however, as a teacher, staying in bed until 10:00 am is definitely not in the cards. So, each day I continue to drag myself out of bed, all the while listening to my body scream, “No! No! No! It’s still dark outside!”

Needless to say, I need a quick breakfast in the morning. Definitely can’t think of skipping it, because if I haven’t bit into breakfast, I’m liable to bite your head off. These scones fit the bill perfectly- throw one in the microwave to warm it up, let the top get a little crispy in the toaster oven, and there you have it, a delicious, healthy breakfast that can be eaten in just a few minutes flat before rushing out the door.

I was diagnosed with celiac in 1991. I had just turned 13 years old, and was falling further and further below the growth curve (to this day, most of my students who are in the fourth grade or higher are taller than me). A series of torturous, trial-and-error hospital visits finally led us to celiac sprue (though I was really fortunate, and it was only seven months from the first test to the diagnosis). Let me tell you, the few gluten-free food items that were available at the time, well—to call them terrible might be too much of a compliment. Pasta noodles that looked, felt, and tasted like tapeworms…products that resembled not so much crackers as pieces of styrofoam…“pancakes” that hadn’t earned the right to be called by that name…

To be honest, I can’t remember what I ate for breakfast for much of junior high and high school. I think I skipped it most days. Fortunately, as I headed towards high school graduation, my mom and I started to wander into the world of gluten-free baking, and we discovered this scone recipe. The original recipe came from a booklet published by the Gluten-Free Pantry, and called for a significant amount of their French Bread and Pizza Mix. Over the years, I’ve taken out most to all of the GFP mix (sorry, guys—I love your products, but they’re not exactly easy on the pocketbook, you know?) and replaced it with mostly whole-grain flours, resulting in a healthier, more filling scone.

When I went off to college, 1500 miles from home, my mom baked a batch of these scones every weekend, and every Monday, my dad shipped them by 2-day air to ensure that they’d arrive in Boston, still fresh and delicious. Now that’s love.

Gluten Free Breakfast Scones
adapted from a Gluten-Free Pantry recipe

1/3 cup toasted nuts
1 to 1½ cups dried fruit (whatever kinds you like- let your imagination run wild!)
1/3 cup dried currants (this doesn’t count towards your 1 to 1½ cups above)
½ cup Perky’s Nutty Rice Cereal
1 tbsp. grated citrus zest (lemon, orange, or lime)

1½ cups brown rice flour
½ cup sorghum flour
¾ cup Gluten-Free Pantry French Bread and Pizza Mix OR ¾ cup Bette Hagman’s Gluten-Free Mix* plus 1 tsp. xanthan gum
1 tbsp. baking powder
¾ tsp. baking soda
½ tsp. ground ginger
1/3 cup brown sugar
4 tbsp. butter

½ cups yogurt (if your yogurt isn’t flavored, add 1 tsp. vanilla extract or other flavoring)
3 egg whites
3 tbsp. citrus juice (lemon, orange, or lime)
1½ tbsp. vegetable oil

*Bette Hagman’s Gluten Free Mix Recipe is available in her books, but you can probably find it online as well.

Instructions:
1. Chop nuts and any larger pieces of dried fruit, such as apricots or plums.

2. Mix nuts, dried fruit (including currants), Perky’s, and fruit zest.

3. In a separate bowl, sift together your flours, baking powder, baking soda, and ginger. Add brown sugar. Mix, breaking up any clumps of brown sugar.

4. Cut in butter, with either a pastry blender or food processor.

5. In a third bowl, whisk together the yogurt, egg whites, citrus juice, and oil.

6. Add it to the flour mixture and stir to blend. Stir in the fruit/nut mixture.

7. Spoon the batter onto a well-greased baking sheet. You can make your scones as big or as little as you’d like.

8. Bake in a preheated 400º oven for 18-20 minutes, rotating 180º halfway through baking. Scones are done when the tops are golden brown.

9. Cool on the baking sheet for several minutes, then remove to a cooling rack.

Tips:
1. Use finely-grated fruit zest- the flavor distributes itself better.

2. Just a reminder for anyone who might be new to GF baking- the GFP French Bread and Pizza mix contains guar gum, so it already has its stretch factor. Bette Hagman’s flour blend doesn’t contain anything but flour, so you need to add xanthan gum. The scones taste funny and are more crumbly without it.

3. If you’d like to cut back the amount of sugar in the recipe, don’t pack the brown sugar- just spoon it into the measuring cup as you would for white sugar.

4. Use a good brand of yogurt- it makes a huge difference! My favorite is the maple flavored cream top yogurt from Brown Cow- the scones come out creamy and delicious. But a close second places goes to any yogurt from Cascade Fresh, simply because they care enough to mark their yogurt packaging with those two magic words- “gluten free.”

5. Your scones will spread more or less depending on the thickness of your yogurt. The scones pictured stayed in such nice little mounds that I truly worried I had done something wrong, because my scones usually spread into each other during baking. I think they didn’t spread this time because I used Cascade Fresh yogurt, which is significantly thicker than most yogurts you buy. Oh, and I may have gone a little bit overboard with the dried fruit.

6. You can also throw other ingredients in- I’ve mashed up bananas and put them in, and when we had some pumpkin left over at Thanksgiving, we made pumpkin-cranberry scones. Delicious! Just decrease your yogurt slightly when you add another wet ingredient.

7. These scones freeze well, but eat them within 2 weeks for the best flavor.

Sweet Baby Banana! A Fun Fruit Topping Your Kids Will Love

Mary Frances — Tue, 13 Nov 2007 04:26:28 +0000

Last week when I was cruising the aisles of Whole Foods I found a treasure in a pile of bananas. Hidden beneath the plain Jane normal bananas was a whole hand of baby bananas! I haven’t found a good picture, but each baby banana is about as long as an adult finger. There are 15 to 20 bananas in each bunch, and when they are ripe the skin is very spotted.

I grabbed the last hand of baby bananas even though they were a bit pricey because I haven’t had these little things since I was in Mexico for a mission trip at age fifteen. The missionary there roasted them with brown sugar and served them for breakfast. They were so good I have been wanting to try them again for twelve entire years.

So I bought them. And I roasted them. And David and I ate them up in a hurry. They were the perfect size for his chubby little fists and we had quite a bit of fun feeding them to each other.

If you are cooking with older kids, this is a great recipe for them to make on their own. The bananas can be cut with a table knife, so except for putting them in the oven, this should be a completely safe recipe for your budding chefs.

Roasted Baby Bananas

1 bunch baby bananas
1/8 c. sugar
juice from half of a lime
1 tbsp butter, cut into small chunks
1 tsp. Pumpkin Pie spice

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

2. Peel the bananas. Cut them in half lengthwise and lay the halves in a glass baking dish.

3. Sprinkle the bananas with the sugar, lime juice, butter and Pumpkin Pie spice.

4. Bake the bananas for 20 to 25 minutes, or until fork tender.

Serve hot over pancakes, French toast, or ice cream. Yum!

Pumpkin Stuffed French Toast

Mary Frances — Thu, 08 Nov 2007 04:08:23 +0000

We’re having our first freeze tonight and our house is cold. I’m bundled up in my favorite college sweatshirt with my hands wrapped around a mug of hot chocolate. It seems like the perfect night to write about a warm comfort food breakfast.

Sunday morning we were up early since David didn’t realize that the time had changed. I had time enough before church to putter around in the kitchen and make up a new recipe. The day before I had made a double batch of Really Good Sandwich Bread, but the loaf that I baked in the oven did not rise very much. It was just right for stuffed French toast =)

One of the great things about gluten free bread is that it is perfect for French toast. Anyone who’s ever been subjected to French Toast made of store-bought white bread will truly appreciate how gluten free bread can soak up the egg and milk without disintegrating into inedible mush. Add this to your list of the good things being gluten free has brought to your life.

Back to the story. I also had a container of thawing Hubbard squash in the refrigerator (for the Impossible Pumpkin Pie later this week), so I scooped some up that out into a skillet, heated it up with some butter, and added Pumpkin Pie seasoning to taste. After a little soaking, stuffing, and baking we had the perfect fall Sunday brunch. Here’s the recipe:

Pumpkin Stuffed French Toast

Pumpkin filling:
1 Tbsp. butter
2 c. winter squash, cooked (or canned pumpkin)
Pumpkin Pie seasoning
sugar (to taste, as it will depend on the sweetness of the squash)

Dipping mixture:
1 c. milk (whatever type you use)
3 eggs
3 Tbsp. sugar
2 tsp. vanilla
pinch of salt

And, 8 slices of bread, one inch thick.

Directions:
1. Melt the butter in a skillet over medium-low heat. Add the squash and mash with a fork until there aren’t any large lumps, or just add the caned pumpking. Once the pumpkin/squash is heated through, season to taste with Pumpkin Pie Spice, or your own mixture of cinnamon, nutmeg, and ginger.

2. Add the ingredients for the dipping mixture to a 9×13 baking dish. Whisk until the eggs are well beaten.

3. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.

4. Use a paring knife to cut a pocket into the bottom side of each slice of bread. (I left about 1/4″ of bread between the edges of the pocket and the outside edges of the bread.) Scoop the pumpkin into the pockets so that they are slightly overstuffed, and then lay the stuffed bread into the dipping mixture. Let the French toast soak for 5 minutes on each side.

5. Remove the French toast to a greased baking sheet and bake for 15 minutes. Flip the toast and switch the oven to Broil. Watch the bread carefully and pull it out as soon as the second side starts to brown.

6. Plate the French toast and top it with syrup, whipped cream, or confectioner’s sugar.

Gluten Free Cooking School » breakfast

Gluten Free Waffles

Gluten Free Waffles

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