Some of my favorite products

Hi!!
Long time no blog. Sorry, life has been so busy, blogging has been pushed to the back of my list. I have been getting a lot of questions lately about good gluten free products for people just starting out on this lifestyle. I spent so much time and money at the beginning to find food that tasted good, and I would love to save someone else's time and money. I will be working on this list a little bit at a time, and adding in the links to sites later. For now, just google any products if you are interested. If I don't do this a bit at a time, I will never get this out. So bear with me, and check back, hopefully I will get this all tweaked in a couple of weeks.

Best gluten free pizza:
Joan's Gluten Free Great Bakes ~(the round NY one) Thick, chewy crust, delicious. When I get this, I am so happy. It tastes the closest to real pizza that I have tasted. No one has else has done such a great job. You can also get a plain crust and do your own toppings. Something I wish restaurants would do.
Better Than Bread ~ Thin crust pizza, yummy. I don't feel deprived when I have this.

Best pancakes:
Pamela's Pancake mix. Non-gluten free children tell me how much they love my pancakes.

Best Waffles:
Van's. I love mine pan fried with butter.

Best Bagels :
Joan's Gluten Free Great Bakes ~ Get them frozen, bake them fresh. Hot. Chewy. Yummy. She even makes a dairy free one. Do your self a favor and order some of these and some pizza at the same time to save shipping costs.

Best Bread:
Rudi's ~ I just found this at my local co-op. Great sandwich bread. Like a gluten free bread, best toasted.
Abigail's ~ Bakery in Weare, NH. They have this yummy cinnamon swirl bread made with millet that my children (who can eat gluten) adore as much as I do. It is a dense bread that can stand up to overnight French toast.
Berry Delicious ~ Bakery in Plymouth, NH. She has a sandwich bread that I love as a toast bread in the morning. Great texture.

Best Pie ~
Berry Delicious ~ Bakery in Plymouth, NH. Oh my. Her pie is awesome. I buy them frozen then bake them when I am going to serve them.

Best Brownie Mix ~
Pamela's, hands down.

I will be adding more to this list and getting the links in here soon. Good luck to those who are just starting out on this diet.

Cheers,
Danielle

Rustic and Hearty Gluten Free Apple Pie

Before I had to eat gluten free, my daughter, then aged 2, and I made an apple pie together. It was a "no roll out crust" pie. I had seen the recipe in Better Homes and Gardens, and wanted to try it. It was such a fun pie to make with a 2 year old, patting balls of dough into flat pancakes with our hands to form a top crust.

My son and I had never made that pie together; he is now 5. I have been in the pie making mood lately, partly urged on by the fall weather, and was solidified by Ginger Lemon blog's pie crust recipe.

SO, I dusted off the old recipe, the last time I has used it was 5 years ago, rolled up the sleeves, grabbed my son as helper, and made that pie with him, altered to be gluten free. We had such fun!

I was terrified that it would turn out horribly, but it didn't. The crust was different, but appealing. What I found interesting, is that my children LOVED the crust. They ate the crust first, then the filling. When I was a child, I ate the filling first, and maybe the crust. The crust was a bit of an obligation to get through, in order to get another piece. (And by the way, that changed as I grew, my mother makes a fabulous pie crust.)

I think that just about any combination of flours would work for this crust. If teff isn't available, use millet or more sorghum. The apples in the filling come out a tad bit crunchy still, so if you like your apples in your pie to be completely soft, try decreasing the temperature to 350 degrees and cook for 65 minutes. And don't forget, if your crust is getting too brown, and you want to cook the filling some more, cover with tin foil and continue baking.

(Also, I think that you would probably be able to substitute for the milk in here to make it dairy free as well. Let me know if you try it!)


Rustic and Hearty Gluten Free Apple Pie

Pie Crust

1 cup brown rice flour
1 cup sweet sorghum flour
1/2 cup teff flour
2 tablespoons sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup grapeseed oil (or canola)
2/3 cup milk

Apple Pie Filling

6 cups sliced apples
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 cup sugar
2 teaspoons sweet sorghum flour


In a bowl stir together the dry ingredients. Mix the grapeseed oil and milk then add to the dry mix. Stir with fork until a dough starts forming. Oil hands to work with the dough and form into a ball.

Take 2/3 of dough ball and press the dough firmly onto bottom of a greased 9-inch pie plate and up the sides, pressing to form an edge at the rim.

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

Peel and slice apples. Mix cinnamon, sugar and flour in separate bowl. Add to apples and stir until all the apples are coated.

Transfer apple mixture to pie shell.

Take the remaining dough, and break into several equal parts. Pat each dough portion into circles. Top the filling with the flattened dough to create a top crust. There will be spaces between each dough portion; the top won't be covered completely.

Place pie plate on baking sheet. Bake pie for 55 minutes or until filling is bubbly in the center.

Place on rack to cool.


Cheers!!!!!

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Other gluten free pie recipes from fellow bloggers:
Karina's Vegan Pumpkin Pie
Maple pecan Pie with Oat Crust
Carrie's Easy Gluten Free Pie Crust
Gluten Free Mommy's Frozen Pumpkin Pie

And check this out..hot off the presses. You can get the recipe by clicking on it below.

Kathy Derr's gluten-free apple treat won the blue ribbon in a contest in Williamsburg, Virginia last month.

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Maple Pecan Pie with Oat Crust Gluten Free

This pie was so amazingly fabulous. And the crust!! Words cannot describe how good this pie was. I would proudly carry it anywhere, knowing it would hold it's own against any other pie - even our now famous benchmark - gluten ones.

I was never a huge fan of pecan pie before, but this is now a staple for me. It was not as sweet as pecan pie usually is and so flavorful. Thank goodness I have a couple of pieces left in the fridge, otherwise I would have to make it again. (Here is the original filling recipe for the Maple Pecan Pie .) I made a simple sugar instead of corn syrup, I thought it was perfect. You could use corn syrup, brown rice syrup, or whatever else makes you happy.

The crust is made of gluten free oat flour, so if you can't do oats you will have to substitute. And it is a bit of a heartier crust, but still flakes a bit. I might add a tiny bit more butter next time, but it was so good, I really might not change a thing too. The only things I changed was to add about 1/8 cup skim milk to the crust for moisture, I think it really needed that, and I used vinegar instead of lemon juice. Here is where I got the original oat flour pie crust recipe. It makes one crust. Amazon.com is now carrying Cream Hill Estates Lara's Oat Flour, you can go directly there, or here for the oat flour.

Crust

1 1/2 cup oat flour (make sure certified gluten free)
1/2 cup tapioca flour
1 tbsp sugar
1/2 cup salted butter
1 egg yolk
1 tbsp cider vinegar
skim milk

Whisk oat flour, tapioca flour and sugar into a large bowl. Cut the butter into the flour mixture with fork, two knives, pastry tool, or food processor.

Add the egg yolk, vinegar, and milk to the flour mixture. Mix together until the mixture begins to hold together. Put in refrigerator for 10 minutes.

Form into ball and roll out dough between two pieces of wax paper. Place in pie plate. And bake pie according to directions.

Maple Pecan Pie Filling

3 large eggs
1/2 cup (packed) brown sugar
1/2 cup pure maple syrup
1/2 cup sugar
1/8 cup water
1/4 cup (1/2 stick) unsalted butter, melted
1/8 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cups coarsely chopped pecans

Put prepared crust in freezer while preparing the ingredients (no more than an half hour). Preheat oven to 350.

Make simple sugar. Put 1/2 cup sugar and 1/8 cup water cook until sugar dissolves and it's a bit thick. I threw the butter in here to melt while I got the other ingredients ready.

Whisk eggs, brown sugar, maple syrup, salt, the sugar/butter mixture in bowl. Add chopped
pecans.

Put pie in oven and bake about 40 minutes, or until pie is set.

Cheers!!!