Amanda is now 9 1/2 months (I can’t believe it!) and is eating like a toddler. She eats anything and everything and her favorite foods so far are broccoli and blueberries. It doesn’t matter what else is on her tray… if there are broccoli and blueberries on there, she will always eat those first.

I should probably explain first that we are a mixed household. While Matt eats a mostly vegan diet, he is vegetarian and will eat dairy or the occasional baked good made with eggs (he doesn’t like eggs by themselves). Emma is also mostly vegan, but is allowed to eat dairy and sometimes has eggs for breakfast. Now that she’s old enough to sort of understand that food doesn’t originate at the grocery store, she is starting to make the connection that chicken comes from chickens that had to be killed for someone to eat it. She’s making the same connection with cheese and eggs and may one day choose a totally vegan diet for herself.

It was my intention to raise Amanda in a similar way– dairy and eggs are okay, but we will eat mostly vegan at home. I am gluten-free 100% of the time and vegan 100% of the time at home. When we eat out, I try my best to stay vegan, but do give myself certain allowances to be sure that whatever meal I order is 100% gluten free. For example: the pizza place that we frequent offers Daiya cheese and a gluten free crust. The gluten free crust does contain egg, but I will order that when I’m there because it is the best option available to me. The gluten free pizzas are prepared in a designated gluten free area on designated gluten free equipment and with toppings kept separate from the gluten pizzas. This isn’t true for the salads, which is my only option for something that would be (potentially) GF and vegan. Sometimes, I have to go with the best available option even if it means straying a bit.

Anyway, in trying to keep Amanda’s diet in line with what her sister eats, she has had eggs and dairy. Dairy gave her eczema and eggs gave her diarrhea (and I think wheat gave her a rash), so it looks like she’ll be eating more like her momma than her sister. That’s fine with me! In this post, I thought I would highlight some of her favorite foods in case others out there are dealing with food allergies and are stumped at what to feed their growing toddlers. I should also note that Amanda has zero patience for baby food or for anything food that she can’t feed to herself. She wants to do it all herself!

Pasta

This girl loves pasta! I buy brown rice pasta for her and choose a shape that is easy for her to eat (penne usually). For this sauce– which was actually really, really good– I took a jar of organic marinara sauce and blended it with 1 cup of cooked green lentils and some baby spinach. A typical serving for her for lunch or dinner is about 1/2 cup and is always accompanied by a side vegetable and fruit. She loves to eat!



Beans
She loves all kinds of beans. Her favorites include kidney, black and pinto. The only thing I haven’t tried giving her are chickpeas. They are in the same family as green peas, which make her eczema worse.

Fruit
I haven’t found a fruit yet that she doesn’t like. As I said above, her favorite is blueberries. Here she is sharing a bowl of blueberries with her sis– after she had already eaten the bowl that I had given her.

The first thing she does when I let her out in the backyard is crawl over to the blueberry bush and help herself to any ripe ones (and a handful of dirt sometimes too).



Other favorite fruits of hers are bananas, cherries, any other kind of berry, mango, avocado, cantaloupe, watermelon… pretty much anything other than citrus, which I’m avoiding until at least 12 months.

Vegetables
Surprisingly, she loves vegetables just as much as she loves fruit. She really likes broccoli a lot and doesn’t mind the taste of spinach when it’s blended into other foods (such as the pasta sauce above). Other favorites are steamed carrots, sweet potatoes, peas (but we avoid these because they make her eczema worse), steamed zucchini, and squash.

Rice
Rice is tricky for tiny fingers, particularly when she won’t let me feed it to her on a spoon. This recipe below is one that both kids LOVED!

Green Rice Balls

1 cup sushi rice
1 cup packed fresh baby spinach, or leafy green vegetable of your choice
1 tsp kelp granules

Cook rice according to package instructions (usually for sushi rice, it’s 1 1/4 cups water to 1 cup rice. Cook for 15 minutes.). While rice is cooking, chop spinach finely– I use my mini food processor/chopper for this. When rice has finished cooking, allow to cool a bit then stir in chopped spinach and kelp granules. When the rice is cool enough to handle, wet your hands and form into small, tightly packed balls.

I was surprised that Emma enjoyed this recipe with it being so green and all, but she told me it was the best rice she’s ever had. Seeing her sister eat everything in sight has made Emma a more adventurous eater. She no longer complains when I sneak baby spinach into her romaine lettuce salad. I use white rice here so as not to overload their systems with fiber.

Sandwiches

Occasionally I will make her a sandwich on gluten free bread. She seems to like them alright, but she doesn’t eat them with as much enthusiasm as she does other foods. Still, I like that they offer her a different protein and fat source. I toast one slice of gluten free bread and spread it with raw, extra virgin coconut oil while still warm. Spread sunflower seed butter on and top with a little jam or applesauce. Cut off the crusts and that’s all there is to it!

Snacks

This is one area where I’m frequently stumped. It’s hard to think of snacks that she can manage by herself with only 4 teeth. Her current favorites are gluten free puffs, baby mum mums, veggie booty, and muffins. I’ve also tried rice cakes, but they were too salty for her. The next time I’m at the store, I’m going to spend a little time looking for cereals or crackery things that might work.

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If after reading this you’re still concerned about what to feed your vegan kids, here are two books that I have that I have found to be really helpful.

Becoming Vegan, as the title suggests, is all about making the transition to a vegan diet. There are chapters about carbs, vitamins, proteins, etc… and also chapters dedicated to nutritional requirements during a vegan pregnancy and raising vegan kids. It’s a great book and I recommend it even if you aren’t vegan or thinking of becoming vegan. There are also food guides and weekly meal plans for kids and adults.



This book is an easy read and talks about the different nutritional requirements for kids by age. It gives a more simplified explanation of things than Becoming Vegan and even includes a few recipes.

So, what kinds of foods do your kids like to eat?

My little Amanda is an eating machine… an eating machine who I suspect has a few food allergies. Our doctor will be doing a blood panel to test for antibodies to suspected allergens and then possibly refer us to an allergist. She’s a very sensitive little body…

In an effort to find snacky/breakfast foods that she would like and that wouldn’t make her break out in a rash, I whipped up these muffins yesterday. She ate an entire muffin… for a snack, after eating a huge lunch and right before eating a big dinner. Like I said, she’s an eating machine. Now, this is not an original recipe. I messed around with the wet ingredients from this recipe to use what I had on hand. The result was great– they have a great flavor and texture. I think these could even be served to someone who wasn’t accustomed to eating gluten free baked goods and even get two thumbs up!

(My plan for today is to make these again substituting xylitol for the sugar. The nice folks at Emerald Forest sent me a sample of their product and while I’ve enjoyed adding it to my oatmeal in the morning, I have yet to use it in a baking recipe. Stay tuned for those results.)

Gluten-Free Pumpkin Coconut Muffins

Makes 18 muffins.

Wet Ingredients:

Egg replacer for 2 eggs, mixed (I used Ener-G)
1/4 cup coconut oil, melted
1/2 cup pumpkin puree
2 tsp vanilla
1/2 cup non-dairy milk of your choice (I used rice)
1 TB molasses (omit if using brown sugar, see dry ingredients below)

Dry Ingredients:

1 1/4 cups tapioca starch
1/2 cup coconut flour
1/2 cup sorghum flour
1/2 cup quinoa flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp xanthan gum
1 cup sugar (or 1 cup brown sugar– if using brown sugar, omit molasses)
1 TB pumpkin pie spice

Add-Ins:

1/2 cup shredded unsweetened coconut
1/2 cup raisins

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line muffin tin with papers or spray with oil. Set aside.

2. In a microwave safe bowl, combine all wet ingredients. If your coconut oil hardens when you add the cold milk (it will look like curdled milk), pop the mixing bowl into the microwave for a few seconds to melt again. Set aside.

3. In a large mixing bowl, whisk together all dry ingredients. Add wet to dry and mix thoroughly. If the batter is too thick, as it probably will be once the coconut flour starts to absorb the moisture, add more rice milk a tablespoon at a time until it is the consistency of thick cake batter. I probably used an additional 1/4 to 1/3 cup of rice milk to get the right consistency.

4. When everything is combined, throw in the add-ins. For something a little different, try chocolate chips instead of raisins, or use any dried fruit that you like. Or throw in some nuts too. Since Amanda only has 4 teeth and is having food troubles already, I didn’t add any here.

5. Spoon into prepared muffin tin. The easiest way to do this, I’ve found, is the two spoon trick: using two tablespoons (like the kind for eating with, not the kind for measuring), scoop up a spoonful in one of the spoons. Use the other spoon to scrape the batter off the first spoon into the muffin tin. When all of the tins have been filled, wet the back of one spoon to smooth the top of each muffin. Re-wet as necessary to keep the batter from sticking to the spoon until all muffins have been smoothed over.

6. Bake for 15-20 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center of one muffin comes out clean. Cool before eating, if you can wait that long.

You must make this recipe ASAP. It’s delicious! I followed the recipe exactly, except that I didn’t add any veggies because I didn’t have any appropriate for this dish. The sauce is served over some quinoa spaghetti noodles (that’s why they look a little yellow in the pic). I also did not bake it and opted instead to cook the pasta and sauce together for a few minutes after the pasta was done boiling. The sauce definitely tastes better after cooking (it must give the garlic time to mellow out a little), so I would definitely recommend cooking it a little if you can. Baking would be ideal and I will plan ahead next time to allow time to do that– I was just too hungry to wait this time. Enjoy!

I made pizza dough tonight from scratch and I pronounce it to be a semi-success.  It would have been a total successful had I not skipped one very important step, but I’ll get to that in a minute.  Even having skipped this important step, it still turned out really good.  In fact, it tasted pretty much exactly like regular pizza dough– actually, I think I might like this recipe even better than wheat dough.  Since this was my first time, I relied on this recipe here.  I wasn’t able to find all the ingredients and, of course, had to swap some stuff to make it vegan, so here’s my adaptation of that recipe.

Gluten-Free Vegan Pizza Dough
adapted from this recipe

Step 1

Place pizza stone in oven at 170 degrees.

Step 2

Ingredients:

2 1/2 TB olive oil
1/2 tsp apple cider vinegar
1 TB agave or maple syrup

Combine in a small bowl and set aside.

Step 3

Ingredients:

1/4 cup amaranth flour
3/4 cup white rice flour
1/4 cup sweet rice flour (you can find this at Asian markets)
3/4 cup tapioca starch
2 TB quinoa flour
2 tsp xantham gum
3/4 tsp salt
1 1/2 TB sugar

Combine all of the above ingredients in the bowl of your stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment.

Step 4

Ingredients:

3/4 cup warm water
1 tsp sugar
2 1/2 tsp active dry yeast

Warm water to 115-120 degrees (this feels warmish-hot to the touch in case you don’t have an instant thermometer). In a small bowl, combine 1/4 cup of the warm water with the sugar and yeast. Set aside for a few minutes to allow the yeast to proof.

Step 5

Ingredients:

3 tsp Ener-G egg replacer (equivalent to 2 eggs)
1/4 cup water (omit if you use eggs)

Whisk the Ener-G powder with the water and add to the bowl of dry ingredients along with the yeast and olive oil, vinegar and agave mixture. Turn on the mixer and slowly add the remaining 1/2 cup warm water (from step 4). Add more warm water as necessary until the dough looks like cake frosting (to get to this consistency, I used about 1 1/2 cups total).

It should look like this:

Step 6

Remove pizza stone from oven and turn the oven off. Place a sheet of parchment paper on top of the warm pizza stone and brush lightly with olive oil. Put the dough on top of the oiled parchment paper and spread into a 12″ or 13″ circle. I found that my hands worked best for this step (I put some olive oil on them first). Place pizza stone back into the warm oven and let the dough rise for 40 minutes.

Step 7

After the dough has risen for 40 minutes, turn the oven on to 350 degrees and pre-bake your crust for 10 minutes. This was the step I missed in the instructions and even though mine turned out okay, I wouldn’t recommend skipping this step.

Step 8

After 10 minutes, remove pizza crust from oven and add your toppings. Increase the oven temperature to 425 degrees and once you’ve got what you want on top of your pizza, put back into the oven and bake until the crust is golden and cheese is bubbly. My tips for making the perfect vegan pizza can be found here, but one tip that I will reiterate here is that you really need to bake the cheese (I used a combo of Daiya mozz and cheddar) before adding any vegetables or other watery ingredients. Once the veggies start cooking, they make the cheese too watery and it gets a little gross. This time, I topped my pizza with jarred marinara, the Daiya, mushrooms, zucchini, spinach and jalapenos.

The verdict: Yes, it was labor intensive, but so worth it. This is better than any GF pizza crust you can get in the store. I think what I might do is on days when I have free time (uh… what’s that?!) is make a batch and pre-bake, then freeze for use later. Or if I knew that I was planning pizza for dinner that week, I might make this one or two days ahead to save some time. So, there are ways to do it so that it doesn’t take so long to make. If you’re GF, or even if you aren’t and want to try something new, give this recipe a try.

Emma has a pretend kitchen and she likes to cook stuff in it– pretend food, dolls, whatever.  The other day, she “cooked” one of her little dinosaurs pretending it was something else and she offers me some. Our conversation went something like this:

Me: “no, thank you, I don’t eat dinosaurs.”

Emma:  “don’t worry, it’s vegetarian.”

Me: “cool!  Do you know what that means?”

E:  “not made out by animals.”

Me: “yes!  and do you know what vegan means?”

E: “it means it’s on sale.”

LOL!!  She cracks me up.  When we’re not cooking pretend food and vegetarian dinosaurs, we have been making some yummy gluten-free, vegan stuff around here.  I’ve tried a few brands of bread… some are better than others, but most are okay when toasted.  I also picked up the fixin’s for english muffin pizzas the other day while shopping.  I got some GF, vegan english muffins, a jar of sauce and some Daiya.  They turned out really good…

I’ve been enjoying these for the last few days and my favorite way to eat them is topped with a sprinkle of dried basil, dried oregano and some chopped jalapeno (the kind from the jar).  They’re super good!  I first toast the english muffin in the toaster, then top with the sauce and cheese.  Then I bake at 425 degrees until bubbly.  Side note: my toaster now has a designated GF side.  I put a little label on there to keep it separated from the gluteny side.

That’s all for now.  I do have some cake photos to post.  Will do that soon, hopefully.

In my last post, I commented how the GF pancakes I made with the GF Bisquick baking mix tasted pretty much like nothing. My friend, Jen recommended throwing some mashed banana in there, so I tried it and it was awesome!! Mashed banana is actually a good egg replacer, so I didn’t need to use anything else to serve that purpose and while I was at it with the banana, I put in all the stuff I enjoy in banana bread. These tasted exactly like my favorite banana bread recipe. The recipe for pancakes is on the back of the box, but since I made some changes, I’ll post it here with my changes.

Gluten-Free and Vegan Banana Bread Pancakes

1 cup Gluten-Free Bisquick Baking Mix
1 cup milk (I used half unsweetened So Delicious coconut milk, half unsweetened rice milk)
1 ripe banana, mashed well
2 TB oil
1/2 heaping tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp allspice
pinch salt
Raw pecan halves or pieces

Combine wet ingredients. Add dry ingredients and stir well to combine. Pour 1/4 cup of batter onto hot griddle. Press pecans into batter. When edges are dry, flip over and cook the other side. Pour on some maple syrup and enjoy!

This is bound to be a long post. Hang in there.

About a month ago, I decided to go gluten-free. Since the holiday’s were coming up and we were moving, I didn’t want to go cold tofurky and have been easing into it. As I reflect back on all of the dietary changes I’ve made in my lifetime (vegetarian, then vegan, now gluten-free and vegan), this really has been pretty easy for me. By far the hardest change I ever made was when I went vegetarian about 10 years ago. I was in college and living at home at the time and my whole way of eating up until then was totally S.A.D. (Standard American Diet). Meat was the center of every meal. We rarely, if ever, had vegetarian meals. I had no idea what lentils were. Aside from Mexican and Chinese foods, we never ate anything besides American foods. Once I was comfortable being vegetarian, it was really no big deal. Getting comfortable with it was the hard part. Going vegan was no sweat. Going gluten-free has also been not that big of a deal. I can see that eating out will be the hardest part; the second hardest part will be continuing to bake gluteny cakes and not being able to taste them (I have this weird phobia where I have to taste everything that leaves my kitchen). The baking business is really starting to take off. Had it not been getting any busier, I may have nixed the gluten cakes and specialized only in gluten-free, but since I’m getting busier and people are starting to hear about me, I can’t do that.

One of the first (baked) things I made was Meghan’s Oatmeal Banana Bread, with a few slight modifications:

1. A flax egg for the eggs (doubled the flax egg recipe to replace the 2 eggs).
2. A combo of brown rice syrup and agave for the honey. I’m not super strict on honey, but I never have it in my house and have not bought it in years. And since we were moving, I didn’t have enough of any one liquid sweetener on hand, otherwise I would have probably used all agave since it’s cheaper. I never think to use brown rice syrup, even though I usually have it in the fridge but it’s probably better for me than agave. I use it so seldom that I really don’t even care.

This recipe turned out fantastic and I highly recommend whether you are gluten-free or not. Emma loved it and ate an entire piece of it the first night I made it, then asked to have it for breakfast the next morning. Matt also really enjoyed it. (Meghan, if you’re reading this post, now is the time you should probably stop since you won’t like this part. )

I had some leftover vanilla frosting that I tried with it and it was sooooo good. I’ve also turned this recipe into cupcakes (below), but used canola oil in place of the coconut oil and all brown rice syrup for the sweetener. They were yummy! As a bread, I love the addition of the oats (and I was sure to use certified GF oats), but as a cupcake, it’s too much texture. I may try to swap out the oats for coconut flour next time and see what happens. I’m new to the gluten-free-baking-from-scratch-thing and am still learning what all the different flours, starches and gums do. Experimenting has been fun!

While on the subject of cupcakes, I’ve also been relying on this gluten-free vanilla cupcake recipe. My plan is to play around with it to develop a chocolate recipe. I also want to see if I can make it a lemon cake since the base for my gluten lemon cake is my vanilla cake recipe:

I’ve tried a few different variations:

• Rice milk, soy milk and coconut milk for the almond milk. My favorite is coconut milk (the unsweetened So Delicious, not from a can).
• I always use canola oil. This works fine for me.
• Quinoa flour for the almond flour. I’ve always made it this way and it turns out great. I love that the coconut flour gives the cupcake a little coconut flavor and the quinoa flour gives it a little nuttiness.
• I use certified GF vanilla extract for this one. I’ve seen vanilla both ways and thought I’d go with the certified GF one, although, I’m not sure why vanilla extract would contain gluten. Perhaps the alcohol in it could be contaminated with gluten? I just recently learned that some brands of wine may be contaminated and not considered gluten-free. It’s a good thing I don’t spend more than $3 usually since my cheap wine is unlikely to contain any gluten particles.

I actually made this batch for a rainbow themed birthday party today. Here is my little friend topped with her rainbow “hat.”

Brownies… yum…

Christmas was upon me, I was a little stressed out with getting all of our shopping done, and I knew there wouldn’t be any vegan, let alone gluten-free, treats for me on Christmas day. To keep me from really cheating, I bought the Bob’s Red Mill Gluten-Free Brownie Mix.

To make them vegan, I used Earth Balance for the butter and substituted 1/4 cup unsweetened applesauce for the egg. These were super good and I will buy again, or else figure out how to make my own from scratch.

Pancakes

I’ve tried a couple of different pancake recipes and had the most success with this one. I’ve found that I don’t care for most gluten-free stuff like pancakes unless they have a gum in them (either xantham or guar) so I added 1/8 tsp xantham gum to the recipe. I think it could have used more like 1/4 tsp or maybe even 1/2 tsp. I thought it also could have used more salt and would suggest increasing that to 1/2 tsp. I also added blueberries because I like blueberry pancakes better than plain. These were okay. Not really like gluteny pancakes. I just purchased the Bob’s Red Mill GF Pancake Mix to try and will post a review of that once I use it.

Just this morning I made pancakes using the Gluten-Free Bisquick (above) based on a friend’s recommendation of that product. They turned out good, were kinda chewy like regular pancakes, but they still need a little something. I always make blueberry pancakes and even with the addition of the blueberries I thought they were just a little bland. Matt took 2 bites and that was it. He said they tasted like rice cereal made into a pancake. We seem to agree on this one that they are super bland. Maybe next time I’ll put in a little pinch of salt or some cinnamon, or both. The pancake recipe calls for milk and an egg. For the egg, I used Ener-G because I was too lazy to look up the ratio for the flax egg (can never remember how much flax to water) and coconut milk for the milk. I suspect that the coconut milk might have been to heavy or thick, so next time I will use half coconut milk and have rice. The insides of the pancake were a little gummy.

Muffins

These muffins are amazing! In one day, we managed to eat all but 4 (one recipe made 15). I think if I were to leave out the raisins and carrots that it would be a great base for adding in blueberries or chopped apples. Even with the raisins and carrots, this recipe is definitely a keeper. I made no modifications the first time around, but I think I will increase the cinnamon the next time. I may also add some nutmeg and allspice. Matt’s cousin came over for dinner the other night and we had these with our soup. Her comment on the photo of them that I put on Facebook: “Those muffins were soooooooooooooooo delicious .” Really, they are that good. Not just good for being gluten-free, just good in general.

Tips

While I’ve not made the jump to complete and total gluten-freedom, I have been making several small changes over the last month. The small changes have added up so that I’m pretty 100% gluten-free at home. Here are some tips that have made the transition easier:

• Buy one gluten-free item every grocery shopping trip: Gluten-free flours, pastas, cereals, breads, etc. are more expensive than their gluteny counterparts. Purchasing one every shopping trip breaks up the expense a bit. Also, most gluten-free baking recipes require several different flours and starches and making sure you’re stocked up on at least a few ensures that you’ll have what you need (or at least a suitable substitute) when the baking urge strikes.
• Keep some convenience foods on hand at all times: It’s so handy to have foods that can be whipped up quickly for times when you don’t have the time or the energy to cook something elaborate. Since I keep a loaf of gluten-free bread in my freezer and cereal in my pantry, I know that I will be able to have a snack at all times. I’ve also made it a point to have nuts, dried fruits, frozen fruits (for smoothies), and hummus and veggie dippers on hand most of the time for quick snacks or meals to go.
• Plan ahead: This is key to sticking with any diet. Make sure your kitchen is pretty well stocked most of the time. Keep things in the freezer or pantry for ease. Plan to bring your own food or a dish to share if invited to a friend’s house for dinner (and, for that matter, don’t be afraid to tell the host of your new way of eating; most people are happy to accommodate or, if they aren’t, will tell you to bring your own food). The list goes on and on, but the bottom line is be prepared.
• Don’t be offended if people don’t “get it”: Remember, most people would rather take a pill than change their diet/lifestyle. Humans are lazy like that. Many won’t understand why you’re making changes and some may not even be supportive. Don’t let it get to you; in the grand scheme of things, who cares?!
  
  Also, don’t be surprised if one of these people is your own doctor. Doctors don’t really have a clue about nutrition and many don’t embrace alternative therapies. One of my own doctors (my OB when I was pregnant with Amanda) pretty much told me that there are more important things in life to worry about since I’m doing well on my current medication and dosage when I mentioned wanting to try the gluten-free thing to see if it helped/prevented further damage to my thyroid. I still do have thyroid symptoms despite having normal labs (insane amount of hair loss, for example– I’m not balding, but I can pull out handfuls of hair whenever I wash it to the point that I bought a hair trap for my shower drain), so I wouldn’t agree with her assessment. It didn’t bother me, but I did make it a point to find a doctor who seems to be a little more open minded when I needed to find a new family doctor. While I’m on this topic, remember that your doctor works for you. If you don’t like him/her for whatever reason and are able to switch, don’t be afraid to.
• Be informed: Visit the library and do some reading about making changes. Borrow cookbooks to introduce you to your new diet. If you’re on Facebook, “like” different groups or organizations that share your interests. That’s how I came across that awesome muffin recipe. Start following blogs. The information is out there, be sure to find it. Blogs have been a great resource in helping to introduce me to new recipes and new ideas. Open a Google account and start a blog reader so you can keep track and keep up. Some of my favorite gluten-free and gluten-free-friendly blogs, in no particular order, are listed below:
  • Kristen’s Raw.
  • Making Love in the Kitchen.
  • Alisa Cooks.
  • pure2raw.
  • A Celiac’s Adventure Through Food.
  • Elana’s Pantry.
  • Gluten Free Girl and the Chef.
  • Gluten Free Planet.
  • Gluten Free Vegan.
  • Cake Maker to the Stars.

  There are lots of great blogs/sites out there, those are just the ones that I follow. Have any that you’d like to recommend? Please do. I love finding new blogs to follow. They need only be interesting, funny, entertaining; it doesn’t have to be vegan, gluten free or even about food.

  So there’s my update on how things are going. I suspect that by the end of the month that I will be completely gluten-free. I’ve been meaning to get to the doc for another blood test and that’s the only reason I haven’t cut out gluten totally already. It could mess up the results if I were not eating gluten, I guess. Anyway, my celiac test was negative, but I want to have another one done just to see if it confirms a gluten intolerance. Seeing as how I have Hashimoto’s, it’s likely that I do have a gluten intolerance, but I’m curious to see if I can get some concrete evidence. Also, it “sounds” better to tell people that I have a gluten intolerance instead of I’m trying this new diet to see if…

  What about you? Do you have any tips for people wanting to change their diet or lifestyle to improve their health?

I just can’t get enough of my lentil burgers. They’re so easy to make with ingredients that I normally keep on hand that it’s been my go-to when I don’t know what else to make. They are good on top of bread, with salad, or eaten plain dipped in ketchup. To stretch the recipe even more, I made them with brown rice last time and they held together even better than when I make it without. I may add the brown rice from now on. This last time, I also dredged them in some rice flour before pan frying. It made the outside extra crispy.

Lentil Burgers with Brown Rice

1 cup dry green/brown lentils (about 2 cups cooked)
1 cup brown rice, uncooked
1 small onion, peeled
1 medium carrot, peeled
1/4 cup raisins
2 TB hemp seeds
1/4 cup sunflower seeds
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp pepper
2 TB garbanzo bean flour

1. Begin by cooking the lentils and rice: bring 4 cups of water to a boil, add lentils and brown rice, reduce heat, cover and simmer for about 30 minutes or until water is absorbed and lentils/rice are tender. If lentils and rice are done cooking before all the water has been absorbed, just drain off any excess.
2. Meanwhile, chop the onion and carrot in the food processor. Throw them in, pulse a few times until finely chopped and transfer to a large mixing bowl. Add raisins, hemp seeds, sunflower seeds, salt and pepper to the mixing bowl.
3. When lentils/rice are cooked, drain off any excess water and pulse a few times in the food processor. Transfer to the bowl of ingredients and stir to combine, adding enough flour to hold everything together. You’ll probably need about 2 TB, but may need more depending on how wet your veggies are.
4. Form into patties and either pan fry or bake in the oven. I pan fried mine in a teeny bit of oil after dredging in rice flour first. If you opt to bake them instead, you may want to brush both sides with a little oil so that they get crispy.

In the photo, mine is on top of a slice of Rice Pecan bread that I found at Whole Foods. With the whole gluten-free thing, I’ve had a hard time finding breads that don’t have egg in them. This type of bread is one that I tried and liked and is also vegan. It’s kept in the freezer section. It’s a little bit denser than wheat bread (as I’ve found is the case with all gluten-free baked goods), but it’s pretty good and makes fine toast. I don’t eat a ton of bread as it is, but it’s nice to have some type of convenience food on hand to keep me on the gluten-free path. An update on my road to gluten-freedom coming soon! EDIT: Update can be found here!

I’m a big fan of those bean soup mixes– you know, the kind that come with the dried beans, some dehydrated veggies and the spice pack mix. I made one last week that I thought was really good, but have since not been able to find it again in the store. It was one that I had bought at Whole Foods a long time ago and found when I was packing up the old house. I guess it’s now not something they carry. That got me thinking, it can’t be that hard to make, so I decided to give it a try myself this week. It turned out so fabulous and since I made it myself, I know exactly what’s in it. This stuff is seriously good and makes a lot. I love having leftover soup; remember, it’s the same amount of work to make a gigantic pot as it is to make a small pot. Make a huge batch and freeze some for later.

(Sorry for the yucky photo. Had to use the flash.)

Easy Vegan Minestrone Soup

1 cup kidney beans, dry

1 cup cannellini beans, dry

1 cup chickpeas, dry

1/4 cup olive oil

1 large onion, chopped

5 cloves garlic, chopped (roughly 1-2 tsp)

2 medium carrots, peeled and chopped

3 stalks celery, chopped

2 TB dried basil

1 TB dried oregano

1 tsp dried sage

2 quarts veg stock

1-28 oz. can diced tomatoes

1 head cabbage, chopped

4 cups baby spinach, lightly packed

Any pasta type or shape that you like

S & P to taste

1. Begin by soaking the beans and chickpeas 12 hours or overnight.  After soaking, drain off soaking liquid and rinse with fresh water.  Drain.  Add to slow cooker.
2. In a large skillet, heat the olive oil over medium-low heat.  Add all the veggies and saute until tender, about 5 minutes.  Add herbs and saute another minute.  Add to slow cooker.
3. Add the stock and tomatoes to the slow cooker.  Cook on high for 4-6 hours or until the beans are cooked through.
4. Add the cabbage, spinach and pasta* and cook another 1-2 hours.  Season with S & P to taste.

* I prefer to cook the pasta separately and add to each bowl of soup.  I find that cooking it in the soup only makes it super mushy if you have leftovers.  For this recipe, I used quinoa pasta, but you could use whatever you like.

If you want to do this on the stove top, it will probably only take half the time.  Keep a watchful eye on it and add more liquid as necessary as m0re will cook off on the stovetop than in the slow cooker.

Well hello there, dear readers! As of this last Monday, we are moved into our new house. I love it here!! My kitchen is enormous compared to my last one and we’re just so happy here. Yay for finally being moved! Now that the move is over and we are somewhat settled, I hope to have more time to cook and more recipes to post.

Matt has been working late all week and I haven’t really prepared and elaborate meals. Last night, though, I wanted to cook up a kabocha squash that I bought yesterday and I really, really wanted to make a Thai yellow curry sauce to go over it. Why? I don’t know. It just sounded like a good combo.

First, the squash:

Cut in half lengthwise, scoop out the seeds. Place cut-side down onto a lightly greased baking dish and bake at 350 degrees for about 30 minutes, or until the inside is very soft.

Next, the sauce:

I followed my yellow coconut curry soup recipe as the base, but I let it reduce down a lot. This intensified the flavors and made it so good. Like, seriously so good that I was eating spoonfuls of it out of the pot– you know, just to make sure it was perfect *wink, wink*.

Thai Yellow Curry Sauce

1 TB olive oil
1 onion, roughly chopped
3 cloves garlic, roughly chopped
1/2 inch knob of fresh ginger, peeled and chopped (about 1/2-1 tsp once chopped)
2 tsp Thai Red Curry Paste
2 tsp turmeric
1 cup light coconut milk
1 cup veggie stock
2 TB brown sugar (firmly packed)
2 TB Tamari*

In a small sauce pan, heat the olive oil over low heat and saute the onions, garlic and ginger. Once softened, after about 5 minutes of cooking, add the curry paste and turmeric. Saute for another minute or so, then add the remaining ingredients. Stir to combine then simmer for 15 minutes until the liquid has reduced by about half. Using an immersion blender, blender or food processor, puree the sauce until smooth. Taste for seasoning and add more salt or Sriracha if desired.

*I use Tamari here to keep it gluten-free. If you don’t care about that, go ahead and use soy sauce instead. (Did you know that soy sauce contains wheat?)

I was all out of brown sugar, so I used regular sugar and a small drop of blackstrap molasses. It worked fine. Also, I think this would have been even better with a little lime squeezed in at the end. I’ll be sure to do that next time.

I served our squash with some red quinoa and simple sauteed spinach. For the spinach, I heated a tiny bit of olive oil in a skillet, put the baby spinach in and lightly sauteed until just wilted. Then I put some salt and pepper on it.