Dairy Free Chocolate

It was really scary to take the DF plunge knowing I would have to get rid of chocolate.  Besides the whole angry intestinal fight we would have, chocolate and I got along really well pre-DF diet and I wasn’t sure I was going to find a substitute that came close to the real thing.

I was proven wrong after taste testing a bunch of different brands.  My absolute favorite is Chocolate Dream Dairy Free Chocolate Bars.


Beyond the great flavor the texture of this chocolate is smooth and creamy.  The taste is most definitely chocolaty, but does not try to mimic the flavor of the well known dairy-full chocolate bars like Hershey's or Cadbury.  Chocolate Dream is exactly what I need as an after dinner treat…just a couple of bites and my craving is fed.

Not far behind the question of What kind of chocolate bars can I eat, was What kind of chocolate chips can I use for DF baking?  This question was first simply answered by using Enjoy Life Dairy Free Chocolate Chips.  They are usually sold at any Natural Food Store as well as the Gluten Free section of your local Cub Foods. 

A friend of mine, who is also a Vegan, informed me that Ghirardelli Semi-Sweet Chocolate Chips are safe for a vegan and DF diet.  These chocolate chips are found at most grocery stores, are a cheaper alternative to Enjoy Life, and have since become my number one go-to chocolate chip.

Sausage Breakfast Cups

(Image courtesy of Allrecipes.com)

I think the first rule for hosting a party is don't try out a new recipe. I usually follow that, but for my sister's baby shower all rules went out the window. I was serving brunch and wanted to make something that was unique, cute, and easy. I found a recipe for sausage and cheese breakfast cups and adapted it to my liking. This recipe makes 12 cups.

Ingredients

8 oz pork sausage
10 large eggs
1 green bell pepper, chopped
1 red bell pepper, chopped
3 scallions, sliced
optional: 1/2 - 1 cup shredded DF cheese

Directions

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Fill muffin tin with liners or spray with a non-stick cooking spray.

In a medium skillet cook the sausage until brown and crumbly. Remove the sausage from the pan and sauté the peppers in the leftover sausage grease. Set aside and let cool slightly.

In a large bowl, whisk the eggs. Add the peppers, scallions, cheese and sausage to the eggs and stir. Spoon/pour mixture into muffin cups, dividing evenly. (I put my mixture in a pitcher and poured that way.)

Bake for 25 minutes or until the egg is set.

Note: The sausage made the tops a little greasy and appeared to be not thoroughly cooked, so be sure to use a knife to test if the egg is set. Once the knife comes out clean they are done.

Sweet and Creamy Pumpkin Dip

This recipe I got from a friend of my mom’s a few years ago and have since adapted it to be DF. It’s more of a fall recipe but I love anything with pumpkin in it and eat it year round. The dip is meant to be served with soft ginger snap cookies such as Mi-Del Gluten Free Ginger Snaps. It’s also great for dipping apples and pears.

Ingredients

8 oz DF cream cheese, softened
2 cups powdered sugar
1 can (15 oz) Libby’s pumpkin (other brands actually give the dip a different consistency)
1 tablespoon pumpkin pie spice
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger

Directions

Blend cream cheese and sugar until smooth in a mixer or food processor.

Add remaining ingredients. Mix or blend thoroughly.

Chill 30 minutes or until ready to serve. Serve with gingersnaps, apples, or pears.

Gluten Free Beer Bread

Needing one last appetizer for an upcoming party at the Eid's, Kristen and I pondered whether I could make a successful loaf of GF beer bread. The consensus was, we would never know unless I tried. I originally got hooked on Beer Bread from the Tastefully Simple parties that I had been to in years past. A few months ago, without a box of Tastefully Simple on hand, I googled the recipe and found out that it is not only very easy, but also much cheaper to make your own loaf of beer bread. I loaded the recipe, Beer Bread I, from Allrecipes.com and started making my notes for tweaking the recipe to fit our diet restrictions. The original recipe calls for self-rising flour. Because our GF flour is not self rising I did some research and found that it is also very easy, requiring only 2 ingredients, to make our flour self-rising.

Ingredients
3 cups GF Flour
1 Tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon baking powder
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
3 Tablespoons white sugar
1 (12 oz) can or bottle of Gluten Free beer. I used RedBridge
2 Tablespoons Earth Balance, melted
1 teaspoon garlic salt

Directions
In a large bowl whisk the flour, baking powder and salt together. Add the sugar, whisking again. Slowly add the beer and stir together until the dough pulls away from the sides of the bowl. Pour into a greased 9 X 5 loaf pan and let rest for 30 minutes. After resting, bake for 50-60 minutes in a 350 degree oven. Half way through the baking time pour the melted butter and garlic salt over the top of the bread and continue baking until a knife placed in the middle of the loaf comes out clean. Cool completely on a wire rack.

The loaf tasted delicious it was very moist and not a bit grainy. The butter on top was a great crunchy finish to the bread. However, it looked a lot different than the orignal beer bread. It did not have the vibrant golden color when it was finished. I forgot to post a picture of the loaf before I cut it up into chunks to be served. Halfway through the night I realized and took a picture of what hadn't yet been devoured.

Waffle Bread

Through a recommendation from my friend Amanda, I purchased a new cookbook called “Cooking for Isaiah” by Silvana Nardone. The book is centered around the concept that all recipes are gluten and dairy free. Amanda’s recommendation was spot on and I have yet to go two days since buying this cookbook, without trying a new recipe. Her recipes are simple and she uses ingredients that, for the most part, are found in a household that eats gf/df. Besides extremely tasty foods, I cannot emphasize enough how easy her recipes are.

Below is her recipe for Waffle Bread. I modified the recipe a bit by using our gluten-free flour blend instead of her all-purpose gf blend. I also scaled back the measurements in fear of making enough waffles to feed an army. This is a savory variation on the classic waffle. There are two things I love about this recipe; first the texture and the warmth coming off the waffle iron make this bread a great alternative to other gf toasted slices of bread. It is crispy on the outside and warm and soft on the inside. I also love that this recipe makes many more waffles than our family of four needed in one sitting, so I was able to freeze a second batch of cooked waffles. In the days beyond making the waffles and freezing them, I would take one or two out of the freezer, pop it in my toaster, and enjoy them all over again.

Ingredients

2 cups gf flour blend
1/8 cup sugar
3/4 Tablespoon baking powder
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1/2 cup drained and chopped oil-packed sun-dried tomatoes
2 large eggs, at room temperature, lightly beaten
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1 1/2 cups rice milk (I used almond milk)
Italian seasoning blend

Directions

In a large bowl, whisk together the dry ingredients and sun-dried tomatoes. In a small bowl, whisk together the eggs, oil and milk. Add the dry ingredients to the wet and stir until just combined.

Preheat a waffle iron to medium-high heat. Grease the waffle iron with nonstick cooking spray. Pour about 1/3 cup batter onto each waffle iron square, spreading the batter out to the edges and sprinkle with the Italian seasoning blend. Close and cook until crisp, about 5 minutes; let cool and repeat with remaining batter.

I used this waffle bread to make amazingly delicious chicken sandwiches. I spread chipotle mayo on each of the waffle slices, in between the waffles I piled a grilled chicken breast on top of a slice of tomato and two slices of bacon. Yummy!!

Cream of Chicken Soup

Justin and I were craving a hearty, homemade Minnesotan meal. I don’t think it gets any more Minnesotan than your classic tatertot hotdish. Super easy to make and stick to your ribs. The problem? I have never seen a DF cream of chicken/mushroom/celery/potato soup. I figured it couldn’t be to hard to make your own, so I did some investigating online and came up with my own version.

Ingredients

1/3 cup Earth Balance
1/3 cup GF flour
1 14oz can of chicken stock
1/4 cup water (or milk substitute)
salt
pepper
optional: canned chicken, mushrooms, potatoes, or celery

Directions

Melt butter in a saucepan. Add the flour, salt, and pepper (to taste). Wisk together. (Makes a roux)

Slowly add the chicken stock and water. Wisk until boiling and mixture has thickened.

This gives you a great base for any cream soup replacement. I didn’t add any of the optional ingredients but it’d be easy enough to do to get your desired soup. Note: This recipe makes more than a 10 oz can of soup so be sure to measure if your recipe requires specific amounts.

Udi’s Gluten Free Foods

I was really apprehensive to take the gluten free plunge for the sheer fear of not being able to find a bread that tasted, for lack of a better word, normal.  Kristen was the first one to recommend Udi’s sandwich bread.  Knowing Justin liked it, I figured I would give it a try.  One toasted slice later, I was hooked.  The texture, when toasted, is almost identical to a toasted piece of wheat bread.  When not toasted the bread does have a slightly grainy texture, but it is nothing a little peanut butter and jelly can’t mask.

The Udi’s product line also contains pizza crust, bagels, muffins, cinnamon rolls and granola.  All of which are gf and df.  I waited to write this review until I tried the muffins that were in my freezer along with the granola that I just recently purchased.  All of the Udi’s products have been really really good. 

The muffins, which come in blueberry, double chocolate and lemon streusel (the only flavor I have not tried), are really tasty.  The flavors are not intense, but the muffins are really moist and they have a true muffin taste.  Your taste buds may even trick you into thinking you are eating a cupcake.

The granola is outstanding.  I have only tried the vanilla flavor and it was sweet and crunchy—just like granola should be.  I love granola with a little bit of almond milk for a bedtime snack…yumm!

The bagel almost tastes more like a toasted bun than a bagel.  It is not chewy and does not have a true bagel taste.  However, I had a chicken and bacon sandwich on a toasted Udi’s Bagel and it was delish.  I think I will try a grilled turkey burger on a toasted bagel next time. 

Because I have found a bread product that I not only tolerate, but I enjoy, I have not steered very far away from Udi’s to try other products.  If you are eating gf and you have an outstanding bread product please please share your joy with me.  I may just go to the ends of the earth if someone can recommend a gf artisan loaf of bread…

All pictures on this post are courtesy of Udi’s Gluten Free Foods

Pumpkin Muffins

I got this recipe from my sister-in-law Molly who received it from a friend a few years ago. The recipe was already given in GF format as well as a version made with all purpose flour. I tweeked a few things to make it an easily accessible GF recipe. I made mini muffins and froze the majority of them. They are just as delicious defrosted from the freezer as they were fresh from the oven.

Ingredients

3 cups GF Flour
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 1/2 cups brown sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon cloves
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
1 tablespoon Flaxseed
3 eggs
2/3 cup canola oil
1 (15 ounce) can of pumpkin

Directions

In a large bowl combine all of the dry ingredients and whisk together. In a separate small bowl add the eggs, oil and pumpkin and whisk until the eggs are slightly beaten and the ingredients are well blended. Combine the wet ingredients to the dry and stir just until all ingredients are wet.

Bake in a 350 degree oven for 10-12 minutes or until slightly golden brown. This recipe yields 60 mini muffins.

DF Cream Cheese

Cream cheese seems to be a staple when it comes to dips and appetizers. There are various versions of DF cream cheeses out there but I think Kristie summed it up best with, "They all taste over-processed and like plastic." I'm sure if you are away from dairy long enough you can convince yourself that it's close to the real thing. Since I have the fortune of still eating dairy I am so.not.there. The consistency of DF cream cheese is very close to the real thing. I have discovered that if your dish is flavorful enough, you can disguise the taste and it turns out great!

The brand that we prefer is Vegan Gourmet Cream Cheese Alternative.

Image courtesy of followyourheart.com

Tofutti also makes their own version of Better Than Cream Cheese which is more widely available (at Cub versus a natural foods store). Both brands are close to the same.

I'll post some of our favorite recipes using DF cream cheese soon!

Layered Taco Dip

This is a really easy and great tasting family taco dip recipe that has been modified only slightly to make it taste great dairy free and gluten free.

Ingredients

1 can of refried beans
2/3 cup of mayonnaise
1 cup Tofutti Better Than Sour Cream
2 Tablespoons All Recipes Taco Seasoning
16 ounces guacamole. A wonderful df/gf guac is Wholly Guacamole
1 small can of green chilies (optional)
1 small can of chopped black olives (optional)
1 tomato, chopped

Directions

Using an ungreased 9X13 pan spread the refried the beans on the bottom of the pan. In a separate bowl combine the mayonnaise, Tofutti sour cream, and taco seasoning. Once blended, spread this mixture on top of the beans. If you want to add the chilies sprinkle those on top of the seasoning mixture. Next take the guacamole and spread on top of the seasoning mixture. Finish by adding the black olives and the tomatoes to the top. Serve with tortilla chips!

Side note: I have made this for a party that I knew would have dairy free and dairy lovers at. In order to please everyone, I added shredded cheese to 1/2 of the top of the dip.

Puppy Chow/Muddy Buddies

It isn’t a trip the Sandy Lake, a weekend away, or a girls’ night without a big batch of Puppy Chow. This recipe is adapted from the General Mills recipe for Muddy Buddies to make it DF.

Ingredients

4 cups Rice Chex Cereal
4 cups Corn Chex Cereal
1 cup Enjoy Life Chocolate chips or Ghirardelli Semi Sweet Chocolate Chips
1/2 cup peanut butter
1/4 cup Earth Balance
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 1/2 cups powdered sugar

Directions

Measure cereal, pour into a large bowl and set aside.

In 1-quart microwavable bowl, microwave chocolate chips, peanut butter and butter uncovered on High 1 minute; stir. Microwave about 30 seconds longer or until mixture can be stirred smooth. Stir in vanilla. Pour mixture over cereal, stirring until evenly coated. Pour into 2-gallon resealable food-storage plastic bag.

Add powdered sugar. Seal bag; shake until well coated. Spread on waxed paper to cool. Store in airtight container in refrigerator.