May is Celiac Awareness Month

If you have Celiac or know someone who does, please go to this link to submit a letter to your Federal representative to raise awareness of Celiac and to urge them to cosponsor National Celiac Awareness legislation, HConRes. 110. It'll only took me 1 minute to enter my info and click "submit."

Thanks, Y'All!

Karina, Thank You!

When I let the blog entries slide, I start to feel like I've let my obligations go...that I've been irresponsible with my self-appointed responsibilities. I have tons of recipes to post, yet I haven't seemed to get around to it much lately.

Then I saw a marvelous post from Karina's Kitchen. So marvelous that it's inspired me to log back into blogger and link to it, which as you know is a herculean effort next to the simplicity of ReTweeting. Karina explains in one handy post all the basics you need to know about going Gluten-Free.

Gluten Free Anna will return to its regularly scheduled recipe entries in May, which also happens to be Celiac Awareness Month. Thanks, Karina, for your wonderful post!

Tinkyada Rice Pasta

I have found it! The best GF pasta I've had to date. Tastes just like regular pasta, cooks al dente, and doesn't get all gloppy and gooey. I found a bag of Tinkyada Brown Rice Fusilli at Whole Foods. It struck me as overpriced when I bought it, but being on the hunt for GF replacements has made me willing to spend some money to find the right products. Folks, this is the real deal. I'm eager to try the lasagna noodles since I've not made or eaten lasagna since 2002.

Visit Tinkyada, try some of their pasta, and lemme know whatcha think.

Sweet Potato Dumplings

This Easter, we overate as usual. On the menu was root beer glazed ham, potatoes with swiss and white cheddar gratin, sweet potato dumplings, and three pea salad with creme fraiche vinaigrette. It was delicious and easy to make, plus we had leftovers for days.

The potatoes gratin and the three pea salad must be future blog entries, but here is the recipe for the sweet potato dumplings, adapted to be gluten free from my favorite cookbook of 2008, Screen Doors and Sweet Tea. Buy this cookbook, people. It is food genius in every way.


Sweet Potato Dumplings

3 large sweet potatoes
2-3 cups GF flour mix
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground pepper
2 sticks of butter
2 tablespoons fresh sage, chopped
2 tablespoons grated parmesan cheese for dusting

Bake sweet potatoes in oven at 375 for about 40 minutes. Let the potatoes cool until you can peel them easily. Put the flesh of the potatoes into a large bowl to mash or put through a ricer. Bring a large pot of water to boil while prepping the dumplings.

Combine 2 cups of the GF flour, salt, and nutmeg with the potatoes, mixing well. Keep adding GF flour as needed until your potato dough can be separated into dumpling balls. The dough will be sticky as GF flour tends to gum things up. This is just fine, as the dumplings will solidify when you boil them. Separate the dough into dumpling balls, about one and a half inches in diameter.

Line a baking sheet with a dish towel. Drop half the dumplings into the boiling water (not overcrowding the pot), then reduce the heat and simmer for 4-5 minutes. Once the dumplings rise to the surface, remove them with a slotted spoon and place on dish towel on the baking sheet. Allow water to return to a full boil and repeat process with the remaining dumplings.

In a large skillet, brown the butter, then stir in the pepper and sage. Add in the dumplings, gingerly turning them to coat the dumplings with the butter and sage. Slightly brown the dumplings, about 3-5 minutes. Put dumplings and butter sage sauce in serving bowl and dust with the parmesan cheese. Serve immediately.

March Grocery Store Spending

Not as bad as I anticipated, actually. But still up 32% from February's tally.

Total March grocery store tally: $665.25.

April looks to be an even higher tally, but I have crock pot cookery, house guests, and dinner parties to show for my spending. I have been making the fam eat leftovers every day for lunch, and planning dinners ahead of time so I'm not tempted to bail and head to the nearest Thai place.

In fact, it's time for a leftovers lunch of turkey tacos and pulled pork.

Four Days of Crock Pot Cookery: Pulled Pork BBQ

Finally took the $17 plunge and bought a lovely red crock pot from Target Monday morning. What ensued was four days of crock pot cookery, which made so many delicious meals for the fam, I'm gonna be reheating leftovers for three more days.

After posting the progress on Twitter, I heard clamoring in particular for the pulled pork recipe. So here it is...get thee to Ralph's to get a decent pork butt or shoulder roast (I had no luck at Trader Joe's or How's). Ask the butcher to hook you up with a 3-4 lb boneless pork butt (or shoulder) roast. You can go up to 5-6 pounds if you have a larger crock pot. Mine is only 4 quarts, so the 4 lb roast fit perfectly. If you are unsure if your herbs and spices and sauces are GF, go ahead and order them from GlutenFree.com just to be safe. I adapted this recipe from the little booklet that comes with the crock pot.

Pulled Pork BBQ

3-4 pound boneless pork butt roast
2 medium onions, sliced

2 tablespoons brown sugar
1 tablespoon paprika
2 teaspoons salt
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground pepper

3/4 cup apple cider vinegar
4 teaspoons GF Worcestershire sauce
1 teaspoon red pepper flakes
2 teaspoons sugar
1/2 teaspoon dry mustard
1/2 teaspoon garlic salt
1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper

1/4 - 1/2 cup of your favorite GF BBQ sauce
Coleslaw
Cornbread
Pickles
GF Hamburger Buns if you like a pulled pork sandwich

Place sliced onions at the bottom of the crock pot stoneware insert.

Combine brown sugar, paprika, salt & pepper into a dry rub. Rub all over the roast. Place roast over the onions in the crock pot.

Combine vinegar, Worcestershire sauce, red pepper flakes, sugar, mustard, garlic salt, and cayenne, whisking well to blend. Drizzle one half of vinegar mixture onto roast, reserving remaining vinegar mixture in the fridge.

Cover the crock pot and cook on Low for 10-12 hours. During the last half of cooking, drizzle on the remaining half of the vinegar mixture.

Remove pork and onions to a bowl to shred the pork with two forks. Pour on your favorite BBQ to taste. I'm from the Eastern South, so I prefer a wet BBQ, not that smoky, dry flavor you get in Texas (don't go apeshit on me now, GF Texans). Put the bottle of BBQ sauce on the table so that people can dress their meat as they see fit. Serve as sandwiches, with coleslaw and pickles as you like. A 4 lb roast should yield 16-20 sandwiches.

Writing this makes me wanna go eat one. Lordy.

Yankee Cornbread & Muffin Mix

There's a reason why this mix is always sold out...because it's delicious. Goes perfect with my crock pot cookery that has become my new obsession this week. Crock pot posts to follow.

Easy Chocolate Souffles

Under the weight of all the crap I pile onto these souffles, it's no wonder they flatten almost immediately. I've been making these souffles since 2002 when I first heard the words, "you have celiac," and they've become my go-to dessert for company since no one seems to notice there's no gluten kicking around in the recipe, they taste delicious, and most importantly, I can eat them.

Easy Chocolate Souffles

1 stick of salted butter, cut into pieces, plus extra to grease muffin pan
5 oz semi-sweet or dark chocolate, coarsely chopped
1/4 cup of sugar, plus extra for dusting the muffin tin
4 egg yolks
2-3 egg whites (depending on how much you'd like your souffles to rise)
Heavy whipping cream, strawberries, vanilla ice cream for serving.

1. Preheat oven to 350. Grease a muffin pan well with butter, and then lightly sprinkle with sugar.

2. Melt butter pieces and chocolate pieces carefully over low heat in a saucepan (or a double broiler if you have one). Once butter and chocolate are melted, immediately remove from heat.

3. Whisk together the 4 egg yolks with the 1/4 cup of sugar in a large bowl. Whisk in the melted chocolate/butter mixture until thoroughly blended.

4. In a separate medium bowl, beat egg whites to stiff peaks. Gently fold egg whites into the large bowl of remaining ingredients.

5. Pour mixture evenly into greased muffin pan. Bake for 20-25 minutes until souffle rises and looks crispy on the outside. Serve warm with ice cream, whipped cream, fruit, or whatever strikes your fancy!

Lucifer's Pizza in Los Feliz

Have found mecca in Los Angeles for GF pizza. Lucifer's Pizza ships in a GF dough, don't know where from, and it's better tasting than any crust I've found or made thus far. I ordered a basic pepperoni pizza as well as one of their fancy pizzas, the roast pumpkin and prosciutto pizza. Both were amazing. The dough is a thin crust, but it doesn't get soggy, and it actually has some chewyness on the edges like a regular thin crust pizza would. I was very impressed with their level of service and sensitivity to the GF predicament. Jane was the name of the woman working there when we went, and she was very on top of things--correctly marking boxes, for example, is very important when we're ordering 5 pizzas, 3 of which are GF.

Here are the deets:

Lucifer's Pizza

1958 Hillhurst Ave
Los Angeles, CA 90027

(323) 906-8603‎

Go there.

Free Radio Trailer

Free Radio premieres tomorrow night, Thursday 4/2 on VH1 at 11pm EST.

VH1 TV Shows | Music Videos | Celebrity Photos | News & Gossip