Gluten-Free Christmas Pancakes
Have I told you lately how much I love cookie cutters? Well, I do and I use them for every single holiday to jazz up meals for my kiddos. And, they happen to love it as much as I do. This morning I give you a gluten-free gingerbread boy pancake and a Christmas tree pancake. I make all of our pancakes using Gluten-Free Pantry’s Muffin and Scone Mix. If you love cookie cutters as much as we do, please share your photos. Merry Christmas to all!
Gluten-Free Gingerbread Houses using GF Rice Crispy Cereal
I love traditions and the Christmas season is loaded with them for my family. One of my favorites is building Gingerbread Houses with my kids and my sister’s family every Christmas Eve.
Since the Gluten-Free Kid (GFK) is the oldest grandchild on both sides of our family, Gingerbread Night started with him 9 years ago. At that time, he had been diagnosed with food allergies to dairy, egg, peanut, soy and other foods so we were able to build our houses using graham crackers, frosting and safe candy. That went well until he was diagnosed with Celiac in 2004.
I remember worrying we would have a difficult time coming up with a gluten-free replacement for the graham crackers. After years of trial and error with various gluten-free cookies and crackers, my sister came up with the idea to make our houses out of Rice Krispy Treats, gluten-free, of course. Let me tell you these houses are better than the old ones! I make two trays of gluten-free Rice Krispy Treats using Erewhon Crispy Brown Rice Cereal and cut them up and assemble the houses for my three kids using Pillsbury dairy-free frosting. Sometimes, I add red and green food coloring or use Fruity Pebbles instead of plain gluten-free Rice Krispies. When we are ready to decorate the houses, I put out a selection of gluten-free, dairy free and nut free candies and frosting and the kids go to town! It is such a fun and JOYful tradition and it shows you that almost all things are possible, gluten-free or food allergies and all. Please share your favorite holiday traditions and how you have adapted them to be gluten-free or food allergy friendly below.
Gluten-Free Gingerbread House
Ingredients:
1/4 cup Smart Balance non-dairy butter
5 cups Kraft marshmallows
13 oz. Erewhon Crispy Brown Rice Gluten-Free Cereal
Pillsbury Frosting, dairy free
Safe Candies
Directions:
1. Melt butter in pan over low heat, add marshmallows and stir until completely melted. Remove from heat and stir in cereal. Mix well. Lay mixture out on greased flat baking sheet. Cool.
2. Cut mixture into rectangles and other shapes to form a gingerbread house. Glue walls of house together using frosting. Let dry.
3. Decorate with safe candies using frosting as the glue. Be sure to take a photo of the complete project to enjoy for years to come.
Gluten-Free Meringue Cookies
Another new gluten-free, dairy free product has been found, well maybe not new on the market but new to my family. The gluten-free kid (GFK) is 9 years-old now and I am having a blast watching his taste in food change and mature. This year his big favorite is anything with peppermint – candy canes, mints, meringue peppermint crunch cookies! Yes, he tried a bag of Miss Meringue‘s Peppermint Crunch Mini Cookies last week and the bag was gone within 24 hours. I ran back to our local grocery store yesterday to buy up a few more to get us through the Christmas season and the checkout lady was asking about them. You see, her grandson is gluten-free and dairy free and she is always on the lookout for tasty treats for him to enjoy. I explained to her how these tasty bite-sized treats are minty fresh and they melt in your mouth. She plans to give them a try and I hope you do too! Share your favorite gluten-free peppermint treat here.
Gluten-Free Christmas Gumdrop Pops
It’s the first day of December and we have our Christmas tree up, the lights hung and the Avent calendars are counting down the days until Santa visits. Now that most of the work is done it’s time for some Christmas fun, gluten-free of course. We got this idea for Gumdrop Pops from Martha Stewart and the kids had a blast with it.
Simply stack gumdrops into your favorite Christmas shapes and thread them onto a thin stirring straw. Squish the gumdrops, cut them or use other candies to make faces, etc. We made snowmen, santa’s, penguins, trees and much more. After all of our figures were complete, we stuck them into a gluten-free Fruity Pebble Treat.
Send me your pictures of what you create!
Crustless Gluten-Free, Dairy Free Pumpkin Pie
It’s the day before Thanksgiving and I will be busily working away in the kitchen today making loads of gluten-free, dairy free foods for the Gluten-Free Kid (GFK) to enjoy at our feast. While I still haven’t perfected a gluten-free pie crust, I have come pretty close with our pumpkin pie filling. So, if you still haven’t found a great crustless, gluten-free, dairy free and egg free pumpkin pie, give this one a try. Happy Gluten-Free Feasting!
Gluten-Free, Dairy Free Crustless Pumpkin Pie
Ingredients:
1 envelope unflavored gelatin
2/4 cup brown sugar
1 1/2 cups soymilk
1 15. oz can pumpkin
2 teaspoons pumpkin pie spice
5 oz. package instant vanilla pudding
1. In a small saucepan, combine gelatin and brown sugar. Stir in half the soymilk. Cook and stir oven medium heat until the gelatin is dissolved. Remove from heat, let cool for 10 minutes.
2. In a large mixing bowl, stir together pumpkin and spices. Stir the cooled gelatin mixture into pumpkin mixture. Chill until consistency of corn syrup, about an hour. In a mixing bowl, stir the vanilla pudding mix into the rest of the soymilk. Fold this into the gelatin-pumpkin mixture. Spoon the mixture into pie dish. Cover and chill in the fridge for at least 3 hours or until set. Sprinkle with additional spices and top with Soyatoo Soy Whip topping.
Gluten-Free, Dairy Free Pumpkin Doughnuts
With Thanksgiving only a week away, I have pumpkin pie spices and baked goods on my mind so when I learned that there was a birthday party in my 4 year-old’s pre-school class that I would need to supply a safe treat for I got excited. An excuse to come up with another “safe” treat. Even though my 4 year-old does eat gluten, I have made it a rule to only bake “safe” treats in our home that the Gluten-Free Kid (GFK) can enjoy as well.
Being a busy mom to three kiddos didn’t leave me a lot of time so I looked to my good friend Betty Crocker for some quick inspiration. I whipped up a box of Betty Crocker’s Gluten-Free Yellow Cake Mix with a cup of pumpkin and a dash of pumpkin pie spice. Then, instead of my usual cupcakes I baked these tasty morsels in my donut pan and we got sweet success! Gluten-Free, dairy free pumpkin cake donuts, yummy! The kids ate them plain for dessert last night and today I frosted one and decorated it with sprinkles so it looks like a typical bakery cake doughnut the other kids will be having at pre-school.
Eco-Planet Gluten-Free 7 Whole Grain Hot Cereal
Hot, steaming oatmeal. I grew up eating the tasty stuff with brown sugar most mornings. I have wonderful childhood memories about oatmeal. Then I had my own children and got them hooked too. I loved how healthy and filling and yummy this breakfast was. Until the Celiac diagnosis for my Gluten-Free Kid (GFK) back in 2004. We cut oatmeal out of our diets and tried to replace it with hot rice cereal, hot millet cereal and even amaranth. We also tried the gluten-free versions of safe oatmeal but it just wasn’t quite the same.
Well, that changed this week. Our newest find is Eco-Planet’s Gluten-Free 7 Whole Grain Hot Cereal. We tried the instant maple and brown sugar flavor with some warm rice milk to keep it dairy free. Heavenly! This cereal is packed with grains: mostly whole gluten-free oats but it also has buckwheat, sorghum, brown rice, puffed amaranth, quinoa and millet. It has 5 grams of protein per serving and 500 mg of Omega-3s and uses evaporated cane juice to naturally sweeten things up. Eco-Planet also offers original and apples and cinnamon versions that we are eagerly anticipating. Enjoy a bowl today!
Posted in GLuten-Free Product Recommendations
Tagged dairy-free, food allergies, gluten-free, Gluten-Free Kid
