Vegan Baking Cheat Sheet

Karina's Vegan Baking Cheat Sheet

Baking gluten-free and vegan translates to one simple truth that is hard to teach. Because it can only be learned by experience. This one simple truth?

Unlearn everything you think you know- or thought you understood- about baking.

All those mandatory Home Economics classes about kneading bread dough for ten minutes to improve elasticity or leavening a cake with beaten egg whites won't help your inner Betty Crocker to bloom if you're gluten-free and vegan. In fact, clinging to old notions about what works- and what doesn't- might lead you down a rather prickly circuitous path to ruin. Not to mention, your personal Culinary Museum of Failure. But don't let this bare bones truth inhibit you.

In fact, let it free you.

Embrace your unlearning. Cast your tightly gripped assumptions about butter and cream and spelt and yolks out the kitchen screen door. Give them a boot. Wish them Vaya con Dios, because Kansas, Dorothy, is going bye bye. Welcome to Oz.

Some gluten-free folks bake vegan for ethical reasons- they don't eat anything with a face. Others are dairy-free or egg-free due to additional food allergies (common among celiacs and those on the neuro-diverse autism spectrum).

Whatever your reasons for baking g-free vegan, I welcome you with open arms. I've been baking without gluten for seven-plus years. And June 2009 marks my second anniversary for baking strictly vegan- no dairy, no eggs, and just to keep life interesting, no soy. Or beans. My body is less than fond of anything in the legume family. That's why you won't find me using tofu, soy milk or chick pea flour in my recipes. (But if they float your boat, have at 'em.)

One important note about gluten-free treats and ingredients-

My philosophy is that a treat should taste like a treat- especially if you bake with a limited palate. For sweetening I use organic golden brown sugar. I don't pretend my Buckwheat Chocolate Chip Cookie is health food. It's a cookie. If you need to balance your diet, make a soup chock full of seasonal veggies. Eat a crisp green salad topped with hemp or salba seeds. Whip up a fruit smoothie with rice protein powder. And if you crave a cookie, then go enjoy a cookie. Take a walk. Stretch. Breathe. A little sugar is not going to hurt you- unless you need to eat low glycemic; the choice then, is to use organic raw agave nectar (basically, fructose, which is metabolized by the liver and impacts blood sugar with less of a bang). But- and you suspected there was a but, right?- too much agave, like too much sugar, isn't necessarily a "healthier choice", either. Fructose- in any form- is still sugar, and should be enjoyed in moderation.

In the spirit of moderation, I follow two approaches- a traditional Mediterranean Diet approach to cooking that emphasizes extra virgin olive oil as the main fat (I use olive oil in place of butter as an Italian inspired bread dip, drizzled on baked potatoes, and whisked in salad dressings), plenty of fresh vegetables,  gluten-free whole grains, and garlic with herbs. In cooking I use a higher smoke point avocado oil. The second approach I favor is a fusion of Asian and California vegan cooking that features fresh stir-fries, rice, and rice noodles, Thai-inspired sauces with coconut milk, salads, seaweed, non-GMO organic tofu, soaked nuts and vegetarian sushi.

For shortening in baking I use raw organic coconut oil, or sometimes Spectrum Organic Shortening made from palm oil. If you can use one of the organic non-trans fat vegan margarine spreads on the market, they should work in my recipes as long as the blend is suitable for baking (some light blends contain too much water for use in baking or cooking).

I'm starting to experiment with more nut flours and coconut flour in baking. If you'd like to add a nut flour to your g-free flour mix, feel free to replace 1/4 to 1/2 cup of one of the higher protein flours I use (such as quinoa or buckwheat) with nut meal or coconut flour. Note: nut meals create a chewier texture; and coconut flour absorbs liquid, so use less liquid with coconut flour, or the result will be heavy.

Karina's Vegan G-Free Baking Cheat Sheet

My favorite protein rich gluten-free flours in vegan baking:

Sorghum flour
Almond flour
Hazelnut flour
Buckwheat flour

Millet flour

Quinoa flour
Brown rice flour

Coconut flour

More choices:

Cornmeal (certified GF)
Teff flour
Amaranth flour

Chick pea and bean flours

Soy flour

A blend of at least two gluten-free flours is best. Add a little starch or two to help the heavier g-free flours rise and stretch. In summer heat and humidity keep flours stored in the fridge (bean and brown rice flours especially can spoil quickly).

Starches for lightness and stretch:

Arrowroot starch

Potato starch (NOT potato flour)

Tapioca starch

Cornstarch

Add some flaxseed meal for fiber.

You need a gum:

In gluten-free baking, xanthan gum helps add viscosity and stretchy give to batters and doughs. Some folks are highly suspicious of xanthan gum, a mold derived additive grown on cellulose (usually corn), but to me, xanthan isn't all that scary; it is odorless and tasteless (if it isn't, you've got a bad batch). It doesn't come cheap; but a bag will last you for months; store it in the fridge.

For those who can handle legumes, guar gum is a cheaper, similar binding product made from guar beans. Note: those with sensitive digestion may react to guar gum (some report it works as a laxative).

For those of you baking gum-free, one alternative is to add a tablespoon of arrowroot starch to your basic g-free flour mix. It doesn't exactly replicate the viscosity that xanthan gum gives dough and batters, but. Hey. It helps. Flax seed gel helps a bit, as well.

Replacing eggs:

For most egg-free recipes, I use powdered Ener-G Egg Replacer mixed with warm water. 1 tablespoon powdered replacer whisked with 4 tablespoons warm water equals 2 eggs. This works in cakes, cookies, muffins, and breads. It does not replace eggs in a custard based recipe, unfortunately.

If avoiding corn or potato starch, substitute 1 tablespoon tapioca starch or arrowroot starch plus 3 tablespoons water for each egg called for in recipe to help binding. You will need to increase leavening a bit to compensate; add 1/4 teaspoon baking powder.

Flax seed is a choice (for those not allergic to flax seeds). Use two tablespoons ground flax meal plus 1/8 teaspoon baking powder blended with 3 tablespoons of water for each egg called for in recipe.

Chia seeds can also- theoretically- be used as a gel for gluten-free baking. From the genus Salvia hispanica, chia is a plant in the Mint family- an excellent alternative for those of us allergic to flax seed.Just be careful it doesn't make the batter too gummy. Bake thoroughly.

Banana: Try a half mashed ripe banana plus 1/4 teaspoon baking powder for each egg.

Mayo: Use 3 tablespoons vegan mayonnaise in place of one egg, for binding. I would add a little extra leavening- 1/4 teaspoon baking powder.

Tofu: Try using 1/4 cup silken tofu for one egg for binding; I would add a little extra leavening- 1/4 teaspoon baking powder.

Replacing Dairy:

This is the easiest part of vegan baking. Use your favorite non-dairy milk alternative in place of milk. To create a sour buttermilk taste, add a 1/2 teaspoon of fresh lemon juice or light tasting vinegar to the non-dairy milk. Or add a tablespoon of Vegenaise. You can also use juice- in an apple cake or muffin, try apple juice or cider. In cakes and scones try orange juice, pineapple juice, or pear juice.

For replacing yogurt, any g-free non-dairy yogurt should work.

Replacing butter:

As mentioned above in the introduction, I use light olive oil or organic coconut oil in baking and it works like a charm (as well as being good for you). Start with LESS oil than the butter called for. At least 1 to 3 tablespoons less.

Other choices include Spectrum Organic Shortening (you can sub one to one for butter), or grapeseed oil, canola and safflower oil (use less than the amount of butter called for).

Fruit puree can also work as a fat sub, but some tinkering may be necessary. Start with only subbing half the fat and go slow. Mix up the batter and make sure it's not too heavy. Applesauce, pumpkin, squash and sweet potato puree can all add low fat body to batters and breads. You may have to compensate for the added flavor- use extra spice (ginger, cinnamon) or more vanilla extract. Choose your pairings for compatibility- stronger tastes like sweet potato go better with deeper flavors like molasses, ginger and pie spices, for instance.

Storing G-Free Vegan Baked Goods

Freeze it. If you're not eating all of it, it's best to slice, wrap in foil, bag, and freeze it. Even cookies. It seems like a pain to do this for simple things like cookies and brownies, but it's worth the effort. It will keep your goodies fresh. And one advantage is you'll have a store of ready-to-go treats on hand.

Troubleshooting in vegan g-free baking:

The cake or bread did not rise; or it rose and fell:

Too much liquid and not enough structure (sugar is structure, if you lessen it or replace it with agave, your batter may be too wet or too gummy), or too much leavening (it rose too fast then collapsed). Try using less liquid.

The oven temperature was too high or too low (every oven has its own personality). Test your oven with an oven thermometer- you might be surprised.

The pan was too small. If there is too much batter in a pan, the middle is thicker and takes longer to bake.

The pan was too big. A larger pan than called for results in a thinner, flatter end result.

You used frozen fruit and the batter got cold. Or you chill your flours or liquid ingredients; next time bring all ingredients to room temperature; use hot liquid.

Or mix your batter and let it sit for ten minutes.

Tips:

Batters should resemble slightly thicker, stickier versions of their wheat based counterparts. If a batter is too thin, add more g-free flour (not starch). If a batter is too thick add a tablespoon of warm water at a time until it reaches the right consistency. How will you know it when you see it? After baking awhile, you will develop an intuition about batters, and how they behave in your oven, at your altitude, season, and weather.

Karina's Notes on gluten-free vegan batter:

Gluten-free vegan batters are a tad different than wheat and white flour batters. They are stiffer at first, then stretch and get sticky as the xanthan gum and egg replacer do their thing.

If the batter "climbs" the beaters, slow down the speed and slightly lift the beaters to encourage the batter to move back down into the bowl. Move your beater around the bowl in figure eights, at a slight angle. Practice your technique- soon you'll be winging around gluten-free vegan baking like a pro.

Vegan G-free Dough:

Yeasted g-free bread dough (and pizza dough) is less like traditional dough and more resembles a thick cake batter; you spread it with wet hands or spatula. If it's too thick, I find the loaf turns out too dense. Check the consistency while mixing and adjust the wet to dry ratio if you need to.

Weather and humidity can influence dough; I find I need to tweak dough from time to time- adding an extra tablespoon of warm water if it's too thick, or a tablespoon of sorghum flour if it's too thin- like a thin cake batter. It needs to be more like thick cake or muffin batter.

If the weather is very humid, use less honey or agave- they are both humectant and attract moisture. Use less liquid as well- too much liquid makes a loaf gummy or sunken.

Use metal pans for baking. I use (Chicago Metallic).

If you use glass baking pans, read the manufacturer's guidelines for glass pans; you may need to alter oven temperature by lowering it 25 degrees F.

I don't care for silicone baking pans. I'm not sure gluten-free flours do either.

Trouble: The cake, bread, cookie, muffin wasn't done in the center; or it was gummy in the center.

Check the cake, bread etc before removing it from the oven. If the center of a cake, muffin or bread is soft, wiggly or depressed, bake it longer until it is firm to a light touch. Don't be afraid to bake it for another ten minutes or more if it needs it.

Test with a wooden pick. It should be clean when it's done.

Note that every oven is slightly different, and your oven temperature may be hotter or cooler than mine; adjust the baking times to your oven. If you consistently need 5 extra minutes baking time, expect that. Or if you seem to need less, check for doneness sooner.

High altitude baking needs longer baking times. Some egg-free recipes, such as brownies, are really tough to bake at high altitude. You might try increasing oven temperature by 25 degrees F.

Your pan might be too large, or the batter too wet.

Using seed gels for an egg replacer can produce a gummy center. Even hemp seed "milk" might do this.

Too much fruit puree, frozen fruit, or too much liquid can all produce a gummy center.

I find that agave increases moisture in a recipe- like honey, it's a humectant. If the center is gummy, cut back on the agave- especially if it's humid.

Tips:

Measure the dry ingredients with dry nested cups - not glass liquid measuring cups.

Measure wet ingredients in glass measuring cups for liquid- not dry nested cups (there is a difference in volume!).

Spoon or pour dry ingredients into dry measuring cups and level off- do not scoop the cup into the flour bag.

Make sure your ingredients are room temperature.

Let your batter or dough rest after mixed. Gluten-free flours often benefit from a little extra batter time. Let the batter sit in the baking pan ten minutes before baking it.

If cookies spread too rapidly, chill dough for an hour first. Try using a silicone baking sheet liner. Try using a dark metal cookie sheet.

Weather affects ingredients. Flours can absorb humidity. Storing them in the fridge also adds dampness. You may need to use less liquid on rainy or humid days. Start with two tablespoons less.

For more baking tips on substitutions see this extensive post on G-Free Baking + Cooking for Food Allergies.

The Vegan Baking Cheat Sheet is © 2009 Gluten-Free Goddess. All rights reserved.

Gluten-Free Pizza Flatbread with Roasted Vegetables

An easy gluten-free pizza flatbread topped with roasted veggies.

Flatbread Topped With Roasted Veggies

I've been offering up picnic food recipes this week because we're eating easy picnic style here in the final countdown phase of leaving for our summer adventure in Los Angeles. Only four remaining stacks of books to box, a tilting fence of wet paintings to frame, and the all important decision of which t-shirts, pots and kitchen power tools to pack stand in the way of our coffee fueled departure early next week.

I am reminded of the opening scene of A Walk on the Moon where Pearl and Lilian Kantrowitz are cramming the family car with colanders and tablecloths and onions and potato peelers. Kitchen stuff for their summer cabin in the Catskills. Such a production this is. Planning ahead for gluten-free snacks on the road (chocolate cupcakes are a must, and popcorn) and an easy microwavable supper for the hotel in Arizona (I'm thinking I'll freeze some of my favorite Mac and Cheese). We still don't have a rental lined up. And the storms knocked out our Internet this week. I'm lucky to be on at all tonight.

So yours truly has been running out of steam by cocktail hour, whipped not only by the attention-to-detail process of organizing two lives and shedding old stuff, but by the monsoon season thunderstorms growling across the Chama River in the afternoons, sending wind and rain and howling coyotes up the mesa. And knocking out our web access.

So forgive me if I have not responded to a comment or a question. I haven't been on-line much. I've been a total social network slacker stranded out here in the wilds. Cooking up flatbreads and Buckwheat Chocolate Chip Cookies between rinsing out empty shampoo bottles. Thinking of you.

Hoping you're having a wonderful week!

Karina's Gluten-Free Pizza Flatbread Recipe Topped with Roasted Vegetables

Originally posted May 2009.

Millet flour gives this chewy Italian flatbread a delicate nutty flavor. I also add plenty of minced onion, garlic and dried herbs to the dough to kick it up. Why not?

Ingredients:

1 cup GF millet flour or brown rice flour

1 cup sorghum flour

1/2 cup tapioca starch (tapioca starch gives it a crusty bite)

1/2 cup potato starch (not potato flour!)

1 teaspoon sea salt

1 tablespoon minced onion

2 teaspoons minced garlic

1 teaspoon chopped rosemary

1 teaspoon thyme

2 1/2 teaspoons active dry yeast

5 tablespoons olive oil

1 tablespoon honey or raw organic agave nectar

1/4 teaspoon light, mild vinegar

1 cup hot water (115 degrees F)

Instructions:

Preheat the oven to 400ºF. Lightly oil a large round pizza pan or baking sheet and dust it with a little cornmeal or rice flour.

In a large mixing bowl whisk the millet flour, sorghum flour and starches with salt, onion, garlic, herbs and yeast. Make a well in the center of the dry ingredients and add the olive oil, honey, vinegar and hot water. Mix with a wooden spoon until you get a dough that is more like a thick cake batter than a standard flatbread dough. It will be wet and sticky.

Scoop out the dough onto the prepared baking pan and using hands shape and press the dough into an even, flat round (or rectangular) shape. Smooth with wet fingers. Set the dough aside to rest and roast your vegetables.

Cut up an assortment of your favorite seasonal vegetables and toss them into a bowl. We used red onion, yellow pepper, Baby Bella mushrooms, asparagus, and grape tomatoes. Add chopped garlic and Italian herbs like thyme, oregano, basil, marjoram. Season with sea salt and pepper. If you like it hot, toss in a few red pepper flakes. Drizzle with a little olive oil and toss the vegetables to coat. Dump them into a roasting pan (or on to a baking sheet) and spread them out in an even layer.

Bake in the center of the hot oven for 15 to 20 minutes until tender crisp. They don't have to be completely cooked, just softened a bit.

Remove the pan from the oven and lower the oven temperature to 375 degrees F.

Brush the flatbread with a drizzle of olive oil and sprinkle some sea salt over the top. Pre-bake the crust for about 7 to 10 minutes. You want to be somewhat firm and no longer sticky.

Remove the pan from the oven and spoon the roasted veggies all over the flatbread. Return the pan to the oven and bake until the dough is firm and slightly crisp. In my oven it was done after 18 minutes.

Slice with a pizza cutter and serve hot or at room temperature.

Add fresh chopped herbs just before serving- parsley, basil, mint, rosemary or cilantro.

Great picnic food- serve as an appetizer with a crisp green salad and a chilled glass of vino.

Makes 6 generous slices.

Recipe Source: glutenfreegoddess.blogspot.com

All images & content are copyright protected, all rights reserved. Please do not use our images or content without prior permission. Thank you. 

Easy Champagne Vinegar Red Potato Salad

No mayo in this classic potato salad. Nope. Nada. Zip.

Easy Vegan Bliss

For those of you looking for a mayo-free potato salad recipe, here's an easy, tasty picnic style salad seasoned with Champagne vinegar and tarragon. I plan on making potato salad several times this week. Picnic food- that's perfect for packing. Sorry for the alliteration. I blame excitement. Life is getting interesting again. We're living sans furniture now- except for a bed, desk and rug. The casita feels empty in a good way. Clean and spacious.

Inviting possibility.

Let's hope potential buyers feel the same way.

As for me, I'll be at the Santa Monica Farmer's Market a week from Wednesday (expect pictures). We don't know where we're staying yet. But if Craig's List is any indication, choices will be numerous. Until then?

Dinner will be picnic style.

READ MORE and get the recipe ...

Vegan Pasta Pie with Mushrooms, Garlic and Tomatoes

My vegan version of a savory pasta pie- 
no eggs, dairy or tofu. Seriously.

This savory pie recipe reminds me of a roasted vegetable frittata. Or my Roasted Vegetable Noodle Kugel, even. I invented it because I was craving a simple one-dish pie for supper- something easy and light and bordering on picnic food- with guaranteed leftovers. Because- and I tell you this with all the happy feet gyrations of a gypsy heart locked inside a hot flashing nest-eschewing body- we're boxing books again- we're storing art and family pictures and files and (most of) our movie collection. We're selling our furniture, consigning everything from roomy chairs and Mexican tables to Kilim pillows and punched tin mirrors. A truck arrives today to haul the lot to Santa Fe.

Even though the house has not sold.

READ MORE and get the recipe ...

Gluten-Free Strawberry Rhubarb Crisp

Gluten-free strawberry rhubarb crisp with a tangy twist.

Strawberry Rhubarb Crisp

When I was a little girl my favorite way to eat rhubarb was to snap off a stick in the back yard, run into the kitchen and dip the end into the sugar bowl, repeating the dipping process as needed to coat each tart and chewy bite with granular sweetness. In a post-Seinfeld world I risk being labeled a dreaded double dipper. And I admit up front, it's true.

I double dipped and triple dipped and lived to tell the tale.

Beyond childhood I never bothered much with rhubarb, except for tasting the occasional strawberry rhubarb crisp at someone else's family picnic. I was never much a fan of it cooked. Stewing and baking seemed to rob it of its charms, mocking my memory of those sugar coated crisp and sour stalks. The mush in the bottom of all those Pyrex baking pans was a sorry excuse for rhubarb, I thought. So recreating a rhubarb crisp recipe for living gluten-free was never glowing brightly on my cooking radar screen. It was never even the faintest of blips. I've been blogging for four rhubarb seasons now and haven't felt inspired to develop a recipe. Until now.

Why now, I've no idea. Perhaps it's because we're stuck out here in the desert, with nary a garden or bursting rhubarb patch in sight. Just rolling hills of crusty earth studded with brittle pinon and juniper trees, the oddball cholla, or tuft of tenacious sage. The words green and leafy don't exactly come to mind when you walk the dirt road to the arroyo.

So when I spotted a few lonely stalks of rhubarb in a basket at Whole Foods in Santa Fe- ruby red and sexy in their glistening rhubarb goodness- I thought, Why not attempt a strawberry rhubarb crisp recipe?

And because I'd asked myself out loud my husband said, You do realize you just asked three stalks of rhubarb if you should make them into a crisp?

Well, yeah, I shrugged back. I talk to my fruit.

Don't you?

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Snappy Crunchy Vegan Coleslaw

A tasty slaw recipe without a drop of mayo.

Crunchy Fresh + Raw

Here's a crisp and crunchy slaw recipe without a drop of mayo. That's what I'm craving. How about you? Stop by and share your favorite spring side dish recipe in comments.

From the archives: By April I'm itchy with anticipation. By May I'm storing sweaters and mittens. Winter is behind us. Spring is officially here. Days are longer, inch by inch. If not for juniper allergies I might even be out walking, testing out my new cocoa suede sneakers- albeit gently, Dear Reader, treading softly down our bumpy dirt road, shiny new walking cane in hand.

The craving for comfort food is fading. Slow cooked stews, Sweet Potato Shepherd's Pie, and bowls piled high with embarrassingly hefty mounds of gluten-free pasta are feeling a tad, well, bottom heavy. Thick. You know, like the more-than-an-inch pie roll I've acquired around my waist. My great grandmother Josefa would be kvelling, She no longer eats like a bird! (Yeah, well, that's obvious.)

And while I believe the Sweet Husband when he tells me he likes me with more meat on my bones- and who am I to complain about (finally!) absorbing food and calories after years of celiac malabsorption- your intrepid expanding goddess is simply hankering for lighter fare.

Something to perk up the taste buds.

Something with snap and crunch. Something fresh and green that makes you feel virtuous and light and happy to be alive with summer on its way.

READ MORE and get the recipe ...

Vegan Garden Loaf with Maple Apricot Glaze

Delicious vegan garden loaf with quinoa.

Go ahead and snicker. I'll wait. I'm fully aware that veggie loaves are the punch line for many a joke in Burger King sponsored sit-coms and pseudo-reality shows pitting sweaty cranky chefs against each other for the promise of fame and fortune. So do your thing. Snort. Sigh. Bare your teeth. I can handle it. 

Vegetarians and vegans endure more than their fair share of indiscreet eye-rolling.

I know this first hand. Because I've been a vegetarian and sometimes vegan for most of my life. Four decades. And after my medically recommended foray back into Omnivore Land (to jump start the healing of my broken hip) now that I am vertical and ambulatory without a cane I am once again whistling past the graveyard into familiar territory, leaving behind the protein I flirted with, listening to my body's need to get back to the garden, back to my first love, my culinary Eden. My natural preference, before The Fall.

I tell you this without judgment. 

I mention this without pressure of any kind. Seriously. I'm not proselytizing. Goddess knows, I understand better than most how hard it is to eat in this gluten infused world of ours without whittling down our choices even further. If you love your bacon and eggs, Babycakes, go rustle up some grub.

Gnaw on some haggis.

READ MORE and get the recipe ...

Gluten-Free Blueberry Brownie Bites

Tasty little vegan chocolate brownie bites.

Brownies with Blueberries

The idea for blueberry brownies came to me in the middle of shampooing my hair. I was thinking about a chocolate bar I'd seen the day before (what, you don't think about chocolate in the shower?). It was a slim dark chocolate confection with dried blueberries. I'm a fruit and chocolate combo fan, you see. I love berries and chocolate. Orange and chocolate. Pineapple and chocolate. Actually, is there anything that doesn't taste better with some chocolate on it?

Such are my ponderous meanderings.

I'm still waiting for my Babycakes cookbook to arrive (I pre-ordered it from Amazon) along with pastry bags and icing tips. Ever since my unexpected success developing my first gluten-free and vegan Orange Creme Cupcakes I've been dreaming up cupcake flavors and imagining sweet little gems galore. Although I was less than thrilled to learn that Babycakes bakery uses bean flours (yuck), soy milk powder (um, why?) and spelt (spelt is not gluten-free) in their recipes, I'm still stoked to get the book, hoping it will at least inspire my own gluten-free vegan beauties.

READ MORE and get the recipe ...

The G-Free Diet: An Opinion from Elaine Monarch, CDF

Tonight- like the many readers of the Celiac List-Serve- I received this letter from Elaine Monarch of the Celiac Disease Foundation. Because this letter accurately reflects my own view regarding the new book, The G-Free Diet, I am sharing this public letter with my readers.

Celiac Colleagues:

I am writing to call your attention to the current publicity surrounding the new book, The G-free Diet, A Gluten-Free Survival Guide by Elisabeth Hasselbeck, co-host of The View. While it is important to call attention to celiac disease, the information must be accurate - the inaccuracies in this book are potentially dangerous and detrimental to celiacs and to those yet to be diagnosed if people self diagnose and start eating GF. Our mission is to assist in getting people accurately diagnosed and the message in this book could defeat this mission. It appears that this book is being marketed as a fitness diet - eat g-free and feel so much better. Celiac is incorrectly referred to as an allergy not an autoimmune disease. The GF diet is the medically mediated prescription that controls the condition for a diagnosed celiac. Several items in the book are misleading and inaccurate and place further limitations on the GF diet. The gluten-free lifestyle is a lifelong commitment for the diagnosed celiac, not an option, not a fad diet - adhering to the GF lifestyle requires patience and persistence. This lifestyle can not be trivialized.

Thank you.

Elaine Monarch

Celiac Disease Foundation
Founder and Executive Director
13251 Ventura Blvd. Suite 1
Studio City, CA 91604

Roasted Yellow Tomato Salsa Recipe with Cilantro

Roasted Tomatoes Make Fabulous Salsa 

How am I occupying my fevered little brain as we wait (not so patiently) for more house showings? How do I keep my spirits up as we start this selling process all over again? I dream up recipes. I lay in bed at 3 AM with visions of salsa in my head. I conjure excuses for roasting yellow tomatoes.

I imagine frittatas with leftover pasta.

Vanilla cupcakes with mocha icing.

Pecan crackers.

This is my life. And it's ending one recipe at a time.

Sorry to get all Chuck Palahniuk on ya (and I admit up front this isn't a feel good post; though the recipe is party worthy I am in no particular mood to dance). One thing I know for sure is, that beyond a certain age, it becomes startlingly clear. Every season marks a passage, one more season closer to your last. We've spent eight seasons trying to sell this place. Two years out here in high desert isolation. Two summers, two winters trying to shed a mortgage so we can move on. Be near the sea again. Live close to book stores, cafes and Farmer's Markets. Chuck is right on ownership.

What you own ends up owning you.

A woman I used to know would offer platitudes in times like this. There's a reason you were supposed to stay here, she would have said. I always said nothing when she offered that as solace. I don't believe it, you see. I don't believe that the universe cares about my mortgage. I don't believe in a divine purpose that requires our presence here and not there. Have I learned from this experience? (This would be her follow-up consolation.) Yes. I have.

I have learned that ownership may indeed be overrated. That I value freedom of movement more than a piece of paper that names me as Buyer. I have learned that putting down roots may no longer be in my nature. I have learned that my body was not designed for high altitude living. I have learned not to set a speaker on the floor.

And I have learned how hard it really is to escape the template of childhood. Those emotional neural patterns designed in earlier seasons that baffle with their dug-in insistence on repeating, repeating. No matter how many books you read, how many dreams you dissect. Your fate is anchored not by your understanding but by every single snip of authenticity you endured for the sake of one more day. And so I am not anxious to sacrifice much more. I am gripping awareness and holding tight. I am not sure I won't make the same mistakes again.

But I am going to try on a new season. And I am going to hope.

READ MORE and get the recipe ...