Favorite Winter Recipes for a Gluten-Free Diet

Warm up Winter with cozy gluten-free recipes.

Cook Up a Lustrous, Cozy Winter

Karina's Best

Gluten-Free Wheat-Free

Recipes

Cozy up and find sustenance with my updated collection of favorite winter recipes, from classic comfort food like gluten-free mac and cheese, to nourishing slow-cooked stews and hearty healing soups that warm you body and soul. From cider roasted vegetables and turkey enchiladas to holiday goodies like Flourless Chocolate Cake, and Gingersnap Stars, you'll find plenty of winter favorites to keep you well fed.

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Gluten-Free Chocolate Layer Cake

A rich, devil's food style chocolate layer cake for the holidays.

Angel Food, Devil's Style...

Sharing food in winter is one of life’s quiet joys. As poet Edith Sitwell noted, “Winter is the time for comfort, for good food and warmth, for the touch of a friendly hand and for a talk beside the fire: it is the time for home.”

I contemplate her words and feel an ache that is dangerously flirting with longing. As we invest more and more of our (fleeting, precious!) time into our virtual lives, connecting not by touch or even by voice, but via endless shallow streams of social media- texting, downloading, uploading, scrolling through visual tidbits of other people’s lives (often strangers), privy to their breakfast, their political opinions, and goofy pictures of Fido and Kitty- I yearn to throw a party. To embrace the old fashioned ritual of baking from scratch, lighting candles, and inviting some human beings over for an evening of conversation and real time companionship.

Laughter and chocolate cake are good medicine, feeding not only our sweet tooth, but our sun deprived spirit as well. The spirit of connectivity, friendship and inclusion.

Yet for those of us living gluten-free (and dairy-free), the deep mid-winter season- with its twinkling celebrations centered around sharing food- too often feels the opposite of convivial. It feels gated. Off limits.

Look. Don't touch. Or taste. Smile graciously.

When you need not be hyper-vigilant about each and every forkful, the food centric holidays are, as the saying goes, a piece of cake. But to those of us with celiac disease and dairy allergies, a table heaped with food (glorious food) is a big steaming reminder of how different we are, a symbol of separation. Of not belonging.

This is when a gluten-free dairy-free chocolate layer cake is more than just dessert. It is a marvelous, beautiful thing. Bordering on luxurious.

Because to indulge (and share food) without worry is a true gift.

So pick a date. Text family and friends an invite. Or pick up the phone and call. Fire up your oven. Gather plates and candles.

Conviviality, connection, and cake await.


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Lemon-Iced Ginger Thins

A holiday cookie for grown-ups. Ginger thins with lemon icing.

Thin and Sweet Winter Treat

Indulge me a little, won't you? I promise it won't hurt a bit. This week I'm sharing a wonderful gluten-free wheat-free Christmas cookie recipe I created for Allergic Living magazine last year. A recipe too good not to post here on the blog and share online. Some of you Allergic Living readers may remember it. It is a lovely, crispy-chewy ginger cookie with lemon icing. There is a slight change in the recipe. I've switched out the brown rice flour for sorghum flour- a gluten-free wheat-free flour I much prefer.

We are still settling in to our Connecticut abode. Gearing up for our first winter in three years- since Northern New Mexico. Unpacking books. And art supplies. Installing a wall easel in the studio. Hanging a pine wreath. Watching for chickadees. Anticipating the coming Winter Solstice.

Moving into Winter- and the darkest weeks of the year- from sun abundant Los Angeles is both surreal and invigorating. Embracing change. Welcoming the new. Dreaming of what the New Year will bring us.

It's all good.


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Easy Vegetarian Minestrone

Easy Vegetarian Minestrone

This is an easy toss-together soup, perfect for rainy or damp weather. Serve with grated Parmesan, or make pesto toasts - gluten-free toast triangles with a dab of basil pesto.

Ingredients:

4 cups low sodium V8 juice or tomato-vegetable juice
3 cups water
1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
1 medium sweet or red onion, diced
3 cloves garlic, minced
3 carrots, medium, chopped
1 cup cubed butternut squash
1 cup fresh green beans, trimmed, cut
1 zucchini, medium, halved lengthwise, sliced into half moons
1 14-oz can chick peas, or white beans, drained, rinsed
2 teaspoons dried Italian Herbs- oregano/thyme/basil/marjoram
1 bay leafPinch of sea salt and ground pepper, to taste
A dash of balsamic vinegar, to taste
Fresh basil, chopped, for serving

Optional additions:

• Add roasted corn, chopped green chiles, cubed potatoes or parsnips, celery or jicama

• Add a pinch of raw sugar or agave nectar if the broth is too acidic

• Add more water, if necessary

• Add a splash of red wine

Instructions: 

Heat a large soup kettle (heavy bottomed pot) on medium heat and saute the onion in olive oil until transparent. Add the rest of the ingredients and stir. Cover and bring to a high simmer; then reduce heat to simmer the soup for about 45 minutes until the vegetables are tender.

Taste for seasoning adjustments.

This soup tastes better the second day, as the flavors mingle and develop.

Serves 4.

Recipe Source: glutenfreegoddess.blogspot.com

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Gluten-Free Cornbread Stuffing + Roasted Squash

Maple Roasted Acorn Squash Two Ways- Stuffed + Unstuffed (Cornbread Stuffing)

While we're all adjusting to turning the clocks back (excuse me while I yawn), I thought I'd reprise two Thanksgiving friendly recipes today. Both recipes are redolent with old fashioned autumnal goodness. Warm and subtle spices. Maple. Apple. It doesn't get any comfy-cozier.

First up is an easy, favorite side dish of mine- maple roasted acorn squash (and it's vegan, therefore perfect for those of you sharing your humble meal with vegetarian and dairy-free guests). The second dish is one of my oldest tried and true recipes.

It is from my very first Thanksgiving as a married woman, in fact.

We won't discuss how long ago that was, Darling, but I will admit it was way back with Husband Number #1 (it being first and all). I was anxious to do it up with style on my first Thanksgiving (as any blushing bride would be) and had the sudden inspiration to use cornbread and apples as a stuffing instead of the traditional- and familial on both sides- bagged white bread and sage dressing. And then I added curry. Maybe that's when they began to notice I wasn't exactly a dyed-in-the-wool Pilgrim-esque kind of girl.

I'm not at all certain Husband #1 cared for it.

Husband #2 is a huge cornbread fan. And a curry fan.

Coincidence?


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Gluten-Free Pumpkin Donuts

Tender and light, gluten-free pumpkin donuts, darling.

Pumpkin Crazy

You might think I'm on a pumpkin bender, glancing through recent recipes here on Gluten-Free Goddess®. And you'd be right. I do this. Every October. I go on one long, crazy, pumpkin love affair. I am head-over-heels nuts about it. Because pumpkin is magic. In fact, if pumpkin was in a fairy tale, it would be the Fairy Godmother- not the humble buggy. It makes gluten-free baking transform, you see, as if touched by a star-tipped sparkling wand.

That's why I knew I had to tackle pumpkin donuts. Because donuts can be tough to replicate gluten-free. But I knew pumpkin would bring me luck, and sprinkle good fortune on my baking endeavors today. So, yes. I am pumpkin crazy. Crazy in love.

And you know what?

If pumpkin be the food of love, play on.

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Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies

Fabulous pumpkin cookies, gluten-free + delicious.

My restless spirit has been wandering far and wide and away from dreams of butternut chili and baked rice casseroles toward the tempting, sweeter things in life. As in cookies. Like the character Ana Pascal confesses in one of my favorite movies, Stranger Than Fiction, I decided that if I was going to help make the world a better place this week, I'd do it with cookies.

So today's post, Dear Reader, is brief and sweet. Just like the treat I baked this weekend when I began with the idea of a pumpkin cookie. I craved something different than my Pumpkin Pecan Cookies and my nutmeg icing drizzled Pumpkin Quinoa Cookies. I craved dark chocolate. And peanut butter. So I threw them in the bowl with pumpkin and coconut flour and, well.

There was a happy ending to the story.


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