Healthier Holidays

[MomtoGiuliana]

Any ideas for healthier (but still delicious) eating for the holidays?

I thought it might be fun to swap some more recipes.

This one is not necessarily quick, but has many healthful ingredients (of course not possible for those with celiac disease--sorry.) I am trying to vary my diet more--so I'd personally love to know of some good recipes that are wheat and gluten free.

This is from DrWeil.com:

Sesame-Almond Cookies

Almost everyone loves cookies. Most store bought varieties, though, are filled with partially hydrogenated oils and other undesirable ingredients. These tasty little cookies are actually made with olive oil and a host of other wholesome additions like tofu and chopped almonds. Enjoy a cookie with a cup of hot green tea.

3/4 cup whole-wheat pastry flour

3/4 cup unbleached white flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/8 teaspoon salt

1/4 cup sesame seeds, toasted

3/4 cup raw almonds, coarsely chopped

4 ounces silken tofu

1/2 cup light olive oil

3/4 cup light brown sugar, packed

1 tablespoon almond extract

1. Preheat oven to 350?F.

2. In a bowl, stir together the flours, baking powder and salt. Mix in the sesame seeds and chopped almonds.

3. In another bowl, mash the tofu and combine with the olive oil, sugar and almond extract. Mix well.

4. Using a rubber spatula, fold the wet ingredients into the flour mixture. Roll the mixture into 1-inch balls, flatten between your palms, and place them on ungreased baking sheets. Bake the cookies about 10 minutes, until the edges begin to brown. Remove from the cookie sheet and cool on a rack.

Makes 4 dozen

Per cookie

Calories: 86.1

Protein: 1.1 grams

Fat: 6.4 grams

Saturated Fat: 0.8 grams

Monounsat Fat: 4.4 grams

Polyunsat Fat: 0.8 grams

Carbohydrate: 6.7 grams

Fiber: 0.6 grams

Cholesterol: 0.0 mg

Vitamin A: 2.5 IU

Vitamin E: 1.0 mg/IU

Vitamin C: 0.0 mg

Calcium: 11.3 mg

Magnesium: 13.5 mg

[DancingLight]

katherine!!!

what i REALLY, REALLY, REALLY want is a recipe for GLUTEN-FREE, DAIRY-FREE pumpkin pie!!! i have searched and searched for one...anyone here know how to do this????? i'm going nuts for pumpkin pie! is this even possible? even my mom can't solve this cooking puzzle!

i keep thinking, honestly, with all the healthy food i eat...i should be soooo healthy! fruits, veggies, no processed food, etc. etc. well, even if i didn't feel great for my reunion, i guess at least i looked good huh? from all that healthy food.

so, when i have so more energy, i suppose i oughta get out the recipes for my healthy stuff huh? my mom is the queen of healthy cooking! she really could have made a career out of cooking i think! i am so spoiled. but alas, she decided to be a sociologist instead!

goodnight,

emily

[Gena]

Emily,

I found this pumpkin pie recipe online...It's gluten and dairy free.

I've never tried this recipe, but it sounded good. ( i usually make a GF pumpkin filling, but I do use condensed milk, and I make GF pie crust using mix I buy at the health food store). However, if you try this recipe, let me know how it turns out. (By the way, regarding your post about always eating and not gaining weight...that's me too. I would love to be able to put on a few pounds, but I guess our bodies burn up the calories too fast! I do work out 3-4 times a week though. It helps to regulate my heart and just makes my body feel normal, but alas I digress...back to the recipe...

HONEY PUMPKIN PIE

No Added Fat, Sugar-Free, Wheat-Free, Milk-Free

Utensils needed: One bowl, spoon, measuring cups, grinder for walnuts,

9 inch deep dish glass pie pan.

Preheat Oven 400? F

Pie Crust

1 cup Quaker quick oats (or generic) Note: For those with Celiac, You may omit the oats and use all nuts

1/8 teaspoon salt

1 cup finely chopped walnuts

1/3 cup honey

1/8 teaspoon cinnamon

1 tablespoon real maple syrup

Directions: In a bowl, mix all ingredients well. Mixture will be sticky. Lightly spray a 9 inch or so, deep dish glass pie pan with Pam spray or a generic equivalent. Pour mixture into pie pan. Spray your fingers and press mixture roughly over bottom of pan. Re-spray fingers as needed. Have patience, this will take less than five minutes. Now spray top of mixture covering bottom of pan. Using fingers and firm pressure, pat down crust and you will find with practice, this will cause crust to spread evenly and push at least half way up the sides of the pan. The crust doesn't need to be perfect or to reach the top of the sides. Lightly spray crust and bake in oven at 400? for 5 minutes. Remove from oven and prepare filling. Leave oven at 400?.

Pumpkin Filling

1 - 15 ounce can real pumpkin

3/4 teaspoon cinnamon or pumpkin pie spice

2 large eggs

1 teaspoon corn starch

3/4 cup honey

(mix well with spoon)

1/8 teaspoon salt

1 cup rice milk

(mix well)

Directions: Follow recipe and mix when directed. Pour filling into pie crust. Bake at 400? for 10 minutes, reduce temperature to 350? for 30 minutes. Then increase temperature to 375? for 15 minutes. Turn oven off and leave in oven 10 minutes more or until inserted knife comes out clean. If your oven runs hot, watch the pie closely as the honey and maple syrup can burn easily. The crust can darken and still be fine. Cool pie 30 minutes before cutting.

Note: Regular milk may be used in place of rice milk (a non-dairy creamer may also be substituted). You may also vary the amount of honey in the filling by one or two tablespoons, more or less, to suit your taste. You may also use your choice of spices.

[briarrose]

Found this one with plenty of pictures

http://www.polyweb.com/danno/PumpkinPie/print.asp

My Gluten Free Casein Free Pumpkin Pie Recipe

Printer friendly version

Dan's Wheat Free & Dairy Free Pumpkin Pie Recipe (Parve)

Kashrut -- For additional Kosher and Kosher for Passover cooking instructions for this recipe.

Updated 12/21/03

Since the fall of 1999 I have had to be on a gluten-free and casein-free diet (commonly abbreviated GF-CF), which means I cannot have any wheat or dairy products. This ends up being a very difficult diet since almost every dish and processed food you can think of ends up having some amount of wheat and dairy products or by-products.

The up side is that I have never felt better in my life, have lost 65 pounds, and have easily maintained my reduced weight. The down side is that many things that were my favorite treats are now off limits.

I used to make a fantastic pumpkin pie. However, the wheat crust and evaporated milk in traditional recipes makes it off limits. So, I set out to make a pumpkin pie that was within my diet's limitations.

There are basically two parts to any pie recipe: the crust and the filling. My piecrust is a faux graham-cracker crust made out of a GF-CF all corn breakfast cereal. My filling is a traditional pumpkin pie recipe but substituting rice milk for evaporated milk and adding extra egg and tapioca for body.

Disclaimers and warnings:

In each ingredient specified be sure to carefully check the actual products you intend to use and confirm that there is nothing in them that violates your particular diet needs. Even if you are used to using a particular brand and once in the past determined it was "safe" you still need to keep checking them ? they sometimes change the recipe! For a long time we used ?Blue Bonnet? margarine because it initially had no dairy products. However, at some point they changed the composition and started to include some dairy products. I only noticed because I started to have my old reactions to dairy products and we had to check everything again to find the culprit.

Finally: I personally can handle minute traces of wheat/gluten but cannot handle ANY dairy. I think of my diet as "gf-CF." For example I can tolerate the small amounts of commercial spices like cinnamon, cloves, and ginger that often have traces of wheat in them but I have read that many people on the GF CF diet cannot. Your mileage may vary.

Rice Dream Gluten Warning: Rice Dream rice milk products do contain traces of "gluten from barley protein at less than 0.002%" If you need truly gluten free then you'll probably need to use a soy-based product (it turns out I can't tolerate soy).

Egg warning: This recipe has eggs in it. If you cannot have eggs you will have to try whatever you have good luck with substituting in the recipe. The eggs supply ?stiffening? of the filling, which otherwise will stay liquid.

Corn based piecrust

Makes two 9-inch pie shells

2/3 cup margarine (Shedd's Willow Run Soybean Margerine)

1/2 cup sugar

2 1/2 cups crushed corn flakes (Nature's Path GF CF "Honey'd Corn Flakes") ? a bit over one full 10.6 oz box of cereal.

Notes: I've specified brands that, to date, have proven to be okay to use. Many brands of margarine HAVE dairy products in them. Check the ingredients carefully. Almost ALL "corn flakes" have wheat in them. Nature's Path is an exception.

Crush corn flakes to a coarse to fine meal in a food processor. A blender should be able to do this too. I suppose you could just pound at it in a sturdy bowl but this may be the real excuse to buy a food processor! I use an attachment for my blender. The finer the better but you'll find you can't really turn it into a powder (but it'd be nice if you could!).

Melt margarine and pour into a large bowl. Stir in sugar. Add crushed corn flakes.

I find mixing it all up with a pastry cutter works best but almost nobody has one of these anymore. Pastry cutters were for "cutting" big blocks of butter or margarine into flour and that kind of cooking is so non-PC these days even the tools are now hard to find.

Anyway, if you don't have a pastry cutter, use a pair of butter knives and mix the melted butter/sugar thoroughly into the corn meal. Divide all but a little bit of the mix into the two pie dishes.

I then gentle the mix into a pie-shell shape using a lid from a plastic food container. You could also use the bottom of a small bowl. Start soft and then as the shape and amount are about right start really pressing it down.

If you find any thin spots, add the bit of mix you left in the bowl to cover it. Set the pie dishes aside in the refrigerator.

Dairy Free Pumpkin Pie filling

Makes two nine inch pies

1 cup sugar

1/4 cup tapioca mix

1/4 cup tapioca flour (or omit and double the Tapioca Mix above)

1 tsp. Salt

1 tsp. Ground cinnamon

1 tsp. Ground cloves

1/2 tsp. Ground ginger

4 large whole eggs

2 large egg whites

1 can (29 oz.) Libby's ?100% Pure Pumpkin?

3 cups Rice Dream rice milk (soy is OK too if you like it)

Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Mix sugar, salt, cinnamon, clover, ginger, and tapioca into a small bowl.

Beat eggs in a large bowl (I use the main mixing bowl for my big mixer) and then add the canned pumpkin. Running the mixer, add the sugar/spice mix, lastly add the rice milk. Mix thoroughly.

Pour into the pie shells. Bake at 425 degrees for 10 minutes, turn down to 350 degrees (maybe open the oven door for a sec to let some heat out), turn the pies a bit if spots of the crust are burning, and bake for another 20 to 30 minutes.

The usually you say a pumpkin pie is "done" if you can stick a knife in the center and nothing sticks when you pull it out. That doesn't work with this recipe since it isn't doesn't make a pie that solid (when hot out of the oven). So, I say the pies are done if he center is not completely liquid. If you care, the pies solidify nicely when refrigerated overnight. However, mine rarely survive long enough to even cool down ...

Established March 7, 1996

[DancingLight]

wow! gena and steph!

i am, yet again, smiling from ear to ear! you two went above and beyond the call of duty on this one! i cannot wait to share these with my mom and see what she thinks. i am so excited....am i expressing my gratitude enough???

okay, here goes again, but i must be a computer dork for real. how did you guys find these things? i must not be searching right on google for the casein-free, gluten-free stuff.

gena...i am not super-skinny anymore...i always was growing up. i have put on weight on and off during the illness, but it is still so small compared to what i eat i think. i don't know. i'm not a good judge. but when my mom shows me what she can eat in a day on weight watchers, i think i would absolutely starve! i guess you will just have to eat more pumpkin pie huh? if i found more 'splurges' on my restricted diet, i am sure i could put weight on...i feel so deprived on this diet!

but, i won't anymore, now that i have my pumpkin pie recipe. that really made my day!

THANKS! nap time now...already ate my snack!

emily

[briarrose]

Emily

You are very welcome and here are so more links for you, recipes in general. Some of these sites you have to search through a little bit because they each offer something a little different. Good luck.

http://www.lactaid.com/recipes/index.jhtml

http://www.glutenfree.com/recipes.html

http://www.womens-health-and-vitality.com/...rgyrecipes.html

http://www.livingwithout.com/recipeindex.htm

This one is kind of cool because it lists out all the no-no's

http://store.yahoo.com/healthygoodies/webforum.html

http://www.recipezaar.com/r/14/97/264

http://www.glutenfreeda.com/

http://www.commonsenseorganics.co.nz/recipes.htm

[DancingLight]

thanks! that should keep me out of trouble (and less hungry) for a while!

if tearose was reading this, she would be asking you if you had laundry to do!

emily

[briarrose]

Emily

LOL

Laundry, yep sat on the couch with about 8 loads last night. Everything in the house is clean, dishes and clothes. That will last about an hour

[calypso]

Katherine,

One of the recipes I like is one for baked apples that I found in a Martha Stewart magazine and adapted. I actually don't know exact amounts, as I never cook by recipe, but I can tell you the ingredients and you can experiment. I combine these items in a 9x13 glass baking dish:

8-12 apples, cut into chunks (you can leave the skin on for extra fiber)

Zest of 1 lemon, then squeeze the juice out and pour over the apples

Ground cloves

Nutmeg

Cinnamon

Apple cider

For the spices, I use about a half teaspoon to a teaspoon of each. I love cloves, but they are strong, so I'd use the least of that. I sprinkle the spices atop the apples, then add some apple cider and bake at 325 degrees for about 15-20 minutes (although this depends on whether you like them mushy or crisper -- I like them more crispy).

I like to serve these with turkey, ham or anything that's comfort food-like. If you do the veggie thing, they'd probably go well with a root vegetable casserole or something.

Also, instead of cookies, I like to make fruit breads like cranberry or banana with half whole wheat flour and half all-purpose.

Amy

[MomtoGiuliana]

Thanks you guys!!

I'm glad Emily now has several recipes for pumpkin pie--I think I will try one of them too!

Calypso--the apples sound really good--I will definitely try that. This time of year I have to admit that I love to make (And eat) cookies. My sugar-free diet goes out the window. But, I like my sweet treats to have some food value to them, which is often hard to find! I also like making fruit breads--I've also experimented with the half whole wheat flour in them.

I have a hard time getting my two year old to eat new things--particulary fruits and veggies. And while I want her to enjoy some special treats, I don't want her eating much junk that is typically available over the holidays. So that's another reason I am actively seeking alternatives for us.

Katherine

[opus88]

I LOVE pumpkin pie but can't do sugar or sugar substitutes, milk products (butter & eggs are ok) or gluten.

www.glutenfreemall.com might be a starting place for mixes and prepared foods.

The nut crust sounds quite good, but wow - lots of sweet stuff in it that would have me passed out on the floor and reeling for days. And the corn flake crust also has the sugar as well as high carbs of corn that, added to the pumpkin, would put me over the edge.

Rice flour or garbanzo flour can be used instead of regular (wheat) flour. Maybe even buckwheat for a very different taste.

You can bake and season your own pumpkin, or there are companies that make canned pumpkin with only pumpkin or just cinnamon or other seasonings without sugars. I've occasionally had the canned pumpkin with just some butter and a little cinnamon for a treat.

I buy tiny boxes of coconut cream and dilute it with 3x as much purified water to make about a quart of milk. Imagine the coconut cream or milk with the pumpkin pie - it sounds like it might be really good - I'm gonna have to try that, maybe even as a pudding!

Emily - A health food grocery store (not just a supplements store) will be a wealth of info for you. Start asking around for directions to one in your area.

[DancingLight]

opus...even most mixes and stuff at the health food stores have SOMETHING in them i can't eat! we are not in a town with big health food options, so i have done a lot of looking on line. when i feel up to it i have made trips to the health food store and have found some 'treats' and other things. we also have a wegman's here with a very large 'nature's pantry' section...so my mom does most of her shopping in that part of the store, the produce section, and the meat/fish section. so that's the scoop! still, i do best sticking with the basics of lean meats, fresh veggies and fruits, rice and potatoes.

calpyso...i love baked apples. i have a recipe for a gluten-free apple crisp that i will post for those who can handle the sugar but want the gluten-free, dairy-free stuff. i like having the crumble topping! but your version is healthier!

emily