Christmas can be a hard time of year when you have Celiac disease. You are surrounded with baking, cookies and holiday drinks that with even the smallest taste could send you into the bathroom for days. Celiac’s are growing in numbers and some doctors are estimating 1 in 100 people suffer, usually undiagnosed suffer from some form of Celiac disease.
As a Holistic Practitioner most clients that come to me are put on a wheat free dairy free diet, to see if their symptoms improve. Testing from the doctor may be not show celiac, but even a mild allergy to wheat can cause a whole host of symptoms. Dr Mercola suggests 85% of the population would benefit from avoiding grains- even organic whole grains.
Although it may not feel like it at the time, the diagnosis of Celiac disease may very well be a lifesaver for some people. The diagnosis can allow for individuals to focus on more a more healthy lifestyle.
Celiac Now What??
1. remove gluten-containing foods from the diet
2. remove lactose-containing foods from the diet
3. follow a gluten free “whole foods diet”
4. eliminate environmental stress
5. eliminate psychological stress
6. detoxify
-sauna’s, dry brush massage
Beneficial Supplements
You’ll always want to read that labels to make sure the supplements are labeled “gluten free”.
1. Digestive Enzymes
2. EFA’s (essential fatty acids) Combo 3-6-9 reduces inflammation
3. Probiotics
4. Glutamine Powder- 10,000-20,000mg of L-glutamine powder on a empty stomach is an amino acid that will help rebuild the damaged mucosal lining.
5. a liquid multivitamin
Lifestyle
Learn to read labels carefully (obviously) but you’ll also want to avoid transfats, an anything artificial.
When dining out watch out for special sauces and secret ingredients, sometimes even rice can have flavourings added to it.
Exercise, by walking or rebounding (mini trampoline) should be incorporated into your daily routine.
Yoga, acupuncture, biofeedback, mediation are also complementary therapies.
Avoid excess sugar which can promote an overgrowth of yeast, especially Candida which worsens digestion.
Normally I wouldn’t post these kinds of recipes as you will see they are quite the indulgences, but seeing as its the holidays I thought I’d share some Gluten Free Recipes so we can all spread a little holiday cheer! Check out the Gluten Free Girls Blog for more fun recipes!!
Gluten-Free Chocolate Cupcakes
Moist and Delicious and Covered in Chocolate-Coffee Ganache.
Dark as lava, as moist as the ground in Seattle in November, and rich in chocolate goodness, these cupcakes are addictive. Add some coffee ganache frosting, and you’re pretty much in heaven. Who needs to feel deprived this holiday?
SERVINGS
16 Cupcakes
INGREDIENTS
1/2 cup butter, softened (1 stick)
1 package Bob’s Red Mill gluten-free chocolate cake mix
2/3 cup applesauce (you can make you own, if you wish)
1/3 cup milk (this works with soy or rice milk too)
1 tablespoon lemon juice (however, we were out, and used apple cider vinegar)
2 large eggs
1/3 cup hot water (110°)
2 tablespoons vanilla extract
PREPARATIONS
1. Preparing for baking. Preheat the oven to 350°. Bring all the ingredients to room temperature. Line a muffin tin with muffin liners.
2. Making the batter. In the bowl of the stand mixer, start beating the butter until it is creamy. Add the cake mix, the applesauce, the milk, the lemon juice, and the eggs. Beat at low speed for 30 seconds, scraping down the sides when necessary. Raise the speed to low-medium and let it run for another moment. Add the hot water and the vanilla extract. Run the mixer for one more minute, scraping down the sides.
3. Baking the cupcakes. Carefully spoon the cupcake batter into the prepared muffin tins. Bake for 15 to 20 minutes, depending on the size of the cupcakes. (In our oven, the regular-sized cupcakes took 17 minutes, the jumbo ones 20 minutes.) Allow them to cool in the cupcake tin for 10 minutes. Transfer the cupcakes to a cooling rack and let them sit for another 20 minutes before eating. (I know. That’s hard. But trust me.)
Coffee-Chocolate Ganache Frosting
INGREDIENTS
1 cup heavy cream
1 tablespoon strong coffee grounds
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
8 ounces good dark chocolate
PREPARATIONS
1. Bring the cream, coffee grounds, and vanilla extract to a boil. Take them off the heat as soon as they boil. Allow them to steep for half an hour. Strain.
2. Break the chocolate into pieces and put into a bowl. Bring the cream back to a boil. Pour over the chocolate pieces. This will melt the chocolate. Stir until it is smooth.
3. Lavish the cupcake as fully as you wish with the ganache.
Read more: http://www.thedailygreen.com/healthy-eating/blogs/gluten-free/gluten-free-chocolate-cupcakes#ixzz0XibZaTQ7
Gluten-Free Brownies
If you like a fudgy brownie, unadorned with any fillers, this recipe is for you
SERVINGS
12 (if people have the restraint to not eat more than one brownie)
INGREDIENTS
8 tablespoons unsalted butter
4 ounces bittersweet chocolate (or as dark as you can stand it)
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup brown rice flour
1/4 cup tapioca flour
PREPARATION
1. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F. Grease an 8-inch square baking pan. Chop the chocolate into small slivers. Slice the butter into one-inch pieces. Combine the two flours together.
2. Bring a saucepan of water to a boil, and then turn it down to a simmer. Place a large metal bowl over the top of the saucepan. Put the chocolate and butter into the metal bowl and stir, occasionally, as they both begin to melt. As they come to a full melt, stir and stir, vigorously, until you have a cohesive mixture.
3. In a medium-sized bowl, combine the sugar and eggs, whisking vigorously until they are creamed together, with a silky consistency. Add the vanilla extract and salt and stir well. Add in the gluten-free flours and stir. Finally, pour in the melted chocolate-butter mixture and stir, carefully, with a rubber spatula, until the mixture has become smooth.
4. Pour the mixture into the prepared baking pan. Smooth the top with the spatula. Slide the baking pan into the oven and set the timer for 25 minutes.
As the brownies are baking, fill the sink with ice cubes and 1 inch of water. When the brownies are finished baking, remove the pan from the oven and place it immediately into the ice-water bath. (Don’t let any water splash up onto the brownies!) Let the brownies stay there until they have cooled completely.
These brownies taste best the next day, after an entire night of refrigeration. That makes the top crunchy, the insides decadently chewy. However, I’m sure no one would suffer if you ate the brownies immediately, either.
Read more: http://www.thedailygreen.com/healthy-eating/blogs/gluten-free/gluten-free-brownies-44071408#ixzz0XicXvVFL
Gluten-Free Ginger-Molasses Cupcakes
There’s something so cheerful about cupcakes, right? And luckily, it’s really not that hard to make gluten-free cupcakes successfully.
This recipe is adapted from Dorie Greenspan’s gingerbread recipe.
Dense and moist as gingerbread, these cupcakes are not dainty mouthfuls. They’ll fill you up. The ginger rushes in for the first few bites, followed by a whoosh of brown sugar and butter, followed by the faintest afterburn of ginger later. The texture owes its thanks to teff flour and cream cheese. And they’re ready for tweaking, so you can make them your own.
SERVINGS
About 12 Medium-Sized Cupcakes
INGREDIENTS
Cupcakes
2 tablespoons fresh ginger, peeled
1 tablespoon sugar
1/2 cup sorghum flour
1/2 cup sweet rice flour
1/2 cup potato starch
1/2 cup teff flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons ground ginger
3/4 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon cracked black pepper
12 tablespoons (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
3/4 cup brown sugar, packed<
1/2 cup sugar
3 large eggs
1/2 cup molasses
1/2 cup whole milk
3 ounces cream cheese, softened
Icing
1/2 cup powdered sugar
1 tablespoon heavy cream (or more, depending on the consistency you like)
PREPARATIONS
1.Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Grease your cupcake tins with grapeseed oil and dust them with a bit of sweet rice flour.
2.Peel the ginger with a fine micrograter or nutmeg grater. Or, you can slice it fine, if you wish. Mix the ginger with the tablespoon of sugar. Stir and set aside.
3.Sift each of the individual flours into a bowl through a fine-mesh sieve. When you have combined them all, sift the combination through the sieve. This helps to make the flours fine, and to create one flour for baking. Add in the baking soda, salt, and spices. Stir well and set aside.
4.Put the softened butter and sugars into a mixing bowl. Stir and whirl until they are well-combined and fluffy, about 3 minutes.
5. Add in the eggs one at a time, waiting for a moment before adding the next one. Pour in the molasses and continue the mixer. Throw in the sugared ginger. Reduce the speed of your stand mixer to low and add 1/3 of the dry ingredients. Beat. Add the milk. Beat. Add another 1/3 of the dry ingredients. Beat. Drop in small bits of the cream cheese by hand, as the mixer continues to run. As soon as the ingredients are all added and just combined, turn off the mixer.
6. Spoon the batter into the cupcake tins, filling them about 3/4 of the way full. Bake for about 20 minutes, or until a knife inserted in the middle of the cupcake comes up clean. Take the cupcakes out and allow them to cool. Don’t worry if the cupcakes fall a bit flat. That creates the texture of gingerbread in these cupcakes. Cool the cupcakes for 10 minutes, and then let them tumble out of the tins. Allow them to cool to room temperature before frosting them
7. Combine the powdered sugar and cream and stir until the mixture is smooth. If you want the cupcake thick, stop. If you want it to be more of a drizzle, then add a bit more cream. Frost the cupcakes. Eat.
Read more: http://www.thedailygreen.com/healthy-eating/blogs/gluten-free/gluten-free-ginger-molasses-cupcakes-50122908#ixzz0XidXlCSj
Gluten-Free Rolled Sugar Cookies
The gluten-free girl goes back to basics with sugar cookies adapted from The Joy of Cooking.
These are only slightly sweet, in anticipation of the thick rich frosting waiting to sugar them up even more. If you want to eat them plain, I’d bump up the sugar even more. They have the soft bite of snow under boots, the flakiness of that snow first falling, and the ephemeral pleasure of the first storm of winter. (Snow is on my mind. The Chef misses it, terribly.)
We made a little simple syrup for the top and dusted them with powdered sugar. But buttercream frosting and the green sprinkles from our childhood would be fabulous too.
SERVINGS
Makes about 15 to 20 cookies, depending on the shapes.
INGREDIENTS
1/2 cup sorghum flour
1/2 cup tapioca flour
1/2 cup potato starch
1/2 cup sweet rice flour
1/2 cup amaranth flour
1 teaspoon xanthan gum
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
8 tablespoons (1 stick) unsalted butter, at room temperature
1/2 cup sugar
2 eggs
2 teaspoon vanilla extract
pinch fresh nutmeg
PREPARATION
1. Place all the flours in a medium-sized bowl. Whisk them together. Slowly, sift them through a fine-mesh sieve into another bowl. Add the xanthan gum, baking powder, and salt. Whisk together. Set aside.
2. Stir the butter (or let the beater attachment of the stand mixer do it for you). Add the sugar and cream them together until they are just combined. Add the two eggs and vanilla extract and beat for a couple of minutes more. Throw in the pinch of nutmeg and stir one last time.
3. Sift the dry ingredients into the liquids, one cup at a time. When the entire mixture is combined and well integrated, you are done. It should be a thick batter, not entirely stick to the touch, but not as stiff as traditional rolled cookie dough. Wrap in plastic and refrigerate overnight.
4. Take the dough out of the refrigerator and let it come to room temperature. Don’t let it reach complete pliability. The dough should still be rather stiff from the refrigeration. Preheat the oven to 375°.
5. Roll out the cookie dough between two pieces of parchment paper (saves on gluten-free flour on the board). This dough doesn’t go paper thin, so you’ll have cookie with a bite to them. Cut out with your favorite shapes.
6. Bake for 8 to 12 minutes, depending on your oven and how crisp you like them. Let them cool for 10 minutes before eating them. I know. Try.
Read more: http://www.thedailygreen.com/healthy-eating/blogs/gluten-free/gluten-free-sugar-cookies-50121908#ixzz0XidnPOS7