Tuna Lettuce Wraps

Want a quick and easy yet tasty lunch? This takes only minutes, is very filling and delicious. Serves 2.

Mix:

1 can of tuna
1/4 cup of chopped celery
1/4 cup cooked peas
2 tablespoons (or enough for your taste, don’t make it too dry) of your favorite vinaigrette or vegan mayonnaise

Spoon mixture onto large lettuce leaves (I used red butter lettuce). You’ll need 6 to 8 leaves depending on how hungry you are and how big a spoonful you place on each lettuce leaf and how many toppings you want to add.

You can top each lettuce leaf with a number of things to give them some crunch and/or added flavor such as:

Grated carrot
Grated radish
Grated jicama*
Sliced tomato
Sliced avocado

*If you aren’t familiar with jicama, its also called Mexican yam bean or Mexican turnip. Its a white, fibrous root that has a high water content and is very crunchy like an apple. Jicama is an anti-inflammatory that can help people who suffer from disorders such as IBS, leaky gut syndrome, and ulcers. Its also very delicious.

Carrot Cake (dairy, gluten, egg, and refined sugar free)

My husband’s favorite cake is carrot cake, so moist and flavorful. One of my favorites as well since it has so little sweetener because of the sweetness of the carrots. This recipe allows you to add some granulated fructose, stevia, or chopped dates in place of the sugar.

Preheat oven to 350 degree. Lightly grease a large 12-cup bundt pan.

In a large bowl, combine:

2 cups finely grated carrots (one 12 ounce bag of baby carrots)
1/4 cup fructose or chopped dates (or 2 teaspoons of stevia)
4 teaspoons of baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 teaspoon xantham gum
1 tablespoon vinegar
1/4 cup oil or 1/4 cup applesauce (or pear sauce)

Mix well to combine. Add:

1 3/4 cups Bobs 1 for 1 gluten-free flour
1/2 cup Bobs Sweet Sorghum flour
1/4 cup potato flour
1/4 cup coconut flakes (optional)
1/4 cup raisins, cranberries, currents, etc. (optional)
1/4 cup ground walnuts, sunflower or pumpkin seeds, hemp hulls, etc. (optional)

Mix while adding 1 1/2 cup club soda. If the batter is too thick, add more club soda until batter is the consistency of thick mashed potatoes.

Bake 60-75 minutes depending on how hot your oven runs. Cool on a rack for 10-15 minutes before turning out of the pan. Cool completely before frosting.

Frost with plain cream cheese frosting:

1 8-ounce package of non-dairy cream cheese
1-3 tablespoons of agave nectar, depending on how sweet your family likes frosting (you can also use honey or coconut nectar)
1 teaspoon vanilla

Mix using a hand mixer until smooth and creamy.

Seafood Pasta Salad (gluten-free, dairy-free, egg-free)

This is a recipe passed down from my mother and grandmother. They traditionally made it for our July 4th celebration along with blueberry muffins since usually by early in July, we’d have fresh peas as well blueberries in central New Hampshire. They made it with canned salmon, crab and shrimp but these days fresh or frozen seafood is also widely available. My mother also always made it with the pasta shells for esthetic reasons but you can use whatever type of pasta your family likes.

You can also make it two ways, like the potato salad and the cole slaw, with either a vinaigrette or mayonnaise. I prefer the vinaigrette since it has a lighter taste, especially in the July heat.

Mix in a medium sized bowl:

6-8 ounces of cooked salmon
4 ounces of cooked tiny shrimp
6-8 ounces of cooked lump crabmeat
6-8 ounces of cooked peas
3 stalks of celery diced, don’t forget to add the leaves as well — they have a wonderful celery taste
1/4 cup chopped red onion, chives, or scallions
2 cups cooked gluten-free pasta [here I’ve found that the quinoa pasta works the best because it doesn’t get all mushy if it sits for a day; I’ve also gotten into the chickpea pasta to add more protein]
1/2 cup of your favorite vinaigrette [I make mine with 1/2 olive oil, 1 tablespoon spicy mustard, 1/4 cup rice vinegar, 2 tablespoons agave nectar (or 1 teaspoon stevia), and 1/4 cup of water.]; if you need to, you can add more vinaigrette especially if you let the salad sit awhile in the refrigerator since the pasta will absorb the moisture.
OR 1/2 cup of your favorite mayonnaise mixed with several tablespoons of cold water [the water will loosen up the mayo and make for a lighter dressing without affecting the taste].
Salt and pepper to taste along with some fresh parsley to taste

I like to serve it on a bed of lettuce with some cherry or grape tomatoes as a garnish. This recipe serves 4. Delicious!

“Healthy” Chicken Tenders (gluten-free, egg-free, dairy-free)

My husband has always been a big fan of the deep-fried, breaded chicken tenders while I didn’t find them that appetizing. They always seemed so tough and stringy to me. These chicken tenders are as far away from that as you can get; delicious and healthy!

Place 1 1/2 pounds of chicken tenders in a bowl and cover with your favorite milk. Let sit while you make the breading. Preheat oven to 400 degrees if using a conventional oven. My Cuisinart convection/air fry oven does a beautiful job making these crispy while keeping them fat free. And they came out so tender, juicy, while remaining crunchy on the outside.

Mix

1/3 cup ground golden flax
1/4 cup gluten-free bread crumbs (make sure they don’t have any sugar in them)
2 tablespoons of chia seeds
Salt, pepper and garlic powder to taste (I used approximately a 1/4 teaspoon of each)

Prepare an 8×10″ or 9×11″ baking dish by spraying with a non-stick spray.

Dip each chicken tender into the coating mix and place in the prepared pan. Bake for 15-18 minutes until chicken feels firm when pressed and coating is a golden brown. In my Cuisinart, I air fried them for 6-7 minutes and then turned them over for another 6 or 7 minutes.

Serve with your favorite dipping sauce; honey mustard or marinara.

Honey mustard dipping sauce: whisk together 1/4 cup of your favorite mustard with 3 tablespoons of honey (or agave or coconut nectar).

Strawberry Cream Pie (dairy-free, gluten-free, egg-free)

My husband doesn’t often enjoy my “special” recipes but this is one he flips over. Its one of his favorite things about strawberry season. Over the years, I’ve tried a number of different pie crust recipes trying to develop a really tasty, flaky, gluten-free pie crust. I haven’t been very successful. I’ve found the tastiest gluten-free pie crust, but not sugar-free, in my local supermarket’s frozen-food section, Wholly gluten-free by Wholly Wholesome. Although not sugar-free, it has a very low amount of sugar, just 2 grams per serving.

Pre-bake pie shell in 375 degree oven following directions on the reverse of the label. Let cool. While that’s cooling make the cream:

Put in a 2 quart pot:

1 1/2 cups rice milk, or your favorite non-dairy milk [DO NOT use soymilk]
3/4 cup granulated fructose or 1/2 cup agave nectar, or 1 Tablespoon stevia

Bring to a boil. While its heating, blend:

1/2 cup of your non-dairy milk with
2 tablespoon cornstarch

When the milk is boiling, whisk in the cornstarch slurry and continue whisking until the mixture thickens. Take off the heat and add:

2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 tablespoons of your favorite margarine

Blend until well mixed and margarine has melted. Cool. When the cream is almost cold, pour into the baked pie shell and refrigerate until thoroughly chilled.

You can either use one cup of strawberry jam as a topping for this cream, or use the following:

In a small pot mix

1 cup mashed strawberries
1 tablespoon cornstarch
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

Cook, stirring constantly, until mixture comes to a boil. If you remove this from the heat when it starts to thicken instead of waiting for a boil, you’ll have a looser topping like mine above. If you let it boil, you’ll have more like a the strawberry jam consistency.

Top with your favorite non-dairy whipped topping or you can decorate with strawberry cream cheese frosting.

Chocolate Chip Cookies (gluten, dairy, egg, and refined sugar free)

In fact, these cookies have no flour in them at all. Here’s what you can do with the chickpeas you have left over when you use the agua fava (or aquafaba; bean water) in a recipe. These are pretty good although not as chewy as the high calorie version and they can be quite soft. Adding a nut butter, I use tahini since I’m allergic to nuts, gives them a great flavor. I like to freeze them because they taste really good frozen; it adds the chewiness that you get in regular chocolate chip cookies.

Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees; cover a large cookie sheet with parchment paper and spray with a non-stick spray.

Put in your food processor

12 oz can of garbonzo beans drained
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1/3 cup nut butter or tahini
2 scoops protein powder (I really like the Garden of Eden Vanilla in this recipe)
1/2 cup chopped dates (Whole Foods has a store brand of chopped dates that are coated in oat flour instead of the traditional sugar)*
1/2 cup water
2 teaspoons of baking powder

Blend until the garbonzo beans and dates are pureed into the mixture. I watch until I don’t see any more lumps and then blend it for several more minutes since its not the most pleasant experience to bite into a large chunk of chickpea when eating a cookie!

Stir into mixture 1/2 cup chocolate chips (I use Chatfield Carob Chips) [be sure to check the package for allergens such as dairy and sugar]. Drop by tablespoons (or 1/4 cup measure) onto the prepared cookie sheet and then, with the back of a wet spoon, flatten cookies. Bake for approximately 12-18 minutes depending on how large or small you make the cookies. Makes between 10 to 20 cookies depending on size.

*If you don’t like the taste of dates or they have too much sugar content, you can use 1/4 cup of agave, honey, or coconut nectar in this recipe or 1 tablespoon stevia. If you add one of the nectars, be sure to decrease the water to 1/4 cup.

Tip: I’m really bad about flattening cookies; these work as bars just as well so I usually spread the batter in a 9×9 or 8×10 greased pan and increase the baking time to 20-25 minutes.

Potato Salad 2 Ways (dairy-free, egg-free)

German style Potato salad. I like to use the small multi-color potatoes because they make the salad more interesting. And you don’t have to peel them, just cut them into quarters and cook. For this recipe,

Use a half-pound of these potatoes.
While they cook, dice up a couple of stalks of celery and some scallion (I use scallion instead of onion because it adds the flavor of onion but doesn’t give me the digestive issues that raw onions give me).
Cook 2-3 slices of bacon, chopped.
If you don’t have a vinaigrette already made, mix up one of your favorites or use a bottled vinaigrette.
Put about 1/2 cup of the vinaigrette in a medium sized bowl, add the celery and scallion along with the crumbled bacon.
When the potatoes are cooked. drain and put them directly into the mixture. Adding them when they are hot helps the potatoes absorb the dressing.
Salt and pepper to taste.
You can serve this hot but I prefer to let it sit overnight and let the flavors meld. I often leave the bacon bits out until I’m ready to serve this so that they stay crispy.
Makes 2-3 servings.

Traditional Potato Salad.

One of my favorite parts of the potato salad my mother made was the hard boiled eggs. Since I can’t eat eggs any longer, I simply

mix together cooked potatoes (1/2 pound of the small potatoes and perhaps, if I’m feeling like it, a diced small sweet potato),
diced celery and scallions, along with some crumbled bacon. Dressing consists of:
1/2 cup mayonnaise (see my recipe for vegan mayonnaise under dressings)
1 teaspoon prepared mustard
1 tablespoon agave nectar
1/2 teaspoon of my favorite herb blend (McCormicks or Mrs. Dash)
Salt and pepper to taste.

If you can still eat eggs, by all means add 1-2 diced hard-boiled eggs. This makes 2-3 servings.

Cole Slaw Two Ways (dairy-free, egg-free)

With a small cabbage (I like to use Chinese cabbage), remove outer leaves and cut in slides or wedges. Put in your food processor and pulse until medium dice (depending on what you like, me I like to taste the cabbage but I know people, like my husband, who like cole slaw finely diced).

Put in a medium to large bowl depending on how much cabbage you have and add:

1/2 cup diced scallion
1/2 cup shredded carrots

To make the dressing, put in a small bowl:

1 cup mayonnaise (see my recipe for egg-free mayonnaise)
1/2 teaspoon celery seeds
1 tablespoon agave nectar

Stir until mixed and add to the cabbage mixture. Depending on the amount of cabbage you have, you may need a little more or a little less mayonnaise. Salt and pepper to taste.

If you’d rather not have a mayonnaise-based cole slaw, here’s a vinaigrette to use instead:

Blend together:

1/2 cup olive oil
1/4 cup of your favorite vinegar
1/4 cup water
2 tablespoons agave nectar
1/2 teaspoon celery seeds
1 tablespoon of your favorite mustard

I use a canning jar and shake it until emulsified.

Egg-Free Mayonnaise

Its been quite a few years since I was able to use mayonnaise products since I became allergic to eggs. Most mass-produced mayonnaise also includes oils that I can’t have like canola or soybean. About three years ago, I learned about agua fava, the liquid that you drain off the can of beans, like garbanzo or kidney, which can be used as an egg substitute. I resisted this for quite a while since I didn’t relish the idea of using this liquid — really turned me off in fact. Last year, I really wanted some cole slaw and was tired of my vinaigrette version. It tasted like the Cain’s mayonnaise I grew up with! I was thrilled. So, with summer approaching and the time for cooler foods, here’s my recipe for egg-free mayonnaise using agua fava and some salad recipes to go with it. And the great thing about it is that you don’t have to worry about it spoiling like you do egg-based mayos.

Put in a blender:

1/3 cup agua fava
1/4 teaspoon dry mustard
2 tablespoons vinegar (I like the rice vinegar but feel free to use your favorite, or lemon juice if you like)

Start blender on a low setting and begin slowly, and I mean really slowly, drizzling in oil. You’ll add 1 cup of oil total for a thick mayonnaise, or 1 1/4 cup for a thinner dressing. I like to use 1/2 cup olive oil and 1/2 cup avocado oil. Makes me feel less guilty using oils that are actually good for us.

Makes a little over 1 cup of mayonnaise. Use in your favorite recipes. Most people won’t be able to tell the difference between this and the mayo you buy.

Biscuits and Sausage Gravy (dairy-free, gluten-free)

Preheat oven to 450 degrees. Grease 8×10 pan. To make biscuits blend:

1/4 cup all purpose gluten free flour
1/2 cup sweet sorghum flour
1/4 cup amaranth flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon guar gum

Add and blend using a pastry cutter or fork

1/4 cup softened margarine

Mix in

1/3 to 1/2 cup rice milk (or your favorite non-dairy milk), should be thick and a little sticky but not too dry
1 teaspoon vinegar

Spoon into pan; makes 6 medium sized biscuits. Bake for 12-15 minutes.

To make sausage gravy, fry in a non-stick skillet

1 pound lean turkey sausage (if you use pork sausage, drain off fat before proceeding)

When cooked, add

2 cups of your favorite non-dairy milk (DO NOT USE SOY MILK)

Whisk until smooth

1 tablespoon gluten-free all purpose flour (depending on the milk you use, you might need to use more than 1 tablespoon but no more than 2 TBS should work)
1/2 cup non-dairy milk, except soy

Add to pan; whisk until smooth and thickened; this should only take about 2-3 minutes over medium heat.