Quinoa Salad (gluten-free, dairy-free)

This is easy to make and one of those dishes where you can follow my recipe exactly or add whatever vegetables your family likes. Quick and easy. To turn this side dish into a meal, simply add 12 ounces of flaked tuna or salmon, or cooked chicken. If you want to add more fiber, you can add some sunflower or pumpkin seeds, or even some hemp hulls or chia seeds. This recipe is also very easily reduced to make fewer servings.

Put in a 2 quart saucepan:

1 cup plain or red quinoa
2 cups water

Cover and cook on medium heat until water is absorbed, about 15 minutes. Remove from heat and fluff with a fork before you put it in the fridge to cool.

To a 10-12 inch skillet heat:

1 tablespoon olive oil

Add:

1 small red onion chopped
1 small zucchini sliced
1 small summer or yellow squash sliced
1-2 cloves of garlic depending on size
1 small yellow, orange or red pepper chopped

Saute over medium heat until softened. Put aside to cool.

Add to the pan:

1/2 cup shredded carrot (I like to use the rainbow)
1/2 cup diced jicama (or if you prefer apple)
1/2 cup sliced snap or snow peas
1/2 to 1 cup of cooked green peas
1/2 cup cooked yellow or white corn

In a large mixing bowl, add the quinoa and all the vegetables. Add 1/2 to 3/4 cup of your favorite vinaigrette and mix thoroughly. Chill. You may need to add more of the vinaigrette after you’ve chilled it since it may dry out as the quinoa absorbs more of the liquid. I like to serve this on a bed of red leaf lettuce. This recipe serves 8-10 as a side dish.

Salmon with Bok Choy (dairy-free)

Want a quick meal that is very tasty? This one can be prepared and cooked in less than a half hour. Bok choy is one of my favorite vegetables and it pairs very well with a salmon filet. Here I’ve sautéed the bok choy with some red onion and garlic in a little olive oil and topped the salmon with an easy mustard sauce. The recipe serves two, or if you’re like me and love bok choy, this serves just me!

You’ll need:

4 small to medium bok choy, washed and chopped
1 small red onion, diced
1 clove garlic
2 tablespoon olive oil
2 salmon filets
1 tablespoon of your favorite mustard
1 tablespoon of your favorite vinegar
1/8 teaspoon stevia (or 2 tablespoons agave or honey, 1/8 teaspoon monk fruit powder, etc.)

Prepare 4 small to medium baby bok choy by cutting of the lower portion and rinsing thoroughly under cold water. The bok choy may still have some spots and that’s okay. Be sure to rinse the green portion as well as the white. Then slice from bottom to the leaves, you can use all of this vegetable.

Chop one small red onion (I like to half it, then slice it into medium slices, and finally cut each slice in half). Chop one clove of garlic.

Add 1 tablespoon olive oil to a hot 10-12 inch skillet. Add the prepared vegetables (bok choy, onion and garlic). Stir to mix thoroughly and then cover and cook over medium heat for approximately 7-10 minutes depending on how al dente you like them.

Meanwhile, heat a large grill pan or skillet; add a small amount of olive oil. Wash your salmon filets and dry them with a paper towel. You will notice that I prefer the thinner slices of the salmon, they cook faster and I find I don’t dry the fish out as much. Make some slices across the skin side and add, skin side down, to the hot pan. Reduce heat to medium. I like to cover the fish and cook for 5 minutes. I then remove the cover and turn over the fish to cook for another 2-3 minutes until pink inside.

While your salmon and bok choy are cooking, in a small container with a lid put 1 tablespoon of your favorite mustard and 1 tablespoon of your favorite vinegar. Add a very small amount of stevia (I used about 1/8 of a teaspoon). Put on the lid and shake until mixed. Sauce is ready.

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 Cheese Frosting (dairy-free, sugar-free)

This is a very easy recipe. In a medium bowl, place:

one container non-dairy cream cheese (Daiya, Kite Hill, etc.)
1/4 cup pureed strawberries
2 tablespoons agave nectar (more or less depending on how sweet your family likes their frosting)
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon

With your hand mixer on low, mix; as it comes together, you can speed up your mixer to add more air to the frosting. If the mixture is too thick, add more strawberry puree; if it is too loose, add more non-dairy cream cheese.

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.

Turkey Veggie Meatloaf (gluten-free, egg-free)

I’ve always loved meatloaf. After growing up on a dairy farm, it was a shock in my early forties to become allergic to everything from a cow. No more meatloaf! I was devastated. So I’ve developed a recipe for a beef-free meatloaf that will please any meatloaf lover, and even those who don’t like meatloaf.

Pre-heat over to 400 degrees. In your food processor, grind up:

8 oz portabello mushrooms (I like to use either the baby or sliced)
3/4 cup shredded carrots
and 1 medium onion cut in wedges.

Once ground, place in a large mixing bowl. Add

1 lb ground turkey breast
1 lb ground pork (or if you don’t want to use pork, use 2 lbs ground turkey, not breast)
1/2 cup Organicville Ketchup made with agave or 1/2 cup tomato paste
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground pepper
1 tablespoon of your favorite herb mixture (i.e., Mrs. Dash or McCormicks)
1/4 cup oat flour
1 tablespoon ground flax

Mix (using your hands is the easiest way) until blended. Don’t overblend. Spray an 8×10 or 9×12 pan with non-stick cooking spray. Place mixture in pan and shape into a loaf. You can either spread the top with more ketchup or cover with bacon strips. Add a 1/2 cup water to the pan so that the bottom of your meatloaf doesn’t burn. Bake for approximately 1 hour until internal temperature reaches 170 degrees. Let stand 10-15 minutes before slicing.