Gluten-Free Pesto Chicken Parmesan Recipe

Fresh Homemade Pesto

Homemade Gluten-Free Pesto

I just finished posting a pair of my favorite gluten-free recipes online at my free recipe library site - a homemade Gluten-Free Sun-Dried-Tomato Pesto Recipe (as pictured above) and a Gluten-Free Pesto Chicken Parmesan Recipe (pictured below) which puts that homemade pesto to use in a delicious combination of chicken, pesto, and cheese.

I love pesto! I enjoy the traditional / standard basil, garlic, olive oil, and pine-nuts variety quite a bit. And, I also like extensions on this theme; by adding ingredients like Onions and Sun-Dried Tomatoes to the pesto, simple and versatile flavorful variations arise and present new opportunity for further derivative-recipe experimentation - like the enhanced Chicken Parmesan recipe.

This pair of recipes formed the centerpiece of our Thanksgiving dinner this year. We decided to skip the traditional turkey and serve up something a bit different for the event. Since we were only serving a small number of people, cooking an entire turkey (or even a turkey breast) was just more than we wanted to deal with. So, pesto and chicken Parmesan it was - and a great success it was too! These recipes were definitely a hit with everyone that has tried them.

One thing I really like about pesto is how incredibly versatile they are, and how pesto can easily add flavor and excitement to all sorts of dishes. We make a fairly good sized batch of pesto at a time (as shown in the glass dish above), so I nearly always have leftovers for other creations. I put pesto on my gluten-free pasta, potatoes, tortillas, baked celeriac (celery root - I have a recipe coming for this soon too), and many other items in my gluten-free diet. It is just a wonderful addition to so many recipes.

Gluten-Free Parmesan Pesto Chicken

And now, the pesto and chicken Parmesan recipe photo!

Gluten-Free Pesto Chicken Parmesan Recipe

Gluten Free Recipes: Chocolate-Chip Angel Food Cake

Gluten Free Chocolate-Chip Angel Food Cake

Gluten Free Chocolate-Chip Angel Food Cake

I recently wrote a Gluten-Free Blog entry about a free Pumpkin Crème Brulée Recipe (link to full recipe) my wife made and posted online. After baking the Creme Brulee, we had a large number of egg whites remaining. So, my resourceful wife decided the best thing to do with them would be to bake up a new gluten-free Angel Food cake variation.

This is simply a variation to the existing gluten-free and dairy-free Angel Food Cake recipe in our Gluten-Free Desserts book (page 68). It removes the lemon juice/zest, and adds a bit or orange juice and almond flavoring, and of course chocolate chips (to remain dairy-free, you'll have to make sure you use dairy-free chocolate chips of course).

The detailed recipe modifications are online here:
Gluten-Free Chocolate Chip Angel Food Cake Recipe

I really enjoyed this cake! I have always been a fan of a good Angel Food cake, and this latest chocolate chip variation was a hit with both Celiac diet people and "normal" diet folks equally. I have an admitted weakness for chocolate, so the addition of chocolate chips only accentuated my hunger for this cake!

The exceptionally mild orange/almond undertones also furthered my enjoyment. Another nice thing about Angel Food Cake (in general, whether gluten-free diet type or regular), is that they are low-fat and should have no cholesterol either (even this one variation - especially if using dairy-free chocolate chips). The cake also tends to be rather high in protein (given the large number of egg whites used).

Hope you enjoy the variation as much as I did!

Slice of Gluten Free Chocolate-Chip Angel Food Cake

Gluten-Free Recipe: Pumpkin Crème Brulée

Gluten-Free Pumpkin Crème Brulée

Pumpkin Crème Brulée Recipe (link to recipe) - a perfect gluten-free dessert recipe for the Thanksgiving and Christmas Holiday season, presuming you can tolerate dairy in your diet. I'm perhaps a couple days late posting this recipe here on the Gluten-Free Blog (for Thanksgiving that is), but this recipe will come in handy all year round and is bound to be a favorite among any that enjoy the rich creamy texture of Crème Brulée with the flavor of pumpkin, cinnamon, and vanilla!

I'm not going to try selling this recipe as a particularly healthy gluten-free diet addition, since it is one of the ultimate rich desserts. This is a full-cream Pumpkin Crème Brulée recipe that has a subtle, yet flavorful, pumpkin flavor throughout the rich custard. It can optionally be topped with a carmelized sugar layer if you prefer the traditional burnt-sugar top. In the Creme Brulee pictured above, we used our oven's broiler to slightly caramelize the top layer - since we didn't have a kitchen torch / creme-brulee-torch handy (that's a $20 item now on our Christmas gift list since we couldn't find one out at the stores before baking this dessert).

The recipe, like most creme brulee recipes, is rather straightforward and easy to prepare. It's mainly cream, sugar, and egg yolks (plus pumpkin and some spices) - all of which should be items easily acquired as safe-for-Celiac / gluten-free certified . It should take not too much over an hour to prepare this dish (including bake time). You will still want to plan ahead, since you will most likely want to serve it fully chilled (the dessert will keep fine in the refrigerator for a few days).

I hope you enjoy the recipe! I have been snacking on a couple of these dessert cups for a few days now - sorta pacing myself as to keep the calories consumed at one sitting to a minimum, and loving the fact I've had Pumpkin Crème Brulée for a few days running now :)

Gluten-Free Brown Cow Yogurt Coupons

I have been a fan of Brown Cow Yogurts for some time, whether for their low fat variety, Non-Fat type, or the rich and creamy aptly-named Cream-Top yogurt they produce. Their yogurts all have wonderful probiotics / live active cultures (body-friendly healthful bacteria like S. thermophilus and L. bulgaricus, L. acidophilus and Bifidus) in them which are certainly good for our gluten-free diet options as well as our digestive tracts, presuming milk products are tolerable in your diet.

Brown Cow certifies most of their yogurts as Gluten-Free and includes this gluten-free statement on their website to quickly help you find which varieties are safe for Celiac Disease and gluten-intolerant people. In short, it can be summarized with the first paragraph, which states:

"Are all Brown Cow products certified gluten-free? Our Fruit & Whole Grains yogurts contain gluten, and we make our smoothies in a facility that has not yet been certified gluten-free. Otherwise, our yogurts are certified gluten-free."

Now, to the coupons! I noticed they have online "E-Coupons" available. You can currently get between 50 cents and a dollar off many of their products via the Brown Cow Coupon Page -- it asks for an Email address, then you get to choose from several coupon options to print.

The only down-side to their E-Coupons (in my opinion) is how their site makes you install a coupon-printing helper-control in your browser, and it requires Internet Explorer, which is all a bit lame quite frankly. I personally didn't care, because I just installed it into a "safe" virtual-machine I use for browsing the web, but it was still an added hassle. If you don't mind their website installing this "MeadCo ScriptX" ActiveX scripting/printing control used to print the E-coupon, then you can save some money -- you'll have to make that decision. I have to say to the Brown Cow company: please consider a user-friendlier alternative to this coupon-printing method, especially one that works with browsers other than Windows Internet-Explorer! You don't want to lose prospective buyers over technical constraints imposed on them.

Well, if the coupons are accessible and useful to you, enjoy that Gluten-Free Brown Cow Yogurt! Even if you can't get the coupons, I recommend their gluten-free products. I really like their yogurts, and tend to purchase the quart-sized containers since I eat so much yogurt. Their flavored yogurts are quite nice, and I also get the plain variety to which I add my favorite fruits and berries (and, I use it when making things like low-fat hummus too). Although I admit to liking the thicker, richer cream-top yogurt, I also like their lower-fat diet options too.

Golden KiwiFruit (kiwi)

My wife found these Golden Kiwi Fruit at the store recently, and I must say, they make a delicious gluten-free diet addition. I was never a huge fan of the standard Kiwi (the green ones), but I really like these gold kiwifruit. They have a rather sweet, less acidic taste that is definitely tropical in nature.

These particular specimens originated in New Zealand, which is second only to Italy in kiwifruit production - oddly, though native to China and declared China's "national fruit", China doesn't produce enough kiwi to appear in the top-10 producers list. With all the recalls of Chinese products and food these days, I'll admit that I feel much safer consuming Kiwi originating from New Zealand that I would if they had come from China.

I'm always glad to find new foods to mix into my gluten-free diet, and adding a new fruit to the mix is rather simple since fruit in general contains no gluten. Variety in the fruits and vegetables category will help make up for some of those wheat and gluten-containing foods that you can no longer eat. And, these make for a health diet addition too, since they are high in Fiber, Vitamin-C, and Potassium (by weight, just slightly lower potassium than a banana).

There is very little waste with kiwifruit also - especially with these golden fruit that have been cultivated to have less "hair" on the outside, so you can just wash them off and scrub loose what little bit of "hairy" coating there is and eat them whole. You can also certainly use a spoon to eat the center, leaving a very fine skin to be disposed of.

I definitely recommend these things, and if you get a chance to add them to your gluten-free diet, you will probably be happy you did. A tasty, healthy, natural treat for all of us with Celiac Disease or Gluten Intolerance - excellent!

Gluten-Free Cocoa Crispy Rice Cereal Review

I found this New Morning brand Gluten-Free Cocoa Crispy Rice this weekend at Trader Joe's here in the Cleveland, Ohio area. It was featured as a "new item" in the store, and I had no prior first hand experience with it. As is my normal behavior when venturing into the unknown with a new gluten-free product, I just purchased a single box package.

I am please to report, I really liked these crunchy, and lightly sweetened, cocoa rice crispy bits. They held up nice in milk, and were both good for snacking on plain or eating for a breakfast cereal. They seem to be less sweet than many others I have tried, and I like it this way. There are only 120 calories per 3/4-cup serving, and 10grams of sugar per serving (compare that to 14grams, or 40% more per sugar, per the same 3/4 cup serving size in Kellogg's Cocoa Krispies - which are also not gluten-free from what I can tell, since they have malt flavoring for starters). The fact that the New Morning brand (unlike many others) are made from organic brown rice and have no artificial flavors and preservatives either is a nice selling point too for me. But, first and foremost, this New Morning Cocoa Crispy Rice had a nice pleasing cocoa / chocolate flavor and a nice crunch.

I guess it shouldn't be too surprising that these were a quality product, and clearly labeled gluten-free, since as I discovered later when searching the web for that link to the cereal I provided earlier, that the New Morning brand is owned by a company called U.S. Mills, which also owns the Erewhon brand (I prefer their crispy brown rice - gluten-free variety - for marshmallow crispy treats). I actually plan to try these cocoa ones in a marshmallow treat of some sorts, though being pre-sweetened, that may be overkill. Now, perhaps with peanut-butter? hmmm.... maybe :)

I'm putting this gluten-free product on my list of ones to definitely buy again. And, you don't have to be a Celiac (Coeliac) or on a gluten-free diet to enjoy this cereal.