Gluten Free Christmas Dinner

Three years ago, I discovered my youngest child is gluten intolerant. What this means is when he ingests wheat or the wheat byproducts, he becomes ill. His digestive process slows almost to a stop and I have to put him on liquids until we can jump start him again. Wheat contains 2 proteins: glutenin & gliadin- that his body simply cannot process. Instead of absorbing nutrients in the small intestine, his immune system treats gluten like an infection and attacks the villi, those little fingers that snatch all the goodness out as the digested food flows through.
T
his attack stunts the villi which negates their ability to nab nutrition from his food, and creates the digestive backup that can take days to clear out. Revamping the diet to cut out all possible exposure to wheat products is the best way to deal with this problem. I am fortunate, in that my boy is showing signs of only intolerance, not severe allergy. He is not a full-blown Celiac, and I hope he never will be.

The holiday season can be a challenging time for people who cannot tolerate or digest wheat products. Cakes, pies, stuffing, even some drinks are riddled with the very bane of their existence. Family gatherings can be a pain for the gluten intolerant, and many simply bring their own food and prepare it separately to avoid the danger of exposure and the consequences of such.

In recent years -or perhaps I simply notice it more now that I have to pay attention- more food producers have started putting out GF (Gluten-Free) versions o f their products. I continue to be thrilled that Chex has opened the market with Honey-Nut and Cinnamon flavored cereal Gluten-free for my little guy to enjoy cereal along with his sibs in the mornings (or when the snack monster strikes). There's only so many rice cakes a kid can eat, I mean really.

Anyway, we tried out some new recipes over Thanksgiving that we will be giving another go come Christmas. They turned out so well, I wanted to share them with the general GF community. I would be thrilled to know how these turn out for you. All recipes are my own creation, in cahoots with my eldest son or lovingly robbed from TTGFE.blogspot.com (Thank you Diva!) unless otherwise indicated.

Chex Mix Pie Crust (courtesy of 7thSage)

3 TBSP Butter or margarine
1 TBSP Peanut Butter
3 Cups Gluten Free Chex (I used honey nut)
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1. Melt butter and peanut butter and mix together well
2. Crush Chex cereal. Add to the peanut butter mixture
3. Spread in 9 inch pie pan along bottom and sides
4. Bake at 350 for 10 minutes.

For this recipe, I modified it with honey peanut butter and combined cinnamon and honey-nut Chex. The measurement of 3 cups (I learned later) is pre-crush volume. Spreading the crumbled, peanut-buttered mix is best done by hand, after coating your palms and fingers with either butter-flavored cooking oil or some of the butter. Once we had the crusts ready, we added pre-made Jell-o pudding ( half the milk in the pudding...learned that later too) and put them in the fridge to set. These made a yummy, tasty dessert that my little guy could gorge on without getting sick. It passed the test for Thanksgiving and will be making a comeback for our Christmas dinner. I also added a few sprinkles of our Chex to the pudding and everyone enjoyed it.

GF Stuffing

First, bake and crumble GF Cornbread:

2C Maseca (corn flour)

1C sugar

2C Cornmeal

2TB Baking Powder

3 Eggs

4C Milk

Olive Oil

Mix dry ingredients then whisk together wet. Carefully whip together with hand mixer (or manual whisk) until smoothed out. Pour into pre-buttered (oiled) warmed baking dish and bake @ 350 degrees for 30 minutes.

Once done and cooled crumble or use food processor (which we ended up doing) to break down.

While the cornbread is cooling robeing ground up by someone else you can be prepping part two:

From the Turkey:

Take the neck/gizzards etc

1 sm onion

Garlic (jar or chopped)

3 Celery stalks, chopped

Cumin

Chicken bouillon (to taste)

Place turkey parts in saucepan with enough water to cover them. Bring to boil on medium.

Chop/blend all veggies in a food processor and mix until fine.

Combine veggies with cornbread crumbles. Once turkey neck starts to turn colors, pour broth into cornbread.

Mix all together well; season to taste, cover and bake at 325 degrees until browned or top is firm to the touch.

We were delighted to find a nice spiral ham, but the glaze mix was riddled with wheat products. We tossed it out and made our own from scratch. We decided against having the ham for Thanksgiving, however, so this is an untested recipe that me and my oldest son threw together in about 10 minutes with a blender and some "Wonder how this'll taste".

Ham Glaze (GF)

Pureed orange & tangerine.

Apple cider vinegar, cloves, garlic, ginger, light & dark karo syrup, agave nectar, brown sugar.

Puree all together, and refrigerate/freeze.

According to my sister, you need a 20oz Coke to pour over your ham then bake it -covered- very slowly for about 30 minutes to leach out the salt content. Then, your glaze is to be poured over and into the ham (if spiraled, etc) then let it bake again for another 20-30 minutes.

As stated we have not tried this yet, but plan to this Christmas. The glaze mix itself elicited slurps of anticipation from the kids, so I look forward to seeing how it goes with the ham.