I was gluten free for a few months during fertility problems. I liked the blog you mentioned. I also liked this one: www.elanaspantry.com. Her almond bread is delish! OUHHHHHH....that's what I'm going to make tomorrow to go with my soup! Thanks for your post! ;)

I'm GF, almost 2 years now but I still feel that I'm a novice at it. So far the only change I've made for Thanksgiving is to make my gravy with corn starch not flour. I avoid stuffing (haven't stuffed a bird for years so no problems there), pumpkin pie and all the other no-no foods. Not really a hardship as there's always so much else to eat. And there's always chocolate for dessert! LOL

I'm not, but my sister is. Watch out that your turkey has not been injected with wheat--she can't eat some of those rotisserie chickens from the grocery store. I borrow a gf flour mix to make the gravy with--the plus side is that it doesn't lump up!

I've made stuffing with gf bread when my mom was alive. We're making pecan pies again this year in muffin tins without the crust. Last year, we made some of the pumpkin pies in the muffin tins too. Most of the calories in pies are in the crust--I figure it's win/win.

I was diagnosed with Celiac Disease in June, so am still discovering the gluten free life. My mother hosted Thanksgiving this year (I'm Canadian, our thanksgiving is about five or so weeks before US thankgiving) and she made a fantastic gluten-free stuffing. I will try to get the recipe from her - it was a rice-based dressing. Even the most die-hard stuffing fans at our dinner loved it! There are plenty of great sounding stuffing recipes on the web though. She also did the gravy with corn starch (I think), other than that no issues. Roasted vegetables, potatoes with cream cheese, squash mmm. A great meal.

As I'm not much of a lover of baked goods (I never really liked pies, bread etc. -although I am a fan of cake), I haven't found the switch to gluten free living that difficult at home. Having said that though, as my husband and children aren't Celiac I probably don't take enough care to avoid cross-contamination at home. I think I need to be more careful in this regard. I do have a designated cutting board, but I like Buehl's idea of colour-coding utensils.

The real difficulty for me is restaurants - high end restaurants are okay, but it seems pretty much impossible to be assured of a non-contaminated gluten-free meal in a regular or fast-food joint.

My sister has Celiac. Check out the Gluten Free Girl blog.
http://glutenfreegirl.blogspot.com/

The gluten free section of Simply Recipes.
http://simplyrecipes.com/recipes/gluten-free/

And the Gluten Free Goddess.
http://glutenfreegoddess.blogspot.com/

Avoiding cross contamination requires dedication from everyone around you. I made GF corn muffins from scratch, and then someone put them on the same plate as the regular dinner rolls. "Oh, they can't touch?" Duh. I am careful to wash the cutting board and knife before preparing something my sister will eat.

I also have Celiac Disease. I was diagnosed right after we finalized the design and ordered all our cabinets! So, it was too late to make any changes. But, to be honest, I wouldn't have known what changes to make back then. I had never had to deal w/a food sensitivity before. It took me a while to (1) accept that I really couldn't eat gluten, (2) take it very seriously (i.e, no cheating), and (3) start looking for ways to cope. I've always loved bread and my favorite Thanksgiving foods were the turkey, stuffing, and pumpkin pie. The turkey is OK as long as it isn't stuffed w/gluten-containing stuffing. At Christmas, my favorite foods are Christmas Cookies...the sugar cutout kind!

I now stuff our turkey w/gluten-free stuffing using my mom's recipe but substituting a GF-bread. In the past, the breads have still had an after-taste, even through the seasonings. This year, though, I've discovered two new breads I'm going to try....Udi's breads and Whole Foods' breads.

As to pie, I struggle w/GF pizza crusts b/c they don't roll out well...but I love my mom's pumpkin pie recipe so it's worth it once a year to struggle!

For sugar cutout Christmas cookies, I haven't yet found an adequate flour substitute...they all either have an after-taste or are gritty + have an after-taste. I have discovered, though, that my mom's "Rocks" recipe works well w/Bob's Red Mill GF flour...it's pretty heavily seasoned so the spices seem to counteract the typical GF after-taste.

As to cakes, Gluten Free Pantry used to have an angel food cake that tasted every bit as good as "regular" angel food cake, but they appear to have discontinued it...I don't know why...it's the only cake (mix or recipe) I've encountered so far that tasted really great.

I do have a carrot cake recipe a friend of mine made w/Bob's Red Mill GF flour that tasted great, I just got the recipe so I'm thinking of making it sometime over the holidays...it's very rich & chock-full of calories...so, I'll have to go easy on it!

Sue...I hear you about the "Oh, they can't touch?" reaction...sometimes I wonder what people are thinking. Even in my "newbie" days it was very obvious to me about separation & cross-contamination...it's common sense!!!

I don't put anything for me on an surface without using a plate or similar. You just never know what's been on the counter before you! One crumb can trigger the reaction internally and cause damage!

We're gluten-free. Technically it's just DS1 who is gluten-free, but since making multiple meals for one mealtime isn't something I have any interest in doing, we pretty much all eat gluten-free. DH does keep a small stash of glutenous foods, so I do have to be wary about cross contamination, but it's not as much of a concern. I share recipes on my blog and I also enjoy The Gluten-Free Homemaker as well as some of the previously mentioned blogs.

I second buehl's recommendation of Udi's bread. Really quite good. As for cakes, if I don't make them from scratch, I like Bob's Red Mill chocolate cake mix. Pamela's baking mix is a good all purpose mix for pancakes and biscuits.

I think one difficult thing is that when your relatives do get on board(and that might take a while,) well meaning as they are, they still won't be able to read a food label properly. "Oh, he can't have malt?" I've found it's easiest to explain it as he can't eat the 4 things you might make a beer from - wheat, rye, barley(aka malt,) and oats(unless gmo certified.) Speaking of beer, Redbridge gf beer is a great substitute at about the same price as regular beer and I use it in cooking all the time. (I like beer as flavor in my tailgate chili, etc.)

The upshot of all this, is that DS1 can read a food label better than most adults, which is really coming in handy right now with his wrestling coach wanting him to wrestle at 103.

As far as baking, I find that brownies and things that have natural moisture taste best gluten free. Brownies work because they don't have much flour in them. I made a gf pumpkin bread for a party that adults and kids raved about and said they would never guess it was gf. I think the pumpkin and spices in it covered any strange texture or taste from the gf flour.

I also just remembered a great dinner roll mix - the brand is called Chebe with an accent over one of the e's. I made the cheese bread and it was so good. My kids and my neighbor all loved it. I made it into dinner rolls and you can cook what you want and freeze the rest in balls, so you can easily cook later as you need them. Mostly, thought, I just don't really eat bread anymore.

I've also used the Redbridge beer for cooking.

LAX supermom, I'll have to check out your blog!

Excellent information so far.

Ill add that Domata flour is a 1 to 1 substitute for glutonous flour and works very well.

As far as the turkey goes, you need to have a turkey that has not been injected with some sort of flavorizer or glutonous moisturizer. Your meat department will know what you need, but you better call in and reserve one. I just call it a natural turkey. Even the paper packets that hold the giblets can contaminate a turkey, so you have to be careful. Be very careful with your seasonings also. Lawrys seasoning salt is GF and an excellent choice for those that like to season the skin.

If you are grilling the turkey, you need to use natural/lump charcoal ( Big Green Egg type) not the briquets. (Kingsford)

Cross contamination, although already mentioned, cannot be stressed enough at the dinner table.

If you have mixed buns or bread (gluton free and non) simply dipping the knife into the butter container is enough to potentially set off a reaction to a celiac.

There are new and improved products and recipes coming out every day to make living with celiac simpler.

My oldest son is GF as well. He is sensitive so as a result we have all gone pretty much GF too. it is too hard two cook of everything!
Some things we LOVE!
Schar Pasta
Udi's bread!
Betty Crocker Cake Mix (just did a big GF cake for my younger son's birthday party yesterday. Everyone said it was very good)
Pamela's baking mix

I find with holidays we just make what we would normally make and tweak it to make it GF. But most is already GF.
Turkey with homemade gravy (to make it GF)
mashed potatoes
sweet potato casserole
green beans
Butternut Squash soup
Rolls (I am baking my son biscuits from Pamelas baking mix)

The only thing I am struggling with right now is pie crust. Thinking about doing crushed GF graham crackers. Kinnikinnick makes GREAT graham crackers called S'moreables! That would work really well for pumpkin pie.
I need to figure out what to do for the apple pie or I could just do an apple crisp with Pamela's baking mix and Lara's Rolled Oats (that are GF)

I am not totally strict to the point of avoiding cross contamination. I do use some gluten for the family but for me its GF.

This is my favorite GF blog. She makes her own marshmallows and fantastic deserts that do not taste GF. I like the Thanksgiving recipes she gives every year.
Have any of you seen this?

Here is a link that might be useful: Simplygluten-free

Another vote for Udi's bread. It looks and tastes like the real thing. Who knew heaven could be found in a grilled cheese sandwich? LOL

I tried Redbridge beer and hated it. My reaction was "ugh, why bother?" but you need to know that I love dark, rich beers. Give me a Black Butte Porter or one of my hubby's homemade chocolate porters (made with real chocolate, yummm) any day. Redbridge reminded me of lite beer. Not even close for me. I have 5 beers left of the 6-pack I tried so I'll give it a go in a recipe and hope for the best. I guess it's a good thing that I'm more a fan of wine than beer.

My restaurant experience has been hit and miss with no rhyme or reason regarding my success getting GF meals.

The worker at Chipotle Grill put down a fresh paper wrapper on the counter before making my corn tacos. He did it without my asking, which was simply amazing to me.

My catered meal courtesy of Wolfgang Puck's in Dallas included green beans laced with soy sauce. The staff had been alerted to my GF status, I also talked to my waitress before the meal was brought to me and yet, I still received a non-GF meal. The staff apparently were clueless that soy sauce contains wheat. D'uh. Thankfully, I hadn't eaten much of the meal before I realized this screw-up and my reaction was mild (I am GF intolerant, not celiac) but several of my fellow GF-diners became quite ill. Oh, yeah, we voiced our grievance with the manager. Stupid, stupid mistake.

I had the most trouble while attending a symposium in September (the banquet meal was part of the same symposium). There is a basic misunderstanding of what GF means, add in language barriers and oh, wow, the fun starts. The servers at breakfast tried multiple times to bring me French toast or crepes - the vegetarian meal - instead of my GF meal. For 2 of the 3 mornings, they served me scrambled eggs and bacon. The last morning, they served me 3 slices of bacon and steamed broccoli! Oh, yum, I love me some bacon and broccoli in the morning. Why? Turns out someone finally realized that the egg mixture they use contains flour (to thicken it). My server took pity on me and brought me 2 fried eggs. At least I finally had the answer for why my stomach had been so upset.

Our organization's rep told me that caterers don't need to fulfill food allergy requests. They only need to meet ADA requirements. I'm not sure if this is correct information (it astounds me that they would not want to meet food allergy requests, wouldn't that be a liability issue?) but the lesson I took away is to always, always, always carry GF snacks wherever I go, to request a fridge for my room (cost might be waived for us GF sufferers) and to question everything multiple times. Oh, and never, never, never eat scrambled eggs at a convention again.

The hardest thing for me has been discovering the hidden sources of gluten. I was crushed the day I realized that red licorice has wheat in it. :-(

Oh lisa, I'm with you on the beer. Which is why I said I use it in recipes, not that I drink it. I'm not a light beer fan either. But then I'm a red wine, black coffee, dark chocolate, dark beer kindof girl. The scrambled egg thing makes me crazy. I would never add flour to my scrambled eggs or omelet and I don't understand why restaurants do.

I agree eating out is hit or miss. Luckily DS1 isn't a celiac sufferer, so he doesn't actually get sick. He actually eats gluten-free to control his ADHD. His ability to focus and listen to sequential instructions is so much greater when there isn't gluten in his body.

Thanks, laxsupermom, I'm glad to know that even though you're not keen on the taste of Redbridge either, you find it useful in recipes, especially since it sounds like we have very similar tastes (although I 'fess up to being a fan of lattes not black coffee). Now if only some craft brewer would create a fabulous dark GF beer.

I thought someone posted or asked about kitchen design regarding GF needs but danged if I can find the post that mentions it. Blame it on Monday brain fog. ;-)

Anyhoo, even if someone didn't, I'll share how it's affecting my kitchen design. The biggie - keeping my walk-in pantry. One KD suggested eliminating it (she wanted the wall ovens and fridge on the same wall and this was the only way to do that) and tried to convince me that pantry cabinets would suffice. Uh, no, they won't. I need twice as much shelf space for pasta, flours, mixes, crackers, cookies, and other prepackaged products. There are some GF meal items that I make that everyone eats but there are times when I need to make a noodle side (for them) and a rice side (for me).

Additionally, since I need to increase my stock of cutting boards, measuring utensils, colanders and such, I need more drawer storage than I currently have. Until that time, I use everything first.

Since I'm okay with some cross contamination (thank goodness, I feel for those of you who react more strongly than I do), I don't need to double my small appliance storage to house 2 toasters, 2 toaster ovens, 2 bread machines, 2 waffle irons and anything else that might increase the risk of cross contamination.

I haven't found it necessary (yet, anyway) to have doubles of items that require refrigeration (only GF soy sauce and regular soy sauce so far, don't use margarine) but I do need more freezer space. If I didn't already have a freezer in the garage, this would be an issue.

Thanks to everyone for sharing recipes, blog sites and such. Keep it coming.

Sochi wrote: "I think I need to be more careful in this regard. I do have a designated cutting board, but I like Buehl's idea of colour-coding utensils.**

I'm gluten free, and a woman my husband works with has such severe celiac disease that she vomited literally every day of her life until she was diagnosed at age 19. So she's our local expert for all things gluten free. According to her, the most important thing to watch out for with utensils is that wooden utensils, once contaminated with gluten, can never be decontaminated--even if you put them in the dishwasher (which obviously is not recommended), some gluten will remain in the pores of the wood. So, either don't use wooden utensils at all or make sure you have two different sets, one gluten-free and one regular.

**The real difficulty for me is restaurants - high end restaurants are okay, but it seems pretty much impossible to be assured of a non-contaminated gluten-free meal in a regular or fast-food joint.**

PF Chang's has a great gluten-free menu. Last week I had lemon chicken (basically sweet and sour chicken, except it's not bright orange like in Chinese restaurants) for the first time in years. It was great!

Also, Mexican restaurants and Japanese restaurants basically always have something on the menu that you can eat. (Remember, though, that most soy sauce has gluten in it.) Where you get in trouble is when there are sauces or purees, which can always have flour in them as a thickener. But with sushi or most Mexican food, that's not the case.