Fun Gluten-Free Foods to Make and Eat

Fun, gluten-free foods add pizazz to your table and your life. Special diets have always been serious - and they are serious business - but they don't have to be boring and drab. "Fun" and "gluten-free" no longer have to be an oxymoron. Now they're a way of life!

My daughter, Brynden, a dedicated foodie and self-described kitchen troll, absolutely lives for fun food recipes, and she has generously offered to send me her favorite recipes, which I will be sharing with you here. Of course, she's doing it on her own time, so I get it on her schedule. But hey! They're freebies. What's not to love?

So without further ado, here are a few goodies for you.

SelfGrowth.com Official Guide to Cooking and Recipes

This Thai-inspired dish is perfect as a light meal, as an appetizer, or as we served it: alongside steaming bowls of Tom Yum. Everyone puts together their own wraps, so this makes for a fun and casual meal. Lovely with homemade nuoc cham (recipe follows) or your favorite gluten-free peanut sauce.

serves 2 as a main dish, or 4 as an appetizer or salad course

1 boneless, skinless chicken breast half

1 bunch Romaine lettuce hearts, separated and washed

1/2 cucumber, seeded and julienned

1 large tomato, seeded and julienned

1/4 cup julienned bell peppers, any color

1/4 cup thinly sliced red onion

Fresh mint

Fresh Thai basil

Fresh cilantro

1 lime, cut into 8 wedges

Place whole chicken breast in a pan with a tightly fitting lid. Add 1/4 cup water and steam over medium heat until cooked through.

Meanwhile, put together your vegetables. Toss cucumber, tomato, bell peppers and onions. Depending on everyone's taste, you could either chop and add your herbs now, or serve them with the final product.*

Once chicken is cooked, remove any fat and shred using two forks. Squeeze one of your lime wedges over the shredded chicken.

To serve, place shredded chicken in one dish, vegetable salad in another and Romaine leaves on a platter along with any herbs you left out of the salad. Serve with lime wedges and nuoc cham. To eat, place some shredded chicken down the inside spine of your lettuce leaf.

Top with vegetable salad and any herbs you choose. Drizzle with lime and nuoc cham. Fold the long way and eat like a taco.

*I chose to chop and add the Thai basil and mint to the salad, about 3 tablespoons of each, but served cilantro separately at the table. Thai herbs are meant to be bold and provide much of the flavor for this dish, so don't be afraid to use lots!

Nuoc Cham

1 clove of garlic

1 small chili OR 1 t chili garlic sauce

3 T rice vinegar

3 T fish sauce

2 T sugar

1/2 c hot water

Mince garlic and chili finely, not to a paste, but almost. Place these and remaining ingredients into a jar and shake to combine. Leftovers can be refrigerated up to one month.

Around Christmas my honey sent me this picture of chocolate cherry mice, and it was love at first sight! These were the cutest little guys I'd ever seen!

Thanks to Aleta for sharing her recipe and photos. Make sure to visit her blog. Aletaisn't gluten-free, but her blog is a truly enjoyable read.

~*~*~*~

So I gathered up the ingredients to make them, and ran into the apparently ongoing controversy about whether Hershey's Kisses - or anything else Hershey - is actually truly gluten-free.

Without knowing for sure, of course, we can't use the kisses. Problem solved . . . except what to use for the mouse heads?

After casting about unsuccessfully for another suitable gluten-free candy to use, I realized that we can make our own kiss-shaped chocolates and control the ingredients that go into them.

So I looked around for kiss-shaped candy molds, and found some at Sugarcraft that were the right size. For a mere $2.49 you can make g-f chocolate mouse heads. Your mother would be so proud.

Run, don't walk, to your nearest store and buy bags of Enjoy Life Semi-Sweet Chocolate Chips. They are free of the eight common allergens and the five common sensitizing agents - and they melt great!

Melt some of the chocolate to pour into your molds to make the mouse heads, then melt more to dip your cherries. Aleta's directions can be followed pretty much exactly except for substituting the ingredients.

You can also use fresh cherries with stems if you want to avoid possible contaminants, preservatives and dyes; just make sure your guests and friends know that the cherries have pits, or pit the cherries from the blossom end using a very sharp paring knife. If you have nut allergies, you can substitute shaved coconut, raisins, craisins or other dried fruits for the ears, as long as they are gluten-free.

More Recipes To Come Soon

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