Gluten-Free Goddess Recipe Blog

Parfait this! Easy fancy for a long hot summer- so bookmark this one... a simple, creamy coconut ice cream recipe served parfait style with blueberries and strawberries. And it's naturally gluten-free and dairy-free. And because you make it yourself, gum-free and carrageenan-free. So many yays. It was sunny and hot yesterday, and today is a repeat. So during a heat wave, even a modest two-day hot fest, yours truly is unable to muster any enthusiasm for cooking. Typically, I live on gluten-free granola. And ice cream. Yes, I know. I am a poor, sad, sad role model. What kind of food blogger doesn't rise to the challenge and cheer-lead you to whip up baby kale and avocado salads and raw maca peach turmeric and oat milk smoothies? What kind of food blogger would simply give in to her sticky, prickly fatigue and general overall crankiness and not create some virtuous, nutrition packed bunny food miracle slurry for you? This one. She who is about to share a no-cook reci

A coffee cake with blueberries- for the road. From the archives. A favorite. Sometimes in life- when you least expect it- the stars are kind. Synchronicity smiles. And disparate pieces of your dreams bump up against one another and nestle snug into place. I'm referring, of course, to my dream of California. Summer by the Pacific, walking the beach, shopping the Farmers' Market, reuniting with my sons. Cooking. Writing. Haunting book stores and coffee shops. I've been trying to get there for two years. No, the house hasn't sold yet. But Plan B is under way. We found the elusive summer rental. Just when I thought it wasn't going to happen. A sublet in Santa Monica. In the nick of time. A lovely, light filled creative space. With a sweet kitchen. So I am back to making lists, mapping our drive south to Flagstaff, AZ, turning west to aim for the coast. I am lying in the dark alert, at 3 AM, pondering not the mysteries of the collective unconscious, no

Sunshine + Lemon Caught in the grey flannel mood and wet patter of a rainy spring day, what's a Gluten-Free Goddess to do? Why, bake, of course. (The calorie-stingy- but oh-so-delicious!- detox soup recipe will still be there tomorrow, in all it's green and virtuous glory, don't you worry.) When the wacky winds howl like Banshees on the headlands and rain (or snow!) flies sideways as sharp as an art/music/film/literary critic's those-who-can't-do-criticize sarcasm, I wrote this recipe hunkered down in our humble abode, praying to the Power Gods that the electricity will hold. I pulled on flannel layers worthy of an L. L. Bean catalog and cranked up the oven. Baking lemon-blueberry muffins, then, accomplishes two things. It warms us twice. Body and soul. Karina xo

    The Queen of Spring. Asparagus. It's a welcome signal of warmer days (and nights!) when those bundles of slender green stalks are back, standing tall in elegant rows at the local market. Erect, perky little beauties. My deep and abiding craving for asparagus is surprising for someone who never tendered a single bite of fresh asparagus until my third decade here on planet Earth. Yes, you read that right. Three decades. I admit it. I was anti-asparagus. In my own defense, I must mention, in full transparency, that the only asparagus I was served in childhood came from a can. A CAN. And Darling! If you've never had the non-pleasure of noshing said limp and stringy excuse for a such a brilliant vegetable, I am here to assure you, it was tinny, flaccid, and disgusting with a capital D (and in full disclosure, it ended up buried deep inside my paper napkin, doomed for the garbage pail as soon as the parental and familial accomplices to this vegetable horror were occupie

Grilling, Vegetarian Goddess Style. Beneath the hot sapphire skies of an all too brief July, backyard grills will be smokin' as savvy cooks keep the kitchen cool by stoking briquettes al fresco. Cooking and dining in the open air- even if your outdoorsy territory is merely a closet-sized urban balcony hanging off a sun-kissed wall of brick and mortar- is an enduring, classic, summer pleasure.  The smoky sweet heat of barbeque spices, chipotle, and hickory laced sauces slathered on everything from burgers to shrimp and meaty portobellos is intoxicating- and hunger pang inducing. So to further feed the flames of desire, I'm sharing one of my all time favorite grilling recipes. And this one's for the gluten-free vegan crowd. Over the weekend we grilled some of our favorite farm fresh veggies and made these rustic grilled vegetable stacks layered with a light and creamy homemade lemon hummus. Deliciousness was the word. Karina xo

Gluten-Free Goddess Blueberry Recipes for Summer Tis the season for blueberry recipes- fresh from the farmer's market and roadside stand. Browse our favorite gluten-free blueberry recipes for the summer of 2016.  Read on to see my seven recipe faves... Blueberry Scones Blueberry Crisp Blueberry Crumble (with quinoa flakes!) Blueberry Flax Muffins Blueberry Muffins (no xanthan gum) Summer Quinoa Salad with Blueberries and Strawberries Coconut Ice Cream Berry Parfait Happy Blueberry picking! Recipe Source: glutenfreegoddess.blogspot.com All images & content are copyright protected, all rights reserved. Please do not use our images or content without prior permission from Gluten-Free Goddess®. Thank you. 

Blueberry Flax Seed Muffins - My New Fave. Several years ago we left Cape Cod (our home for years) for our empty nest gypsy adventure. We sold the sofa, kitchen table, and boxes of cookbooks. We recycled toys and jeans and an old PC. The open road was calling. And we listened. The western sky hung big and blue above the high desert arroyos of New Mexico. It felt as deep and wide as an ocean. We thought this signaled home. But I missed the sea more than I ever could have guessed. So we moved to Los Angeles and tried on four different neighborhoods in as many years. I grew adept at packing and shedding and shelved my books by color . I luxuriated in each and every hour spent with my two grown sons. A gift, each shared coffee date. Movie night. Christmas dinner. But the city of Los Angeles was never my home. Its entertainment culture felt as walled off to me as the adobe and iron gates in Santa Fe. I felt invisible. And irrelevant. And undernourished. My restless feminine soul

I Got the Blueberry Blues It's no news to you, Darling, that summer is officially here, and the longest day of the calendar year is nigh. June is soon a memory.  And blueberries will be making their post solstice appearance in the northern states.  As the Bard of Avon once penned, S ummer's lease hath all too short a date . So if you must skip to the recipe- do so now--  who am I to hold you back, to deny you even one more minute of partaking in this modest indulgence?  But I confess, I am in a waxing mood today.  Listening to bird calls in the yard.  Learning how to age gracefully. Measuring time not in coffee spoons, but tea spoons. I believe in the here and now (more than the promise of ever-after).  Not that ever-after doesn't hold enduring, magnetic charms. The swath we name Eternity is threaded through and through with everyday blinks as brief as a silk worm's life.  Which, as it turns out, is perilously close to a single, fleeting summer. Even one spent ind

Pasta Frittata Magic.  Have I got a simple and flavorful Mediterranean inspired gluten-free pasta frittata recipe for you. It is perfect for the upcoming weekend. Throw it together for a lazy brunch, or a backyard picnic. But first, a logistical update. Notes from long ago and not so far away... From the archives:: We are back from LA, safe and as sound as two people can be jetting from the oxygen saturated beach of Santa Monica to the rarefied (read- bone dry nosebleed inducing) air of Northern New Mexico. My "of a certain age" skin is not decidedly not happy. My razor textured Floyd's cut now looks like a highlighted squirrel on a tequila fueled bender. And to add insult to follicle injury, there's a technical snafu that despite daily phone calls, shameless begging and patient (I assure you) correction of our physical street address (corrected three times by three different customer service representatives eager to assist you). That's right. N

How to cook quinoa in a rice cooker. So how do you cook quinoa? I was recently asked.  The answer is simple.   Easy. Fast. Rockin'. I cook it in a rice cooker. In fact, quinoa is the easiest no-fuss "grain" you'll ever cook. It's healthy fast food. Cook up a batch ahead of time and you can stir up a fabulous light lunch ( like these tasty recipes) in a New York minute. Well, maybe a Los Angeles minute. No wait. A Santa Fe minute. I can't keep up with where we are these days. It doesn't matter. It's all good. Try these favorite quinoa recipes and you'll see for yourself. Love + Peace, Karina xo How to cook quinoa in a rice cooker: 1. Using a fine mesh sieve rinse 1 cup of organic quinoa in cold water. Drain. 2. Dump rinsed quinoa into your rice cooker. 3. Add 2 cups fresh water* see notes. 4. Turn on your rice cooker. That's it. In about fifteen minutes* you'll have hot fluffy quinoa to play with. Quinoa is rather

Strawberry Rhubarb Love, Luv. Can't get enough of the classic spring pairing of strawberries and rhubarb? Me neither. So I baked a batch of muffins, dressed up to party with cinnamon streusel topping. These easy to toss together treats are tender pull-apart bites of grainy buckwheat sweetness studded with bits of tart rhubarb.  A recipe perfect for breakfast, brunch or afternoon tea.  Peace + Love, Karina xo

SWEET. The world is my oyster. No. Wait. I don't even like oysters. All that prying and shucking. All that shimmying. All that clinging, gelatinous muscle. You can have my share. Take it. Please. I much prefer a cupcake. No slimy abductor to deal with. No quasi-fishy liquor. Just tender, soft sweetness in exactly the right portion. Not too big. Not too heavy. Not too much. Just right. Texture, frankly, can be an issue for me. Size is another issue (portions bigger than my head? A serious turn off). And taste, well, that goes without saying (you know how I loathe bean flour). Have you read   Too Loud, Too Bright, Too Fast, Too Tight: What to Do If You Are Sensory Defensive in an Overstimulating World ?   If I was a storybook character I would inhabit The Princess and the Pea . Except that it would have to be The Gluten-Free Casein-Free Princess and the Pea (which by the way, I may also be allergic to; the pea, that is). While others around me appear to

A beauty of a bread for you to bake. Grainy, whole grain bliss. One of our absolute favorite gluten-free bread recipes. This rustic round loaf is tender and flavorful, and lovely dipped in extra virgin olive oil, Italian style. Crusty, fragrant gluten-free olive bread, warm from the oven. Giving up bread is hard. Bread is basic. Almost a need. Like air. Like breathing. It is both routine and celebratory. Prosaic and divine. A simple, torn-off hunk of good bread embodies a deep sense of nourishment, for body and soul. The bewitching mix of a handful of flour, some yeast, some salt, some water. Stir. Knead. Rest. Bake. And as if by magic, this warm and fragrant alchemical creation called bread appears. And all is right with the world. When I think of our honeymoon in Italy (seventeen years ago, darling) I think of the color of the evening sky above the cypress. A shot of burnished gold that shimmered with the faintest veil of pink and lemon yellow. I thi

Taco Salad Days Looking for a fresh idea for game day, a summer picnic, or backyard get-together? This cool and breezy quinoa taco salad might be just what you're craving. Laced with lime juice and sea salt, the combo of fluffy quinoa and ripe avocado, spiked with red onion and sunny sweet pepper, served on a crisp bed of romaine lettuce, is a light and healthy twist on the salsa drenched bean and cheese heavy taco salads so ubiquitous years ago. It's a total win for gluten-free vegans and vegetarians. And let's face it. Quinoa is much more hip than canned re-fried beans. And this particular quinoa taco salad boasts FODMAPs-friendly dairy-free vegan ingredients.  Quinoa is a complete vegetarian protein, so you really don't need the black beans (as a complementary protein)--- unless, of course, you're fond of those fiber rich little beauties in your quinoa salad. And if you do? Legume away dude. Dairy lover? You can add your favorit

Whole Grain Gluten-Free Muffins- with Love I've been thinking about muffins. And not just any ordinary, ho-hum, run-of-the-mill, starchy, gluten-free muffins. Nope. A tender, whole grain, lower sugar, vanilla scented muffin that bursts with fresh strawberry flavor. Warm from the oven, these pleasantly grainy breakfast treats are pull-apart soft with juicy bites of strawberry. Sweet- but not too sweet. I used pure maple syrup for the primary sweetener, and a mere two tablespoons of organic brown sugar. And now for the interesting part. I also experimented with no xanthan gum. I used to rely on xanthan gum to give my gluten-free batter and dough the stretchability factor- a trait removed when I booted gluten from my kitchen and wished it vaya con dios .  But here's the thing. Shunning gluten is a complicated issue. Gluten imparts a flexibility to batter and dough, and baking without it can lead you to crumbly, gritty ruin if you're not careful. You're giving up

Luscious Lemon Cake! Perhaps, like me, you have  been craving a cake infused with a bright citrus taste- not too sweet and not too spongey. A true cake with old fashioned character and heft.  Something akin to a lovely simple cake I remember liking as a child, a store bought bakery cake called Louisiana Ring made by the famous Freihofer's bakery here in Connecticut. The cake featured a hint of orange. The day I decided to bake, I did not have oranges in the pantry- but I did have some lemons, organic Greek yogurt, and plenty of blanched almond flour.  And this simple home baked lemon cake was born.  In time for Spring. Love, Karina xo

Bake this beautiful strawberry rhubarb crisp. Let's face it. These days we need all the beauty we can get. And Spring herself is cooperating here in ole New England, serving up all the natural beauty you could ask for. There are crabapple, lilacs and apple blossoms snowing purple, pink and white. House finches, bluebirds, robins and cardinals are singing in the thicket. Lilacs are unfolding their fragrant violet petals, and canopies of trees are bursting from pale lacy green and soft sun-yellows to robust greens that filter ever higher sunlight.  And love. There is a lot of that going around, too. If you seek it out- it's literally all around us. Everywhere you look. In kind gestures of appreciation, faith, creativity, Spirit, and camaraderie. So in spite of the awful, horrible, no good, very bad troubles that have challenged us these pat three years, the human spirit remains strong. And Spring has launched her magic to remind us that the world still holds such beauty. In

Fresh + Sassy Strawberry Spinach Salad with Berry Dressing The older (wiser?) I get the more I crave simple.  The sweet, relaxed comfort of home cooking. An impromptu picnic on the patio with family-style classics like horseradish spiked potato salad . Instead of growing worldly and sophisticated and dabbling with truffle oil (a chemical taste beyond awful), each new gray silver hair spins my taste hula hooping into simplicity faster than Shakira can waggle. Well, maybe not that fast. She is pretty nimble. But you get my drift. I'm whipping up ten-minute rice stir-fries, not Coq au Vin. I’m blending up pomegranate smoothies , not roasting Duck a l'Orange. And lucky me, the dawning summer season is all about simplicity.  Who needs complicated and fussy when the farmers’ markets are abundant with glorious, fresh ingredients? Vegetables in every color. Ripe and voluptuous fruits. And every one of them gluten-free. And dairy-free. That’s the beauty of it. No

Light + Lemony Gluten-Free Pasta for Spring with Grilled Asparagus To speak about something as prosaic as pasta salad seems downright ho-hum. I mean. It's just a pasta salad. It's something I tossed together with stuff I had on hand. I hadn't planned on it. I didn't spend days contemplating the ins and outs and quirks of gluten-free penne. In fact, if I'm being unabashedly honest here I rarely think about food at all. Until I'm hungry. Until those familiar, nagging pangs begin gnawing their pesky little way into my consciousness, distracting me from my preferred, visual nomenclature- which rarely includes anything edible. I daydream about painting in the Rockies, the plight of bees, and walking low tide on Brewster Flats. I notice the temperature of light and the curve of negative space against a jar of old spoons. I think about expectations and illusions and perceptions. I ponder where my soul is taking me, tugging at me to pay attention to my life