My favorite food blog, Every Last Bite just published the PERFECT gluten free and vegan Mushroom Cauliflower Risotto recipe. Ideal for a Fall dinner, this recipe is healthy, hearty and totally delicious. Now, as it is vegan and missing rice (which you could sub in if you wanted to), the taste is not exactly the same as classic risotto.

Every Last Bite writes: "Don’t get me wrong, this grain free risotto isn’t identical to the traditional dish, but the flavors are very similar. By ensuring the cauliflower rice remains chunkier in size, and stirring in a few spoonfuls of coconut cream (which adds creaminess without any extra flavor) you can emulate the same chunky texture and cream rich flavor without any starch or dairy."

I highly recommend adding this dish to your dinner line-up this Fall!


Prep time: 10 mins | Cook time: 30 mins | Serves: 4
Grain/Gluten Free, Dairy Free, Paleo, Vegan, Refined Sugar Free, Nut Free

Ingredients

• 2 cups sliced mushrooms
• ½ cup dried porcini mushrooms
• 2 cloves garlic, crushed
• ¼ tsp salt
• 1 tsp thyme
• 1 tbsp olive oil
• 1 onion, finely diced
• 2 sticks celery, finely diced
• ¼ cup white wine
• ½ cup chicken stock (or vegetable stock if vegan)
• 4 cups cauliflower rice (approximately 1 small head of cauliflower)
• 1½ tbsp coconut cream
  
  

Instructions

1. In a bowl soak the dried porcini mushrooms in ¾ cup hot water for 20 minutes. Once soaked remove from the water and chop, save the liquid the mushrooms were soaking in.
2. In a frying pan sauté the sliced mushrooms, soaked mushrooms and crushed garlic in 1 tablespoon of olive oil on low heat, season with the chopped thyme and salt and cook until the mushrooms are golden in color (approx 8 minutes). Once cooked, set aside.
3. Cut a head of cauliflower into quarters and place in a food processor. Quickly pulse until the cauliflower is broken down into pieces the size of a grain of rice (don't blend for longer then necessary, you don't want the cauliflower to become too fine)
4. In a sauce pan heat the white wine, chicken stock and the water the mushrooms were soaking in and keep it on a low simmer.
5. Place a large pan on high heat, add the chopped onion, celery and a large spoonful of the stock/white wine mixture. As the liquid begins to evaporate, add another spoonful.
6. Add in the cauliflower rice along with a spoonful of the broth. as soon as the liquid has begun to evaporate add in another spoonful of broth. Repeat this process once or twice more, tasting the cauliflower each time for tenderness before adding more liquid. The cauliflower rice should be tender but not mushy.
7. Stir in the coconut cream and mushrooms. Season with salt and pepper and sprinkle with parmesan cheese before serving.

This Mango Ahi Tuna Bowl is the perfect light summer dish! Made with fresh ahi tuna and loaded with veggies, this dish is fresh, healthy and gluten free! You can also make it paleo by eliminating the rice and substituting it with cauliflower rice. It is also pretty quick and easy dish to make, and doesn't take a whole lot of skill in the kitchen!

Ingredients:

• 1 1/4 pounds Fresh ahi tuna sashimi grade
• 2 mangos, sliced into cubes 
• 1/2 English cucumber, sliced into cubes 
• Green chilies to taste 
• 2 avocados, sliced into cubes 
• 2 cups of cooked white rice (or black), cooled to room  temperature 
• Sesame seeds on top to taste
  

Dressing:

• 1/3 cup fresh lime juice
• 1/3 cup olive oil
• 1/3 cup gluten free soy sauce
• 1/2 teaspoon ginger (I use to jarred, fresh works too) 
• 1 shallot chopped finely 
• Pepper to taste
  
  

Method:
Cook your rice and set aside so that it is room temperature. Chop all ingredients and then prepare dressing and set aside. Plate your rice and combine all ingredients on top of rice. Drizzle dressing on top, and garnish with sesame seeds.

Enjoy!

— The Healthy Celiac

I'm not a huge fan of making pasta at home. It's one of those dishes that tastes better at a restaurant, and it can be a high calorie meal to eat on the regular. This is a healthy, organic bolognaise recipe that I do like to make from time-to-time though. The recipe is very simple, and takes about 30 minutes from start to finish. For the sauce, I use Dave's Gourmet Organic Roasted Garlic & Sweet Basil Pasta Sauce which is incredibly delicious and marked gluten free.

Ingredients:

• One organic roma tomato, sliced
  
• One half of a large organic zucchini, sliced into cubes 
• Half a cup of organic sweet onion, diced
  
• One jar of Dave's Gourmet Organic Roasted Garlic & Sweet Basil Pasta Sauce
  
• 1 lb of grass fed, antibiotic free extra lean ground beef
  
• Gluten free quinoa spaghetti (1/4 of package per serving)
  

Method:

• Cut up vegetables and saute in a saucepan for five minutes on high with a tablespoon of olive oil. Set aside.
  
• Boil water and begin cooking your pasta.
  
• Saute ground beef in a saucepan until cooked. Once it is cooked, add back in your vegetables and the jar of pasta sauce. Simmer until pasta is done cooking. Sauce will yield 4 servings.
  
• Once your pasta is cooked, drain the water and serve. Top with bolognaise sauce. Serving should be 1/3 pasta and 2/3 sauce.
  

Enjoy!

— The Healthy Celiac

Lately I have been homemaking this creamy vegan sriracha sauce, and I have been putting it on everything!  The recipe for it is very simple:

• 1 tbsp of Vegenaise®
• 1 tsp of gluten free sriracha sauce
• 1/2 tsp of olive oil 
• sea salt and pepper to taste

I mix up this sauce and then put it on salad, chicken, fish  — just about anything I happen to be cooking up. Pictured above is a veggie and rice bowl tossed in creamy vegan sriracha sauce and topped with fresh arugula and hummus. It's super easy to keep the ingredients for this sauce in the fridge, and only takes about two minutes to make. I buy my sriracha sauce from Whole Foods, and it is labeled gluten free.

Enjoy!

— The Healthy Celiac

Gluten free cookbooks started hitting shelves a few years ago, and they have now become wildly popular with the celiac disease and gluten free community. A quick search on Amazon for 'Gluten Free Cookbook' yields 3,770 results. While I think it is wonderful that there are more and more resources out there for gluten free cooking, and I fully support more people publishing recipes and information on how to cook gluten free, I don't tend to buy these books — here is why.

I don't buy explicitly gluten free cookbooks because often the gluten free adaptations of traditionally glutenous foods are just that — adaptations of heavy, glutenous dishes. If you are in the market to learn how to make streusel filled cake or a gluten free sausage roll, then I would definitely go purchase a popular gluten free cookbook. However, if you are just looking for everyday recipes that will make for delicious and healthy dinners, then I would look to the more health conscious cookbooks that are NOT explicitly gluten free. For example, love her or hate her, Gwyneth Paltrow's cookbooks are full of healthy recipes, many of which are inherently gluten free. She uses whole ingredients, and you wont find twelve different kinds of gluten free flour listed in a recipe (who actually keeps sorghum flour on hand?).

When first diagnosed with celiac disease, I made the rookie mistake of excitedly wanting to try anything and everything gluten free I came across. Whether it was a recipe for gluten free brownies or a  gluten free pizza — I wanted to try the new options that I had as a celiac. I feel like this same thing happens when cooking from a gluten free cookbook. You see that it's possible to make a gluten free coffee cake and so you feel a certain gluten free foodie obligation to make and eat a recipe that your normally may not have eaten.

After working off the gluten free lasagna and homemade pizza, I came to the conclusion that just because a recipe makes something gluten free, doesn't necessarily mean it's the healthy option. My goal is to stick to recipes that have limited ingredients (no flour blends please), whole grains, fresh and minimally processed ingredients. Of course, there is always room to make the occasional adapted gluten free dessert once in a while.

Here are my favorite cookbooks to find healthy, easily-made-gluten free, recipes. While not all recipes in these cookbooks are gluten free, they can for the most part be made gluten free with a few minor adjustments.

Happy cooking!

— The Healthy Celiac

I am definitely a creature of food habit — when I find something I like, I tend to make it a lot. Inspired by the Le Bowl from Zinque, I started making my own dairy free version of the dish. A relatively complete and healthy meal, I love this bowl for lunch or dinner. The best part is you can easily change up the veggies or protein based on what is in season, or what you're in the mood for. Here is how I make my bowl:

• Cook a cup of brown rice (you will have some left over). Once the brown rice is cooked, serve it at room temperature.
• Pan cook some organic, free-range chicken breast.
• In your bowl, start with a layer of brown rice on the bottom (again, as much or as little as you want). I then do a light layer (1/2 tbsp) of Heart Healthy Vegan Creamy Garlic sauce (which I find at Whole Foods) — This sauce is amazing and I love that it's vegan (and gluten free, of course).
• On top of the rice layer, I add arugula, one diced roma tomato, half an avocado and half a cup of diced cucumber. Then I add the chicken on top and do another 1/2 tbsp of the Vegan Creamy Garlic.
• I then top the bowl off with two scoops of hummus.

The best part about this meal is that I can pre-make the rice and chicken and have lunch or dinner ready to go for days. Sometimes I also like to take the chicken out of the recipe, and I opt for a little more hummus or add in chickpeas, making the dish entirely vegan.

Hope you enjoy!

— The Healthy Celiac