Gluten Free Christmas Holiday Festive Feasts & Treats 100+ Recipe Cookbook: Gifts, Cakes, Baking, Cookies from Around the World, Easy Dinner, Sides, Trimmings, Dessert, Puddings, Sauces, Nibbles, Dips: Wheat Free Gluten Free Diet Recipes for Celiac / Coeliac Disease & Gluten Intolerance Cook Books, #5

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Warning on Allergic reactions – some recipes included in this book use nuts or nut oils. These specific recipes should be avoided by:

anyone with a known nut allergy

anyone who may be vulnerable to nut allergies such as pregnant and nursing mothers, invalids, the elderly, babies and children

Warning on Eggs – The US Department of Health’s advice is that eggs should not be consumed raw. Some recipes included in this book are made with raw or lightly cooked eggs. These specific recipes should be avoided by:

anyone who may be vulnerable such as pregnant and nursing mothers, invalids, the elderly, babies and children

Warning on Blending Hot Foods and Liquids - Remove from the heat and allow to cool for at least 5 minutes. Carefully transfer to a blender or food processor, ensuring that it is no more than half full. If using a blender, release one corner of the lid, which helps prevent heat explosions. Place a towel over the top of the machine, pulse a few times before processing according to the recipe directions.

Part 1: Get Ready for Fabulous Festive Feasting

Why a Gluten-Free Christmas & Holidays Cookbook?

Christmas and holidays such as Thanksgiving are a time for festive celebrations with family and friends, a time for sharing good food with those we love and care for. It’s a season for traditions, a time for happily-remembered flavours, tantalizing tastes and mouth-watering aromas. A key part of those memories is that they are enjoyed and shared by all our loved-ones, it’s not the time when anyone should feel left-out or different because of what they can or cannot eat. A joyous, abundant, table is part and parcel of all festive celebration meals and, as with all my gluten-free recipes, my aim is always to create wonderful dishes that can be shared, enjoyed and savored by everyone, irrespective of whether they are following a gluten-and-wheat-free diet or not.

Whether you are looking for a gluten-free version of a traditional time-honoured favourite or perhaps you want a change and variety, with something new, fun, delicious and different? In this cookbook, you’ll find everything you need here to make it a perfect holiday celebration for everyone, the cook included! In these pages you’ll find everything you need to make your gluten-free Christmas or Thanksgiving a success including:

ideas how to get ahead with tips on shopping, cooking and freezing well in advance of the big day

shopping lists both to get-ahead and so-you-don’t-forget

edible gifts to share the gluten-free joy

more than 100 crowd-pleasing recipes to suit all tastes and occasions, from traditional festive classics to modern twists on holiday flavours, plus ideas on what to do with leftovers.

Your First Gluten-free Christmas or Thanksgiving Celebration?

Many of my gluten-free cookbook readers regularly cook gluten-free, but the holiday season is particularly a time where you may be cooking this way for the first time for a guest or family member. If gluten-free cooking is new to you, you may be feeling anxious, confused and/or worried? You know that it’s so important to get this right but you’re a little bit over-whelmed by it all? I have had so many requests for a gluten-free Christmas cookbook and I’ve found that people are normally worried about one or more of the following things:

Will I have to buy lots of specialised and expensive ingredients?

Is it really difficult to cook gluten-free dishes?

How do I cook gluten-free safely?

Please stop worrying now, I’ve got you covered – here’s how:

My recipes do not rely on expensive, hard-to-source ingredients.

You do not require the culinary skills of a master chef to cook my recipes.

As gluten can also lurk in the most surprising places, there is a chapter in the book on how to cook safely for anyone on a gluten-free diet.

It’s not expensive, difficult or scary, rather it’s my aim with this cookbook to provide you with the reassurance that festive gluten-free cooking can be simple, easy and, above all, gloriously tasty!

In this cookbook, I’ll guide you through your first gluten-free Christmas or holiday celebration. You’ll find detailed advice on:

what to look for on food labels when shopping for the festive period

how to make sure your kitchen is a safe area to prepare gluten-free meals, snacks and drinks

any special tips or techniques that help make gluten-free recipes fool-proof, simple and reliable.

Other Dietary Considerations

Whilst this book is primarily aimed at gluten-free cooking, I appreciate that you may also be concerned about other dietary needs too. Obviously all the recipes in this book are gluten-free, meaning no gluten-containing cereals including wheat, rye, barley, spelt, wheat germ, nor any processed ingredient containing these. However, if you have additional dietary requirements or concerns, I have also categorized every recipe into a number of Free-From and allergen concerns including:

Dairy-Free

Oat-Free

Nut-Free

Vegetarian

Vegan

Yeast-Free.

Also, if a recipe does include one or two ingredients that preclude it from being free-from, where possible, I will include alternative options showing how the recipe can be adapted, for example, non-dairy margarine for butter. Old hands at recipe adapting will already be very familiar with this, so apologies in advance for some fairly obvious substitutions. However, my cook books are bought by a wide variety of readers, but I’ve included this advice especially if you are either new to cooking for these needs or if you do not regularly cook for these dietary needs and are not used to making such recipe substitutions.

Finally, a note for vegetarians, where a recipe includes cheese but is indicated with the V symbol, it assumes that the cook will use vegetarian cheese if that is required.

A Safe & Stress-Free Festive Gluten-free Kitchen - The Essentials

What is a Gluten-free & Wheat-free Diet?

A gluten-free & wheat-free diet means a diet which does not include any gluten-containing cereals, such as wheat, rye, barley, spelt, wheat germ, nor any processed ingredient containing these cereals or traces of them.

You are probably aware that gluten can be found in the usual suspects of standard breads, cakes, pasta and breakfast cereals. However, what about soy sauce or mustard or even potato chips? Unfortunately, with processed foods, gluten lurks in the most unlikely places and you really must be vigilant about reading the labels and allergy advice on all processed foods and ingredients to ensure that they are gluten-free. We’ll cover this in more detail a little later.

Oats & a Gluten-free Diet

Oats do not gluten but they do contain the protein avenin, which is similar to gluten. Fortunately, research has shown that it is safe for most people who follow a gluten-free diet to eat the avenin contained in oats.

It is important to ensure that the oats are from a certified gluten-free source as this ensures that they have not been cross-contaminated with gluten during the manufacturing process. Gluten-free oats are which are widely available and you can find out more about gluten-free food labeling here.

However, there are a very small number of people who may also be sensitive to the avenin in even gluten-free oat products. So, if you are cooking for someone who needs to eat gluten-free, it is best to check with them if it is safe for them to eat gluten-free oats too.

Which Gluten-free Flour?

Most of my recipes in this book that call for flour, use a ready-blended plain/all-purpose gluten-free flour mix, such as Bob’s Red Mill (US) or Doves Farm or Shipton Mill (UK). There are two main reasons for this:

Firstly, these ready-blended mixes are now very widely available in almost all main supermarkets and grocery stores, meaning that my recipes are easy to use wherever you live or shop (although I have also provided some online stores that carry these ranges in the final section of this book, Resources – Gluten-free Ingredients).

Secondly, using just one all-purpose blend is also friendlier on the wallet, especially when you are starting out on cooking gluten-free. As you continue on your gluten-free journey, you can expand your range of gluten-free flours and start to experiment with them. If you are already a seasoned gluten-free cook, then you may have your own gluten-free blend, in which case, please do use this in place of the proprietary brands.

There’s the saying that the exception proves the rule. In this festive selection of seasonal recipes, there is an exception, which is Chestnut Flour. Chestnuts are one of the quintessential flavours of the holiday season, and joyously, they are naturally gluten-free too! So, a small number of recipes within do take advantage of this wonderful ingredient, but if you are unable to source it, then please just substitute a gluten-free, all-purpose flour blend instead.

Cooking Gluten-free with Alcohol

There are many alcoholic beverages are naturally gluten-free as they are made from ingredients that do not contain gluten and could not have been cross-contaminated with gluten during their production. On the other hand, some drinks, for example beer, would normally contain gluten as they are made from gluten-based ingredients such as malt barley. So, unless specifically manufactured to be, and labelled as, gluten-free, beer, ale and stout should be assumed to contain gluten.

Wine, sherry, port and cider are all made from fruit which are naturally gluten-free. In theory, fully distilled spirits should be gluten-free as the distillation process should remove the gluten-containing molecules. However, this is a controversial subject and some people with gluten-intolerances report that they are sensitive to spirits made from gluten-containing ingredients (such as whiskey, whisky, bourbon) whereas others don’t. As with all processed ingredients, it is always best to check the relevant manufacturer’s claims for the product in the country you are purchasing it (as processes can change on a country-by-country basis). In light of this, for the purposes of this cookbook, all grain-based spirits have been avoided, and only spirits made from fruits, nuts, seeds or sugarcane have been included, eg Amaretto, Tia Maria, Brandy, Rum.

Read Labels on Processed Foods

As we’ve already covered, gluten can be found in grains and cereals such as wheat, rye, barley, spelt and wheat germ. These are frequently processed into ingredients commonly used in:

bakery goods such as bread, rolls, pastries, cakes, biscuits and cookies

breakfast foods such as cereals, granola, muesli, breakfast bars, instant porridge mix

flour and flour mixes such as plain/all-purpose flour, self-raising flour, pizza base mix, bread mixes

starchy carbohydrates such as cous cous, grains, udon noodles and pasta

However, whilst these are the more obvious culprits for not being gluten-free, the above are just the tip of the iceberg. Unfortunately, gluten can lurk in the most unlikely processed foods and beverages, so take care to carefully read the ingredients lists and allergy advice on all processed foods.

For example, some of the following festive food staples can contain gluten:

ale, beer, lager & stout

Asian cooking sauces and seasonings such as soy sauce, Hoisin sauce, oyster sauce

barley drinks and drink concentrates

battered, bread-crumbed and flour-dusted pre-prepared poultry, fish and seafood such as battered fish, chicken Kiev, fish or chicken goujons and fingers

canned, packet/sachet and fresh broths, chowders and soups

cooking sauces, pastes and marinades such as pizza sauce, cook-in casserole sauces, pasta sauces, curry pastes and BBQ marinades

fresh, frozen and ambient ready meals, sides and party snacks

gravy granules, gravy packet mixes, concentrated gravy paste pots, chilled and long-life ready made gravy

instant batter, biscuit, cake and pancake mixes and boxes

instant hot drinks such as flavoured coffee sachets and pods, hot chocolate mixes and sachets, malted milk mixes and sachets, instant tea blends

ketchups & table sauces such as BBQ sauce, brown sauce, steak sauce, tomato ketchup and Worcestershire sauce

malt vinegar and vegetables pickled in malt vinegar such as beets, gherkins, onions

oven-ready potato chips, fries, hash browns, potato slices, roast potatoes, waffles and wedges

processed meat and meat-substitute products such as burgers, chicken nuggets/dippers, haggis, hot dogs, meatballs, sausages

ready made stuffing and stuffing mixes, breadcrumbs, seasoned breadcrumb mixes, plain and seasoned Panko crumbs, matzo mix

salad dressing, mayonnaise, salad cream, vinaigrette

savoury biscuits and crackers such as crisp breads, wafers, French toast, oatcakes, breadsticks and cheese straws

savoury snacks such as potato chips/crisps, pretzels, tortilla & pitta chips, potato rings

savoury spreads and pastes such as yeast extract, sandwich spreads and pastes

sweet and savoury pouring sauces and sauce mixes such as cheese sauce, chocolate sauce, custard, pudding and white sauce

stock or bouillon concentrates, cubes and pastes

This list is not exhaustive and it is the nature of the printed word that it can go out of date as soon as the print button is pushed! To be fair, as the interest in and demand for gluten-free food and ingredients has grown, many more food producers and manufacturers are realising that they need to address this in their products and manufacturing processes. To that end, the safest route is to understand how the risk of gluten in a food is identified in the country in which you live and to always check the ingredients list of the products you are about to use. So the next topic I will cover is what to look for on food labels.

What to Look For on Food Labels

As evidenced above, when shopping for gluten-free cooking, you really do need to be vigilant about the providence of your ingredients. You need to ensure that your purchases:

do not contain ingredients in which gluten naturally occurs, and

could not have been cross-contaminated with, or exposed to, gluten during the processing or packing.

Unfortunately, there is not a world-wide standard for the term gluten-free. What is essential is that you become familiar with how the potential for gluten and gluten-allergens in a product is identified and labeled on food in your country. I have covered the information for the USA and UK below, which demonstrates that whilst they are similar, they are not exactly the same, so you must seek out the up-to-date information in your country.

USA Food Allergen Labeling

Gluten-free Claims

In the USA in August 2014, new rules came into force defining the standards that needed to be achieved for a product to carry the claim gluten-free, without gluten free of gluten and no gluten. Part of that standard includes the limit of less than 20 parts per million of gluten in foods that carry these gluten-free label claims, including any ingredient derived from grains that normally gluten as long as they’ve been processed to remove the gluten to the required standard.

Foods that inherently don't have any gluten (eg bottled spring water, fruit, vegetables, eggs) can also be labeled gluten-free.

Foods that cannot be labeled as gluten-free either contain