Gluten Free Recipes

I don't know if I've mentioned this before but my daughter, Isabella, has celiac disease, so I cook mostly gluten free. I'm going to start posting my gluten free recipes whenever I come up with one, just because it's handy. I admit they may not be really healthy, it's just that this is an easy place to find them all. First this:

Cheesecake

Crust:
1 cup Pamela’s Gluten Free Baking Mix

1/4 cup brown sugar

1/3 cup cold butter (or Smart Balance spread like I use), cut into pieces

1/2 cup finely chopped pecans

Mix it all together and press into the pan

Cheesecake:
 3-8 oz bars of cream cheese, softened
1-8 oz bar of  neufchatel cheese ('cause it cuts the fat a wee bit)
1 cup of granulated sugar
2 egg
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon gluten free vanilla

Mix it all together well and pour in pan. I don't use a cheesecake pan because, well I don't have one. So I just use an 8x8ish glass dish.
Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes. Then, turn off the oven and leave it in there for another 45 minutes. Remove from the oven and let cool for a while then refrigerate overnight. Top with whatever you like, I like cherry pie filling or just plain is good too.

*This crust recipe can also be used for layer bars. You know, those bars that have the crust and chocolate chips, butterscotch chips, coconut and sweetened condensed milk poured over the whole thing and baked at 350 degrees for 25 minutes in a 9x13 pan.

And this:

Gluten Free Energy Bars

Ingredients:

• 3/4 cup peanut butter
• 3/4 cup honey
• 3/4 c almond pieces (or other nuts you like)
• 1 cup dried fruit (I used dried cherries and cherry flavored craisins)
• 4 cups GF brown rice crispie cereal
• 1/8 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Preparation:

Line a large baking sheet with parchment paper

Mix dry ingredients

In a large saucepan melt peanut butter with honey over medium low heat. Stir and watch carefully to prevent scorching. When the mixture is smooth and bubbling cook for about 1 minute. Remove from heat. Add salt and vanilla and stir to combine. Use a large spatula to stir in nuts, dried fruit and cereal. Stir until all ingredients are coated with nut butter mixture. Spread out on parchment paper. Let cool and cut.

I also added mini M&Ms. Next time I might add some ground flax seed to make it healthier. If you wanted to try them and didn't need gluten free you could use regular rice crispy cereal instead of the gf brown rice variety. These were so good! We ate them all up super fast!