“I am thrilled to work again with the team at Betty Crocker® and to contribute so many gluten-free recipes to this fabulous book” says Jean Duane, Alternative Cook. Betty Crocker® Gluten Free Cooking includes mouth-watering favorites such as Gluten Free Quick Bread Mix, Sesame Crackers, Orange Cranberry Cinnamon Chex® Breakfast Bars, Waffles, Cheesy Vegetable Pizza with Fresh Basil, Gluten-Free Quick Bread Mix, Cinnamon Raison Bread, Applesauce Quick Bread, Gingerbread Molasses Flax Muffins, Chocolate Chip Muffins, Apricot Muffins with Almond Streusel Topping, Cinnamon Scones. Sandwich Bread, Sesame Seed Hamburger Buns, Poppy Seed Crackers, Cornbread, Dinner Rolls, Best Ever Banana Bread, Glazed Lemon Pecan Bread, Soft Pretzels, Gravy, Delicious Chocolate Cake with White Frosting, Chocolate Snack Cake with Creamy Butterscotch Frosting, Spicy Pumpkin Cake, Lemon Poppy Seed Cup Cakes with Lemon Buttery Frosting, Apple Pie, Luscious Meringue Lemon Pie, Strawberry Pie, Apple-Cranberry Crisp, Double Peanut Butter Cookies, Jean’s Snickerdoodles, Nutty Chocolate- Chocolate Chip Cookies, Sugar Cookies, Lemon Wedding Cookies, Peppermint Frosted Brownies and much more.

Working with the Betty Crocker® team was a terrific experience, says Jean Duane. Their professionals triple test every recipe, and then present the finished product to a five-person taste panel. Only the most delicious, easy-to-make, satisfying recipes make the cookbook cut. I am honored to have so many recipes in this book!

Those with gluten intolerance often have other allergies to dairy and/or soy as well. Substitutions are a breeze with this cookbook. Allergic to dairy? Just substitute almond, rice, soy or hemp seed milk for cow’s milk. Instead of dairy-based cheddar or Swiss, use a substitute such as the products made by Follow Your Heart for cheese. Can’t tolerate corn? Simply substitute any other grain-flour. The recipes will still taste great – without the allergens. Still need help with substitutions to fit your dietary needs? Please feel free to contact Jean Duane at www.alternativecook.com.

Betty Crocker® teamed with Jean Duane, Alternative Cook and Everyday with Rachael Ray magazine editor Sylvia Nardone to offer an array of recipes that will excite even the veteran gluten-free cook with creative new ideas for meals, snacks and baked treats. It is a ‘must-have’ addition to your recipe collection.

Jean Duane, Alternative Cook, LLC produces full-length instructional DVDs (Chocolate, Mexican, Italian and Kids’ Meals), video streams (alternativecook.com) and Bake Deliciously! Gluten & Dairy Free Cookbook (available in paperback and ebook); and The Complete Idiot’s Guide for Gluten Free Cooking. Ms. Duane has produced several spots for Comcast’s Video on Demand, made television appearances on PBS and has been a featured speaker at the 2009 and 2010 International Association for Culinary Professionals’ Conferences. Jean has developed recipes for Betty Crocker®, for Beautiful Sweets bakery and been featured in Better Homes and Gardens special Christmas Cookies 2010. Ms. Duane an instructor at Denver-based Seasoned Chef Cooking School. A regular speaker and magazine writer, she won Kiplinger’s “Dream in You” contest in 2006.

This recipe features a lovely combination of flavors using umeboshi plum vinegar, a salty condiment made from pickled plums. It calls for nutritional yeast which is grown on molasses and pasteurized to ‘kill’ the yeast. It is full of B vitamins and adds a ‘cheesy’ taste. Raw cashews as the base for the cheese sauce. It is remarkable how much this tastes like the real thing. The recipe is embedded in the video, so it is easy to follow along on your portable device, or for a written version of the recipe, please visit Ask Jean blog.

The Macaroni and Cheese recipe is from the Kids’ Meals DVD which has lots of great, easy gluten and dairy free recipes, demonstrations and helpful hints on living “without”. Here’s the recipe written out:

Macaroni and “Cheese”
Boil 10 oz. Macaroni according to the directions on the manufacturer’s package.
Recommendation: Tinkyada whole grain rice macaroni with rice bran and Follow Your Heart Vegan Gourmet Soy “Cheddar” style Cheese

Blanch Almonds:
1 cup water
1/4 cup almonds
Place almonds in boiling water and boil one minute.
Strain almonds and place on a paper towel. Pop off skins.

Blend:
1/4 cup almonds (blanched)
2 cups water
2.5 oz soy cheddar cheese (with no casein*)
1/4 cup nutritional yeast (optional)
1/4 cup brown rice flour
2 tablespoons ume plum vinegar

Place ingredients in a blender. Add water, cheese, yeast, rice flour and vinegar.
Blend until smooth (several minutes). Pour cheese mixture in a sauce pan and heat.
Whisk constantly until mixture thickens.

Strain macaroni and spray with oil to prevent clumping. Pour thicken mixture over macaroni, and serve.

*Please read ingredient labels carefully. Many “dairy free” cheeses contain casein.

The Alternative Cook Channel on You Tube features many helpful video streams for people following a gluten or dairy free (GFCF) diet including Gluten Free Flour Alternatives, Milk and Egg Substitutions for Baking, Gluten and Dairy Amazing Facts, Cooking Without Gluten and Dairy (GFCF), Ethnic Cooking Without Gluten and Dairy, Thai Fried Rice and Macaroni and Cheese. Subscribe to this channel to be notified when more recipes are added.

Years ago, when Oprah discussed living your ‘best life’, I decided to personalize my definition. It means learning as much as possible, helping others, doing my best, and being kind. An ideal day includes working on an ‘it’ that matters, playing music, studying, spending time with family and friends, exercising, reading, writing and meditation. Problem was, my “it” wasn’t clear.

For two years, from 2003-2005, I suffered with a miserable, itchy rash. When finally diagnosed with an autoimmune reaction to gluten, my “it” was defined. I attended cooking school and my mission became to develop media to show how to cook without gluten, dairy and other allergens. Alternative Cook was born from Oprah’s consistent message of being my “authentic self” and “following my calling”.

Launched from winning Kiplinger’s “Dream In You” contest, years since have been spent developing instructional cooking DVDs, writing cookbooks; building a website and blog; writing articles and newsletters; creating a channel on You Tube; giving demonstrations on TV and in other venues; speaking; and having booths at national conferences. Two years in a row, I spoke at the International Association for Culinary Professionals on gluten free baking and self-publishing. Soon after, Penguin/Avery engaged me to write The Complete Idiot’s Guide for Gluten Free Cooking. On the heels of that, Betty Crocker featured the Alternative Cook in a gluten-free nation-wide ‘bookozine’ on newsstands from December until February this year. Bake Deliciously! Gluten and Dairy Free Cookbook was reviewed in over 170 periodicals. Oprah talks about utilizing your platform. These outlets are my platform for reaching the millions who suffer from maladies associated with gluten or dairy consumption and to hopefully save someone from going through what I did to find out gluten was the culprit.

These years have been filled with the serendipity of having the right person come into my life at the exact moment I need them. Friends formed a Circle of Love around me to reach out with their contacts. Their help enabled attracted seven distributors to sell Bake Deliciously!, introduced me to PBS’s “Life Wise” producer to give cooking demonstrations in several episodes, and to have segments on Comcast’s VOD. Though financial awards are scarce, service awards are abundant. I am grateful for the opportunity to help thousands who attend presentations and who write questions through my website.

Inspired by Oprah to give more, this letter will be published to offer a free Bake Deliciously! Gluten and Dairy Free Cookbook to the first 25 readers to give it to someone they know who is struggling with a gluten-free and/or dairy free diet. (Offer ends June 30, 2011). Perhaps receiving the book will change someone’s life for the better. Just Contact Us above.

The definition of love is letting someone follow their heart – even if means that you will miss them. Thank you Oprah, for your positive influence and inspiration.

Betty Crocker Gluten Free Recipe Collection is chock full of delicious gluten free recipes from Appetizers & Snacks to Best Breakfasts, Satisfying Meals, Breads & Sides, Desserts and More. It has a special section on Nutrition and Recipe Testing Guidelines and an ingredient guide in a section entitled Living Gluten Freely. One of the testers on the panel who has three family embers who follow a gluten free diet said, “My family would love these.” Senior Editor Diane Carlson states “Our mission is simple: To help you live a better life gluten free”.
Betty Crocker Most Requested Recipes is on newsstands across the country. With over 280 recipes, it is one to have on hand to make fool-proof, nutritious meals for gluten free guests or family members all through the year. According to a recent study by the National Commission on Digestive Diseases, 60-70 million Americans are negatively affected by the foods they eat – and gluten and dairy top the list of implicated foods. Symptoms of gluten and dairy intolerance are systemic and can affect virtually all of the systems in the body – from migraines, to arthritis, to digestive maladies. Celiac Disease is 100% curable with adherence to a gluten-free diet, and children on the Autism spectrum often improve on a gluten-free, dairy-free (GFCF) diet.
(c) Alternative Cook, LLC 2010. All Rights Reserved.

Better Homes and Gardens Christmas Cookies 2010 edition hit the newsstands and features a recipe by gluten-free, dairy-free (GFCF) expert Jean Duane, Alternative Cook. If you’re on a special diet, you might feel deprived when flipping through these mouth-watering pages with only one gluten-free recipe. Why stop at one when you can easily convert every one of those recipes? Jean shares her tips on how to convert recipes to be gluten and dairy free.

Better Homes and Gardens Special Interest Publications – Christmas Cookies contains 101 holiday treats with beautiful photos and easy-to-make recipes. One of the recipes, Snickerdoodles is from Bake Deliciously! Gluten and Dairy Free Cookbook by Jean Duane, Alternative Cook. “I am pleased to offer a gluten-free recipe for this publication, says Jean, but why limit yourself with one recipe when converting is so easy”. Below in this excerpt from Bake Deliciously!, Jean shares her secrets gleaned from years of trials and learning from (many) errors. What follows are general guidelines to convert a traditional wheat-flour recipe into gluten-free.

How to Convert a Traditional Recipe to Gluten and/or Dairy Free

1. Start with a combination of flours in these ratios: 50% grain flour (brown rice or sorghum), 25% starch (cornstarch, tapioca or potato starch) and 25% protein flour (navy, fava, garbanzo, soy, gafava flour) or a different grain flour. One cup of wheat flour translates into 1/2 cup of grain flour, 1/4 cup of bean flour and 1/4 cup of starch.

2. Add 25-50% more leavening (baking powder, baking soda or yeast).

3. Add 1/2 to 1 tsp. acid (vinegar, citric acid, ascorbic acid dough enhancer, cream of tartar or citrus juice).

4. Add 1/2 tsp. of either xanthan gum to the dry ingredients or guar gum to the wet ingredients for every cup of flour, or 1/4 tsp. of each. For smaller baked items, gums can be omitted.

5. Substitute butter with oil or ghee, cow’s milk with nut or rice milk (ideally with the same fat content).

6. Let the batter sit for a few minutes to absorb liquids before baking.

Sound easy? It really is, after you get the hang of it. Here’s an example:

Brownies

Original Recipe
1/2 cup melted butter
3/4 cup sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp. vanilla
1/3 cup cocoa powder
1/2 cup flour
1/4 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. coffee crystals

GFCF Adaptation
1/2 cup sunflower oil
3 egg whites
3/4 cup sugar
1 tsp. vanilla
1/2 tsp. cider vinegar
1 tsp. guar gum
1/3 cup cocoa powder
1/4 cup sorghum flour
2 TBS starch
2 TBS protein flour
1/4 plus 1/4 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. coffee crystals

Beat together the wet ingredients. Whisk together the dry ingredients and mix with wet ingredients. Divide into an oiled muffin pan and bake at 350° for 25 minutes.

Need more help? Have a treasured or family-favorite recipe that you just can’t get right using GFCF ingredients? We’ll convert your recipe for you for a nominal fee. Go to www.alternativecook.com and click on “Convert a Recipe.”
(c)Alternative Cook, LLC 2010, All Rights Reserved.

In The Complete Idiot’s Guide® to Gluten-Free Cooking, readers will find:
* Over 220 delicious recipes generously covering every meal of the day
* Breakfast with waffles and pancakes, Lunch, Dinner and Snacks
* Numerous breads, buns, biscuits, muffins, and even cracker recipes
* Recipes for pizza crust, pasta, noodles, dumplings, and stuffing
* One flour mix used for all recipes – to save hours of time
* Dessert recipes, including cakes, cupcakes, pies, brownies, cookies,
* Recipes for crepes, and blintzes
* Resources for finding gluten-free off-the-shelf foods
* Dairy-free alternatives, because gluten and dairy intolerance often go hand in hand
* Menu plans for all occasions including Thanksgiving Dinner, Holidays and Brunches

Gluten is associated with numerous illnesses, and for those who need or want to eat gluten-free, preparing one’s favorite foods has been difficult, until now. The Complete Idiot’s Guide® to Gluten-Free Cooking makes it easy to prepare delicious gluten-free meals and to make substitutions in one’s favorite recipes. Also included are tips for baking gluten-free, arguably the most difficult part of going gluten-free. Most recipes contain five steps or fewer.

About the Author:
Jean Duane, Alternative Cook, LLC (Centennial, Colo.) produces instructional DVDs and video streams for her extensive website (alternativecook.com) in which she shows how to cook without gluten, dairy, and other food-allergens. She has written and published Bake Deliciously! Gluten and Dairy Free cookbook. She has also produced several spots for Comcast’s Video on Demand, made television appearances on PBS and on “Bringing It Home.” A regular speaker and magazine writer, she won
Kiplinger’s “Dream in You” contest 2006.

Bake Deliciously! Gluten and Dairy Free is a cookbook that will “tingle your taste buds and inspire you to set off on a culinary baking journey” A review of Bake Deliciously! Gluten and Dairy Free appears in the July-August 2010 edition of Autism Asperger’s Digest magazine, giving culinary hope for those following the gluten-free, dairy-free (GFCF) diet that days of “baking without” have come to an end.

Autism Aspergers Digest

‘Cakes don’t rise as they should and their texture is somehow off… Breads crumble in your fingers into a heap of morsels that might work to coat a chicken breast, but certainly aren’t what you need for that sandwich you wanted to take to work. The mock cheese doesn’t melt, and the crust on your pizza is more like cardboard. And, just what the heck is that funky bean taste in the middle of that freshly baked brownie?

If you’ve ever attempted to bake gluten and dairy free, you may chuckle (or not!) over these and other baking disaster stories of your own. While the benefits of this dietary program may be obvious to you or your child, the reality of it is that sometimes you feel like you’re living ‘without’ – not just gluten and dairy, but an entire recipe box of beloved foods that seem to have faded from life. Sigh – you’d sell a year of your gym membership for one creamy slice of the decadent chocolate layer cake you once so enjoyed.
Turn those frowns upside down and grab your spatula. There’s help to be found in the form of a delightfully instructive cookbook full of delicious GFCF baked goods, most completed in five easy steps. “Bake Deliciously! Gluten and Dairy Free will make you reevaluate what you thought you knew about GFCF diets! ” Author Jean Duane’s innovative ideas will tingle your taste buds and inspire you to set off on a culinary baking journey that ranges from cheesecake to cheese crackers, brownies to breakfast muffins, and apple pie to pizza. Just as the title says, you’ll soon bake deliciously again!’

About Autism Asperger’s Digest: Multiple-award winning national magazine on autism spectrum disorders focuses on real life information for meeting the real life challenges of autism spectrum disorders. Addresses traditional, alternative and emerging thought, with contributions from parents, individuals on the spectrum, and noted experts in the field. Exclusive column by Temple Grandin, whose HBO released movie on her life recently captured 15 Emmy nominations. Autism Asperger’s Digest.

About Jean Duane, Alternative Cook: Author and entrepreneur, Jean loves cooking deliciously ‘without.’ Embarking on this journey when she was diagnosed with gluten and dairy allergies, Jean has harnessed her creativity and passion for cooking into fun, practical and easy to master instruction media that include a series of full-length cooking DVDs (Chocolate, Mexican, Italian and Kids’ Meals), video streams and the Bake Deliciously! Gluten and Dairy Free cookbook. Alternative Cook.
(c)Alternative Cook, LLC. All Rights Reserved.

Mochi GFCF Rice Puff Pastry

Purchase Mochi at the health food store. The easiest way to make it is to cut it into 1” to 2” squares. Set squares on an oiled baking sheet and bake them for 10 minutes at 450 degrees. They puff up and can be filled with jelly or dipped into a sauce. Grainaissance makes several flavors including: Cashew-Date, Chocolate Brownie, Pizza, Raison-Cinnamon, Sesame-Garlic and Super Seed all gluten and dairy free!

Grainaissance Mochi

Here’s a simple sauce to try with the Sesame-Garlic Mochi. Combine 2 TBS raw sesame tahini; 1 tsp wheat-free tamari, 2 TBS water in a bowl. Whisk to incorporate ingredients. Microwave for 30 seconds and whisk again until it turns into a sauce consistency. Bake the Mochi and dip warm Mochi into the warm sauce. Enjoy!
©Alternative Cook, LLC, 2010. All Rights Reserved.

But there may be times you are in a hurry and want somebody else to do the work. Enter: Bella Gluten-Free Mixes. Mary Capone – The Wheat Free Gourmet has just announced a new line of mixes. Ranging from pizza to sandwich bread, all-purpose flour mix and raisin bread. With these mixes, you can make a wide variety of foods.

I love statistics, and a while back, The Wheat Free Gourmet conducted a survey. Here are some of the results of The Wheat Free Gourmet presents New Allergen Free Dry Mixes survey.

“Our Profile
95% of us are gluten sensitive, intolerant or celiac
35% of us are dairy/casein intolerant
25% are allergic to soy
10% are allergic to corn
* Most of us follow a gluten-free diet because we have to in order to stay healthy
* 62% of the households have 2 or more people following a gluten-free/allergy-free diet
* We rank taste, texture, and nutrition as the top three things we are looking in our foods
* We are somewhat satisfied with what is out there
* Most of us are likely to try new mixes

For a look at Bella Gluten-Free ’s complete product line and launch date visit www.bellaglutenfree.com.”

(C)Alternative Cook, LLC 2010. All Rights Reserved

From Live Wraps with tahini-cilantro pate, cucumber, sprouts, carrot, and avocado goddess sauce to my personal favorite, Live Falafel Wrap with walnut and brazil nut falafel, tahini-cilantro pate, cucumber, onion and fresh tomato wrapped in a beautiful chard leaf with cashew sour cream and hemp seed tabouleh. Great care is taken to offer gluten-free selections. I felt safe eating the foods recommended. And of course, it is all dairy-free.

Beautiful Salad and Wraps

We were given a tour of the kitchen, where the dehydrators were humming and happy chefs were busily chopping vegetables and making creations like smoked maple tempeh and Eden nuts – a house special. The kitchen had a fresh aroma of herbs and spices.

One of the ways to tell if meal is good for you is to reflect on it three hours after it is consumed. Are you feeling well, invigorated and energetic? Or bogged down and bloated? The meals I had at the Blossoming Lotus made me feel healthy and energetic.

This method of cooking brought me back to my roots and inspired me to create more dishes using nuts, nut creams, seed and nut cheeses and lots of fresh vegetables, as shown on the Mexican, Italian and Kids’ Meals DVDs. I can’t wait to attempt to replicate some of the dishes on the Blossoming Lotus menu and create more inspired by their creativity!

If you are in the Portland area, this restaurant is worth a trip. Seriously, if I lived there, I’d find a way to eat there as often as possible You’ll find it at at 1713 NE 15th Avenue, Portland OR. ©Alternative Cook, LLC. 2010. All Rights Reserved.