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Celiac.com 04/10/2024 - This refreshing salad captures the essence of Spring with its vibrant colors, delightful flavors, and nourishing ingredients. This gluten-free salad is not only a feast for the senses but also a nutritious addition to your springtime menu. Packed with a variety of textures and wholesome ingredients like maple, nuts, seeds, blueberries, and creamy goat cheese, this salad is a perfect blend of sweet and savory, making it a delightful treat for your taste buds. Let's dive into this deliciously sweet salad and savor the goodness of spring in every bite. This is a simple, delicious and versatile salad that can be made with a variety of ingredients. Use pecans, almonds, or pine nuts in place of walnuts, as desired. Basically, it's all about the dressing. Ingredients: 3 cups torn romaine lettuce ½ cup blueberries ¼ cup dried cranberries ¼ cup sunflower seeds ¼ cup walnut pieces ¼ cup crumbled feta cheese ¼ cup crumbled goat cheese ¼ cup white balsamic vinegar, or to taste ¼ cup maple syrup, or to taste ¼ cup grapeseed oil, or to taste salt, to taste Directions: Toss romaine lettuce, blueberries, dried cranberries, sunflower seeds, walnut pieces, feta, and goat cheese in a large bowl. Pour vinegar, syrup, and oil over the salad one at a time; toss until evenly coated. Season with salt.

12/17/2022 - Quinoa (pronounced “keen-wa”) is not a grain but is a broad leaf plant of the Chenopodiaceae family, which is a close relative to the weed, lamb’s quarters. Spinach and beets are also in the same family as quinoa. Quinoa has been consumed for thousands of years in South America and several varieties are now grown in Colorado and the Canadian prairies. The seed looks like a cross between sesame seed and millet. Quinoa seeds are covered with saponin, an extremely bitter resin-like substance, which protects it from birds and insects. To be edible the saponin must be removed. Some companies have developed a special process to remove this coating, making it pan-ready and fast cooking. This eliminates the need to wash and rinse the seed. However, some domestically grown quinoa may need to be rinsed at least 3 or 4 times or until the water runs clear to remove the saponin. Quinoa is very nutritious! It contains more high-quality protein than other grains and cereals. The quality of this protein compares very closely to that of dried skimmed milk. Quinoa is high in iron, magnesium, phosphorus, potassium and zinc. It is also a source of thiamin, riboflavin, niacin, calcium and dietary fiber. Quinoa is available in several forms: Quinoa Seed Can be used in salads (see recipe below), casseroles, desserts, as well as a thickener for soups, chili and stews Cooks very quickly (10-15 minutes) Quinoa Flakes Great as a hot breakfast cereal. Add cinnamon, chopped nuts and dried fruits. Quinoa Flour Can be used in baked products (e.g., breads, cakes and cookies) and pancakes. Strong flavor so best combined with other GF flours. Quinoa Pasta Quinoa is combined with corn or rice and is available in a variety of shapes. Cooks in 5-9 minutes. Quinoa Salad Recipe Recipe courtesy of: Northern Quinoa Corporation. The delicate flavor of quinoa is similar to couscous. Quinoa can be used as a pasta substitute in cold pasta salads. Lemon Garlic Dressing: 4 garlic cloves, minced 1⁄4 cup red wine vinegar 1⁄4 cup canola oil 1⁄4 cup water 1 lemon, juiced Salt and pepper to taste Salad: 4 cups NorQuin quinoa, cooked and chilled 1 cup grated carrots 1⁄2 cup sliced green onions 1⁄2 cup chopped celery 1⁄4 cup sunflower seeds 1⁄4 cup slivered almonds 3 Tbsp. sesame seeds 1⁄2 cup sliced mushrooms Combine dressing ingredients and let stand for at least 10 minutes. Prepare salad ingredients and combine. Toss salad with dressing. Can be served immediately or chilled for several hours.

Celiac.com 10/24/2020 - Antioxidants, anthocyanins, phytochemicals, carotenoids, tocopherols, polyphenols, enzymes with antioxidant activity—do those food-related words sound a bit esoteric to you? Like maybe you need to be part of an enlightened inner-circle of scientists to understand what they mean? We’ve made eating rather complicated, haven’t we? Forget the fancy words. If you focus on fresh whole foods, the semantics don’t really matter. Bringing healthy, nourishing food to the table is what is important, especially if you have an autoimmune disorder like celiac disease. But sometimes we get so focused on the individual nutrients and the complicated words that we forget about the big picture. The benefit of these individual ingredients might not be the same without consuming the whole food and letting them work their magic together. Autoimmune diseases are systemic in nature, so healthy nutrition is a vital piece of the wellness puzzle. The Standard American Diet (SAD) is rather dreadful in many ways, so food-industry scientists have come up with substitutions for the real thing and clever ways to fortify processed foods. Nutrients are being added to packaged foods as a marketing tool. Food that is reengineered to come in a box isn’t natural, but to make it more appealing to the consumer, manufacturers add something special like vitamin D, fiber, iron, or omega-3s and boldly announce it on the package. Something to catch your eye and make you wonder if you can live without it. While I’m not totally against boxed and fortified foods, it’s much better to limit your intake and stick with the real thing. That way you don’t get all the junk that often accompanies those food choices—additives, preservatives, chemicals, dyes, artificial flavors, and fillers that often contain gluten. Rather than a food product, enjoy the pleasure and health benefits of eating whole foods. And contrary to what it may sound like from my first couple of paragraphs, I’m actually quite fond of the science behind the food, but we don’t have to get neurotic about all the details, especially if we’re more thoughtful with our food choices to begin with. Back to the complicated science terms and the first word of this article—antioxidants. What are antioxidants and why is it important for us to have plenty of them in our diets? Antioxidants are molecules, or substances in foods, that are protective to normal physiological functions in the human body. They slow or prevent oxidation, which is a chemical reaction that produces free radicals that cause cell damage. Foods high in antioxidants protect the body from oxidation and boost the immune system. Here’s where antioxidants are important to those of us with celiac disease, which is a disorder of the immune system. We want to enhance healthy immune function and reduce cell damage and inflammation. Foods rich in antioxidants help us do that. Selenium, lutein, lycopene, glutathione, beta-carotene, and the vitamins A, C, and E are all antioxidants. Where do we find foods rich in antioxidants? According to a 2006 study published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, researchers analyzed 1,113 food samples and identified the following 15 foods as having the highest antioxidant content per serving. From number #1 to 15: blackberries, walnuts, strawberries, artichokes (prepared), cranberries, coffee, raspberries, pecans, blueberries, ground cloves, grape juice, dark chocolate, cranberry juice, cherries, and red wine. The food groups with the highest overall antioxidant levels were spices and herbs, nuts and seeds, berries, fruits, and vegetables. In general, plants and plant products have much higher antioxidant levels than animal products, so add these foods to your shopping list and enjoy a daily dose of antioxidant protection!

Celiac.com 09/22/2016 - These simple endive appetizers will have your guests screaming "fancy!" while they happily make the plate disappear. Endive leaves and a few simple ingredients turn out one of the easiest, tastiest, most elegant appetizers. Ingredients: Endive leaves Goat cheese Bacon, crisp Pomegranate seeds Balsamic vinegar Roasted cashews, pecans or walnuts, optional Directions: Heat a broiler. Place endive leaves in a pan and top with goat cheese and crumbled bacon. Place pan under broiler for a moment until cheese begins to melt a bit. Remove and top with pomegranate seeds and drizzle with balsamic vinegar. Garnish with nuts, as desired. Serve warm.