Hot Artichoke Dip Recipe - Gluten-Free + Vegan

This hot artichoke dip is worthy of a party. Gluten-free and vegan.

Party Worthy Dip

I wasn't sure I had another recipe post in me -- before the year of 2010 turns into a pumpkin and rolls backward into the past. I thought I was going out with a year-end Top Ten Gluten-Free Recipes post, catching up with all you gluten-free  lovelies again in 2011. I thought I was done. Spent. Empty as a pocket, to quote a certain singer-songwriter. So much for assumptions.

Turns out my fevered brain wasn't done with 2010. It spun off in party mode as soon as I heard that my oldest son was officially engaged. He popped the question with true romantic flare. On a wine train. In the rain. In Napa Valley. And she said yes. The ring fit. People on the train applauded. It doesn't get much better than this. To witness your son's heart. Blooming.

And so. The year closes. I make a mug of chamomile tea and reflect upon the deepest joys of motherhood, turning their myriad facets toward the window light above the kitchen sink stacked with breakfast plates, cups, and spoons. Learning to love with open arms and a tender opinion, unconditional. This floats to the top of all other joys. The thick cream of it. A layered, rich reward. To love a son expands your heart beyond measure. To see him love, and inspire love, is the most beautiful working of magic. 

Don't you think?


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Top Ten Gluten-Free Recipes for 2010: My Faves

From cake to quinoa - my year's best gluten-free recipes

The annual ritual of creating top ten lists has commenced. Critics are choosing their top ten movies, editors have picked their Top Ten Books. Fashionistas have declared the year's best and worst trends of 2010 (jeggings- love 'em or hate 'em?). Do I dare leap into the scuffle and pluck ten gluten-free recipes as the year's best? And if so -- just how, exactly -- does one choose the golden top ten? The best of the best. Do I do as I did last year and let stats decide? (Might seem rather lazy, to repeat that process.) Or do I rely on my personal and often quirky preferences? (Could be controversial, especially if I was honest and chose peanut butter on ryeless rye bread toast as my number one.) Perhaps I should make a game of it and draw names from a hat. Randomness is appealing, in a way. (Though unsatisfying.)

I'll just do it.

I'll be bold. I'll be opinionated. I'll pick my g-free favorites from this year's recipes. Perhaps I need to define my criteria, though. How do you choose a favorite among the dozens you've created in a year? I'm proud of each recipe. After all, I enjoyed them enough to photograph them in all their gluten-free glory (unless, sadly, they were not photogenic, and that, Dear Reader, is a loss to the blog). And every recipe I shared passed the family taste test or they wouldn't stand a chance of appearing on Gluten-Free Goddess. You don't hear about the runner-ups, or the flat out failures that left your intrepid goddess weeping and gnashing her teeth. [Not really. I'm not the weeping kind. I swear like a character in Deadwood and take deadly aim at the trash bin.]

My criteria, then? Simple. A favorite recipe would be a recipe I'd make again. And share with company.

So with that in mind, away we go.

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Gluten-Free Apple Cake with Cranberries

A gluten-free cranberry apple cake- with a sweet-tart kick.

Sweet and Tart 

No philosophy today. Instead, a cake. A beautiful gluten-free cake to bake for the holidays- or any day you feel like celebrating. So dust off your cake pan, Babycakes.

This is a moist and tender apple cake laced with a hint of cinnamon and studded with fresh tart berries. After seven eight nine years of baking various gluten-free incarnations of my tried and true Jewish apple cake recipe, this could be our favorite. Maybe it's the sweet-tart combo. The subtlety of flavors.

In a food culture obsessed with kicking up recipes with more for the sake of more (white chocolate peanut butter bacon swirled maple donut ice cream drizzled in dulche de leche coconut marshmallow syrup and dusted with sugared Meyer lemon zest and shaved cacao, anyone?) the clean and classic flavor contrast of apples and cranberries is somehow new again. Even, refreshing. 

I don't need dessert to taste like candy.

I like my cake to taste like cake. 

How about you?

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Gluten-Free Potato Latkes

Nothing beats golden, crispy, lacy latkes.

A gluten-free favorite from the archives- these tender, lacy latkes are easy to make. Serve with homemade applesauce and sour cream spiked with a hint of horseradish or chives. And PS: I just passed my 5th year blog anniversary! Five years blogging gluten-free recipes.

Delicious thanks to all of you- much love xox Karina

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Gluten-Free Thanksgiving Side Dishes

Quinoa Mushroom Pilaf

Need some gluten-free inspiration for your Thanksgiving feast? Have I got some side dishes for you. From Quinoa Mushroom Pilaf to Pomegranate Glazed Green Beans, from Sweet Potato Cornbread to Cranberry Applesauce and more, I've gathered together my favorite gluten-free side dish recipes. One glance at these offerings should convince even the most die hard skeptics that living gluten-free can be more than delicious.

It can be beautiful.


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Butternut Squash Soup with Coconut Milk

Smooth and silky vegan butternut squash soup with coconut milk.

Orange is the New Black

Halloween is creeping toward us. Soft and slow but deft on black cat paws. I wake to the dry scratch clatter of leaves spinning down the sidewalk from Santa Monica Boulevard, riding the wind downhill like a gaggle of flattened tumbleweeds. I yawn awake dreaming of soup, imagining my favorite wooden spoon stirring the humble beginnings of some jewel toned potage as the French like to call it. Or so I'm told.

I don't speak French.

I'm craving soup like a mad woman, you see. Like some Shakespearean witch in the wild woods of West Hollywood, I long to stir a little seasonal magic into a pot of silky, orange hued soul food. So this week I conjured cooked up a curried fall classic. Every October I make batches of this gorgeous, comforting soup. That just so happens to be gluten-free, dairy-free and vegan.

The secret is- use ripe flavorful squash. Choose a butternut squash with firm golden-tan skin. The squash should make a hollow ring when thumped.

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Gluten-Free Cranberry Crumble

Gluten-free cranberry peach crumble. Easy as pie. Wait. Easier.

Sweet and Tart

So I have a question for you. Albeit, rhetorical. Who doesn't love a warm-from-the-oven fruit crisp or crumble? Personally, I'm a big fan. Obviously. Here's why. Imagine tender, juicy melt-in-your mouth bites of sweet fruit. A kiss of brown sugar. A hint of cinnamon.

And Darling- best of all? Embarrassingly easy.

Think about it. No wrestling with stick-to-itself plastic wrap. No rolling out finicky fall-apart gluten-free pie dough that- I am sorry to tell you- never has the authentic tender flakiness of the real thing. My nose would be growing like a woody on a sixteen year old watching Angelina Jolie in Beowulf if I told you any gluten-free pie crust I ever ate was worthy of the filling.
And besides. Who needs the hassle? Honestly. And why pies? Whose bright idea was it to make pies the epitome of holiday baking perfection. The holidays are stressful enough. All the family mishigas. The drama.

I'm over it.

Easy and tasty is my kind of dessert. Hence my love for fruit crisps and crumbles. Sometimes I bake crisps in individual baking dishes. Sometimes I make fruit crumbles in a glass pie plate. This way, it even (sort of) resembles a pie. If you squint.

Or knocked back a vodka martini or two.

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