Blue Cheese - Gluten Free?

Gluten Free Kay asked me about the blue cheese that I had on Thanksgiving. I served Amablu blue cheese. I emailed Amablu to ask if their cheese was gluten free and received a response in 18 minutes. Here’s what Beth at Amablu said:

“That is a very common question and I’m glad you asked. Our Amablu products, including our blue cheese, gorgonzola and our award winning St. Pete’s Select blue cheese are all gluten free. We are careful to purchase our Penicillium roqueforttii from manufacturers that culture without the use of wheat or rye breads.

We here at Faribault Dairy take pride in making handmade, all natural, award winning cheese and ultimately strive for you, the consumer to have a pleasurable palate experience. Please feel free to contact me if you have any further questions or concerns.

I hope you enjoy your blue cheese experience.”

I have a fond connection with Amablu. My grandfather worked in the sand caves in Faribault making blue cheese many years ago. They shut down the caves for a while, and then recently the Faribault Dairy company bought them and began production again.

My sister and I have very thin skin, so you can easily see our veins beneath it. We like to say that we have blue cheese coursing through our veins. When people ask how we can eat moldy cheese, we say, “It’s in our blood!” We follow in the footsteps of our grandpa!

Gluten Free Thanksgiving Dinner - Yum!!!

Well, Thanksgiving is all over with. We had a great time with family and lots o' food. Here are a few pictures from our meal.



We had cheese and crackers and deviled eggs for appetizer. Tim and I were really looking forward to the special cheeses. We had creamy havarti, dill havarti, Dubliner, Gruyere, and blue. Of course, most blues are started on wheat bread, so be careful about eating blue cheese.






Then we started the meal out with a fresh julienne veggie salad with a homemade raspberry vinaigrette and popovers. I used the popover recipe from the Gluten Free Gourmet Bakes Bread. They didn’t “pop” a lot, but they tasted just like their glutenful partners.




We got out our china for this special meal. I just love the look of our accent plates!




The main course consisted of too much food. We had a beef roast with lots of onions, mashed garlic sweet potatoes...




green bean casserole...




Carrie’s sweet corn pudding, cranberry salad...




and cranberry sauce.






Then, much later in the day, we had our dessert: raspberry cranberry pie and chocolate pie. Can you tell that we like cranberries in my family?




For breakfast this morning we had fruit soup (a family tradition) and a Swedish coffee cake from the Gluten Free Gourmet Makes Comfort Food that really turned out great! I’ll definitely be making that recipe again!




I hope you had a great Thanksgiving, too. And don’t forget to give thanks!

Thanksgiving Menu

Sorry I’ve been *absent* recently. I have so much to do to get ready for Thanksgiving!

My mom, sister, and great-aunt are coming down tomorrow to stay through Friday. I’m glad I’ll have a bunch of extra hands to help in the kitchen!

I’m so excited for our Thanksgiving meal! We’re already prepping some of the food and I just want to eat it all right now!

Here’s what we’re having…

Appetizers
Cheese and crackers
Deviled eggs

Dinner
Julienne veggie salad with raspberry vinaigrette
Pot roast (I know, I know, it’s not turkey, but it’s still so good!)
Garlic mashed sweet potatoes
Green bean hot dish
Carrie’s sweet corn pudding
Pineapple salad
Popovers
Cranberry sauce

Dessert
Cranberry raspberry pie (with this pie crust recipe)
Dark chocolate pie
Ice cream

Oh, I’m getting hungry just typing this out.

If you’ve been reading my blog for a while, you’ll know that my family members have unusual diets. I don’t eat gluten, my sister’s a vegetarian and doesn’t eat tomatoes or peppers, and my mom doesn’t eat wheat, potatoes, and corn. It’s a challenge to cook for all of us, but I think I have enough here to satisfy everyone.

I’ll post some pictures and recipes later this week.

My Thanksgiving guests will be leaving Friday afternoon, and then my cousins and two of their friends will be coming Friday evening to stay through Sunday. I’m pretty sure I won’t have too much blogging time; I’ll be having way too much fun!

Thanksgiving

I’m getting excited for Thanksgiving. We’re having my Mom, sister Rae, and Great-aunt Cheryl down for a few days. They’ll be here the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, so I’m going to put them all to work in the kitchen helping me prepare the big meal! I’ll be glad to have the help!

I really enjoy planning out a special Thanksgiving meal. I’ll post our menu and food pictures next week. I should tell you that we’re going to have a raspberry cranberry pie to whet your appetite!

Tim and I have been setting aside some extra money each week to help fund our Thanksgiving meal; we couldn’t afford such an elaborate meal on just our $50.00/week grocery budget.

It’s nice to have the extra money in cash so that we know how much to spend and don’t over spend. And it’s nice that it doesn’t all have to come out of our checking account in one fell swoop.

Here are just a few things I’m thankful for:

Tim
My family and in-laws
My church and pastors
My friends
My job
My home

Really, this list could go on and on.

Thank you, Lord, for all of your blessings!

Chicken Soup Variation

I had a semi-failed experiment last week. I had a great idea, but looking back, I should have realized that it wouldn’t play out quite like I intended it.

I thought that I should make sweet potato dumplings to go in my chicken veggie soup. So I made some mashed sweet potatoes and dropped them into the boiling soup by spoonfuls.

Of course, they dissolved!

The end result was still very good. The sweet potatoes thickened up the broth and made it a little creamy.

Sometimes “failed” experiments can end up with good results!

Chili

I made a huge crockpot full of chili on Monday. Chili is so easily gluten free! Here’s what I put in it:


Beef broth
Tomato sauce
Diced tomatoes
Ground turkey
Carrots
Celery
Onions
Turnips
Corn
Black beans
Cumin
Chili powder
Paprika
S&P
(And a little Franks to my individual serving, of course!)


It’s a little thinner than most chilis, but I like that it’s full of veggies.

And the turnips are a nice substitute for potatoes. You can hardly tell the difference!

The corn bread that I made was actually the recipe from my Betty Crocker cookbook. I subbed a mixture of sorghum, brown rice, and white rice flours. It turned out crumbly, but so good! I think I’m going to use that recipe from now on.