Gluten-Free for Fall

Harvest menus for the wheat- or gluten-free table

By Terese Allen, Organic Valley Food Editor

I have an old friend who is allergic to wheat; she lives in Australia but returns to the U.S. for an extended stays every few years. On her most recent visit she spent time in several states and when I saw her she exclaimed how things had changed for her, food-wise, since her last journey here. This time, unlike the last, everywhere she traveled she found wheat- and gluten-free products readily available at grocery stores—pastas, breads, cereals and more. She ate well, she said, at several restaurants that cater to celiac sufferers. And when a mutual friend hosted a gluten-free potluck gathering for her, she enjoyed a feast of home-cooked specialties without an allergy flare-up.

Indeed, bookstores offer whole shelves about living without gluten-containing ingredients, food magazines highlight the topic, and if you google “gluten-free,” you can learn all about it at some 6,890,000 locations on the web. Celiac disease is no longer the lonely syndrome it once was; it’s one of the most common lifelong disorders in our country.

And its cure, as we all now know, is in the kitchen. Thanks to authors like Bette Hagman, who wrote The Gluten Free Gourmet, The Gluten Free Gourmet Bakes Bread, and other pioneering cookbooks, there are many helpful culinary guides for living a delicious, symptom-less lifestyle. This month we offer a little help ourselves: three complete menus that are both gluten-free and feature organic dairy and protein--always a good choice for maintaining radiant health when you’re on a restricted diet.

With autumn in the air, we looked to the harvest to inspire our recipes. Menu One includes characteristic fall dishes--a molten cheese soup, pork with a roasted shallot sauce, mashed sweet potatoes and a classic apple crisp. Menu Two goes all vegetarian with wild rice-stuffed red peppers, a wheat-free flatbread and a very special dessert—wine-glazed baked pears. The last menu is Asian-inspired: it starts with a spicy ginger-carrot soup, includes a super-easy orange chicken cooked in a clay pot and finishes with creamy cinnamon pudding coupled with juicy-crisp Asian pears.