10 Vegetarian Christmas Recipes

Here are a hand-picked few of my favorite gluten-free vegetarian recipes.

Winter Solstice has blessed us with a turning point. Daylight now grows longer inch by inch. Or is that minute by wintry minute? In spirit, I suspect, it is both. Christmas is almost here, and the season celebrating rebirth, light, and sliding into credit card debt is in full swing. Carolers are caroling. Gift wrappers are gift wrapping. Egg noggers are nogging. The shiny New Year crouches right around the corner.

And recipes are flooding my in-box for... ham. Roast beef. Rack of lamb. Wait a duck fat glistening minute, here.

Where are the vegetarian Christmas recipes?

I can't be the only person not forking a slab of meat on Christmas day. I can't be the single solitary soul who doesn't treasure bacon fat like it's a princess tiara. I'm not alone in my imaginings of a fresh and lively meatless Christmas dinner--- am I?

Okay. Okay. I get it. I honestly do. I realize I'm in the minority here. That to most folks celebrating the winter holidays in all their myriad and nuanced diversity, meat is the centerpiece of celebration. I acknowledge that. I even accept that. Just because I've been a vegetarian 78% of my life doesn't mean I bury my head in the sand of denial. I cope. I deal.

I go with the flow.

But just so you know? The UN thinks vegetarianism is not only a cool idea, it may be necessary to save the planet. So here's ten of my favorite vegetarian and vegan recipes for Christmas. With love.


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Gluten-Free Thanksgiving Recipes & Tips 2011

Gluten-Free Thanksgiving Recipes and Tips

The Big T. Thanksgiving. Nothing sends shivers of trepidation up a gluten-free or dairy-free girl's spine like the mental image of Grandma's sage pungent white bread dressing or shimmying slabs of Aunt Ida's pumpkin pie. It's a butter and wheat flour gorge fest with danger at every turn. The gruesome gut-twisting threat of thirty-six hours chugging Pepto Bismol is poised to strike on every holiday decorated plate- jovial forkfuls of tradition and conviviality aside.

It can be a nightmare.

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Gluten-Free Goddess eBook

My new ebook- best loved recipes

My blog anniversary is just around the corner. Yep. Number six. And I am trying to wrap my little gluten-free brain around it. Six years. Six. That is a long time in blog years. (Maybe blog years are kinda like dog years? Every twelve months of blogging seems equal to seven human years. What I think I'm trying to say is that GFG feels... more grown up somehow. She's no longer a lurching toddler- or as Johnny Depp likes to phrase it, "tiny drunk"). The bumble-puppy years are over.

We're respectable now. (But hopefully not too serious.)

I  began blogging and sharing my recipes in late fall of 2005. There are over 400 original gluten-free recipes now on Gluten-Free Goddess. This astonishes me!

Looking over my recipe index this past summer I began to imagine the beginnings of a cookbook- a collection of recipe favorites from Gluten-Free Goddess. (In full transparency there have been cookbook offers, and some tempting projects pitched to me this year. But none seemed like the perfect fit. In fact, most felt like a tight shoe that pinched and chafed and left me preferring to go barefoot, taking my own meandering solo path, focusing on blogging, my first love.)

But then you know what happened. I got an iPad. And soon discovered the convenience and pleasure of bringing my entire blog into the kitchen with me. And that led to ebooks...
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Sugar Blues? Gluten-free Baking Without Sugar

Baking gluten-free without sugar: substitutions and tips.

An increasing number of comments and questions have revolved around sugar as a sweetener and how to substitute it in gluten-free baking. I thought the subject sweet enough to deserve its own post.

And since I recently started a sugar detox (I'm on day six sugar-free-, Darlings-- completely- no sweetener except a pinch of the herb stevia in my tea and smoothies), I thought it might be appropriate to refresh this post and bring it forward.

More to come on my sugar detox- soon.

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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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Bread Machine Tips- Old Post

Warm, gluten-free bread with sorghum flour, just baked.

This gluten-free bread machine post has been updated by yours truly and has moved to a new location where it is much, much happier.

I apologize for the inconvenience.

One more click and you're there.