Low sugar & gluten free treats?
 

DH is having some health problems and the doc says NO MORE GLUTEN for him (poor guy) and he also needs to cut back on his sugar intake.

He's got a sweet tooth, so I thought maybe I could find some recipes for cookies that are wheat-free and that are sweetened with things like raisins and/or applesauce. (Natural fruit sugars should be okay) DH loathes sucralose and aspartame so artificial sweeteners are out. Honey is borderline and should be used sparingly. Stevia MIGHT work, haven't tried that yet. (We used to grow stevia so DH is okay with that being used.)

I'm thinking oatmeal cookies? Any other ideas? He loves dark chocolate so maybe some sort of flourless, no-sugar brownie would work?

He likes pretty much every kind of fruit but his real love is sticky sugary pastries, which is totally off limits now. :(

I looked some stuff up on Allrecipes.com but there's just so much! I'm hoping someone here will have a gem of a recipe to get me started. :)

Thanks!

These are really good. I use the tiny chocolate chips so they spread around more. I have added dates or raisins, but those add sugar. And they are no bake so great for tho time of year. http://www.gimmesomeoven.com/no-bake-energy-bites/

Ooo...those look GOOD! Thanks!

You can use a gluten free all purpose flour. I make my own choc chip cookies with it. We've been gluten free for almost 2 yrs and love it. It isn't hard if you really want to feel better. I buy udi's gluten free hamb buns and slice them for toast. Love my toast! You can buy natural peanut butter and natural strawberry and other jams. that are low sugar. Our snacks are - cheese apples bananas(tho they are higher in sugar) tomatoes popcorn I also like Van's Say Cheese crackers. they are good. If he is craving something sweet you can dust sliced apples with a little suger/cinnamon mixture. You get a bit of sugar but not that much.

I make my own homemade chicken and noodles with gluten free all purpose flour. I also use the flour to make sauces.

There are alot of recipes online for gf foods. I am planning on trying to make my own pudding.
There are tips I can pass along if you are going to do anything with flour from scratch.

If you want any more ideas just let me know Rhonda

What is the gluten free flour made out of? Rice? Is it something I can find at regular grocery stores? Do you have a brand you recommend? I like making veggie pot pies so would love to find a flour I could use for good gluten-free pie crusts. And gluten-free gingersnaps would be good too, I think - DH loves gingersnaps.

He's bought some Udi bread and aside from it being crumbly he likes it well enough.

Right now he's also supposed to avoid dairy, but doc says once he's been off wheat/gluten for awhile his digestive system might heal to the point where he can re-introduce dairy. He has discovered that goat-milk yogurt is okay with his system but cheese so far is bad.

We are also mostly vegetarian (I am strictly veg, but he will eat fish) so that is yet another limitation. I was raised vegetarian so I have absolutely no idea how to cook meat, so when he eats meat he either cooks it himself or we go out. It's probably smart not to trust me with that, LOL.

DH is actually a pretty good cook, but I'm the "baker" in the family. There are a few things he likes that I'd love to figure out a low-sugar, gluten-free version of. Pineapple upside-down cake is another of his favorites, but it has SO MUCH sugar in it the way I usually make it and of course wheat flour, so that's absolutely not going to work for his new diet. I need to buy some applesauce and some gluten-free flour and start experimenting!!

Most all purpose GF flour is a blend of several types - rice, cornstarch, tapioca are commonly used as well as others. There are many brands of premixed GF flour on the market. I prefer Bob's Red Mill, but also mix my own. It is helpful to invest in a few GF cookbooks. I like the GF Gourmet series by the late Bette Hagman, but there are many newer books out there. Also lots of information available on the internet.

Google Gluten Free Recipes and you will be very surprised what recipes come up !

I have a friend who is GF and she gets her recipes from many blogs she found on the net ..

The one thing I learned is that gluten free all purpose flour is great but you have to add at least xanthan gum to it to keep it from crumbling. I make homemade drop biscuits with it and they just fell apart until I used the xantham gum. I get it at Walmart it is in a packet like yeast. There are lots and lots of diff ideas on how best to do gf baking. I am a scratch cook but still haven't figured out how to make bread from scratch. It is confusing to understand all the whys and wherefores I think. But if you take some time to research there are lots and lots of good ideas out there for recipes.

I started out by reading the Wheat Belly diet as some friends had gone on this and that was my starting point. I don't follow the diet strictly but it is good info as to what has gluten in it.

This site is fun. Made these last week and they're tasty and not sweet even with a bit of honey http://detoxinista.com/2012/02/grain...-chip-cookies/ By avoiding sugar, sweet things now taste too sweet and the craving is gone. These also look good. http://detoxinista.com/2012/06/paleo...cookies-vegan/

I bought gluten free (King Arthur) flour on Amazon. And I got the xanthum gum there too. The King Arthur flour site has a whole section on gluten free baking. I feel bad for your husband. A few months ago I was having "issues" and tried gluten free to see if it helped. The hardest part was giving up real yeast bread. And it makes it more difficult for eating out because there seems to be gluten in everything, even soy sauce and Miracle Whip!