A Very Celiac - Friendly Easter

Some holidays and celebrations can be very difficult for the celiac. Traditional foods are suddenly off-limits to you, but you're surrounded by friends and family who can (and should) still enjoy them. Personally, I didn't find the adoption of a celiac-friendly Easter celebration difficult because I've never enjoyed hot cross buns and my family's Easter feast is naturally gluten light. One of the best things about visiting my parent's is I don't have to cook! So this post is without recipes (although I will be hounding my Mom for the ricotta salad recipe to appear later), but full of tips!

Below is a picture of the delicious Easter dinner my Mom made (disclaimer: the bread is not gluten-free) and a preview of the gorgeous Moss Rose china pattern I'm looking forward to inheriting. Mashed potatoes, spinach, asparagus and deviled eggs are all naturally gluten-free. Ham is a meat to be very careful of, especially spiral cut hams like my family prefers. Sometimes these have fillers that are decidedly not celiac-friendly and the glaze can contain wheat starch or wheat flour. We've had good luck with Cook's brand hams in the past.




Above is the surprisingly delicious ricotta salad Mom made from a recipe she found in a magazine. I'm always very suspicious of magazine recipes (for totally unknown reasons) and had my doubts when Mom asked me to plate the salads. But I was very pleasantly surprised. The ricotta had a light, lemony flavor that paired well with the mustard in the dressing, the sweet tomatoes and the slightly bitter greens. I give this recipe two thumbs up.



Lucky me, I enjoyed two custom-made desserts this Easter. Mom made a strawberry trifle and a chocolate cream pie, since these recipes were not gluten-free she created alternatives for me using the exclusion principle. The exclusion principle is very simple, just remove the offending ingredient and serve your recipe without crust, topping, etc. To make the tri-full (the debate over pronunciation continues) GF Mom simply omitted the pound cake. For the chocolate pie, she just saved me some filling sans crust and added a little whipped cream. Both were delicious and I didn't have to share!