It’s a dream come true pasta is back in our cupboard! After trying several different kinds of rice pasta over the past year, we finally found one that tastes like the real deal. It’s called Pastariso Rice Pasta made by Maplegrove Gluten Free Foods. What’s so amazing about this rice...

Chickpea interviews the mother-daughter founders of the Gluten Bootin’ Bakery AND gets a take-home treat that was divinely delicious… When I went gluten free almost 2 years ago, I thought I’d never have one of those gigantic super-tasty muffins again. Well, I was happily proven wrong and found a great...

In my mind, squash is the champion of winter vegetable storage. Stuffed, mashed, pureed into soup, baked into sweet breads and pies, there are as many uses for squash as there are varieties. When giving up pasta, I was delighted to find that spaghetti squash provided a myriad of comfort...

It’s always nice to have something sweet after dinner. I found an awesome spice mix that is gluten, dairy, corn, and soy free. It’s from Namaste Food company and very easy to make. I’ve found the mix for around $6.99 and it’s a really good deal considering that you get...

After watching a biography show on Ben & Jerry’s ice cream, I was inspired. I hadn’t had ice cream in nearly two years. I use to be an addict, consuming a pint of coffee heath bar crunch night after night, roughly 1,200 calories. Did this dairy overload made me sick?...

Flipping through a new cookbook, I noticed a potato latkes recipe. Yummy! As I was reading the recipe, I realized that it wasn’t gluten free because it called for matzoh meal. Darn it. But then I got an idea to create my own recipe. So this is what I came...

Thanks to our awesome friend, Susan, we adopted her mothership zucchini that was maturing in her garden all summer along. At first, we didn’t know what to do with it, but then I suggested, “Why don’t we cut the zucchini into strips like a pasta noodle and make lasagna?” An...

Thanks to the awesome Wendy from Girl’s Gone Child Eat Well blog … matzo balls are back! Of course they are gluten, dairy and soy free. Below is her recipe. Visit her site for more detailed directions. Wendy’s Gluten-Free Quinoa Matzo Balls (with nutmeg of course!) 2 eggs, beaten 4...

Okay so I’m being honest here, when it comes to making pie crust from scratch I literally break into a cold sweat. However, this all changed  when I noticed Namaste’s pie crust mix sitting on the shelf at our local grocery store. I don’t want you to think that I’m...

For many people on SCD, breakfast is the hardest meal to adjust in a life without starches and sugars. And with good reason, since most of us have spent decades eating grains in the morning: cereal, oatmeal, toast, pancakes, french toast, shall I go on? But with some time and...

Waking up on a Monday morning can be rough. As I was thinking about how fast the weekend flew by I said to myself, “What the heck, I’m gonna make some pancakes and surprise Roniboy with a fun breakfast.” I’m thankful that I don’t have to make gluten, soy, and...

Eating popcorn for dinner was second nature to me. It was so quick and easy to make especially after a long day in the office and grad school classes at night. However, when Roniboy entered my life, he changed my perception about food. Honestly, I thought that he was from...

Homemade mayonnaise is super easy to make at home with just a few simple ingredients, which makes your favorite chicken salad both better tasting and free of any weird additives found in commercial mayonnaise. Homemade Mayonnaise makes about 1 cup 1 raw or pasteurized egg (see below) 1 tsp Dijon...

This is a delicious way to use up the coconut pulp leftover from making your own homemade coconut milk. Taking a hint from a Comfy Belly recipe for cinnamon cookies, I learned that one trick to grain-free cookies that are soft and chewy instead of crunchy is to omit the...

This basil bellini is an aperitif that will sing a song of summertime in your mouth. It’s fruity and bubbly with just a hint of basil. And if you happen to be hosting dinner guests who do not imbibe, you can substitute club soda for the prosecco  for a non-alcoholic...

Artichokes. Commonly found pulverized and unrecognizable in the form of “artichoke dip” at many chain restaurants, this type of appetizer spells doom, or at least major discomfort for those who are lactose intolerant. With ingredients of butter, flour, sour cream, cheese, and heavy cream it’s no wonder why this fattening...

Gluten-free means pasta is off limits, right? Not necessarily. There are rice noodles, which are safe to eat as they’re primarily made of rice flour and water. They sometimes contains tapioca or cornstarch to improve texture. Rice noodles, being an age-old staple in many Asian cultures, are really not even...

This post should be about ratatouille. But it is really about my iPhone. Some people are against the encroachment of Apple products into our everyday lives, but I personally welcome them as our technological overlords. My iPhone tells me where I am supposed to be at any point during the...

Beans, beans, the musical fruit. The more you eat… Well, you know the rest. So why would someone with stomach woes eat legumes? Don’t they cause gas, bloating and discomfort? They can, but they don’t have to. We’ve all walked by dried beans at the store. For years, I’d pick...

In my recent post “Got Beans?” I promoted a more planned approach to beans. However, I sometimes still want a last-minute legume-based meal. That’s where lentils come in. They don’t need to be soaked and typically cook in about 20 minutes. My new favorite varietal is the French or “Puy,”...

Behold The Pressure Canner: Purchased for me by my mother-in-law for Christmas, this thing is 16 pounds (yes, I weighed it) of solid aluminum glory. It is at least 50 years old, evidenced by the fact that the instruction booklet gives you instructions for cooking over a wood stove and...

Raman Prasad is the author of Recipes for the Specific Carbohydrate Diet: The Grain-Free, Lactose-Free, Sugar-Free Solution to IBD, Celiac Disease, Autism, Cystic Fibrosis, and Other Health Conditions, as well as the memoir Colitis and Me: A Story of Recovery. He is also the creator of www.scdrecipe.com, which has been around since before most of us knew what Google was. Raman has been following the Specific Carbohydrate Diet to manage ulcerative colitis for over a decade, a fact that by itself makes him a certified superhero in my book.  And indeed, my conversation with him confirmed that he has a wealth of knowledge and a long history of helping make the SCDiet accessible to a wide variety of people seeking healing through diet. GI Jane: So tell me the story of how you found and adopted SCD. Raman: I was 17 when I was first diagnosed with Ulcerative Colitis. I started...

Who doesn’t like chocolate brownies for breakfast? Especially, when you find a brownie mix that is gluten, soy, dairy and nut free!  It’s so easy to whip up a batch of gooey delightful brownies with Namaste Foods mix. Ingredients in the mix include: evaporated cane juice, sweet brown rice flour,...

Anyone who is an avid reader of food labels knows how difficult it can be to decipher the ingredients of packaged foods. For someone on the SCDiet, finding products without sugar, wheat, rice, corn, soy, or any other starch can be nearly impossible. Even if these “illegal” ingredients are not...

Not drinking beer has been extremely difficult since removing gluten from my diet. This is especially true living in Fort Collins, a city where you can’t escape beer. Here, there are more than a handful of breweries, weekly tastings and an annual parade of 10,000 people on bicycles paying homage...

A world without pizza. Can you even imagine? There’s an old joke that pizza is a complete meal because it contains the major food groups. Yes, this may technically be true, but that doesn’t mean its necessary the healthiest meal you could have. For those with food allergies or intolerances,...