Gluten free frog eye salad recipe with egg free option

I've been meaning to post my gluten free frog eye salad for awhile, but with our added food restrictions I haven't seen the point in making it (we can't eat the marshmallows, cool whip, tapioca pearls, or eggs, and the oranges are on the iffy list) and I couldn't quite remember how I'd done it before- it's been a year and a half since I last made it. Mr M convinced me to fudge things a bit for Thanksgiving so I decided to go ahead and make some frog eye salad so I could finally post the recipe.

I've been able to eat small amounts of corn products without too many problems, so I was willing to fudge most of the ingredients, but I wasn't willing to eat eggs. I tried eating some last month and it was not pleasant. So I tried making the custard with a flax egg, and it actually turned out pretty good. While it's not as pretty as an egg custard, it tastes very similar to what I remember it tasting like, and Mr M agreed.

Gluten free, Egg free Frog Eye Salad

EF Custard

½ c sugar

1 tbl fine brown rice flour (I used Authentic Foods)

¼ tsp salt

1 cup pineapple juice drained from 20 oz can of pineapple that you use later

1 flax egg (1 tbl ground flax seed + 3 tbl boiling water, let sit for a few minutes to thicken) or use 1 egg if you're not egg free, beat the egg well

2 tsp lemon juice

Whisk together dry ingredients then whisk in pineapple juice and flax egg. Heat over medium heat , stirring occasionally. Bring to boil and continue to cook for a few more minutes till thickened. Remove from heat and stir in lemon juice. Allow to cool, it will “gel” as it cools, so stir occasionally.

The custard as it cools and gels. The brown flecks are bits of ground flax. 

GF “acini de pepe”

1.5 c large tapioca pearls

Bring water to boil in a large saucepan/pot. Whisk in tapioca pearls.

Stir occasionally and cook till most of the pearls are translucent (about 17 min).

Turn off heat and let sit for another 5 minutes or so till the pearls have only small bits of white left in the centers. Carefully dump tapioca into a fine mesh sieve and gently rinse the gel from around the pearls (I had to do it in three batches because my sieve isn’t big enough to hold it all).

rinsing the tapioca pearls

Allow pearls to cool in bowl.

Bring it all together

1 20 oz can crushed pineapple (juice drained and used in custard)

2 11 oz cans mandarin oranges, drained (juice can be used in custard if needed to make 1 cup)

1.5 c mini marshmallows

8 oz tub cool whip

Once the custard and tapioca are cool, gently fold together.

Carefully add pineapple, oranges, marshmallows, coconut, and cool whip and mix together. Refrigerate overnight.

Enjoy!
My previous posts on gluten free frog eye salad are here and here.

If you make it, let me know how it turns out for you!

What we ate for Thanksgiving dinner

Mr M convinced me to relax some of our food restrictions for Thanksgiving. Not sure that's going to happen again- my intestines aren't too happy. We were gluten, egg, and soy free, but we still ate potatoes, tapioca, corn and corn products, and sorghum.

I bought the ham from the Honey Baked Ham store and the gravy was Imagine brand. Both are gluten free. Mr M really wanted a HB Ham so we went that route instead of the traditional turkey this year. While pricey, there was zero stress when it came to preparing it. You let it sit on the counter for a half hour or so before you eat, and then you eat it. Sooo simple! I did purchase a turkey from the grocery store because it was a great price, but it's sitting in the freezer- we'll probably have it for Christmas.

The mashed potatoes had coconut milk and Earth Balance soy free "butter" in them.

I made the cranberry pear sauce using this recipe, and there was no questionable ingredients in it.

I made the frog eye salad using my MIL's recipe that I adapted to be more within our limits- tapioca pearls instead of acini de pepe pasta and a flax egg instead of a real egg in the custard- I'll post the recipe soon now that I have it (finally) figured out.

The oranges in the jello are still on the iffy list, but I sure do like them :)

I made the cornbread and sausage stuffing mix using this recipe. I had planned on making my own corn bread from scratch, but I couldn't find gluten free cornmeal so I used Bob's Redmill gluten free cornbread mix. I've used it before and it's super easy to make, but the mix also contains sorghum flour, which makes my intestines really unhappy. Better the sorghum than gluten contamination, though.

I was going to do some green veggies- salad or something, but we eat lots of vegetables and we decided to take a break for the day :) Do olives count as veggies? Mr M insisted that Thanksgiving wouldn't be complete without some olives.

We also had blueberry pie and vanilla ice cream and  a pumpkin bread trifle. Yummy! I found the blueberry pie recipe here and the vanilla ice cream recipe was adapted from this recipe.

I used this recipe for the pumpkin bread trifle, which isn't super attractive-looking, but did taste good.

Everything tasted yummy, and while my intestines weren't super happy, my stomach and throat didn't bother me (if I'd eaten eggs or gluten they would have), so I'm not complaining too much. If it was just my intestines, I might fudge things more often. Unfortunately, the mental fog comes back if I eat foods that don't agree with me. So it's probably a good thing I don't fudge on a regular basis. I'll have to decide if it's worth it do this again come Christmas. It does make meal planning easier, and as long as we don't go anywhere LMS and I can be close to the bathroom. Hmmmm....