Welcome to Our Community!

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Hello, and welcome to our happy, gluten-free vegan community! We’re so glad that you’re here!

I’m Anne P. Mitchell (friends call me Annie :~) ), and I’m vegan, gluten-free, and happy! Many people think that it’s hard to be gluten free and vegan, but I’m here to tell you that it’s not only not hard, but it’s fun!

I am not a professional chef, however I am a home recipe developer. So the site isn’t polished, doesn’t bombard you with videos, and doesn’t hide the recipes behind huge pop-ups. Frankly, I like it that way, and the recipes are tried, true, and tested. I like that too. :~)

I had been vegetarian earlier in my life, and in 1998 I went vegetarian again – this time I was a strict vegetarian, and I knew that I would never turn back. Still, I hadn’t quite committed to being vegan.

That was, until I read both The China Study and The Blue Zones: Lessons for Living Longer From the People Who’ve Lived the Longest. Those two books were so compelling – and not even about animal welfare, but about your own health and welfare – that there was no turning back.

Shortly before that, I had lab work done which had indicated that I had not one, but two genetic predispositions to a problem with gluten. Now, I have to confess that I had been one of those people who had rolled my eyes at all the “gluten free this” and “gluten intolerence that”; it seemed like it was just the malady de jour. Well, I guess the joke was on me, because it turned out to be the malady de moi!

So here I am, a gluten-free vegan. And you know what? I’m really enjoying it! It’s challenging, but I don’t mean that in the negative way – it’s a fun challenge! Seeing what I can stitch together to eat at a restaurant, creating new recipes at home, figuring out how to make old favourites without gluten or animal products. And as it turns out, a lot of our friends are either gluten-free, or vegetarian (or vegan) or both – and it’s great fun bringing our food to a potluck and everyone can eat it!

So pull up a chair at our virtual kitchen table, and join us while we share recipes and resources, and generally dish about being gluten-free and vegan!
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The Happy Gluten-Free Vegan 👩🏻‍🍳

TheHappyGlutenFreeVegan &
The Vegan Costco Facebook Group

18 thoughts on “Welcome to Our Community!

    1. Hi Heather! Unfortunately the Don Lee Farm Veggie Bites have a *lot* of ingredients, and would require access to equipment that we don’t have. However, to get the flavor of them we would try putting carrots, celery, onion, sweet potato, corn and some tomato, and a bit of some leafy green (they use kale) in the food processor, along with some brown rice flour, sunflower seeds, and onion and garlic powder, whizzing it up in the food processor, and making patties out of it!

  1. Hey Anne: I’ve been reading this book called the Coconut Oil Miracle or something like that. I am in love with Coconut oil and came up with a delicious recipe for really yummy chocolate coconut treats to get my husband to eat more coconut oil. I have made 2 batches but now I need to refine the recipe so that I can share it. Mostly I use Costco products: melted coconut oil, a bit of organic maple syrup, the seeds and raisins salad topper product, cocoa. I had some Lucuma powder that I bought from Mike Adams Health Ranger and added a bit of that but I’ll leave it out in my official tested recipe. Man if you’re a chocolate craving nut, this stuff is DELISH and satisfies the chocolate crunchy coconut oil purpose. if you want, I’ll share the recipe when I have it refined. I’m making some for a little overnight trip with friends next week. 🙂 Of course its gluten free and vegan. 🙂

  2. I would love for you to try to copycat Trader Joe’s Creamy Dill Salad dressing. It only has about 6 ingredients but it doesn’t work and not creamy just thick. Great site and so glad I found you 🙂

  3. Do you have any suggestions for a substitute for Nutritional Yeast? I love it, but I have a sensitivity to it. 🙁

    1. Hi Mary, we’ve never needed to substitute agar, however the results of a quick search suggest that you could use cornstarch: “If a recipe calls for the use of agar flakes, but you don’t have them available or can’t find them in the grocery store, you can always use cornstarch as an agar powder substitute. Substituting agar flakes with cornstarch is easy; all you have to do is use a simple 2:1 ratio of cornstarch to agar flakes.” (from https://www.leaf.tv/articles/how-to-substitute-agar-flakes-with-cornstarch/)

  4. Leah Mueller told me to find the website and mark it. I had it but I somehow had lost it in the past. So glad to find you folks again. I wasn’t even aware of the one for body care. Now I seriously want to try Outlaw Soaps. Sounds just like my kind of company!

  5. I’m also gluten free and vegan. I have celiac disease and other autoimmune issues. I’m happy to see this page.

  6. Also glad to find this site! I’m vegan and GF since October 2019. Some days are easier than others. Husband is omnivore so I end up cooking two versions of a dish. He doesn’t like quinoa, kale, black beans, tofu or any of the other good things I want to add to his diet. I’m pretty tired of veggie burgers for dinner. Love big batches I can freeze in small containers just for my dinner. Thank you, thank you, thank you for searching your adventure.

  7. Glad to find this site – so my issue is that I’m GF, pescatarian headed to veganism , AND have a high intolerance of alliums. OY. Anyway – I’ve been an IP- er for many years and look forward to your recipes ( adapting them to not include alliums of course !)

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