Top Ten Gluten-Free Recipes for 2010: My Faves

From cake to quinoa - my year's best gluten-free recipes

The annual ritual of creating top ten lists has commenced. Critics are choosing their top ten movies, editors have picked their Top Ten Books. Fashionistas have declared the year's best and worst trends of 2010 (jeggings- love 'em or hate 'em?). Do I dare leap into the scuffle and pluck ten gluten-free recipes as the year's best? And if so -- just how, exactly -- does one choose the golden top ten? The best of the best. Do I do as I did last year and let stats decide? (Might seem rather lazy, to repeat that process.) Or do I rely on my personal and often quirky preferences? (Could be controversial, especially if I was honest and chose peanut butter on ryeless rye bread toast as my number one.) Perhaps I should make a game of it and draw names from a hat. Randomness is appealing, in a way. (Though unsatisfying.)



I'll just do it.



I'll be bold. I'll be opinionated. I'll pick my g-free favorites from this year's recipes. Perhaps I need to define my criteria, though. How do you choose a favorite among the dozens you've created in a year? I'm proud of each recipe. After all, I enjoyed them enough to photograph them in all their gluten-free glory (unless, sadly, they were not photogenic, and that, Dear Reader, is a loss to the blog). And every recipe I shared passed the family taste test or they wouldn't stand a chance of appearing on Gluten-Free Goddess. You don't hear about the runner-ups, or the flat out failures that left your intrepid goddess weeping and gnashing her teeth. [Not really. I'm not the weeping kind. I swear like a character in Deadwood and take deadly aim at the trash bin.]



My criteria, then? Simple. A favorite recipe would be a recipe I'd make again. And share with company.



So with that in mind, away we go.

10 Vegetarian Christmas Recipes

Here are a hand-picked few of my favorite gluten-free vegetarian recipes.

Winter Solstice- with a spectacular lunar eclipse- has blessed us with a turning point. Daylight now grows longer inch by inch. Or is that minute by wintry minute? In spirit, I suspect, it is both. Christmas is almost here, and the season celebrating rebirth, light, and sliding into credit card debt is in full swing. Carolers are caroling. Gift wrappers are gift wrapping. Egg noggers are nogging. The shiny New Year crouches right around the corner. And recipes are flooding my in-box for... ham? Roast beef? Rack of lamb? Wait a duck fat glistening minute, here.



Where are the vegetarian Christmas recipes?



I can't be the only person not forking a slab of meat on Christmas day. I can't be the single solitary soul who doesn't treasure bacon fat like it's a princess tiara. I'm not alone in my imaginings of a fresh and healthy vegan Christmas dinner--- am I?



Okay. Okay. I get it. I honestly do. I realize I'm in the minority here. That to most folks celebrating the winter holidays in all their myriad and nuanced diversity, meat is the centerpiece of celebration. I acknowledge that. I even accept that. Just because I've been a vegetarian 78% of my life doesn't mean I bury my head in the sand of denial. I cope. I deal. I go with the flow.



But just so you know? The UN thinks vegetarianism is not only a cool idea, it may be necessary to save the planet. So here's ten of my favorite vegetarian and vegan recipes for Christmas. With love.