Alternatives to Gluten and Dairy

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Hate to agree.

If you have a gluten intolerance or celiac disease, 'low gluten' isn't good enough.

I can't believe American's get low quantities of iodine because we all eat too much iodized salt.

I strongly suspect the rampant increase in thyroid problems probably stems more from our environment's widespread use of brominated fire retardants (bromine seems to get in the way of iodine uptake/use, reminds of how lead gets in the way of iron uptake/use) and other endocrine disruptors that are ubiquitous in our environment, more than it stems from an increase in eating soy. (I also suspect similar environmental factors are to blame for ASD, but that's very speculative of me). But that's just my take on it.
ALL beans, if not cooked properly, are poisonous. Soy is a bean.
If you're worried about GMO foods for your own health, then you honestly need to only buy foods labelled organic with a certification you trust on them. Corn is mostly GMO too, and plenty of other fruits and veggies might be GMO. Personally I'm far more concerned about the pesticides used on inorganic food and the fact that large crops eventually remove nutrients from the soil so the food itself becomes less nutritive overtime, in regards to what I eat. (Politically I'm totally against GMO because of one company, Monsanto, but that's a WHOLE other can of beans.)

Back to the OP, the best way to eat gluten and dairy free is not by having substitutes for everything. They're rarely as good as the real thing, and yes, while you are overall eliminating the variety of food you can eat, if you choose to, it will be an opportunity to sample foods and ingredients you never would have sampled otherwise. Simple meat and veggies is a great, quick meal to make for supper. Eggs for breakfast in the morning (most bacon won't call itself gluten free, but you can certainly buy some that is). Find a gluten-free, dairy free loaf of bread that you like and start having that for toast. Lunch can still be a sandwich with some gluten free deli meat and some veggies, fruits, an oat-free/gluten free/dairy free nut bar of some type (or just nuts, although most nuts 'may contain traces of wheat'). Either that or leftovers. Leftovers are king when you don't have time.
Bean dishes are gluten and dairy free if you like to not eat so much meat.
Powedered spices can have cross contamination, best to check with the company that you buy your spices from.
In cooking I use coconut milk for cream (full fat coconut milk only), I drink almond breeze at home if I want a glass of milk. I occasionally have daiya as a melted cheese substitute (but I really think that stuff's unhealthy).

Amaranth was a favorite of mine as a hot cereal (it's got a seriously odd texture though, you might hate it!) in the morning with some fruit and a milk substitute on it, but I'm hesitant to have it again due to cross contamination issues.

A typical 7 day week for me and my husband is like this:
Roast (pork, beef, lamb, chicken, other like moose)
leftover roast (always save the drippings! just add hot water to the bottom of the pan and scrape sides, put in a jar, and you've got a broth.)
-soup, stew, curry, stir fry, rice or potato casserole, salad (salad with meat = yum), pot pie with potato on top (or a gluten free pie crust made with buckwheat)
fish
bean or lentil dish (a bazillion of these exist!)
pork chops/sausage/steak/duck confit (ok ok, I buy that locally and it's ridiculously expensive but totally worth it). Most sausages have gluten. Check with the manufacturer
another vegetarian dish of some sort, often involves tofu. Eg: stir fry, risotto, curry, vege moussaka, ratatouille, last night I made a delicious beat, lettuce and tofu salad.
Day 7 is usually leftovers, or sometimes breakfast food like pancakes (I use local buckwheat as my go-to flour) But other options is something with ground meat: burgers (requires expensive gluten free buns), pasta (well, I don't do pasta, but I put in tons of greens in lieu of noodles), meatballs, shepherd's pie

I'm a pretty big fan of seafood in general too, I'll make shrimp or mussel dishes fairly often.

My favorite cake recipe is here http://www.modernalternativemama.com/bl ... ozUo0JzbIV.
I am also fond of this one (again it's hard for me to fine gluten free nuts though) http://www.food.com/recipe/buckwheat-ca ... eno-357572

I've yet to make decent gluten free bread, but I've never really baked bread before anyways.

I use lard in baking in lieu of butter. Margarine is an obvious substitute that I generally avoid (fat from grain = confusing processing, that crap can't be good for me! Also, only specific margarines claim to be gluten and dairy free.) I use duck fat if I want a bit more flavor, and of course oil works (I like peanut, olive and coconut) in many cases.

The really great tastes are in ethnic cuisine.

An alternative for christmas cookies are Austrian/German "Nußbusserl" (Nutkisses ^^)

200g raspled nuts,
100g fine sugar
2 eggs
vanilla (if you use typical small flavorbag, 1/2 is ok)

Seperate the eggs into the white and the yellow stuff, use the yellow stuff to attract the cat out of the kitchen and close the door behind her., "Beat" the white egg stuff until it gets hard and fluffy (You can do that with an electric machine.) When you are done, mix carefully (by hand) the mixed fine sugar and vanilla into it until you have a fine shine on the "white egg"/sugar mass. Then do the same (as well carefully by hand) with the raspled nuts. See that you dont mix too much, so you dont destroy the fluffy consistence of the white eye stuff.

When you are done you simply use a spoon for separating it into little spoonbig bunches, and give that into the oven with about 150° Celsius for a bit less then half an hour. Its perfect, when its crunchy outside, but inside still soft.