Thanksgiving

I just wanted to express something that I am very grateful for this Thanksgiving. Gluten free food. My WONDERFUL mother-in-law made sure I had everything I needed, from gluten free stuffing to a tasty pumpkin pie. It's so much easier to enjoy a meal when you can eat whatever you want. My first Thanksgiving was extremely hard. The stuffing (which is my personal favorite) tasted nothing like my traditional favorite. The rolls were so-so and the pumpkin pie tasted much better once I stopped trying to eat the crust. I am grateful that the world is coming around a little bit to cater to those with different food needs. The Gluten free substitutes I had this Thanksgiving were so amazing. Maybe someday the price will go down so I will be able to afford them on a regular basis. I will be posting some of the recipes from my thanksgiving feast including a graham cracker type crust for a cheesecake. For now though I just want to send out Thank yous to the Universe. I am grateful to all my friends, both recent relationships and longtime. You have lifted me up when I was down and kept me going. I am grateful that facebook enables me to keep in touch. I am grateful for in-laws who not only want us around but help us out with the kiddies when we (I) need a nap. I am grateful for my Mom and Dad and the love and support they continually send me from far away. I am grateful for my sister Kate who is my amazing best friend and confidante. I am grateful for my brothers and their AWESOMENESS.

I am grateful for my husband Chris who loves me so much more than I deserve. I am so proud of him, He goes to school and work and still takes time to be with me and our kids. I am so amazed that I got lucky enough to have him in my life. I am grateful for our two sweet children Lucy and EmmyKate. Even though there are days that I just have no idea what I am doing or why I am doing it, they bless my life with so much joy. I certainly didn't do anything to deserve to be this blessed. I am thankful to God, for his tender mercies and abundant blessings both seen and unseen in my life.

A Soup a Week for Winter: French Onion Soup

This soup takes a little bit of vigilence and time, but it is well worth the effort.

2 large Onions

2 cans of beef Broth (vegetable will work for vegetarian)

White Wine

salt to taste

1. Chop slice or dice the onion to your preference (I like rings)
2. In a fry pan over medium heat start cooking the onions in just enough broth to cover the bottom of the pan.
3. Cook until the broth boils out. Don't stir to much it is okay for things to stick to the pan. 
4. Continue adding a little beef broth and cooking it off until you use up one of the cans of broth.
5.  After the broth add just enough white wine to coat the bottom of the pan and scrape anything left on the bottom with a spoon.
6. Add the other can of broth and simmer for about 10 minutes.
7. Add salt to taste and enjoy

A Soup a Week for Winter: Butternut Squash

This is a really yummy recipe that may not make it to mealtime if my husband keeps sneaking "tastes" of it. I happened to have some butternut squash sitting on the counter needing to be used, and so I went to work searching for a recipe. However, I didn't have all of the ingredients for any of the recipes I found, so I improvised and created my own recipe.

Butternut Squash Soup
1 large Butternut Squash
1 large onion
4 cloves of garlic
3 large carrots
3 14oz cans of chicken broth (use vegetable for vegetarian)
Water
1/2 cup sour cream

 

1. Peel squash and scoop out seeds. Then dice into cubes.
2. Chop onion and garlic.
3. Peel and chop carrots
4. Put Vegetables in crock-pot with the cans of broth, then fill one can with water and add that too. Cook on low overnight. 
5. All the vegetables should be really soft at this point. pour into a large container (a bowl or a pot will work) and add sour cream. Stir until there are no big lumps of sour cream.
6. Put soup into the blender and puree until smooth. 
7. Pour back into crock-pot to keep warm until mealtime.

A Soup a Week for Winter

It's that time of year. It's time to make snowmen, have snowball fights, blow noses,  you know that kind of thing. So I'm starting a new project "A Soup a Week for Winter." As someone with Celiac I often find myself wondering what to do about lunch. Oh how I long for the ease of a nice hot toasted cheese sandwich, but alas, the ease of a sandwich would leave me broke. So to make lunches a little easier I am making a soup a week. once a week I will be making a new soup and blogging on it. For myself I am making these in large quantities and putting leftovers in containers so that I have a quick meal when I need it. Microwaves are amazing things aren't they? Anyway I hope you find something warm and yummy on these cold winter days.

Eclairs

So I know that it is pretty easy to find GF dessert stuff, but this is a recipe that i have become really fond of. i made them for a party that I went to and it was a hit.I quadrupled the recipe and made my own filling, the original recipe I used was a cream puff recipe which can be found here.

Before you start this know that the filling works best if left in the fridge overnight.
2 cup water
1 cup butter
1tsp vanilla
1/2 tsp salt
1 3/4 cup rice flour
8 eggs
1 8oz tub of whipped topping(like cool whip)
1 vanilla instant pudding
1 cup powdered sugar
chocolate glaze (I used store bought)

filling
1. mix up the pudding as per the directions on the package. Mix in the whipped topping and the powdered sugar, beat until stiff. Put in fridge overnight.
2.In sauce pan boil water, butter, vanilla, and salt.
3. add flour all at once, TIP:measure it out while you wait for the water to boil, it really does make a difference whether you add it all at once or not.

4. stir until the dough sticks together and pulls away from the sides of the saucepan
5.take off the heat and let sit five minutes
6. mix in the eggs one egg at a time.
7. place dough in a pastry bag (or you can use a heavy duty ziploc bag with the corner snipped off) and squeeze out in about 3 to 4 inch strips. make sure that you don't make them to thick or they won't cook properly.

8.Bake in oven at 400 degrees for 30 to 35 minutes. Make sure that they are not under done, because they will deflate if you don't cook them long enough. They should be golden brown and kind of hard.
9. Once they cool pull out your filling. there is a couple of ways to fill them, the easy way is to just cut them in half and then put the filling in the middle like a sandwich. I like making my food pretty so I took a knife and cut a hole in each end, then I took a decorating bag and a long tip that you use to decorate cakes and filled them from the hole.
10. last but not least pour the glaze over. it's easiest if you line them all up first.

Crepes/ Happy Anniversary Honey!!!

My sweet husband and I got married four years ago today in the LDS Mesa, AZ temple.

Since that day we've been blessed with a wonderful happy marriage, and two beautiful daughters.

Something my sweetheart introduced me to is crepes. For those who don't know  a crepe is kind of like a very thin pancake that you fill with yummy things. This morning I made him crepes, with love, chocolate and raspberries.

CREPES

2 eggs and 2 egg yolks

2 cups fat free milk

11/3 cup GF flour

pinch of salt

1 tbsp melted butter

1.) place all ingredients in blender and blend until smooth

2.) refrigerate for 45 min.

3.) Heat a skillet over medium with a little bit of butter

HINT: you want the butter too bubble a little, but if it starts turning brown your pan is too hot.

put enough batter in the pan to barely coat the bottom of the pan. Flip after it cooks long enough to slide around in the pan. then try and flip it by tossing it in the pan. If you can do it right it will make them prettier. I found using a spatula tends to make it messy.

You can fill crepes with many things, fruit filling, nutella, even butter and syrup. What I did for the picture is nutella on the inside with raspberry pie filling on top. I heated the filling over the stove with about a half cup of water to make it a little more like syrup. Whipped topping went on top of that with raspberries and chocolate shavings as a garnish.



Beef Chimichangas

A wonderful aunt of mine recommended that I look up recipes with corn tortillas at allrecipes.com. So I did and over the course of the next several months I intend to try them and blog about them.

The original recipe for this can be found at http://allrecipes.com/recipe/beef-chimichangas/detail.aspx#

I did make a few changes to suit my personal taste and that is what will be listed here.

Ingredients

1 lb. ground beef (I used lean)
1 onion chopped
1 clove garlic mince
1 tsp. dried oregano
cumin
chili powder
salt
2 tablespoons tomato sauce
1/4 cup sour cream
1 4 oz can of chopped green chilies
2 tbsp distilled white vinegar
1 cup shredded cheese (the recipe called for cheddar but I used a Mexican blend)
1/2 cup butter
6 large corn tortillas
HINT: if you can't find large corn tortillas small ones will work, but remember that they will not hold as much. if you over fill them it will make a mess.

1.) Preheat oven to 450 degrees

2.) Brown the round beef with the onion , garlic, and other spices to taste. I also added the green chilies at this point. drain off the extra fat. Add tomato sauce. Stir in the sour cream and vinegar. Remove pan from heat and stir in the cheese.

3.) melt butter in a skillet big enough to lay the tortilla flat. when melted dip the tortilla into the butter until soft.

HINT: another way to soften corn tortillas is to put them in the microwave with a damp paper towel over the top heat for 30 seconds to a minute. that takes less fat but I have not tried it yet with this recipe

Place softened tortilla on a baking sheet and put about 1/3 cup of the meat mixture (less for 6 inch tortillas)

fold the tortilla top and bottom and then around the sides and flip the seam side down on the baking sheet

4.) Bake in the oven until crisp the recipe says about 15 minutes, but keep an eye on it, in my oven it only took 10

I'm back

After a brief respite from the Internet I am back and I hope to have more recipes soon.

Taco Burgers

Okay I'll admit it I forgot about father's day. Life is hectic it happens. But I found myself trying to throw something nice together last minute and this is what I came up with. I had hamburger patties and corn tortillas put 'em together and tada! Taco Burgers. Not really a super original idea, but pretty easy and fun.

TACO BURGERS

Hamburger Patty

2 Corn tortillas

2 slices of cheese (sandwich size)

tomato half sliced

chili powder

garlic powder

onion powder

salt

sour cream (I like the sour cream with chives)

sprinkle raw hamburger patty with the spices and the salt. 

cook at about 350 degrees until done  

place corn tortilla on griddle (or pan) add one slice of cheese

put cooked hamburger patty on top of cheese add slice of tomato and layer on the other slice of cheese and other corn tortilla. cook until the corn tortilla starts getting crispy and  the cheese is melted.

Top with a tablespoon of sour cream and a wedge of tomato for a garnish.

Any Veggie Stir-fry

I hate it when at the end of the week I have a bunch of Veggies that I have to either use or lose. So one of my favorite things to do is to put everything into a stir-fry. It's also a good way to use leftover meat from a pot roast or something.
This stir-fry I made with leftover pork loin, cauliflower, broccoli, squash, tomato, and onion.
An essential for every stir-fry is some sort of oil, i use a little bit of olive oil.
Chop all your vegetables. Heat the oil in the pan. Add onion and any of your harder veggies i.e. carrots or cauliflower. Once those start getting tender add the slightly softer veggies like squash. Then add the meat and cook until the meat is hot. I always add the broccoli last and cook it just until it turns a bright pretty green.
I added a dash of soy sauce and garlic powder.
Serve on top of rice.

Happy Birthday Sweetheart!

Today is my sweet husband's 26th birthday and so I decided to do something special.

The idea for this came from Disney magazine which I happened to pick up at the doctor's office. You can find the original instructions here. I tweaked it a bit so that everything on the cake was gluten free. I also decided I just might do cupcake cakes more often since they don't seem to fall apart the same way a lot of my gluten free cakes seem to.

Here is the list of ingredients from the original and what I used instead I left out the things I didn't change...

Cupcakes...used Betty Crocker GF cake mix

Vanilla Frosting...made a regular butter-cream frosting

Vanilla Wafers....used peanut butter cookie recipe found here

Red licorice laces... used a fruit by the foot and cut with kitchen scissors

Spice Drops... I don't like spice drops so I used candy fruit wedges

licorice pastels...instead of pastels I just used Hershey's chocolate and piped white frosting over it

chocolate covered graham cracker...used Hershey's chocolate bar

pretzel stick...couldn't find GF so I again use Hershey's chocolate bar

Everything else was Gluten Free in the recipe. Anyway it was a load of fun to make.

Chili Beans (kind of)

Chili beans

So everybody has there own recipe for "chili beans" and admitedly mine changes every time I make it, but I have found having a few standard ingredients that I can keep on hand helps so I can have a quick meal when I need one (for example last night, I needed something fairly easy about 20 minutes before my sweetheart came home). Usually I try and buy the canned goods on sale and buy in bulk.

For an exact recipe with the nutrition values already worked out, check out the "Easy Chili Beans" recipe on the recipe page

3 12oz cans of beans drained ( I prefer black, but i usually mix it up with another kind like kidney or pinto)

one can of corn (may be omitted for corn allergy)

one can of diced tomatos

ground beef, turkey, or if your in a hurry canned chicken

onion powder garlic powder, chili powder, salt to taste

brown meat (if nessacary) mix it all in the pot and boil on high for about 10 to 15 minutes or until water boils down stir occasionally

serve in bowls and top with sour cream salsa and cheese

suggested add-ins: Bell pepper, diced garlic or onion (omit powdered if used), canned green chili, salsa, anything else that sounds good to you!

Welcome everybody

I am not totally new to blogging, although I've never done anything quite like this before. I just hope to somehow make it a little easier for someone to find a source for gluten free recipes that aren't super complicated or super expensive. I will probably be adding a few more complicated ones as I try them. Also while this blog will have some healthier recipes I am also going to add some treats.

For a starter try my Peanut butter cookie recipe found on the recipes tab.