Chicken Fingers

Life here has gotten so busy so I needed to find some quick and simple dinners.  Well I stumbled upon a great site that could make some of your lives easier.  It is Onceamonthmom.com  She plans your monthly meals so you can cook on long day then have freezer meals all month long.  She has a gluten and dairy free recipe list.  I have loved some of her recipes and today I am going to share one. (you will be seeing recipes from her on here quite a bit during the crazy holidays cause I simply don't have time myself!)  I changed her corn flakes to frosted flakes because that is what I could find.

Chicken Fingers

1 Box of gluten free frosted flakes
1/2 cup frozen Orange Juice
1 1/2 lb boneless skinless chicken breast, cut into strips

4 chopped garlic cloves

2 large eggs

2/3 cup shredded unsweetened coconut

2 tb sugar

1 tsp molasses ( or substitute the sugar for brown sugar)

1 tb olive oil

2 tb butter

I love the EnviroKids Organic brand.  Not to expensive and limited ingredients.  You can get it at HEB

It a ziploc bag add the orange juice and garlic. After you cut your chicken into the size of strips you want, add them to the bag.  Let this marinate for at least 2 hours.  I usually do this the night before so it has all night and the next day to absorb the yummy orange flavor!  Then in a small dish you want to beat your eggs.  On another plate add your frosted flakes, coconut, olive oil, butter and sugars.  Crunch up and mix well.

Pull your chicken from the orange juice mixture, dip it in the eggs, then cover it with the frosted flake mixture.  Lay them flat and bake at 400 for about 12 minutes.

These were awsome!!  My husband and kids loved them.  What I thought would be two meals, turned out to be one. 

Peanut Butter Cookies

My husbands favorite cookies are Peanut butter cookies!  I am not the biggest fan of them so it is a good thing for me to make when I don't want to be eating sweets but the family wants some.  Every once in a while I will surprise him with these great cookies!

1 C Rice Flour

1/2 C. Tapioca Flour

3/4 C. Sorghum Flour

I use a lot of Bobs Red Mill because I like their quality and their price!  They have great products!

1 3/4 C. of Sugar

2 tbs Molasses

2 eggs

1tsp Baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

1 1/2 tsp baking soda

1 c. butter

1 c all natural peanut butter

I prefer to use creamy peanut butter but you can use either creamy or crunchy will work great!  

First you cream your butter, peanut butter, sugar and molasses.  Then add in your eggs.

Then you add in the remaining ingredients.  If you let your dough sit then the next two steps will be a little easier.

You want to roll your dough into balls and put them on the baking sheet.  Use a dinner fork to make the criss cross pattern on the top.  I have done this after refrigerating the dough, freezing and defrosting it, or right away.  When the dough is a little cold or harder then it makes the criss crossing not stick to the fork as much.

Bake at 375 for 11 minutes!

Enjoy

Broccoli Chicken Pesto

This is a pasta the is full of Veggies and your kids won't know.  You could have fun with this and use it for St. Patrick's day!

2 boneless skinless chicken breasts

1 Small can of Tomato sauce

2 heads of Broccoli

2 Red Bell peppers

Handful of fresh Basil

6 garlic Cloves

Tinkyada Pasta  

Start your pasta by following the directions on the package.  Unlike most GF Pastas, this one doesn't get mushy easily so don't me stingy on the water and boiling. 

Steam your broccoli heads until they are falling apart.  You want them very soft so they are easy to blend up.  

 While the broccoli is steaming dice up two chicken breasts.  You want them bite size peices.

 

Then brown them in a pan until cooked through.

Dice up your Basil and garlic

 

You are then going to put your tomato sauce, blended broccoli, basil and garlic all in a pot.  Heat it all together to blend the flavors.  You  can add salt to taste at this point.  

 

Once it is well heated add in your chicken.  Mix it all with your pasta and your kids are getting fun green pasta sauce!

 It might not look gourmet but have fun with it!!

Chocolate Pudding?

????  This might look like chocolate pudding but the texture is not!  This was definitely a fail!  My kids ate it but sometimes I think my kids will eat more then the dog.  Boiled  Cocoa powder, Tapioca flour, Chocolate Almond milk, and Evaporated Cane Sugar until it all was mixed.  Then refrigerated.

SNot

That is what we got, chocolate snot.  Flavorful but texture wise, BAD

Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies

Oatmeal cookies are my Father-in-laws favorite so I tried a gluten free version and loved it.  

1 c. Sorghum Flour

1 c. Rice flour

1/2 c. Tapioca flour

1tsp Baking Powder

1/2 tsp Baking Soda

1/2 tsp salt

1 tsp Xanthum gum

1/2 tsp Cinnamon

3/4 cup of butter

1/2 c. Sugar

2 tbl. Molasses

1tb Vanilla

2 eggs

3 - 3 1/2 c. GF Oats

1 c. chocolate chips

I always melt my butter to help with mixing the batter and it just bakes slightly different when the butter is melted.  With this recipe it is almost a necessity because of how thick the dough is. 

First add all the ingredients but the oats and chocolate chips. 

 When using your KitchenAid you will want to use then put on your dough hook to add in the oats and chocolate chips. 

 

 

Ghirardelli Chocolate makes two all natural chocolate chips that do not use the extra milk fat in making their chocolate.  The Bitter sweet (I use in place of dark chocolate) and their semi-sweet.  We don't do dairy, or caisen, but have never had any problems with these.  

I then put them in large balls, I like big cookies, then bake for 15min at 350.

 They are slightly dry, not as moist as I would like them.  Next time I bake them I will see what we can do to change that.  Or leave a comment and let me know what you find out.

Gotta love Cookies!!

Seafood stir-fry

Start with your Lemon Zest rice.  Shave some of the lemon peel into the water then cook your rice.

Boil 1 Bok Choy per every 2 people you will be serving.  I only did one and fed me, the hubs, the bottomless 4year old and 3 year old little princess.  I wish I would have done two.  Boil until tender but not squishy.  Then set it aside on a plate to let off some steam. 

I then diced up my red pepper and a small jalapeno.  I don't usually cook with jalapenos because they are too spicy for me.  But in a stir fry I thought it might add some good kick to it.  I didn't get to find out what it tastes like because I got made and threw the jalapeno away.  Really, I did! (rant story to follow so if you want to get back to the recipe just skip to the next picture.)  As I was cutting up the now even more hated jalapeno, juice must have splattered and got right below my eye.  I don't remember it splattering but the soft skin below my eye started to burn.  Not bad just a little.  I didn't think much of it.  Until the burn started to slowly get worse.  I went to the bathroom and washed my face just in case.  Didn't use soap!  That just made it worse and got residue in my eye.  Ouch!  I ran my entire head and face under cold water upstairs in the bathroom.  It started to get better not much but bearable.  It wasn't till the next day that it went completely away.  So no more jalapenos from this blog ever!!

Back to the recipe.  I diced up the red pepper and put it in a bowl.

On top of that I put a whole bunch of green onions diced and about 1tbs of ginger.

In a separate bowl I put 2tsp of cinnamon, 1 tsp curry, 2 tsp of ginger. 1 tsp of fennel.  Then mixed the shrimp and squid up with that. 

 

Then in a heated pan I added 1tb of Pompeian Olive Oil and let if heat until it was fragrant.  I then added the seafood.  When the shrimp and squid turned white I added my bowl of peppers and onions and sauteed them until soft.  I added half a stick of butter then the bok chow cut up to bite size pieces.

Serve over your lemon zest rice and it is turned out good. It needed salt but we added that at the end. Next time I think  I will add some honey so give it a sweet and salty mixture. 

Tomato Basil Pantry Soup

This soup was delicious!!  This was not my recipe but so quick and easy to make I had to share.  This recipe came from  Simply Sugar and Gluten Free

 

 I have always loved tomato soup but had a hard time finding one that I could quickly make from scratch that I loved.  I don't like to much added stuff in my tomato soup.  I just like tomato soup, plain tomato soup.  This was that and more.  It had flavor and texture to the perfect degree.  I hope you enjoy as much as I did!

2 tbs unsalted butter

2 tbs olive oil

1 cup diced onions

1tbs minced garlic (about 3 cloves)

1/8 tsp cinnamon

3 tbs chopped fresh Basil

4 cups chicken stock or broth

2 - 28oz cans of whole tomatoes

salt and pepper to taste

Heat butter and olive oil in large pot.  Add onion and cook for 10 min until onions are soft.  Add garlic cook 3-5 min.  Add cinnamon and basil cook about 5 min.  Add broth.  SS&GF has you add the whole tomatoes then blend it all at the end.  I didn't have time for that so instead I removed most of the basil leaves at this time put them in a blender with my tomatoes and puree them.  I then added it all back to the pot and simmered for 20 min. 

Sweet Portabella Summer Salad

I love mushrooms and this salad is quick and easy for these summer months.  You will need 1 large portabella mushroom cap per salad you plan on making.  I usually use 4 caps for my family.  Slice them pretty thick (like below) because they will shrink a little when they cook and you want them to absorb the sauces.  Slice up one onion keeping the rings.

 

Melt 1 stick of butter 2 tbs of Balsamic vinegar and 3 tbs of honey into a pan.  Once it is all mixed up  and hot then add the onions and mushrooms.  Cook while mixing until the onions are soft and cooked through.  Place the mushrooms and onions on some spinach leaves and use the juice as your dressing.  I think you will be pleasantly delighted!

Breakfast Egg Muffins

I was given a basic popover recipe from a friend that I adapted to be gluten free and added the eggs.  It isn't quick but is a great saturday brunch.

You start with:

1/2 cup rice flour

1/2 cup Sorghum flour

1/2 cup potato startch

3/4 tsp salt

3 eggs

1 1/2 cup un-sweetened almond milk

4 tbs melted butter

Pre-heat the oven to 425.  Mix up all the ingredients with a fork or on low with your KitchenAid.  You want the batter a little lumpy.  Take some additional butter and cut up little squares to melt in each muffin tin. 

 

Put the tin in the oven for just a few seconds so the butter will melt.  Then add the mix on top of the melted butter.  Only fill the cups up about 1/2 way because you are going to be cracking an egg on top of the half way cooked muffins.  Cook for 10 minutes then add an egg on top of each muffin. Put back in the oven for an additional 10 minutes.  Less if you want your yolk really runny.

 

I didn't get a great finished picture of these because my Grandpa was in town and we ate them to fast.  I had to stop the kids from getting more just so I could get this picture.  I usually have enough batter the put in a few extra muffins.  We eat these with maple syrup and they are great.

Cilantro Chicken and Rice

I really wanted something with a cilantro sauce and lots of it.  So I dove into the fridge to figure out what I had.  I decided to create this meal that was quick and delicious!  I started with rice but added a handful of diced cilantro to add a little extra flavor to the rice.  I let it cook while I made the chicken topping. 

I pulled out two frozen chicken breasts and threw them in a sink full of warm water.  This defrosts them pretty quick without cooking the outer layer.  I also like them a little frozen when I cut them up because it seems to make the cutting go quicker.  I heated about a tsp of olive oil in a pan and cooked the chicken with the rest of the cilantro.

When the chicken was no longer pink but not yet browned I started to add the rest of the veggies.  I put in 

1 whole onion, chopped

2 tbs of butter

 

1 red pepper

1 green pepper

2 tbs of Balsalmic Vinegar

2 tbs of Honey

1 small bag of frozen broccoli crowns

I cooked on medium heat until broccoli was warm.  I then added 2 avocados, chunked and salted to taste..

I served this over the cilantro rice and yummy!

I had some left over mashed Yams that I served as a side dish .

My kids both had tow helpings and we didn't have left overs.  It was great.  Try it and let me know if you have any other suggestions to throw in there.

Stir Fry on the Fly

This is the easiest stir fry ever.  Actually I am not sure it is really stir fry but I didn't know what else to call it.  We call it Taco Fry because that is what it tastes like.  It is a great throw together dinner recipe.  I use my favorite Jimmy Dean Natural Sausage, Broccoslaw, 1 can of no salt diced tomatoes and sometimes some yellow squash.  You brown the sausage then add all ingredients in a pot and heat up. 

 

It might not look great but it tastes great! And it is full of Veggies.

Dinner Rolls take #2

So I once agian tried some dinner rolls from a box.   This time they tasted great but kids were mistaking them as cookies because they were so flat.  Needless to say not a winner!

  I love the box mix because it makes great bread so you can always impress people with this partially homemade bread using this Gluten Free Pantry mix.  I used the French Bread mix.

 

I followed the directions on the box adding a little extra honey because I like my dinner rolls sweet.  Maybe someday I will be a good enough gluten free baker that I can give you a gluten free version of my favorite pre-gluten free life rolls. (the Hawaiian sweet rolls...I know you know them too...)  Maybe someday

Well, I mixed it...

 

I rolled it...

(using lots of olive oil so ball look smooth when placed on the pan)

 

I put it in the oven for you and me

(at 350 for 20 min)

 

They are flat and taste good but not the look we want for dinner rolls.  We shall try again

Pancakes

Pancakes are delicious but gluten free ones can be difficult to make.  It took me almost a year to figure out how to make decent pancakes.  I was getting so frustrated!  I wasn't going to let pancakes defeat me so I am proudly sharing my Perfect Pancake Recipe!

Potato Starch is the secret to the fluffiness. The other two flours can probably be substituted for some others but don't leave out the Potato Starch or you might end up with gooey centers like I did at first.  

1Cup Rice Flour

3 Tbs Tapioca Flour

1/3 C. Potato Startch

1/2 C. Sugar ( I use Dehydrated Cane Sugar)

1 1/2 Tsp Baking Powder

1/2 Tsp Salt

1/2 Tsp Baking Soda

1/2 Tsp Xanthum Gum

3 Tbs Oil

2 eggs

1 1/2 C. Unsweetened Almond Milk (any milk product will work but if you use sweetened decrease your sugar to about 1/4 C.)

1tb Vinegar

Your batter will be thick and runny.

 

I use my griddle at about 400 degrees coated with butter for a little extra flavor.  The pancakes should look like this when they are ready to turn.  

 

And then golden brown on the other side.

 

They are delicious!

Bean Enchiladas

I have two different versions of these enchiladas.  This one uses a can of Black beans, chili beans and diced tomatoes.  Add a little extra chili seasoning , wrap them up in some corn or rice tortillas and voila!

 A very simple and delicious meal.

 I got a little lazy because I was in a hurry so I only rolled the first 3 tortillas then the rest I laid out more like a casserole.  I will probably roll them because the tortillas absorb more flavors that way.  You can see below the left 3 that are rolles.  The rest I have tortillas under them and then put one additional layer over before baking.  You bake at 350 for about 25 minutes

 

Here is the finished product.  Sorry about the lazyness but we all know that life gets busy and shortcuts are o.k. when we need them!  To really finishe this off I love to serve them topped with my faviorte salsa, TexasTexas!

Version#2
Instead of Chili beans and tomatoes, I add an entire bunch of fresh cilantro and 2 cans of black beans.  Just as simple different taste.  Also topped with some good salsa!

I LOVE MEATLOAF!!

And I love it even more that I don't have to put my hands in the meat to squish it all together.  This is an excellent meatloaf recipe because you don't have to add much seasoning to get a lot of it.  The secret is in the type of meat you use.  Ground turkey and Jimmie Dean All Natural Sausage.

 

I use the entire package of both of these to make my loaf.  You can just plop them right in you KitchenAid bowl along with 1 cup of milk ( I use Almond milk because we don't do dairy in our house either.  I like that I can get the milk unsweetened also), 1 egg, 1 onion or equivalent of dried onion.  Usually your dried onion packaging will tell you the equivalent.  I used dried onions tonight because of the lack of time or laziness to chop my onion.  1 tsp salt, 1 tsp sage (can be omitted and it still tastes great), 1/2 cup katsup.

Now to make it gluten free you use Gluten Free Oatmeal.  I buy Bob's because it is what is easiest to find at my grocery store.  Oatmeal itself is gluten free but is severely cross contaminated in the rolling process so you want to make sure it is labeled as so.  I only used 1 cup tonight and thought the meatloaf turned out a little soft.  I would recommend using at least 1 1/2 cups of oatmeal with this.  It depends on how you like your meatloaf though so experiment with it and see.  

The last ingredient is the worchestershire sauce.  I don't buy my sauce but make a concoction that is similar in recipes.  I know that there is a GF version but I have yet to find one.  I haven't looked to hard though.  If you know of one leave a comment so others can try it.  So instead I use 1/2 tsp of Apple Cider Vinegar, 1/4 tsp of Balsamic vinegar, 1tbl cane sugar, 1/2 tbl molasses.  The ketsup that was added ealier was also needed to help make this sauce.  I have used this in many recipes that call for worchestershire sauce and have had sucess.

Once everything is in, turn on the KitchenAid!  Pre-heat the oven to 350.  All ingredients will fit into a regular bread pan. 

Bake for 90 minutes.  As I said mine came out a little soft and I thought it needed more oatmeal.  You can kind of see it this picture of the cooked loaf. 

  

There just seemed to be to much juice in the pan.  The flavoring is absorbed by the oatmeal and this loaf was lacking that.  I don't get to make this very often because my husband refuses to eat meatloaf.  I have to make it when he is gone or I get to buy in dinner out, with out me! 

 

Good when served with steamed yams!