Friday, August 31, 2007

White Wine Sangria

I found it!!!! I have been looking for this recipe for MONTHS!!!! I was cleaning up a few more things in the kitchen, waiting on Paula and Mike to get here and I thought, hhmmmm, what about that file I started????? And so I looked and there it was!!!

750ml white wine
6 oz frozen raspberry lemonade, thawed
6 oz pineapple juice
1/2 cup rum
1/2 cup triple sec
2 cups 7up

mix it all together, throw in some diced fruits, green apples, strawberries, fresh pineapple, etc....etc....

Cheers!!!

Thursday, August 30, 2007

Baked Stuffed Chicken

Now, I have not tried this myself, But it sounds so good, and EASY!!! When I made stuffing at Thanksgiving I just used some bread I had in the freezer for a while, had to cube it and toast it in the oven with a little seasonings, but it turned out fine, so I assume you could substitute 1 cup of homemade croutons with seasonings for the stuffing. (seasonings, could be sage, thyme, oregano, basil, whatever you like, the best part about gluten free cooking is the creativity and experimenting) Let me know if you try this, I might this weekend while everyone is here......

BAKED STUFFED CHICKEN

6-7 lb. Chicken
1 cup melted butter
1 cup stuffing
1 cup uncooked popcorn (ORVILLE REDENBACHER'S LOW FAT)
Salt/pepper to taste

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Brush chicken well with melted butter, salt, and pepper.

Fill cavity with stuffing and popcorn.

Place in baking pan with the neck end toward the back of the oven.

Listen for the popping sounds.

When the chicken's butt blows the oven door open and the chicken flies across the room, it's done.

And, you thought you couldn't cook.........

Monday, August 13, 2007

Apple Spice cake

SO I've got a bunch of boys (Grant, Sam, Franny, etc.....) upstairs, not sleeping.....and I know they will wake up starving and I am not getting up early to cook for them.....so I am trying something.......

1 pkg Namaste spice cake mix
2 large granny smith apples, peeled and diced
1 single serving of applesauce, no sugar added (Motts Natural)
enough oil to make 2/3 cup when added to applesauce
3/4 cup water
3 eggs

So I mixed all that together and put it in a greased 9x13 pan. I sprinkled a bit of sugar on top, so it is nice and crunchy. I placed that in my oven, which I set for 30minutes at 325, and then I programmed the oven to shut off after. And now I am going to bed, and praying that we wake up to some yummy apple spice cake for breakfast with strawberries....if it flops, I'll let you know....wish me luck!!!

it's now morning and here's what I found......ok, the weirdest thing happened!!! all the chopped up apples ended up in the center of the pan, which didn't bake. The outside (perimeter) of the cake was good but didn't have any apple chunks and the inside I had to scoop out with a spoon and throw away. So, not sure if I used too much applesauce, should have chopped the apples smaller (never had that happen with the carrot and/or zucchini shreds, when I've used this mix), so I will try this again with a couple changes and see what happens next time........

BTW....the boys ate ALL the cake. LOVED it....weirdo's.....it was good, just weird!!!

Sunday, August 5, 2007

What CAN you eat?????

It always cracks me up for some reason when people ask me "well what CAN you eat?" um, how's about the food that grows from the earth that God put there for me????

Gluten free eating is probably the healthiest you can get. The main things you are eliminating are the processed, prepackaged foods that we rely on way to much and that make us a "fat" country. Sliced cucumbers dipped in hummus, fresh ham, salmon, any fresh fruit and veggie. I have for years been cooking fresh and am amazed when people prefer overly processed foods to fresh foods.

God did not make all these glorious plants for us to just look at, He made them for us to nourish our bodies. Some family members who I shall NOT name, are still giving me the eye when I am eating with them. They heavily salt everything and eat a lot of prepackaged processed foods and I can't eat that, most of it has gluten, so I usually bring something I can eat, or I ask them to leave the sauce off or etc. They like to make comments about my dry chicken or whatever...it's nice...

But honestly, I trully think food is usually better eaten just the way God made it. I do use a lot of pre chopped or canned things, but I try to buy canned things that have the fewest number of ingredients on the list. And I try to make sure I can actually pronounce all the ingredients.

I've been eating fresh sliced tomatoes from the 'garden' all weekend, and just thinking how wonderful they are. It's the only time I can just eat a tomato plain, fresh from the garden. So yummy. I've got one zucchini and one red pepper ready to grill and several little cucumbers that are doing their thing.

Anyway, I guess this post is just to tell people that gluten free is not that scary, and I don't feel it is that limiting. I can still eat chocolate. Eating out is a bit of a challenge, but I've not starved yet! I can almost always get a baked potato.