BLTC2 (Bacon Lettuce Tomato with Cheese and Chicken)

With discovery of the Gluten Free Flax Bread, sandwiches are once again gracing my table. I'm so very happy about that. There's just nothing better than sinking your teeth into a nice hearty sandwich.

This morning, over our traditional Saturday Morning Pancake breakfast (rice flour pancakes which now my husband likes even better than the old recipe with wheat), we were lamenting the fact that we didn't have bacon. My husband and my kids are mostly sausage people. Not me, I'm a bacon girl. Salty, yummy, crunchy, chewy on the fat part. MMMMMM....Bacon..... Oh...wait...sorry.......Having tossed my menu plan out the window this week (hoping no one noticed!), we decided it was a day for BLT's.

I set to task after cleaning today, to make a fresh loaf of the Gluten Free Flax Bread. Went grocery shopping with my eldest daughter - who loves to do this with me. Brought home nice head of lettuce, fresh pound of bacon...and bread for the gluten-gluttons in my family.

Around 5, my husband laid the bacon on my large stoneware bar pan and baked it. The smell was heavenly...I couldn't wait for our sandwiches. We also grilled up some chicken breasts and sliced it thin.

Layering mayo (Hellman's, OF COURSE), American Cheese, Lettuce, Tomato, bacon and chicken on my two slices of fresh flax bread.

Heaven, I'm in Heaven and my heart beats so that I can hardly wait...

To eat the leftovers tomorrow! :D

Hoping you get a chance to try one soon :D

Breakfast for dinner????

A favorite in this house is breakfast for dinner. Scrambled eggs, a warm steaming pile of rice flour pancakes, sausages or bacon. MMMMMM. Last night, in need of eggshells for one of my daughter science projects for the next few days, found myself saying "What can I make with eggs for dinner???". Following is what we had, it was a success, and very yummy!!!


Breakfast for Dinner Casserole

1 16 oz package frozen hashbrowns, defrosted (I used Whole Foods)
1 tbs olive oil
Salt & Pepper

1 lb bulk breakfast sausage, browned and drained.

12 eggs
2 cups milk
3 cups shredded cheese (I used white cheddar)
2 scallions, sliced thinly.

Preheat oven to 350.

Mix defrosted hashbrowns with olive oil and salt & pepper. Mix well and press into the bottom of a greased 13 X 9" pan. Cover hashbrowns with cooked sausage.

Mix eggs, milk, cheese and scallions together and pour over sausage layer.

Bake, uncovered, for 40-50 minutes (checking at about 45 so that it doesn't get over done).

Let rest 5 minutes before cutting.

Enjoy with fruit salad and a nice cold glass of OJ.

Oh....and if you want it for breakfast, that would work too! :D

Black Bean & Corn Salad

We had a party this weekend in honor of some visiting friends from out of town. My husband requested a mexican Black Bean and Corn Salad. I have not made this often, but decided to give it a try again. My only regret is I did not make more, it was really good!!!


Black Bean & Corn Salad

1 14.5 oz can black beans, rinsed and drained
2 Cups frozen corn, thawed
juice of 1 lime
1 Tbs olive oil
2 scallions, sliced thinly
1 medium tomato, small dice
1 Tbs jalepeno juice (soaking liquid from NON PICKLED jarred jalepenos)
2 Tbs fresh cilantro, chopped
Salt & Pepper to taste

Mix all ingredients together in a non-reactive bowl. Refridgerate for 2 hours or overnight so that the flavors blend well. Serve with any mexican dish as a side dish! MMMMMMMMMMMM....

It's all gone, I'm going to have to make more! OH WELL!!! :D

Spaghetti Casserole

A favorite recipe of mine, that I've adapted for GF. It's still just as good! I dare say even better, now that it's gluten free!!


Spaghetti Casserole

8 oz brown rice spagetti shaped pasta (like Tinkyada)
1 cup sour cream
1 lb ground beef (or turkey or chicken)
1 28 oz jar spaghetti sauce (or see my Spaghetti Sauce at my old blog
2 cups shredded mozzarella cheese


In a large sauce pan, brown ground meat. Add sauce and warm up.

Mix the spaghetti with the sour cream and press into the bottom of a 13 X 9" baking dish. Pour meat/sauce mixture over top. Sprinke Mozzarella Cheese overtop. Bake at 350 for 30 minutes - since everything is cooked it just needs to all "meld" together and the cheese melts.

Serve with salad and Gluten Free Flax Bread!

Chicken Salad

Okay, so chicken salad was last night, but I finally am getting around to posting. This used to (well, still does) at my old cooking blog, but I've decided to add it here to to save folks from having to look hard for it! I adapted slightly this time for my kids sake and kept the nuts and fruit out. I WILL NOT do that a second time. I REALLY missed them.


Fruited Chicken Salad

1 lb Boneless/Skinless Chicken Breast, grilled and cubed
1 small can pineapple slices, drained and cut in chunks
3 scallions, sliced thin
1 stalk celery, small dice
1/2 Cup Chopped Walnuts
1/2 Cup Mayonnaise (Hellman's is GF)
1/2 Cup Sour Cream (thanks for the tip anne!)
2 Tbs Dijion Mustard
Salt & Pepper


Mix all ingredients together in large bowl. Seasoning with salt & pepper to your own preference.

Make ahead so that you can store in fridge about 2 hours so that the flavors blend really well.

My favorite presentation of this dish is to quarter a cantelope, clear away seeds and serve a scoop of the chicken salad in the hollow. You get dinner and dessert all in one! :D

Yummy...

Weekly Menu....

LAst night, my cousin took me out to Outback, using their GF Menu, I had the Alice Springs Chicken. It was an amazing dinner. Very yummy.

So here's how the rest of the week is going to shape up:

Monday: Chicken Salad, Salad
Tuesday: Spaghetti Casserole
Wednesday: Grilled Chicken Breast, Brown Rice & Green Beans
Thursday: Deli Night
Friday: We're having a cookout for some friends who are visiting, so burgers, dogs and the works. BUNLESS for me, of course!
Saturday: Birthday party we are going to. I'm a little nervous about this one, probably bringing my own dinner to be safe.

We had my youngest daughter's 2nd birthday party on Saturday. I made a meat and cheese tray with deli meats from my favorite local Deli (for those of you in the area it's Lansdale Meats & Deli on Broad Street in Lansdale). I had made some of the Lorka bread for my sandwich, but instead was inspired to wrap my meats into a Romaine Lettuce Leaf. It was so good, I had two "sandwiches" that way.

Keep an eye for recipes that I'm doing this week... :D

Gluten Free Flax Bread

Thanks to Lorka150 @ Celiac.com, there is a terrific recipe for bread out there that tastes a whole lot like whole wheat bread. Even the dough smelled like a wheat bread. It was delicious.

Gluten Free Flax Bread

The only adaptation was that I did not use garfava flour. My flour blend was 1 Cup Sorghum Flour, 1/4 Cup Brown Rice Flour, 1/4 Cup White Rice Flour. All the rest was exactly as written. If you follow the thread on the Celiac.com board, there are other variations which include using soy or rice milk and egg replacers to make it a Vegan Bread.

I hope you enjoy it as much as we have. It was so nice having an actual sandwich the other day, I nearly cried!!!

Birthday Cake...

Okay, while I didn't think this was the greatest, personally, it got RAVE reviews last night by my husband, my parents and even my 2 year old daughter. My older two kids were not as impressed....but they did eat it! LOL :D

I'm planning on trying again.

Here's the link to the recipe on allrecipes.com. If you read the reviews, I followed the one for mixing the flours a little bit. It was denser, I think than it was supposed to be. Also, I baked it in a funky bundt pan - betting it would have been even better had I baked it the way it was supposed to be.

Gluten Free Yellow Cake

Ready, Set, Cook #30 - Salmon Newburg Cups

Cooking With Anne Ready, Set, Cook Contest #30, entry!

Salmon Newberg Cups

1 lb smoked Salmon, flaked into bite sized peices
1 small onion, diced finely
1 stalk celery, diced finely
1 clove garlic, fine mince
1/2 cup white wine
salt & pepper
2 tbs butter
1 tsp rice flour
1 pint heavy cream
1 lb asparagus stalks, cut in 1" pieces, blanched and cooled
1 package of Puff Pastry Cups

Prepare Pastry Cups as directed on the package.

In a saute pan, saute the onion, celery and garlic in the butter.
Pour in white wine (cooking sherry will also work). When the
vegetables are translucent/soft, and the wine has reduced by at least
half, sprinkle in the flour and mix well.

Pour in the heavy cream and cook until almost boiling and thickened
and reduced to about 1 cup & quarter. You will need to continue
stirring so that it does not boil. Lower heat if necessary.

Add flaked salmon and asparagus bites. Mix in thoroghly. Continue
stirring until the salmon and asparagus are warmed thru.

Serve in the puff pastry cups.

This Weeks Menu

Well, sharing the menu for the week. We've been kind of winging it the last few days, some of what we planned got put off because hubby wanted for dinner what we had for lunch! Silly boy!


So...

Monday - Meatloaf, mashed potatoes & peas
Tuesday - Tortilla Soup, Grilled Chicken & Salad
Wednesday - Linguini Pesto & Scallops with Asparagus (brown rice linguini, of course!)
Thursday - Deli Night
Friday - Chicken Salad on lettuce leaves, Cantelope
Saturday - My daughters 2nd birthday, we're having a party so I'm sure we'll have leftovers from the party for a dinner.

I'll post recipes as we go along! :D

Happy week everyone!

Roasted Salmon with Sweet & Hot Mustard Sauce

This one we had the other night too, with quinoa and broccoli. Our 2 year old at so much salmon, I thought she would grow gills.

I'm sending you to another site because I got this from Robin Miller's Quick Fix Meals from Food TV. I love her show, I love her recipes and this one was no exception!

I halved the recipe as the original is a recipe that includes plans for another meal later in the week. :)

http://www.foodnetwork.com/food/recipes/recipe/0,1977,FOOD_9936_35440,00.html

If you cannot just click on the link, copy and paste into your browser.

It's so yummy!

Pulled Pork

I have NEVER made this in my life. And my husband requested it. I was a little apprehensive, but after researching a few recipes, I decided to give it a go. It was a resounding success, so much so he wanted to take it to work with him so he could show off his wife's cooking skills to his coworkers! He didn't b/c selfishness took over! LOL :D

Pulled Pork

3 to 4 lb Boston Butt cut of Pork
1 large onion, sliced thin
1 16 oz bottle Sweet Baby Ray's Bar-b-que sauce

Rub:
1/3 cup brown sugar
1 Tbs Chili powder
1 Tbs Ground Cumin
1 tsp Garlic powder
1 tsp onion powder
1 tsp salt
1 tsp red pepper

The night before you are going to make it, mix the rub together and thoroughly coat the meat with the rub and allow to sit overnight in the rub.

The next morning...

Slice onions thin and lay on the bottom of crock pot. Lay the rubbed pork butt on top of the onions. Top with the bar-b-que sauce. Set on high, cook for 6-8 hours. Turn to low, shred meat in the crock pot.

I took several opportunties during the day to skim off the fat from the top. It was well worth taking the time to do that.

It really was yummy. I served with coleslaw and corn tortillas. My family, who is not gluten free, ate it on buns. I had mine on crisped corn tortillas, it was wonderful.

:)

Menu Plan for this week....

Okay, so I just posted the Chicken Lasagna. That did get moved to today. Here's our week. I'll try to post the recipes each day.

Sunday - Chicken Lasagna, salad
Monday - Mushroom Chicken and Peas over Rice
Tuesday - Pulled Pork, coleslaw & corn bread
Wednesday - Sweet & Hot Salmon with quinoa and steamed broccoli
Thursday - Hot Dogs and "fend" night (daughter has gymnastics!)
Friday - Italian Turkey Sausage and Marinara over Spagetti (Tinkyada, of course!)
Satuday - Leftovers - if there are any! LOL :D

Enjoy.

I'm also going to be doing a little baking and experimenting this week. I'll post those as I get there.

:)

Chicken Lasagna

I still have the tattered page that I tore from a Woman's Day Magazine back in February of 1999. I was pregnant with my first child and didn't even know it. I made this dish and could not eat it b/c I was having morning sickness. I thought it was the flu. Needless to say, my husband ate the entire pan himself! He loved it. I don't make it as often as he likes, but it is a special treat.

I have had to adapt it to make it gluten free. SO...using gluten free noodles, I've changed the recipe. There will be leftover sauce, which I have frozen. I intend to take the leftover sauce and mix with chicken broth, tortilla strips and black beans and turn into a makeshift tortilla soup some night when I'm pressed for dinner.

This is my ADAPTED Recipe.

1 Box Tinkyada Pasta Joy Lasagna Noodles
1 lb. Sweet Italian Chicken Sausage, ground chicken OR ground Turkey
1 28 oz can ground, peeled, tomatoes
1 16 oz jar salsa (pick your own heat level, I use Medium)
3 cups frozen corn kernels
4 tsp chili powder (I used McCormicks' because they guarantee their gluten-free-ness)
1 tsp dried oregano leaves
2 cups shredded Monterey Jack Cheese

Soak lasagna noodles in boiling water. I laid mine flat on a cookie sheet and soaked for 10 minutes - softer, easier to cut into pieces to fit in pan. BUT NOT COOKED, they will cook in the final step.

In a large skillet, brown the sausage (casings removed) or ground meat you chose. Once browned add the tomatos, salsa, corn, chili powder and oregano. Heat until hot and flavors have blended. Remove from heat.

In a 2 qt, square baking dish, spoon 1/2 to 3/4 cups sauce mix into the bottom. Lay noodles over to fit. Cover with sauce. Sprinkle with 1/3rd the cheese. Layer again starting with noodles, then sauce, then cheese. Layer one more time, ending with the cheese. You will have approximately 3 cups of sauce left. Freeze it. You will possibly have noodles left too. I had two broken ones left. YOUR OTHER OPTION IS to buy two boxes of the noodles and use it all a 13 X 9" pan. You will need to double the cheese if you do this.

To bake right away - cover dish with foil (spray if it's going to touch the cheese). Bake 30 minutes at 375. Remove foil and bake 10-15 minutes longer until hot and bubbly.

You can also refridge up to 48 hours, or freeze up to 2 months. To prepare from refridged, bake about 50 minutes. From frozen about 1 to 1 1/2 depending on size of pan. If freezing, cover with plastic wrap AND foil. Just remember to remove the plastic wrap before baking! :D

Bul Ko Kee

This got pushed to Friday, due to the promotion celebration. THEN, hubby came home sick from work, so this ended up getting pushed to last night, Saturday. It was good. I served with Rice and frozen asian vegetables. The prep needs to be done the night before again (which actually love, that way I don't really have to do any thinking the next day! LOL :D)


Bul Ko Kee (Korean Beef)

2 lb boneless beef, top loin or sirloin steak
1/4 cup SanJ Soy Sauce (the gluten free one)
3 Tbs. sugar
2 Tbs. Sesame Oil
1/4 tsp. black pepper
3 green onions, chopped finely
2 cloves garlic, minced

Trim fat from meat and cut accross the grain in 1/8" thin slices*. Mix remaining ingredients together. Add meat. Cover and refridgerate overnight. Stir fry in a large saute pan over medium high heat (or a Wok if you have it!) until meat is cooked (about 3-5 minutes).

Serve with hot rice. :D

Buttermilk Fried Chicken

My menu got adjusted a little this week since my husband called on Tuesday and had received a promotion that day. We went to Outback to celebrate. They were wonderful. Our Outback is EXTREMELY trustworthy when it comes to gluten free. I am thankful.

Our dinners got a little shifted.

On Wednesday, we had the Buttermilk Fried Chicken. And YES, I did fry it.

4 lbs Bone In Chicken Pieces (I used 5 legs, cut into drumsticks and thighs)
2 cups buttermilk
3/4 Cup Rice Flour
1 Tbs Poultry Seasoning
1 tsp garlic powder
1 tsp onion powder
1 tsp salt
dash pepper
Oil for Frying (I used 1 qt bottle in my 7qt cast iron dutch oven, fried in two batches)

Soak thawed chicken pieces in buttermilk overnight.

In a large bag, put flour and seasonings. Seal, and shake well to mix.

Remove chicken from buttermilk BUT DO NOT DRAIN. Place pieces in the large plastic bag (I did in two separate batches) and shake until well covered.

Fry in oil 10 minutes on each side, then an additional 5 or so flipping each side. NOTE: Chicken Breast pieces will take longer than legs, drumsticks and wings. WINGS ALONE will only take 12 minutes total.

We had this with french fries and green salad.

:) YUMMY.