Gluten free, dairy free waffles

I have been experimenting with my gf/df waffle recipe for a LONG time.  Like a couple of years, but I think I finally got it right!  It makes a perfect belgian waffle.

2 cups brown rice flour
3 cups tapioca flour
2 tbs baking powder
1/2 tsp salt 4 eggs
3 1/2 cups almond milk
1 cup cooking oil
1 tsp xanthan gum

Yummy!

Oatmeal cinnamon pancakes

I don't have a picture of these delicious pancakes, but I did some experimenting, and came up with this recipe.  Sometimes experimenting pays off and sometimes it REALLY doesn't.  This it did!  I like a nice thick, dense pancake, and the none of the recipes I was using quite added up to that.  So here's our new favorite pancakes, dubbed The Best Ever by the kids.

Gluten filled version:
2 cups flour
2 tbs sugar
4 tsp baking powder
1/2 tspsalt
2 eggs
2 cups milk
2 tbs cooking oil
1 cup oats (I used quick)
1 tsp cinnamon

Gluten/dairy free version:
2 cups brown rice flour
1 cup tapioca flour
1 cup oats
1 tsp cinnamon
2 tbs sugar
4 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
2 eggs
2 cups almond milk (or whatever other milk substitute you like)
2 tbs cooking oil

Usually I add xanthan gum to my gf recipes to help them stick together, but I'm pretty sure this one was fine without it.  I honestly don't remember adding it.

Flourless chocolate cake

I made this cake last night for our family dinner.  Oh. my. yumminess.  There is only one little piece left that I'm saving for Josh to have tomorrow after he eats lunch.  I altered the recipe a bit by using dairy free margarine in the cake.  For the salted caramel sauce I used margarine and Silk dairy free creamer.  I also used dark baking chocolate for half of what it called for, and I accidentally used 1 cup of brown sugar in the cake instead of the called for 1/4 cup.  Oops.  It worked though, probably because the chocolate was darker than what was called for.  The called for time for baking was 90 minutes, but I had to leave the house with about 10 minutes of baking left, so I turned off the oven and left it in to finish baking while the oven cooled down.  I turned it off at about 1:30 and came back to the house to get it at 5.  I was SO nervous that it would either be burnt or underdone, but it was actually perfect!  Now I just have to figure out if I do that again or try baking it the full 90 minutes.  I will definitely be making this again!

Spaghetti, revisited

I made spaghetti for dinner about a week back, and since I had a little more time (and no jarred sauce), I decided to just make my own.  I don't follow a recipe, just add what I like.  Of course, years of making it has helped me know what I do and don't like.  So here's my version of homemade spaghetti sauce.

The first step is browning the meat.  I use 1 pound of 93/7 ground beef.  I also like to use local meat.  It's a little bit more expensive, but the taste is so much better!  While it's browning I add in half of a diced green bell pepper.  You would also add onion while it's browning, but I had mine already softened.  With the lean ground beef, I don't even have to drain it, so one extra step is cut out.  If it's any more fat than 93/7, I do drain it.

 During the summer we always get huge amounts of tomatoes, and this summer I roasted a whole bunch with onions, and froze them in quart size bags.  One quart size bag holds just enough tomatoes and onions to fit in the Magic Bullet, and is also just the right amount for my sauce.  If you don't have any frozen, I think two cans of tomatoes would probably work just fine.

 After I puree the tomatoes and onions in the Magic Bullet I dump it into the pot with the beef.  If it's looking too thick, I'll add a little bit of water.  I do like thick sauces, but hubby likes them a little thinner.  Do you know how hard it is to take pictures of things in stainless steel pans?  SO reflective!

 While that's starting to simmer I add my seasonings.  These three things are what I typically use.  Sea salt, pepper, and italian seasoning, all from Costco.  I add 1-2 tsp of the italian seasoning, and salt and pepper to taste.

About 10 minutes (not any longer) before I'm ready to serve, I add in half of a small yellow squash.  That way it's cooked, but not soggy.  I would add in more, since it's my favorite, but hubby doesn't like it, so I go easy on it.  He did actually eat it this time, but only because there wasn't much in there.  Here's my yummy gluten free meal.  Did I mention I'm eating gf again?  Well, I am.  My stomach was rebelling, and I'm feeling so much better now.  Mmm...corn pasta (our favorite), homemade sauce, and homemade garlic bread, using Udi's sandwich bread.

An easy dinner *updated*

One of my favorite go-to dinners for those crazy days spent running kids around, is spaghetti with garlic bread.  I get two pots of water boiling, and start making the garlic bread.  Our favorite garlic bread is sour dough with a spread of butter, sprinkled with sea salt and garlic powder.  Sometimes I get fancy and add some Parmesan  cheese.  Then I just stick it under the broiler until it's golden brown.  Mmmm....it's so good! It's also easy to make gf and dairy free.  Gluten free bread doesn't keep very long, so I usually make it, slice it, and freeze it the same day.  For garlic bread I take a few pieces out of the freezer, spread on some dairy free "butter", and then sprinkle the salt and garlic powder.
The best tasting gluten free pasta we have found is corn pasta.  It cooks well, and is easily stored and warmed the next day if there are leftovers.  Many other pastas either over cook easily and are nasty or they are nasty rewarmed.  Then I just heat up our favorite sauce, Francesca Rinaldi Sweet and Tasty Tomato, and we have dinner on the table in under 30 minutes.  Perfect for those crazy soccer days.

*I just discovered a way to make it easier!  I bought a round loaf that was unsliced originally, but walking down the bread aisle the other day I discovered presliced oval loafs.  Duh!*

Sometimes I forget that not everyone knows how to safely cook gluten free.  So here's some tips for cooking pasta.  The most important thing to remember is that you want to avoid cross contamination with food containing gluten.  So with pasta, you have to use a separate pot, and spoon, and when I drain it, I drain the gf pasta first, and then the regular.  Always make sure everything is clean, and that you don't accidentally use something for your gf food that you've used with your gluten food.

Chicken strips

For my first official post, I decided to share one of Josh's favorite things; he calls them chicken bites, but basically they're chicken nuggets, or chicken fingers.  He is constantly asking me to make these.  A little background on Josh first, and to make a VERY long story short, I'll just say that at a year we had him tested for food allergies, and he is allergic to wheat, milk, and peanuts.  He can't eat wheat at all (he breaks out in hives) so we won't even ever know for sure that he has celiac, but we've been told to just treat him like he does.  So he's been eating gluten free his whole life.  I'm getting much better at cooking gf foods for him now, and it helps that there is just so many  more options now than there was even 6 years ago when we started this journey.  It used to be a lot trickier because we had to cook gf, milk free, AND egg free, but thankfully he outgrew the egg allergy.

So here is Josh's favorite meal:

I found these bread crumbs at our local Grocery Outlet for a SUPER good deal (I'm now kicking myself for only buying one bag).  I basically follow the instructions on the side of the bag, but cut it in half.  I whisk an egg, dip in strips of chicken breast, then dip it in the bread crumbs.  To season the bread crumbs I sprinkled in some sea salt, ground some pepper into it, and then mixed in some oregano.  Once the chicken is nicely coated with the bread, I put it into an 8x8 pan coated with olive oil.  Stick it in the oven and when it's cooked for about ten minutes, I turn them over and let them finish cooking.  This makes sure that both sides are nice and crispy.

Here's the bag of gf bread crumbs.

We got some yummy corn from a farm down the road, so I cooked that up, and he was a happy, happy boy.  If I had REALLY been on top of it, I would have added a nice salad with romaine and baby spinach, BUUUT I wasn't.  At this point, with soccer games and practices and dance class, we're lucky to get dinner on the table by 7 pm.

I made us some yummy chicken too.  Here's the link to the recipe I used.  

Oh, and don't you like our fancy china?  ;)