Food Choices

I've been so frustrated trying to find variety in the meals I've been serving. Chips & Salsa and steak are getting so boring I'm not sure I can eat another bite. Fortunately, I've started finding other dinner and snack foods. I made potatoes with eggs and sausage for dinner tonight, how yummy. I've also found that cottage cheese makes a great snack when having to take my medicine before bed and shoestring potatoes make a good afternoon snack. It's starting to get easier to deal with the diet, though, I'm headed to Chicago in a couple months and need ideas for restaurants. If you know of any, please let me know.

Leftovers

Just wanted to let you know that the lasagna from last night tasted just as good tonight. So try it and see. The biggest surprise is that the noodles took on the taste of the stuff around them. So good, but I ate way too much both nights.

Lasagna

I was having a craving for Lasagna so I decided to try it Gluten-Free. The hardest part is that Ricotta isn't gluten free so I had to find a replacement. In my case it wasn't that hard because as a kid my mom made Lasagna with Cottage Cheese instead of Ricotta. Although my sister told me that her family didn't like Rice Pasta, I tried a different brand than them and really liked it. So here's the recipe, hope you enjoy. The top picture is what the top should look like when the Lasagna is done and the bottom is what it looks liked served. You need to let the Lasagna rest for about 20 minutes before serving to achieve the bottom look.

Lasagna

3 lbs Dean's Small curd Cottage Cheese
2 lbs Gluten-Free Mozzarella Cheese
16 oz Ener G Rice Lasagna noodles
5 26 oz jars Pasta Sauce
3 lbs Italian Sausage

Preheat oven to 350°. Cook pasta according to package directions. Brown sausage in large Dutch Oven (using the Dutch Oven will keep from using an extra pan when cooking). After the sausage is cooked and drained, add pasta sauce and stir well. Once noodles and sausage mixture are finished, start by pouring about 1/4 of sausage mixture into bottom of 12 in x 16 in x 4 in Roasting pan. Then add 6 tablespoons of Cottage Cheese, evenly distributed. Next, layer noodles to cover Cottage Cheese and Sausage mixture. Finally, cover noodles with a layer of Mozzarella cheese. Repeat until you have 3 layers, but before adding the final cheese layer above the noodles, cover the noodles with the rest of the sausage mixture, then cover with remaining cheese. Cook for 1 1/2 hours or until top layer of cheese is fully melted and a little browned.

Molasses Cookies

I tried my mom's molasses cookies Gluten Free today and they turned out okay. I've added a bit more molasses and a couple ingredients for the flavoring since my mom wrote the original recipe, but they are primarily the same. With the Gluten Free, the extra molasses is needed for flavor. They turned out a little bit crunchier and a little bit thinner than my mom's, but they are still very tasty. I'll be experimenting with these with other kinds of flour, so if I find a better one, I'll let you know. Hope you enjoy.

Molasses Cookies

3/4 cup shortening
1 cup sugar
1 egg
1/2 cup blackstrap molasses
2 cups flour (Arrowhead Mills Gluten Free All Purpose Baking Mix)
2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground ginger
1/2 tsp ground cloves
1/4 tsp ground nutmeg
1 tsp Xanthan gum

Cream the shortening. Add 1 cup sugar gradually; beat at medium speed until light and fluffy. Add egg and molasses. Mix well and set aside. Combine flour, baking soda, spices and Xanthan gum and mix well. Add 1/4 of dry mixture at a time to creamed mixture, mixing until smooth after each addition. Chill dough 1 hour. Shape dough into 1 inch balls and roll in sugar. Place 2 inches apart on ungreased cookie sheets. Bake at 375° for 10 minutes. Cool on wire racks.

Finding Food

So I pulled some muscles last week and the doctor put me on medicine that you need to eat with in order to take it. I'm having such a terrible time trying to find something to eat every 4 to 6 hours that fits in my Gluten-Free diet. I've been eating Chips and Salsa, but it is getting so boring. Do you have any ideas on what I could eat at 10 pm that would be substantial enough to take the meds, but still light enough to not upset my stomach just before bed. If you have any ideas, please share!

Pumpkin Bread Mix

Well, I tried The Really Great Food Company Pumpkin Bread Mix today and it's great. I added 1 tsp Cinnamon, 3/4 tsp Cloves, 1/2 tsp Ginger and 1/2 tsp Nutmeg to it to give it a little more taste. I also used a 15 oz can of Libby's Pure Pumpkin instead of just 1 cup. It turned out great.

Pizza Casserole

Well, I tried one of my favorite casseroles today and it turned out well. Here's the recipe.

Pizza Casserole

16 oz Italian Sausage
1/3 lb ham or turkey ham
1/2 package pepperoni
1 lb ground beef
1/2 large onion
1 medium green pepper
2 14 oz jars plain Pizza Sauce
2 cups mozzarella cheese
12 oz Gluten Free Corn Pasta
1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil

Cook pasta. Cook beef sausage over medium until no pink remains. Dice green peppers and onion. Add extra virgin olive oil to peppers and onions in medium sauce pan over medium heat. Heat until peppers and onions are caramelized. Dice ham/turkey ham and add to onion mixture once caramelized.

Drain pasta. Put onion mixture and sausage in the pasta pan. Add Pizza sauce and stir in pasta. Cover with Mozzarella cheese and pepperoni. Cook at 350° for 25 minutes or until cheese is cooked.

Oatmeal Currant Cookies

Well, tried the Oatmeal Currant Cookies today and they turned out perfect. So here's the recipe. Of course, you can replace the currants with raisins, I just used the currants because my husband loves currants.

Oatmeal Currant Cookies

2 cups Sunmaid Zante Currants
2 cups water
3/4 cup shortening
1 1/2 cups sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
2 1/2 cup Heartland's Finest Performance Blend
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp cloves
2 cups Bob's Red Mill Whole Grain Rolled Oats

Simmer currants and water over medium heat until currants are plump, about 15 minutes. Drain currants, reserving the liquid. Add enough water to reserved liquid to measure 1/2 cup. Heat oven to 400°. Mix thoroughly the shortening, sugar, eggs and vanilla. Stir in reserved liquid. Blend in remaining ingredients. Drop by rounded teaspoonfuls, about 2 inches apart, on ungreased baking sheet. Bake 8 to 10 minutes or until light brown.

Banana Bread

The Really Great Food Company Banana Bread mix turned out great. I think it actually tastes better than the banana bread I used to eat. I added a little extra banana and some walnuts, but it's great. It's a great mix and a great breakfast. Hope that helps.

More experiments

I went to my local health store today and found a bunch of good stuff to try this weekend. I'm going to make Oatmeal Currant Cookies with the Gluten Free Rolled Oats. We picked up The Really Great Food Company All Purpose Flour Mix, Heartland's Finest Performance Blend and Arrowhead Mills All Purpose Baking Flour. Hopefully one of those will work well for me. We also picked up Banana Bread mix and Apple Spice Muffin Mix from The Really Great Food Company. I will let you know how those turn out. We're also going to try Pamela's Products Wheat-Free Bread Mix. So stay tuned this weekend to see how things turn out.

Disaster

Well, today I tried Mac N Cheese and it turned out absolutely horrible. Mostly I think it was because of the pasta I used, Ancient Harvest Quinoa Veggie Curls. Even with all the cheese I put in, the pasta was overpowering and really weird tasting. So far the only pasta I've liked is Corn Pasta. I also tried some Molasses Cookies with Red Mill All Purpose Gluten-Free Flour and they turned out okay, but very flat. I'm going to try again later in the week and maybe put some Baking Powder in them, though I need to make sure Baking Powder is okay to use. I might also try Xanthan Gum to see if it helps. I promise to continue working hard to find ways to make favorite dishes Gluten-Free.

Spaghetti Casserole

I was having a craving for Spaghetti and Meatballs so I tried to find a way that was gluten free, and, since my husband calls me the Casserole Queen, a casserole. I was really surprised at how much the corn spaghetti tasted like "regular" Mueller's spaghetti. I tried to make sure the herbs in the meatballs would compliment the pasta sauce and it worked well. The only thing is if you don't finely crush the tortilla chips, you will get a bit more of the tortilla taste in the meatballs. Hope you enjoy and please let me know what you think.

Spaghetti Casserole with Meatballs

12 oz pkg Mrs. Leeper's Corn Spaghetti
26 oz jar pasta sauce
2 cups Gluten-Free Mozzarella Cheese (I used Meijer Cheese. Meijer is our regional grocery store)

Meatballs:
2 lbs Ground Chuck
1 cup finely crushed corn tortilla chips
1 egg
1 tsp dried oregano
1 tsp dried basil
1 tsp dried cilantro

Preheat oven to 350°. Combine all meatball ingredients in a large bowl. Roll into 1 1/2-inch balls. Place on cookie sheet. Cook for 30 minutes.

In the meantime, boil the spaghetti for 9 minutes. Drain and rinse with cool water to stop the cooking process. When the meatballs are done, combine with spaghetti and pasta sauce in a 9 in x 13 in baking pan; stir until pasta and meatballs are coated with sauce. Cover with mozzarella cheese and bake at 350° for 15 minutes. Serves 4

Gluten Intolerance

A family member was recently diagnosed with Gluten Intolerance, which means no more a lot of his favorite things. It's lucky for him he has an aunt who is a housewife who loves to cook, so I'm going to find Gluten Free ways to make all his favorite foods. I'm going to try to post at least one recipe a week. Not only am I going to rework recipes I already have, I hope to create new recipes and recipes for things like pretzels and Cheetos. As I go, I would love for you to be able to submit requests for me to work on. It might take me a few weeks of trial and error, but I will make it work. Also, if you have Gluten Free ideas, please feel free to share them here.