Chili in the crockpot

It’s finally Fall. Time to break out the crockpot.

Yummy food. No work. Lots of leftovers. What’s not to love?

 

Chili

• 1 chopped onion
• 1 cooked chicken breast (optional)
• 1 can crushed tomatoes
• 1 can tomato paste
• 1 can garbanzo beans (pureed- they will never know it’s even in there)
• 2 C cooked lentils
• 1 large can pinto beans
• 1 large can dark red kidney beans
• Add chicken broth as needed.
• Add chili seasoning to taste. (depends on what brand you buy)
• 2 tsp cumin
• salt and pepper to taste

 

Dump it all in the crockpot. Cook on high for 4 hours, or until the onions are done.

Eat.

Freeze the leftovers for quick dinners later.

CELIAC- things I find useful

Here is a list of things that *help* .   Having them say “Go gluten free, and good luck with that” at the doctor’s office was not helpful. At all. Ever. Still not very helpful over there at doctor central, so I wrote this out for them to give to their newly diagnosed persons.

This list IS helpful. Pass it on.

========================================

• Start here——>   http://www.triumphdining.com/glutenfree/gluten-free-foods.php and BUY the grocery guide. It’s completly worth it, and will save you months of research. Seriously. Make it easy for yourself.

• –Gluten Intolerance Group–

http://www.gluten.net – they have a lot of handouts that you can reprint

• –www.csaceliacs.org

• –Unendingly helpful book: Recognizing Celiac Disease, Cleo Libonati

(www.glutenfreeworks.com)

• --Very helpful book: Celiac Disease, Peter Greene, MD

www.celiacdiseasecenter.org
Celiac Disease Center at Columbia University
Harkness Pavilion
180 Fort Washington Avenue
New York New York 10032
212.342.4529

• –http://www.celiac.com – good reference website for all things celiac

–Best magazine: www.livingwithout.com

--Best cookbook: You Won’t Believe It’s Gluten Free- Roben Ryberg

–More cookbooks, anything by Bette Hageman

–Helpful: Gluten Free, For Dummies. (sadly, it’s pretty helpful)

–http://www.celiacsite.com/index.php3 – they put out a free newsletter that lists mainstream products that are gluten free….. very helpful.

–Amazon.com has 4,000 products in their online store listed as gluten free

–Betty Crocker released 4 new mixes in the baking section, 2 cakes, 1 cookie mix and a brownie mix., all gluten free. And delicious.

–Chex cereals have gone gluten free as of June 2009: Rice Chex and Chocolate Chex as well as Honey-Nut, Strawberry, and Cinnamon Chex are now *safe*

Have to try this one

you had me at Reeses.

Rolling through the various GF blogs this morning… found this one. Sounds amazing http://familyfoodies.com/category/uncategorized/

I will have to try this one for sure.

===following quoted from link=========

These bars are so simple. They take about 10 minutes to whip up. They taste like a homemade Reeses!

Peanut Butter Layer Bars

Peanut Butter Layer:

• 2 cups cookies crumbs  finely ground (I use GF gingersnaps)
• 2 sticks of butter
• 2 cups powdered sugar
• 1 cup peanut butter (or any nut butter)

Chocolate layer:

• 1 1/2 cups semisweet chocolate chips
• 4 tbl peanut butter

1. Mix together butter, crumbs, sugar, and peanut butter until blended. Press into the bottom of an ungreased 9×13 pan.
2. Pour chips into microwave safe bowl and add the peanut butter. Microwave for 1 minute and stir. Spread over 1st layer and chill for at least 1 hour.

Warning: You will be lucky if these bars last more than a few days. They are very addictive!

====end quote=========

Happy Chicken Soup with Rice!

Chicken Soup with Rice … one of my favorite books!!

Go here to watch the Video.

It’s raining. It gets dark in early afternoon this time of year. Soup weather is here.

Chicken Soup With Rice

Step one:

Cover three chicken leg (thigh and leg) parts with water. Boil, then simmer 1 hour. Let cool. Strain liquid through strainer into bowl, refrigerate overnight. Take meat off the bones, discard skin and bones. Chop and refrigerate cooked meat.

Chop carrots, zucchini and onion. Cover and refrigerate.

Step two (the next morning):

Plug in the crockpot. (Don’t ask me how I know this part)  Add veggies and cover with stock. Heat for two hours.

Add:

chopped meat.

2 C cooked rice

One package of spinach leaves- chopped.

2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp white pepper

1 tsp italian seasoning

1 stock cube (if desired)

Optional: thicken the broth slightly with 4 T “GF flour blend”  mixed with a little broth, blend into soup in the crockpot.

Set crockpot to high, continue cooking until you are ready to eat. I like a good biscuit with this soup too. Go for it.

 

Raspberry Pie

Pie. Who doesn’t like P-I-E? seriously.

So we had some festivities that seemed pie worthy, and made this pie. It was delicious.  You should totally make one. Really. It’s easy. Easy as pie. Ha.

• 3-4 C raspberries (I used thawed, previously frozen berries)
• 1 C sugar
• 1 T lemon juice
• 2 1/2 T tapioca pearls
• 6 T potato starch

Mix these together well, and pour into unbaked pie shell, that used 1/2 of the crust recipe.  found here.

Top with another crust made from the other 1/2 of the dough, and crimp edges to make it fancy.

Bake at 425 for 15minutes, then turn the oven down to 375 for another 25 minutes.

Let cool. (if you can stand it) and even refrigerate it overnight to let the filling set up.

“Yum”

Success! PIE!

Who doesn’t love pumpkin pie?

The worst“FAIL” that I have had for pie was a pumpkin pie experiment months ago. I still shudder when I think about how awful that was. So, I was a little hesitant to try it again.. but this one worked.YAY

Go for it.

First, mix up some of this flour blend mix to duplicate a wheat-based all purpose flour. Here’s the blend that I used for this pastry crust:

Mix and store in the pantry:

• 4 C rice flour
• 1 C tapioca starch
• 1 C potato starch
• 1/4 C potato FLOUR
• 1/4 C xanthan gum
• 1/8 C unflavored gelatin powder

Next, make up some Pie crust:

• 2 1/2 C flour blend from mix listed above
• 1 C spectrum shortening
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tsp sugar
• 1/3 – 1/2 C cold water

Chill dough. Roll out and put into pie pan.

Then, mix pumpkin pie filling.

• 1 can (15oz)  pumpkin puree
• 3/4 C sugar
• 1/4 tsp cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp ground ginger
• 1/4 tsp ground cloves
• 2 eggs – (which I replaced with 2 T ground flax meal and hot water)
• 1/2 C coconut milk
• 1/4 C vanilla hemp milk

Pour the filling into the unbaked pie crust and bake at 425 for 15 minutes, then turn the temperature of the oven to 350 and bake AT LEAST 50 minutes. This one took at least 70 minutes, maybe more before I took it out of the oven.

Vanilla ice cream – no dairy!

NO DAIRY.  NO. None, they said. Well, but… I like ice cream. So now what?

Coconut milk ice cream is available at the store. And it’s good, but it’s more than $5 a pint.

I made some at home and it tastes the same. YAY! Even better, it’s less than half the cost.

• 1/3 C water
• 2 tsp unflavored gelatin powder
• Sprinkle the gelatin over the water and let it sit for a few minutes. Warm slightly to melt.
• Add: 2/3 C to 1 C  sugar
• 1/8 tsp salt
• 1 T vanilla
• 2 cans of coconut milk

Chill this mix for several hours. Pour into chilled ice cream maker and  proceed to soft serve ice cream based on your machine directions. I used a gel cooled Rival brand ice cream maker.(Freeze the base and you don’t need to buy ice and salt. Very nifty.)

It’s great as soft serve, but we put it into 1/2 C gladware freezer containers for snacks.

Variations:

1 C mini choc chips

or 1 C pitted fresh cherries

or both? mmmmmm

And so we tried the Brownie Mix

Yep, that Betty Crocker has been BUSY. Boxing up all those GF mixes of cake and you know then, that we HAD to try the brownies. Right? right. It only seemed fair.

$10 for two mixes is ree-dic-u-lous, however. But I am not extravagant in my other spending right now, so it seemed like cheap entertainment. Pan of brownies, vs. the movies. Brownies win. It’s cheaper. And yummier, and I can watch a movie I already own.

The mixes are beautifully packaged, I will give them that.

I went to the BC website and used the “no butter” instructions. Seems to be working out just fine.

I so less than three brownies.

Gluten Free Cake Mix-review

Betty Crocker’s gluten free offerings finally hit the shelf in my neighborhood. We were so excited to see this:
We tried the yellow cake mix after trying to choose between cake and brownies.

The cake
(with frosting)  won.

I made the mix with flax egg  replacement and the butter replaced with coconut oil. That makes the resulting cake -vegan- and has the added advantage of not stirring up any of my allergic reactions.

The resulting “cake” was pretty good. The flavor gets a 3 on a scale of 5, but I think it’s because I didn’t put in enough vanilla.

So the verdict on buying GF cake mixes off the shelf? Nah. It comes down to the part where it’s four times the cost for the same results. It was just “okay”. Not spectacular. And certainly not four times better than what we already do for “cake” here at cabbagenets.  I have to say, though, being able to open a box and not having to measure everything out was fun.

The off the shelf mix makes an 8 x 8 pan of cake, or 12 cupcakes. This will be fine if I need it in a pinch to take somewhere. Maybe good to have on hand for emergencies… but I won’t keep it on my shelf as a staple item. I won’t pay $3 extra for the box. I can’t eat the pretty box.

Just sayin.

Culver’s Flavor of the Day