Soup Soup Soup

This is great for a rainy cold weekend lunch. Guess what we are having today? It’s great over a bowl of rice, too. (SOME!!!)people at my house insist on meat in their diets… I could care less and don’t really eat meat. So this is good either way. Sometimes I just get out two giant pots on the stove and make both versions at the same time.

Freezes great.

Veggie Veggie Soup

• 1 lb chicken thighs – cut into bite sized pieces (optional)
• 1 chopped onion
• 1 box of Pacific chicken stock
• 3 peeled and chopped carrots
• 2 peeled and chopped potatoes
• 1 C frozen chopped spinach
• 1 1/2 C frozen chopped broccoli
• 1 can cut green beans
• 1 peeled and chopped zucchini salt and pepper to taste
• 1 tsp poultry seasoning
• 1 T oregano
• 1 T Italian seasoning

Cover chicken bits with a little water- 2 cups?maybe. simmer until cooked through. Add all the veggies and chicken stock. Add seasonings. Simmer an hour, or until the carrots are cookedto your liking.

Sausage and Cheese Rollups

The concept of sausage and cheese and onions “IN”  a bun  haunts me.  I once went to a restaurant where all they served was “stufffed sandwiches” and salads. It was great.  Super delicious, but then I wasn’t worried about gluten or cross contamination either.

Fast forward to me not having any fun food, or  party food to eat due to extreme allergies.. and we end up with a level of quirky, creative desperation.  Here’s today’s edition of quirky lunch. Wow! they were good.

Roly-Poly Lunch Rolls

• Brown  sausage with chopped onion.
• Make one recipe of the wonder dough.     Roll it out into a rectangle. Use a little potato starch to keep it from sticking  to everything too much. I rolled mine out on parchment paper sprinkled with potato starch.
• Spread the cooled sausage and onion mixture.
• Sprinkle it with shredded mozzerella cheese. Add a sprinkle of parmesan if you  feel like it.
• Roll up the dough, carefully including the filling.

Make 1 -  2  inch slices and place them, cut side up (like cinnamon rolls) in a lightly greased 9 x 13 pan.

Bake at 400 for 25-30 minutes. Let them cool. Serve with a big green salad.

One is missing, because I ate it before I remembered the camera. LOL. It was realllllllly good.

Other filling ideas:

• Boar’s head pepperoni, with pasta sauce + shredded cheese = rolled up pizza fun
• Cubed ham and shredded cheese.
• Cubed SPAM and shredded cheese
• shredded chicken and cheese

Tiny Crockpot Stew

**Update** I now call this recipe ” BOK Chicken “  **

I got a small crockpot for Christmas and none of my usual recipes fit into it, and I am really not sure what to do with it, because I am so used to making gigantic amounts of soup at a time so that we have leftovers to go into the freezer, or whatever.

So I had to think small in order to use the tiny crockpot today. I made up a recipe that seems “so far- so good”. I took ideas from several other recipes and combined them. Oh all right, I had a bunch of weird leftovers, and dumped them in. There, are you happy now? HAHAHA

What’s in there so far:

• 2 chicken thighs, browned in 1 T safflower oil
• 2 C chicken stock
• 1 C coconut milk
• 1 vegan bullion soup cube
• 1/2 small onion chopped
• 2 cloves of garlic, smashed and mined
• 5 baby bok choy
• 1 zucchini, peeled and cubed
• 2 tsp italian seasoning
• 1/2 tsp red curry paste
• 1/2 large carrot – peeled and grated

…the plan at this point is to let it sit there on the counter, set on high for 4 hours and then thicken the soup with potato starch and serve it over rice. Depending on how much the chicken breaks down, I may shred that up a little too.

So, it’s not “soup” and not really “stew” either.. ..I am not sure yet what to call it. I just hope it’s good. It smells good. So that must be a good sign.

And at this point I added a cup of thick potato soup leftover from the other night.

I think it still might need some salt.

Fried Chicken

Making gluten-free fried chicken isn’t any harder than making it with wheat flour. Really.

I also make mine egg free, so here’s how to do that.

• Cut chicken into pieces. (I make mine “nugget” sized. And I use the boneless and skinless thighs in handy 1 pound packets that I find at Costco.)
• Rinse chicken, drain.
• Combine two eggs with 1/2 C water, 1/2 tsp salt (I used flax eggs)
• Mix 1 cup gf flour mix (1/2 potato starch, 1/2 brown rice flour) , 1 tsp salt, 1/2 tsp white pepper, 1/2 tsp xanthan gum and 1/2 tsp soda
• dip chicken in egg mixture and then the flour mixture and then place in frying pan.
• cook until golden and crispy.
• Place fried chicken pieces in a 9 x 13 baking pan, lined with paper towels, for 20 minutes to finish cooking the chicken and to crisp it up.

We served ours with raspberry jam biscuits, green beans and peaches.  Yum.

The leftovers will go nicely into a bento box lunch tomorrow. Hooray!

Potato Soup to warm you up.

It’s cold out there, and  we have  ice all over the neighborhood from last night’s storm, so what else can we do but make warm and satisfying soup? Really.

Potato Soup (with options)

Pan # 1:         5 russet potatoes, peeled, cubed and boiled

Drain the potatoes, and save the water from cooking the potatoes.

Pan #2:         

1 onion- chopped

2 T oil

Saute the onion in the oil until it starts to turn brown, add in

1/2 C gluten free flour ( I used potato starch, brown rice flour and millet flour- mixed)

and stir that around for a minute.

Begin adding  chicken broth, coconut milk and the saved cooking water a cup at a time, until you get the consistancy you want. I was looking for a really thin gravy.

Add salt, white pepper and poultry seasoning to taste. I probably added at least 1 tsp of salt, 1/4 tsp of pepper and 1/4 tsp of poultry seasoning to mine.

I also warmed  a 1/4 C of broth with a vegan broth cube and threw that in for some depth of flavor.

The secret: at this point, I added 1/2 of the cooked and drained potato cubes to the gravy and I used the hand blender to make it smoooooooooth. All the onion pieces disappeared, and the soup was perfect.

The perfect soup: Add the rest of the cooked potato chunks into the smooth “gravy” soup and add more chicken broth as needed to really make it the soupy consistancy that you want. I like thick soup with a few chunks of potato in it.Your mileage may vary.

Some options:

Once I took out my portions of  “potato soup”, I added

• 1 cup of cooked and chopped broccoli
• 1 cup of cooked and chopped chicken meat

to the potato soup to make it more hearty for those that want that kind of soup. 

Stay warm.

Best Ever! leftovers

When they tell you that it was “OMG -SO GOOOOOOOD!”, and they ask for thirds, then  you know you are on to something. And this particular dish I did not slave over, chop anything or worry about substituting ingredients. wow. okay then. As long as it’s gluten free, you can have some. And like it? that’s a bonus.

Noodles that are delicious even

1/2 bag of Tinkyada brand fusili noodles (the twisty ones)

Boil a pan of water. Add noodles, put cover on the pan and turn off the burner. Let the noodles sit for 12 minutes in the hot water.

Drain the noodles and then

add 3/4 of a jar of “CLASSICO” brand Tomato and Sweet Basil pasta sauce. Stir and serve. Apparently sprinkling on some parmesan cheese is also good.

Go figure.

Baked beans – Rice – Chicken

It’s weird, but good. Who knew that what is left in the pantry is actually something I can combine into a recognizable dinner dish. *poof*

 

Baked beans – Rice – Chicken

• 2 T sunflower oil
• 6 boneless skinless chicken–cut into strips
• Salt and pepper to taste
• 1 C uncooked rice
• 1 chopped onion
• 4 cloves garlic-chopped
• 1 tsp chili powder
• 2½ C vegetable broth
• 1 16 oz. can of baked beans

 

Heat the oil. Add the chicken, stir and cook until browned. Add rice, onions and garlic. Cook 2 minutes.

Combine all in 9 x 13 pan. Cover with foil. Bake 50 minutes at 350, or until rice is cooked.

 

This is tasty as a filler for tortillas, with chopped cabbage and cilantro on top.

 

 

Kids! It’s taco night!

Taco mania around here is pretty consistant. It’s meat with spices, in a taco shell. And I am bored with that concept, as well as out of meat in the freezer at the moment.  So we invented meatless tacos.  You could add a layer of cooked meat to this under the cheese I suppose, if you must.

Lentil Tacos

Step one: Lentil Mash

• 1 cup dry lentils
• 3 cups water

 Boil gently for about 20-25 minutes, or until soft. Drain off most of the water, but save it for later( – you might want to thin the mash)… then blenderize the cooked lentils to a mashed potato like consistancy. Use the saved water to work that out to your taste.

Step two: Onions + Mash+ Taco seasoning (to taste)

• 1 T oil
• 1 chopped onion

Saute the onion until golden brown and then add in the mashed lentils. Then add:

• one packet of taco seasoning and a little more of the saved lentil cooking water if you still have any, or some broth if you don’t.

Step three: Spread the mixture into a baking dish. Layer on chopped tomatoes and some shredded mozzerella cheese. Bake at 350 for 20 minutes to let the cheese get all melty and bubbly.

Add some shredded cabbage on top if you want to.

Serve with corn chips. And if you are from the west coast, add some ranch dressing to the options on the table, sour cream is okay too. Tastes like tacos, but there is no meat. yay.  I am so taking this to the next potluck I go to.

Delish.

Mac and Cheese, please

What’s comfort food if it makes you sick? Seriously.. I don’t know either. Mac and cheese used to make my system grind to a nauseating painful halt almost immediately.  It took me a long time to figure out how to replace it, and there is no way I am eating any of that box mac ever again. This is a good meal, or side dish. It’s also considered an official vegetable in Tennessee.

Here’s our version of GF mac and cheese with benefits.

MAC and CHEESE

Step one: Boil up some gluten free pasta. We like the Tinkyada brand elbow shaped ones for this dish.

Step two: Drain the noodles into a collander – over the sink – (don’t ask me how I know to do that part)

Step three: Make the sauce.

Saute some minced onion in a tablespoon of safflower oil. Add 2 tablespoons of gluten free flour… I used a mixture of brown rice flour and potato starch with a little millet flour thrown in there too.

Alternate adding 1/2 C coconut milk, 1/2 rice milk and enough veggie stock to make a nice gravy- slightly thinner than you would like gravy to be really… because the noodles soak in it when it’s baking. Stir in a jar of butternut squash. Yes, the baby food will be just fine. It colors it yellow for those who need it  to be “yellow” and puts in a bit of nutrition that they wouldn’t have touched otherwise.

 If you are CF- don’t add the cheese… if you are GF only and not avoiding casein, then add in some grated mozzerella cheese… I add about 1 or 1 1/2 cups of grated cheese. Only white cheese and only vegetarian, or we don’t get any. I did find some rustic white cheddar that was delicious, but we stick to mozzerella most of the time.

Adding salt, white pepper, dry mustard to taste, and a pinch of poultry seasoning to the sauce helps it out.

 Pour the drained noodles in with the sauce and mix together. Bake concoction in an oiled pan at 350 for 40-45 minutes or until it is bubbly and starting to brown. Again if you are ONLY GF, then sprinkle  some parmesan cheese on top for the last 10 minutes of baking time. If you are avoiding cheese.. you can skip it.. it is still yummy.

Mac and cheese on a rainy winter night? Comfort food that won’t make me sick.   ahhhhhhhhh.

Chili-rific

It’s snowing. I am cold – even with the thermostat up, so I made a vat of chili. Yes, a vat. The reason I cook gallons of soup/chili/spaghetti sauce at a time is because we go through it so fast that it actually is less work to spend all of a Sunday afternoon concocting the mess and freezing it in containers to use later, than to make the recipe 8 times.  Less waste of my time, less continuous cleanup, more instant dinners in the weeks ahead. It’s all good.

Chili for chilly weather .Ha.

• 1 large can crushed tomatoes
• 1 large can diced tomatoes
• 1 -16 oz can garbanzo beans -blenderized into paste
• 1 can pinto beans
• 2 cans dark red kidney beans
• 3 C cooked lentils
• 1 lb. ground pork – browned
• 1 onion – cooked in with the pork
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tsp white pepper
• 1 tsp cumin
• Chili powder – to taste -  I used about 1/2 the container this time until it tasted right… I must have bought the wrong kind at the store.
• water as needed to make it the consistancy that you prefer.

 Blenderize the garbanzo beans into a paste and put it into the vat. (This helps to thicken the chili, as well as hide the fact that I am making them eat  — cue the dramatic music here — garbanzo beans…oh, the horror.) Drain the cans of beans.  Dump them all into the soup kettle. Add the tomatoes too.

Brown the meat and onions. Add that to the kettle. Add spices. Cover and let simmer for at least two hours. Stir the chili every 20 minutes or so to keep it from sticking. This version simmered for about 5 hours. It’s perfect.

Other things that I have been able to blenderize and add to the chili in the past: Green beans, broccoli, carrots, butternutsquash…. just think of all the veggies that they won’t even know they are enjoying… LOL.

 

Serve with grated cheese and frito scoops.  mmmmmmmm