Adopt a Blogger!

I decided to participate in Adopt a Gluten Free Blogger over at the Book of Yum this time around. I enjoyed it. I think I'll do it again. Below you can see what fun I had.

I love heading over to Linda's blog, The Gluten Free Homemaker regularly. Wednesday's she puts together a great time with What's for Dinner Wednesdays, organizing a blog carnival around gluten free dinner ideas. If you haven't yet, you should participate.

It was one of these Wednesday's that I saw a recipe of hers I just had to try. Beef Barbecue Sandwich. What made this particular sandwich so appealing was the foccacia bread that served as a transport for the shredded meat and saucy goodness in the middle. I'd never managed to have foccacia before going gluten free so I can't tell you if it was as good as its gluten-y cousin but it tasted great and was crazily easy to make. my husband told me I should hang on to the recipe a great indicator that even he enjoyed the bread.

I didn't use a pan like Linda did, I just spread the batter out on my pizza stone (gluten free dedicated) and it worked like magic. I had picked up some of the sauce she mentioned, Bull's Eye BBQ Sauce which doesn't use any corn syrup and I boiled up some chicken to shred. I did learn a little trick for shredding meat over at Fire and Salt. Brian uses his kitchen aid mixer and a paddle on low speed, worked like a charm. I'll never use forks again.

Thank you Linda for sharing this wonderful idea with the rest of the blogging community. Please do continue to do so.

Cold Quinoa Salad

This weeks Friday Foodie Fix food is quinoa. Head on over to The W.H.O.L.E Gang to participate and get links to other great meals ideas using quinoa.

I honestly haven't used it much, in fact maybe 3 or 4 times and always to make this dish, a dish my mother used to make with cous cous. I do plan on venturing out into the brave bold world of quinoa cooking and experimentation, just haven't done it yet.

This salad isn't magical, it isn't legendary. It does taste good and it's very easy to make, I crave it just as I still crave the now very bad for me version my mother used to make. There are different versions of the quinoa salad up on Friday Foodie Fix, see which one fits your tastes best or experiment with your own flavor combination's.

Cold Quinoa Salad

1 cup prepared quinoa, chilled (follow directions on your quinoa package)
1 medium tomato diced
1 diced spring onion (or 1/3 cup sweet onion)
1/2 cup fresh sweet corn (frozen works too)
1/2 cup diced cucumber
1/4 cup diced red pepper
1 tablespoon fresh cilantro chopped
1/2 cup of your favorite vinaigrette style dressing (you might need more depending on how strong you want it to taste)

Mix all the ingredients together, gently. Serve chilled.

Mediterranean Lemon Chicken

Head over to Linda's blog, the Gluten Free Homemaker and check out the other gluten free dinner ideas for What's for Dinner Wednesday, while you're there add one of your favorite recipes to the mix.

Some of my favorite flavors are garlic and lemon. I've only had the wonderful privilege of eating lemons in anything for the last few years. You see, my mother is deathly allergic to lemons, even the smell of one will send her to the hospital. So the past few years as I've lived on my own (with my husband) I often choose to use lemon in my dishes.

I've tried many different recipes over and more often than not they are not "lemony" enough. If I choose to use it in a dish I like to be able to tell that its there. When I found this recipe I was so excited, from the looks of it I could just taste the luscious combination of garlic and lemon. Please enjoy this recipe as much as I have, it is not my own but I wish it was.

Mediterranean Lemon Chicken (from allrecipes.com)
INGREDIENTS

• 1 lemon
• 2 teaspoons dried oregano
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper
• 6 chicken legs

DIRECTIONS

1. Preheat oven to 425 degrees F (220 degrees C).
2. In a 9x13 inch baking dish, grate the peel from 1/2 the lemon, squeeze out the juice (about 1/4 cup) and add to peel with the oregano, garlic, oil, salt and pepper. Stir until mixed.
3. Remove skin from chicken pieces and discard. Coat chicken pieces with the lemon mixture and arrange, bone side up, in the baking dish. Cover dish and bake for 20 minutes. Turn and baste chicken.
4. Reduce heat to 400 degrees F (205 degrees C) and bake uncovered, basting every 10 minutes, for about 30 more minutes. Serve chicken with pan juices.

Baked Coconut Curry Shrimp

This weeks Friday Foodie Fix is shrimp. Head on over to The W.H.O.L.E Gang to see some very tasty recipes and add your own.

I have to admit that when I read that the secret ingredient this week was shrimp I knew immediately what I wanted to make. Shrimp here are not cheap however so I knew I'd only have one go at it this week, saving it until today. I headed over to Yokes Fresh Market and picked up 6 big shrimp.

When I got home I prepped the shrimp, peeling them (leaving the tails on), de-veining them, cleaning them off and patting them dry. I put the peelings in a ziplock bag and stuck them in the freezer as they'll work well in a broth later on. I was ready to go, oven preheated. This recipe isn't finalized, it needs a bit of tweaking yet, but even so I have to say these were mighty tasty and share worthy. The sauce I whipped up on a whim to accompany them is rather tasty as well and I'll be using it again too!! Please enjoy.

Baked Coconut Curry Shrimp

Ingredients:
6 Big Shrimp
1/2 cup shredded coconut
1/2 teaspoon fine raw sugar (I used my mortar and pestle)
1 Tablespoon cornstarch
A pinch of salt
1 egg white
1/4 teaspoon curry powder
1 to 2 Tablespoons oil

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.
In a small bowl beat the egg white slightly, and mix in the curry powder.
On a plate or in a pie plate, mix the coconut, sugar, cornstarch, and salt.
Dunk the shrimp around in the egg white mixture until coated, then cover in the coconut mixture (you may need to press the coconut on to really make it stick.)
Place in an oiled skillet and bake for 10 minutes (I turned them once to assure browning on both sides). Serve.

Curry and Marmalade Mayo

Ingredients:
1/4 cup mayonnaise
1 Tablespoon orange marmalade
1/4 teaspoon curry powder

Mix ingredients thoroughly and serve with shrimp.

Roasted Garlic Mashed Potatoes.

So it's a little late in coming but for the Friday Foodie Fix - Garlic head over here.

I put garlic in just about everything, I love the flavor it adds to a dish whether it be a complicated recipe or something as easy as noodles with olive oil and garlic. You can't really go wrong adding a little garlic (unless you eat so much of you that you start to smell of garlic on a regular basis).

I decided to make garlic mashed potatoes, but I wanted something a little different so I made them roasted garlic mashed potatoes. I didn't use exact measurements as each batch comes out a little different. However here's the "recipe."

Roasted Garlic Mashed Potatoes.

• Roast one bulb of garlic (that's right, I used a WHOLE bulb in this batch).
• Boil some red potatoes until fork tender.
• Pour out most of the water, leave some to aid in the initial mashing.
• Add roasted garlic to potatoes.
• Mash it up nice.
• I added some gluten free chicken broth and mocha mix (casein free) to make the potatoes as creamy as I liked them.
• Salt and pepper to taste.

My husband liked these quite a bit, however he did ask me to use just a bit less garlic next time, hehe. It's an easily tweakable recipe, each batch will be a little bit different (which tends to happen in my kitchen).

Ghoul.... ash

Join us over at the Gluten Free Homemaker for What's for Dinner Wednesday. Share your gluten free dinner ideas and pick up some new ones. It's fun, promise.

My mother, bless her fabulous heart and stove has made some of the best food I've ever tasted. Oddly enough as I grew up I never missed dairy, citrus (the smell of lemons put my mother in the hospital), nutritional yeast, whey or most pre-packaged foods. My mom cooked from scratch as she had many many more "allergies" than I could ever list here.

One of the dishes I could never recreate exactly was her goulash. I've been searching for most my adult life for a recipe similar to hers... she never writes anything down and couldn't remember how she made it, now tomatoes are a no-no for her so she has no desire to experiment for me. I however, can still taste it from so long ago and know I'm looking for, I found a very close version in this Bobby's Goulash Recipe - by Paula Dean. Very close but not quite what I was looking for.

Almost my mother's Ghoul...ash. (As I always used to call it as a child.)

Ingredients
1 pound lean ground meat
1 medium yellow onion chopped
2 cloves garlic chopped
5 or 6 crimini mushrooms sliced
1/2 cup green bell pepper diced
1 1/2 cups water
1 15 oz can diced tomatoes
1 15 oz can tomato sauce
1 teaspoon italian seasoning
1 bay leaf
2 tablespoon gluten free soy sauce or tamari
1 teaspoon garlic salt
Salt and Pepper to taste
1 cup dry macaroni noodles

Directions:

Brown the meat and drain the fat, add onions, mushroom, bell pepper and garlic, saute until just soft. Add water, diced tomatoes, tomato sauce, italian seasoning, bay leaf, soy sauce, garlic salt, and salt and pepper. Simmer for 20 minutes.

Add noodles and simmer until they are al dente. Remove from heat and let sit 10 minutes. Eat and be merry. Oh, and don't forget to remove the bay leaf.

This recipe feeds 4.

Let appreciation reign.

A little while back Linda at the Gluten Free Homemaker (a blog I have the pleasure of reading and even participating in on Wednesday’s for What’s for Dinner Wednesday) nominated me for an Attitude of Gratitude Award. After a recent turn of events I now feel like I can pay it forward.

Most of my life I’ve lived somewhat uncomfortably and thought it was normal. As a child, I was told I was lactose intolerant and because I was young and didn’t really care to take the things I adored, such as cheese, ice cream and chocolate out of my diet, I chose to live with the discomfort and appreciate the flavors that did me harm.

As I hit my teenage years however, and spent more time away from home the discomfort also became emotional rather than just physical. It was no fun having to make sure I was never far from a bathroom and then having to make sure that I was the only person in it for fear of being teased about my protesting digestive system. So I cut dairy products out. To my dismay my problems didn’t cease. I still had the bend you in half stomach because there’s an alien trying to escape stomach pains and run to the bathroom because I’m going to explode right after I ate symptoms. So I started eating dairy again, if I was going to be miserable anyway, I was going to enjoy some ice cream while I did it.

Fast forward to my early 20’s… my symptoms only seemed to progress, evolve as I aged. An upset stomach morphed into unbearable digestive cramps, cramps that had me writhing on the floor in pain. I couldn’t remember what it was to have a regular bowel movement it had been so long let alone what it was like to not worry about how much time I had to get to a bathroom after I ate. I had gained an uncomfortable amount of weight, weight that no matter how much I worked out or watched what I ate would not come off. Fatigue, I had no energy to speak of, no motivation and I always felt in a fog. My skin started to show welts, not quite rash like and infrequent but I knew it was just another symptom, and then the headaches started, awful thought crushing headaches that sent me to bed and weren’t relieved with medication.

This is where I stumbled upon a book, a book called the False Fat Diet. In this book I learned about the major allergens, one I’d never heard of, wheat. I also learned of the elimination diet, a painless way to find out which food was at the root of the issue. I started with wheat since it seemed so absurd. I learned that it wasn’t. Within a couple of weeks I was feeling like a completely different person. I had lost 15 lbs of water weight, my headaches were gone, I was thinking more clearly and not running to the bathroom or clutching my stomach in pain after every meal.

I thank the day I read that book often. Why am I appreciative, because once again I face leaving dairy behind. I’m on an elimination diet, this time for casein. The last 26 months I’ve had terrible hives, the last 10 months I’ve been dealing with a spasmatic esophagus, I’ve been foggy, tired, a little bit of an emotional roller coaster. The Dr.’s can’t seem to come to a conclusion as to the cause of my symptoms so I’m taking it into my own hands once more.

I appreciate that I have a wonderful husband who eats whatever I put on the table and just wants me to be healthy and happy again. I appreciate my son, my beautiful two year old bundle of giggling joy that brings light to every day. And while I can’t enjoy my favorite gorgonzola alfredo at Olive Garden anymore and Dunkin Doughnuts is completely off limits for me… oh how I love a hot glazed doughnut, I appreciate that I’ve come to love my kitchen and to enjoy what I can eat, delicious food that doesn’t poison my body.

My Nominations... in no particular order the blogs that I think show an attitude of gratitude.

• Diane at The W.H.O.L.E. Gang - This woman is spectacular. I can picture her blogging with a smile on her face, sharing her love for food with the rest of us. She's a gluten free food coach making healthy organic food. Check out her Friday Foodie Fix for some fun.
• Brian at Fire and Salt - A funny guy cooking up gluten free goodness for his wife with a sense of humor.
• Amy at The Savvy Celiac - If you want gluten free news and insight head over here.
• Shauna at Gluten Free Girl - The very first gluten free blog I started reading, she takes heart in every breath she takes and you can feel it in every word she writes.
• Sally at Aprovechar - I stumbled upon this blog the other day. Inspiring and well written. This lady can't eat much it seems but has so much to share all the same. Enjoy what she writes, I do.
• Nancy at The Sensitive Pantry - Dealing with multiple sensitivities she makes the most of it. Sharing recipes, and making them her own.
  

There are no rules, but if you've been mentioned and have the time please pay the tribute forward. If you choose to then here are some guidelines.

• put the logo on your blog or post
• nominate at bloggers that show an attitude of gratitude
  
• link to your nominees within your post
• comment on their blogs to let them know they've received this award
• share the love and link to this post and the person who nominated you for the award
• tell us how you've come to have an attitude of gratitude

Steak and Spinach salad with balsamic vinaigrette

Come join us for What's for Dinner Wednesday hosted over on the Gluten Free Homemaker. Every week we share fabulous gluten free dinner and sometime dessert ideas. We'd love for you to you to join in and share yours too.

So, I just thought I would share with you what I ate for dinner tonight. I had some leftover grilled steak from last night, sliced thinly over some of my CSA spinach, accented with crimini mushrooms, black olives and some CSA cilantro. Balsamic vinaigrette (I just sprinkled some balsamic vinegar and some olive oil on top) was my dressing of choice. I have to tell you, this was delicious. I had the same thing with the addition of blackberries the next day, tasted sooooo good. What's your favorite salad preparation?

This weeks menu.

Nothing too adventurous this week. Just food that tastes good.

Monday: Steak and spinach salad with balsamic vinaigrette

Tuesday: Lemon garlic chicken and brown rice pilaf

Wednesday: Stir Fry or Pad Thai

Thursday: This was going to be Garlic Chicken pizza... but since I'm eliminating casein for a few weeks to see if its the cause of my issues I'll do something else.

Friday: Baked Tilapia with roasted vegetables

Saturday: Goulash (same deal here... no tuna noodle casserole until after elimination diet).

Sunday: Leftovers

Going as local as possible.

This month I was thinking hard about how I wanted to feed my family this summer. We're self employed, and while my husbands business is doing well we're on a pretty strict budget. We eat at home 99% of the time, going out maybe once a month.

I know I want to support my local agriculture and farming community and I've got a good start. I signed up for my local CSA. This is the first time I'm participating in a CSA. While I lived in Eugene for four years I got exposed to the idea as a few of my friends were doing it. We moved back to the Tri-Cities however and I was sure we didn't have anything like that. I was wrong Schreiber & Sons provides a wonderful CSA service for my area.

I received my first box last Thursday and was extremely happy and very excited to put it to use. They are even able to work with those of us with allergies/intolerances and will make sure (to the best of their ability) your box doesn't include those. I can't wait to blog throughout the summer sharing the foods I make with my farm fresh fruits and veggies.

I've also purchased a side of grass fed beef from a local rancher (also had to buy a freezer, :-) Thanks to a gluten free friend for the contact. I'm very excited to have done this, my family used to raise our own pasture fed beef for food, however my parents have gotten a little older, the fence is in need of repair and I don't think they have the energy nor funds to do it themselves anymore. The next best thing was for me to find somebody else local to purchase from. My meat is being cut sometime this week and the freezer was delivered on Thursday.

The last thing I'm excited to do is visit our local farmer's market. I go to the Pasco Farmer's Market. My mother used to take us there and I always loved the feel of it, and going now brings back fond memories for me. That is where I will continue to go with my family. I hope to get at the Farmer's Market those things that I don't get in my CSA box weekly.

While this is my plan, there are still some things I will have to go to the supermarket for. There is nothing wrong with that, it's simply a fact of life. I do shop at WinCo Foods, and our local healthfood store Highland Health Foods where I can buy my gluten free flours in bulk and other assorted gluten free items. Occasionally I will shop at Yoke's or Fred Meyer...

It'll be a fun summer and I plan on enjoying my weekly box of CSA goodies, and local produce from the farmers market to go with my grass fed beef. What are you doing to support your local market? I'm curious to know what avenues I may not have looked at.

Cheesy Egg Bake

Join us over at the Gluten Free Homemaker for some great gluten free meal ideas and share your own with us as well!!

Some days when I look in the fridge I don't find much. I need to go grocery shopping and I just don't have the time or energy to do it that day. So I look at what I have, bits and scraps left from earlier creations in the week, enough to maybe squeak out a meal. A few eggs, some green onions, mushrooms (always have them, I'm addicted,) 2 slices of swiss cheese, the last of a bag of grated parm, and a little bit of milk in the carton.

I pull out my trusty Better Homes and Garden cookbook. I love this thing, lots of pictures, tasty and quick recipes that are fairly straightforward and easy to convert to gluten free in most cases. There are food stains on my favorite pages, some of which stick together. Not this time though, I open it up to the egg section, a culinary area I usually stay pretty far away from. I'm just not that fond of eggs unless they are scrambled, childhood incident with an over easy egg... Moving on, I start to peruse the egg section.

What do I find, a recipe that seems to be screaming at me, as I read each required ingredient my mind goes back to the bare remnants in my fridge... I have all of them, granted not in full recipe portion but enough of each to make a batch to feed my small family. Why not, I think to myself. Lets give Cheese and Mushroom Brunch Eggs a chance. I just cut the portion sizes (I think I had 4 or 5 eggs, so I cut it by quite a bit) and made the sauce gluten free. Speaking of which, which flour mix do you use for your roux, mine tends to be grainy and I'd like to try something a little different and see what results I get. Please let me know.

Cheese and Mushroom Brunch Eggs, from Better Homes and Gardens and made gluten free.

Ingredients

• 2 tablespoons butter or margarine
• 2 tablespoons gluten free flour
  
• 1-1/3 cups milk or fat-free milk
• 1/2 cup shredded Swiss or Gruyere cheese (2 ounces)
• 1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese
• 1/8 teaspoon salt
• 1/8 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• 1-1/2 cups sliced fresh mushrooms, such as button, shiitake or crimini
• 1/4 cup thinly sliced green onions (2)
• 1 tablespoon butter
• 12 beaten eggs or 3 cups refrigerated or frozen egg product, thawed
• Tomato slices, cut in half

Directions

1. For sauce, in a medium saucepan melt the 2 tablespoons butter. Stir in flour. Cook and stir for 1 minute. Add milk all at once. Cook and stir over medium heat until thickened and bubbly. Stir in Swiss cheese, Parmesan cheese, salt, and nutmeg. Cook and stir over medium heat until cheeses melt. Remove from heat; set aside.

2. In a large nonstick skillet cook mushrooms and green onions in the 1 tablespoon hot butter until tender. Add eggs. Cook over medium heat without stirring until eggs begin to set on the bottom and around the edge. Using a large spatula, lift and fold the partially cooked eggs so that the uncooked portion flows underneath. Continue cooking until eggs are cooked through, but still glossy and moist .

3. Transfer half of the scrambled egg mixture to a 2-quart square baking dish. Drizzle about half of the sauce over egg mixture. Top with the remaining scrambled eggs and remaining sauce.

4. Bake, uncovered, for 15 to 20 minutes or until heated through. Top with tomato slices, if desired. Let stand 10 minutes before serving.

5. Makes 6 servings

6. Cheese and Mushroom Brunch Eggs for 12: Prepare as at left, except double all ingredients and use a 12-inch nonstick skillet. Cook half the mushrooms and green onions in 1 tablespoons hot butter until tender. Beat 12 eggs together at one time and add the 12 eggs to mushroom mixture in skillet. Cook as in step 3. Transfer scrambled egg mixture to a 3-quart rectangular baking dish. Repeat with remaining butter, mushrooms, green onions and eggs. Top egg mixture in dish with half of the sauce. Top with remaining egg mixture and remaining sauce. Bake, uncovered, about 25 minutes or until heated through. Top with tomato slices, if desired. Let stand 10 minutes before serving. Makes 12 servings.

7. Easy Cheese and Mushroom Brunch Eggs: Prepare as above, except omit the first 7 ingredients and step 1. Substitute 1, 16-ounce jar purchased light Alfredo sauce for the prepared sauce. Continue as directed.

Strawberry Rhubarb Crisp

Once again it's Friday Foodie Fix. This time around it's strawberries. Unfortunately my toddler is unable to eat these delicious little morsels and so I find I don't use them in my house very often. He's had them before and knows how much he likes them, so it's a bit of a tease if I have them out and can't give him any.

I knew exactly what I wanted to do with these little red rubies, you see I visited my sister last weekend up in Skagit County. What did I find, she had a very large rhubarb plant ripe for the picking in her backyard. Mmmm. An interesting fact about rhubarb, color does not indicate readiness or sweetness, so this lonely plant she was leaving be because it was still pretty green was actually very ready for harvesting.

I bet you can guess now what I chose to make today, Strawberry Rhubarb Crisp. I made my toddler a simple rhubarb crisp so he wouldn't feel left out when we sit down for dessert later, I'm sure he would have been plenty happy with the vanilla bean ice cream we'll have with it as well. This is a fairly simple rendition of a classic dish, gluten free of course. I tasted it, it's yummy. Enjoy.

Strawberry Rhubarb Crisp

Ingredients:
3 cups sliced strawberries
2 cups sliced rhubarb
3-4 tablespoons granulated sugar (depending on how sweet your tooth is.)
1/2 cup packed light brown sugar
1/2 cup all purpose gluten free flour
A dash each, ground cinnamon, nutmeg and ginger
1/4 cup butter

Directions:
Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

Place strawberries and rhubarb in a square 9x9 baking dish and mix with granulated sugar.

In a small bowl, mix brown sugar, flour, spices and cut butter in until it forms a crumble. Sprinkle topping over fruit and bake for 30 to 35 minutes, until bubbly and slightly golden.

Serve with ice cream or alone, trust me... it's tasty.