Gluten Free Products Coming

I heard in the GF here and theres that Chex is going to turn some of it's product GF. Rice Chex is currently gf, but they're gonna add (I'm pretty sure, but WAFO then GIGO to be certain...) Strawberry chex, honey nut chex, corn chex and cinnamon chex. Yay!

Publix (a southern grocery store chain) has a list you can get at the front service desk of all of their gluten free products, it's like 10 pages long. It's one of the more upscale grocery stores here. If you have an upscale store in the area, ask the service desk... more companies are starting to feel the pull of GF.

Wal-Mart is starting to carry more GF products. Ours carries the DeBols Rice noodles, like penne and fettucini. We bought them, but I prefer the rice/corn mix noodles that our local whole foods store carries. The rice stuff just tastes kinds funny to me.

I've been making bbq sauce because I can't find anything that doesn't look like it may be hiding gluten in it (even if it doesn't SAY wheat...) but Ken's Salad dressings owns Sweet Baby Ray's. They have posted on their website that ALL Sweet Baby Ray's BBQ sauce is GF! Yippie. Fast and happy. They also post that their sweet vidalia onion lite salad dressing is GF. That's a super great sandwich dressing and part of Steele's fav Pink Stuff Salad Dressing.

More to come!

GF Flatbread

I stole this recipe from Glutenfree Gobsmacked and modified it for my son.
Big thanks for this. I hope the site owner is cool with my theiving. I did modify it... but it is her recipe.

Personally, it's a complete pain in the buttocks to smooth out the dough. It's gonna be a few years before I can have Steele making this for himself which brings it down a few levels on my "cool recipe" index. The horrible endeavour of smoothing it out almost makes this recipe prohibitive for me, but it's the best tasting, decent texture bread like substance I've found in GF land.

We tried the bread at the GF store and it tastes like you're eating gritty sand with an aftertase of behind-dirty-ears-sweat. Not something you want to feed to anyone who has tastebuds. I honestly don't know how they sell that crap. My bro-in-law took one bite and spat it into his palm whilst gagging and spent the rest of our shopping trip wiping his tongue.

I measure out the dry stuff and put it in ziplocks at a rate of about 7 packs per month so all I have to do is shake a bag, toss it into the mixer and go daddy go. We use it for Pizza crust and sandwiches. I can even fake a garlic breadstick with this if I gotta.

GF Flatbread Recipe
3 Tbsp Quinoa Flour
3 Tbsp Millet Flour
3 Tbsp Sweet Sorghum Flour
1/4c Potato Starch (not Flour)
1/4c Tapioca Starch
2 Tbsp Buttermilk Powder
2 tsp Xanthan Gum
.75 tsp Salt
(end of bagged dry prepack stuff)
1C Warm/Hot water
1 packet Yeast
1 tsp Sugar
1 tsp Olive Oil
2 tsp Apple Cider Vinegar
1.5 tsp Agave Nectar

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

Mix sugar and yeast in a small bowl, add scant cup of warm water. Let yeast proof. (Get all foamy and stuff) It takes about 5 mins or so.

In stand mixer add dry ingredient bag. Once yeast water is ready, dump it into mixer and add the rest of the wet ingredients. Beat on low to combine.
Once it's all together, turn mixer to high and beat the hell out of it for no more than 2 minutes. This puts air in the dough and causes it to become a creamy marshmallow fluff kind of thing.

Put Parchment Paper on cookie sheet. Yes, I mean parchment paper. Anything else does not work and makes all your smoothing for naught.
Scrape dough onto paper and start smoothing it out with a flexible spatula. Dip the spatula into a bowl of water between tries to drag and push and smooth the dough until you start cursing. Keep smoothing until the dough is mostly smooth and covers the total area of your cookie sheet-parchment paper. You may need to hold the parchment paper with one hand while you're gorilla-ing this dough into the proper shape and thickness. When it's close enough that you shake your head and want to stick it in the oven anyway. Let the dough sit out for about 20 minutes in a relatively warm environment. Use this time to put away all your stuff and wash up your baking debris.

Bake for 14-16 minutes.

Cajun Coconut Tilapia with Apricot Mustard Sauce

I found this recipe online and modified it to be gluten free.

Yeah, I know that the sauce is totally an optional item, but this is one you really don't want to miss. It rocks!

Cajun Coconut Chicken or Fish

1.5 lb tilapia or skinless chicken breast

1c Rice Chex cereal

1 bag Shredded Coconut

1c Cornstarch

2 Eggs

2 tbsp Milk

3 tbsp Cajun Seasoning Mix

1 tsp Zatarains Gumbo File (optional)

Peanut Oil or Canola

Dump cereal and coconut into Food Processor, pulse until crumbly and fine, not powdery.

In a large bowl, combine the rice chex, coconut, cajun seasoning and gumbo file. Put cornstarch into a bowl by itself. Beat eggs and milk in another bowl.

Heat your oil or preheat oven to 350 if you want to try it baked.

Coat meat in cornstarch, shake off excess.

Dip into egg wash.

Press into coconut mix. Coat both sides thoroughly.

To Fry:

Place coated meat into pan and fry until both sides are golden brown.

To Bake:

Spray both sides of coated meat with Olive oil grease spray and place on baking sheet. Bake for 20-25 minutes at 350.

Apricot Mustard Sauce

1/2c Apricot Preserves (or Apricot Pineapple if you can find it!)

2 tbsp Brown Mustard

1 tsp Horseradish (or Tiger Sauce if you prefer)

Put all ingredients into bowl and mix with fork until well combined.

Spoon gently over cooked fish or chicken.

Chef Steele

I made Steele a reversible apron and hat. They have dinosaurs on the other side.

He's sharing his fresh breakfast bread with Greykatt

GF Taco Salad

This is a big kid pleaser. We made it for Steele's birthday dinner and it was a total hit!

2lbs Ground Beef
2 packets GF Taco Mix (read the backs, I think Old El Paso is a good one)
8oz bag of Mexican cheese mix
2 bags of salad or a head of iceberg lettuce
One large GF mild salsa or two small ones.
One bag of Doritos or Tortilla Chips
2 chopped tomatoes or one can of diced tomatoes(optional)
1 chopped medium onion (optional)
sour cream (optional)

Brown ground beef, drain and add taco mix as per directions on packet.
Shred lettuce and put in bowl. Add shredded cheese.
Add other veggies if desired. Toss salad.
Once the meat has simmered down, take it off the heat and add the salsa and stir.
Let the meat cool. It can be warm-ish, but if you put it in while hot, it'll wreck your lettuce.
Crunch up the tortilla chips and add to salad mixture. Stir.
Once meat has cooled enough , add it to the salad mixture and stir.

Throw it in some bowls, maybe hit it with a blob of sour cream and get down!

If you must serve dinner at different times then keep the salad, chips and meat separate until ready to serve.

GF Meal Plans

This is a quick and dirty of our menu system.

For most meals, when eating gluten free there is a dizzying array of things you can have.
Others...well.... it's expensive or time consuming to turn a gluten food into a non-gluten variant.

In my head, I generally know what we have on hand in the pantry and fridge.
From this, I choose how many of what Steele can have offered to him.

For example: We have rice cakes out the wazoo, no muffins and 3 eggs.
Ok, he can have rice cake cereal every other day, eggs tomorrow and I'll make muffins on wednesday.

Standard Breakfast Options :
GF Oatmeal
Rice Cake Cereal
Breakfast Muffins
Eggs with Cheese
Stuffed Omelet
Grits or cheese grits

Standard Lunch Options:
Hummus and chips, with fruit on the side.
Peanut butter & jelly rice cake, GF potato chips and some dried fruit.
GF Bread Sandwich - usually a deli meat or bologna option, corn chips and a pickle.
Cheddar cheese rice cake with deli meat & cheese, applesauce and Lays stacks.
Beanie Weenies and fruit.
Chef Salad - I like apple chunks and raisins in this one. I'll hide any amount of fruits and veggies in a salad.
Tuna Salad rolled into a lettuce leaf.
Ants on a log, chips, fruit.

Standard Dinner Options:
Pork Chops, garlic mashed potatoes, glazed carrots.
Chicken Nuggets, french fries, broccoli with cheese.
Pork roast with onions, fried cabbage and rice.
Meatloaf, brussels sprouts and parsley potatoes.
Mad Salad - three different types of lettuce, veggies (carrots, tomatoes, onions, yellow squash, radishes, cucumbers, fresh mushrooms, snow peas....pick a few!), shredded cheese, soy bacon bits, almond slivers, apple chunks, raisins and some form of meat. (Rotisserie turkey breast, ham, chicken breast, beef or pork slivers) With a modified raspberry vinaigrette we call "Pink stuff"... it's just GF Raspberry Vinaigrette and GF Ranch Dressing mixed together.
Taco Salad - see recipe
Fruit Salad
Fajitas on Corn Tortillas
Tamale Pie - this is in the cornbread recipe here.
Baked Chicken, baked sweet potatoes and coleslaw.


See? It's not stuff too far out of the ordinary.

GF Chicken Nuggets Recipe

My kids are pretty spoiled when it comes to food. I've never been one for the overprocessed quasi-meat-like substances.

Big example. Prefab chicken nuggets. Yukkkkkk!

Here's how we do it around this house.

GF Chicken Breast Nuggets

3lbs Boneless Skinless Chicken Breast
1c Zesty Italian Dressing
1c GF Flour Mix or 1/3c Brown Rice Flour + 1/3c Corn Starch + 1/3c Tapioca Flour
1t Seasoning Salt
1t Lemon Pepper
1t Baking Powder (to help with browning)
1/2t Garlic Powder
1/2t Onion Powder
1/2t Cumin

3c Oil and pot and slotted spoon or Cookie sheet, spray grease and spatula.

Cut chicken into bite sized pieces. Throw into a closed container with the Italian Dressing and shake to coat. Let sit in the fridge for at least a half hour. Mine usually sits from noon until 4pm. It's ok.

Put GF Flour and spices in a ziplock bag. Shake to mix.

Fried Chicken Version:
Put about 3 cups of oil (I love the peanut oil when I'm getting expensive and frisky) in a medium sized pot and put on medium heat. You'll know the oil is ready when a few drops of water flicked into the pot pop in the oil.

Toss some chicken a piece at a time into the flour bag and shake when you've got 15 in.
Gently transfer the chicken pieces into the hot oil, a piece at a time, shaking the loose flour off and into the bag. Cook for 4 to 6 minutes per batch.

Be sure to check your chicken! Take the largest piece out, put it on paper bag or paper towels to drain. Cut into it...is it pink? If it is, leave the chicken in for 2 more minutes and check it again.
I check every batch, always the largest chunk just to be certain it's cooked thoroughly.

Cook more than 15 at a time if your pot permits, mine doesn't. You don't want the chicken crowded in there.

If you're not into deep frying things, that's cool too. We usually do ours in the oven, but fried chicken is a special treat.

Baked Chicken Version:
Preheat the oven to 375.
Spray grease on a cookie sheet.
Toss some chicken a piece at a time into the flour bag and shake when you've got 15 in.
Transfer the chicken pieces onto the cookie sheet, a piece at a time, shaking the loose flour off and into the bag. Continue until all chicken is coated.
Spray grease on the chicken itself when you've gotten them all onto the sheet.
Bake for 20 minutes.
Find three large pieces of chicken from different parts of the pan.
Cut into them, does the juice run clear? Are they pink?
Pop em back in the oven if you have any doubts. Raw chicken is BAD.

Serve with a side of french fries and some fresh fruit or broccoli and cheese. Happy kids.