Spinach Lasagna

We have declared in my home that my husband will be the permanent lasagna maker, his turned out so well. He included a layer of spinach and layered it differently than the recipe I posted here.

Here are his suggestions on layering, list begins with bottom layer:



sauce/sausage mixture

noodles

spinach

ricotta cheese

noodles

sauce/ sausage mixture

mozzarella

Pantry Beef Casserole

I saw this recipe and haven't been able to stop thinking about it ever since. I finally made it tonight and it's super yum. So thanks, Gluten-Free Mommy! Below is her delicious recipe and check out her blog, her photo of this meal is much more appealing.

PANTRY BEEF CASSEROLE

1 lb. gr. beef, gr. turkey, or soy crumbles
1 onion
1/2 green pepper
8 oz. sliced mushrooms
28 oz. can Muir Glen crushed tomatoes w/ basil
12 oz bag of Tinkyada rice penne
1/2 teaspoon of oregano
salt to taste
red pepper to taste
pinch of sugar
3 oz. mozzarella
5-6 oz. mild cheddar

Directions:
Bring a pot of water to boil to cook the penne. Brown the gr. beef. Drain the excess fat. Add the vegetables and cook for about 8 minutes or until tender. Add the crushed tomatoes, salt, pepper, sugar, red pepper, and oregano. Simmer for 15 minutes. While the sauce is simmering, cook the penne and preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Once the sauce and penne noodles are done, layer them in a 3 qt. casserole dish. Start with 1/2 the sauce, then all of the noodles, then a layer of cheddar cheese, then the rest of the sauce, and top with cheddar cheese and mozzarella. Bake for 30 minutes.

Chicken Alfredo with Pasta

Once again, dinner from a packet. Do I not like to make homemade? No, it's just that sometimes, I need dinner on the table fast, like before my smallest darlings die of starvation. So this is what I turn to.

I called McCormick about this one. Once again I got the "If it doesn't state gluten on the package, it has no gluten in it" answer that I always get from them. Basically it means, always read the back, because you never know if it might say wheat on it.
See, no wheat. But always check, because one time one package did say wheat, and I was sad. By the way, I always use 2 packages, but that's cuz I like things saucy. Ask anyone.

Gluten Free Chicken Alfredo with Pasta


1 package McCormick Creamy Garlic Alfredo packet
3 Tbsp butter or margarine
1 cup milk
2 cups chicken, cooked and shredded
1/2 package gluten free pasta, cooked


In a medium saucepan, melt the butter. Add the milk and the Alfredo packet and whisk. Cook over medium low heat until boiling. Simmer for 2 minutes and remove from heat.
Layer pasta, chicken and sauce on a plate. Enjoy the fact that you have successfully made dinner in about 20 minutes.

So for the pasta, I used Mrs. Leepers corn spirals, because that's what I had. Feel free to use a more traditional fettuccine type. Also, I tried both layering on the plate and tossing the sauce with the pasta and I must endorse, layering on the plate. The pasta just absorbs all the sauce when tossed together, and we all know I like my food to be saucy.

Creamed Peas

Gluten-Free Creamed Peas

This is a family recipe from my mother-in-law.

2 T margarine

2 T rice flour

1 cup milk

peas, frozen or canned

garlic salt

Melt margarine in sauce pan. Add flour and cook 1-2 minutes. Slowly whisk in milk until a cream-like texture. Add peas and garlic salt.

I do not like peas, never have. THIS recipe had me going back for seconds! Food in photo made by my husband, the true chef of my family.

Gluten Free Pad Thai

This is a staple at our house.

My kids call it noodles with chicken.

See how it serves two? That means we use 2 boxes.
See how it says right there on the package "Gluten-Free"? We love that.

And we love Thai Kitchen, as most of their products are, in fact, gluten free.

Gluten Free Pad Thai
(from a box)

1 box Original Pad Thai
2 boneless skinless chicken breasts, sliced thin
3 Tbsp oil
1 egg, scrambled
2 green onions, sliced
2 Tbsp cilantro, chopped
1 lime
2 Tbsp peanuts, coarsely chopped

Boil 3 cups water. Add the noodles and remove from heat. Let the noodles soak for about 5 minutes, and then run under cold water.
In a large skillet, heat 1 Tbsp oil. Add egg and cook until done. Remove the egg from the skillet. Add the other 2 Tbsp oil and heat. Add the chicken to the skillet, cooking until just done, about 3-5 minutes. Add the noodles and the sauce packet. Stir fry for a few minutes, or until the noodles are done, adding water if necessary to keep them from sticking to the skillet.
Add the egg, green onions, cilantro, and squeeze the juice from the lime over the top. Stir for 1 minute and remove from heat.
Garnish with peanuts.

Guest Chef: Adriana Velez Intro

Hello Again Readers!

I want to take another quick moment to prepare you for the second featured chef to cover some recipes when I go on Blogger's Maternity Leave.

The fabulous New Yorker Adriana Velez (in above photo with son, Jasper) who runs the site What I Made for Dinner will grace your eyes. She has a keen awareness of seasonal vegetables, healthy alternatives and creative hands at combining all sorts of flavors together. Her site is not exclusively on gluten-free foods, so I have pre-selected some of her posts that happen to be gluten-free. Keep an eye on her site as she will be have a featured article in Cookie soon!

Thanks for reading and eating,
Liz

Gluten-Free Cereal

Gluten-Free Cereal Round-up

We love the emails we get thanking us for this site. We also love the tips on new GF products and questions that come our way. One recent question came from Lindsay. She asked about cereal options of the gluten-free variety and where to get them. Here is what we have tried in our home.

1) Barbara's Bakery brand makes Puffins Cereal and Corn Flakes


2) EnviroKidz makes Peanut Butter Panda Puffs, Koala Crisp, and Gorilla Munch



3) Post makes Cocoa Pebbles and Fruity Pebbles



As for where to get these cereal options, it depends on where you live. When my husband was first diagnosed we lived in Brooklyn, NY. Whole Foods and Trader Joe's were not options for me, so I had to think outside of my routine and found many health food stores carried a great variety. As I have moved to the suburbs, I am finding organic or health food sections of regular grocery chains have started to carry gluten-free foods such as cereal. The internet is a great tool to assist you in your search for local (or neighboring town) health food stores or seeking a product's availability for ordering on-line, such as Amazon.com!



Do YOU have any cereal suggestions to add to our list?! Please share the love!


*photos from amazon.com

Brown Sugar Glazed Ham

Brown Sugar Glazed Ham

(from my Betty Crocker Cookbook)

1 fully cooked ham

1 cup packed brown sugar

1 Tbsp vinegar

1/2 tsp ground mustard (dry)

Place ham in a shallow baking dish. Bake at 325 until hot, mine was about 20 minutes. Meanwhile, mix other ingredients. Remove ham from oven and carefully pat on brown sugar mixture. Return to oven and bake an additional 20 minutes. Slice and serve.

This is one recipe my kids actually get really excited about. And why wouldn't they, I'm covering a ham with lots of brown sugar. Seriously good. Seriously. The glaze is so yummy and sweet which pairs perfectly with the salty ham. I buy the little mini-hams and we usually don't have leftovers. I need to stock up around Easter when the big hams are cheap because I like leftovers.

Cream Cheese Chicken

Cream Cheese Chicken

4-6 chicken breasts

1 can GF cream of chicken soup (mix with rice flour to thicken)*

1 can chopped mushrooms

8oz cream cheese

1 pack Kraft Italian Seasoning Dressing Mix (company confirmed it's GF)

Salt to taste

Pepper to taste

Mix all ingredients into crock pot for 6-8 hours on low. Serve over rice or baked potatoes. Goes well with a side of broccoli. I love how the chicken is so tender it could be easily shredded if you wish. My toddler doesn't like rice or potato, so he just ate it in a bowl with only the chicken and liquid. He called it 'yummy soup' and loved it.

*this was my first time using the GF can of cream of chicken soup for this recipe and it turned out to be more runny than usual. Next time I will boil the soup first and add rice flour to thicken it up before adding it to the crock pot.

Au Gratin Potatoes

Au Gratin Potatoes

(or Cheesy Scalloped Potatoes)

2 lbs russet potatoes, about 6 medium sized

1/4 cup margarine or butter

1/4 cup dried minced onion

1 Tbsp rice flour

1 tsp salt

Fresh ground pepper

2 cups milk

2 cups shredded cheese, cheddar or cheddar jack

Prepare your potatoes by peeling them, and then slicing thin. Rinse the sliced potatoes with cold water and spread into a 9x13 pan.

In a saucepan, melt the margarine. Add the dried minced onion, flour, salt, and pepper and cook until bubbly, about 1 minute. Add the milk and 1 1/2 cups of the cheese. Stirring constantly, heat until boiling. Stir and boil for 1 minute.

Pour cheese sauce over potatoes. Bake in a 375 oven for 1 hour. Sprinkle the rest of the cheese over the top and bake another 10 minutes.

Seriously, this is so good. Use a food processor with a slicer attachment to slice the potatoes, and you'll save 3 hours, or at least it'll seem like that long if you slice by hand. Of course you can use fresh onion, but in a dish like this, I don't think it makes much of a difference. Plus, I really don't like dicing onions, so if I can get out of it, I will. Whatever you do, don't skimp on the cheese. Don't think, "well I'm trying to watch my weight so I'll only use half the cheese", because you'll end up with a runny mess. Trust me, I've tried it. Use all cheese as directed. And don't worry too much if it blackens a little around the edges. It will still taste good on the inside and we all know that it's what's on the inside that counts.

Baked Beans

These are awesome baked beans Melanie makes in the crock pot, she made these while she was visiting me this summer. The recipe came from her grandmother's cookbook.

Gluten-Free Baked Beans

1 lb. bacon, cut in 1/2 inch wide strips
1 large onion, diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 cups BBQ sauce
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup vinegar
1 T chili powder
1/4 cup worchestershire
1 family size can of pork and beans
1 T mustard
optional: 1lb pork sausage or 1 lb diced pork roast

Combine and simmer at least 4 hours.

Pineapple Chicken with Coconut Rice

Pineapple Chicken with Coconut Rice

Rice:

1 cup water

1 cup coconut milk

1 cup rice

Place all ingredients in a large pot and stir to break up coconut milk. Place lid on at an angle and turn on stove to medium. Once it's simmering, lower heat to low and cook for 20 minutes, checking to make sure it doesn't run dry, and adding water if it does.

Pineapple chicken:

2 Tbsp oil

1 1/2 lb chicken tenders

1/2 tsp garlic salt

1/2 cup rice flour

1 cup water

1/3 cup honey

1/3 cup soy sauce

2 Tbsp lime juice

2 Tbsp coconut milk

Pineapple chunks, drained

Bell pepper strips

Heat oil over medium high heat in a large skillet. Rinse and pat dry chicken. In a shallow dish mix garlic salt and rice flour. Coat the chicken tenders in the flour mixture and place in the hot skillet. Cook for 2 minutes and flip, cooking another 2 minutes. Meanwhile, combine water, honey, soy sauce, lime juice, and coconut milk. Pour over chicken, cover and simmer on low for 10 minutes. Serve over coconut rice with pineapple chunks and bell pepper strips.

I found a recipe similar to this only it called for 3/4 cup of honey. I used that much in mine, and oh my, was it sweet! Start with 1/3 cup and add more later, if you so desire. This recipe was quite simple to make and tastes similar to terriyaki chicken. You can add the bell pepper strips to the sauce, but I don't like soggy bell peppers personally, so pouring sauce over the top works for me. The sauce thickens as it cools and gets pretty sticky, which I think is pretty yummy. If you already have a fav terriyaki chicken recipe, then try it with coconut rice. I am a big fan of coconut milk. Loooove it. It gives rice a ton of flavor. But you should like coconut. And rice.

Ice Cream Cake

Gluten-Free Ice Cream Cake

1/2 gallon of ice cream (I prefer mint chocolate chip)

1 and 1/2 boxes of GF crushed chocolate cookies (Pamela's seem most accessable)

2 tablespoons melted butter

Stir melted butter and crushed cookies in a bowl. Spread in bottom of caserole dish, pack firmly with hands. Scoop softened ice cream on top. Once soft enough, spread evenly by pressing down and then over with the back of a spatula. Cover with tin foil and freeze until desired firmness of ice cream.

You may wish to top with cool whip and more crumbled cookies.

Guest Chef: Lindsey Johnson Intro

Hello Readers!

I want to take a quick moment to prepare you for some slight changes that will be temporarily happening here at kill.the.gluten. Within the next month or so I will be having a bouncing baby boy, in fact, it could happen ANY DAY NOW. Needless to say, I won't be doing a whole lot of cooking once he gets here. Melanie's awesome posts, however, will resume as usual.

Instead of seeing recipes from my kitchen, I will be posting gluten-free recipes from other kitchens twice a week. The first featured chef will be my best friend Lindsey Johnson (in above photo). She runs the fabulous site Just Recipes with many delicious recipes and photos. Although her site is not exclusively on gluten-free foods, I have pre-selected some of her posts that happen to be gluten-free. She is, however, working on labeling her select archives as GF, so go ahead and check it out.

Get ready to welcome Lindsey ANY TIME NOW.....until then, we will have our regularly scheduled programming with a yummy dessert for me to post later today.

Thanks for reading and eating,

Liz

Knorr Vegetable Dip

Knorr Vegetable Dip is Gluten Free!

1 package Knorr vegetable soup mix

16 oz sour cream

1 cup mayo

10 oz frozen spinach, thawed and drained well

3 green onions, chopped (optional)

1 can water chestnuts, drained and chopped (optional)

Mix all ingredients and refrigerate for 2 hours to blend flavors.

Okay, so I totally cheated on this one. Obviously it's not my picture. I borrowed this from the Knorr website. But I actually did make it this dip this weekend, I was just too busy entertaining to take a picture. It was delicious with snow peas, cherry tomatoes, red and green peppers, and baby carrots. So delicious that before I knew it, it was all gone. But all the other people at the party thought it was fabulous as well. This is so easy even my children could make it. But I bet they wouldn't forget to take a picture.

GF Crepes

I have a long list of things I want to learn to make this year and crepes is listed among many others items. Book of Yum made some beautiful crepes this week and inspired me to dust off my mom's regular recipe and try it out GF style.

Gluten-Free Crepes

1 cup rice flour
1 tsp sugar
1/4 tsp salt
2 eggs
1 cup milk
1 Tbls butter, melted

Combined sifted flour, sugar, and salt. Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. Add enough milk to make a thin batter (I used the whole cup). Beat until smooth. Stir in melted butter. Pour some batter into a lightly greased skillet and flip once top begins to bubble. Fill with fruit and whippped cream/ heated chocolate or spread with jam and roll up. No matter how you fill it, be sure to sprinkle top with powdered sugar.

Chicken Noodle Soup

We had a chilly couple of days in the East Bay at the beginning of the week, so I was able to throw my whole chicken into the crock pot and make delicious soup!

GF Chicken Noodle Soup

whole chicken (cooked and shredded) or 4 cooked chicken breasts, cubed

4 cups water (add 2 cups chicken broth if you do not have stock from the crock pot)

4 GF chicken bullion cubes

GF elbow noodles (we only use half of the bag)

1 large onion, finely chopped

4 large carrots, chopped

2 zucchini, chopped

2 tomatoes, chopped

salt to taste

pepper to taste

parsley would be a nice addition, but I seem to never have that on hand!

Cook whole chicken in crock pot filled with water on low 6-8 hours. Strain the liquid into stock pot and chicken will fall off of the bones for you to easily remove and place into stock pot, cook on medium heat. Add all other ingredients and bring to a boil and until noodles are cooked, but not soggy*.

* I prefer to cook and keep the noodles separate so when I store leftovers (alone and dry) they do not fall apart and become as soggy.

Ro*tel King Ranch Chicken

Rotel King Ranch Chicken

(otherwise known as Gluten Free Chicken Enchiladas)

1/4 cup margarine

1 small onion, diced

1 small bell pepper, diced

2 cups water

1/4 cup rice flour

1/4 cup dry milk powder

1 chicken bouillon cube

2 cans Rotel diced tomatoes and chiles

2 cups shredded cooked chicken

2 cups shredded cheddar jack cheese
12 corn tortillas

In a large skillet, melt the butter. Add the onion and bell pepper and saute for a few minutes until tender. Add the water, rice flour, dry milk, and bouillon cube. Stir well and cook until slightly thickened. Add the Rotel and chicken and stir. Remove from heat.
In a 9x13 pan, spoon a little sauce on the bottom. Layer 4 corn tortillas, 1/3 sauce, and cheese. Repeat 2 more times.
Bake at 325 for 40 minutes or until bubbly.

I love this version of chicken enchiladas. The tomatoes and chiles give it a different flavor, plus add a little zip. Seriously, everyone loves this recipe.
In the regular recipe found here, they use cream of chicken soup, but that is why we use the rice flour, dry milk and bouillon. It's a homemade version of the canned stuff. They also only use 1 can of Rotel, but I like 2. I don't know why, I just do.
Do you love my styrofoam plate? We're all about the high class here at kill.the.gluten.

Breadless Sandwich

Today's post is brought to you by a lazy wife who doen't get GF bread for her celiac husband very often. One Saturday lunch tradition has become the breadless sandwich. I find Provolone cheese, sliced thick from the deli, a nice holder for typical sandwich fixings.

Load each slice of cheese with mayo, spicy mustard, pepper and salt to taste. Pile on meat (roast beef in this shot), tomatoes, cucumbers, and lettuce. You could also polish if off by wrapping the whole thing in lettuce. I find that three of these 'sandwiches' fill my celiac husband the way a normal lunch should.

Jambalaya

Spicy Jambalaya

1 package hot Italian turkey sausages (I used Jennie-O and they come 5 to a package)

1/2 green bell pepper, diced

1/2 onion, diced

1 large stalk celery, diced

1 cup long grain rice

1 (20 oz) can stewed tomatoes, Mexican style

2 1/2 cups water

1 bouillon cube (I used Knorr)

1/2 tsp thyme

1 bay leaf

1/4 tsp red pepper

Coat a large skillet with nonstick cooking spray and heat over medium high heat for 1 minute. Place sausages in the skillet and cover. Cook for 14 minutes. Remove sausages from skillet.

In the same skillet, add the bell pepper, onion, celery, and rice. Saute these in the sausage juices for a few minutes. Add tomatoes, water, bouillon, thyme, bay leaf, and red pepper. Cover and cook for 20 minutes, adding more water if it starts to dry out.

Meanwhile, slice the sausages. After the rice mixture has cooked, add the sausages, stir, cover and cook for a few more minutes, until hot.

My mother-in-law makes a fabulous jambalaya with her leftover Easter ham every year. I didn't have ham, but the sausages were just as good, perhaps better because it added a little more zing (but don't tell her). This dish was super simple. You could add just about any meat you so desired; shrimp, ham, pork, chicken would all be good. If you go for one of those, make sure to add a little oil to the pan before you saute the veggies and rice. Check periodically on the rice as it cooks to make sure it doesn't dry out, or else you'll be left with burned rice and that is not good at all.

Skillet Lasagna

Gluten Free Skillet Lasagna

1 lb ground beef or turkey

1/2 onion, diced

1 garlic clove, minced

1 jar spaghetti sauce, gluten free of course

1 (8 oz) box spiral shaped pasta, gluten free

2 1/2 cups water

1 (15 oz) container ricotta cheese

1/2 cup Parmesan cheese

1 cup mozzarella cheese, shredded

In a large ovenproof skillet, brown beef, onion, and garlic. Drain fat. Add to skillet spaghetti sauce and heat for 2-3 minutes. Add pasta and water, stir and cover. Cook for about 10-15 minutes, stirring occasionally and checking for pasta doneness (It should be mostly done). Meanwhile, mix ricotta and Parmesan cheese.

Remove skillet from heat. Dollop the ricotta mixture on top of the pasta, creating little mounds. Sprinkle mozzarella over the top. Place the skillet in the oven and cook at 350 for 5-8 minutes, or until mozzarella cheese is melted.

I wanted lasagna the other night but didn't have lasagna noodles, hence my skillet creation. Just like gluten free lasagna, there is no precooking of the noodles. Don't worry about your sauce being runny from all the water, as it thickens when the pasta is cooked in it. Make sure to check the pasta often, so as not to overcook it. I made sure my pasta was still a little al dente when I added the cheese, because it continues to cook in the oven. I love ricotta, but I'm sure you could use cottage cheese as well. This made great leftovers, by the way.

Guess the Gluten Free Pizza Crust

Yep, it's corn tortillas. For this particular personal pizza, I used two corn tortillas and sandwiched them with a little mozzerella, because one tortilla tends to get soggy. But it works, especially when you're not feeling like making pizza dough. Just add sauce and toppings, but not too much or you'll run across the whole soggy thing again. I like to bake mine until the cheese melts, about 5-7 minutes, then I broil it for just a minute or two to brown the top. It's good and easy. Did I mention easy?

Snack Attack

We are a little light on the cooking this week here at kill.the.gluten, so I thought I would share a snack tip for you.

Here is a link of all Frito-Lay products that do not contain gluten. We are most pleased in my home to see Cool Ranch Doritos among those listed. Be sure to read the fine print below the list on the Frito-Lay site as some snacks are produced on the same lines as snacks made with gluten.

Please note: Sadly, not all Doritos are gluten-free.