GF Shredded Pork Tacos

I can't tell you how many times I've tried to post this recipe. The problem is it's so totally delicious that it seriously gets 100% eaten up faster than I can grab my camera! Every.single.time!!!!

When preparing to host the jr. high youth group for dinner last Sunday night (which went really well, by the way...crowded, but good) I asked SD what I should make for dinner? He immediately said I should make this, which was great, because that was exactly what I was thinking too.

This time I bought 2 roasts so I could double the recipe to make enough for that many people. It was PERFECT!!!!! Everyone loved it and we even had enough leftovers for dinner the next night too!!! Which of course thrilled my family because 1 roast usually only makes enough for 1 dinner and they're begging me for leftovers!

The best part of all is that it's a crockpot recipe, and seriously one of THE easiest recipes I've ever come across...just a handful of simple ingredients, throw it in, leave it alone for hours, and then shred/pull the meat apart with a fork when it's done. And chances are you might already have all the ingredients in your pantry.

The original recipe said to serve the meat over large potato rolls, but since I haven't had time to experiment with a good GF hamburger bun, we've just converted this into tacos with soft white corn tortillas, or sometimes hard crunchy corn tortillas, whatever we're in the mood for.

But last night I had some HUGE success with a new GF flat bread/snack wrap recipe that I think this shredded pork would work well with too!

Anyway, enough of that, on to the recipe! It's so good, it's become a new family favorite!!!

Shredded Pork Tacos

1 4- to 5- pound pork shoulder roast or pork shoulder blade Boston roast (Boston butt)
3/4 cup cider vinegar
2 tablespoons packed brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon crushed red pepper
1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper

Directions:

1. Place meat in a 4- to 6-quart slow cooker. In a small bowl combine vinegar, brown sugar, salt, red pepper, and black pepper. Pour over meat. 

2. Cover; cook on low-heat setting for 10 to 12 hours or on high-heat setting for 5 to 6 hours.

3. Transfer meat to a cutting board; reserve cooking juices. When cool enough to handle, cut meat off bones and coarsely chop. In a medium bowl combine meat and as much of the juices as desired to moisten.

TIP: Cut up the roast in a couple of really large pieces before cooking to allow for more even cooking. Also, as you're shredding the meat, dump the pieces back into the crockpot in the juices to stay warm and moist. You can drain the juices and save to make a gravy.

GF Crunchy Tuna Turnovers

I DID IT!!!! I finally managed to find an all purpose GF biscuit dough that's actually WORKABLE!!!

One of the biggest frustrations with learning to bake gluten free, is overcoming the problems of not being able to mold and shape GF bread doughs like you would expect with normal doughs, because most of the time they end up with the consistency of a thick cake batter.

But I finally managed to find one that not only tastes REALLY good, but is also versatile for many recipes (or just regular biscuits), AND it's much more like the texture and consistency of a regular, non GF, bread dough that you can roll out, cut, and shape into whatever you want!

Which means some of the family favorite recipes I thought were a lost cause can now be back on the menu! [Ignore the awful hair above, it was an at home day and I'm desperately overdue for a decent haircut!]

One of those such recipes, is my Crunchy Tuna Turnovers, which I used to make every once in a while as a nice change from regular tuna sandwiches.

But I haven't made it GF, so this was a great experiment with my new dough. After separating the dough into small balls, I lightly floured my countertop and used my rolling pin to roll out the dough flat.

Then I moved them onto wax paper so it was easy to pick up again.

The original recipe calls for a can of big flaky biscuits that are already made, and of course not GF. After making up the dough I came up with 12 flat biscuits.

I added a third can of tuna, some more cheese, and lemon pepper to the mix to have enough filling for this many turnovers. The original recipe for the filling is here.

Since the dough is actually movable, you can fold the dough over the filling, and crimp the edges closed.

It is still more fragile than regular dough, so be careful, but if it does crack or break, simply push the dough back together.

The next step on these turnovers is to lightly coat them with a beaten egg, followed by sprinkling them with crumbled potato chips.

Again, because the dough is fragile, I found it worked best to use 2 bowls to pour the egg over the dough from one bowl to the other.

Above you can see a small crack in my turnover, but that's okay here because you end up cutting a couple of slits in this dough to help with the baking, so don't worry about them.

Once coated, place on an ungreased cookie sheet. I wasn't sure exactly how this dough would bake, so I did actually spray just a very light coating of cooking spray on this sheet before placing the turnovers on top, but I'm not sure if that's really necessary.

Cut 2 slits in the top of each turnover with a sharp knife. Then bake at 375° for 18-21 minutes or until golden brown.

My turnovers turned out PERFECTLY! Dough fully cooked and lightly golden brown on the bottom.

We like to dip these in mustard and serve with a side of chips and fruit.

Awesome! The recipe was a HUGE success, and now I have this really great dough to use to make any kind of biscuits, and shape them however I want!

What's the dough recipe? It's the same one I used to convert my Ham Potato Puffs to GF, I quadrupled the amounts as follows:

GF Biscuit mix:

• 2 cups GF flour blend (2 parts white rice flour, 1 part tapioca flour, 1 part potato starch)
• 4 tsp. xanthan gum
  
• 4 tsp. baking powder
• 2 tsp. salt
• 8 tbsp. shortening
• 12 tbsp. milk
• 2 tbsp. melted butter

Dump all dry ingredients into a large bowl. Blend shortening into dry ingredients with a mixer until it turns into small, fine crumbs. Then slowly add milk until soft, workable dough forms.

I have a feeling it's all that extra xanthan gum that's holding the dough together that makes this work. It's really expensive, but worth it!

Day 21: SW Chicken Salad

Extremely simple, quick to make, and incredibly yummy! Plus: bonus...it's killer healthy too! I used to make this recipe with breaded frozen chicken nuggets, but of course those aren't GF, so now I used grilled chicken.

To save on time and money, I buy those big $6.00 bags of frozen boneless skinless chicken breasts and have SD grill up the whole bag at once. Then I cut up everything and use half for this dinner and save half for another meal.

This meal is also really versatile, because you can throw in almost any kind of misc. leftovers, like black beans, etc. that go along with the whole southwest theme.

Day 21: Southwest Chicken Salad
SW Chicken Salad

With breaded chicken strips above, or with grilled chicken below.

SW Chicken Salad

Ingredients:

Lettuce

Tortilla chips, crushed

Corn

Red Pepper, chopped

Shredded Cheese

Chicken

Dressing:

Equal parts of BBQ sauce, Ranch, and Salsa...mmmm!!!

Directions:

1. Assemble your salad with toppings of your choice.

2. When you crush the tortilla chips on top of your salad you absolutely MUST crumble them just like Jack Black did in the Movie Nacho Libre! I'm not a big fan of that movie, but that scene was seriously hilarious!

Day 19 and 20: SW Taco Dip

Ever microwaved hamburger meat? Yeah, I hadn't either, and honestly it took me a little while before I could wrap my brain around this idea and actually feel comfortable with that concept. If you simply can't, you can always brown up the hamburger in a regular pan first, but if you can you'll find this dish takes less than 10 min. to make from start to finish. And oh yeah, it's delicious!

Seriously, everyone in my family "claims" they hate all beans...but they ALL love this dish and don't even notice the beans in them as they gobble up each bite. For my pickiest eater EJ I made her close her eyes as I gave her a bite of something she hadn't seen yet and told her to trust me. As she chewed the bite, she opened her eyes and said, "Mmmm! That's really yummy!"

When I showed her what it was she was very surprised because by the sight of it she never would've given it a try. But by playing the blind taste test game she happily loaded up her plate with it for dinner.

The next day some people were feeling a little under the weather, and with all my rushing to sew EJ's Halloween costume together, some people opted for this while others had some more comforting chicken soup from the pantry. Either way it allowed me to push back my meal planning again to save the next meal for another day.

Day 19 and 20: SW Taco Dip
SW Taco Dip

SW Taco Dip

Ingredients:
1 can (15 ounces) pinto beans, rinsed and drained
1 can (15 ounces) GF enchilada sauce (red or green)
1-1/2 cups (6 ounces) shredded cheddar cheese, divided
1 can (4 ounces) chopped green chilies, undrained
1-1/2 cups crushed corn chips
1 tablespoon dried minced onion
1 cup (8 ounces) sour cream
Additional corn chips

Directions:

1. Crumble beef into an ungreased 2-qt. microwave-safe dish; cover with waxed paper. Cook on high for 5 minutes or until meat is no longer pink, stirring twice; drain.

2. Stir in the beans, enchilada sauce, 1 cup of cheese, chilies, crushed corn chips and onion; mix well. Cover and microwave on high for 3 minutes or until heated through, stirring once.

3. Top with the sour cream and remaining cheese. Heat, uncovered, at 70% power for 2-3 minutes or until cheese is melted. Serve with corn chips. Yield: 4-6 servings.

Day 11 & 12: Chicken Rice Bake

I don't know why everyone loves this so much. It seriously doesn't look like much of anything that would taste all that impressive, but for whatever reasons my family completely LOVES this dish! So much so that my kids have been known to literally fight over it...no joke, my absolute pickiest eater EJ loves this dish more than almost anything else I make.

I like this recipe because it's incredibly simple to throw together and it's a great comfort feeling food on a day when it's cold outside or when you're not feeling well...kind of like the way chicken noodle soup just somehow has that comfort feeling all built in. It's also very filling, so no side dishes required and for us it also usually makes enough for 2 dinners or at the very least it's enough for dinner and a few lunches the next day depending on how hungry everyone was for dinner that night.

For the GF version it does take a little more prep to make the cream of chicken or cream of mushroom soup from scratch, but you can always make this in bulk ahead of time and store in the fridge so you can just dump it in when you're ready. Since I used homemade cream of mushroom soup in the Tater Tot Casserole back on 10/03, I made enough to store a batch in the fridge to save me time in this recipe.

Day 11 & 12: Chicken Rice Bake
Chicken Rice Bake

Chicken Rice Bake

Ingredients:

1 can cream of chicken or cream of mushroom soup (or 1 batch of GF recipe below)
Onion powder or onion salt
Garlic salt
Pepper
Lawry’s
Paprika
Frozen Chicken breasts

***The secret to this dish tasting so great is in all those spices. I don't measure them, but I would guess I use at least 1 tsp. or a little more than that of the onion salt, garlic powder, and Lawry's seasonings.

GF Cream of Chicken Soup

2 tbsp butter
3 tbsp potato starch
3 ½ cups chicken broth
1 cup light cream or milk
2 cups finely chopped cooked chicken

---for cream of  mushroom soup just substitute cut up chicken pieces with sliced or chopped up mushrooms. I typically use shredded canned chicken here or I've often made it without the chicken or mushrooms and it still tastes great in this dish. For the mushrooms I usually buy a small can of sliced mushrooms and chop them really tiny with my Pampered Chef food chopper.

Directions:

1. Make GF cream of chicken or mushroom soup.

2. In a large 9 x 13 cake pan pour in instant rice and water and stir. Add in onion powder, garlic salt, Lawry's, and pepper to taste. Mix in with rice and water until well blended. You may need to add more water to make sure the 9 x 13 dish is totally full. I normally use about 4 cups of rice with equal parts water, the cream of chicken or mushroom soup and sometimes more water. The pan should be almost totally full to the brim, no less than 1 cm lower than the top of the dish after the chicken is in.

3. Place frozen chicken breasts on top of rice. They should be somewhat in and on top of the rice, not fully submerged. Sprinkle with paprika all over, slightly lighter on the rice areas and a little heavier on top of the chicken.

4. Bake at 375 degrees for 45 min.

Shown above with the whole chicken breasts. I usually use 2 really large chicken breasts and then cut them up into bite sized pieces and mix them in to make the chicken go further. Once this dish is ready it seriously goes FAST, so we were already into eating last night when I remembered to snap a couple of photos. See? It doesn't look like much, but it's a great, simple recipe to keep on hand!

Day 9 and 10: Beef Stew

Ever come across an old recipe you totally forgot you had? This is what all that cutting, chopping, and peeling prep work was last night...and it was sooo worth it today! Today was so incredibly windy and COLD!  Another perfect day to stay curled up in a nice, warm bed. :o)

SD and EJ had a great daddy/daughter night going out to a local video game and entertainment place with the youth group while I took the rest of the kids to IK's soccer game last night, so we had plenty of warm stew for 2 nights.

This beef stew recipe always completely amazes me at how unbelievably flavorful it is!!! It's unlike any other beef stew I've ever made and seriously tastes sooo good! Since you can't just buy celery in a little package and it's cheaper to buy potatoes in a large bag too, I bought an extra bag of $0.96 frozen pre-cut carrots and another can of $0.78 diced tomatoes and made enough for 2 batches of this recipe. I filled two 9 x 13 pans and put one in the freezer for another quick meal sometime later.

We had enough stew left over to work for dinner again tonight (Day 10) and some of the kids opted for hotdogs instead, which was fine since I have a bunch of homework to complete tonight and needed a night off from making dinner. With as incredibly cold as it was the idea of coming home to this delicious warm stew was awesome!

Day 9 and 10: Easy Beef Stew
Easy Beef Stew

 Easy Beef Stew

Ingredients:

• 1 can (14-1/2 ounces) diced tomatoes, undrained
• 1 cup water
• 3 tablespoons quick-cooking tapioca
• 2 teaspoons sugar
• 1-1/2 teaspoons salt
• 1/2 teaspoon pepper
• 2 pounds lean beef stew meat, cut into 1-inch cubes
• 4 medium carrots, cut into 1-inch chunks (I used a bag of frozen carrots)
• 3 medium potatoes, peeled and quartered
• 2 celery ribs, cut into 3/4-inch chunks
• 1 medium onion, cut into chunks
• 1 slice bread, cubed (I used the end of a loaf of Pamela's GF bread and crumbled it up)

Directions:

1. In a large bowl, combine the tomatoes, water, tapioca, sugar, salt and pepper. Stir in the remaining ingredients.

2. Pour into a greased 13-in. x 9-in. or 3-qt. baking dish. Cover and bake at 375° for 1-3/4 to 2 hours or until meat and vegetables are tender. Serve in bowls. 

Yield: 6-8 servings.

Day 3: Tater Tot Casserole

After a long day of soccer and other activities this morning I decided to opt for a simple dinner idea today. Today's weather was FREEZING!!!!!!!!!!!!! We've managed to jump straight from the end of summer into ridiculously cold weather. I haven't had any time to unpack and assess all the winter clothes yet, no time to figure out if coats, hats, and gloves still fit...that is after I figure out where they are in the first place.

Our new meal plans are going VERY well so far! Since we had bought a couple of bottles of sparkling cider earlier in the week to celebrate SD's graduation, but were too full to use them, I pulled them out on day 1 of our new grocery challenge and we had a special dinner, so here's just a couple of pictures...those flowers are still looking amazing!

 

So far the lunch snacks organization is also going very well. No more sifting through the pantry every morning or the night before trying to figure out if we have any school snacks left. Using the bags on top of the fridge made it very easy to just grab the bag I needed and transfer the items into their lunch sacks.

I'm also working on trying to make more of the things I usually bake in bigger batches. I made a double batch of Zucchini Chocolate Chip cookies the other day and saved half of it in the freezer. It was soooooo nice to simply pull the premade cookie dough out of the fridge and be able to make the cookies much faster since all of the mixing, grating zucchini, etc. was already done!

Today I'm making some muffins and I have 4 giant zucchinis sitting on the counter because I grabbed one from the church garden on Sunday, and apparently KW and the girls grabbed 2 giant zucchini to make sure I had some to make more cookies, and then Sunday night a friend of EJ's gave us another giant one from their garden since they had heard we use them a lot. So my plan today is to see how many batches of cookie dough I can premake and store in the freezer to save time later. I might also grate some of the zucchini and freeze it so I can add it to some soup or stir fry later on.

Day 3: Tater Tot Casserole

Tater Tot Casserole

Cantaloupe from the other day

Tater Tot Casserole:
1 lb. ground beef
1 can green beans
1 can cream of mushroom soup (or GF alternative)
1 pkg frozen tater tots

1. Brown 1 lbs. hamburger.

2. Mix in 1 can cream of mushroom soup (or use a GF alternative) and 1 can of green beans.

3. Place into a 9x13 inch cake pan and cover with 1 whole frozen bag of tater tots and bake according to instructions on the bag...ours baked at 400 degrees for about 25 min.

4. Top with ketchup or BBQ sauce.

 

GF CrockPot Cream Cheese Chicken Recipe

I needed a dish I could throw in the crockpot and not have to worry about all day. This was great, everyone really liked it and the somewhat different flavor it had from usual chicken recipes we eat. They all had the exact same comment, that it was really good, but the flavor was just a little bit too strong. We attributed it to the 2 tablespoons of Italian seasonings, so next time I make this I would definitely cut that down to 1 tbsp.

I used 1 box of Quinoa colored spiral pasta which honestly didn't look like 1 box would be enough to feed all of us, but it really made a ton after it cooked up...so much that we were all full from dinner and SD took this to work for lunch 2 days last week!

GF CrockPot Cream Cheese Chicken Recipe

Ingredients:

--2 cups homemade cream of mushroom soup

--frozen chicken--enough to feed four adults

--2 T Italian seasoning

--1/2 t celery seed

--1 T onion powder

--1 T sugar (weird, I know.)

--1/4 t black pepper

--1 t kosher salt

--2 cloves minced garlic

--block of cream cheese (to add later)

or you can make it with:

--1 can cream-of-something soup

--1/2 cup chicken broth

--frozen chicken pieces

--packet of Italian salad dressing mix

--2 cloves minced garlic

--block of cream cheese (to add later)

Directions:

1. Put everything except for the cream cheese into the crockpot. 

2. Cook on low for 6 hours, or until the chicken is cooked through and begins to shred. Shred the chicken with two large forks, and mix in the block of cream cheese. 

3. Switch the crock to high and cook for another 30 minutes, or until the cream cheese is fully melted. Serve over pasta. 

KW had to have a picture of his dinner taken too.

GF Sweet and Sour Chicken

One of the foods my family has been craving and missing since going gluten free is the sweet and sour chicken from Panda Express (and the Orange Chicken, which I also need to find a replacement recipe for!). It's now off limits because of the breading on the chicken.

Fortunately I had tried this recipe before with the store bought frozen popcorn chicken and knew it was a very delicious meal, so the only change to make it GF was to replace the popcorn chicken with boneless/skinless chicken. It's a little more work to cook and cut up the chicken, but it's so well worth it when you're in the mood for Chinese food!

For the fried rice I used instant brown rice because that's what I had on hand, but I've also used instant white rice with this dish. I didn't have any fried rice seasoning packets, so I opted instead to add some seasonings from my pantry (soy sauce, Lawry's season salt, a little garlic powder, onion, etc. but nothing too overpowering  because you don't want your rice to have too strong of a flavor that will take away from the sweet and sour sauce).

 

  

GF Sweet and Sour Chicken

Ingredients:

• 1 medium green pepper, cut into 1-inch pieces
• 1 small onion, thinly sliced
• 1 tablespoon canola oil
• 1 can (20 ounces) unsweetened pineapple chunks
• 3 tablespoons white vinegar
• 2 tablespoons soy sauce (La Choy is GF)
  
• 2 tablespoons ketchup
• 1/3 cup packed brown sugar
• 2 tablespoons cornstarch (or potato starch)
  
• 1 package (12 ounces) frozen popcorn chicken (or cooked & cut up boneless, skinless chicken)
  

Directions:

1. For GF version, cook and cut up chicken into bite size pieces, set aside.

2. In a large skillet or wok, stir-fry green pepper and onion in oil for 3-4 minutes or until crisp-tender. Add chicken.

3. Drain pineapple, reserving the juice in a 2-cup measuring cup; set pineapple aside. Add enough water to the juice to measure 1-1/3 cups; stir in the vinegar, soy sauce and ketchup. 

4. In a large bowl, combine brown sugar and cornstarch. Stir in pineapple juice mixture until smooth. Gradually add to the skillet. Bring to a boil; cook and stir for 2 minutes or until thickened. 

5. Add pineapple. Reduce heat; simmer, uncovered, for 4-5 minutes or until heated through. 

6. (For non GF version, otherwise skip this) Meanwhile, microwave chicken according to package directions. Stir into pineapple mixture. Serve immediately. Yield: 4 servings.

 

Fried Rice

Ingredients:

• 1 envelope fried rice seasoning (or your favorite spices from the pantry)
  
• 2 tablespoons water
• 2 green onions, chopped (optional)
  
• 2 tablespoons canola oil
• 1 egg, lightly beaten
• 3 cups cold cooked instant rice (white or brown)
  
• 1/2 cup peas
• soy sauce (optional)
  

Directions:

1. In a small bowl, combine seasoning mix and water; set aside. 

2. In a large skillet or wok, stir-fry onions in oil for 2-3 minutes. Add egg; stir until scrambled. 

3. Add rice and peas; stir-fry until heated through. Stir in seasoning mixture; stir-fry 3-4 minutes longer or until heated through. Add soy sauce to taste. Yield: 4 servings.

Another GF Pancake Mix

Wal-mart has recently begun stocking a new line of food storage items and along with them some gluten free mixes. After seeing the not so bad prices for brownies, chocolate chip cookies, pancakes, scones, and more I decided to pick up a couple of mixes to try.

I started with this pancake mix which sounded promising at less than $4.00 for the very large bag. And another bonus is that for this mix you only need to add water...instead of adding an egg, oil, and milk to the other mix I usually buy.

The verdict: the pancakes were much more brittle in texture. The taste wasn't bad, but they kept soaking up my syrup faster than I could eat. If my family ate pancakes more often, I might consider switching to this brand for the cost savings, but since the other brand tastes WAY better, I think I'll stick with it! The taste and texture are amazingly delicious in the BRM mix, so it just doesn't compare.

Ham Potato Puffs - GF

I've posted this recipe before, here, which was really yummy and easy to make. Now I'm revisiting this recipe in a gluten free version. I found a simple recipe for a GF biscuit dough and used up the leftover potato from the baked potato skins I made earlier in the week.

It was incredibly delicious, extremely filling (you only need 1 of these with a side of fruit to totally fill you up!), and I was extremely impressed with how great the biscuit recipe turned out! I can wait to try this biscuit dough again as plain biscuits with some jelly on top. They make awesome leftovers too!

Ham Potato Puffs - Gluten Free

• 1 batch of GF biscuit mix (*see below)
  
• 1 cup cubed fully cooked ham
• 1 cup leftover mashed potatoes
• 1 cup (4 ounces) shredded cheddar cheese, divided
• 1/2 teaspoon dried parsley flakes
• 1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
  

Directions:

1. Press each biscuit onto the bottom and up the sides of a greased muffin cup.
2. In a large bowl, combine the ham, potatoes, 1/2 cup cheese, parsley and garlic powder. 
3. Spoon 1/4 cup into each prepared cup. Sprinkle with remaining cheese. 
4. Bake at 350° for 20-25 minutes or until lightly browned. Serve warm. Refrigerate leftovers. Yield: 10 puffs.

*GF Biscuit mix:

• 1/2 cup GF flour blend (2 parts white rice flour, 1 part tapioca flour, 1 part potato starch)
• 1 tsp. xanthan gum
  
• 1 tsp. baking powder
• 1/2 tsp. salt
• 2 tbsp. shortening
• 3 tbsp. milk
• 2 tbsp. melted butter

Note: This recipe makes 2-3 biscuits, you will need to quadruple (x 4) the ingredients in order to make 12 biscuits for this recipe.

Directions:

1.Combine flour, xanthan gum, baking powder, and salt.
2. Cut shortening into flour mixture.

3. Mix in milk and stir until well blended. May need to add a little more milk if too dry.

4. Place into greased muffin cups, sprinkle each with melted butter, and follow recipe above.

5. OR - Roll out dough, knead, and cut into biscuit shapes.

6. Grease baking sheet and place biscuits on top. Brush tops with melted butter.

7. Bake at 450 degrees for 9-11 min.

Italian Steak Sandwiches

It may not look like much, but this was an excellent recipe my ENTIRE family loved!!!

Ever wish you could just grab a BUNCH of spices from the pantry, dump them all together, and actually have it turn out to be something yummy? Well, here it is.

I was very surprised with all of those "green things" my picky eaters usually become instantly opposed to swimming around the roast beef, but it didn't phase them one bit.

I whipped up some really simple dinner rolls in my bread machine that turned out wonderful with this dish, so I'll try to post the recipe sometime later. Or you could use any kind of dinner rolls, bread, etc. you like with this.

I'm kind of lazy when it comes to things like this, so I bought the pre-sliced roast beef that's all ready to go and you just throw in the pan. I also added some provolone cheese over top of the open faced sandwiches and microwaved them just long enough to melt the cheese.

It turned out great and something you could just pick up and eat with your hands. And it's a really nice alternative for those times you get really sick of hamburger or chicken.

TIP: Just be sure NOT to add any more of the crushed red pepper flakes than the recipe calls for, it's really all that's needed...even if you really love hot spicy foods...trust me, let's just say I added a little bit too much and it was a lot more spicy than it should have been. But my family still loved it anyway, just commenting it could be less spicy next time.

Italian Steak Sandwiches

Ingredients:

• 2 garlic cloves, minced (I used canned minced garlic & added about 2 tsp.)
  
• 1/8 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes (remember: not too much!)
  
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 16 slices deli roast beef (I bought 2 lg packages from the meat deli)
  
• 1/2 cup beef broth (I used chicken broth since it's GF and beef broth isn't)
  
• 2 tablespoons red wine or additional beef broth (same thing here, more chicken broth)
  
• 2 teaspoons dried parsley flakes
• 2 teaspoons dried basil
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon dried oregano
• 1/8 teaspoon pepper
• 4 sandwich rolls, split
• 4 slices provolone cheese

Directions:

1. In a large skillet, saute garlic and pepper flakes in oil.

2. Add the roast beef , broth, wine or additional broth and seasonings; heat through.

3. Place beef slices on rolls; drizzle with the broth mixture. Top with cheese.

Yield: 4 servings.

We didn't drizzle our sandwiches with the broth, but they'd be good dipping them in the sauce like an au jus.

Smothered Chicken & Potato Rosettes

This dinner was a huge hit! Nobody had any idea that this chicken was covered in mushrooms (along with cheese and bacon) so everyone ate it and raved about it! The secret to hiding mushrooms in the dish was that I used my Pampered Chef chopper to almost mince the mushrooms up into tiny little pieces.

If I had told my kids there were mushrooms in it, they would have turned up their noses and complained, but instead I got tons of rave reviews telling me I should definitely make this again!

The potatoes weren't supposed to be baked, but something just didn't sound right to mix in raw eggs and then eat (even though it tasted great & I never would have known if I hadn't mixed them in myself) so I decided to bake these potato mounds for a little while and they turned into these awesome potato/biscuit creations which the kids thought were really fun.

Smothered Chicken

Ingredients:

• 4 boneless skinless chicken breast halves (4 ounces each)
• Garlic powder and seasoned salt to taste
• 1 tablespoon canola oil
• 1 jar (4-1/2 ounces) sliced mushrooms, drained
• 1 cup (4 ounces) shredded Mexican cheese blend
• 1/2 cup chopped green onions (optional)
  
• 1/2 cup bacon bits

Directions:

1. Flatten chicken to 1/4-in. thickness. Sprinkle with garlic powder and seasoned salt.

2. In a large nonstick skillet over medium heat, brown chicken in oil for 4 minutes; turn.

3. Top with the mushrooms, cheese, green onions and bacon. Cover and cook 4 minutes longer or until chicken is no longer pink.

Yield: 4 servings.

Extremely simple & VERY good!!!



Potato Rosettes

Ingredients:

• 2 medium potatoes, peeled and quartered
• 1/2 cup shredded cheddar cheese
• 1 egg, lightly beaten
• 2 tablespoons chopped green onion (optional)
  
• 3 tablespoons sour cream
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon white pepper

Directions:

1. Place potatoes in a large saucepan and cover with water; bring to a boil over medium-high heat. Cover and cook for 15-20 minutes or until tender; drain.

2. Transfer to a large bowl; mash potatoes. Beat in the cheese, egg, onion, sour cream, salt and pepper.

3. Cut a hole in the corner of a pastry bag or heavy-duty plastic bag. Insert large star tip #409. Fill bag with potato mixture. Pipe potatoes into eight mounds on a greased baking sheet. Cover and freeze for up to 1 month.

4. [Optional: Baked on greased baking sheet at 350 for 10-15 min. or until slightly brown and firm.]

To use frozen potatoes: Place on a microwave-safe plate. Cover with waxed paper; microwave on high for 6 minutes or until heated through.

Yield: 8 servings.

To use frozen potatoes: Place on a microwave-safe plate. Cover with waxed paper; microwave on high for 6 minutes or until heated through.

Pizza Macaroni Bake

Not bad for a new, simple dinner recipe. This pizza bake had a slight lasagna type taste to it and was really good.

Pizza Macaroni Bake

Ingredients:

1 package (7-1/4 ounces) macaroni and cheese dinner mix (I used Annie's GF rice mac-n-cheese)
1 pound ground beef
1 medium onion, chopped
1 small green pepper, chopped
1 cup (4 ounces) shredded cheddar cheese
1 jar (14 ounces) pizza sauce
1 package (3-1/2 ounces) sliced pepperoni
1 cup (4 ounces) shredded part-skim mozzarella cheese

Directions:

1. Set the cheese packet from dinner mix aside. In a saucepan, bring water to a boil. Add macaroni; cook for 8-10 minutes or until tender.

2. Meanwhile, in a large skillet, cook the beef, onion and green pepper over medium heat until meat is no longer pink; drain. Drain macaroni; stir in the contents of cheese packet.

3. Transfer to a greased 13-in. x 9-in. baking dish. Sprinkle with cheddar cheese. Top with the beef mixture, pizza sauce, pepperoni and mozzarella cheese.

4. Bake, uncovered, at 350° for 20-25 minutes or until heated through.

Yield: 6-8 servings.

Pizza Par-TAY!

Another area that's a struggle when you're GF is finding a decent pizza crust. You can no longer fall back on the "let's just order a pizza on the way home" routine on busy nights.

Chicago Connection is a small pizza chain that has recently added gluten free pizzas to their menu. We have never eaten there before, as it's not our favorite pizza chain, but decided to give them a try.

We've tried their pizza twice (both gluten free and regular) in the last month and both times it's been incredibly AWFUL!!!! The gluten free crust crumbles and falls apart at the slightest touch. It's pretty expensive and my description this last time was "barely tolerable" for this pizza alternative.

But since I've had some great luck with substituting GF flour blends in some of our regular favorite recipes, I thought I'd experiment with our family's all time favorite homemade pizza.

The original recipe is one that has been passed along through several families in our church, all exclaiming how unbelievably amazing this pizza is. For the original recipe, you can click here where I provided lots of pictures with the instructions.

So I decided to give it a try. The dough was incredibly different looking from the soft consistency I was used to. Instead of being soft, doughy, and easily rolled out with a rolling pin, this GF dough was much more like a very thick playdough.

After spreading out the dough on this cooking stone I seriously contemplated throwing it out, because I assumed it was going to turn out awful. But I decided to give it a try anyway, and topped the dough with sauce, pepperoni, and TONS of cheese.

I cooked the pizza for the exact same amount of time as the regular recipe calls for and let it sit for about 10 min. after baking to let the cheese set and firm up a bit so it's not so runny when you slice it. Everyone waited patiently for the pizza to cook, some even had a fun time with a game of tug of war as they waited.

And here it is as I started to slice it up, looking promising.

The slices held their shape together perfectly and didn't fall apart at all in your hands. I walked around the house giving small bites to everyone to taste test and EVERYONE totally LOVED this pizza!!!!

This wasn't at all one of those, "oh well, it's not bad, and hey it's GF so it's okay I guess," kind of responses, but instead it was an “Oh my word that’s seriously delicious and family members are fighting over slices it’s that good!” type of pizza! It tastes so close to how this pizza usually tastes when it’s non GF, and everybody LOVED it.

Just to emphasize this a little more, we had bought some pizza from our favorite pizza store for those people who could eat it…and EVERYONE turned down eating that store pizza over eating this homemade GF pizza!!!!

Recipes don’t usually make that big of an impact in my house, somebody always hates it (so I usually consider a recipe a success if 4 out of 6 people eat it) so it was such a joy to have everyone love this dish for a change! We had a few leftovers of both the store bought favorite and this homemade pizza...and the store bought pizza is still in the fridge while the homemade slices are totally gone!

Since SD is struggling so much with eating red sauces these days, I made the 2^nd pizza (because 1 batch makes 2 pizza crusts) with a homemade alfredo sauce.

We grilled up some chicken on the BBQ, and added that to the pizza with a ton of cheese and everyone also LOVED this pizza!

It’s such a great feeling to make dinner and instead of your family simply tolerating it and eating it because you said so, instead they’re RAVING about how incredibly delicious it is!!!! Esp. EJ, who hates EVERYTHING I make, she commented that she liked both pizzas but she loved the alfredo one the best!

It was a VERY happy cooking night in our home, a very happy pizza experience!

So here it is, my out of this world homemade gluten free pizza! (Again, for the original version of this pizza you can go here).

Homemade GF Pizza

Dough: (makes 2 pizzas)
1 1/3 cup warm water
2 tablespoons active dry yeast (or 3 packets)
2 tbsp sugar (white)

2/3 cup shortening
4 cups flour (GF Flour blend: 2 cups white rice flour, 1 cup tapioca flour, and 1 cup potato starch all mixed well together)
3 tsp. xanthan gum

1. Blend the first 3 ingredients in a large bowl. Set aside for 10 min. to let rise.
2. In a large bowl add shortening, flour, and xanthan gum and mix thoroughly until blended. Pour in yeast mixture and blend until dough forms.
3. Roll out into 2 pizza doughs, add your favorite toppings and bake at 425 degree for 10-12 min. (all ovens are different, so watch your closely and adjust time as necessary!).

4. Make sure to let this pizza cool for 10 min. BEFORE slicing to set up!


I used my electric mixer to blend the dough on the lowest speed and that worked very well. I flattened the dough directly on the baking stone because it didn't hold together very well before cooking (which is why I think a little more xanthan gum would be helpful), but held together extremely well after baking. Enjoy!