Shepherd's Pie

So today I had Parent Teacher Conference's for both of my children. I WANTED the conferences to be tomorrow since I have the day off for Good Friday, but I also had to have a meeting with the Speech Therapist for my daughter, and she doesn't work on Friday's. So I left work early today, which is always okay, to go do 1 1/2 of conferences. My son had early release, but my daughter's Kindergarten class still had a normal schedule, so after conferences were done, Levi and I got to sit around for another 45 minutes before we took Adelei home.

So after we had been home for over an hour and I was SO tired and SO hungry, I realized that due to conferences falling during lunchtime, all I had to eat today was half a box of Samoa's and a cutie. No wonder I wasn't feeling it! I jumped into action immediately, and did what any starving mother would do. I poured myself a glass of wine;) Haha, and then munched a couple crackers and started to work on dinner.

I had a half a block of gruyere left from a comfort meal for myself earlier in the week, and since it's a hard cheese, I have been occasionally feeding it in small proportions to my kids. I have heard that hard cheese's have less lactose, and thus far have not noticed any bad reactions the few times I have given it to them. Anyway, while grading it into the pan, I ate a chunk. There is nothing I love more than cheese with a glass of wine, especially when it's my favorite cheese! Man, just one bite of that cheese put me back into perfect working order.

I decided that I would make a Shepherd's Pie for dinner. It's one of my favorites, and it's something you can practically make with anything as long as you have potatoes and a few vegis. I usually use chicken, onions, garlic, frozen peas and corn for the filling, and will add whatever else I have in the fridge that sounds good. Today, I had broccoli, yellow peppers, and kale in the fridge, so I thought I would add those as well as the gruyere. I also usually use chicken broth to make the gravy, but we were out, so I added extra herbs and the gruyere for more flavor.

Here is tonight's recipe, but like I said, this recipe is supposed to be a garbage collection of whatever is left of your food supply.

Shepherd's Pie(Gluten Free, Egg Free):

8 red potatoes, boiled with a dash of red pepper, rosemary and garlic salt, and mashed with butter

6 chicken tenders
1/4 yellow onion
3 carrots
6 mushrooms
1/2 yellow pepper
1/2 head of broccoli
1 bunch of kale
1/4 cup garbanzo bean flour
Thyme
Sage
Garlic Salt

Start by cooking the chicken in a pan with butter until both sides are browned. Place on a plate for later. Put the onion and the carrots into the pan along with the herbs. Saute for a bit, then add the mushrooms. When the mushrooms are tender, add the yellow pepper and the broccoli. Stir to coat with butter, and more butter if needed, then sprinkle the flour over all of it. Mix the flour into coat into the butter, then add about a cup of water. I added the kale in at this point and just let simmer until the sauce started to thicken. Then I chopped up the chicken and added it to the pan for another minute or two.

In a casserole dish, add about 1/4 cup of frozen peas and 1/4 cup frozen corn. Pour the vegi/chicken mixture on top of this and stir it all around to mix in the frozen stuff. Put the mashed potatoes on top of that and spread around with a spatula so it forms an even crust on top.

Place in the oven at 350 and cook until the mashed potatoes are starting to get a light brown color along the peaks and edges. You can cook longer if you like, too. This will take roughly 30 mins.

Cranberry Orange Bread-Gluten Free

A few months ago I had a gluten free bread making date with Rachel and another good friend, Shannon, and one of the breads we made was cranberry orange bread. It was delicious and I couldn't stop eating it, so I had to make it again, and my mom got the privilege of coming over just after I pulled it out of the oven and she loved it, too.
My mom and I get to plan one of my sister-in-law's Baby Shower's and she asked me to make the bread for it. I always love showing off to people how good gluten free bread can be, so I agreed. Today is the day of the Shower, and it starts in less than 3 hours, so in true Heidi fashion, I just threw the 2 loaves in the oven a few minutes ago.
The recipe we made at our original bread date was based upon this recipe for Ocean Spray Cranberry Nut Bread, which is not gluten free. It's simple enough to switch a recipe to gluten free, just use a gluten free flour mix instead of wheat flour, and add xantham gum if it isn't already in the mix. Shannon, who also has Celiac like my daughter, suggested we also add instant vanilla pudding mix to help keep it moist.
The recipe is not the most healthy recipe, what with all the sugar in it, juice, and pudding mix, so I have changed it a bit myself. I also prefer my bread to be female, so I don't use nuts in mine like the original recipe calls for. One of these days I will mess around with substituting some honey for part of the sugar, but I'm not sure 3 hours before the baby shower is the time to do that. I'm sure my mom would agree. So this is the recipe I used today and the last few times I made it:

Gluten Free Cranberry Orange Bread

2 cups gluten free mix(I used Namaste Perfect Flour Blend, which has xantham gum in it)
1 cup sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
3 cuties, skins and all, mushed up in a food processor with about a 1/4 cup hot water
2 tablespoons coconut oil, slightly melted
1 egg
1 1/2 cups frozen cranberries(can be found in the freezer section year round!)
1/2 package Vanilla Instant Pudding

Mix all the wet ingredients together along with the sugar, then add the flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt and pudding mix. Pour into a greased bread pan. Bake at 350 for 55 minutes.

Vegan Spicy Quinoa Stir Fry

This is one dish that has become one of my absolute favorites. It's spicy, tangy and full of that sweet-but-salty stir fry taste without being way too greasy. The original recipe came from The Fit Cook. I altered it, using mushrooms instead of sprouts, chili powder and cayenne pepper instead of chili garlic sauce, and grapeseed oil instead of sesame oil.

Ingredients
1 tablespoon grape seed oil
1 1/2 cups cooked quinoa
1 cup mushrooms
2 cups fresh spinach
2 tablespoons soy sauce
1 tablespoon sesame seeds
Cayenne Pepper

Chili Pepper

Salt

Garlic Powder

Cooking Directions
1. In a large non-stick pan, heat the oil on medium.  Add the quinoa and mushrooms, and cook for 3-4 minutes. Add the spinach, soy sauce and sprinkle with Cayenne pepper and chili pepper according to taste. Add 1/4 tsp salt. Cook for another 1-2 minutes, until spinach is just beginning to wilt. Sprinkle with sesame seeds, and serve. Find the original recipe (also vegan) here.

.:*Rachel*:.

Baked Polenta-Chili and Cilantro Style!

So, tonight's recipe was an interesting challenge for me! I love trying new recipes and new foods, and a couple weeks ago I found a recipe for Baked Polenta from a Weekday Vegetarian post on facebook that looked tasty and different! A bit later while grocery shopping, I saw the little cookie dough look-a-like wrapper of polenta in the produce section and decided now would be the perfect time to try it! They had all sorts of different flavors to choose from, and the green chili and cilantro one sounded delish!
For those of you who don't know what polenta is, it's kind of a corn meal and water mixture that is gluten free! I always love finding new gluten free things to try:)
As usually happens in my house, the polenta sat unused for over a week before I decided to try the recipe. Surprise! The link NO LONGER WORKS, so I had to google a different recipe to get an idea of how I was supposed to use this stuff. The recipes all called for dry polenta and water, and as it turned out, the cute little cookie dough polenta is precooked. So I figured I would just squeeze it out into the pan and smoosh it around, but NO! It's hard like cookie dough, too! So I had to add water to it in a pan and heat it up to make it all squishy and able to use.
Needless to say, I figured it out and it worked just fine, but I was worried there for a bit. SO! My recipe that I made up on the spot is using a tube of polenta, but it may be easier to try it the other way, but then again, it might not;) I'll have to try that one out another time!

Baked Polenta-Chili and Cilantro Style!
One tube of Chili and Cilantro Polenta (put in a saucepan with water and heat to mush up and make into a oatmeal type consistency)
1 bunch green onions, chopped
1/2 red pepper, chopped
1/2 jalapeno, chopped
6 mushrooms, chopped
Roughly 1/4 cup broccoli, chopped
Heat all the vegetables in a pan with butter. While cooking, pour 1/2 the moist polenta into a square baking dish. Put the cooked vegi's on top and cover with the remaining polenta. Bake in the oven at 350 until browned, about an. Sprinkle with a bit of fresh cilantro.

Gluten Free Muffins

For all you folks eating gluten free out there, this is a fabulous recipe! I love Pamela's because you don't have to mix several flours together so it saves time. A double batch makes 12 muffins for me. in this batch I pureed up a pear to add to it for the fruit, and used coconut oil for the oil/butter. You can use any fruit you have when you make muffins, just puree it or chop it up small!
http://pamelasproducts.com/muffins/

Mango Fish Tacos!

Mango Fish Tacos with Chunky Salsa and Refried Bacon Beans

Ingredients:

4 tilapia loins, thawed

2 tbsp grape seed oil

cayenne Pepper

cumin

salt

8 corn tortillas

1 can refried beans

2 slices uncooked bacon

3 cloves garlic

8 roma tomatoes

1/2 bunch cilantro

1 medium white or red onion

2 tablespoons lime juice

1 mango

1/4 c sharp cheddar cheese, grated

1/2 cup sharp cheddar cheese, in a bowl, ready to serve.

Fish

heat grapes seed oil in small frying pan on medium heat. When oil covers pan, add the fish. for 5 to 7 minutes on each side, until you can break it apart with a wooden spatula. Season with cumin and then Cayenne pepper, according to taste. Break apart fish with a fork and mix to combine spices and oil. Keep covered and set aside.

Salsa

Cut the tomatoes into quarters, removing the juicy tomato guts and seeds. Keeping only the outside, chop tomatoes, and add to a serving dish. Remove the skin of the mango, and chop mango pieces to the same size as the tomatoes, leaving the hard pit in the middle.Add to tomatoes. Chop onion, and  cilantro, garlic and mix with tomatoes. Add lime juice and sea salt.

Set aside.

Refried Bacon Beans

Heat a frying pan on low-medium and add bacon, turning every 2 to 3 minutes until crisp. remove bacon and set aside on a paper towel. Add beans to the bacon grease in the pan, mixing and stirring occasionally until heated through. Chop the bacon and add it back into the pan. Top with 1/4 c cheese.

Set aside

Tortilla shells 

preheat oven to 350 degrees. Put taco shells on ungreased cookie sheet, lined with tinfoil and heat for 3 minutes, flip them over, and cook for 2 more minutes. Remove taco shells from oven and gently fold them in half, leaving a 1 inch gap. lay them all against each other, letting them set for another 2 minutes.

Set aside.

Layer taco insides: beans, fish, salsa, cheese. Turn head sideways, laugh over 1990's "taco neck syndrome commercial," enjoy.

.:*Rachel*:.

Quinoa and Kale Patties

We've mastered the air popper, and gone on to much bigger things: REAL FOOD. We eat healthy on a regular basis, and are constantly searching for new recipes, or tweaking old ones to make them gluten free, "clean," or just healthier.

Tonight's carte du jour featured these adorable little patties with the unmistakable taste of... something missing. Here is what we made: Quinoa and Kale Patties; alright, so adorable might be a little out of context. But honestly, they were pretty good. We both agreed that you could top these ugly little vegetarian burgers with pretty much anything you would put on a ground beef hamburger, or not. As the recipe included parmesan cheese and lots and lots of garlic, we thought Thyme, Oregano or some italian spice blend might make these grubby little patties even better. This is one of those recipes that combines two things most people have never heard of (Kale and Quinoa) and makes them wonderfully tasty as a good basic burger, from which to add any number of things.


We also made wraps. We altered this recipe with cranberry relish instead of cranberries, and left out the apple juice altogether, to make it thicker. Next time, we may even add some cream cheese.

-Heidi and Rachel :o)