Sunday, December 28, 2014

This week's Menu


It's supposed to be a cold, rainy week and my work schedule is all weird to cover shifts of coworkers who took vacation days. That means: crock pot!

Monday- Vegetable soup
Tuesday- Pork loin and wine with herb gravy. In the crock pot.
Wednesday- Beef stew. In the crock pot. Before heading out to drink champagne with my sister and hope we stay up until Midnight.
Thursday- New Year's Day! Egg rolls with cabbage. This was a tradition for a few years when I was a child. Bringing it back. Going to try them with these GF wrappers.
Friday- Whatever leftovers I feel like eating b/c it will just be me for dinner.

We went to the store today and got a ton of food. Restocking the pantry, lots of veggies, etc. So there will be a vegetable with every meal, I just don't know what will go where.

Sunday, December 21, 2014

This week's menu

It's Christmas week! In an effort to not go to the grocery store today, here's the menu for the week/ next 2 days:



Monday- Christmas light looking hayrides- Grilled ribs and sausage with steamed mixed veggies
Tuesday- Previously frozen chicken pot pies with a biscuit crust
Wednesday- Christmas Eve at my family's
Thursday- Christmas Day at his family's
Friday- Visiting his family out of town- planning to fry a turkey!

Sunday, December 14, 2014

This week's menu

Here's what we got on the menu this week:






Monday- Grilled chicken with beans and carrots
Tuesday- Spinach artichoke pizza (made the GF crust today)
Wednesday- Shrimp scampi with peas
Thursday- Turkey meatballs (smashed chex instead of bread crumbs) with mashed potatoes
Friday- Broccoli cheese soup

Saturday, December 13, 2014

Gingerbread houses

Decorating gingerbread houses has become somewhat of a yearly tradition between a few of my friends.

That's all fine and dandy, until you realize that they do not make gluten free gingerbread house kits. (To my knowledge...). Which means the options include not participating, sucking it up and building a gluteny house, getting creative with rice krispie treats, or making your own from scratch.

Guess which one I did this year? You betcha. From scratch. I've done it before and it's not hard, it just takes a bit extra time.

Here is the template I came up with:

[To print, Right-click and Save the image. It should print in normal dimensions once you open it up]

Here is the recipe I used. It's really good because the cookies don't puff up or spread, plus they still taste good.

Gingerbread Cookie House
1/2 c. shortening
1/2 c. lightly packed brown sugar
3 T. molasses (that's all that was left in the jar!)
1 egg
2 1/4 cups GF Flour Blend
1/2 T. ginger and cinnamon
1/2 t. salt
1/4 t. nutmeg and cloves

Preheat the oven to 350.
Beat the butter & sugar until it looks incorporated. Beat in the egg and molasses.
Add the dry ingredients to the bowl and mix in slowly. Once it's all mixed up, get in there with your hands and form it into a ball. Place the bowl in the freezer while you clean up and prepare the space for rolling out the dough.

I prefer to tape waxed paper to the countertop, and dust with flour. A flour sifter provides a perfect thin distribution of flour for rolling stuff out.

Roll the dough out to desired thickness. Place the template on the dough and cut out 2 of each shape. If desired, cut a door and windows.


Place on a greased (taking no chances here) cookie sheet and bake until they are sturdy. This depends on thickness, but they will be browned on the edges. You don't want a soft cookie, but check them to make sure they don't burn! (That can happen when you're singing along to Anne Murray's Christmas album and not paying attention) Carefully remove them from the sheet to a cooling rack.


This recipe makes enough for 2 smallish houses.

Assemble with royal icing (I like Alton Brown's. Instead of 3oz I use 3 egg whites)
Decorate to your heart's content with GF candies:


Sunday, December 7, 2014

This week's Menu

I don't even care that you can't read the menu. I love that it's so festive. It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas, bit by bit!


Notes:
I'm trying a few new recipes this week, converting them to GF. We'll see how that goes.
Obviously we still have some sweet potatoes left to eat.
Will probably wind up grilling the fish instead of baking it.

Monday- Chicken nuggets with sweet potato fries and green beans
Tuesday- Parmesan fish and broccoli
Wednesday- Pot pie cupcakes- Convert to GF!
Thursday- Vegetable soup and grilled cheese
Friday- Spinach artichoke pizza- Convert to GF!

It's supposed to be a beautiful week, and we've got a gingerbread house party to go to on Saturday, so I'll probably be making gingerbread!