Last week's menu

Sorry, for the hiatus, Ash.
Yes, we've been eating! It's just been random and uninspired. Last week was pretty cool, though.

Monday- Pesto Chicken with zucchini noodles
Tuesday- Turkey & cheese roll ups (recipe still in progress) with glazed carrots
Wednesday- Meatless chili (ie: bean soup with veggies) with cornbread
Thursday- Grilled steaks and potatoes with broccoli. LOVE it when hubs does this. Plus the baked potatoes he makes are pretty bomb. He coats them with olive oil, course salt, and pepper before wrapping them in foil and grilling them.
Friday- Fish with sauteed sweet potato

Notes:
Everything went pretty much the way it was planned, except hubs pointed out that I made 2 "MRE" meals (Pesto chicken and vegetarian chili) and I guess that's a bad thing. I thought they were pretty tasty but after months and months of repetitively eating shelf-stable versions of these dishes, I suppose I'd get pretty tired of the taste, too.

The roll ups were good in theory but the Pillsbury GF pizza dough I used was pretty old so it didn't rise and the dough was pretty yucky. Will try again. Because my sweet sister bought me 2 packages and I froze one. Which is also a gamble but we'll try it!

Friday I came home without an appetite so I had cornbread with lots of butter and Chris ate leftover steak. Plus I don't really know where the fish is- I'm assuming it's in the outside freezer but right now it's essentially a giant block of deer meat so good luck finding it!

Clever Leftovers: Granola edition

This isn't so much a leftover recipe as an "I have too much of this and I need to use it up" recipe. See, my mom found Chex gluten free oatmeal on super sale (we're talking 79 cents a box), so she bought 10 of them. Ten boxes of instant oatmeal. Now, I like oatmeal, but I don't eat it every day. Or even once a week. It doesn't really keep me full. I know, weird.

Yesterday I organized my pantry and I was reminded that precious real estate was being taken up by these 10 boxes of oatmeal. So I made a quick apple crisp, and that used up... 1 packet. Quite a ways to go.

Enter: Granola!

Now, I like a nice granola. Sprinkled on yogurt, eaten as a cereal, even as a topping for oatmeal. (oats on oats on oats!) Granola gets eaten quick. A big batch can be gone in no time, which makes it perfect for using up these oatmeal packets.

I've made granola before, and I feel like I've simplified the process pretty well. What I've got is not so much of a recipe as a guideline... as most of these "leftover" recipes go... and you only use 1 bowl, and 1 cookie sheet and 1 spoon.

Chex GF Oatmeal- Granola!

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

In this particular batch, I dumped into a bowl:
instant oatmeal
slivered almonds
coconut
chia seeds

At this point you will have a bowl full of granola ingredients. The next step is to drizzle in some olive oil or melted coconut oil. Use enough to moisten all of the ingredients.

After the oil is mixed in, taste-test. With pre-sweetened instant oatmeal, I don't have to add any sweeteners. A big dash of cinnamon and a large pinch of salt get mixed in to give it a little oomph.

The mixture gets dumped onto a foil-lined cookie sheet and spread out. Sometimes I drizzle a little bit of honey over the mixture to encourage cluster formation. Then it goes into the oven for 20 minutes- stirring once after 10 minutes.

Note: Keep an eye on it. It can go from toasty to burny very quickly, especially if your oven is old and the temperature likes to fluctuate randomly like mine.

After it cools on the counter it will get crunchy, and then it's GRANOLA TIME.

Cherry cream cheese tart

Yes, there is a layer of cream cheese under those cherries.

Most of my ideas start out while I'm laying in bed just after waking up in the morning, in that groggy twilight sleep. This time, the can of cherry pie filling popped into my head. I'd bought for some random reason several months ago, as cherry pie filling is not normally something I keep on hand. But it was there, in the pantry, calling out my name. Cream cheese then popped into my head, and started dancing with the pie filling. At that point, it was time to get out of bed before things got out of hand.

I started with my cinnamon roll dough. Then I layered on cream cheese and topped with pie filling. It was actually pretty easy. Looks like I spent more time on it than I actually did. For the record, there is none left.

Cherry Cream Cheese Tart

First, preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Then gather ingredients.

Dough Ingredients:
2/3 c. milk
1 t. sugar
1 pkg fast-rising yeast

1 egg
1/4 c. oil (this time I used melted coconut oil)
1 t. vanilla

1 3/4 c. gluten free flour
1/4 t. baking soda
1/2 t. salt

Filling:
1 8oz block of cream cheese, softened in the microwave until spreadable. Tip: use the defrost setting
1 can of cherry pie filling (CHECK to make sure it's GF!)

Topping:
1/3 c. brown sugar
1 1/2 t. cinnamon

For the dough:
Mix the sugar into the milk. Warm it to 100-110 degrees. I use a thermometer because I have not yet mastered the art of being able to tell otherwise. You can get candy thermometers for a couple of bucks. Mix in the yeast and set it in a warm place to proof. Meanwhile, grab two bowls: 1 small, 1 big.

Large bowl: Beat the egg. Add the oil and vanilla and mix well.
Small bowl: Mix the flour, baking soda, xanthan gum, and salt.

After you have done this, check the yeast. It should have bubbled up and will smell yeasty. If not, throw it out and try again.

Pour the yeasty mixture into the large bowl with the egg, oil, and vanilla. Mix well to get any lumps from the yeast out. A couple small ones are ok. Add in the flour mixture from the small bowl and combine well to form the dough. The dough will be very soft. It's okay. Don't panic.

Dump the dough straight onto a greased cookie sheet. Spread the dough into an oval/ rectangular shape using the back of a wet spoon. (Warm water works best.) Work slowly. If it sticks, dip the spoon back into the water and keep going. Adding more flour will result in a dry, tough dough, so resist the urge!

Filling:
Spread on a layer of cream cheese, leaving a bit of space around the edges to fold up. Do the same with the pie filling. Err on the side of overfilling, and make sure the edges get enough-- nobody likes dry filling-less edges.

Topping:
Once the fillings are spread, bring the dough up over the sides to form a bowl-like structure. Sprinkle the edges of the dough with cinnamon/sugar. Bake until the crust is done; about 10 minutes or so.

After removing it from the oven, let it sit for a minute to cool and allow the fillings to set up a bit. Slice with a pizza cutter and enjoy with coffee. Go back for seconds. Resist going back for thirds, and instead grab a fork "just for another quick bite."

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.

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!

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

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: