Just a quick note here…..Jon comes home from school today and tells me that in his advisory class (home room in the “old” days), his teacher has Celiac and is gluten-free, as is another girl in the class!! OMG! Talk about a small world! Both he and I wonder if they put the 2 kids in the same class on purpose or if it is just a coincidence?? I did know that there were several other kids in his middle school that had Celiac, but never thought that he would find out who. The school is pretty big.

Well, at least now if they have parties involving food, things will be a little easier. Maybe I can get with the teacher and this other childs Mom to set stuff up.

This is the phrase I hear from my son, Jon, yesterday morning after packing his lunch for school. Every morning he comes down from showering, asks me to make him breakfast and what I packed him for lunch. Usually it is the same type of thing….sandwich on GF bread, chips, applesauce, yogurt, drink, dessert (if I have made treats lately). Well yesterday I gave him the rest of the broccoli slaw that we had with dinner the other night. He really liked it and even mentioned how much the dressing tasted like his favorite dressing that I buy for him from a local restaurant. What he didn’t mention that he was only going to like this dish at home, not at school. Apparently now in addition to his gluten-free food restrictions there are also “coolness factor” restrictions. I guess it is bad enough that he has to bring his lunch to school when 97% of the kids buy, but then to show up with broccoli slaw, well, that is just SO UN-COOL! Now, when I pack his lunch in the AM, I normally aim for nutritionally balanced, not “coolness factor” balanced. This is where I have been getting it wrong. He tried to throw the slaw back into the fridge; I put it back in his lunch box. The container came home empty…anyone want to place bets on whether or not he actually ate it? My guess would be that once it showed up in plain view in his lunch box, he might as well have eaten it. Throwing it out at that point would have only served one purpose, to make me mad (and if I don’t know, how can I be mad?). Going hungry, or partially hungry is probably an option a 12-year old boy would choose over eating the broccoli slaw. So I brought this up to Aaron, who looked at me like I had 2 heads when I told him that I packed the broccoli slaw for Jon, and he couldn’t believe that I would pack it for him for school. He went on to say that I was calling attention to his already “different” needs, saying that it is bad enough he has to pack every day to eat safely, but then I had to throw in the good ole broccoli slaw on top of it. Okay, maybe the broccoli slaw was taking it a little too far. Who can blame a Mom for wanting to make sure her kids eat healthy? Apparently we will be sticking to applesauce or grapes for lunch and extra fruits & veggies at home for snacks and meals to make up for what he is missing at lunch. I do pack Lara Bars (they count as a fruit!), but he doesn’t always have room for one after his sandwich and other stuff. I make sure he has one every day in case he gets hungry, if he eats it, I replace it, if not it just stays in the lunchbox.

So, tomorrow, do I pack the roasted brussel sprouts or spinach salad for Jon for lunch? LOL! Just kidding.

No, I didn’t eat them together. 😉 Last week I had planned on making Chicken Tenders, but they got bumped from the menu for Sushi instead. So, tonight was Chicken Tender night. I made the best dessert that I found on the forum at www.celiac.com and slightly modified it. It ended up tasting just like a Kit Kat bar, but gluten-free.

Here is a picture of the chicken tenders with fried potatoes (leftover from last night’s breakfast for dinner) and broccoli and a salad. I probably could have baked the chicken a tad longer to get the tenders a little more golden, but we were hungry and the chicken was done inside.

Chicken Tenders
**Recipe Courtesy of my sister, Kelly. I think she got it from the Bisquick Box

3 chicken breasts (cut crosswise into ½ inch strips)

2/3 cup of Bisquick (or Pamela’s baking mix)

½ cup Parmesan cheese

½ tsp salt or garlic salt (I used garlic powder and then 1/2 tsp. salt)

½ tsp paprika

1 egg, slightly beaten

3 tbsp butter, melted (I used Pam sprayed on the chicken instead)

Heat oven to 450. Line cookie sheet with foil and spray with cooking spray. Mix Bisquick, cheese, salt and paprika in ziplock bag. Dip chicken in egg and then place in bag to coat. Arrange in single layer on cookie sheet and drizzle with butter (I sprayed butter-flavored Pam on it instead). Bake 12-14 minutes, turning over half way through. Chicken strips should be golden brown when finished. Serve with honey mustard and enjoy!

Honey Mustard
3-4 TBSP Helmann’s Canola Mayonnaise
1 TBSP Grey Poupon
1 tsp Spicy Brown Mustard
1/2 tsp yellow mustard
1 TBSP, maybe 2 TBSP Honey
Frank’s Red Hot to taste

I always play around with the amounts to my specific taste. This is a thicker honey mustard, perfect for dipping.

Now, the original recipe for these cereal type bars calls for either nuts, raisins, seeds, some healthier options than 2 cups of chocolate chips. Having the picky kids that I do, I didn’t have anything else (except GF Oats) on hand to throw in for this spur-of-the-moment recipe. So, I threw in 2 cups of chocolate chips. YUM!! So this is really more like a dessert/candy bar.

Chocolate Peanut Butter Cereal Kit Kat Bars

3 cups cereal (I used 2 cups Rice Chex (now GF) and 1 cup Corn Chex (Health Valley))
2 cups add-ins (seeds, raisins, nuts, chocolate chips, oats); I used 2 cups chocolate chips

1/2 cup corn syrup
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup white sugar
3/4 cup peanut butter (or other nut butter)
dash of vanilla

1. Mix cereal & add-ins in a large bowl. Line cookie sheet with foil and spray with Pam.
2. Heat corn syrup and sugars in a pan over medium heat until sugar has dissolved completely. Be careful not to burn.
3. Remove from heat and add peanut butter and vanilla until melted and smooth.
4. Pour peanut butter mixture into cereal & add-ins and mix well.
5. Press into pan/cookie sheet and let cool.
6. Cut into bars/squares.
7. Enjoy!!

**My cookie sheet was way too big, so I only used part of it. You could also double the recipe to make more.

Cut into squares to store:

What a wonderful end to a great dinner! Thank goodness we saved calories by baking those chicken fingers instead of frying them, because we just made up for them with the dessert!

When you think of Memorial Day, Fourth of July or Labor Day meals, you probably think of some kind of food cooked on the grill. Burgers, brats, ribs, chicken, kebobs, something along those lines. We have done a lot of that over the summer, so I opted for Breakfast for Dinner for our Labor Day meal. My kids love when we have breakfast for dinner. So do I, for that matter. I don’t know why, but breakfast tastes so much better when you eat it for dinner, you know exactly what I mean, admit it! Maybe it is because I don’t eat eggs, bacon, potatoes, pancakes, etc for my daily breakfast. I eat brown rice cakes with PB & J and fresh fruit usually. So on tonight’s menu I had bacon, fried potatoes, toast, omelets, fresh fruit and a surprise for my Jon-Jon and Hannah (really more for Jon-Jon, Hannah was just along for the ride since she isn’t restricted to a gluten-free diet). I had some Pamela’s Wheat Free Bread in the fridge and I decided to surprise Jon and make him Gluten-free French Toast with it! I had never made it GF before, but I figured it couldn’t be all that different from making it with gluten-filled bread. Here is the way I did it:

Gluten-Free French Toast

2 eggs, lightly beaten
Dash of 1% low-fat milk
Dash of cinnamon or nutmeg, your preference
2 pieces GF bread (I used Pamela’s Amazing Wheat Free)
Powdered Sugar
Syrup (We use Aunt Jemima)

1. Dip bread into egg mixture.
2. Place bread in heated frying pan or griddle over medium heat.
3. Cook 3-5 minutes per side (check to make sure you aren’t burning it….it should get nice & brown)
4. Remove from pan and top with powdered sugar & syrup.

Picture of the GF French Toast (before the syrup and after the powdered sugar)

Jon was very surprised and said that he didn’t like it, he LOVED it!!! He wants it every day for breakfast now. (What the heck was I thinking? I just made more work for myself every morning?!?) He had some bacon and fried potatoes along with his new-found breakfast for dinner love.

I did make Hannah some French Toast too, but I did hers after Jon’s and used regular bread for her. She saved one of her pieces for breakfast tomorrow. She voted Mommy’s French Toast better than her frozen Eggo Waffle French Toast Sticks (what an honor 😉 ).

I had a spinach, bacon & mushroom omelet, toast & butter (Pamela’s), fried potatoes, 1 slice of bacon and some Edy’s Dibs (oops….I missed out on my fruit b/c the darn Edy’s Dibs were calling my name!). On a side note, love that the Dibs are GF. I love the chocolate covered chocolate. They are only 15 calories each, serving size is 28!!!!! HEL-LO!!! I just like to eat a few at a time for a sweet treat.

Mexican Pizzas are a quick go-to dinner for me. I end up making these on nights when we have lots going on…meetings at school, hockey practice, swimming lessons, etc. I can get these ready in a matter of 30 minutes or less (not counting the rice, you can make this earlier and reheat). I usually prefer to use ground turkey for the meat, but occasionally will use ground beef if the ground turkey isn’t on sale. The rice is based on a recipe that my Mom used to make when I was a child. I have modified it a bit for us b/c my stomach can’t tolerate onions.

Mexican Rice

1 cup brown basmati or jasmine rice
2-3 tsp EVOO
3 cloves garlic
1/2 onion (I omit this b/c I can’t eat them)
1 large tomato
chicken broth
cumin
chili powder
red hot
salt
pepper

1. Drop tomato into boiling water for 60 seconds. Remove tomato from water and then remove the skin. Careful not to burn yourself as I have done too many times when I am in a hurry. 😉
2. Chop tomato, peel garlic, chop onion and place all ingredients in a food processor/blender. Puree until everything is liquid. Add cumin (about 1 tsp), chili powder (1/2 – 1 tsp), red hot (I like a lot, but use your own judgement), S & P. Blend.
3. Place EVOO and rice in a 2 qt. sauce pan and warm over med to med-high heat. Brown rice, but don’t burn it.
4. Dump tomato mixture into a glass measuring cup and then add chicken broth to equal 2 cups of liquid. Dump your 2 cups of liquid into the rice; stir and bring to a boil.
5. Stir and reduce heat to simmer for 40-50 minutes, depending on what kind of rice you are using.
6. Remove from heat and let stand for 10 minutes. Fluff with a fork & serve.

You can either now serve this or put away in the fridge and then reheat for dinner.

Mexican Pizzas

1 lb. ground beef or turkey
Packet of Taco Seasoning (I use the bulk Ortega)
1-2 cans of refried beans (I used La Preferida)
Tostada shells (I use Ortega)
Cheddar Cheese
Lettuce
Tomato
Taco Sauce
Salsa
Sour Cream
Any other toppings you would like

1. Brown ground meat in a pan. Add taco seasoning.
2. Preheat oven to 350.
3. Warm beans in a pan on the stove or in micro.
4. Heat tostadas on a cookie sheet in the oven for 3-5 minutes or until hot.
5. Top shells with beans, meat & cheese.
6. Return to oven until cheese is all melted and bubbly.
7. Top with favorite toppings and serve!

Here are some pictures of our meal. Jon likes to drown his in taco sauce (Ortega Mild). I prefer to top mine with lettuce & tomato and Frank’s Red Hot). **Seems Jon added some extra beans to his plate as well. 😉

This is one of the kids favorite meals and is super easy to make.

This past week we were pretty good and only abandoned my menu plan and went out to eat 1 night and that was last night for sushi. YUM!! It was a great dinner. We went to Molly Woo’s again. The food took forever to come out, so the manager came over with a couple of bowls of soup, one wonton, one miso something or other. I thanked him and let him know that while I appreciated the token of appreciation for our patience, we could not eat the soup because we had to eat gluten-free. He said “Oh, you have Celiac, okay.” First, I was shocked that he put 2 & 2 together; I had just said “gluten-free” and he said “Celiac”. Then he offered to buy us dessert on the house. Again, I said I didn’t think there was anything we could have. He suggested the lemon sorbet, I suggested that they could buy me a glass of Pinot Noir and call it even. 😉 It was a nice dinner.

So this week’s menu. Nothing too complicated this week. I have a busy week watching kids (2 others, age 13 months and 17 months, in addition to my own). I am starting to pull out some of my fall cooking recipes & dinner plans now that we are going into September. Time to start making pumpkin bread, pumpkin cookies, pumpkin pie….can you tell I love pumpkin??? The baking extravaganza will begin over the next few weeks. I will make sure to share recipes. On to the menu for this week:

Sunday ~ Homemade pizza (see below for recipe/method I use) and broccoli slaw (see recipe below). Take home Cold Stone quarts (Peanut Butter Perfection and Shock-A-Cone (not GF)).

Monday ~ Breakfast for dinner ~ omelets & scrambled eggs, bacon, fried potatoes, toast (Pamela’s bread) & fresh fruit

Tuesday ~ Chicken Tenders (from last week that got bumped), sweet potato fries and steamed broccoli

Wednesday ~ Cheeseburger In Paradise after ice skating lessons.

Thursday ~ Marinated Spicy Pork Chops (recipe & pics to follow later in the week), steamed brown rice and green beans.

Friday ~ Crockpot Pot Roast with potatoes & carrots (a fall favorite).

Saturday ~ Burgers on the grill topped with cheese on lettuce buns, baked potatoes & salad.

Here is what I do for my pizza. I follow the recipe on the side of Pamela’s Wheat Free Bread Mix for the pizza crust. I add in basil & oregano to the dough. I dust the pans with cornmeal. After the dough rises for an hour, I brush with EVOO and bake for 10 minutes. Then I top with Prego 3 Cheese Marinara Sauce, mozzerella, Hormel Turkey Pepperoni. I topped mine with some veggies too…tomatoes, spinach, mushrooms. Sometimes I will add zucchini or peppers too. I then baked for another 15-20 minutes. YUM!!! The kids raved about it!! Here are some pics:

Before of the pepperoni & veggie:

Before of the cheese:

After of the pepperoni & veggie:

After of the cheese:

Here is my plate, with the broccoli slaw (recipe to follow):

Broccoli Slaw

1 Bag of Broccoli Slaw (found in produce section)
1/2 cup mayonnaise (I use Helman’s Canola, it is half the fat & calories of normal mayo)
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/2 TBSP white vinegar

Mix all ingedients together and then chill for an hour or so before serving. The kids loved this!! I expected them to complain and reject it immediately, but they didn’t. Must have been the sugar in the dressing!

Just wanted to throw in a “Thank you” to Cheryl at GF Goodness for hosting this week’s menu swap. Lots of great ideas using peppers this week! The cashew cake looks especially yummy!

There are a couple reasons for “WOO HOOS” this AM. First, I woke up to an email from a friend from an ebay forum/group that I belong to who offered to send me some much needed Book Sox!!! She keeps them (what a novel idea…must share that with Jon) and has a couple unused ones as well. That makes me smile and breathe a huge sigh of relief. Thanks Wendi, you ROCK!!

Second “WOOO HOOOO”…whatever was bothering my stomach yesterday has seemed to have gone away. At first I thought I had inadverantly come across some gluten. Then I thought that maybe it was the new Enjoy Life Cinnamon Granola that I had been eating (which, BTW, is awesome) or the Mary’s Gone Crackers that I had tried (also amazing). But I had neither of those things yesterday and stuck to my normal diet and everytime I ate my stomach just ached. I laid down late afternoon and started to feel a little better, to the point I was actually hungry. So, I ate dinner. Bad idea. My stomach was killing me by the time I was done. It was weird. I wasn’t nauseated, no intestinal stuff, just pain in my stomach. I remember feeling like this one other time about 7 or 8 years ago and whatever it was took me a week to get over. I literally had to eat so slowly that it took me over an hour to eat a half of a sandwich. I ended up going to bed very early (around 8:00 PM) and slept fairly well. I got up and didn’t feel too bad. I grabbed a Lara Bar to eat before I hit the gym and ate it very slowly. I had a great work out and have now eaten breakfast too and I feel great! Phew!!! So, hopefully, whatever it was, virus, gluten, who knows, it is gone!

Back to the Enjoy Life Granola for a moment. I bought this the other day b/c it was on sale and I wanted something new to top my GF Oatmeal or just snack on. This stuff is really good! It doesn’t have any oats in it at all. The list of ingredients are as follows:

Brown Rice Flakes; Rice Bran; Evaporated Cane Juice; Brown Rice Syrup; Raisins*; Water; Tapioca Flour; Cinnamon; Gum Arabic; Vanilla; Molasses; Ground Flaxseed; Rosemary Extract.

Jon likes the granola as well, though you can’t get the raisins past him! LOL! He picks those out, but eats the rest. This stuff would be really good on top of vanilla ice cream or yogurt, too. 🙂 So, if you have been thinking about trying this stuff, the Cinnamon Crunch is good. I have yet to try the others. I may give them a try, but don’t see Jon doing the Cranapple or Very Berry. If he won’t eat raisins, I don’t see him eating the dried berries.

Off to the movies today. I am taking Hannah to see Mamma Mia and Jon and his friend will go see something more “manly”.

I am in school supply he!! today. I think I mentioned before that we got info at the end of last year to purchase a school supply kit for the upcoming school year. We opted to do this as it was supposed to include everything that your student would need. If anything was missing, supplemental supply kits would be available or you could purchase items at the school store. I have used this option in the past and it worked very nicely and kept me from running around to 10 stores like a chicken with my head cut off trying to find the right size Post-It note pad. So we picked up Jon’s supplies the week before school started. I checked the supplemental supply list for his specific team in school and purchased the few supplies that he needed according to the list. There was a school store set up at orientation, so this worked out nicely. So the initial kit was $47. The supplemental supplies were $18. The TI-84 calculator that I bought the other day (note: this was not on the school supply list anywhere) was $80 after rebates. Now Jon comes home and says he needs red pens and book covers (you know those fabric ones that stretch and are called Book Sox). Red pens, no biggie, have some in the drawer. Book Sox, big deal. They are sold out everywhere. Staples did have some left that had skulls & roses all over them, that won’t fly with Jon. They won’t be getting any more in. Looked at Wal-mart, nothing. All sold out. School store, sold out. So last night I decided to just get them online. I was wasting lots of very expensive gasoline driving to every store in our area that would possibly carry Book Sox. I found them online (and in-stock) at Staples.com. $3.99/each. No biggie, I will be done with this ridiculous, time consuming search. I put 3 of them into my cart, then proceed to checkout. I stopped and almost choked on my water when I saw that they wanted to charge me $9.95 to ship 3 Book Sox, that couldn’t come close to weighing a pound even dripping wet!! UGH!!! I desperately searched their site for a website to store option, usually free (at least it is at Wal-mart). No such luck. So, here I sit this morning, still sockless. Aaron says that he will just make Jon’s book covers out of paper bags. That is what we always did. Then we could write all over them and if they ripped, you just made new ones. I am all for that, even have the paper bags in my pantry. However, not sure that Jon is down with that. Is he going to be the only one in school with paper bag book covers? Will he get beat up because his book covers are made from bags that carry our groceries home? Or, do I go back to Staples and get the Book Sox with skulls and roses all over them? Which do you think Jon will choose?

I hope this is the end of unexpected school supplies. Curriculum night was held last night at Jon’s school and I overheard many parents complaining of the additional supply requests that were coming home daily. You would think that the school store would continue to stock these items that the teachers are requesting, but Jon insists there are no book covers/Book Sox there. I think he enjoys seeing me run around in circles.

If you ask someone who follows a gluten-free diet what their definition of gluten-free heaven is, you are likely to get a response that involves a bread/bakery product of some sort. My idea of gluten-free heaven is a bagel like the ones I remember from my pre-gluten-free days. Like the ones you get from Panera Bread…the harder outside “skin” and soft, chewy inside. If you have ever eaten a gluten-free bagel, you know that they are no where close to the “real” thing. I though I had found a pretty good bagel in the Kinnikinnick frozen bagels. They weren’t the “real” thing, but they passed b/c I didn’t really have much other choice. I used them mostly for tuna melts, open-faced. Then all of a sudden I couldn’t find them anymore and I had heard there were production issues. When they reappeared in stores, they had changed…the taste & texture was different and it wasn’t for the better. I was very disappointed. So, I remembered seeing a recipe for bagels on my trusty Pamela’s Amazing Wheat Free Bread Mix bag. It didn’t look too difficult, so I decided to give it a try. I made a few modifications, added brushed egg white to the tops of the bagels after boiling and before baking and I sprinkled sea salt on a few after the egg whites. I was hoping for a hot soft pretzel effect. I can’t even begin to tell you how fantastic these turned out. My bagel was like a big, round hot soft pretzel bagel. I had tears in my eyes. OMG…..BAGELS!!!!! This is what has been missing since I went GF. The taste, the texture. Oh. My. God. I can’t believe that I only ate one. I let the rest cool and then I froze them so that all of their yumminess would be preserved. Now, the dough is a little sticky. I had to oil my hands to shape the dough, but a few minutes of messy hands is SO worth it for the end result.

Before boiling/baking:

After coming out of the oven:

Made into a sandwich with turkey, swiss, dijon mustard & lettuce:


Bagels*Recipe courtesy of Pamela’s Wheat-Free Bread Mix Bag

1 bag Pamela’s Bread Mix
1 yeast packet (enclosed)
1 1/3 cups warm water
1/4 cup oil

Yield: Approximately 7 bagels

1. Combine dry mix, yeast packet, oil & water. (no eggs are used).
2. Mix on medium for 3 minutes.
3. Use 1/2 cup dough for each bagel. Oil hands and place on a greased baking sheet in the form of a bagel (don’t worry about the hole now, we will get to that later).
4. Let dough rise for 1 hour, then poke hole in the center of each bagel. (I took a wooden spoon and sprayed the handle with Pam and then used that to poke my holes).
5. In boiling water, boil bagels for 25 seconds.
6. Remove with slotted spoon and place on greased baking sheet. Brush with egg whites and top with sea salt, sesame seeds, poppy seeds, etc if you choose.
7. Bake in preheated 400 degree oven for 20 -25 minutes. (I baked for 23 minutes).

ENJOY!!!! Truly, gluten-free heaven.

Oh, and another bonus recipe. The dish pictured with my sandwich is an eggplant parmesan of sorts. I had some tomatoes that I needed to use, so I made a simple marinara and then made this recipe:

Easy Eggplant Parmesan

1 medium eggplant
1 medium zucchini
Mozzerella Cheese
Paremsan Cheese
Marinara Sauce (I used homemade today, but have used Prego 3 Cheese in the past)

1. Preheat oven to 400.
2. Slice eggplant & zuccini.
3. Spread sauce in the bottom of a glass pyrex dish. Start to layer eggplant & zucchini and cheeses with sauce. Repeat until ingredients are gone.
4. Bake at least 30 minutes. Test the eggplant with a fork, it should be soft. Broil for a couple minutes to brown up the top.

**I have seen a variation of this recipe with ricotta cheese too. That would make it more a meal, suitable for vegetarians.

Last week I posted about a little boy who is very sick. Collin has made some great improvement in the past week with his treatment, thankfully. We continue to pray for Collin. You can see the latest update that his Mom has posted by going to this link: Collin’s Page.