Chinese "Takeout" Gluten Free and Guilt Free

When I was thinking about what I wanted to make for Playoff food tonight I wanted something different. Typically we'd go the "bar food" route, but when I saw a recipe for Fried Rice on Pinterest I knew.

CHINESE!

One of Trevor's favorite places to go out to eat is Egg Roll King. It's cheap, its yummy and they give you A LOT of food. We tried going there once after we discovered Trevor needed to change to a gluten free lifestyle and while I thought it was still great, I think he felt it wasn't the same anymore. They cooked his favorite, orange chicken, for us using corn starch instead of flour to make it gf. However we usually go for the noodles with it and those don't have a substitution. 

I felt like these recipes would require a lot more work than normal, but really it was SO SIMPLE, yes, probably even for the not so kitchen friendly. I also thought I'm never going to get it to LOOK like actual Chinese food, but I did and if I do say myself it looked MORE appetizing. I started to prep at around 7pm and by 7:45 it was being devoured. :-)

 
 The "Fried" Rice Recipe went like this:

(and yes, I cheated, 90 second rice baby. I don't know about you but 30 minutes to cook rice? I don't have the time, or patience. So get over yourself...)

2 Packages Uncle Bens white rice (the 90 sec micro pacs)
1 small bag Market Pantry Mixed veggies (I removed the beans)
2 eggs
4 Tbsp GF Soy Sauce 
1 drizzle Sesame Oil (not necessary but I think it added something)

Heat sesame Oil in pan. add frozen veggies and cook until warm. Crack in two eggs, mix quickly as you'll want to break up the egg into small pieces. Once cooked, add the rice. Toss with soy sauce and drizzle sesame oil to finish.

Gluten Free Orange Chicken:

2 Packages Chicken Breast Tenders (I used Bare chicken, there's really no comparison)
1 Cup Gluten Free Flour
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp pepper
juice of 3-4 Oranges
2 Tbsp Balsamic Vinegar
4 Tbsp Ketchup
4 Tbsp Brown sugar

Cut the chicken into cubes. I cut them into all sorts of shapes and sizes to try and make it look more like the takeout chicken. Mix together flour, salt and pepper. Toss chicken in bowl and coat with flour.  Brown chicken in a skillet with oil, I would imagine vegetable oil is normally used but all I had is EVOO, so that's what I used. 4 minutes on each side, at least, I like to cook mine a little more just to be sure it's cooked. 

While chicken is browning, mix together orange juice, vinegar, ketchup and brown sugar. 

Once chicken is done add wet mixture to chicken, be careful as you put it into the skillet because it WILL splatter. Simmer for no more than 3 minutes as the sauce thickens quick. Remove from heat and Enjoy!

Happy Cooking! :-)

One step, two step, three step, PREP!

I know I've talked about how much I love to pre-pack, mainly on Sundays when I have the time. Not only does it make it easy to just grab and go but it saves you money not picking something up on a daily basis at the store on your way to work! I like a lot of variety with what I refer to as my snack packs. I try to make sure I balance what I put in them as well: fruits, veggies, protein etc. Joining the gluten free lifestyle has made this a little more tricky for me to come up with different ideas. I often bring several things on Mondays to work because I'm not always in the mood to eat what I've packed....

"its freezing outside and I have a cold sandwich??"
"its so hot outside and all I have is soup!"

That used to happen to me a lot.
Like A LOT A LOT.
Not anymore!

One of my favorite things I missed changing over to gluten free is mini quesadillas. Thankfully I finally got smart and remembered we can eat the soft corn tortillas! Horray!
So I made the following snack packs to finish up the rest of the work week for me and my honey: yum yum!

Each snack pack has either fruit, veggies or both to accompany the "main dish."

I made two with 

*Pizzadillas (Colby Jack cheese and turkey pepperoni)
*Chicken Bacon Quesadillas (Rotisserie chicken, bacon bits, spinach, gouda and hot sauce)

Hopefully this will give you a few more ideas of what to put in your snack packs!
 

Happy Prepping!! :-)

Just call me Emilia: Pablano Pasole gets a serious OLE!

I was looking to do some authentic mexican cooking as I love to play around with food from different cultures and well, Mexican is probably mi favorito! ;-) (see what I did there?)

I had never eaten hominy but had heard the word before, never broiled the skin off a pepper or seen an actual tomatillo. So while at first I was overwhelmed, the end result was simpler than I thought and BOY WAS IT WORTH IT!

I followed Rachael Ray's recipe found here:

http://www.rachaelray.com/recipe.php?recipe_id=5385

I most definitely topped with fresh avocado (which Trev hates but LOVED with this)
and light sour cream.

It's so hard to even describe the flavor, besides the fact that there are so many textures going on with the hominy and avocado, the lime alerts your tastebuds, the cilantro kicks it up a notch and the smooth avocado just melts in your mouth. 

Feliz Cocina! 
:-)

Squash is the new Noodle!

This was the second spaghetti squash recipe I tried and YUM YUM YUM!
Seriously if you've never tried squash, YOU MUST.
Squash is the PERFECT substitute to kick the carbs and make this a gluten free meal!

Lasagna Style Spaghetti Squash 

Ingredients:
1 spaghetti squash
1 lb Italian sausage or any choice of meat (I used ground turkey)
2 cups of your favorite pasta sauce
2 tablespoons fresh basil
½ cup ricotta cheese
½ cup shredded mozzarella cheese (plus extra for topping)
Olive oil or coconut oil
salt & pepper

Roasting the squash
Pre-heat oven to 400 degrees. Wash spaghetti squash, cut off stem and slice squash lengthwise. Scoop out the seeds and gunk. (save the seeds and roast them!) Brush with oil, season with salt and pepper, and place in baking dish (9×13 works well) with a little water in the bottom of the dish — as the squash cooks, you can add more water if it dries up. Roast for 45-60 minutes, depending on squash size, or until inside is soft and easily “fluffs” with a fork. It will look like very tiny spaghetti noodles… hence the name, cool huh?

While squash is roasting, brown Italian sausage in large skillet over medium heat. Remove sausage from the pan drain and set aside.
Add sauce to the pan and simmer. Add the sausage back into the sauce.

In a bowl, combine the ricotta, mozzarella, and fresh basil, set aside.

When squash is tender, remove from oven and using a fork, scoop, fluff, flake, scrape, whatever you’d like to call it, to get the inside of the squash to look like spaghetti noodles. You don’t have to get at ALL of the squash, you can scoop more later when you get to the bottom after it’s been filled and you’re enjoying it for dinner.

Now we FILL THEM! Start with a scoop of the red sauce, followed by a layer of the cheese mixture, (you can add extra mozzarella on each layer too!) and repeat the layers until you’ve over filled your squash, ending with a layer of red sauce and then topping them with mozzarella. Totally over fill these suckers.

Turn the oven to broil and put them back in to brown up the cheesy top. Enjoy!

This recipe is SO filling, makes great leftovers and you won't feel guilty about gobbling it up :-)


HAPPY COOKING! :-)

Pinterest: it's whats for dinner (and dessert!)

For dinner tonight I decided to try out some Pinterest recipes, made some adaptations for taste and to make it all gluten free.

For dinner I made Cafe Rio Chicken

There are several things that make this recipe easy:
*very few ingredients 
*Crockpot

The recipe is as follows:
2 lbs chicken
1/2 small bottle zesty italian dressing
1 pkt hidden valley ranch dip mix (I used my homemade gf ranch)
2 teaspoons cumin
2 teaspoons chili powder (I used homemade gf taco seasoning)
Pepper to taste
1/2 cup water

Throw all ingredients and cook on low for 8 hours
or high for 4-6 hours. I always think the longer you cook the better. I shredded the chicken and laid it over a bed of Archer Farms Southwestern Quinoa.

350 calories for a cup of the chicken and a serving of the Quinoa. 

 To finish up a yummy food day I made Glazed Orange Bars

This is where all the work you did on making dinner healthy goes pfft.
But it was delicious and totally worth it!

Here's Where I found the recipe and only had to switch out the flour for gf flour to make it edible for my dear heart....

 http://www.butterwithasideofbread.com/2013/03/glazed-orange-bars.html

Happy Cooking! 
:-)

 
 

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:-)