Catching Up

This last week was a bit crazy and not a lot of recipe cooking at home. Lots of open and eat style meals mean fewer dishes and happier kids sooner. I managed another new dish last week and one today and will post those shortly. I am also trying to start taking some pictures of the food so you can get an idea before you try it. Thanks for all the comments and emails. It appears Anna Kate has gained between three and four pounds in the last three weeks. This is a great sign. Her demeanor is also greatly improved. Lots of singing, dancing and laughing! We appreciate everyone's support and hope you will keep reading.
Without further delay, the recipe.

Alaskan Medley with Aromatic Rice

To start this post, let me do a Public Service Announcement for rice cookers. If you don't have one, get one! 

After you have a rice cooker, we can begin. (Ok, you can do it the old fashioned way but the recipe won't read that way.

What you will need:

1lb of fresh asparagus, small stalks

8 oz of sliced fresh mushrooms, buttons are fine

1 lb peeled, deveined shrimp, tails removed

1 tb finely chopped garlic

4  6oz salmon fillets

1 tb oregano

1 tb chopped basil

2 cups basmati rice

2 cups water

1/4 stick unsalted butter

2 tb extra virgin olive oil

And yes, this is, as always, Gluten Free!

For the easy part, pour your water, rice, oregano and basil into the rice cooker and start it. The rice will be done when everything else finishes (About 15-20 minutes) Wasn't that easy!

Ok next you need to stem the asparagus. Use the forefinger-thumb pull down method I explained a couple of recipes back. Usually I will blanch the asparagus but with the addition of the butter and mushrooms I feel it isn't needed with the smaller stemmed asparagus for this application. Put a pan over medium heat and add the butter, mushrooms, asparagus, garlic and shrimp. Stir until the butter is melted and then reduce to medium low (3 out of 10) and cover for ten minutes. 

Start another pan for your salmon over medium heat. As the pan gets hot, add the oil and wait thirty seconds. DO NOT put it over high heat. EVOO has a low smoke point and high heat will blacken it quickly. Add the salmon and season with lemon pepper or sea salt and fresh cracked black peppercorns. Your choice. You will need 5 minutes on each side. As soon as you reach this point, everything is just about done. Give the veggies and rice one final stir and plate it to harvest some smiles. 

Coming next week is : Chicken Soup Chicken on a Plate.

Kroger and Seafood Portabella Pasta

In Houston the landscapes are littered with grocery stores known as Kroger. These are the most wonderful stores in the world. Not only did I finally find the rice paper I've been looking for but I found some good stuff for dinner tonight. It went over well and Anna Kate, even though gorged on her Annie's 99 cent mac and cheese (Gluten Free of course!), decided she needed some of the grown up food. Twice! As usual I will share but before I do, if you haven't had Shaggy Dog Sushi, you should. Very, very good roll. Drum roll..........................

Seafood Portabella Pasta in Butter Lemon Sauce
And as always, Gluten Free!

What I used:
12.5 oz mei fun rice noodles
8 tbs unsalted butter
12 oz presliced, prewashed portabella mushrooms
16 oz of shelled, deveined raw shrimp (frozen)
1 bundle of small stalk asparagus
2 large lemons

A note on the asparagus: I always try to choose smaller stalk asparagus. I think it cooks more evenly and has a less barky finish. Spell check says barky isn't a word but spell check isn't a cook so I will continue. I don't cut the stems; I break them. Let the spear tell you where it needs to be separated. If you put thumb and forefinger from one hand near the spear and the same from your opposite hand near the end and try to bring your thumbs together, it will break at the proper place. You may have known this but you would be surprised how many people don't know how to hull an avocado too. Just my two cents.
On to the food.

You need to start two pots of water boiling. 4 quarts in each should be plenty. While these are heating up, start melting 4 tbs of butter in each of two large saute pans. Medium heat should be fine for both. After half of the butter is melted in pan number one, add the shrimp and keep it on medium heat. Your water should be boiling now. Add the asparagus to one pot and the mei fun to the other. Keep an eye on the mei fun. Quickly add the mushrooms to pan number two. After two minutes the mei fun is done so drain, rinse and set aside for later. Slice one of the lemons in half and strain out the seeds while squeezing both halves over the shrimp in pan one.
The asparagus is properly blanched by this time and needs some love. Pluck it out of the water and add it to the mushrooms. Give pan two a toss with your tongs and repeat the lemon process over this pan. Allow both pans to cook an additional six minutes and check for tenderness. Bendy but not floppy asparagus and juicy portabellas tell you they are done. Pour the ENTIRE contents of this pan into the shrimp pan and toss again. Go rescue the mei fun. It's begging to get into the game. Put it into the now empty pan two over high heat and allow the noodles to warm. This will start the absorption process again. Once the noodles are sizzling well (30 seconds to a minute depending on how well you drained them), add the entire contents of pan one to pan two and toss for the third and final time. Add a pinch of salt and pepper to taste and voila!
(On another side note, if serving more than two people, I will cut the asparagus in half before it goes into the pan. It will distribute more evenly that way.) As always, this dish is, you guessed it, Gluten Free!

Out of Town

While at home, Gluten Free is attainable. While visiting family out of town, it may be harder. This could mean having to visit a grocery store every time we arrive at a new destination. Oh the joys of travel. I'll be joining Emily and the kids in Houston on Friday so I haven't been cooking for them. Not a whole lot to post as of yet but maybe after the weekend. Thanks for stopping in. This post is 100% Gluten Free.

Mac and Cheese is a Breeze!

As kids do, they ultimately want their comfort foods and this weekend was no exception. Zeke has been missing his mac and cheese but the Gluten Free mac and cheese is $4 a box. No thanks. Emily found a box of Annie's Gluten Free Rice Pasta in fun shapes for the kids for about $2 and I figured I could probably do the rest. Cheese sauce in dry form is kinda gross anyway. So without further delay, the recipe that my kids ate and finished over two meals and were asking for more:

Gluten Free Mac and Cheese (sans dry packet cheese)
And as always, Gluten Free!

I used:

12oz of Annie's Gluten Free Rice Pasta (fun kid shapes)
4 oz of Velveeta (Thank the Lord it's GF)
4 oz of whole milk

This recipe is really easy! First bring 4 qts of water to a boil. Then pour in the pasta and leave it uncovered at a boil for 8 minutes. While you are waiting on the timer to ding, cube up your 4 oz of Velveeta, pour your milk into a cup or saucer. Make sure you watch the water. This rice pasta likes to bubble up as the starches start to release. What's that ding? Your pasta is ready. Drain off the water, put it back on the burner at a medium heat and toss in the Velveeta and milk. Continuously stir until cheese is no longer in cube form. The final product will look a little more white than normal mac and cheese but that is because we have reduced the cheese input by at least half. Too much cheese can be bad for a digestive system with issues. Serve it up hot and watch it disappear!
This dish microwave reheats pretty well too.
I bought the smaller block of Velveeta and already had the milk so total cost of this outing was $3.79 for two meals for two kids. Next time, since I still have Velveeta, it will be closer to $2 for two kids for two meals. 50 cents is cheap and smiles are priceless.
$4 for 6 oz mac and cheese. I'll pass. So will the kids. ;-)

On a side note, I was out last night and Emily imagined up some Gluten Free Spaghetti with Grilled Chicken which was apparently a great hit. I'll have to get the ins and outs and post up because there was little to be found last night and I didn't hear a peep about a bedtime snack.

Thanks for all the support and well wishes.

Polenta Needs Help

Tonight we didn't have much time for dinner between soccer and life group so I just through together some Jennie-O Lean Turkey sausage with some polenta and vegetable medley (including asparagus, yellow squash, green bell pepper and white onion.) Vegetables are generally good and these turned out well. The turkey I seasoned with some Annie's Gluten Free Ketchup and Chicago Steak Seasoning (helps the kids eat it). That turned out fine. Zeke ate most of it. Polenta. I need a new paragraph.
Let me start out by saying I have had good polenta. Tavern at the Park in Chicago serves a Lamb Shank on a corn polenta portion that is the size of a small pizza. That was delicious. The trick was, the lamb was saturating the polenta, thus adding flavor. Unfortunately this was a hindsight observation for me today. I used corn polenta from a package that was heat and eat ready so with the help of a little spray butter and my trusty sautee pan, I did just that. I should have just poured corn meal straight in my mouth. Boo! This new foray was a floundering failure. Next time, juicing it up. I should have known when they said to treat it like tofu or pasta noodles that it was going to need help. Oh well. Lesson learned. But it least it was all gluten free!

Tuesday and Wednesday: Some New Info Arises

Tuesday was fairly uneventful and Emily fixed eggs for herself and Anna Kate. Zeke and I were away at a campsite with some friends enjoying campfire hot dogs and marshmallows. Don't tell AK!
Wednesday was church meal so we had to pack a dinner for her of  Mum-Mums, cheese and oranges. How she loves her oranges.
We met with the nutritionist on Wednesday and feel better after getting comprehensive lists and books to read. Dr J also stopped by and chatted with us about a care plan for the next few years with testing every 6 months. Unfortunately they don't make a Celiac meter or monitor like with Diabetes for checking levels so blood draws it is. Great fun! Hopefully more tonight as we will need to cook again and see how the new food goes over. Maybe salmon on the menu tonight. We'll see.

Manic Monday

We made it through our first day of back to school Gluten Free. Anna Kate's new lunch box, which resembles a construction workers lunch pail but much cuter, was stocked better than HEB. She had breakfast, snacks, lunch, more snacks and who knows what else. Only one meal to cook tonight and the kids were so-so on it. I rather enjoyed it but it was more suited to my pallet I suppose. Emily hasn't made it home to try it yet.

For Dinner:
Chicken a la Chicken with Vegetable Medley and Rice
And yes, it's Gluten Free!

What I used:

20 oz of chicken breast strips, fresh, not frozen
4 oz of Pacific Foods Free Range Organic Chicken Broth
8 oz of water
2 tbs of EVOO
8 oz of White Minute Rice
2 yellow squash
1 medium white onion
8 oz sliced fresh mushrooms
sea salt and dried cilantro to taste

OK, you know the drill. Start the 8 oz of water boiling. Put the oil in the sautee pan after it reaches a medium heat. About the time you add the oil, the water is boiling. Add the rice, remove from heat and cover. That part is done. Easy, right? Now the oil is ready. Put all your chicken in the sautee pan and season with cilantro and sea salt. Cook for 4 minutes on each side or until the middle of the thickest strip is 170 degrees. That's Fahrenheit. Celsius would be a bit ridiculous. While you are waiting on the chicken to cook, rough chop your veggies and wait for the chicken to be done. As soon as that happens, put all the veggies in with the chicken. Cook for two minutes and then the magic happens. Add the chicken stock, a little more sea salt, reduce to a low heat and cover for 10 minutes. After the time has elapsed, everything is ready. Take off the lids, give one final stir and serve chicken and vegetables on top of the rice and don't forget to ladle some of the extra goodness in to the bowl to soak into the rice.

I continue to meet and hear of people who are living Gluten Free lives and I appreciate all the stories and well wishes. Compared to what we were faced with, this is definitely a blessing.