Potato Salad

I love potato salad and it's one of the first foods I crave when warmer weather starts to tease us about the upcoming spring. I didn't have my GFCF shopping guide book with me when I stopped at the grocery store for some new potatoes and salad dressing to make some, so I wasn't sure what kind we could use. Then I found this in the refrigerated gluten free / health food section of the store...

Vegenaise. It's made from grapeseed oil and the label ingredients all appeared to be gluten and casein free. (I'm still learning what to watch for!) It was expensive but I was craving potato salad so I talked myself into buying it. (I can't decide if I should view that as a strength- that I am so persuasive...or as a weakness- that I can be so easily talked into things.)
I quartered and boiled the new potatoes and then cooled them. I put a few scoops of Vegenaise into a bowl and added a few tablespoons of coconut milk, some salt, pepper, mustard, vinegar, green onions, and a little sugar. I mixed it all up with the newbie tators and topped it off with some sprinklings of dried herbs.

Oh my heavens. It's delicious!

We'll have this tonight with Bean's request...homemade onion rings (dipped in gluten free waffle batter that I'll make a mix for today), steamed carrots and hamburgers. I haven't figured out what we'll put the burgers on as I may not have time to make buns, but we'll figure something out. I'll probably just eat potato salad anyway!

Pardon the drool.

The yellow meal and dessert

I didn't plan tonight's supper well color-wise. The yellow meal. It was good though.

Left to right: Quinoa (pronounced Keen-wah, although Venti just called it bird seed) prepared with this recipe, squash, grapes and baked chicken tenders (dipped in coconut milk and coated with crushed corn chips).

For a special treat for the kids we made GFCF ice cream sandwiches with So Delicious vanilla "ice cream" and the chocolate chip cookies I made and froze earlier this week. The "ice cream" is expensive so we thought a few spoonfuls between cookies was a better plan than dishing up a bowl.
The kids said they were great!

School lunches and the Valentines party

Java and Bean will be taking their lunches to school from now on. It's a bit of an adjustment because they typically ate school lunches. In fact, Java cried when she got home yesterday because she couldn't have the Chicken O's that the hot lunch kids had. (In case you haven't had the culinary privilege, Chicken O's are small donut shaped, breaded processed chicken thingies. Blech.)

This is what Java helped me pack for her lunch today. (*We don't typically buy individual packages of anything but we wanted to get the kids on board with the plan so we are doing that for now.)

Juice, potato chips, mandarin oranges, cashews and a ham sandwich made with one of the breadsticks I made last night. After I took this picture she stuck one of the chocolate chip cookies I made in, just in case her class had a snack today. I told her that was a very good plan.

Bean is still going half days this week so for now he just eats when he gets home.

Java came home with candy from their Valentines party yesterday and I paid her 25 cents for each non-GFCF piece. There are actually a lot of candies that they can have but the candy bars are a problem. She asked if she could share her remaining candies with Bean who didn't have a party at school and if I would pay him the same amount of money I paid her, just to be fair. I'm not usually all about the "fair" thing, but I thought it was very kind of her so I agreed. As a bonus, each of them had only half the candy booty, so it was a win-win.

Next candy holiday challenge: Easter.

My first GFCF bread making experience

I had my first gluten-free bread making experience today. I made this recipe for breadsticks. Gluten free bread dough can be kinda sticky so I was thankful for the tip to put it in a bag and squeeze it out.

I made two pans and it's a good thing I did. We really liked them!
While they raised and then baked, I made rice pasta and tomato sauce with hamburger and lots of garlic.

It was a hit! Bean had two plates full!

I'm starting to feel like this isn't quite so overwhelming.

Shish Kabobs

We made these Shish Kabobs on the grill tonight. All the marinade ingredients I used were gluten free (you need to check soy sauce and vinegars) so this recipe, a favorite of ours, will work well on our GFCF plan.

Most of the kabobs had veggies with bacon wrapped chicken but StarBUCK had to make a few bacon wrapped venison steak kabobs, too. He was in his glory.

My other blog has pictures of the snow we had to dig through to get to the grill!

So much that we CAN eat!

After church the kids fought played lovingly while StarBUCK and I made lunch. I think that's what I'm enjoying most about this GFCF adventure. We're doing it together.

We know it won't always be easy and there are some things that we really like that we're not going to be eating, but we wanted to show the kids this weekend just how much food we can still eat.

We won't be having their favorite McDonalds french fries (there is a debate as to whether or not they are gluten free but do we want to take a chance that some 16 yr old chef did not toss a gluten covered chicken nugget into the fryer?!)... but we can eat something even better at home! Dad's hot, salty homemade potato chips!

Starbuck used the last of our potatoes from the garden for these crispy beauties and they were delicious!
They went perfectly with loose meat sandwiches on whole grain gluten free bread and fresh green beans. (I bought the bread, Udi brand, but I hope to make buns for this meal next time we have it.)

And oh.my.goodness. These GFCF chocolate chip cookies (below) are amazing! They call for tapioca flour, millet flour and rice flour and other than a slightly more complex recipe, I couldn't tell much difference from cookies made with wheat flour. I put a few dozen in the freezer for Java and Bean to take to school for lunch.

We stocked up on fresh fruit, nuts and dried fruits so they would always have something to munch on. We put much of it right out on the counter as a visual reminder that we have PLENTY of delicious options!

That orange book is my best friend right now. I stick it in my purse for shopping trips so I know what brands of products are gluten / casein / soy free. (We are using some soy but trying to limit it when possible.)

The adult kids are coming for supper tonight. It's in the 40s outside (heatwave!) so we're grilling... which means StarBUCK has to dig out the grill that is still buried in several feet of snow on our patio. Stay tuned for pictures.

Pizza and cookies

We had GFCF pizza last night. It wasn't my regular homemade pizza by any stretch of the imagination, but it wasn't bad.

The crust was from a mix. Bob's Red Mill Gluten Free Pizza Crust Mix. I decided to try it before making my own mix from the various non-wheat flours I bought. We can't really afford to do mixes so next time I'm on my own.

There are several pizza sauces we can use, I just have to read the labels and consult my GFCF shopping guide. The "cheese" is by Daiya and every GFCF blog I've read calls it the best. I have to agree that it was much better than the vegan "cheese" we tried last week.

Next time I'll load up one with veggies and other meats but this time we kept it pretty simple and just had pepperoni (several brands are gluten free).

We made garlic "cheese bread", too. Again, not bad.

I connected with a family in our city who has been GFCF for two years. Their teenage son has Tourettes syndrome and they found that his symptoms were lessened considerably by removing gluten and casein, the proteins found in wheat and dairy foods. I am going to their house next week to try some of the products they like and to learn from this very dedicated mom. She orders products by the case to save money so it will make financial sense to connect with her as well.

We started cleaning out the kitchen last night. We brought a lot of food out to Mocha and Latte's house and I scrubbed some cupboards. I'll finishing cleaning the kitchen today. We added GFCF info to both Java and Bean's IEPs at school and we're closing their school lunch accounts on Monday. (Venti will still be eating lunch at the high school. He'll just have GFCF food at home.)

I want to try making these chocolate chip cookies to pack in the kids' lunches this week. I want them to know we can still have treats. (I hope they're good dunked in almond milk!)