Planning meals

One of the first things I did last Monday was to make a supper menu for the week. I have been planning a day or two at a time but my goal is to do this at the beginning of every week. I didn't plan for the weekend meals and as a result supper sneaked up on me last night. This week I'll remember to add the weekend meals! These were last week's meals:

Monday- Chicken, rice, cauliflower & broccoli (roasted with olive oil and sea salt)

Tuesday- Tacos and triple berry crisp for dessert

Wednesday- Salmon, roasted garlic potatoes, roasted asparagus (Java and Bean did not want to try the salmon. I just made sure they each had a source of protein in their bedtime snack. One had peanut butter with an apple and the other had roasted peanuts.)

Thursday- Quinoa Linguine and tomato meat sauce

Friday- Vegetable beef soup (homemade) and gluten free English muffins (purchased)


Our main meal on Sunday is lunch after church and I failed to plan for that, too. Time to take inventory in the kitchen and come up with something!

Jabba the Banana Bread

In case you think everything I make turns to culinary gold, here's an epic fail from the coffee kitchen.

I tried a new gluten / casein free banana bread recipe. It called for a lot of baking powder and I thought that was kinda weird, but I made it anyway. I doubled the recipe to make 2 loaves but I think doubling the baking powder was a bad idea.

The batter was filled to the top of the bread pans but as you can see, it rose...and rose....and rose.

And then it fell. (FYI- my wooden cutting board has been used for one too many art projects over the years. Ignore the pink and purple marker please.)

And it looked like this. Jabba the banana bread.

The kids ate it anyway!

Man grub

Last night's supper was a hit with the testosterone crowd. Gluten and dairy free doesn't mean girly. This was classic man grub.
Beef stew is one of hubby's favorites and adapting it to GFCF was easy. Start with a cut of beef (I used a chuck roast) and cut it into one inch pieces. In a covered container or freezer bag, combine 1/3 cup of your favorite GF flour blend, salt, pepper and other seasonings (I used Penzeys Beef Roast seasoning). Shake beef pieces in the flour mix and brown in a few tablespoons of heated oil. Add a chopped onion to browned beef for a few minutes and then put beef mixture in the crockpot.

Add 4-5 carrots, 5-6 potatoes, some celery (I was out of celery so don't look for any in the picture), 2 cups GF beef broth, a few splashes of Worcestershire sauce, and a bay leaf. Cook on high for 4-6 hours or on low for 10 hours.

This recipe for Cornmeal Flatbread from the Gluten Free on a Shoestring cookbook is the perfect accompaniment for the man meal. Man grub. Grunt grunt.

So good and pretty, too!

Want a great crock pot chicken meal? Tonight I made Chicken Cacciatore with this recipe. This is definitely going to be a repeat meal. It was delicious and pretty, too!
The recipe calls for onions, mushrooms, garlic and a red bell pepper in the bottom of the crock pot. (I used 1/2 red and 1/2 yellow bell peppers in case you are wondering where the yellow specks came from.)

Layer chicken next. I used boneless thighs and breasts.

Combine tomatoes, tomato paste, chicken broth, cooking wine (I didn't have white so I used a cooking sherry), and seasonings. I let it cook all day and then added the cornstarch and water during the last 30 minutes.

Rice and broccoli completed the meal.

Soooo good and pretty, too!

Share the love

Last night we made individual GFCF heart shaped pizzas for Valentines Day. Java enjoyed being able to express her creativity while Bean focused on taste. He's become a real spice fanatic!

Java came home with a load of candy from school but after she and Bean each had a piece, I offered her $5 for the rest. She thought that was a great deal! We're sending the candy to a cousin who is in college. ♥ Share the love...and food dyes, sugar, high fructose corn syrup....

Chicken Quinoa Spaghetti

Last night I made supper for our family and my daughter and son in law. I had to make it heart healthy, gluten free, dairy free and vegetarian (my daughter Latte doesn't eat meat).

No problem.

I made our favorite Quinoa spaghetti with two spaghetti sauces...one with ground chicken and one without.

Our local co-op has organic ground chicken at a decent price so we'll work this into the menu more often. I can imagine that people would think it was rather bland if they didn't season it well...but I've been to Penzeys. ♥ With their salt free Italian seasoning, some fresh garlic and an onion, the ground chicken really came to life! (Not literally. That would have really freaked out my vegetarian daughter.)

I added tomato sauce and poured it over the quinoa noodles. It looked and smelled so good that I couldn't even take a picture of the finished product! (You know the kids are excited about the meal when the prayer is said very, very quickly!)

Getting through it

I have found that we can get through most challenges as long as we have a plan. My son in law is still in the hospital. They were able to get his blood pressure out of the danger zone but they need to find out what caused it to be so extraordinarily high. They are concentrating on kidneys and doing a lot of tests.

My son in law has very few family members and only one lives within driving distance from here. I am spending as much time as possible at the hospital to support both him and my daughter. This means I have to be more planful about meals.

Yesterday afternoon I made tator tot casserole. I've made this in the crock pot before but last night I made it in the oven and ran errands with Java while it cooked.

Tonight we're having bean and ham soup. I soaked a 13 bean mix last night and it is now in the crock pot (pictured above) with vegetable broth, a ham hock (I had it in the freezer from our last ham), carrots, onions and seasonings. We'll have pizza crust garlic bread with it. I've got several pizza crusts in the freezer.

We'll find out more this morning after the doctor makes his rounds at the hospital. I pray that life will return to our "normal" soon. But if not, we will get through it as a family.