Hazlenut Meal Chicken

Super easy chicken to make especially when buy the chicken pre cut. I hate cutting chicken. You need, chicken, rice flour or all purpose gluten-free flour, egg, salt and pepper, hazelnut meal, and parmesan cheese.

I use 3 shallow tupperware containers, the first one has rice flour, the second has egg, salt and pepper, the third with hazelnut meal and parmesan.

The pictures below walk you through the recipe.

Baked Mac and Cheese

Yesterday was a mac and cheese kind of day. The winds were reaching speeds of 50 mph, the temperature was dropping, it was raining and the skys are threatening to snow. I'm sure you remember. This is the first time we made baked mac and cheese since going gluten-free so it was kind of an experiment. This is a recipe that we got from Lynne Rossetto Kasper's book The Splendid Table's How to Make Supper found here.

I bought the book at a dinner at Cooks of Crocus Hill that Ms. Kasper demonstrated how to make all the food we ate. All the recipes were from her book, How to Make Supper. We bought our spots to the dinner at an auction for Vocal Essence. The choir's conductor Phillip Burnelle was the entertainment for the dinner. He played us music based on the food so for insistance he played Yankee Doodle Dandy for our Mac and Cheese. Than he played Yankee Doodle in every music genre we yelled out at him. It was amazing.

I made a few adjustments to the recipe for 21st Century Mac and Cheese, one obviously being the noodles, I used rice penne. I wanted to use quinoa but I couldn't find it at my grocery store. This is fairly simple to make.

In a blender I mixed:
one egg
buttermilk
small clove of garlic
small white onion roughly chopped (optional)
shredded cheddar cheese
shredded emmental
cream cheese
jarlsberg (the coolest part of this cheese is it looks like this.)
crushed red pepper flakes
paprika
salt
pepper

The major changes were the cheese because I stopped at the store on my way home and had to choose the cheese based on what I thought might be in the recipe.

French Meadow at my grocery store!

The French Meadow Bakery offers a variety of gluten-free treats in the freezer section at my local Whole Foods. I had heard about this from a friend and had to try it for myself. There were so many items to choose from it was hard to know where to start. I picked the brownies and chocolate chip cookies. They also make pumpkin pie, chocolate cake, pie crust, breads, rolls, etc.

This morning I had a nutritious breakfast of two brownies. I stuck them in the microwave for about 30 seconds. When I took them out I knew right away that they would be delicious because they smelled so good. Melt in your mouth good.


Be sure to print off French Meadow's coupon for a $1.00 off any gluten-free product.

The brownies make me very happy.

You can find French Meadow Bakery products at any of these locations within 50 miles of the Twin Cities. This includes GF pizza at Boston Pizza in Faribault for all my southern MN friends. They serve GF products at the cafe at 2604 Lyndale Ave S in Minneapolis see map below.


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Say what? Eating gluten-free contributes to my depression and anxiety, and it's why I can't sleep. Article about sleeping and eating gluten-free on the Huffington Post found here. My mom will be so relieved that I can stop blaming her for my depression and anxiety.

Laura Baker Services Association Gala

Going to events where I don't have much say in what I eat makes me nervous. It has always made me nervous, even when I was eating gluten and could presumably eat anything that was given to me. To my surprise this year the invitation actually told me which food option was gluten-free. Yea! That took a load off of my mind. I didn't have to worry too much. After all this fundraiser was for Laura Baker Services Association, and they are all about making the world more accessible to everyone. You can see how awesome LBSA is here. Their mission states;

Laura Baker Services Association's mission is to respect the life choices and dreams of people with                                  developmental disabilities and help them reach their goals.

We headed down to Northfield to LBSA's annual gala that includes a silent and live auction. 

Here's a horrible picture of the gala, it was held at Severance Great Hall at Carleton College. This is our emcee announcing that some of the silent auction tables are closing.










Once we get seated and I'm looking at the program and I see that we still have appetizers and desserts to eat as well as the main meal and I don't know if any of it's gluten-free! Now I'm nervous. First I read over the appetizers and figured that I would be okay and after further examination of the actually food I decided that there was no gluten.

We have a chicken sautee, various diced fruit in the cup and shrimp with asparagus. It was really good. 

This was the chicken dinner I had and knew was gluten-free. It had a mango sauce with some peppercorn that shocked my teeth royally. Was not expecting that. We also have mashed potatoes and asparagus. 

Finally, dessert. Again read the menu carefully and after looking at dessert decided I could indulge. This plate includes and chocolate truffle with raspberry filling, lemon grass pot de creme, and a lemony chewy thing that had cumin on it. My mouth was on fire after the cumin. Thank God I didn't eat the creme first. I needed all of it to get my mouth back to a normal temperature. 






The food committee once again did an amazing job with the menu. If the silent auction went half as good as the live one I think LBSA had an incredible fundraiser. 

Udi's Cinnamon Rolls

We ate Udi's Cinnamon Rolls for breakfast on Saturday. They come 4 in a box from the frozen section with frosting packets and no directions of how to heat them up. We decided to spread the frosting on before we put the rolls in the microwave so it would be melty and warm. Not sure on the exact time we just kept heating them up until felt soft enough and warm enough for us to eat. Here's how I'll sum it up, I'm hoping and praying there is something better out there. You can find them here. 

I'm really struggling with all these rave reviews that Udi's gets, found here, here, and here. On Udi's website there is a video at a camp for kids with Celiac's about how great the bread is. I'm still so new to eating gluten-free that I can't appreciate the strides that Udi's has made? Is it because Udi's is mass produced and baked goods from a small bakery are always better whether they are gluten-free or not. Are my standards way too high? I've been accused of having unrealistic expectations. Food has always been a source of pleasure for me and it hurts so much every time I eat a bread product that tastes like cardboard. It's as if every piece of gluten-free bread I eat a piece of happiness gets taken away from me. How can there not be something better? I just want a grilled cheese like mom used to make - she still makes it just not for me because of the gluten thing. Seriously, my mom makes the best grilled cheese. 

MickeyD's

How Bad is McDonald's Food by John Robbins found at the Huffington Post.

In related news, I just ate McDonald's and in about 5 minutes after finishing my 'meal' I have a splitting headache and need to rush to...enough said. I didn't eat gluten, that's the telling part.

Pan-Pan in Northfield

While in Northfield I had lunch with my friend Jane at Pan-Pan, an international cafe. They have about 5 things on the menu that are gluten-free. Two of these dishes shown here. Pad Thai on top and I don't remember what Jane had but it was gluten-free. I know, I'm super helpful.

Northfield is a great place to have a restaurant like this. It's super convient, they do take-out and it was fast. It was more money than I usually spend on lunch, but it was much better food than I usually get for lunch.

Yes, I have had better Thai food but I think for what Pan-Pan is this was perfect. I didn't like how much tofu was in my Pad Thai - I don't like tofu.

I'm happy that Northfield has a restaurant that is telling people on the menu that they have gluten-free options. There isn't another place in town that does that. It's made my life much easier.

Field Trip to BitterSweet

I needed GF hamburger buns so on Friday I ventured south to Eagan to BitterSweet. They have a great selection of breads, cookies, brownies, cakes, and take and bake pizza!

The buns were great, my cookie and brownie were really good too.

Chocolate Chip Cookies

Being gluten-free brings so much frustration. I have been mourning the loss of amazing desserts. I found a recipe from, Gluten-Free Girl and the Chef to make chocolate chip cookies. I figured they had to be good. Everything I have made from her site has been good.

There was a lot more prep involved than my cookies off the back of the chocolate chips. I had to go to the store to get flours I didn't have. Once the dough was made I had to let it sit in the fridge for 36 hours! I couldn't believe it.

When I finally had the cookies made and fresh out the oven my husband ate one before I could test them and he said, "Are you serious?" and "I can't believe these are gluten-free!" I wanted to package them up and send them to every gluten-free person I know. These cookies have given me hope that I can make delicious gluten-free treats. I want to make hundreds of them to hand out to anyone who will eat them.

My next big dessert challenge is a chocolate cake from scratch.

"Normal" Tasting Pizza

I found it! Pizza that tastes like gluten pizza but there's no gluten! All thanks to the Gluten-Free Girl and the Chef by Shauna James Ahern and Daniel Ahern. I don't know what I would do without them. They consistently have the best recipes. I feel so much better about eating gluten-free now that there is pizza that I can enjoy.



However I still need to work on my cooking skills because I don't think I did this quite right. Mine did not look like the pictures in the book. Thank God Shauna and Daniel made a video about the pizza, found here.

I think I know where I went wrong. I didn't use my mixer and I got sick of stirring. I quit stirring too soon and the dough was all sticky and not very pliable. Next time will be better.

Above is their pizza crust, it also doubles as a cracker recipe. Mine turned out more like foccaccia bread (left photo) because I don't think I did it right but it's still delicious.

KinniToos

Have you tried these? I bought them on a whim hoping they tasted like Oreos. They don't taste like Oreos but I don't care because they are delicious! KinniToos are made by Kinnikinnick. They make mostly baked goods, cookies, breads, pizza, muffins, donuts, etc. I would for sure try their other products based on what I have tried so far. I found them at the Mississippi Market in St. Paul but I see on their website that Whole Foods, Cub Foods, Rainbow Foods, and for my Northfield friends, Just Food Co-op carries them.

Victory 44

Happy Birthday Tom! These are my brothers celebrating the one of the right's birthday. This is right before they had dessert. We headed to north Minneapolis to Victory 44 to celebrate with the family. All seven of us were there! The dinner was a great success and the restaurant is outstanding. It's worth the trip. It's a little ways from downtown Minneapolis but you have to go.


You need to go to their website and see what they're all about. I love that the chefs serve and make the food. All of my food questions were answered on the spot. Our server/chef was able to list all the ingredients in detail and since they make everything in house they knew every little thing about the food. You need to like pork. My family thinks that everything tastes better with bacon! They have some fun deals through out the week, Sunday the Perfect Burger is $5, Monday is movie night, Tuesday night is date night. There is always something going on.

I have to admit, it's been a few days so I don't remember all the details. You can easily eat gluten-free there and your server/chef will be able to help you.

Devil on Horseback (above) dates wrapped in bacon Bacon Frites (above) normal fries with bacon powder, it's worth trip if you only get the fries.

 Perfect Burger (above) surprise theres' bacon             Chicken (above)

Steak (above)                                                              Scallops (above)

Apple Endive Salad (above) with pork belly!

Quesadillas

This is what I did with everything that was left over from taco night, which includes homemade guacamole. I had turkey taco meat, jalapeno, green pepper, red onion, cheese, and corn tortillas. I learned that by frying the corn tortilla it doesn't fall a part as easily in my hand! Score!

I used a small frying pan, put a little vegetable oil on the pan and laid the tortilla in the pan. I let it heat up before I put my toppings on. I tried folding it over while on the pan - it didn't work out. I had to hold in place. I also tried putting another tortilla on top and flipping it. Surprise - all the toppings fell out. Not sure why I didn't see that coming. I kept it simple and made an open face quesadilla. It did end up folding easily after I served it. Yea!

I was grinning like an idiot the whole time we were eating these - incredibly pleased with myself.