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I've been searching the web for new fall recipes to try for our November meal plan. I wanted to add a lot of soups to help keep our budget low this month and easy. Here is a great little tutorial for a Corn Chowder that looks super yummy! I'm making it for dinner tonight and making just a couple changes. Since our family does not like a lot of spice in our food, I am eliminating the jalapeno pepper. Also, because we are dairy free, I am replacing the cows milk with coconut milk. Should be yummy!

Watch the Video of how to make it!

Recipe Link

When the month of October hit, so did my cravings for apples! I tried making an apple pie, apple oatmeal muffins, and this apple crisp. The crisp quickly won itself a spot in my "holiday baking favorites" list. (It's not an official list, just kept in my mind! haha... I should write it down!)

I found the recipe online and of course tweaked it just a hair to meet our dietary / allergy needs. You can find the original recipe at GlutenFreeMommy.

Apple Layer

• 7 Granny Smith apples, peeled, cored and sliced  (I prefer to do half granny smith and half with a sweeter apple, like gala.)
• A little bit of lemon juice for apples

Streusel Topping

• 1 stick of butter
• 1 1/2 cups brown sugar
• 1 tsp. cinnamon
• 1 1/2 cups gluten-free oats
• 1/2 cup sliced almonds

Directions

In a 9x13 baking dish, layer the sliced apples and toss with lemon juice. In a medium bowl, combine sugar, cinnamon and oats. Cut in butter until the mixture is crumbly. Add in almonds and mix well. Spread this mixture on top of the apples.

Bake at 350 degrees for about 40-45 minutes.


*** I've also just recently tried this recipe replacing peaches for the apples. It was great and a hit with our guests! Omit the lemon juice and place four 14.5 oz. cans of drained peaches in bottom of pan and spread streusel topping over them. I also omitted about half of the cinnamon in the mixture as well. Enjoy!

The other day I had a partial can of pumpkin puree sitting in my fridge that I needed to use up so I looked online for a festive pumpkin muffin recipe that I could try. I came across this recipe on Food.com and was not disappointed! It came out yummy and moist! 

Link to the original recipe here.

2 1/2 cups Gluten Free Pantry All Purpose Flour
3/4 cup coconut flour
1 (15 oz.) can pumpkin puree
1 tsp. salt
1 cup oil (can mix half butter / half oil)

2 tsp. baking soda
1 cup brown sugar or sucanat
1/2 cup maple syrup
1/2 cup milk (I used Almond Milk)
2 Tbps. Pumpkin pie spice
4 eggs

Topping:
1/2 cup chopped nuts (I used pecans and almonds)
1/2 cup brown sugar or sucanat


Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Mix together all dry ingredients in large bowl. Mix together wet ingredients in separate bowl, then combine both bowls. Mix until smooth. Line 12 muffin tins with papers.* Pour batter into muffin tins. Sprinkle topping on muffins; pat down into batter. Bake for 20-25 minutes.

*This recipe makes a bunch of batter. I actually had enough left over after the 12 muffins to make two small loaves!

Here is a great new recipe I tried last night for "almondaise." It is from the Body Ecology Diet book, page 252. I was a little hesitant about how it would turn out before I made it, but as soon as it was done, I was hooked!! (Including, licking spoons, fingers, etc...) Even Kyle liked it and thought it tasted like "real" mayonnaise! They say in the book that it makes for a great veggie dip as well and I agree!

So here it is:

Ingredients: (yields 1 1/2 - 2 cups)

1/2 cup raw almonds
1/2 to 3/4 cup water (I probably ended up using about 1 cup for the consistency I wanted)
1/4 tsp. garlic powder
3/4 tsp. sea salt
1 cup organic, unrefined oil (flax or pumpkin seed)
3 Tbsp. lemon juice
1/2 tsp. raw, organic apple cider vinegar

1. Cover almonds with boiling water, allow to cool slightly. Slip off skins and have all other ingredients ready.
2. Place almonds in blender or food processor and grind to a fine powder. Add half the water along with garlic powder and seasonings. Blend well, then add the remaining water to form a smooth cream.
3. With blender running low, remove insert top and drizzle in the oil in a thin stream until mixture is thick.
4. Keep blender running and add lemon juice and vinegar. Blend on low 1 minute longer to allow mixture to thicken to desired consistency.
5. Scrape into a jar with a screw top and refrigerate. This will keep 10 days - 2 weeks.

Gluten free and Dairy free have come to Starbucks!!! Look at what my eyes beheld when we walked in the door tonight:

So this past week I tried cooking quinoa for the first time. We had that along with our mexican style salmon. It was GREAT! Kyle even asked for a second helping! :-) Quinoa is a simple, gluten free grain, and I cooked it in vegetable stock. Unlike rice, which takes about an hour to cook, quinoa cooks in about 15 minutes! I roasted the kernels before cooking it which added great flavor to the dish. Topped off with flavorful salmon, we had a definite hit!

My weekdays have been fun and filled with "ooo's," raspberries being blown, big baby smiles, spit-up, loud burping, bottles, nap times and diapers! Yes, I love my job as a full-time nanny! Aeden is such a sweet little boy to watch and is so mild tempered! Haha...  right now my jacket is in the washer because I found a big wet spot on the back left sleeve from spit-up... how on earth did it get back there?!?! I have no idea! Of course, the black sleeve of my shirt now happily sports two more spit-up spots where Aeden decided my shirt needed some added color! :-)

Being a full-time nanny has been wonderful for me in preparing me to be a mother one day! Coming from a lifestyle of constantly going and doing, sitting around all day with a baby has been more of an adjustment than I thought! I'm learning to be creative in how I spend his nap times, while the house is quiet. I think I have definitely noticed the need for a "to-do" list for my day or else I'll waste too much time on facebook, blogs, and even reading, while he is asleep.

As to our evenings and weekends, now that Kyle is studying every night, I'm hoping to start working on organizing several different areas in our home that need constant attention. This will require a lot of discipline and creativity for me... neither one of those come naturally for me! :-) If any of ya'll know tips for optimizing small spaces, please feel free to leave me a comment! My sweet friend, Cassandra, sent me a link this morning for this blog post. I can totally relate to this gal's kitchen and I frequently do the "balancing act" of placing pots, pans, plates, etc... on the little area of the sink that she talks about! If you don't remember what our apartment looks like, here are some pictures I posted after we moved in, almost eight months ago. It'll give you an idea of the kitchen. I must say, our apartment is on it's third or fourth "look" since these pictures were taken! I love to move furniture around...

I hope that everyone is doing well. We miss our family and friends in Texas and Georgia! Hopefully it won't be too long before we can see ya'll!

I've been struggling the last few weeks with dinner preparations after we get home from work. If we're trying to get out of the house, it's hard to wait for an hour to an hour and a half on dinner preparations! So, I've made up my mind to try some new crockpot recipes. My goal is to make Tuesday and Thursday nights our crockpot nights. We'll see how it goes!

So today I've been searching for some good, nutritional, gluten/diary free recipes. I have come across several that I want to try as well as one website that looks very beneficial. Check it out!

A Year of Slow Cooking - Gluten Free

A couple of her recipes that I want to try are :

Pasta Fagioli

Broccoli Beef


The Nourishing Gourmet also has this yummy looking recipe:

Crockpot Chicken Quinoa


Today I threw in the crockpot some steak that I had in the freezer, along with potatoes, carrots, and onions. I have my crockpot cooking up at work and my plan is just to transport the crockpot with our dinner in it up to school tonight to meet Kyle to study. We'll see how it fares!

Do you have any good crockpot recipes?

Last Saturday we helped some friends move into their new apartment here in Louisville. They have just moved up to come to Southern Seminary. We are very excited to have them here with us!

For breakfast that morning I made a new breakfast casserole to take over. I took a recipe from my new Taste of Home cookbook and tweaked it to meet our diary free needs. Click here for the original recipe. For those of you who know me well, you know that I normally will not eat pork. However, this recipe called for real bacon so I decided to bend and buy some... but only nitrate-free, non-hormone pumped bacon from Whole Foods. I bought 4 slices. Yet, when I cooked them, since I don't really know how to cook it, I burned it... :-( So I had to come up with a quick second option... I had some chicken breakfast sausage in the fridge and used that instead... but the bacon grease was still good so I was able to use that to cook it in.

My Version:

Friendly Brunch Casserole

1/2 lbs. Bacon or Sausage
1 medium chopped Onion
1 medium chopped Bell pepper
12 eggs
1 cup Rice Milk
1 package (16oz. ) Frozen shredded hash browns, thawed
1 tsp. Salt
1/2 tsp. Pepper

In a large skillet, cook bacon over medium heat until crisp, or sausage until browned. Remove to paper towels; drain, reserving drippings. Crumble bacon and set aside. In the same skillet, saute
the onion and bell pepper in drippings until tender; remove.

In a large bowl, whisk the eggs and milk. Stir in hash browns, salt, pepper, onion and bell peppers, and reserved bacon or sausage.

Transfer to a greased 13x9 in. baking dish. Bake, uncovered, at 350° for 35-45 minutes or until a knife inserted near the center comes out clean. Yield: 8 servings.

To start this year off, I decided to make my all-time favorite muffin recipe. It's so simple, yet so delicious! I substitute the flour for Pamela's gluten free baking mix, the sugar and oil for healthier options, and omit the wheat germ.


1 1/2 cup unbleached flour
1/2 cup whole wheat flour
1 1/4 cup brown sugar
1 tsp. cinnamon
1 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
2 tbsp. toasted wheat germ
2 carrots, peeled and grated
1 large apple, peeled, cored and chopped
1 cup raisins (craisins)
2 large eggs
1/4 cup oil
1 tsp. vanilla
1/4 cup chopped pecans or walnuts

Preheat the oven to 375. Lightly oil or spray 18 muffin tins. (I make 12 large muffins) In large bowl stir together flours, sugar, cinnamon, baking powder, baking soda, salt, nuts, wheat germ and raisins. In another bowl, stir together remaining ingredients. Combine with dry ingredients. Pour into muffin tins. Bake about 20 minutes. These freeze well and can be made as small loaves instead of muffins.

As I've been thinking about food for the holidays I found the magazine Delight at Whole Foods. It specializes in Gluten Free foods. I picked it up excited to learn some new recipes. It's a great magazine and has a lot of fun facts and tips for all cooks to enjoy. However, it does use a lot of dairy products in their recipes and since I am now also allergic to dairy, I may not be able to use a lot of them (or I'll substitute where I can with goats milk). However, it was still definitely worth the buy because I was just amazed at how informative it was!

Their website is also fun and looks very helpful. Check it out.




There is another magazine I've enjoyed looking through in the past as well that is gluten and dairy free! I love looking through Living Without and seeing what fun things can be made with allergies like mine. Many of the recipes use multiple kinds of flours so I tend to shy away from them and instead use recipes that call for fewer ingredients, yet I would like to try some of these various flours soon.

These cupcakes are fresh from my oven as of about 15 minutes ago! I have been looking online and through friends' recipes (thanks Cassandra!) to find simple, healthy snack and dessert ideas for Kyle and I. As I was looking at Nourishing Gourmet's blog the other day, I found this wonderful recipe. It's grain free and sweetened with honey.

They are so yummy! They hold together really well too!

Check out Kimi's recipe!