My top 3 Gluten-Free "Emergency" Meals

We rarely eat out and when we do, I like it to be deliberate and special. Deliberate does not equal desperate and calling Craig to pick up Chic-Fil-A because the day got away from me. And we are starving doesn't eq So I like to keep a few meals as spares. I don't often include them in my meal planning because I save them for when I need something easy.

They use ingredients I can easily keep stocked, normally have on hand or can have Craig pick up at the dollar store that he drives by on his way home from work. I like ground beef for these recipes because even if it isn't thawed, I can brown it by scrap off the outside of the frozen chunk as I go. Julia Child would probably not approve of that but desperate times call for desperate measures.

Unfortunately, a few of my favorites had to be abandoned when I gave up Gluten and beans (goodbye tuna melts and lentil casserole!) but others were fine or could be saved with a tweak or two. Here are my current go-to meals.

Breakfast for Dinner - German Pancake/Dutch Baby

We love breakfast for dinner around here but most fun breakfasts are not GF friendly, or they can be made that way but then I'm searching for a dozen different flours and suddenly my quick easy dinner ceases to be so. Eggs are obviously GF but since I eat eggs for breakfast 90% of the time, I need something a little different for dinner. German Pancakes are just different enough to work and the are fun. Who doesn't love puffy foods?

• 1/4 cup butter (this can be reduced to a smearing of the pan or even some coconut oil for non-stick purposes if you're cupboard is low but its better with lots of butter)
• 1/2 teaspoon salt (1/4 teaspoon if you are using salted butter and if you're gf you might be. Silly people putting gluten in butter, why?)
• 1/4 cup coconut flour (I make my own from coconut flakes I buy in bulk from Tropical Traditions)
• 6 Tablespoons arrowroot (or cornstarch)
• 8 eggs
• 1 cup of milk 

Preheat oven to 425. Put 1/4 cup butter in pan (9x13 or large dutch oven) inside to heat/melt while you make the batter.

Whisk coconut flour, arrowroot, and salt together. Add eggs and milk and whisk to combine. Take pan from oven, quickly add batter and replace. Bake for 15-20 minutes until cooked and puffy and edges are starting to turn golden brown.

It may fall when removed from the oven, that's okay. I like it served with lemon juice and some sort of sweetener (powdered sugar is the less healthy option, maple syrup if I'm being better) but the lemon is optional. You can add fruit to the center before you cook it but I prefer to serve it with fruit on the side. If I'm working with what I've got on hand, its often canned fruit or frozen fruit made into smoothies. And I once served it with cottage cheese so now my kids expect that but too. Kids are funny like that.

Cheesy-Beef-a-Roni

This is based on these recipes from heavenly homemakers but tweaked to be GF and cheaper/less meaty. I've also made a half batch using leftover taco meat.

2 Tablespoons Taco seasoning (I use homemade)
16 ounces brown rice pasta (Trader Joes and are brands we use and like)
6 cups of milk
2 cups of Cheddar cheese
1 lb ground beef

Get all your ingredients measured and ready. Heat milk and pasta over medium heat, stirring pretty much constantly until pasta is cooked. This will take about the time the package says to cook the pasta, plus maybe 2-3 minutes. In a separate pan, brown meat. Once brown, add taco seasoning - while still stirring the pasta/milk. If meat gets done before pasta, you can turn it off. Once pasta is done, turn off heat and add cheese to pasta and stir until cheese is melted. Then add meat/seasoning mixture and stir to combine. Add some veggies on the side and you've got a meal (we almost always have carrots on hand or I grab something out of the freezer).

Super Nachos

I'm don't even really have a recipe for this. It's basically taco salad but with a kid friendlier name. We also called them haystacks growing up because you start with a stack of tortilla chips, add taco meat and whatever you have on hand that might be somewhat taco-ish. Lettuce, tomato, cheese, salsa, sour cream, thawed frozen corn. Back when I ate beans, I'd keep canned black beans on hand so I could make this even if I didn't have meat available. I don't make a dressing for this (which is fine because it's not a taco SALAD, its super nachos ;-) and I find the sour cream and salsa are enough but you could if you wanted.

I'm not realizing these aren't very pantry-ish since they rely on fresh milk, cheese and eggs. I almost always have those on hand anyway but I'd love to add a few more to my rotation, especially ones that rely more on pantry items.

 So what are you're favorite pantry/emergency meals? 










photo credit: Mel // Left of Centre via photopin cc

3 Not Too Weird Gluten-Free Starter Recipes

I've been gluten free for about 3 months now and for the most part, I've just given things up instead of trying to find replacements. I haven't even tried any gluten free bread although several people have mentioned brands they didn't think were awful.

 I love to bake so I'm sure I could have a lot of fun trying gluten free recipes but right now I'm on a crazy amount of supplements which is taking up all the spare room in my grocery budget. Giving up most bread products is a lot more economical. And so much easier. We basically eat a lot of meat, dairy, fruit and veggies. If I have to keep going with a gluten-free diet, things might be different but for now, it's working for me.

That said, sometimes I miss the texture of bread, pancakes and cookies so I've found a couple recipes that are easy. These use mostly items I already have on hand. I was about to say "normal" items but what's normal in your kitchen might not be normal in mine so keep that in mind. But I'm comfortable with oats and making my own oat flour in a blender. I've been doing that since I was a teen since my favorite (completely not healthy gluten filled) cookie recipes uses it. The only item I had to specifically purchase for any of this was tapioca flour. Just one, no gums and I promise nothing requires a scale. Perfect for when you're just starting a gluten free journey or if your gluten eaters that need something to serve or share with non-gluten eaters*.

Oat Pancakes: 

These are based on these pancakes but while I liked the original recipe a lot, they were still kind of heavy and sometimes fell apart. I discovered if you let the batter sit for a good 5-10 minutes, they stay together better but I also played with adding some tapioca flour and that helped the texture. I'm actually kinda proud of myself since this is the first time I tweaked a flour-y gluten free recipes. And the result was actually successful! These are really good and since I buy oats 25lbs at at time and only use a tiny bit of tapioca flour, they are still pretty inexpensive but if you don't have tapioca flour on hand, just use more oat flour.

1.5 cups oat flour (just grind oats in blender until fairly fine)
1/4 c tapioca flour (or another 1/4 cup of oat flour but they will be more dense that way)
1 Tablespoon baking powder
pinch salt
1 cup of milk
2 eggs
1.5 Tablespoons of coconut oil
1 teaspoon vanilla

Mix dry ingredients. Make a hole/dent in the middle of the dry ingredients, add eggs and use a fork to break yolks, add milk, oil and vanilla and stir to combine, a few lumps are okay but without the gluten you don't have to worry as much about over mixing. Let batter sit for 5-10 minutes. Cook on a griddle with generous amount of butter or coconut oil.

Any extras are good for lunch as a vehicle for peanut butter. Without gluten and bananas, my peanut butter options are limited so I really appreciate these.

Flourless Monster Cookies - These are so good. The fact that they are gluten free is pretty much just coincidental. I couldn't wait for "C Week" in our alphabet path because as we all know, C is for Cookie.

Brazillian Cheese Buns - I've loved Lynn's baked oatmeal (another gluten free breakfast favorite that we eat at least 1x a week) but didn't even realize she had other gluten free recipes until recently. I really like these when I'm craving something sandwich-y and don't want to eat it on lettuce. Perfect for a tuna salad or egg salad sandwich or as a compliment to spaghetti. My only issues with them is that Craig and the kids always want to eat them too! I don't make them a lot because they are a bit pricier but its a nice option for when I'm desperate - and I'm sure they are still cheaper and healthier (and probably tastier) than buying gluten free bread or rolls.

*Insert standard gluten-free qualifier here. People are different and react differently to things like cross contamination, oats (gf or not) and their comfort level with eating food prepared by others. I'm lucky in that I don't need to be that careful but just talk to whoever you will be serving. 

What we've been eating

I want to record my meal plans for purely selfish reasons. I want to be able to find them later. But I can never seem to get it quite together enough to post them in advance. So while other people post about what they will be eating, I'm posted about what we just ate.

Monday:

• Breakfast - Old Fashioned Oat Pancakes - We really like these, especially because its a GF pancake recipe made with all normal ingredients (I do substitute coconut oil for canola though). Hurrah for no weird flours or gums. One tip - let the batter sit at least 5 minutes. If you do, perfect pancake. If you don't, a big crumble mess. 
• Lunch - Tortilla Chips and Guacamole, Watermelon, Yogurt (We got back from a Trader Joe's trip and kids really wanted Yogurt and I wanted Guac so I just made it our meal)
• Dinner - Gumbo* using GF adaption of sweet rice flour for roux (freezer meal) 
• Dessert - Leftover GF Strawberry/Rhubarb Crisp. This used oats and was really good. I thought I had pinned the recipe but must not have because I can't find it again. Sad :-(

Tuesday

• Breakfast - Cereal (Chex) 
• Lunch - Leftover Gumbo, watermelon and cherries
• Dinner - Rotisserie Chicken from Costco, potato salad* and broccoli - We had dentist appointments in the afternoon and Craig needed to swing by Costco anyway. I prepped the potato salad in the morning so all I had to do that evening was boil broccoli. Easier than a frozen pizza - or it would have been if Craig hadn't forgotten the chicken! He knew we were supposed to be having it for dinner but I forgot to put it on the list so we had to share the blame. He ran to our local store and picked up a chicken there but it was little and really pathetic looking. Another sad :-(

Wednesday

• Breakfast -  Bacon and Eggs
• Lunch - PB& J for kids, salad with veggie, leftover chicken, cheese and hard boiled eggs (I made extra when I boiled 2 for the potato salad yesterday)
• Dinner - Bible Study Potluck. I was in charge of the mail dish and brought this Baked Ziti (using beef and brown rice noodles)

Thursday

• Breakfast - Blueberry Baked Oatmeal
• Lunch - Picnic at the Park/Creek with PB&Js for kids, leftover potato salad for me, cheese sticks, cherries and oranges for all. 
• Dinner - My planned meal of pintos beans and quinoa cornbread got bumped for leftover ziti. Yay! I love leftovers if it mean I don't have to cook, especially on a really nice summer day.

Friday

• Breakfast - Was supposed to be eggs but we were out so Chex it was
• Lunch - Picnic at the 4th of July parade. Sandwiches and fruit for Craig and kids, lunch meat, lara bar and fruit for me. I still need to work on gluten free picnic food. 
• Dinner - GF Fried chicken**, the remains of what apparently was never ending potato salad,  baked beans (based on this recipe but with beans from a can because I was supposed to save some from yesterday but never made them) and salad. 

Saturday

• Breakfast - Eggs and Toast, minus the toast for me
• Lunch - Mish-mash of leftovers, guacamole, chips, fruit, 
• Dinner - Tuna salad (on buns for Craig and kids, on lettuce for me), carrots and snap peas with ranch. 

Sunday

• Breakfast - Muesli with strawberries and blueberries.
• Lunch - Random leftovers/sandwiches. This is always the most rushed meal because we are trying to get kids down for naps after church before the donut sugar high runs off and they melt down.
• Dinner - Pan-fried Pork Chops, applesauce and broccoli

*From Feeding Our Families. One of my most used cookbooks before going gluten free and still is because she has easy adaptions for almost all of her recipes.

** From Elizabeth Hasselback's Deliciously G-Free, a library book I'm borrowing. 

Chasing away the cabbages

I've mentioned my health issues before but the recent uptick in symptoms, which honestly may or may not actually be related to the hashimotos' diagnosis, have lead to a my taking the whole thing more seriously. If that sounds confusing to you, you probably have it about right :-)

But I've given up gluten and a host of other fruits, veggies and beans that tests have revealed I am reacting to in addition to starting a gut healing protocol. Luckily dairy and eggs were not an issue which makes my life a whole lot easier but overall the whole thing has been much simpler than I was expecting. I dragged my feet on taking out the gluten for a while for two reasons 1) it seems trendy which kinda put me off the idea because I'm not doing this to lose weight or to look cool to my cross fit friends* and 2) I like bread.

But having committed, I don't actually miss it. I do feel like God has laid the plans for this change with other changes in the past few years. I spent all last year (yes, the whole year!) making a month's worth of seasonal menu plans. Two 2 week dinner plans for spring, summer, fall and winter that used leftovers and double batch cooking in an optimal way. All I could think of was how that was all worthless now but looking at them, only I have to change a few meals or make simple substitutes (lettuce for me instead of tortillas when we have tacos for example) and seeing those menus in black and white was quite relieving. The other changes have been pretty easy as well. I miss bananas because they are such an easy on-the-go snack as well as a wonderful gluten free replacement for a peanut butter vehicle but I've survived. But you know what has been surprisingly hard - cabbage!

I didn't even think I particularly liked cabbage nor would I have said that I ate a lot. But the cabbage in my life is all hidden so I don't even think of it as cabbage - coleslaw, kimchi and last week, sauerkraut! I keep accidentally eating it only to realize with one bit to go that it was cabbage. It is very frustrating.

It reminds me a lot of sin actually. I don't normally struggle with what one might consider "big sins." Those are gluten. They are bad but they are also obvious and I'm on the lookout for them. But those little cabbages of frustration and impatience, of vanity and pride, of selfishness. Those sneak in when I'm not looking. So there I am, living my life, not even thinking about those sins in my life that are currently eating away at me (as in the case of cabbage and my body, it literally is!). I won't try and stretch the metaphor too much, it was just one of those little thoughts that popped into my mind while I was catching myself accidentally eating a forbidden food - again. But now I think I really have all the cabbage in my diet weeding out.

*I don't have cross fit friends. Not because I'm a loner but because I don't do cross fit. But if people find paleo/cross fit/gf to be something that makes a positive change in their life, more power to them. I just don't want to be perceived as being a hipster - that's not cool. Hmm, maybe that means I really am a hipster though. If a hipster eats gluten in a forest ...