Weekly Menu (9/30/12-10/6/12) and Circle of Mom's Top 25 Food Allergy Moms Contest

First of all...my blog is in the running for the Top 25 Food Allergy Moms.  If you enjoy my blog, would you take just a few seconds and click the link below and go and vote for Live Free, Gluten Free? You can vote every 24 hours, so please do! Thanks!

This week in our half of the Bountiful Basket (I share with my brother) we got:

• honeydew
• pears
• apples
• bananas
• avocado
• spinach
• carrots
• collard greens
• tomatoes
• green leafy lettuce
• strawberries

We also got the Mexican add-on pack which had:

• Avocados
• Limes
• Tomatillos
• Jalapenos
• Cilantro
• Onions
• Garlic
• Grey Squash

I also have lemons, zucchini, beets, potatoes, celery, and raspberries (from our bushes) to supplement the basket.


This week for breakfast:
For the Kids:

• Double Chocolate Zucchini Muffins
• Banana Chocolate Chip Muffins
• Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Muffins
• scrambled eggs
• fresh fruit
• cereal for the kids

For me:

• homemade yogurt
• smoothies (the strawberries, raspberries, spinach, avocados, bananas, beets, and maybe more will be used)
• water kefir with fruit puree
• hardboiled eggs
• fresh fruit
• baked oatmeal
• granola

This week for school lunches:

• PB&J on Udi's bread, ham sandwiches, beef jerky, or Schar crispbread with pepperoni and cheese
• fresh fruit or applesauce
• chips or crackers
• milk

This week for dinner:

Sunday:

• Spaghetti
• Green Salad
• Breadsticks
• Sauteed zucchini/grey squash 

Monday:

• Chicken Noodle Soup
• Schar Table Crackers and Blue Diamond Nut Thins (Smokehouse for the dairy-free ones and Pepper Jack flavor for the dairy-eaters)
• Strawberries and Raspberries

Tuesday:

• Tamales for the corn eaters and leftovers for me
• Salsa Verde
• green salad topped with avocados and tomatoes
• honeydew

Wednesday:

• Pulled Chicken Sandwiches on Udi's Buns or Lettuce Wraps
• Carrot and celery sticks
• Green Salad
• Honeydew and sliced pears

Thursday:

• honey oat pancakes (I promise I'll get the recipe up...it's fantastic)
• bacon
• sliced bananas and raspberries to top the pancakes

Friday:

• Corn Dogs (leftovers for me)
• Baked Potatoes
• Carrot sticks and apple slices 

Saturday: My hubby will be out of town...and I lack motivation to cook when he's gone...so, we'll be going to Pizza Pie Cafe, Juniper Takeout or Chick-fil-a.

Adopt a Blogger: Trish from Gluten Free in SLC

I'm taking part in Adopt A Gluten-Free Blogger again. If you’re not familiar, Adopt A Gluten-Free Blogger is a monthly event created by Sea at Book of Yum to help us gluten-free bloggers get to know each other and recreate each others recipes. This month it is hosted by Alta from Tasty Eats At Home. This month, I adopted Trish from Gluten Free in SLC. 

Both Trish and her husband have Celiac disease.  Trish also is intolerant to casein (just like me).  I love her blog, because (1) she's a fellow Utahn. I live in Logan, Utah, she lives in Salt Lake.  I am always checking her restaurant reviews before heading down to the Salt Lake area. She also has a page devoted to places she shops in Salt Lake, which comes in handy, too; (2) she also has some pretty fantastic recipes...and she loves millet flour like I do. :)

I made her chili colorado the other night for dinner and my boys both absolutely loved the sauce.  My older son proclaimed it was the best sauce for dipping tortilla chips.  And I have to say, it is a pretty dang good sauce, and the beef was so tender it was falling apart.  I ate mine with some quinoa, the rest of the family ate their's with corn tortillas and chips.

Note: In her recipe she cooks it on the stovetop, but made a note at the bottom that it could be done in a slow cooker.  So, I did mine in a slow cooker.  The sauce was super thin that way.  So, I made a roux using 2 tablespoons canola oil and 2 tablespoons millet flour, cooked that for a couple minutes, then whisked in about a cup of the sauce and added that mixture back into the slow cooker...it was perfect that way.

Hamburger Cupcakes (for my hubby's bday)

It was my husband's birthday on Monday.  Now, those of you that know me know that I go all out on birthday cakes.  I'm self taught when it comes to cake decorating, but I do try my hardest to make awesome cakes.  Well, I was pooped this weekend.  I shouldn't give excuses, I know if it was one of my kid's birthdays, I would have been killing myself to get their cake done.  But, my husband doesn't care what his cake looks like, or if he even has a cake...so I took the easy way out and made hamburger cupcakes: yellow cupcakes (I had a Better Batter mix I needed to use up), brownie patties, and buttercream toppings.

The kids said that they were the best hamburgers they had ever eaten.  I, myself, got horribly sick from all the sugar...white sugar definitely gives me nasty headaches and gallbladder attacks (I didn't realize it was causing my gallbladder issues were sugar related until I ate the cupcakes). So, it was a fun cupcake to make, but going forward, I'll definitely be making these without refined sugar if I want to actually enjoy them. :)

So, anyway, here's another birthday idea that is super easy to throw together...and was definitely a hit with the family.

Refined Sugar-Free Apple Fritters

I have a pretty fantastic Apple Fritter recipe, but I've been trying to limit my refined sugar intake...and these would just be an overload, and my digestive system would not enjoy that.  So, I made some the other night minus the white sugar and they were pretty good.  I glazed them with a homemade powdered coconut sugar glaze, but really they didn't even need it, they were sweet enough without.

This post is featured on Slightly Indulgent Tuesday, Allergy Free Wednesdays and Whole Food Fridays.

Refined Sugar-Free Apple Fritters
Fritter:
1 cup gluten free flour blend
2 tablespoons coconut sugar
3/4 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/3 cup So Delicious Coconut milk
1 egg
1 tablespoon honey
1 cup chopped apple
canola oil or unrefined coconut oil for frying

Glaze:
1 cups powdered coconut sugar*
2 T So Delicious Coconut milk


Directions:  

Combine flour, coconut sugar, salt, baking powder, cinnamon.  Stir in milk, egg and honey until smooth.  Fold in apple. 

Heat oil on medium high.  If you are using coconut oil, make sure it doesn't get above 350F (that's the smoke point of the oil). Oil is ready when dough floats to top.  Carefully add dough to oil in heaping teaspoons.  Cook until brown, about 1-2 minutes, then flip.  Cook another 1-2 minutes, until both sides are browned.  Transfer briefly to paper towels to absorb excess oil, then transfer to cooling rack. 

Make glaze by stirring milk and powdered sugar together in a small bowl.  Dip warm donuts into glaze, and let set on a cooling rack (make sure paper towels are under the rack to catch the excess glaze).  Once set, dip the other side into the glaze and let set again.  Best served warm.

*To make homemade powdered sugar: blend together 1 cup coconut sugar and 1 tablespoon tapioca starch on high in a high powered blender (like a blendtec) for ~30 seconds.  This will make lots of dust, so let it settle for a few minutes before opening it up.

Weekly Menu (9/23/12-9/29/12) and Some News

So, I have some good news and some bad news (for our family, at least).  My younger son can now tolerate soy.  We still limit soy in our diets.  Really the only soy we have is soy sauce, and even then I prefer using coconut aminos...so nothing will change here on our blog for those of you that have soy allergies.  It's just nice having one less thing to worry about when we go out to eat.  The bad news is now I seem to have a sensitivity to corn.  The past couple of months I've been getting sick and I finally tracked it down to corn.  I don't appear to have issues with corn starch...but I'm working on eliminating it anyway, along with the rest of the corn sources.  For right now, my family will continue eating corn, just not me.

Total change of subject, but I need to tell you...I had the most fantastic ratatouille last week.  I used Julia Child's recipe, and it was as fantastic as I hoped it would be...go try it!

Now on to the weekly menu:

This week in our half of the Bountiful Basket (I share with my brother) we got:

• honeydew
• pears
• apples
• bananas
• avocado
• sweet potatoes
• carrots
• collard greens
• tomatoes

I also have oranges, zucchini, lettuce, potatoes, celery, grapes, and raspberries (from our bushes) to supplement the basket.


This week for breakfast:
For the Kids:

• Double Chocolate Zucchini Muffins
• Banana Chocolate Chip Muffins
• Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Muffins
• scrambled eggs
• hardboiled eggs
• breakfast bagel sandwiches (with Udi's bagels)
• fresh fruit
• cereal for the kids

For me:

• homemade yogurt
• smoothies
• water kefir with fruit puree
• hardboiled eggs
• fresh fruit
• baked oatmeal
• granola

This week for school lunches:

• PB&J on Udi's bread, ham sandwiches, beef jerky, or Schar crispbread with pepperoni and cheese
• fresh fruit or applesauce
• chips or crackers (we really like the Schar table crackers)
• milk

This week for dinner:

Sunday:

• Grilled Halibut and Chicken (for the non-fish eaters)
• Collard greens
• Corn on the cob (for my family)
• Baked potatoes/sweet potatoes (I prefer sweet)
• raspberries

Monday: My hubby's birthday! My husband want a date night out to Texas Roadhouse (I always get the filet mignon with steamed veggies and a sweet potato), so here's what the boy's will have:

• Tacos
• Carrot sticks and almond butter
• apple slices 

Tuesday:

• Chili (I'm going to thicken it with a millet flour roux instead of the masa flour)
• baked potatoes/sweet potatoes
• green salad
• honeydew

Wednesday:

• Chili Colorado
• Basmati Rice
• Corn tortillas for the family
• Diced avocados and tomatoes
• Green Salad
• Honeydew and sliced pears

Thursday:

• honey oat pancakes (I promise I'll get the recipe up...it's fantastic)
• scrambled eggs
• sliced bananas and raspberries to top the pancakes

Friday:

• Spaghetti 
• Green Salad
• Corn on the cob for the family
• Sauteed zucchini for me

Saturday: 

• Chicken Noodle Soup
• Schar Table Crackers and Blue Diamond Nut Thins (Smokehouse for the dairy-free ones and Pepper Jack flavor for the dairy-eaters)
• Grapes