Gluten Free Chicken Pot Pie

Now that it feels a little crisper in the air and I'm starting to hear the rattle of dry leaves scraping along the ground, I start to pull out all the comfort food recipes. When I was a little kid being raised by my single mother, sometimes we would just pull out those little frozen Swanson pot pies on a cold evening, pop them in the oven and serve them over rice. The good old days of eating gluten-filled convenience dinners are over for me, but I still long for those pot pies sometimes. Usually a chicken pot pie is made with pastry dough, but I thought I'd try something a little different and use the Gluten Free Pantry's Quick Mix, which is basically like gluten free Bisquick.

So then I couldn't decide if it was a pot pie or chicken and dumplings, but I think that's soup. Anyway, you get the idea. It's a yummy chicken/veggie mixture covered with sauce and topped with biscuity dough. And I experimented with my Better Than Boullion broth and made it double strength by adding twice as much base as water. It tasted super flavorful before it was cooked, but then once it was cooked and the biscuits soaked up some of the flavor, it was just right. You could also do that by taking a can of chicken broth and adding two chicken boullion cubes to it. Enough talk. Let's get to full stomachs.

Gluten Free Chicken Pot Pie

1. In a saucepan, place 2 chicken breasts or 4 chicken tenders, 1 peeled and diced carrot, 2 peeled and diced potatoes, and 1/2 cup frozen green peas and cover with water. Bring to a boil and simmer for about 15 minutes until veggies are tender and chicken is done. You can also use canned chicken, which always makes me feel like I am thumbing my nose at those snobby foodie types. Of which I may be one, but I still have to get dinner on the table on time every night.

2. In another saucepan, melt 1/3 cup butter and add 1/2 onion, minced finely, and 1 stalk celery, if desired. (I never desire celery, but if you love it, go for it.) Cook until these are soft, then add 2 heaping tablespoons of cornstarch and mix well. Add 1 3/4 cups extra chickeny chicken stock, 2/3 cups of milk, one teaspoon of parsley, and a pinch of salt and pepper. Simmer this mixture until thick.3. In a large bowl mix two cups Gluten Free Pantry Quick Mix with one cup milk or buttermilk. (I used buttermilk...so worth the trip to the store.)4. Drain the veggies and chicken. Roughly cube the cooked chicken. Place in the bottom of a greased casserole dish. Pour the sauce over the top of the chicken/veggie mixture. Top the casserole with large dollops of biscuit mix. Make them about the size of a regular biscuit so you can see where to make the serving size.

5. Bake in a 425 degree oven for 30 minutes.

This was a great, hearty, homey dinner. It's been a long time since I had a chicken pot pie and my husband even liked it. The biscuits are kind of sweet, which is a nice contrast to the salty chicken sauce. To be honest, I ate seconds and was way too full afterwards. In my opinion, your level of fullness directly coordinates with your dish's tastiness. Mission accomplished.

Happy eating!

Harvest Rice Pudding

The thing I love about food bloggers is that when we make up a recipe we give it some name that makes it sound more fancy than it really is. Like this one: Harvest Rice Pudding. I changed one ingredient that made it taste a little more fall-ish, and now I can call it Harvest Rice Pudding. But still. And let's not forget the rice. What gluten-free eater has not sung the praises of rice at one time or another? Thank you, rice, for being deliciously gluten free and versatile enough to eat for dinner or dessert. When I make rice to go with dinner usually I'll make a cup or two extra and make some rice pudding afterwards. It saves on washing a pan later. And this pudding is really really good stuff, so I think you're going to want to try it the next time you make some rice to go along with your meals.

I love this cookbook. It's the bible for crock potters. If you love to crock pot you should check out Stephanie's blog. She challenged herself to use her crock pot every day for one year, and she posted the recipes, ingredients, and outcomes of all her dishes. It's so interesting and amazing at the same time. Who knew? And now she has her own cookbook and she's going to be on Good Morning America on October 13. So watch her! Because she rules at what she does. I know you're going to like her. Anyway, there's a rice pudding recipe in this book that I really like called Old Fashioned Rice Pudding and I usually do it in my crock pot. However, my crock pot has a broken handle and leaks the really hot electric current out of it and I'm afraid it will blow up one of these days, so until I get another one, I just tried this recipe in the oven. And I changed it just one tiny bit to see how I would like different spices. And it turned out fantastic, I think.

So fantastic, in fact, here is a photo of the bowlful I am eating in front of my computer while I blog about it. Pathetic, you say? I say all in the name of research, I say. But I digress.

Harvest Rice Pudding

2 1/2 cups cooked rice

1 can of evaporated milk

2/3 cup brown sugar

1 T soft butter

2 tsp vanilla

1/2 to 1 tsp pumpkin pie spice

3 beaten eggs

1/2 to 1 cup raisins

Mix all ingredients together in a large bowl. Place in a greased 8x8 pan and bake in the oven at 350 degrees for 50 minutes. Comes out golden brown. Can be eaten warm, cold, or reheated leftover with milk in a bowl in front of the computer while blogging.

Happy eating!

Gluten Free German Chocolate Cake

I love it when people are not stingy with their recipes. It's my opinion that if you know how to cook something and it is fabulous, you would want as many people as possible to know the joy of eating your food. That's how my friend Aimee is, who, to be honest, is probably a better cook than I am. I know she already has better knives and flour grinders and kitchen stuff than me. But that's beside the point.

The other night I decided to make a German Chocolate Cake after watching that episode of Throwdown with Bobby Flay (another person who is not stingy with his recipes) where he makes the unconventional German Chocolate Cake and beats out the lady from Harlem who had a beautiful, traditional, yummy looking cake that she had been making from the same recipe for years. The thought of that yummy, coconut pecan frosting was enough to get me off the couch and into the kitchen. To be honest, I've never made a German Chocolate Cake before, and to be doubly honest its one of those desserts that I basically wrote off thinking I would never eat again anyway, so why bother? As I was struggling with the frosting recipe I had (which called for egg, by the way. A tip: Stir your egg mixtures carefully over heat or you end up with scrambled eggs! Not that I would know that from experience or anything...) Aimee happened to call me on the phone. I told her I was butchering the frosting I was trying to make and she said that she had an old family recipe from her grandma that was simply divine and I should try it. So I pushed aside my full saucepan of ruined frosting and tried her recipe right then and there while she was on the phone. She was soooo right. It was literally one of the best frostings I have ever tasted. And I've tasted lots of them.

Here's how to do it:

1. Melt 6 tablespoons of butter over medium heat in a saucepan.

2. Add 1/2 cup of brown sugar.

3. Add 1/4 cup of evaporated milk.

4. Add 1 tsp of vanilla (Mexican vanilla, if you can afford it)

5. Add one cup of shredded, sweetened coconut and one cup of chopped pecans.

6. Stir together.

7. Spread over a Blue Chip Bakers Chocolate Cake mix cake and put under the broiler for 1-2 minutes until bubbly.

That's it! So simple and easy and so delicious. You could easily use one of those Betty Crocker Gluten Free Chocolate Cake mixes, and I bet it would be just perfect. The Blue Chip Group's cake mix makes a nice reddish brown cake that looks a lot like a traditional German Chocolate Cake. It's also a great frosting to do over brownies. Just make your brownies in a roll pan or baking sheet and then frost with the frosting and slip it right under the broiler. Broiling it makes it sort of congeal together and forms a nice caramelized crust over the top. Serve this at your next party and people will crawl to you just to get a piece. Thanks for being generous with your recipe, Aimee, and kudos to your grandma for coming up with it!

Happy eating!

Gluten Free Thai Wraps, Cheesecake Factory Style

First of all, let me give out this disclaimer: I do not cook Asian food. At all. I'm no good with the chopping and the matchstick carrots and the meat that is ground super small and the fancy vegetables and sauces. So the fact that I am even posting about cooking Asian food at home is a triumph for me. And when you are eating gluten free, it's almost torturous to go somewhere and order Asian style because you are always so worried about the soy sauce and contamination. My best defense so far has been to just avoid it and train my palate to have a hankering for, oh, say, Mexican or something else that's easier.

On my recent trip to Disneyland we stayed in a hotel across the street from the Cheesecake Factory. Score! We ate lunch there one day with our family and the waitress suggested I try the Thai lettuce wraps with two of their gluten free salad dressings. I took the bait. And I'm so glad I did. It was one of the most delicious lunches I've had in a long time. And the Godiva chocolate cheesecake is gluten free, so I of course had to sample that for dessert. All in all, it was divine. But the whole time I was eating it, I thought, I could totally make this at home. My friend Morry wrote this post about her Vietnamese wraps a few weeks ago, and if you want the authentic, actual how-to for rice paper wraps, check it out. I was purely copying the restaurant in my own kitchen, and I knew what would make or break this dish was going to be the sauce. Browsing through the aisles of my local grocery store, Harmon's, I found these two salad dressings. San-J's Tamari Ginger (spicy and delicious), and Cardini's Honey Mustard (mellow, sweet, and tangy) At the Cheesecake Factory they give you two dipping sauces, one is a honey mustard and one is...something else that I can't remember. But it was Asian style yum-o. So I took about two parts Tamari Ginger and one part Honey mustard and mixed it with one tablespoon of San-J Tamari sauce. It's extra yummy, and a pretty close match to those two sauces.
Then I got out my old reliable, George Foreman. I really prefer the outdoor grill for my meat, but this one comes in handy sometimes when it's cold and windy outside and you don't want to put on your boots. So I grilled up some chicken tenders.

Then I chopped me some veggies. Don't laugh. They aren't chopped great, but they got the job done. I had butter lettuce, carrots, bean sprouts, green onion, and cucumber. I really should have sliced the cucumber into matchsticks, looking back on it. They would have fit into the wrap better.

Then, I just did it all up together and dunked it all in that glorious sauce mixture. It was so yummy. I love the flavor of the bean sprouts and the crunch of the carrots and cucumbers with the chicken. It was so worth my time chopping and dicing and slicing. I may have to do it again sometime. It just goes to show that if you pay attention when you eat out, you can pretty much replicate most dishes that you like. Or at least come pretty close.

Happy eating!

Gluten Free Baked Penne

Every now and again I think I see some kind of food on a commercial and I know exactly how I would cook it. Usually these are Italian dishes with red tomato sauce. I don't know why I think I can make them, but I just figure them out. No recipe needed. One day I had a vision in my head of baked penne with creamy mozzarella cheese with a flavorful red sauce that melts in your mouth. So I decided to make it one day for a ladies' luncheon I hosted at my home with my Mushroom and Asparagus Risotto. I am pleased to report that my Baked Penne recipe is fabulous, and the star isn't the sauce. It's the smoked mozzarella cheese.

If you've never heard of or tasted smoked mozzarella, run down to your local Harmon's or Whole Foods and buy a piece of it.

It looks like dirty mozzarella. But it tastes like Italian heaven when baked. The flavor is unbelievable. Smoky and creamy at the same time, with that salty mozzarella bite you already love. I used the Bertolli Portobello mushroom sauce with Merlot wine,which I barely remembered to take a picture of before I threw it away. It is so flavorful and robust. The wine really gives it a fullness of flavor that completes the dish. I also used Tinkyada Penne noodles (my favorite brand) and about a half pound of hamburger. I'm thinking spicy Italian sausage would also be good in this recipe.After I boiled the noodles and drained them and drained the fat from the hamburger I had browned, I simply returned them to my saute pan and added the cubed smoked mozzarella and the sauce. Then I transferred it to a baking dish and baked at 375 degrees for 30 minutes. It comes out nice and crusty and bubbly. It is the perfect dish for a ladies' luncheon or a quick, elegant dinner for company.

Happy eating!

Death by Chocolate

Okay, not really death by chocolate. But this is just the cure for when you are having a chocolate meltdown at 3:30 when your kids have just come home from school and you think you might die from paper overload. If you are on a diet, look away from this post. This post is not for you.

Take a scoop of Breyer's Natural Vanilla ice cream. Take a Hershey bar that you have hidden in the refrigerator so that no one will find it. Coarsely chop the Hershey bar and sprinkle over your scoop of ice cream. Drizzle way too much Nutella hazelnut chocolate spread over the ice cream. Use the spoon that is already covered in Nutella to eat said ice cream.

Let your 13-year-old take the final food shot for you. Make sure to complement her on her choice of backgrounds.

Happy eating!

Gluten Free Blueberry Scones

When you saw the title to this post, I hope you were thinking to yourself that these were traditional English tea scones, not the puffy yeast bread scones that you dip into boiling oil and eat with honey. Those have never really appealed to me. But if you love those kind of scones and have made your own gluten free version, please feel free to add the link in the comments section. I'm sure someone out there is looking for a recipe for those.

The reason I wanted to make the English tea scone recipe was because I think gluten free flours lend themselves well to shortbread recipes. The breads don't have to rise and they don't need the structure of the gluten to make them tall and fluffy. And, they are yummy and quick to make. I based my recipe off of a basic scone recipe in the Bible, better known as the Better Homes and Gardens cookbook. The original recipe calls for half and half, instead of whole milk. I think they turn out just fine with milk and you cut out a little fat also.

Gluten Free Blueberry Scones

2 cups Grandpa's Kitchen baking mix flour

3 T sugar

1 T baking powder

6 T chilled butter

1 beaten egg

3/4 cup whole milk

zest of 1 lemon

1 package blueberries

1 T whole milk

2 t sugar

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Combine flour, baking powder, and sugar in a mixing bowl. Cut in butter until it resembles coarse meal. Mix egg and 3/4 cup milk together. Add to flour mixture. Add lemon zest. Fold in blueberries. Form dough into a ball and knead 13-15 times on a floured surface. Press into a circle shape about 1/2 inch thick and cut with a sharp bread knife into 8-10 wedges, depending on how many you want. Arrange triangles on an ungreased cookie sheet. Brush with 1 tablespoon milk and sprinkle with sugar. Bake for 12-15 minutes until golden brown. Cool on a wire rack.

Happy eating!