Sweet Rice Flour

11months into cooking gluten free and I have found the bomb. Sweet Rice Flour is made from glutinous rice (it does not contain the gluten fraction that is prohibited to the gluten intolerant). Often used as a thickening agent. Sweet rice flour is becoming more common in gluten-free baking for tender pies and cakes. It has the ability to smooth the gritty taste (that is common in gluten-free baked goods) when combined with other flours. LOVE THE SWEET RICE FLOUR.

Gluten Free Buttermilk Pancakes

These make great left overs for peanut butter sandwiches. I keep them in the freezer for a quick yummy breakfast.

Gluten Free Chicken Pot Pie

EASYCHICKEN POT PIE

1 lb. chicken breast, cooked and shredded (I used canned chicken)2 Tablespoons of rice flour2 Tablespoons of olive oil
1/2 teaspoon dried mustard
1/2 teaspoon salt1/4 teaspoon pepper5 carrots, sliced/diced thin
3/4 cup of corn
1 pkg of sliced mushrooms
3/4 cup of sweet peas1/2 cup boiling onions or regular onions, diced
1 3/4 cup of chicken stock (homemade or gf brand)
1 Tablespoon fresh basil, chopped finely
3 Tablespoons of sour cream1 clove garlic, minced

Directions:
Chop/dice/thaw the vegetables for the chicken pot pie. In a Dutch oven, heat 2 Tablespoons of olive oil over medium heat. Add the 2 Tablespoons of rice flour, 1/2 teaspoon of dried mustard, 1/2 teaspoon of salt, and 1/4 teaspoon of pepper. Cook about 2-3 minutes until bubbly and foamy. Slowly whisk in the chicken stock. Return to boiling. Add the vegetables and basil and simmer for ten to twelve minutes or until tender. While that is simmering you can prepare the gluten free pie crust(recipe is in my blog). Add the cooked chicken and the sour cream; combine well. Put the vegetable mixture in a 9×13 baking dish.
Preheat oven to 425 degrees.Place the pie crust on top of the vegetable mixture or do a crisscross pattern. Bake uncovered for about 30 minutes or until lightly browned. Let stand for 15 minutes before serving. Serves 6

Meeting Santa Claus

Today we went to Edwards Greenhouse in Boise to meet Santa Claus.

The girls both asked Santa for Nintendo DS games. Kennedy wanted to ask for a motorhome and Karleigh wants a baby brother. We told them that Santa's sleigh could not carry a motorhome and NO WAY ON THE BABY BROTHER!

The poinsettia's were beautiful.

Gluten Free Buttermilk Biscuits

Finally we have found a recipe that makes good biscuits. Not as good as Grannie Frannie's, but they are gluten free.

Thanksgiving 2009

I spent 2 days preparing Kennedy's gluten free Thanksgiving dinner. I wanted to make sure that she had everything that everyone else would be eating. I made gluten free macaroni and cheese, stuffing, cornbread stuffing, green beans, sweet potatoes in oranges, gravy for the mashed potatoes, strawberry jello pretzel salad, rolls and pies.

I also made regular macaroni and cheese for all the other family and friends. It is a must have at Thanksgiving.

We spent the day at Bob and Karen Nelson's house in Caldwell, ID. Bob's family(Mom, Dad, Step Dad, Sister and nephew) all were there. Grannie and Gramps Loomis, Grandma and Grandpa Belnap, Micki, Aunt Dode and Niki came too. We all played Bingo at the end of the night. Grannie Loomis won almost all the prizes.

Gluten Free Stuffing

THE GLUTEN-FREE STUFFING From Glutenfreegirl.com

2 loaves gluten-free bread, diced into one-inch cubes, toasted and cooled
2 large ribs celery, medium diced
1 large yellow onion, medium diced
2 tablespoons good olive oil
2 tablespoons garlic, finely chopped
1 tablespoon fresh rosemary, finely chopped
1 tablespoon fresh thyme, finely chopped
1 tablespoon fresh sage, finely chopped
1 cup chicken stock
1 egg yolk
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon pepper
Saute the onion and celery in olive oil on medium-low heat until they are translucent. You will be able to smell the onions cooking at this point. (Take a deep whiff. That's a beautiful smell.) Add the garlic, as well as the rosemary, sage, and thyme. Stir these in and cook until you can smell the herbs, about one to two minutes. Remove from heat.
Bring the chicken stock to boil on high heat. Place the egg yolk in a medium-sized bowl and carefully ladle two to three ounces of the chicken stock to the egg yolk, slowly, while whisking the mixture. Add the rest of the chicken stock to the egg mixture at this point. (Ladling a small portion of the stock into the egg first, and blending it, will prevent you from having scrambled eggs.)
Add the cooled celery, onion, and herbs mixture into the stock and egg mixture. Toss the bread cubes into this mixture and stir it all around with your hands (or a spoon), to coat the bread. Add the salt and pepper and toss the bread again. Place all of this into a greased casserole dish (big enough to hold three quarts) and cover it with aluminum foil. Bake for twenty minutes at 425°, then remove the foil and bake for another ten minutes. Take a toothpick and stick it into the stuffing. If it comes out clean, the stuffing is done. If not, bake until the toothpick comes out clean.

Gluten Free Apple Pie

I made Kennedy her own apple pies for Thanksgiving dinner. These turned out so good! A friend of a friend emailed me this pie crust recipe and it was hands down the best. I have made 5 pies in the last 4 day with different recipes and this on by far is the best.

Donna Jo's Dream Pastry Pie Crust

Dry ingredients:

1/2 cup tapioca flour (tapioca starch)
1/2 cup cornstarch
1/4 cup potato starch (katakuriko in Japanese stores - this is NOT the same as potato flour)
1 cup sweet rice flour (mochiko flour - not the same as white rice flour)
1 teaspoon xanthan gum
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 teaspoon sugar

Shortening:
1/2 cup gluten free margarine
1/2 cup butter

Liquid ingredients:

1 egg
1 Tablespoon fresh lemon juice
1 Tablespoon ice water

Wax paper
sweet rice flour to sprinkle on the wax paper
lots of sugar for sprinkling on the top of the pie

Put the dry ingredients in a bowl and mix them thoroughly with a fork. If you own a sifter, you could sift them together, but it is not necessary. Grate in the butter and margarine using a large cheese grater. Mix the dry ingredients and the shortenings up with a fork until the pieces of butter are distributed evenly - you don’t need to get the pieces of butter as small as they would be in a wheat crust. The size of “lima beans” may be a little large, but don’t go smaller than kidney beans! Anyway, mix up the liquid ingredients until well combined, then pour them in to the dry ingredients and mix together. Squish the dough into a ball and wrap it up to store in the refrigerator for one hour. (For the record, we have made this crust in the winter and gone straight to rolling it out, without refrigerating it. You wouldn’t do this when the air is warm in the summer, but it is ok to do this in the winter when it is cold.)

Divide the dough in half.

To roll out this crust, spread out a piece of wax paper, dust it with sweet rice flour or GF flour mix, or whatever comes handy, put one piece of the dough on top, sprinkle with more flour, spread another piece of wax paper on top of the dough, and roll out with a rolling pin. * The dough is now contained between two sheets of wax paper. Peel off the top piece of wax paper, flip the crust on top of the pie plate, adjust it to fit the dish and remove the other piece of wax paper. Your counter is clean, and your pie crust did not fall to pieces when you tried to put it in the pie dish! You rock!

Fill your pie, and then repeat the pie crust rolling maneuver for the top crust. Cut pretty holes in the top crust before transferring it to the pie, if you wish. After putting the top crust on the pie, sprinkle the top crust liberally with sugar - maybe 2 - 4 Tablespoons! Cut steam vent holes in the crust, if you forgot to do it before, and then bake the pie. This crust gets nice and brown and crispy, and it has a delicious buttery flavor! You bake it as you would any other pie crust (about 50 minutes at 400 degrees, for a two-crust fruit pie.)

Gluten-Free Dinner Rolls

I made these in preparation of Thanksgiving dinner. I wanted to find a good roll to go with our meal. These are the best that I have found.

BSU vs. IDAHO Game

Today was the annual BSU vs. IDAHO game at our house. BSU was playing at home this year and it was cold! Our house was filled with friends and family. We had about 18 adults and 13 kids that showed up to watch the game. BSU won the game 63-25!

Sausage Egg Muffin

We tried the Kinnikinnick English Muffins and they are a hit! There are only 4 in a bag and come frozen from the grocery store. I made sausage egg and cheese muffins and will freeze them. This will be a quick and easy gluten free breakfast.

BSU Womens Soccer Game

Today we went to our first college soccer game. BSU played Nevada in the WAC championship game. BSU won 1-0. The weather was great, it was 59 degrees out. It was a good experience for Karleigh to watch soccer at a higher level.

Organic Heinz Ketchup is NOT Gluten Free!!

It is so important to check labels each and every time you purchase food. I am not sure how this happened, but for 3 weeks we have been using Heinz Organic Ketchup. I remember looking at Heinz Ketchup and noticing that it was gluten free. I guess I assumed that they all were gluten free. Well that is not the case. The ONLY Heinz Ketchup that contains gluten is the organic!!!! UGH!!!! Kennedy has been eating it for 3 weeks. This is an eye opener for us to continue to constantly check with manufacturers on their products.

Fall day at Katherine Albertsons Park

What a beautiful fall day in Boise. We decided to go down to Katherine Albertson's Park in Boise and take some photos. The girls had a lot of fun posing for the pictures.

Comfort Food

Fall is here and it is time to break out the soup recipes and other comfort food. Ham and beans is always a good meal for a fall day. We made cinnamon apples and a new gluten free cornbread recipe. It was all so delicious.

Gluten Free Corn Bread

1/2 C. butter, softened 1/3 C. white sugar
1/3 C. masa harina 2 TBSP heavy cream
1/4 C. water 1/4 tsp. salt
1/4 C. cornmeal 1/2 tsp. baking powder

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

In a medium bowl, beat butter with an electric mixer until creamy. Beat in the masa harina and water until well combined.

Put the corn in a blender or food processor and coarsely chop on low sped. Stir in the corn and the cornmeal into the butter mixture. In another bowl, mix together the sugar, cream, salt and baking powder. Combine the two mixtures until well blended. Pour the batter into an uncreased 8X8 pan.

Cover the pan with foil and place into a 9X13 inch pan with fill and place into a 9X13 inch pan filled 3/4 inch high with hot water. Bake in preheated oven for 50 to 60 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into center of the cake comes out clean.Remove small pan from water and let sit until 10 minutes before serving.

Pumpkin Bars with Cream Cheese Frosting

1 bag Pamela's Classic Vanilla Cake Mix
3 eggs (2 beaten, hold 1 back from beating)
1/2 cup butter
1/2 cup chopped nuts (optional)
1 cup canned pumpkin
1/2 cup sugar or 1/3 cup agave
1 teaspoon allspice (cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg)

Measure out 2/3 cake mix and set aside, Combine remaining 1/3 cake mix with 1 unbeaten egg and butter until crumbly. Spread in bottom of a greased 9X13 inch pan. Bake at 350 for 15 minutes.

Combine reserved cake mix with pumpkin, sugar or agave, nuts, eggs, and allspice. Mix and pour over crust. Continue baking for 15 minutes. Refrigerate. When completely cooled, frost with cream cheese frosting. Keep refrigerated until ready to serve.

Cream Cheese Frosting

8 oz. cream cheese, softened
1/4 cup unsalted butter, softened
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 1/4 cups powdered sugar, sifted

Mix all ingredients and frost over cooled bars.

BSU Pumpkin

I decided to paint my pumpkin this year. It took me all week to get this BSU football player done.

This is our second tournament of the season. Luckily this was in Boise, ID. We did not have to travel far.

Our first game was Saturday morning at 10:15 a.m. We played the Kickers from Nampa, ID. We won the game 5-0.

We played game #2 later Saturday at 4:30 p.m. We played a Rush team from Boise. It was an exciting game. At half time it was scoreless. About 5 minutes left in the game Rush scored a goal on us. The referee should have called off sides, but he missed it. It was 1-0 and our girls were tired. One minute left in the game Rush scored again on us and the game ended. The girls played their best and we were all proud of each and every one.

Game #3 was played early Sunday morning. We had a 9:00 a.m. start and the temperature outside was 32 degrees. Luckily there was no wind and that made it feel a lot warmer. We won the game 2-0. We won second place in the tournament. Not bad for a young team.

Linder Farms

Today we took the girls to Linder Farms in Kuna. We went on a tractor ride and got to pick the perfect pumpkins. The BSU corn maze that took us all about one hour to find our way out.

Panama City Beach, FL 2009

Once we made it to Panama City Beach, FL and saw the ocean we knew that it was all worth it.

One day we had rain and decided to go to the mall. I found great deals at JC Penney and bough the girls some school clothes.

We went to Hunt's Oyster Bar and I ate my first oyster! It was o.k. but I doubt I eat another.

We love the ocean and the sand is like sugar. This is a wonderful place.

We spent a lot of time swimming in the pool. Kennedy did so good swimming. She was able to do two forward and backward somersaults under water.

Our Flight to Florida

We left Idaho at 7:00 a.m. October 2, 2009. It was a Friday and we were given airline buddy passes from a friend. Flying standby with a 5 year old was a challenge. It was an even bigger challenge hauling all of her food through the airport. Our doctor gave us a note for the airlines to allow us to bring Kennedy food on the trip. We made it to Phoenix and then our day went down hill. We watched 5 flights to Charlotte, NC leave Phoenix and we could not get on. All of the flights were full and had no room for us. 7 hours passed and I was starting to get frustrated. We were told there was a chance we were going to have to stay the night in Phoenix or Charlotte because there were no other flights into Pensacola for the day. We had missed all the connecting flights. They were telling us that we may not even make it Saturday! I called Kevin and he was able to find cheap airline tickets from Atlanta to Pensacola. We were able to get on a flight to Atlanta at 6:00 p.m. Kevin reserved us a hotel room by the Atlanta airport and by the time we made it to the hotel it was 11:00 p.m. We were exhausted and had no clothes! Our bags were in Florida and we were not. We slept in our T shirts and woke up the next morning at 6:00 a.m. (4:00 a.m. Idaho time). We ate breakfast and off to the airport we went. We made it to Pensacola, Fl around 8:30 a.m. We were 16 hours late, in dirty clothes, and ready to hit the beach.

Breakfast Baked Potato Skins

If you have leftover potatoes from dinner the night before use them for breakfast baked potato skins in the morning.
Ingredients:
4 large baking potatoes, baked
3 TBSP. vegetable oil
1/2 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp garlic powder
1/8 tsp pepper
8 oz. cooked and crumbled breakfast sausage
1 1/2 C. cheddar cheese

Cut potatoes in half lengthwise: scoop out the pulp, leaving a 1/4 inch shell (save pulp for another use). Place skins on a greased baking sheet. Combine oil, salt, garlic powder, and pepper. Brush oil mixture over both sides of the skin. Bake at 475 degrees F for 7 min; turn. Bake until crisp, about 7 more minutes. Sprinkle sausage and cheddar cheese inside the skins. Bake 2 minutes longer or until cheese is melted. Serve immediately.

Karleigh's Soccer Game

Les Bois girls played Capitals. First half we were down 1-0 and we ended up losing 3-0. Karleigh is getting to be a stronger player and there has been so much improvement within the last week. Les Bois foot skills is far better than any team we have played. We need to not focus on the wins, but on the development of the soccer skills.

Gluten Free Flour Tortillas

2 C. Gluten Free All-Purpose Flour Mix
1 1/2 tsp. xanthan gum
2 tsp. sugar
1 tsp. salt
1 C. warm water

1. Add the dry ingredients to a large mixing bowl and mix the ingredients thoroughly.

2. Add the cup of warm water to the bowl and mix the dry goods into the water with your hand. Mix it all together until no longer dry.

3. Separate the dough into 8 pieces and roll each piece into a ball. Place all but one of the dough balls back into the bowl and cover with plastic wrap until you're ready to work with them.

4. Sprinkle surface with a bit of rice flour and then roll the ball into a circular shape. Get as thin as possible.

5. Place tortilla onto a hot griddle and let it cook approximately 1 minute-or until it has started puffing up and the bottom side is developing brown spots. Flip the tortilla and cook the other side.

Guest Book girls

The girls were beatiful at Amy and Kyle's wedding. They were in charge of the guest book table. When that was over it was all fun and games.

Can't put down the soccer ball

Karleigh took her soccer ball to the wedding. It ended up getting a lot of use and kept the kids busy until the dance started.

All of the second cousins at the Stringer Wedding

All of the girls had so much fun playing with each other.

First Season Soccer Game

Well the official soccer season is off and running. We ended up having a tournament before having a league game. Kevin is out of town this weekend. He is in Warren, ID ridding dirt bike's with the boys. We had a nice girls weekend and enjoyed Karleigh's first soccer game.

This is how we travel

It is not as easy as it use to be. Traveling with a child and food allergies is not easy. We did a lot of homework before we left for Seattle. We took a convection oven so that we could heat up Kennedy's meals if we needed to. It worked out great. We went to Trader Joe's and bought groceries as soon as we got to Seattle. Our hotel room looked like a grocery store. We had our refrigerator filled and a large cooler. I am sure the maid was wondering what the heck was wrong with us. Kennedy took along her food to the restaurant and ate with us. The night we went out for pizza with the team I cooked Kennedy her pizza, we bought at Haley's Bakery, and she took it and ate it. It was a successful trip.

Starfire Soccer Tournament-Seattle, WA

Kennedy Playing In The Rain

Game 1 on Saturday at 11:00 a.m.

Game 2 on Saturday at 4:00 p.m.

Game #3 on Sunday at 1:00 p.m.

Our first soccer tournament took us to Seattle, WA for Labor Day weekend. What a great way to kick of the soccer season. Karleigh played three soccer games within 29 hours. Her first game they played in their white jerseys. We tied the game 1-1. The second game we played on Saturday was on a turf field. Big difference from the normal field they are use to playing on. That game also ended in a tie 1-1. Sunday was a different story. It rained all day and by the time it was our turn to play the field was a mud pit. It rained the whole game and at one point Karleigh was pushed down and sheanded on her back in the mud. YUCK! Luckily our hotel had a laundry service and we were able to wash her uniform before heading home on Monday. I am excited to watch these girls grow over this soccer season.