Showing posts with label simple. Show all posts
Showing posts with label simple. Show all posts

Tuesday, June 22, 2010

Soups On!

Great I live in the Northwest where you can almost eat soup year round. Soup is such a versatile food that is easy to adjust to whatever food allergies you have. I have made two gluten-free soups this week.

This one was born of desperation and turned out super tasty - 5 minutes start to finish!

4 cups chicken broth
1 can petite diced tomatoes
1 cup cooked ground beef (I had some in my freezer)
1 cup frozen corn
1 can kidney beans, drained and rinsed
salt and pepper to taste

This was really yummy!

Saturday, March 1, 2008

A Recipe to Share : Dirty Rice and Beans

Here's a recipe we've been having a lot lately. I adapted it from a recipe I found in Cooking Light last fall but I simplified the ingredients. I also frequently use it for a framework for a baked rice dish, and can add whatever I have and whatever sounds good. I love that it is truly a one-pot meal.

Dirty Rice and Beans
Gluten-Free, Dairy-Free, Soy-Free
(check your chicken broth to be sure!)

Ingredients
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 red bell pepper, finely chopped
1 yellow onion, finely chopped
1/2-3/4 pound skinless, boneless chicken thighs, cut into 1/2-inch cubes
2 cup uncooked long-grain brown rice
5 cups fat-free, less-sodium chicken broth (or broth water mix)
1/4 tsp ground thyme
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
1/8 tsp ground red pepper
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 (15-ounce) can red kidney beans, rinsed and drained

Preparation
1. Preheat oven to 350°.
2. Heat oil in a large Dutch oven over medium heat.
3. Add bell pepper and onion to pan; cook 4 minutes or until vegetables are tender, stirring occasionally.
4. Add chicken; cook 3 minutes or until lightly browned.
5. Stir in rice; cook 30 seconds.
6. Add broth and remaining ingredients; bring to a simmer.
7. Cover and bake at 350° for 1 hour and 15 minutes or until liquid is absorbed and rice is tender.

Wednesday, January 9, 2008

More on Default Dinners

I love my new Default Dinner list . I did not do a good job planning this week and I did not know what we were going to have for dinner tonight and the rest of the week. I don't really feel like going to the store today either.

So I browsed my default dinners blog entries and then took a peek in the freezer and pantry. Now I have a plan for tonight AND tomorrow night, using items that I already have on hand. Tonight we will have vegetable soup and tomorrow we will have pasta with clams. If I don't make it to the store in time, I think I will have what I need to make fried rice the day after that! So wonderful!

BTW, my doctor's appointment is not until next week and then I may be making some more diet changes. I have to admit, I am really enjoying my freedom right now!

Tuesday, November 27, 2007

Black Bean Tacos

One of the Default Dinners is Mexican night.

More often than not, lately we have been doing tacos. I have a recipe from a recent issue of vegetarian times that I use the most. Basically you make a bean filling out of beans, tomatoes and onions and then add lots of toppings like : avocado, lettuce, tomato, roasted peppers and onions, cheese (for those eating dairy).

My kids love these because they get to choose their own toppings. I was excited to discover that the taco shells I already buy are gluten-free.

Pasta with Clams

When we are not eating turkey, we are mainly having good-old Default Dinners.
Another one is pasta, which initially I thought would be difficult when going GF but actually isn't. There are lots of options in GF pasta, including the cheapest I have seen so far at Trader Joe's. So for our default pasta meal I make some pasta and then do one of the following:
  • add Spaghetti Sauce
  • add veggies and italian seasonings (and parmesan for those eating dairy)
  • add clams and garlic (and parmesan for those eating dairy)
This week we had the Pasta with Clams. I have been making this incredibly simple recipe for years - it came out of one of those 5-ingredient cookbooks. I have not seen any Angel Hair rice pasta yet, and that is what I typically used for this recipe. I think I have made it twice now, once with penne and once with spaghetti. Turned out nice! The whole family seems fine with the GF pasta which is great!

Wednesday, November 21, 2007

Tomato and Spinach Soup with Brown Rice

Another of my Default Dinners tonight!
I make soup quite often and use several soup recipes from Moosewood Restaurant Daily Special regularly. This one is typically Tomato and Kale Soup with Barley. My grocery was out of kale so I substituted spinach and I subbed in Rice for Barley to make it gluten-free.

It was really good - especially with a little sheep's milk feta sprinkled on the top.

Tuesday, November 20, 2007

Shrimp Lo Mein

We used one of my Default Dinners tonight and had a really yummy and simple gluten-free and dairy-free Fried Rice or Noodle Night.

This week for noodles I used Rice Sticks that I had bought at Trader Joes for 99 cents. I cannot believe that price! It was a pretty large package. I cooked the whole thing and I still have plenty left over for lunch tomorrow. I just add whatever vegetables I have on hand which this week was - onion, mushroom, shredded cabbage, and carrot. Lots of times I make it vegetarian but this week we had shrimp which made it extra tasty.

Added 11/21/07: I left a few things off my list by mistake, and I realized when enjoying my yummy leftovers for lunch. I also added frozen peas and corn and of course wheat-free tamari. I also add a little chili-garlic sauce for spice, and it occurs to me I should double-check it is GF, although I don't see anything suspicious on the label.

Default Dinners!

I am a planner. I always plan my menus for the week and try to do basically one shopping trip a week, although I do make periodic extra trips to Trader Joes and Costco. Some weeks I really enjoy doing this and some weeks I just cannot get into it. Nothing sounds good, I'm too busy or not feeling adventurous, or I don't want to spend a lot of money and buy a lot of new things. Lots of times I just end up doing a poor job planning and we end up eating junk or doing take-out in that situation.

Last month, I was reading this post and was inspired to make a list of default dinners. Basically, it was a weeks worth of dinners to fall-back on when I could not come up with something else for whatever reason. Note - this was before I went GF and dairy-free.

Here is what I had come up with:
DAY ONE
mexican night(tacos,beans and rice,enchiladas,burritoes)
DAY TWO
pasta night
DAY THREE
pizza night
DAY FOUR
fried rice or noodle night (asian)
DAY FIVE
Soup (winter) or Salad (summer)

When I found out I needed to stop eating gluten and dairy I found myself really struggling to make my menu plans. I originally thought I would just have to throw out my default dinners and start from scratch but soon discovered that having this list was a lifesaver. Most the items on this list (except pizza) are not that hard to tweak to make them gluten- and dairy- free.

And now, without much effort, I can put together a simple menu of things I can eat and my family can enjoy.