Gluten Free Corn Dogs

Note: I realize this post is long overdue, my recipes with notes on them were "lost" for a while. Thankfully, they have reappeared and I can share them with you.

I planned a fun menu for our Halloween dinner this year. Corn dogs, tator tots and popcorn balls for dinner. Just your basic food groups (well minus a couple, but ketchup makes up for the veggies, at least on Halloween). The tator tots were easy. I bought Cascade Farms Spud Puppies because, not only are they gluten free, they are free of MSG and they're organic. Hot dogs were found at Trader Joe's (gluten free and nitrite and nitrate free). All I needed was a recipe for corn dog coating and popcorn balls that had no gluten or dairy in the ingredients. I found the corn dog coating recipe on a message board (and tweaked it a lot) and the popcorn ball recipe on a gluten free blog somewhere (I will look for that site so I can give them credit).
Both the corn dogs and popcorn balls turned out tasting absolutely fabulous. I will make them again in the future. Sometimes I just crave a little junk food, it's nice to be able to make it a little healthier without sacrificing the flavor.
Click on the recipe name to access the recipe: Gluten Free Corn Dogs
Enjoy!

New Exciting Recipes.....To Be Seen in the Future

I know it's been a while since I've been on here. Life in general interrupts and I don't get on here as often as I would like to. That being said, I do have some exciting new gf/cf recipes to share with you very soon.
I don't think I've shared my meatloaf recipe yet and I also have some recipes from Halloween to share. Homemade corn dogs and popcorn balls. Yummy!
Plus, I announced tonight to Ian that we will be looking for new recipes for Christmas cookies this year. So far, I've found some that look easy to adapt and I even found one in Family Circle magazine that doesn't need to be changed (well only the chocolate from bittersweet to semisweet, but that's a minor change). So stayed tuned for some great recipes in the days ahead.

The Things you Bring Home from the County Fair....

Back in August our family went to our county fair. We had a great time and while we were there my husband had to get a New York style Italian Sausage sandwich. It was very messy. My sweetie was so excited about this sandwich. He'd had it two years ago when we had attended the fair and was still drooling at the thought of it. So of course he wanted me to watch the vendor make the sandwich and he asked the guy a lot of questions. He also mentioned to the guy that I am capable of recreating things that I've tried. To which the man replied "a lot of people have tried to make this at home, but they don't succeed." Oh, did I hear a challenge?! It certainly sounded like it to me. So I kept all the info that we had gleaned by watching the guy and after we were home I searched the internet and found something that sounded about right. I combined my info. and that recipe and made a very good copy of the sandwich, if I do say so myself!
And then we realized we needed to not eat gluten and dairy. Dairy wasn't a problem for this sandwich, but gluten...hello...the bun! So I tried using Tapioca buns. Yeah, not so good. The filling still tasted great, but the bun? It had the taste and texture of socks and paper. Terribly dry and tasteless. Horrible in fact. Ian's still talking about how bad those buns were and we had them a month ago!
So I had a little discussion with my sweet hubby and told him that I'd like to try turning his favorite sandwich into a very tasty stir-fry. We tried it tonight and I have to say, I like it better than the sandwich. The sandwich was always a messy thing because the vegetables were diced and you put a lot of them on the sandwich. The thing was always dripping veggies in your lap! So here's the recipe and a picture even (I managed to snap one before the food was devoured).
Fair Inspired Italian Sausage Stir-Fry
Happy Eating!

Zesty Oven Fried Chicken and Super Easy Parsley Potatoes

Finally a picture to go with some recipes. I made this last week before I got sick. The chicken was fabulous! Ian loved the crispy skin and even called it "fried chicken" which it isn't, but it is tasty. The Parsley potatoes were a snap to make because I baked my red potatoes in the oven and just cut them up to use them.
Click on their names to look at the recipes.
Super Easy Parsley Potatoes

Zesty Oven Fried Chicken
We added a salad with the chicken and potatoes to round out the meal. It was very tasty and best of all, gluten and dairy free!
Happy Eating!

A Momentary Break

In case you were wondering where all the new recipes are... I really do have some, but this cold I've been fighting is still working on me, which means my brain is in slow motion right now. I promise I'll be back to share more recipes. Tonight Ian told me I should put my meatloaf recipe on here because it's really good. I'm with him, it's yummy (and that's not me bragging, that's my taste buds smiling at the thought of that meatloaf). Meatloaf is on the menu for next Wednesday, so I'll try to post it by next weekend. Hopefully, I'll feel better before then and share some other recipes. And yes, I have several pictures of food to share, but again...the brain is foggy and tired, so I'll wait until it's working well again. See you soon!

There's Gluten in....Tea?

The more I read, the more amazed I am at where gluten is hiding in the American diet. I've read about gluten in some toothpastes and now I have to investigate my tea. One reason that there might be gluten in your tea is the process the factory uses for sealing the bag. Some factories use a wheat paste to "glue" the bag shut. Of course, when you make your tea that is in it and you're drinking gluten!
Right now I'm fighting a head cold, which is exactly when I like to drink tea. I pulled out a box of green tea and even though it didn't say gluten free on the box, I examined the tea bag and thought it looked like it would be okay. Uh, probably not. My throat was starting to feel sore before I finished the cup, so I tossed out the rest and made a new cup of tea using Celestial Seasoning (their boxes are marked gluten free). I did some research online and found that all Stash teas are gluten free (they have no gluten in the factory at all) and Bigelow teas are gluten free except for: Blueberry Harvest Herb Tea, Chamomile Mango Herb Tea and Cinnamon Spice Herb Tea. They also stated on their website that they do not use wheat paste to seal their bags, they use either a heat or crimp seal.
I also found the Republic of Tea products are all gluten free. What a relief to find companies that are making gluten free tea.
I also found a web page that linked to a lot of companies lists of their gluten free products. If you'd like to look at that, just click the link.
Gluten Free Shopping
Happy Sipping!

What to make when you feel under the weather...

A yucky head cold has hit hard at our house. My son got it first, starting with a bark and progressing to a fever and a runny nose. Poor baby, he's been so tired. When I suggested a nap today he agreed with me! No 8 yr. old would ever agree to a nap unless they are sick!
I woke up this morning and started feeling yucky almost right away. I'm coming down with it, too. Usually, when I don't feel good I have a can of chicken noodle soup. That's not happening for me now that we've switched our food and my mom isn't going to fly out to make her homemade chicken noodle soup for me and even if she did, I'd need some kind of gluten free noodle. So what's a girl to do? Get creative and pull out that crockpot!
I decided to make a chicken noodle soup without noodles. I used potato chunks instead. It's still simmering in the crockpot as I type this (I started it a little too late, it happens when you don't feel well). I did sneak a taste and it looks like it might be my new recipe to pull out when sickness strikes our house.

Chicken and No Noodle Soup