German Apple Pancakes

Happy Holidays! 

I'm sitting here coffee in hand making my Christmas menu. Yes, TWO days before Christmas! I am such a procrastinator. Here's one of my all time favorites, perfect for Christmas Day brunch! I use bisquick gluten free mix instead of the flour also.

This is from "Recipes for Dairy-Free Living" Author, Denise Jardine.

Excellent recipes!

German Apple Pancakes

1 pound Pepin or Granny Smith apples, peeled, cored and thinly sliced

3 tablespoons sugar

½ teaspoon ground cinnamon

2 tablespoons freshly squeezed lemon juice

5 tablespoons pareve margarine

3 large eggs

¼ cup vanilla rice or soy milk

¾ cup flour

¼ teaspoon salt

Confectioner's sugar

Pure maple syrup, warmed

To prepare the apples: Combine the apples, sugar, cinnamon, and lemon juice in a bowl and toss to coat the apples. Melt 2 tablespoons of the margarine in a large saute pan over medium-high heat. Add the apple mixture and saute the apples until just soft, 6 to 8 minutes. Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 450°. Place the remaining 3 tablespoons of margarine in a baking dish measuring 8x11x2 inches, and place the dish in the oven until the margarine is melted. Distribute apples evenly over the bottom of the dish.

To prepare the batter: Whisk together the eggs and rice milk in  bowl until well blended. Add the flour and salt and stir until just combined. The batter will be slightly lumpy. Slowly pour the batter over the apples. Bake until the pancake is golden brown and puffed, 20 to 22 minutes. Sprinkle with a dusting of confectioner's sugar. Cut into pieces and serve immediately with warm maple syrup. 

Day 9 - Southwest Chicken Chili

I got this great recipe from Simply Scratch, and it was delicious!! My husband even ate it (and he hates beans.) I had to change a few things (of course) to make it "Ruthie friendly" but it was super easy to do and I'm sure tastes just as good as the original recipe.

I started with putting a couple frozen chicken breasts in my crockpot for a few hours so that it shredded. I LOVE how perfect it makes shredded chicken, don't add any broth or liquid. Once that's done, shred the chicken and put to the side.

Then chop up one green bell pepper or red pepper. I used red pepper because they're my favorite and all I had. Chop up 4 garlic cloves and one jalapeno pepper (remove the seeds!).

Add all of your chopped yummies to 3 tablespoons of melted dairy free butter ( in a pot, obviously) and cook for about 2 minutes, sprinkle with cumin & chili powder.

Add 3 tablespoons of Gluten free flour (I used the GF Bisquick mix- love it!). Stir into the peppers until it dissolves and cook for about another 2 minutes.


Add 1 cup of chicken broth and 3/4 cup of So Delicious Non Sweetened Coconut Milk.

Then add a couple of tablespoons of tomato paste, stir and dissolve.

Add your shredded chicken and 1 can of pinto beans (drained and rinsed).

Stir in more chicken broth to thin out, and mix in about a cup of corn.

Salt & pepper it and let it simmer, covered, for about 45 minutes.

I added fresh cilantro and of course a few dashes of Franks Red Hot Sauce to my bowl and it was sooo good!

Ingredients:

3-4 cups Cooked Chicken, shredded

1 can Pinto Beans, drained and rinsed

1 cup Corn

1 medium Pepper, diced

1 Jalapeno, diced small {seeds and ribs removed}

4 Garlic Cloves, minced

3 tablespoons Flour

4 teaspoons Chili Powder

3 teaspoons Cumin

2 teaspoons Kosher Salt {more or less to taste}

2 tablespoons Tomato Paste

3-4 cups Chicken Broth

3/4 cup Unsweetened Coconut Milk

LiveStrong!

Happy New Year!

Please don't worry, I HAVE been eating, just not posting. :)
I actually have a few pretty delicious recipes I will be posting a little bit later.
For now I wanted to share my group on www.livestrong.com for all of you GF/DF friends of mine.

Join it below and track your calories with me as well as some new ideas for food.

XOXO

Gluten & Dairy Free Living - LiveStrong!

Day 8 -Cottage Pie

The Holidays are upon us, but until I get into any of my holiday recipes I wanted to post my delicious dinner recipe.

Now I've always called this Shepherds Pie, that's what my mom always called it but I've recently found out that since it has ground beef in it, it's actually called Cottage Pie. Someday I'll try it with lamb because that sounds yummy!

So here's what you need to do, and I don't really measure anything, so I'm sorry.

Melt some butter in a skillet, add some chopped garlic & mushrooms, cook until it all smells delicious (but don't burn the garlic!!).

Meanwhile, boil some water, peel & cut up your potatoes and add to boiling water.

Add some steamed green beans (I chopped them into 2 inch long pieces).
Cook a few minutes more, then remove from the pan.

Add the ground beef and cook until no longer pink, add the green beans, mushrooms and garlic and mix well.

Add (about half a cup or so) of mushroom gravy, or beef gravy. Henry's market has dairy free gravy.

By now your potatoes should be done. I add about half a cup of Smart Balance LIGHT (the Original has dairy) and a splash of Plain Coconut Milk. Mash those taters up! Add salt & pepper.

Pour the meat mixture into a glass pan, and then top with the mashed potatoes.

Bake in the oven at 350 for 35 minutes....And....deliciousness!

Day 7 - Oh Ahi!

Hola!

I took a little break because I was in a cooking funk! When the seasons change I have to adjust my cooking a bit and sometimes can take awhile to transition. =)

Tonight I made Seared Ahi (that I slightly overcooked) for dinner.

The seared Ahi is something new I tried, raw ANYTHING scares me. It took me forever to make steak correctly but I finally got it. So now with Ahi steak you want to cook it no more than medium/rare.

I took the ahi steak, seasoned them with salt and pepper.

I heated up about 2 tsp olive oil in a pan, and added the ahi.
I let it cook about 3 to 4 minutes (depending on how thick the steak is) on each side.
You can see the color change from the bottom to the middle of the steak.
I think it's about 1/4 a way on each side you want to see the meat cooked.

After that I shredded some fresh ginger (about 1 tsp, for 2 smaller steaks) in the pan, then added a little less than 2 to 3 tsp of lemon juice and a few splashes of soy sauce. Flip the steak over and get lots of flavor on it.

I served this over white rice (with lots of sarachi sauce, I looove spicy!), and steamed green beans with a tsp of sugar and a little soy sauce.

This was really good! And went great with my all time favorite wine!

So I'm having repeats for dinner tonight.

I have my favorites and sometimes I make them twice in the same week! 

But for lunch a friend at work brought me some of her leftovers to have. She's amazing and I love her for it!

She cut up and baked some different kinds of squash, drizzled in olive oil, and poured some Newman's Own Marinara Sauce over it.

It was delicious!! She had pasta in hers, and I could always add G/F pasta if I made it myself, but it was great just with the squash and zucchini. 

It's pretty basic and simple, but was oh so good! 

Also for a yummy snack (if you're sweet toothing it) is Trader Joe's Dark Chocolate Nutty Bits.

DAIRY FREE! They are sooo good!

Day 6 - Friday Food

Happy Friday!!!

I love making "Friday food". Tonight was homemade burgers and fries.

I started with lean, organic hamburg meat. (you can use ground turkey, chicken, beef whatever.)

I mixed lots of garlic powder, salt & pepper, and a about 1 tablespoon of oregano. (That's my secret ingredient!)

Make these into patties.

For mine, I made two thin patties and put some Daiya Mozzerella cheese in between them.

Grill these up...add some sliced tomatoes, lettuce, pickles, ketchup and mayo and put it all on...

I made my own fries as well.

SUPER EASY.

Heat up a lot of canola oil...

Slice the potatoes into fry size pieces. Add them to the oil, and cook them until they look golden and delicious!

I think I'll be making these cookies soon...tonight is a lot cooler and making me anxious for Fall!

Yummy Pumpkin Cookies!