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!

Day 5 - Blackout Chicken Salsa

So in case no one is aware (like you could possibly be on the internet and NOT be aware) there is a huge power outage in San Diego. Thank God I'm North of there and am not affected by this...YET. I am really hoping it stays this way!

If I had been aware of the outage I wouldn't have taken the risk and used a crock pot but...

I decided to throw some random things together from my cupboard and fridge and it really was pretty tasty!

I used 2 large chicken breasts...
Then added about half a jar of Salsa
Once that cooked for about an hour I added 3 potatoes (cut up in about 1 inch cubes)

I threw on some Grizzly Joe's Trail Dust seasoning and some fresh chopped garlic.

After this cooked for about 2 hours I added some sliced mushrooms and cooked until it was done.

Oh yes, and I added about 1/2 cup of chopped fresh cilantro.

I put the chicken over the potatoes and had some steamed veggies (broccoli and green beans).

I really like any kind of gravy or sauce so I took some of the juices and added some cornstarch to cold water and then whisked it into the hot sauce to make a gravy of sorts.

It was pretty tasty!

Day 4 - Something smells fishy!

I didn't post yesterday...which means I didn't eat ANYTHING worth talking about.
Tonight is Friday so I'm making Fish Taco's.  It's easy and delicious and seems like a Friday kind of meal.

Fry up (in Olive Oil) 4 pieces of the fish of your choice (I used Mahi Mahi tonight, sometimes I use Talapia)

I squirt about a Tablespoon of lemon juice on them, and add about half a cup of chopped Cilantro.
I know not everyone like Cilantro like me but it does shrivel when cooked and isn't as much as it sounds, skip this is you don't like it (but you're totally missing out!),

I like to add some Grizzly Joe's Seasoning (some of the Original & Chipotle).
Unless you live in my area you probably won't find this, so use whatever seasoning you like.

Break up all the cooked fish and mix it all together.

Meanwhile...

Fill a small pan about halfway with Canola Oil. Once it's hot, take your corn tortilla and fry those in the oil.
Fold them in half and fry them on each side to as crispy as you like them.

Drain those on a paper towel and fill those bad boys up with the fish filling.
I like to add shredded cabbage, salsa, Franks Red Hot Sauce (mmmmmhmmm) and my special fish taco sauce.

To make that I mix a little mayo with some chipotle seasoning and dot it on the taco like sour cream.

No veggies, and no sides for me. I eat about 3 or 4 of these and am all set. :)

Not the healthiest meal I could, but certainly not the worst either!

Don't forget to pair this with a SkinnyGirl Margarita!

Day 3 - Snack time!

Growing up in PA means I LOVE (and I seriously mean love) my pretzels.
CALI has a crappy selection of pretzels...no UTZ anywhere, but finding out I needed to stay away from Gluten, well that just broke my heart.

And then I found these...

They are DELICIOUS! I have tried a few different kinds of GF pretzels and these are by far the best.

I need to limit myself though, because they are like $7.99 a bag at Henrys, Yikes!

Heading back to my bag and Pretty Little Liars.

Day - 3 Deviled Chicken & almost better than the real thing Mac & cheese

Not to pat myself on the back or anything, but my dinner is so good tonight that I couldn't even wait to finish it to post about it!

I made chicken breast (yes chicken again! You will soon see 98% of my meals are chicken based.)
First I mixed 1/2 cup of spicy mustard (from Trader Joe's, but any will do) and 2 or 3 tablespoons of Worcestershire sauce. Now you have to be careful because some Worcestershire has Gluten in it, but the Lee & Perrins does not. (according to an email I got from them.)

Then I coated the chicken in the mustard/W.sauce mix.

After that I coated it in crushed up Corn Flakes. I use Corn Flakes instead of bread crumbs. ( FYI they do not fry well.) If you use a food processor or blender and get them really fine they work the best.

A little sea salt and pepper on the chicken and then I baked it in the oven at 375 until it was cooked. (Again with the chicken use your own judgement for done-ness and time.)

While that cooked I made some G/F noodles, I like the brown rice spirals. BE careful! Test these suckers every few minutes, you do not want overcooked rice pasta. GROSS! 

After they are cooked and drained, I add some of my GF/DF butter spread (I made 2 cups of pasta and added about 1/4 cup of the "fake butter"). Then after that melted I added a bunch of Daiya Fake cheese. 

I am a mega fake cheesy person so I added a lot! Use as much as you like.

Melt that, and add salt & pepper.

Make sure its the Smart Balance LIGHT, regular is not D/F. Go figure!

I use the mozzarella style for this, I like it best but the other is good too!

I added some steamed broccoli, and asparagus as well to this to make it complete.

This even won the approval of my husband (even though he claims he allergic to mustard, I guess I'm willing to take that risk! He didn't even mention it.)

Oh yes, and I can't forget the wine! This was paired with a Viognier (my all time FAV white wine!). I get this at Fresh & Easy for (shhhhhhh) $5.99 a bottle! lol

Day - 2 Coconut Milk AGAIN

Dinner time! Yummm just in time to soak up the margaritas I had with a friend after work.

I decided on red curry chicken with rice and green beans.

I cheated tonight (probably because of the margaritas!) and used the following ingredients.

I used about 1 tablespoon on the red curry paste, whisked into a whole can of coconut milk.
I added 4 -6 boneless skinless chicken thighs,
1 chopped red pepper
2 small potatoes cubed.

I'm bringing all this to a boil and letting it cook, covered until the chicken is cooked.

I don't have a time on that. My husband says I always overcook chicken , so you may not want to listen to me anyway.

I'm going to put this over some sticky white rice and add some green beans to it.

There you go! 100% DF/GF and delicious!

Day - 2 Coffee problem - Solved!

If you're completely and utterly obsessed/dependent on coffee like me, then you'll appreciate this nugget of information.
Soy creamer is D I S G U S T I N G.
Seriously, I have put up with it for too long!
I've tried Rice Milk and that barely even turns your coffee a lighter color.
It's great for cereal, but it has more of a watery consistency than creamy, that's for sure.

So in my opinion Turtle Mountain Coconut Creamer saved the day!
It's delicious and creamy, and I honestly prefer it to regular creamer (not that I remember what that tastes like).
Sorry to rush this but I need to get my butt to work. I don't think they would appreciate my excuse that I needed to finish my blog post.

So go try it, even if you don't have a dairy allergy, it's SO Delicious. =}

Day 1 - GF/DF Pizza?? How can it be!?

I have been super excited all day to sit down and post my dinner recipe for today. 
But...as the day progressed and the weather got warmer and warmer out...(109!) my drive to cook has sizzled  (no pun intended) away.


My FIL has generously offered to get my husband and I pizza for dinner. Something I thought I would NEVER be able to eat again until Pizza Fusion stepped into my life. 


They make a Gluten free /Dairy free pizza that really is pretty good. Since I'm from the East Coast and know what REAL pizza is supposed to be like I just can't compare the two. It probably shouldn't even be called pizza, but it has a crust, some soy cheese and sauce so that's good enough for me!


I think as long as I pair it with a nice big glass of Sawbuck Malbec (2 for $10 at Henry's Market right now, go get some!!) it should do the job very nicely.


*Cheers*