Fried Cheese

Interestingly (and unfortunately), we are pretty sure my husband is going to have to go gluten free as well. He's been working out of town a lot for the past eighteen months and having mysterious sicknesses between being home and going out again. He feels better now that he's home, but gets sick to his stomach when he goes out with his buddies and eats. Very suspect. We'll be getting him tested before too long, but since we already know our son has 2 copies of the gene, 1 is definitely from him... how did we get so "lucky"?

Anyway. He has different cravings and must-haves in the way of what we GOTTA find that tastes good gluten free. Since he's been home, he's been experimenting with our fryer. I almost never drag it out because it's a bit of a pain and not so healthy, but OH MY the things he's been making lately taste so good. He watches Food Network and revamps things that look interesting to be gf for us.

HEY! FOOD NETWORK! YOU REALLY NEED A GLUTEN FREE CHEF ON YOUR CHANNEL!

Our latest favorite is Guy Fieri. He does Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives, and also Guy's Big Bite. Lots of cool recipes on both shows. And he's the spokesman for TGI Fridays now, and let me just say, that was my favorite restaurant before I went GF and it would be so fabulous for them to develop a menu I could actually eat off.

I'm taking a really long time to get to the fried cheese part, huh? Well, nobody's posted here for awhile, so take what you can get.

So. Guy Fieri makes fried cheese. Here is the recipe. We of course had to adjust it some to suit us, but that's where we started. We have been searching high and low for gluten free won ton wrappers with no luck, but we did find some Vietnamese rice paper that works pretty well, so we use that instead. Also we used GF bread crumbs. I forget what kind they were- he picked them up at Whole Foods though. And Oscar Mayer rotisserie chicken breast instead of salami.

They are crazy good. And now that I know the rice paper will work for holding stuff inside and breading, I really want to try a fried candy bar. But right now we'll stick with cheese. Equally good with marinara or ranch. mmmmm.......

Ahoy there you mateys!

Cap'n Josh and some of his first mates!
Here's the Pirate pinata we converted from a soccer ball (gotta get creative with our China resources).

Here's the cake!

I am very proud of the cake I made for Josh's birthday.

For the Pirate cake, I used one store bought chocolate cake mix, chocolate icing, and white icing colored yellow and blue. I make a 9 inch cake and a loaf cake (put most into the loaf cake) and then cut the side of the front of the cake to make the bow. I used rolos on the side for the cannons, and little dove chocolate bars on the side of the boat. You can't see it, but I used one dove bar as the plank on the other side of the cake. I used chopsticks for the sails and red card stock for the sails. I used pretzels and green airheads for the palm trees, but I would use toy ones if you have them because the airheads did not stay stiff. I would refrigerate it after it is all together to keep the frosting in tact. I had fun with the party, because we also did pirate mustaches for the boy, face designs for the girls, gave out bandanas, eye patches and earrings to the girls. Also, I make a treasure map with a bunch of "x's" on it and we hit their party treat at the end of the party.

The only snafu was Coby choking and turning blue when Josh was opening gifts. Fortunately, Jeff was able to find out he wasn't choking and then administered a couple of quick CPR breaths and he was back. As Jeff rushed him to the doctor, Josh just casually mentioned "Oh, Coby is just jealous of all my great presents". Sounds like something you would hear from a little boy whose spiritual love language is receiving gifts! Needless to say, this will be a party these 5 - 7 year olds will not quickly forget!

If you have questions on how to do it, please let me know.

Chicken Pot Pie

Oh. My. Word. I have missed you, chicken pot pie. Things with cream sauce and flaky pastry have been the hardest to recreate on my own. I finally found a couple of recipes to cobble together and the results have been fabulous. And it's GLUTEN FREE!!!! Not dairy free, but I'm sure you could change it up if you needed to. Plus, if you don't have to be gluten free, you could just get a can of whop biscuits and throw those on the top to make it even quicker.

{you know, whop biscuits? The ones in the can that you have to whop on the counter to open?}

I wish I could say I made this up, but it's pretty basically Bette Hagman's recipe from her Gluten-Free Gourmet Cooks Comfort Foods. I change it up a tiny bit, but not really enough to say it's my own recipe.

Filling Ingredients:
1 cup diced cooked chicken
2 cups chicken stock
1/2 cup diced carrots
1/2 cup sliced celery
1/4 cup minced onion (i always chop a whole onion. onion is our friend.)
1/2 cup frozen peas (i use a can of those lesoeur peas with mushrooms and pearl onions- it adds a nice touch.)
3 tablespoons GF mix (or flour)
2-3 tablespoons water
1/4 cup cream
salt and pepper to taste

Oven at 350.

prepare chicken and set aside. In my case, that means open the can and flake it with a fork.

put the chicken stock in a large saucepan and bring it to a boil; add the carrots, celery and onions and cook for 15 minutes. Add peas and chicken and cook 5 minutes longer.

Mix the flour to a thin paste with the water. Use it to thicken stock and cook on low 1-2 minutes. Add cream and season with salt and pepper.

Pour mixture into a 2-quart casserole dish or individual ramekins (which I haven't tried but OH the cuteness!) and top with globs of biscuit dough. Bake for about 20-25 minutes.

I ALWAYS double this recipe and put it in a 13x9.

Topping (gluten free):
Her recipe says to use her biscuit recipe, obviously. I don't. My mom spent her last snow day from school baking batch after batch of gf biscuits, tweaking 1/2 teaspoon here and there of various things to find the perfect recipe. I don't know what it started out as, but now it's hers and it is GOOD. So that's what I use instead.

1/3 cup butter
1/2 cup potato starch
3/4 cup cornstarch
1 1/4 tsp xanthan gum
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1 tablespoon sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup milk

Oven at 375 if you're making actual biscuits with this recipe, otherwise I just throw the dough in blobs on top of the pot pie stuff and use the 350.

In food processor, blend all ingredients except milk. When everything is blended, add the milk and blend till smooth. Drop by spoonfuls onto greased baking sheet. Bake 15 minutes to make 8-9 biscuits.

I always have to at least triple this when I make biscuits for breakfast. A double batch works nicely for a double batch of potpie filling.


My daycare baby is highly enamored of the pot pie.

Here's one serving, ready to eat.

Side view of the casserole dish as it comes out of the oven. I'm not sure if I was trying to be artsy or what- now I'm looking at it and thinking it's kind of weird.

But I guess from the top, all you can see is huge fluffy biscuits, so it's good to have a side view to show off the sauce. :)

Authentic fried rice

One of my favorite and very American friendly dishes that I have learned how to make is Fried Rice (Chao Fan). The one I will be demonstrating here is a Ji Dan Chao Fan (Egg fried rice) which many people eat for breakfast.

In America, we call our three meals of the day breakfast, lunch and dinner. In China, they are called zao fan, wu fan, and wan fan which literally means morning rice, noon rice and evening rice. Yes, rice is a big part of eating here!

Start with some cooked rice. Cut up some veggies.

Warm up some vegetable oil (I have shown our Chinese oil in case you go to the Chinese grocery store and want to get the authentic stuff)

Let the egg cook for a while (like you would an omelet).

Then break it up and cook like you would scrambled eggs.

Cook the carrot with a little oil and a little soy sauce (you can use gluten free soy sauce or omit).

Mix in the rice.

Then mix in the egg and chives.

See this chicken boullion, it works nice to sprinkle in the fried rice and/or to cook the veggies or in many other chinese dishes. Pick some up if you go by the Chinese market. It works better than cubed boullion in my opinion!

An instant meal for breakfast, lunch or dinner awaits you! Add salt as you like!

INGREDIENTS

Cooked rice

2 eggs (stirred up)

soy sauce (take out for gluten free option)

salt (to taste)

cut up veggies (in this case carrots and chives, you can do whatever you like)

vegetable oil

OPTIONAL (cut up meat such as chicken, pork, little pieces of ham, or shrimp)

Warm up a little oil in a wok or other large skillet. Let the egg simmer a while, then break it up and cook like scrambled eggs. Take out of the pan. Make sure you have just a little bit of oil and cook the carrots and/or other vegetables until a little soft. Do not cook chives, though. Stir in rice, egg, and chives and you are done. Enjoy!

Taco Soup

This recipe is:

-Super easy
-GF
-Nut free
-Freezable
-Can be made in the crockpot to simmer all day
-Can be made on the stovetop and is ready as soon as it's hot
-Inexpensive
-Nutritious
-Makes a lot (6-8 servings)
-Good for giving to a family
-Ingredients can be added/substituted
-Tastes good!

You can make this and take this to a friend as a hot meal or as a freezer meal. If you are making it to be ready to eat, a great vessel for traveling is a large mason jar. The lid is tight so it won't spill and there should be enough soup for a family of four. You'll even have some left for your own family. It has enough veggies that you don't need to bring an additional salad, but you can take some tortilla chips or cornbread, some shredded cheddar cheese and/or sour cream.

To make as a freezer meal for your family or someone else, just brown the meat and add the other ingredients. Transfer to ziplock quart size freezer bags. Lay bags flat on a cookie sheet and place in freezer till frozen. Once frozen, put it together with a package of shredded cheese in a gallon size bag. Label with the contents and date. Then you or someone you love will have a hearty meal ready and waiting for a busy day.

*One more tip: When you chop onions for any recipe, chop the entire onion and save the extra in a ziplock bag and freeze. Then you have saved a little produce and some tears the next time you make a recipe needing chopped onions. Even if I only have a little extra, I just add it to a bag I already have in the freezer.

TACO SOUP

16 oz. can chili beans
16 oz. kidney beans
16 oz. can black beans
8 oz. can tomato sauce
15 oz. can diced stewed tomatoes
16 oz. can whole corn
16 oz. creamed corn
pkg. taco seasoning
1 Tbsp. chili powder
1 lb. ground beef
1 onion, chopped
1 sm. can chopped green chilies

Open but do not drain any of the liquid in the cans.
Brown the ground beef in a pan with chopped onion. Drain and return to pot.
Add all remaining ingredients to a crock pot or dutch oven.
Simmer.
Serve with shredded cheese, sour cream, tortilla chips.

Cuban Bean Soup

This recipe is one of my favorites. It takes a lot of time to make just because of the bean-soaking and the simmering, but it's not too terribly labor intensive. It makes a huge pot and I usually freeze some of it for later.

Although it's called "soup", it's a lot thicker than that, and I always make a ton of rice to eat it with. We usually call it beans and rice, because it's not really very soupy at all. Just tasty.

Ingredients:
1 pound white beans (I've used pinto too and that's fine)
2 cubes each beef and chicken bouillon
4 slices bacon
1/2 slice ham steak, cubed
2 small green peppers (I usually use one)
4 garlic cloves
1 large onion
1 can tomato sauce
4-6 packets Goya Culantro y Achiote spice (this stuff is in an orange box in the Mexican food aisle. I used to have to go to a mexican market to get it but it's gotten pretty mainstream. It's BRIGHT orange spice.)
1 tsp cumin
1/4 cup cooking wine
2 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp vinegar

Soak beans overnight and rinse. Then cook with two quarts of water and the bouillon cubes. Bring to boiling, lower heat, and simmer till beans are done. (It usually takes at least two hours.)

Make Sofrito:
Slice and dice ham and bacon. Saute with diced peppers, onion, and garlic. Fry till soft. Add tomato sauce and Goya spice, salt, pepper, cumin, and wine. Simmer uncovered 15 minutes and then add to beans.

Cook, covered, for at least 90 minutes. Before serving, add oil and vinegar. Serve with lots of rice.

Good for most allergies- dairy free, nut free, gluten free as long as you are careful what brand of bouillon you use. It's really flavorful but not spicy- my kids will eat it. Good stuff all around.

Sweet smell of...butterflies?

I have taken attempt #2 at a homemade decorated cake and here it is. This is a cake that I made for my friend Mabel's baby shower. Mabel has 2 sons and is now expecting a baby girl. She's in bible study with me in Shanghai.

I can't take all the credit. I used a site that is amazing to get some ideas which is: http://www.coolest-birthday-cakes.com/butterfly-cakes.html. Being that I take the easy road and since I have a tiny oven where I live right now, I did what I thought was easiest and made a sheet cake. Took out 4 little triangles on the left, right, top and bottom middle of the cake and made those into flowers. I used a white Betty Crocker cake mix and 2 tubs of Betty Crocker frosting and colored the frosting myself. Borrowed 2 cake decorators from my friend Ginny for the green and purple designs you see on the cake. I used the green on the outside of the cake to visually make the butterfly design more obvious. The butterfly fabric you see under the cake will be made into some pajama bottoms for my niece, Ally, but worked out nicely for the presentation of this butterfly cake for the shower.