Squash and Corn Soup

I am growing to absolutely love butternut squash.  (still hate all the other kinds, but hey, baby steps)  My hubby really doesn't like it, but he'll eat this soup, and both my kids love it too.  Sometimes I make a double batch and then freeze the leftovers in muffin cups so I can pop them out into a gallon ziploc.  We call them soup pucks.  Two or three is perfect for a small cup of soup for lunch, a couple more for a big bowl.  It's nice to have on hand.  Yay Pinterest for that idea.

I got this recipe from a Taste of Home soup book I bought on impulse at the checkout.  It's been well worth it.  I tweaked it just a bit- it originally called for half and half but I just use milk.  And since I always use turkey bacon, I never have the drippings that it said I should cook the onion and celery with, so I use butter there.

12 strips bacon, diced
1 medium onion, chopped
1 rib celery, chopped
2 tbsp flour (I use sorghum)
1 can chicken broth (14 1/2 oz)
6 cups mashed cooked butternut squash (I never measure- just buy a good sized one and use the whole thing)
1 15 oz can creamed corn
2 cups milk
fresh parsley, salt, pepper to taste

Cook bacon and save drippings, or else microwave your bacon and melt some butter like me

Saute onion and celery til tender.  Stir in flour til blended.  Stir in broth.  Bring to a boil; cook and stir for 2 minutes or til slightly thickened.

Reduce heat to medium.  Stir in squash, corn, milk, spices, and bacon.  Cook and stir til heated through.  Top with sour cream if you want.

It's super easy and really tasty.  The most labor intensive part is the squash and that's not bad at all.  If you don't know how to cook a butternut squash, here's what you do:

Slice it longways and scoop out the seeds from each side.  Lay both pieces face down on a cookie sheet and bake at 400 for about 45 minutes.  Cool it and then scoop out the flesh.  I usually zap it in the food processor for a bit just so it's very smooth, but you don't have to.  Just makes the soup a tiny bit chunkier if you leave it as is.

BLT Pasta Salad

I'm out of bread.  It's a very sad day.  There's this closeout grocery store about 45 minutes from me that had my gluten free bread on sale THREE FOR A DOLLAR.  At the regular store it's five bucks a loaf.  15 loaves for the price of one.  I bought 50.  And we ate sandwiches like they were going out of style for quite awhile.  Now that I'm out of bread, I can't bring myself to pay $5 again and I haven't made back over there to see if they have more.

But I wanted BLT.

So I made pasta, and darned if it isn't even better than I was hoping.

Ingredients for dressing:
8-12 ounces sour cream
big spoonful mayo- maybe 1/2 cup?
ranch dressing mix:  I like both of these and interchange them when I can't find one or the other.  You could of course use your own, but these are gluten free and delicious.

Other ingredients:
1 pound cooked pasta
12 slices bacon, chopped
a bunch of chopped tomatoes (I never measure those but I usually use between 1/2 box and whole box of grape tomatoes, or else 2-3 big tomatoes.  If you use big ones, take out some of the seeds so it doesn't get too soupy and juicy.)
minced onion, however much you like
fresh basil (I do about 12 leaves and then wish I had put more.  But I think if there's a cooking question, the answer is always basil.  Except for when it's garlic.)
a head of romaine lettuce, chopped

My mom taught me to always tear lettuce and never chop it with a knife because the edges turn brown.  And while this is true, it's also true that I'm a fast-eating BLT pasta piggy and the lettuce doesn't have time to turn.  Chop chop, baby!  Much faster.

I make the dressing first in a big bowl and then start adding the other things one at a time, putting the lettuce and pasta last.  That way the tomatoes and onion and bacon all get a couple extra minutes in the sauce to start mixing flavors.

 Deliciousness in a bowl.  I swear this dish is near perfect.  My dad who dislikes pasta salad but was very hungry got a small bowl and then came back for a bigger second serving.

I served it to my daycare babies and she sucked all the dressing off each piece and set it on her tray.  She's asking for more sauce here, not more actual food.  But then I scooped all that food back into her bowl and she ate it and THEN got seconds.

I will say that if you use gluten free pasta, it doesn't do well second day.  The pasta tends to get a little chewy and weird, and somehow it sucks up all the sauce while still leaving it dry.  I have to add milk if I'm eating it leftover.  But there aren't usually any leftovers!  And that might just be a gf problem.  I don't remember what regular pasta does.  It's been awhile...

Gram's Cornbread Dressing

I have so many fond memories of this dressing on holidays. My gram passed away in 2000, but I grew up watching this made as a family affair. My grandparents, my mom, and as many of her three brothers who were there would all crowd around the bowl with tasting spoons, arguing over whether it needed a bit more celery or 1/4 teaspoon less sage. There was no recipe and it just went by taste.

A couple years before my gram got sick, my mom finally told her there needed to be a recipe, because her girls didn't know how to make this stuff. :) They never let us help. So they sat down together and my gram tossed everything into her palm the way cool old country granny cooks do, and my mom carefully transferred it into measuring spoons so that she could pass a written recipe to me. I'm so glad, because it really doesn't feel like Thanksgiving or Christmas dinner to me without this stuff. We went without it a few years while we looked for a good gluten free cornbread recipe, but we got it, so here we are again. Yum.

2 recipes of cornbread, crumbled and dried overnight

Saute 3.5 cups celery and 3.5 cups onion in 2-3 tablespoons oil until transparent.

Crumble cornbread; mix with cooked celery and onion.

Sprinkle in 1.5 teaspoons poultry seasoning and 1 1/4 teaspoons sage.

Pour about 4 cups chicken broth and mix. (I usually use two cans)

Mix well. Pack into iron skillet (or 13x9 pan if you don't have a skillet) and bake in oven till top is crusty.

And it occurs to me now that there isn't a temperature marking. I usually throw it in on the bottom shelf while I'm cooking something else and just keep an eye on it.

Gluten Free Cornbread

I have no idea where my mom got this recipe, so I'm probably copying without credit. Sorry 'bout that, but it's tasty and I need it written in a place where I can find it!

1/4 cup sorghum flour
1/4 cup tapioca starch
1/4 cup potato starch
1/4 cup sweet rice flour
1/4 cup sugar
4 teaspoons baking powder
3/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon xanthan gum
1/4 cup shortening (not butter)
2 large eggs
1 cup milk
1 cup yellow cornmeal

Preheat oven to 425.

Combine the flours by sifting them into a large bowl. Add remaining dry ingredients and stir.

Cut the shortening into the flours, the way you would when making pie dough. You should end up with walnut-sized pieces in a sandy flour.

Combine the eggs and milk in a small bowl. Make a well in the center of the dry ingredients and pour in the liquid. Stir with a rubber spatula until everything is combined.

Stir in the cornmeal, whisking fast, until just combined. Do not overstir.

Pour into greased 9x9 pan and bake for 20-25 minutes, until the sides of the cornbread are slightly shrinking back from the edge of the pan and a toothpick comes out clean.

Chick-Fil-A-ish knockoff Nuggets

Chick-fila is one of the places I really miss. We can still do the fries and coleslaw, and the grilled chicken filet, but those nuggets and that crispy #1 sandwich haunt my sleep, with the two crucial pickles....

So on pinterest I found this recipe and tried it. It was really good, but didn't quite nail it for me, so after reading all the comments and judging what I felt like it was missing the first time I tried it, I tweaked it and came up with this one. It's still not quite CFA, but it is tasty and quells the cravings. I think next time I make these, I'll run through the drive thru and get coleslaw and fries with lots of chick-fila sauce and ranch, just to make the whole experience complete.

Ingredients:
2 big boneless skinless chicken breasts, cut in little bites
1 cup milk
1 egg
1 good sized spoonful hamburger dill pickle slices
1 cup Bob's Red mill all purpose GF baking flour
1 tbsp Lawry's seasoned salt
1 tsp Mrs. Dash (I like the table-ready kind so it's ground fine, but any kind is good)
2 tbsp powdered sugar (this was in the original recipe so i kept it. not sure what difference it would make to leave it out)
1 tsp pepper
oil for frying (I use refined coconut oil- it's better for you if you gotta have oil. the recipe calls for peanut or canola but I don't do those. A: can't do peanut. B: explain to me what a canola plant is? oh that's right... no such thing. manufactured in a lab and not real food!)

Steps:
Put the chicken, beaten egg, milk, and pickles in a gallon ziploc bag and marinate in the fridge for 2-4 hours.
Put all the flour and spices in another gallon ziploc.
Drain the liquid out of the marinade bag and add the chicken to the spice bag. Seal and shake. (If you hate fried pickles, fish those out first. I happen to love them, so I just mix them in with the chicken for a secondary treat.)
Heat your oil to 375 in a deep-ish pot, should be an inch or two deep with oil.
Drop chicken/pickles in small batches and cook about four minutes.
Try to let them cool so you don't burn your face off munching them.

Breakfast Casserole

My facebook status this morning was:

after a discussion of what to make for breakfast, Mich tells me, "Don't get me wrong, I love healthy you. But I REALLY LOVE casserole you."
This is why I love her. Bring on the casserole...

And many people have liked that status. It made me laugh a lot, and then I made casserole. Requests for the recipe then followed. This is one I make based on sheer taste. It's comfort food. Don't be looking for low fat or low calorie or lots of nutritional content on this one... I try to do that most days, but this one is not. I just keep telling myself a hot meal made with love has got to be better than a cold bought donut or danish. :) I may be deluding myself though.

Most of the daycare kids do really like this one. My own children won't eat it, but I don't really care. They can have a bowl of cereal and I'm happy to eat their share.

Ingredients:
1 bag crispy crowns (the small round hash browns like chickfila has. Ore-Ida is gluten free. I use regular tater tots when that's all I've got, but I like these better in this one.)
1 box cooked turkey sausage links
1 thing of condensed soup (I use Pacific because it's gluten free but most of you can probably use campbells. I've used chicken and also mushroom and they're both good.)
some sour cream- I had a 16 oz container and I put in two big spoonfuls. Maybe 4-6 oz?
1 cup shredded cheese
1/2 onion, chopped
1/2 red bell pepper, chopped
salt and pepper to taste

Chop the sausage in small pieces and mix it with the peppers and onion, soup, and sour cream in the bottom of a casserole dish. If you use 13x9 it comes out pretty thin- I like to use that weird 8x11 one.
Spread that out smooth and cover it with cheese. Pour the whole bag of crowns on top and bake at 350 for about 40 minutes.

Creamy Crockpot Chicken

This stuff is GOOD. It completely satisfies all my comfort food, noodle goodness, cream sauce cravings and I've perfected the gluten free version finally. We used to make this a lot before we were GF and it's taken me a while to figure out how to do it and make it taste the same. I always make double the amount of sauce it calls for and we still end up with big chunks of chicken in the pot while we scrape the last bit of sauce onto our pasta. Also good on rice.

If you're like me and you love the sauce and noodles, I'll post a recipe next about what to do with the leftover chicken. I made it last night and almost wept for joy it was so good. And my daughter? She wept for real and spit it in her plate. Silly rabbit.

anyway...

In the crockpot, put a 3 lb bag of frozen chicken. I like to use the tenders instead of the big pieces for this because I like for more surface area to be covered by spices. Then put a dry packet of Good Seasons Italian dressing over it. Or if you're like me and you never buy that stuff, here's how to make it at home:

1 tablespoon Mrs. Dash
1 tablespoon Lawry's Garlic Salt
1/4 teaspoon dried parsley flakes
1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
1/8 teaspoon onion powder
1/8 teaspoon oregano
1/4 teaspoon basil
1/4 teaspoon paprika
1/4 teaspoon celery seeds (which I always leave out because I never have them)
1 1/2 teaspoons sugar
1/8 teaspoon pepper

So you cook that for 5-6 hours on low. Then add:
chopped onion- however much you like
3 blocks of cream cheese
1 box Pacific gluten free cream of chicken soup (This stuff is new and it is a MIRACLE OF SCIENCE. It has made easy casseroles a reality once again. I don't like it by itself the way I used to eat the Campbells cream soups, but it's awesome in recipes.)

I like to shred the chicken with forks before mixing all the cream sauce into the juices. Then cook it on high for about another hour and serve it with noodles. Super yummy!!