sloppy Joe's- 8

SLLLLOOOOPPPPYYY JOOOEEESSS! Sloppy Joe's was a meal I had A LOT growing up and It was NOT my favorite. BUT as a mom I have found that a good old sloppy Joe's recipe really comes in handy on a night when you may have had a plan to cook something just spectacular -and well rounded- and for sure it was high end cuisine... ( as I am sure you do every other night)...but plan B is making a grand appearance. My family LOVES this recipe in fact they loved it so much a few said they were giving it a TEN and wouldn't mind eating it again tomorrow! For realistic purposes however, I am giving it and solid 8.... it is sloppy joe's after all. SO, I am going to write it down and MAYBE get it right next time. Because if I am being honest, what I love about sloppy joes is the fact that I can open my pantry, mix a bunch of random things, and it usually works! Here is tonight's mixture:

Sloppy Joes:

1 LB ground Beef, Turkey ( what we use, allergic to beef) or chicken

4-6 stripes of bacon, chopped up

1/4 cup green bell peppers. diced

1/4 cup red bell peppers. diced

1/2 cup yellow onion, diced

1 TBSP GF Worcestershire sauce

2 tsp chili powder ( I used about twice that much if not more)

a good sprinkle of Webers gourmet burger seasoning ( LOVE THIS STUFF)

a really good sprinkle of my favorite roasted garlic seasoning

some oregano sprinkled to.

2 cans Diced tomatoes in tomato juice

ALL seasonings should be double checked to make sure they are still GF. I have found companies change their recipes more often then I would like. Brown your meat and bacon and onion and peppers all together. Add all your seasonings as you are browning so the flavors can really get cooked in there. Once your mixture is all cooked up add your tomatoes and let it simmer, stir every so often so the bottom wont burn. Let it cook until the sauce thickens, about 10 minutes.

ONE MORE ADD. I take our GF buns, put Vegenaise on one side a DF cheese on the other and throw then under the broiler until toasted. YUM! make your sandwich, usually this awesome mess we eat with a fork, pair the meal with salad, fruit and veggies!

Megans Chicken 7/10

Megan's chicken is not so much Megan's anymore...I made this about 6 years ago way before we even knew what gluten free or dairy free even meant. SO I have tweaked in completely, it was a family favorite we could no longer eat and NOW WE CAN! and its pretty darn good! =) a LOT like Hawaiian haystacks, in fact next time I want to make Hawaiian haystacks I will probably just use this recipe.

Megan's chicken:

3- chicken breasts
1 package GF/DF Italian seasoning ( I used a garlic and herb salad dressing packet! YUM)
2- TBSP DF "butter" ( but what is it really?)
1/4 cup GF chicken broth

throw it all in the crock pot and cover it the crock pot with foil, let it go for 6 hrs on medium heat.
when its done you will add the other ingredients to make it a sauce.

THEN,
shred your yummy chicken in the crock pot,
whisk 2 cups of chicken broth with about 1/2 TBSP corn or tapioca starch , add to chicken.
add 1-2 chicken bullion cubes, and 8 oz DF cream cheese, mix it and let it get all warm and yummy! serve over rice.

we had green beans and peaches as side dishes, my kids LOVED dinner. =)

Mac & cheese & hotdogs! 3/10

last week while I was doing my weekly " oh man I am overwhelmed by this diet" session, my husband kindly suggested that a few nights a week I should try to do more simple meals for my kids ( even if my taste buds throw a fit) so we settled on what my honey considers an American classic! Mac & Cheese....and HOT DOGS! In our local walmart I found this brand, I was almost skipping down the isle I mean how rare are GF/DF products??


I followed the directions to a tee, and wa-la! dinner in a snap! we used turkey dogs, as my middle man is allergic to Beef along with DF/GF/EF. the kids were not to impressed. They ate the hotdogs out of the pasta. I asked for a review, and none of them LOVED it or even were thrilled about trying it some other time...so it earned a poor 3/10. At least I tried to simplify right??

Apricot chicken 81/2

O.k so I have already made this recipie twice. The first time I added a bunch of "other" stuff and it was o.k. the second time I used only the ingredients reccomended and it was AWESOME!! It is 81/2 from us!! loved it, will make it again and next time maybe turn it into a Asian night with some great veggies on the side and rice noodles!

this one comes from the glutenfreefrenzy.com website. GREAT site with reviews and recipes, its like a support group there! love it, ANYWAY... I did not get to taste this one, so I think I will

Apricot chicken OR peach chicken

2 boneless skinless chicken breast
1/4 cup apricot or peach preserves ( she recommends organic, I didn't use organic)
1 tsp mustard ( dijon or honey)
1 tsp GF soy sauce
1 tsp honey
1/8 tsp cayenne

combine all the ingredients but the chicken, us a bit of coconut oil ( I used olive oil) to fry the chicken when the first side is cooked and you flip it to the other side, brush the mixture on top of the cooked side of chicken breast, continue doing so from side to side until the chicken breast is completely cooked.

( can I be honest with you? I didn't brush. I cooked the chicken on all sides until I knew it was pretty much cooked then I dumped the mixture in and let the chicken simmer in the juice until I KNEW it was totally cooked..it was good this way to. I am seriously lazy sometimes this is a great example of that!)

Pizza Night!! 10/10

Tonight the kids and I wanted to get creative! so we went over to my sisters house and had PIZZA!! The kids were so cute, They really enjoyed being little chefs. I think this one is a 10 out of 10 stars. the reviews were some thing like " this is SOOOO good" "can we have pizza night every night? or at least once a week?" The best thing about this is that you can tweak it however you want, a gourmet pizza or simple like we did.

For the crust we used:

Pamela's baking mix ( my new very favorite mix!)
which calls for:
2-1/4 tsp GF yeast
1/4 cup oil
1=1/2 cup water

Sauce:

we have found one of our favorite sauces for pizza is Hunts spaghetti sauce. ( I sent an e-mail to them asking if they consider their product GF, DF....I'll let you know! but I always label and did not see anything.

Toppings!

This is the fun part, do whatever you want! we had:

mushrooms
olives
green bell peppers
red bell peppers
onion
pineapple
turkey pepperoni
DF cheese
sausage
artichoke hearts

my middle one put EVERYTHING except cheese on his. he LOVED it. Have fun baking!

time for a change....

I have been struggling!! I mean struggling, to fix every day meals for a while now. since we just moved I relied heavily on store bough carls jr. and the few quick Gluten free, dairy free, egg free...EVERYTHING FREE meals I knew.....well we are settled and the battle has begun again.
=(
I get so frustrated searching the Internet and never finding a recipe that I can just make.OR IF I find one, it has so many ingredients and some of them expensive ones, that I feel overwhelmed by complexity and cost.
So week after week I scour the Internet, looking for yummy, family friendly foods....which also happen to be Gluten free, dairy free and egg free, all the while getting overwhelmed and stressed.
well growing up I was taught if you have a problem- fix it! so my solution is this. I am going to start blogging what we eat and how my family likes it with a recipe included. After I get a good amount going, I will make this blog more public so others who are struggling can find recipes to..but for now, I am just going to build my recipe box. So here goes nothing. Maybe I will help someone, maybe I will only help myself, its all in the journey baby!