Bread Recipe

This is my new favorite bread recipe. I don't remember where exactly I got it. I think it was a recipe that I found on a blog and then adjusted to my needs. My computer crashed and the site was in my favorites, now lost (back up your computers people!). The recipe can be used both in a bread machine or baked traditionally in the oven.

1 Tbsp dry yeast
1 Tbsp sugar
1 1/2 cups hot tap water (not too hot or yeast will die)
2 1/2 cups gluten free all purpose flour mix (I use Bavaria Mills)
2 tsp xanthum gum (1/2 tsp if flour mix has xanthum gum in it)
1 tsp salt
2 eggs (or 6 Tbsp water + 2 Tbsp ground flax seed)
1 1/2 Tbsp oil
1 tsp cider vinegar (I've always skipped this since Kayden wasn't allowed apples)

*For a yeast free version: skip the yeast and sugar, substitute hot water with carbonated water.

If using bread machine, add wet ingredients, then dry ingredients then create a well in the dry ingredients and add the sugar and yeast. Set the bread machine to a rapid cycle and voila! You have bread. :)

IF YOU DON'T USE A BREAD MACHINE...

1) Mix yeast,sugar and hot water in a small bowl, let sit until foamy.
2) Combine flour, xanthum gum and salt in a large bowl. Blend well to activate and web the xanthum gum.
3) In a third bowl, whisk eggs, oil and vinegar until eggs are a bit frothy.
4) The yeast should be foamy now, add wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and mix. No need to knead your dough since there is no gluten in it. Put dough into bread pan.
5) Place dough in a warm place with a towel over it. (see tips below) Let rise for 45 mins or until dough doubles in size.
6) Bake at 350 degrees until bread is done (oven times vary but you can use a digital thermometer, 206 deg = done)

Better Bread Tips (I haven't tried all of these but thought they were good to share):

*Work with room temperature ingredients.
*Use GF flour blends high in protein (aka sorghum, millet, amaranth, teff, oatmeal, buckwheat)
*Measure flour the right way.
*Look for recipes that call for eggs.
*Substitute carbonated water for water.
*Add 1/8 tsp powdered ascorbic acid (vitamin C) to dry ingredients, promotes better volume.
*Use olive oil.
*Use a digital thermometer. Bread temperature of 206 degrees Fahrenheit is done.
*Fill pan no more than 2/3 full of dough
*Gluten free bread requires more liquid than regular bread. Keep in mind when converting recipes. The dough should be too soft and sticky to knead but not as thin as cake batter.
*Easy warm environment: Warm oven to 200 degrees and turn off. Place a shallow baking pan partially filled with hot water in oven. Lightly cover loaf pan with damp towel and place in oven for 20 -30 mins or until dough rises to the top of loaf pan.

Gluten Free, Dairy Free Pie Crust

Kayden had a Thanksgiving feast with his preschool class and I wanted him to be able to enjoy pie. I turned to my friendly Google search and between 4 recipes that I liked, I came up with my own recipe using the most common ingredients and amounts used and what I liked. This is the first pie that I have EVER made. The closest thing I have come to pie making is take it out of the box and heat it up in the oven. I'm pretty proud of myself for making the crust from scratch. Here it is...

16oz (or 2 cups) gluten free all purpose flour (I used Bavaria Mills)
2 Tbsp sugar
1/2 tsp xanthum gum (use more if your flour doesn't already have xanthum gum in it, mine does so I used only 1/2 tsp)
1/2 tsp salt
8 Tbsp cold dairy free butter (I used Earth Balance)
1 egg
1 1/2 Tbsp lemon juice (or cider vinegar)
8-10 Tbsp ice water

1) Mix dry ingredients

2) I found this tip here and it worked beautifully... finely grate a frozen stick of butter. Yes, grate it like cheese. Mix into dry mix. I started out using a wire whisk and ended with my hands.

3) Using your hands, mix the dough into a sandy texture.

4) Mix egg and lemon juice together. Make a well in mix and pour egg and lemon juice in. Mix together, starting in the middle and working your way out until thoroughly mixed.
5) While mixing, slowly add 8 Tbsp ice water until the mixture is like play dough. Use more or less water as needed.
6) Divide into 2 crusts and mold into balls. Wrap in seran wrap and put in refrigerator for 15 mins or more. If you only need one pie crust, put the second one in the freezer for later use.

7) Flatten dough with hands and place dough on lightly floured wax paper. Lightly flour the top of the dough and place another piece of wax paper on top. The wax paper should be a few inches bigger than your pie pan, I ended up using two sheets overlapping each other to make it wide enough.
8) Roll dough until a few inches bigger than pie pan circumference. To make my dough workable and keep it from cracking, I rolled and then folded the dough like a letter (in thirds), then folded it in thirds again so it was the shape of a square. Then rolled out the dough. I think I did this twice and after that my dough stayed together better and I was able to roll it out to the size I needed.

9) Lightly grease pie pan (I used crisco). Peel off top paper and place pie pan upside-down on dough. Flip, adjust dough and peel off bottom layer.
10) Flute the edge. You can find how here. Don't worry too much about making it perfect. If the dough falls apart, just mush it back together. There's no gluten in this dough so you can't overwork it! Put in refrigerator while making pie filling.

I made an apple pie with a crumble top... I also cheated and my filling came from a can. ;)

11) Mix together topping

3/4 cup brown sugar
3/4 cup GF flour
1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
1 tsp cinnamon sugar
1/3 cup cold butter cut into small pieces (0r use a frozen butter stick and grate)

12) Add pie filling and topping.

13) Cover with foil and bake at 400 degrees Fahrenheit for 35 to 40 mins or until crust is golden brown. I used a glass pie dish, it helped to watch the bottom of the crust and know it was ready.

(Ignore the burnt part on the top right portion, the foil slipped a little and wasn't covering that part for a bit.)

There you go! I LOVE this pie crust. Usually the crust is my least favorite part b/c it tends to be over cooked. This one turned out perfect and was my favorite part of the pie. Next I'm going to make a pumpkin pie using the other half of my dough that I saved in the freezer.

I have to share a funny moment. I couldn't help myself and ate pie for breakfast. Kayden gave me a disgusted look and said, "You know pie isn't healthy."

Kayden's diet update

Kayden had another endoscopy on November 8th. The purpose was to see if his new diet helped with reducing inflammation and the eosinophils caused by his eosinophilic esophagitis. We got the results back and the doc felt like there was enough improvement to say that the diet was working! Hooray! The next step is to reintroduce into his diet some of the lesser food allergies and then rescope in a few months to see if everything is still okay. We started with apple, potato and turkey. Kayden was THRILLED to be able to eat apples again. Apples were at the top of his most missed foods list. The first day I let him go a little crazy and the poor guy got a tummy ache from too many apples. I explained to him that even people who aren't allergic get tummy aches if they eat too many apples, so we decided to slow things down a bit. Being able to eat turkey will be great for Thanksgiving next week. As for potatoes, Kayden hates them BUT it opens up so many possibilities for gluten free foods and snacks. A lot of the packaged stuff has potato in it which left us extremely limited to what quick foods Kayden could eat. Now I feel like a whole new world has opened up to us! Let's hope this new diet change is here to stay!

Beef Stroganoff

I made this recipe up as I went. It started out with a basic roux and I added what sounded good and what I had in my cupboard. I also don't always measure things so adjust the recipe as you would like.

*8 Tbs DF butter
*1/2 cup of flour (I used an all purpose GF mix)
*about 3 cups of beef broth (I used 5 bouillon cubes in 3 cups of water and microwaved it til the cubes disolved... 2-4 mins)
*dairy free milk (I used flax)
*onion powder to taste
*garlic powder to taste
*seasoned salt to taste
*Worcestershire sauce (1-2 Tbs?)
*1lb of hamburger (or whatever meat you'd like... I used hamburger b/c it's cheap and simple, and I was craving a hamburger helper)
*1 (16oz) bag of gluten free noodles
*Sour cream (I didn't use a dairy free version so I added this last after I dished up Kayden)

Brown hamburger and set aside. Boil noodles and set aside. Melt butter in pan, mix in flour and stir constantly for a few mins or until flour taste is gone. While stirring, slowly pour in beef broth. Let bubble for a few mins while constantly stirring. Add milk and stir. Add Worcestershire sauce, onion powder, garlic powder and seasoned salt to taste. Stir in hamburger. *At this step, I dished up Kayden.* Add about 1/2 cup of sour cream, stir. Add or pour over noodles and serve.

You could easily adapt this to your own family. If you add onions or mushrooms just saute them in the butter in the beginning. Plus you can add whatever seasonings you guys like.

Hot Wings

I love hot wings! These were really simple to make.
1 bag frozen chicken wings
Turn on oven to the recommended temperature on chicken package.
Spread chicken out on baking sheet, season with salt, pepper and garlic powder.
Bake chicken according to package directions.
In a bowl mix Franks Red Hot sauce with butter. Play around with the amounts. The more butter used, the more mild the sauce. I haven't tried it yet but my hubby notice Franks now makes a wing sauce.
When the chicken is cooked, turn on the broiler and brush on sauce. Rotate chicken and continue brushing on sauce until golden brown.
Serve and enjoy!

Okay so I have to share an oops moment I had with these. The first time I made them I put the chicken on tin foil on the baking dish. It caught on fire under the broiler. I panicked for a small moment and then quickly put it out. Lesson learned: do not use tin foil. Instead I now use my Silpat. :)

Simple Peanut Butter Cookies

My brother told me about the recipe, it was one his lovely wife made for him. It is not only gluten free but only has 3 ingredients!

1 egg
1 cup sugar
1 cup peanut butter

Form into small balls and smash in criss cross pattern with fork.
Bake at 350 degrees F for about 8 mins or so, depending on your oven. They'll still be soft and gooey but once they cool they harden up and are a normal cookie.
These cookies are so yummy! They went fast and my hubby couldn't believe there wasn't flour in these babies!

Quick and Easy Green Chile Chicken Enchilada Casserole

This is a HUGE hit. Not only in our family but for anyone else who eats it too. No one can believe me that this dish is gluten free. See? GF doesn't always have to taste bad! lol This was one of the first GF meals I ventured out to try. I found it on allrecipes.com. I have not made this dairy free (although it wouldn't be too hard) only because Kayden won't even touch this. He is so picky when it comes to food so when we have enchilada casserole, I just set aside some baked chicken for him to eat with rice or whatever.

Here's the recipe copied straight from allrecipes.com:

Ingredients

• 4 skinless, boneless chicken breast halves (I use chicken tenders, however many fill up the bottom of a baking dish)
  
• garlic salt to taste (I also add seasoned salt)
  
• 18 (6 inch) corn tortillas, torn in half
• 1 (28 ounce) can green chile enchilada sauce (La Victoria is the ONLY gluten free sauce I have found)
  
• 1 (16 ounce) package shredded Monterey Jack cheese (I add cheddar cheese too)
  
• 1 (8 ounce) container sour cream

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Lightly grease a medium baking dish.
2. Season chicken with garlic salt. Arrange in the prepared baking dish. Bake 45 minutes in the preheated oven, until no longer pink and juices run clear. Cool, shred, and set aside.
3. With metal tongs, char each tortilla half over the open flame of a gas stove burner for about 1 minute, until lightly puffed. (I instead soak the tortillas in enchilada sauce, microwaving the tortillas work too.)
   
4. Pour about 1/2 inch enchilada sauce in the bottom of a medium baking dish, and arrange 6 tortillas in a single layer. Top with 1/2 the chicken, 1/3 cheese, 1/2 the sour cream, and 1/3 of the remaining enchilada sauce. Repeat. Coat remaining tortillas thoroughly with remaining enchilada sauce, and arrange on top of the layers. Sprinkle with remaining cheese, and top with any remaining enchilada sauce (instead I pour some sauce on bottom of dish, add a layer of tortillas, 1/2 meat, cheese. Repeat. You should have two layers of meat. Top with a third row of tortillas, the rest of the sauce and cheese.)
   
5. Cover, and bake 45 minutes in the preheated oven. Cool slightly before serving. (I usually only need to bake for 25 to 30 mins)
   

Enjoy!