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!

Chicken a la King

This is a dish my mom would make while I was growing up. I was a picky eater but loved this one. I'm still working on getting Kayden to eat it. Usually what I do is set aside some chicken and plain rice for Kayden. Our rule is he has to try one bite of dinner before he can eat his alternative.

Ingredients:

2 cups chicken, cooked and torn apart. I like to use chicken tenders. I season them with lemon juice and lemon pepper then bake them in a dish at 375F for about 25 mins. Cool and tear apart.
1/2 cup butter (I use Earth Balance)
1/2 cup flour (I use multipurpose purpose gluten free flour blend)
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp pepper
1 1/2 tsp instant chicken bouillon (I am still on the hunt for a gluten free/casein free/potato free product. Instead I add a little bit of curry and it tastes great.)
1 1/2 cup milk (I use flax, rice or soy)
lemon juice to taste
lemon pepper to taste
mushrooms, bell peppers, pimentos or any veggie you'd like. Last time I made this I used a frozen stir fry and it was soo yummy!

1. Melt butter in pan at medium heat and saute chosen veggies for about 5 mins.
2. Add flour, salt and pepper. Stirring constantly until it bubbles.
3. Slowly add 1 1/2 cups of hot water, stirring constantly.
4. Add instant chicken bouillon (or in my case, curry), stir.
5. Add milk and bring back up to a boil, stirring constantly.
6. Stir in chicken, pimentos (honestly, I've never added these... I think my mom liked the color they added), lemon juice to taste and lemon pepper to taste.

Serve over rice, noodles, biscuits, etc. We always eat it with rice.

Artichoke Basil Frittata

I found this recipe on glutenfreely.com . Our family (except Kayden) LOVES this! When I make this for dinner, I usually cook a few eggs for Kayden to eat plain. I also will use more eggs than the recipe calls for since we eat this for dinner and there is no way we could get 6 servings out of the original recipe. Here is the recipe copied straight from the glutenfreely site:

Ingredients:

• 1 can (13 to 14.5 oz) artichoke hearts, drained, or 1 package (12 oz) frozen artichoke hearts, thawed
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 1/2 cup chopped red onion
• 2 cloves garlic, finely chopped (I used a whole a whole garlic b/c I LOVE garlic so much)
  
• 2 tablespoons chopped fresh or 2 teaspoons dried basil leaves (I used less)
  
• 1 tablespoon chopped fresh parsley
• 6 eggs (I used more)
  
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon pepper
• 2 tablespoons freshly grated imported Parmesan cheese (Since Kayden doesn't eat this, I do add the parmesan. If he did decide to eat it, I would just add the parmesan to our individual plates instead of cooking it in.)
  

Preparation Instructions:

1. Cut artichoke hearts into quarters. In 10-inch ovenproof nonstick skillet, heat oil over medium heat (if not using nonstick skillet, increase oil to 2 tablespoons). Add onion, garlic, basil and parsley; cook 3 minutes, stirring frequently, until onion is tender. Reduce heat to medium-low.
2. In medium bowl, beat eggs, salt and pepper until blended. Pour over onion mixture. Arrange artichokes on top of egg mixture. Cover; cook 7 to 9 minutes or until eggs are set around edge and beginning to brown on bottom (egg mixture will be uncooked on top). Sprinkle with cheese.
3. Set oven control to broil. Broil frittata with top about 5 inches from heat about 3 minutes or until eggs are cooked on top and light golden brown. (Frittata will puff up during broiling but will collapse when removed from broiler.)

Rice and Sausage

My husband's favorite meal growing up was rice and sausage. His mom would make it using cream of mushroom from a can. For my hubby's 30th birthday he asked if I could try to make a gluten free/dairy free version of his favorite meal. It turned out great and we shared it with his brother, my bestie and their family. I don't have pictures but here's the recipe I came up with:

1/2 cup chopped onion
1/2 cup butter (I used Good Earth dairy free)
1/2 cup flour (gluten free multipurpose flour)
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp pepper
about 1 1/2 cups Pacific Natural Foods mushroom broth (I actually didn't measure this, just added until the texture was right... I also added a little water so it wouldn't taste too mushroom/salty.
1/2 cup milk.
1lb or more of Italian sausage
1 can of sliced olives
2 cups rice

Brown Italian sausage and set aside.
Melt butter in pan and saute onions until soft and slightly brown.
Add flour and stir until bubbles.
Slowly add mushroom broth and a little water. Stir.
Add milk and bring back up to a boil.
Stir in Italian sausage and olives.
Pour over rice or mix rice in and serve.

Baked Fish

If you love fish, this is a great dish to make. I usually bake halibut because it's not as "fishy" tasting but last night I made cod for the first time. The price of cod vs halibut is hard to beat! And honestly, it tasted just as good.

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F

Lightly grease baking dish and set fish in it.

Mix mayonnaise (about 1/4 cup?), lemon juice and lemon pepper. (Sorry, I don't know the exact amounts. I just mix until I have a creamy texture and it smells/tastes good.) Pour over fish and let sit while oven is heating.

Dice bell peppers (I used red, orange and yellow... half a pepper each) and place in dish with fish.

Place dish in oven and bake for 25 to 30 mins, until fish flakes.

Serve over rice.

This recipe is so easy and versatile. You can adjust it however you'd like. I change things up depending on what I'm in the mood for and what I have on hand. Enjoy!

Cheezits

I saw this recipe on Pinterest and thought I'd give it a try. Here's a link if you want to go check it out. I adjusted the recipe to what I had in my cupboard so here it is:

3/4 cup of all purpose GF flour (mine has xanthum gum in it)
4 oz of Daiya shredded cheddar cheese
4 Tbs of Earth Balance dairy free butter
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp baking powder
2 Tbs of milk (I usually use flax milk but this time I had soy milk)

• Preheat oven to 400 F. Lightly grease a baking sheet.

• Combine all the ingredients, except the milk, in a medium size-bowl. Mix until the mixture resembles a fine crumb. Add the milk and beat well.

• On a lightly greased surface (I used my Silpat instead), pat or roll the dough to 1/8-inch thickness. Cut into 3/4 inch squares or another small shape that you like. You can also cut the dough into larger round or square shapes, just extend the cooking time.

• Prick the tops of the crackers with a fork and sprinkle lightly with your desired topping (I just used salt). Bake on the prepared baking sheet until golden brown and crisp, approximately 10 minutes. The crackers will be light and crispy, although barely browning at the edges. The bottom of the crackers will have a bit more color.

I thought I rolled my dough thin enough but when it came time to cooking these babies they puffed up in the oven and took longer to cook. Next time I'll make the dough thinner and also the squares smaller. I also didn't make my crackers in a perfect pretty shape... I was too lazy busy doing laundry and scrubbing toilets to take the effort to make them look picture perfect. Plus, I'm glad I didn't do all the extra pretty work... the crackers didn't taste all that great and Kayden did not like them. I don't know if it was b/c we're not used to the Daiya cheese or just because nothing will ever replace the gluten-filled goodness of Cheezits. I also baked it on my Silpat so I don't know if that made a difference as well.

I may retry this recipe again... we'll see. If you do decide to try it, will you let me know how it turns out?

Ramen Noodles

One of Kayden's favorite foods is Ramen Noodles. Yeah, I know it's not very good for you but it was one of the few things he would eat. Today I took a shot at making my own gluten free ramen noodles. There probably is a blog somewhere out there that has a good recipe for this but I didn't look. Here's what I came up with:

DeBoles Gluten Free Rice Angel Hair
*Boil noodles as directed on box. Drain water, rinse noodles and drain again.

Pacific Natural Foods organic free range chicken broth
*Add broth to noodles and heat up.
*Add salt and pepper to taste.
*I am a fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants cook so I added paprika, ground nutmeg and curry powder. The curry really helped give the noodles the "ramen" taste. I did this all by taste and smell so I don't have exact measurements (sorry!).

There you have it! Gluten free ramen noodles. They passed the "Kayden test" so I consider this little adventure a success!

Bread

I needed a good bread that Kayden could have for sandwiches. I remember Kayden's doctor telling me at his 2 year check up that if I could get him to at least eat peanut butter sandwiches, he'll be all right (he's always been a picky eater). As I mentioned before, I was already on the gluten free diet but with that I gave up eating bread. There are gluten free breads but they just don't taste the same as wheat and are super expensive... so I gave that up all together. For Kayden, bread seemed like a must have since he lives off of peanut butter sandwiches. The problem I was running into was most of the breads and bread mixes that are GF have potato flour or starch in it, Kayden is allergic to potatoes. After a bunch of research, I found Namaste Foods makes a gluten free bread mix. You can find the link here.

I was able to buy the bread mix at Lingonberries Market. It was also available at Whole Foods Market. It cost me $5.99 at Lingonberries (Whole Foods cost more). The mix makes one loaf. Spendy compared to wheat bread but reasonable for a GF bread. I found Amazon sells the mixes too. You can buy it in bulk (6 bags). If you do Amazon's Prime combined with Subscribe and Save it totals out to a little under $5 a loaf (if I remember correctly).

I could also look into what it would cost to buy my flours in bulk and create my own flour mixture. I figure I'd wait and see how much flour I actually use to see if it's worth it. I don't have a lot of freezer space and I'd hate for the flour to go bad before I use it.

Anyway! We've made 3 loafs so far and it's worked great! Kayden loves the bread and for me, it was so nice to eat bread again! It's been perfect for peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. I try to slice it as thin as I can to make the loaf last longer. So far one loaf lasts us about 3 days. This last loaf I made is lasting a little longer. I don't know if it's because we're getting sick of it or just eating different stuff. I did notice that after 3 days, the bread isn't as moist and will start to be more crumbly.

Oh, I guess I should note that I've been making the bread in my bread machine. I haven't dared to try and make it the old fashioned way and a blog I read swears that the result are the same. I cleaned out my old bread machine and (hopefully) made it gluten free... I haven't felt sick yet and usually I do if there is cross contamination. It's really easy to do it this way. I just dump all the ingredients in... liquids first, then the mix and add yeast on top. The first loaf I made I just did a regular bread cycle. It turned out okay but didn't rise as well as I would have hoped. I think it was maybe 4 inches long. I read on a blog that GF bread doesn't need two rise cycles and to use a rapid cycle when baking. So I tried that on my next loaf and it worked beautifully! I swear it almost doubled in size.

Kayden is happy with his "special" bread and it definitely helped smooth the transition into his new diet! Next time I bake our bread I'll take a pic to show you.

Kayden's Story

Hi! Welcome to my blog. This blog is a way for me to document my family's gluten free journey. Here I hope to post about recipes my family has tried, experiences we may have and anything else that will document this little adventure we are on.

My name is Jessica. I am the wife of a wonderful and understanding husband and mother to two beautiful little children. I started my gluten free journey shortly after my daughter was born in June 2010. It took several months to adjust and come to terms with the fact that my body couldn't tolerate gluten and I may have Celiac Disease. After Christmas 2010 I drew the line and went on a strict gluten free diet.
It was around that time that I started to notice my son Kayden, age 4, was loosing weight. I did my best to fatten him up and in January we went in for his yearly check up. Kayden weighed in a couple pounds less than the previous year. The doctor wanted to do some blood tests. Since I was wondering if I myself had Celiac Disease (runs in the family), I went ahead and had his doctor test him for that too. When the results came back, he was positive for Celiac Disease.
We were referred to a Gastrointestinal Doctor and shortly after did an endoscopy. His biopsy was negative for Celiac Disease but the doctor did notice he had a lot of inflammation in his esophagus and white blood cell clusters called eosinophils. The doctor told us that Kayden either had acid reflux (GERD) or eosinophilic esophagitis (EE). He treated Kayden for acid reflux and we rescoped a few months later to see if there was any improvement. Well there was no improvement and his eosinophil count went up a little. This meant he had eosinophilic esophagitis (EE)... and yes, that is a mouthful to say. Eosinophilic esophagitis is an inflammatory condition in which the wall of the esophagus becomes filled with large numbers of eosinophils, a type of white blood cell. Usually EE is caused by an allergic reaction, typically a food allergy. The GI doctor put Kayden on a steriod inhaler (that he swallowed instead of inhaled) and referred us to an allergist.
The allergist first did a couple skin prick tests. He tested for common food allergies and nothing really showed up. Next he tested for indoor/outdoor allergens. Kayden came back positive for dust mites and some types of grass. The doctor said he didn't have a strong reaction and since we're not seeing any symptoms to not worry about it right now but keep an eye out for it. He also didn't think this was the cause of his EE. So we did a different type of test, a patch test. They taped a panel with common food allergens on his back and left it there for two days. They removed the patch after 48 hrs and then read it at 72 hrs. Kayden had an unusually strong allergic reaction to tomatoes (the doc is still puzzled by this). He also came up positive for wheat, rye, milk, potato, apple, pea and turkey. Finally some answers! The doctor had us wean Kayden off his inhaler and on Friday, August 12th, 2011 we started him on his new diet. The plan is to do another endoscopy after being on the diet for 3 or 4 months. If he improves then he'll stay on the diet, if not then we'll have to look into something else.
I'll be honest, it was very overwhelming trying to process all this and figure out what the heck I was going to feed this kid! Thank goodness I was on the gluten free diet and had already implemented that into our family! Even though my diet was 100% GF, the family just had to eat GF dinners. So I felt like I had at least that part under my belt. Now to just figure out the other 6 allergies. Luckily the logical side of me kicked in and I realized that most of what Kayden was allergic to he already doesn't eat. Kayden likes his food very plain and is very picky. We have a rule where he has to try at least one bite (or three) of dinner and then he can have something else (usually a pb sandwich or plain noodles). Even if I went through all the effort of making a dinner gluten free, casein free, potato, tomato, etc free... chances are he won't eat it anyway. So with that in mind, I set to work.
This blog is what I'm using to document our experience and share with anyone who may be interested. I hope you enjoy what I have to share!