Taco Fiesta!

Last night I made a Taco Casserole for dinner. It wasn't bad and it came together pretty easily too. I found this recipe in my neighborhood cookbook yet again. I never realized how talented the neighbors were when it came to cooking. The recipe called for cream of chicken soup and ground beef. In an attempt to stay dairy free I made my own dairy free cream base and added almond milk. I should have tasted the base as I was making it because it was little too sweet as a result of the milk. It needed just a little bit more salt. Professional chefs always say you should taste your sauces during the preparation phase. I don't usually taste my cooking as I am making it. I believe I have learned my lesson with this one.

However, the cream sauce was mixed with ground turkey which I used in place of the beef because I like ground turkey more than beef. I also mixed in a can of vegetarian re-fried beans and a jar of salsa. By mixing the meat, beans, and salsa in with the cream sauce it gave it the extra saltiness it needed.

The recipe also had corn tortillas spread throughout the casserole. I don't usually like corn tortillas unless they are crisp, but they crisp up in this recipe.

After the casserole was done baking I served it with shredded lettuce, more salsa, and some chipotle Tabasco sauce. My husband liked the salsa and I liked the Tabasco sauce on top.

There was also cheese in this recipe, but again I am attempting to avoid dairy as much as possible so I used a non-dairy cheese. I have an acquaintance from high school who is vegan and she wrote a blog about this non-dairy cheese that is made from rice, so a few months ago I decided to give it a whirl. It isn't half bad and for someone who really likes cheese, I really like this non-dairy "cheese."
Don't ask me what the name of the brand is because I honestly cannot remember.

Below is the recipe to the best of my memory. I left the cookbook at home, so I am going off of memory.


Taco Casserole
1 lb. ground beef or turkey, browned
1 can of refried beans
1 jar of salsa
About 6 corn tortillas torn into pieces
1 can of cream of chicken soup
splash of milk
shredded cheese of choice

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Mix the browned beef or turkey with the beans and salsa, set aside. Mix together the cream of chicken soup and milk, set aside. In a casserole, add a layer of the meat mixture, then layer some of the tortillas on top, then add some of the soup mixture. Repeat the layers until used. Sprinkle as little or as much cheese on top and bake in the oven for 20-25 minutes until bubbly.

Serve with favorite taco toppings and sides.

I Love Waffles!

I love waffles! They are probably my favorite breakfast item. But since I have been trying to avoid gluten and dairy, waffles have been difficult for me to have until recently. I also didn't have a waffle iron either, which complicated things, but my parents' gave my husband and I one for a wedding gift. I have a cook book that has recipes from my parents' neighbors. There is a recipe in there for basic waffles. I took the recipe and swapped out the flour for gluten free flour, the sugar for coconut sugar, and the milk for almond milk. I left everything else the same. Yummy waffles this recipe made! These waffles are delicious with just about anything. I have tried them with maple syrup, fruit syrup, fresh fruit, homemade jams, almond butter, and nutella! And if you like savory waffles I am sure these would be delicious in a "chicken and waffle" recipe. I have enjoyed all of these various toppings! I think sprinkling some nuts on top would be good to! Below is the recipe. If you are good and swapping in egg replacements, you could easily make these vegan as well.

I like recipes that are easy to swap out the less healthy item for a more healthy alternative. I am not a fan of these healthy recipes that tell you to add in xantham gum, this and that of one item or another. I believe that health conscious recipes taste better when we can keep them as close to the original as possible by swapping out a few ingredients - not all of them. Tonight I will be trying my hand at a taco casserole that will have ground turkey in it instead of beef. I am looking forward to it!

Gluten Free, Dairy Free Waffles

2 1/4 cups gluten free flour of choice
4 tsp. baking powder
3/4 tsp. salt
1 1/2 Tbsp coconut sugar or regular sugar
2 large eggs (if you know how to substitute chia seed or other ingredient for eggs, you could easily swap that in for vegan waffles).
2 1/4 cups dairy free milk of choice
3/4 cup oil of choice

Mix all ingredients together until smooth. Put in pre-heated waffle iron and cook to waffle iron specifications. Eat. Enjoy.

Dairy Free, Gluten Free Chicken Pot Pie!

I must admit I do not keep this blog updated as much as I should. I got married last month and prior to the wedding I was a crazy woman trying to make sure everything was done.

Well, I am still trying to avoid dairy and gluten as much as possible as those appear to be the root cause of my health issues, but there are some foods that I just love and really don't want to give up, like Chicken Pot Pie! I love chicken pot pie! So I was determined to make one that was both gluten and dairy free.

I put together three different recipes to make this happen. I found a recipe online for a dairy free "cream of chicken" soup which I used for the base in my filling. I then used another recipe for biscuit mix that was gluten free from another recipe and lastly I used a chicken pot pie recipe on Rachael Ray's website to bring everything together. I will try to get the recipe together that I ended up "creating" and post it here. Needless to say this recipe came together quite quickly and was very delicious!

My husband loved it as did I! The only thing I would do differently next time is add a little more biscuit mix for the topping.

Happy eating!

Baby Bok Choy

So I went grocery shopping a few days ago and while I was at the store, I saw some baby bok choy. I have always wanted to try my hand at cooking and preparing bok choy, so I thought this the perfect opportunity. The only problem was that I wasn't sure what to make with it. . .

Enter Google - I looked up some recipes and found one on rachaelraymag.com for a roasted bok choy gratin or something like that. I was going to make it last night for dinner but then I remembered I had an audition, so it did not get made. So I will be embarking on this culinary adventure tonight.

I have had made a few different things the past couple of weeks or so, but with my up and coming wedding I haven't really focused on anything else, but I really will try to blog about how this recipe turns out!

Well, tis all for now!

Crockpot Honey Chicken

Last night I tried a new recipe and I feel it turned out well. I made Honey Glazed Chicken in the crockpot. This recipe is definitely Asian inspired so if you are a fan of the sweet sauce based chickens you can get at Chinese restaurants, then this is the recipe for you.

As slow cooker recipes go, this one is a very fast recipe. I was to able to get this entire recipe done in less than two hours. This recipe has soy sauce and I cannot have soy, so I had to find a suitable replacement for soy sauce. I looked up substitutions on the internet and I found all of these recipes for homemade non-soy "soy sauce." After looking at the different recipes, I realized that basically these recipes were the same ingredients that are found in Worcestershire Sauce. So I got some Worcestershire Sauce and then added some water to it to thin it out and used that in the recipe.

After the chicken was done, I cooked some brown rice (I recommend Uncle Ben's 90 Second Rices) and served the chicken on top of it. To make the recipe my own I added a little sesame oil and cashews. This is another keeper!

I didn't take a picture of my recipe as both the fiance and I ate it up! This recipe makes two servings which is what I also liked about it - no leftovers. Sometimes I like leftovers, but sometimes I don't.

Happy eating!

Butternut Squash And Chick Pea Stew

Wow, have I been busy or what? Sometimes life just runs away with you and when it does, it is crazy! But my absence has been a result of a good thing!

At the end of January I found myself in Jackson Hole, Wyoming for a Rockapella concert! Rockapella is my favorite group of all time and I was excited to go! My best friend and my boyfriend went with me as well. My boyfriend proposed to me at the Rockapella concert so since the end of January I have been planning a wedding that will take place this summer.

Anywho, last night for dinner I was craving a soup like dish because it snowed yesterday and soup is one of my favorite things to eat on a cold day. I found a recipe online for a Butternut Squash and Chickpea Stew. I reviewed the recipe and realized I had everything on hand. I didn't have any harissa but I did have a different kind of hot sauce (Chipotle Tabasco), so I used it instead, but everything else was a go.

The recipe suggested serving the stew with rice or couscous. This recipe definitely has Indian influences, so it was easy to see why it suggested rice and couscous. Well, I didn't have any rice and because I can't have gluten, couscous was out. I then remembered I had some quinoa in the pantry. So, I cooked some of that up instead. It turned out very well and quinoa has all nine essential amino acids which makes up protein so it was much healthier too.

The recipe also called for a fresh butternut squash. Whole squash is very affordable, but butternut squashes can be very time consuming in terms of peeling, cleaning, and slicing. I was very lazy last night and a few weeks ago I had purchased some frozen butternut squash at the grocery store, so I just used that. The flavor was the same only I didn't have to clean a squash.

My fiance has decided that this recipe is definitely a keeper! Full of flavor this dish was and neither one of us missed the meat! And it was very friendly on my diet as well! Happy eating people!


Butternut Squash and Chickpea Stew With Quinoa:

Sweet Potato Topped Chicken

Since I have had to learn how to cook again, I have been scouring for the internet looking for things to cook that fit my dietary requirements and taste good too. I am not a fan of boring food! So, I found this recipe on the Better Homes and Gardens website for Sweet Potato Topped Chicken. This recipe has cream in it, but since I can't have dairy, I had to modify it a little. I didn't buy canned sweet potatoes - I peeled, sliced, and boiled fresh sweet potatoes. I personally think they tasted better. I also didn't add butter to my potatoes. I made the mashed potatoes with my almond milk and some salt and pepper and they were tasty. And I used sweet potatoes, not yams. Yams would be fine, but yams and sweet potatoes are not the same thing. In place of the Cream of Mushroom soup, I used some chicken broth and mixed it with some almond milk and some rice flour just to thicken it up. This tasted really well in the recipe! If you like Cream of whatever soup, that would be fine too!

I assembled the recipe in my enamel coated dutch oven. It made the dish yummier and since the dutch oven is over safe, I was able to put it into the oven in the same pot when I was ready to broil it.

After I had assembled the dish, I turned on the broiler and broiled the dish just to kind of give the potatoes a little bit of a crust so this would feel more like a chicken pot pie only without the crust. I will definitely make this again, but I would probably use more almond milk and rice flour in my cream substitution next time so the mixture is a little thicker. I think I will also use rotisserie style chicken next time too. And if you are a vegetarian or vegan, you could easily omit the chicken and just add more vegetables to the mixture and use vegetable broth instead of chicken broth. I always like dishes that can be switched up!

I didn't take a picture of my attempt at this dish, so you will have to be satisfied with a stock photo. Tonight's recipe is called "Lime in the Coconut" Drumsticks! I am looking forward to it!


Sweet Potato Topped Chicken:

Eating Out: A Challenging Thing

I wanted to share my tips and secrets to eating out. Since I have started this dietary change, eating out has been more challenging. But there are some things you can do to make the experience more pleasurable.

Just about anywhere has salad and if you order the salad without dressing and cheese, it can be a very healthy thing. I can't have most salad dressings, so I usually ask for olive oil and balsamic vinegar. I didn't think I would like this combination, but I love it! The balsamic vinegar has a very good flavor to it and the olive oil definitely enhances it!

Also I have learned that if you ask servers at sit down restaurants if they have a gluten free menu they will either bring you one or tell you what is gluten free and what isn't on the menu. My cousin got married yesterday and we had a luncheon at Texas Roadhouse. Texas Roadhouse specializes in huge slabs of meat - namely ribs and BBQ pork. Well, they have salads too and other items on the menu. I decided to get the BBQ Chicken with a house salad (ordered without eggs, cheese, or croutons, and the oil and vinegar on the side) and sweet potato (plain, nothing on it). The server informed me that if I did get the BBQ Chicken I would need to order it without the BBQ sauce as the sauce contained gluten. Most servers are trained to know the allergy information for their menu because some people have severe enough allergies that it could really do damage. So I ordered the chicken plain and the potato plain, but it was still a very satisfying meal!

So, if you choose to make drastic changes to your diet as I have and you aren't sure what to eat and what not to, I would consult with a doctor or a dietician or someone else who knows what they are talking about. I am not an expert - I only share my experiences and my knowledge of what I have learned. And this diet has been customized for me. What works for me may not work for someone else, but if you do choose to omit something from your diet, make sure that any essential nutrients in that item gets replaced from something else. For example, if you choose to omit meat from your diet, it will be essential to eat fruits and veggies that have a lot of protein in them so you don't lose your protein.

I hope everyone has a great weekend! See you all next week!

Butternut Squash And Onion Salad

Now that I am through the worst of this dietary change, I have decided to change my blog back to its originally intended purposes. So I am going back to reviewing recipes. The recipes I will review will probably still be very healthy and I will occasionally take time out to update everyone where I am at with my dietary restrictions, but mostly we are going back to the way this blog used to be.

With that being said, last night for dinner I made roasted butternut squash and onions with sage and dried cherries! I found the recipe on Pinterest and I wasn't sure I would like it. I had bought a butternut squash a few weeks ago and it has been begging to be eaten, so I finally used it last night. This recipe was very easy to bring together. I had to peel and cut up the squash and then slice the onions and then put them in the oven with some olive oil and then just be patient. The recipe calls for two onions and I am not a big onion eater, so I used about 3/4 of an onion and I think it was the perfect balance.

This recipe is vegan friendly, so anyone can eat it. I don't know if he was just pretending to like it or not, but my boyfriend seemed to like it even though there was no meat in the recipe. If I make this again I think next time I will pair it was some brown rice or something chicken breasts to make it more hearty.

Below is a picture of how my attempt at the recipe looked. Not as pretty as on the website with the original recipe, but it is still good.


Butternut Squash and Onions with Sage and Dried Cherries:

Lettuce - Versatile Veggie

I am quickly becoming a fan of lettuce and using the leaves for wrapping. A favorite item people tend to like it the lettuce wraps that you can get at places like P.F. Changs and my new favorite place, The Spin Cafe.

Well, for dinner last night I wanted to have something similar. On Sunday I cooked some chicken in the crock pot and then shredded it for meals throughout the week. There should be an earlier blog post from 2010 or early 2011 explaining how to make my crock-pot shredded chicken, so if you want to make it, look it up.

So, I took some of the shredded chicken and added some chicken taco seasoning to it and then I made some black bean salsa (recipe below) and I took the chicken and put some chicken in a lettuce leaf and then I topped it with some black bean salsa and some regular salsa and then some Chipotle flavored Tabasco sauce. I then rolled it up and ate it! Yumness it was!

Tonight I am going to be making some roasted butternut squash and will probably be using the rest of my shredded chicken to supplement it! And so my boyfriend doesn't feel like he is going to starve, I will also be cooking him some whole wheat pasta to go with it as well.

See below for picture of the lettuce wraps and the recipe for the black bean salsa. The black bean salsa is very versatile. I use it for everything! It is good by itself, in soups, as a dip, in the wraps! Everything! And this recipe makes quite a bit, so be prepared for that.

Black Bean Salsa

2 cans of black beans, rinsed and drained
1 can of corn, rinsed and drained
1 can of diced tomatoes, rinsed and drained
1/2 onion
1-2 cloves of garlic
Juice of one lime
Salt and Pepper, to taste

Add all of the ingredients to a medium to large sized bowl and mix together. Add salt and pepper to taste. Serve with chips or other dippers. Refrigerate leftovers.


Black Bean Salsa and Seasoned Chicken Lettuce Wrap:

Dealing With Cravings

You would think I would have conquered my cravings by now, but I haven't. This last week I craved sugar and carbs! I haven't, however, craved any caffeine or soda really, but sugar and other carbs are kicking my butt!

When I walk through the grocery store all I think about it how lovely the bread and flour tortillas look. I am finding I have to have stronger resolve! So I am committing to myself this week to be more strict with myself and to curb my cravings, rely on my fruit and gluten free bread.

On Saturday, though, I was given the opportunity to "indulge" a little without breaking out of the bounds of my diet. I went to dinner with one of my girlfriends and we went to a restaurant called The Spin Cafe in Heber, UT. As I was looking at the menu trying to find something to eat I noticed at the bottom it said they had a gluten free menu so I asked for the gluten free menu. I found out they had a gluten free bun for their sandwiches and burgers, so I ordered the buffalo burger on a gluten free bun. I then was told their onion rings were gluten free too as they were made with rice flour. So I was able to eat a burger and onion rings for dinner on Saturday and I didn't break any dietary restrictions. And then they told me they had dairy free dessert which was also sugar free, so I had some berry sorbet for dessert! It was a wonderful dinner!

Tonight I am planning on making some dairy free nachos! I doubt I will be able to find anything that will taste as good as melted cheese, so I am just going to skip that part all together! I bought some spicy salsa on Saturday so I will be using that and will be adding lots of beans and chicken and other flavors so the cheese will not be missed at all! I will tell you all how it goes later!

Have a great week!

Back To Normal Life!

Yay! I have officially made it through the holidays! No more parties and no more food I cannot eat!

While I enjoyed the holidays, all of the yummy food I couldn't have was no fun to look at either! I am glad I am back to somewhat normal life in the eating department. I do have one day of traveling I have to get through this week as I will be traveling to southern Utah for a funeral.

After this week, though, life should be completely normal again. I am glad too, because I can stay on the strait and narrow with my eating habits. Sunday wasn't a good a day for me as I ate something on Saturday that did not agree with me and I spent all day Sunday recovering from food poisoning.

Yesterday was a little better, but I was still recovering so I ate a little bit more than I normally do. But today I have been good. I am hoping to try some more recipes this week as well. I will continue to share. Have a great week everyone!