Black Beans and Rice – Naturally Gluten Free

This is a great side dish that’s naturally gluten free!  It’s simple and the hubby loves this one!

Ingredients:

  • 1 can Black Beans undrained
  • 1 can tomatoes (I like petite diced)
  • 1 cup or so rice
  • 1/2 small onion finely chopped
  • 1-2 garlic cloves
  • 1-2 tsp dried oregano
  • 1 tbs olive oil
  • Salt to taste

Sweat onions and garlic in a sauce pan with the olive oil on low to medium low.  Once translucent, add the black beans, tomatoes  and oregano. Cook for 7-10 minutes to get everything hot and the flavors extracted.  If you are using instant rice add this in the last few minutes for the time allotted on the instructions for it.  I prefer to use freshly made rice in a rice cooker or leftover rice I have in the fridge.  I just add it at the last minute to warm up and soak up some of the sauce.  Add salt to taste at the end and you’re done!

TIP: Add in cooked chicken at the last minute to make a complete meal or your meat of choice!

Gluten Free Home Made Spaghetti

I’ve adapted this from what my Grandmother did over the years and now use Gluten Free Pasta to make it safe for us.  I never measured anything though for this, as that’s how my Grandmother did it, so I’m giving approximate measurements and you can tweak the spices to your liking!

I can usually have this on the dinner table in about 20-25 minutes from start to finish!  Who needs that jarred stuff!

Gluten Free Spaghetti

Gluten Free Spaghetti

Meat Sauce Ingredients:

  • About 1.5 pounds Ground Beef (turkey, etc, you can even skip this!)
  • 1 can Tomato Sauce
  • 1 can of mushrooms
  • About 1/3 cup water
  • About 1/2 small yellow onion chopped fine
  • About 2 stalks celery
  • About 1-2 cloves of garlic
  • About 1-2 teaspoons dried oregano to taste
  • Salt & Pepper to taste

For the pasta, my favorite is Schar Pasta.  It’s texture is very close to ‘regular’ pasta and the kids don’t even know the difference!  I like to get this pack of 5 on Amazon as the price is great and I always have enough pasta around then. Schar Naturally Gluten-Free Spaghetti, 12-Ounce Packages (Pack of 5)

First start the water to boil while putting together the sauce.  Heat a large frying pan, add a layer of salt and pepper.  Add the ground beef when it’s hot and brown the beef.  I like to more add salt and pepper onto the ground beef while it’s cooking and before I turn it.  Once brown, drain away any fat in the pan.  Add the can of tomato sauce and the water.  Use as much or as little water depending on how thick you like it.  It will cook down and get thicker so keep that in mind.  Also add the celery, mushrooms, garlic, onion and oregano.  Cover and allow this to simmer on low.

Usually by this time the water is boiling so you can add the pasta and cook (the one I get takes 11 minutes).  Be sure to follow the directions on the package and taste test before deciding the pasta is done!  I like to taste test the sauce as the pasta is cooking and add more salt or pepper as needed or any of the other spices.

Serve with freshly grated Parmesan cheese.  We’ve been skipping the packaged stuff here because of the risk of fillers and just getting a wedge of Parmesan cheese and grating it ourselves.  This is working well and the kids love putting it on their spaghetti!

When I make this for dinner, the dinner table is quiet because the kids are gobbling this up!

TIP:  Double the recipe and freeze or refrigerate the leftovers!  This sauce warms back up very nicely.

TIP: I like to keep dried chopped onion and dried celery flakes on hand in case I don’t have either of these fresh.  They are a good substitute but you get the full flavor if you cook with these as fresh vegetables.

Note: I have tried fresh mushrooms before and it just didn’t turn out as good.  There’s something about the salty canned mushrooms!  You can try fresh if you like though!

 

Enjoy!

Gluten Free Spaghetti

Gluten Free Spaghetti

Chicken, Turkey and Celiac Disease

Did you know that if you have Celiac Disease you should be very careful of the chicken and turkey you eat?  Many brands have broth additives.  These broth additives sometimes contain gluten!  Who would have imagined when first going gluten free!  (The longer you are gluten free the less I found things like this surprised me though!  Gluten hides in many places.)

For me, I’m super sensitive to gluten and I have to be careful what brands I buy I found out.  I was sometimes getting sick when cooking at home making chicken dinners and sometimes not.  I figured it out to be the brand of chicken.  I, like most people, was going for the brand on sale when I shopped.  Turns out, brands that add chicken broth (Tyson for example) were giving me mild reactions.  Enough for me to notice, but not super bad reactions.

If you have Celiac, even the smallest amount of gluten can harm your body, so it is super important to eliminate all that you can.  I now only buy an ‘Amish’ brand in our store that does not have anything added to it.  I consistently have no issues with it!  It’s great to have something I can rely on and know it’s safe for me and my oldest child.

When shopping for chicken and turkey, try to get brands that do not add broth!  Even if it says ‘all natural,’ that doesn’t mean it doesn’t have gluten!

Gluten Free Peanut Butter Cookies

I’ve personally never been a peanut butter cookie fan, however these peanut butter cookies are the best I’ve ever eaten!  They are nice and moist and chewy, not dry and crunchy!  A super plus is that they are gluten free and minimal  ingredients!  I get told frequently that these are the best peanut butter cookies they’ve ever eaten and I’d have to agree.

Ingredients

  • 1 Cup Peanut Butter
  • 1 Cup Packed Light Brown Sugar
  • 1 Egg

Preheat oven to 350.  Slightly beat the egg so it mixes in well.  Add the sugar and peanut butter and mix well.  I usually use an electric mixer for this.  Roll into 1-2 inch balls and place on a slightly greased pan.  Flatten with a fork.  Bake for 10-12 minutes.

Note: I usually double this recipe and add some extra peanut butter by mounding the cups instead of making them level.

Note:  Be sure to use a ‘clean’ peanut butter jar with no potential for cross contamination.  Especially if you are making these for someone with Celiac disease.  So make sure the PB jar has never been used to make sandwiches on regular bread, etc.

Gluten Free Soy Sauce

One of the items that is typically not gluten free that surprises people is Soy Sauce.  Look at your favorite soy sauce.  Almost all of them have wheat as the 1st or 2nd ingredient!  This makes eating out at Chinese restaurants pretty tricky for those needing to be gluten free!

To solve this we’ve been making a lot of Chinese dishes at home.  Our main staple is San-J’s Gluten Free Tamari soy sauce.  It’s very reasonably priced at our grocery store.  It’s the same as ‘regular’ soy sauce as far as price goes and I think tastes better!

San-J also has a line of other sauces.  I’ve also tried the Szechuan Cooking Sauce.  I love this sauce!  It’s nice and spicy with good flavor at the same time.  I can’t go crazy with it though because my body can’t handle too spicy.  I’m assuming it is from all the damage to my system.  So be careful if you’ve been undiagnosed for a while and use sparingly until you know how your body will handle the spicy.

I hope this is helpful to you.  Feel free to comment on what your favorite brand is!

Gluten Free Egg Sausage Sandwich

We are always looking for interesting things to make.  I finally found some gluten free sausage in our local Krogers so I decided to make some Gluten Free Egg Sausage Sandwiches for myself and our oldest son.

Gluten Free Sausage Egg Sandwich

Gluten Free Sausage Egg Sandwich

Ingredients:

  • 2 slices Gluten Free Bread (We prefer Udi’s)
  • 1 or 2 Sausage Patties (I used Williams Sausage, or Tennessee Pride found in our Freezer Section of Krogers)
  • 1 or 2 Egg Whites or 1 Egg (If you prefer a scramble)

Prepare sausage as directed.  If you use Williams, it is frozen so you just cook it about 4 minutes per side.  I cook mine in a cast iron skillet.  When the sausage is almost done, toast the bread and fry the egg white or make a small scrambled egg omelet. This way they are all warm and ready about the same time.  Layer the cooked ingredients on your toasted bread and you are all set!  You could optionally add cheese or any toppings.  We think it’s great just like this.  It took me about a total of 10 minutes to produce something that tastes better than breakfast sandwiches you can get at those fast food places!  🙂

About the Products I Used

Udi’s Gluten Free Bread

We really enjoy Udi’s Gluten Free Bread.  It has the consistency of regular bread and holds up well for just about anything (sandwiches, french toast, making bread crumbs, etc).  You can find it on Amazon if you can’t find it in your local stores. Udi’s Gluten Free White Sandwich Bread (1 Case)

Williams Sausage

I was so thrilled to find this in our local store.  It has only 5 ingredients!!  Pork, Water, Less than 2% of Salt, Spices and MSG.  Now I really try to stay away from MSG as it gives me similar symptoms as getting gluten.  However it’s the last ingredient and in the less than 2% list so I make an exception for this one occasionally.  It’s so hard to find sausage without gluten and without MSG.

Gluten Free Sausage Egg Sandwich

Happy Son with Gluten Free Sausage Egg Sandwich

 

Update!

Krogers no longer as of this posting has the Williams Sausage anymore.  However they do now have Tennessee Pride which is very good and lists their sausage as gluten free on their website!
Here’s what to look for: