Dinner

Tonight's dinner was so good we had tuna and arctic char. The tuna was for Shane because he is super picky and the char was all mine! The girls had both and they need to give seafood more of a chance. They ate it but not willingly! I think today the only thing I had with gluten was the soy sauce that the tuna marinated in. I also worked out for 45 minutes! Yay! If you like to track your food and activity myfitnesspal is a great app/website. Check it out and add me BrookRene!

Bread!

This bread was 6 bucks but it was worth it! It is about 2/3s the size of a normal loaf. I will be attempting my own though in hopes of more quantity! But this bread was really good!

Quinoa

Hmmmm what to say about this....it's earthy. If you think about what dirt would taste like while eating it then you will think that someone may have sprinkled some in while it was cooking.

I bought some Quinoa at Kroger to replace my go to rice for a side dish. It was interesting. DO NOT, I repeat DO NOT try to cook it according to the microwave instructions on the bag and use a Pampered Chef steamer bowl! I so wish I would have taken a picture of the result, it was bad. It burnt to a crisp! I took the lid off and thought to myself, surely this is not how it is supposed to turn out!

I cooked it on the stove top and it turned out much better. I sauteed up an onion, the leafy part of a celery stalk, garlic, butternut squash and crushed red pepper and stirred it in the quinoa when it was cooked. I also stirred in some chopped dried cherries and slivered almonds. Like I said it kind of had an earthy taste but I think I can handle it. Shane swears it did something bad to his insides but I think he is crazy. His system probably does not handle anything without gluten very well!

I do recommend a really good book if you are interested in this gluten free phenomenon it is called Wheat Belly- it's really well written and the guy has a good sense of humor.

Dressing

So my all time favorite dressing is Ken's Lite Honey Mustard, but guess what was lurking on the label....GLUTEN!!! Of course.

So I did a little research on how to make Honey Mustard Dressing and came up with this:

1/4 cup Light Mayo

1 heavy tablespoon Dijon mustard

1 1/2 tablespoon honey

a few shakes of white balsamic vinegar (vinegars are GF unless it is malt vinegar)

lots of fresh cracked pepper

Whisk all of this up and it is even better than Ken's!! Yum-o

I used this on a salad and also dipped my naked sandwich (aka a sandwich with no gluten riddled bread) of cheddar, turkey and ham. Totally satisfied my need for Honey Mustard.

Gluten free!

So in an attempt to be gluten free, or as close as I can be, I thought I would share my recipe successes (and flops!) here and share some food finds and what not.

I found that A LOT of the food I consume has gluten in it- sheesh! Oh wait, the reason I am going GF is because I had some blood work and my Vitamin D level was at 17 and it should be closer to 50 and my doctor also saw that my body was not processing sugar the way it should and she suggested that I try to cut out as much gluten as possible. In her words- are there going to be days where you still eat carrot cake, yes- but don't eat a slice every day.

Blegh- this means my cooking style has GOT to change- I realize at about every meal I was consuming gluten! Yikes. So here we go, please join me in my attempt to go GF.

Oh also my doctor did say that I am NOT diabetic....yet but in 5-10 years if I do not make changes now I definitely will increase my chance of being a diabetic and have increased risk of heart disease. No time like the present to start working on being healthy- plus it will benefit my family as well! If you have any tips please email me or post a comment.

Thank GOD coffee is gluten free :)

Caramelized Onion & Prosciutto Pizza

Mmmmm, I made this a while back and it was sooo soooo good it's from the Pioneer Woman, she is the BEST. These onions are so good and they make the pizza really sweet. Try it, you'll thank me!

Ingredients

■1 whole Pizza Crust
■Olive Oil, For Drizzling
■1 whole Large Red Onion, Halved And Thinly Sliced
■¼ cups Brown Sugar
■Kosher Salt To Taste
■Parmesan Cheese, Grated
■10 ounces, weight Fresh Mozzarella Cheese, Thinly Sliced
■8 slices Prosciutto (more To Taste)
Preparation Instructions
Preheat oven to 500 degrees.

Heat 2 tablespoons olive oil in a large skillet. Add onions and brown sugar and toss/stir for several minutes, or until onions are brown and cooked. Set aside.

Roll out pizza dough to a rectangular shape. Drizzle on olive oil, sprinkle on a little salt, followed by a little Parmesan.

Lay slices of mozzarella evenly over the top of the crust. Arrange caramelized onions over the top of the mozzarella. Randomly lay slices of prosciutto over the onions.

Bake for 15 to 17 minutes in the lower half of the oven, or until crust is golden brown. Remove from oven and cut into squares. Serve immediately.

Cheesy Chicken Skillet

So this was good- I think the only thing I did differently was to use Velveeta Shells and Cheese and you can now get that using whole wheat pasta so that makes it half way better right?  This is also a very bright orange dish so be sure to NOT serve it with carrots and mandarin oranges because your plate will look freakishly orange...not to mention it makes for some interesting things later on....most of you know I have a 2 and a half year old and a 13 month old so I think you get my drift here!  Mix it up serve with strawberries and green beans or broccoli!  Oh yeah, I did stir in some shredded sharp cheddar too. 

1 Tbsp. oil 1 lb. boneless skinless chicken breasts, cut into bite-size pieces
1/2 tsp. dried thyme leaves
1 cup milk
1 cup water
1 pkg. (14 oz.) KRAFT Deluxe Macaroni & Cheese Dinner
2 cups frozen peas
2 Tbsp. KRAFT CATALINA Dressing


HEAT oil in large skillet on medium-high heat. Add chicken and thyme; mix well. Cook 5 min. or until chicken is browned, stirring frequently.



ADD milk, water and Macaroni; cover. Cook 10 min. or until macaroni is tender, stirring occasionally.



STIR in Cheese Sauce, peas and dressing. Cook an additional 2 min., stirring occasionally.