Football and Preggo-allergy friendly dinner

It is probably time to say-we have a little one on the way! We are very happy but these past four months have been plain torture for this pregnant chick. I of course have been craving EVERYTHING I can't have. Not only that, but I have been having food aversions to to all meat- except for chicken wings. :)

Today is Sunday so it's football day for the hubby. My husbands favorite team-the Texans play today so I usually make an early dinner filled with little snacks and finger foods. This is my version of the football and preggo-allergy friendly dinner.

Menu:

sage and garlic grilled tomatoes-delicious and great in your salad the next day!

What you will need=

6 tomatoes, cut in half lengthwise
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
Sea salt
cracked black pepper
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 tablespoon finely chopped fresh sage, plus 12 whole fresh sage leaves

Instructions=

Brush the tomato halves all over with olive oil. Season them to taste with salt and pepper, then sprinkle the garlic and chopped sage over them. Press a whole sage leaf in the center of the cut side of each tomato half.

Cook the tomatoes, on an indoor grill-I use my George Foreman indoor grill but you can cook them on any grill. You could broil these in the oven as well but I like the grill marks for presentation.

Serve on a platter and drizzle with any left over olive oil.

Note: I have used dried sage as well, but you would use a lot less sage if it is dried.

Mr. Spice Hot Wings

What you will need=

Enough chicken wing pieces to feed your family

A bottle of Mr. Spice Hot Wing Gluten-Free Sauce-this stuff is good!!

Sea salt

Cracked pepper

Instructions=

Salt and pepper wings

I use my indoor grill and cook chicken pieces for 6 minutes on each side on high heat, I then dip or brush chicken wings generously with Mr. Spice Hot Wing Sauce. Cook wings for another 4 minutes on each side.

Serve with or without dressing of your choice!

Note: For a crispier texture use your outdoor grill or deep fry then dip in sauce. Cooking times vary according to thickness of wings and cooking method you use.

Ultimate Oven Fries

What you will need=

6 large baking potatoes(feeds my family of seven) cut into this wedges, small wedges will burn so be careful.

1/2 cup olive oil

1/2 teaspoon of Chile powder

1/2 teaspoon of paprika

1 teaspoon of sea salt

1 teaspoon of cracked black pepper

Instructions=

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F for 10 minutes

In a large mixing bowls combine and whisk the olive oil with all the spices. Using your hands coat the potatoes in the mixture tossing several times.

Carefully transfer coated fried to preheated pans

Increase temperature to 450 degrees F and cook for 15 minutes. Carefully flip fries with a spatula and cook another 5 minutes.

Note: If you do not have dairy allergies these fries are great sprinkled the last 5 minutes with fresh grated Parmesan cheese.

Enjoy and GO TEXANS!!!

A hello and some favorite rice dishes

It's been so long!

Hurricane Ike destroyed our cable lines. A month an a half later and we just got our Internet two days ago.

It was rough after the storm but we are fortunate in that our home is fine and we are all safe. To donate to the hurricane relief fund click here.

To get back into the blogger mindset I am doing a blog today on rice dishes.

Rice is a side dish and main dish in our household. We eat it at least three times a week. I have three recipes that are my favorite that I thought I would share.

Parmesan Rice: Stir in 1 cup of chopped parsley, 1/4 cup each of sliced green onions and grated Parmesan cheese into 4 cups (this is for my family of seven) of hot rice. Salt and pepper to taste.

Spicy Rice: Saute half a small white onion, two cloves of garlic and two seeded jalapeno peppers To 4 cups of hot rice add 1 cup of chicken broth, 1/2 teaspoon of ground cumin, and 1 tablespoon of fresh chopped cilantro. Salt to taste-use fresh ground pepper to really make this rice stand out.

Cucumber mint Rice: Make a dressing using 3 tablespoons white-wine vinegar, 1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice, salt and pepper to taste. Add 1/2 olive oil in a stream, whisk until everything in combined. Add dressing to 4 cups of cold rice. Toss in 3 seeded, chopped cucumbers with 3/4 cup of fresh minced mint leaves.

Enjoy!

Product Review: Allergaroo

I love to try things that are new to my grocery store, and picked up a couple of packets of Allergaroo. The package is what caught my attention. It is cute huh? The alligator with the chef hat and cute red shoes, plus the bright purple package is something kids would love to see.

Even better it is all natural and free of the eight most common allergens. So today for lunch I opened them. They open easy and microwave fast at just 60 seconds. The portion is a perfect lunch size.

I personally did not like them. Some of the noodles are extra al-dente and the others mushy. I also expected little bits of chicken but did not taste any. The tomato sauce is a little too tangy for my taste.

On the other hand my one and two, two year olds and six year old liked it a lot.
My ten year old was like me and did not appreciate them.

So for me I am giving them a 1 Star but my little ones give it a 5 for packaging and taste!

So kids like them and they are a better alternative to those other microwave meals-food allergies or not. I am thinking they could also be for very young toddlers who are just starting out on table foods. :)

Walking for a cure

The Food Allergy & Anaphylaxis Network
Walk for Food Allergy: Moving Toward A Cure™

Dear Family and Friends,

I will be participating in the Food Allergy & Anaphylaxis Network’s (FAAN’s) Walk for Food Allergy: Moving Toward A Cure. The event will be held on September 06, 2008, in Houston, TX . The FAAN Walk for Food Allergy is designed to raise funds to find a cure for food allergy and to educate others about its impact.

Please support my fundraising efforts with a donation. Your tax-deductible donation will make a difference in the lives of many! It is faster and easier than ever to support this great cause - you can make your online donation by clicking on the link at the bottom of this message. If you prefer, you can send your tax-deductible contribution to me (make check payable to FAAN), and I will send it in.

Any amount, large or small, helps FAAN continue Moving Toward A Cure! I greatly appreciate your support and will keep you posted on my progress.

Sincerely,
Traci


To make a donation online, visit my personal fundraising Web page.
To send a donation make all checks payable to FAAN mail to: FAAN Walk for Food Allergy11781 Lee Jackson Hwy, Suite 160Fairfax, VA 22033-3309
If mailing in a donation please include a note indicating the walker and location to which the money should be credited.

Hell yeah, chocolate brownies!

I had to give these brownies a big, Texas, Hell Yeah! Last night I tried Pamela's Products chocolate brownies mix. Oh. My. Gosh. These are to die for. They are super easy to make from this mix. I really enjoyed that it looked like brownie mix, the dough looked like brownie mix and it baked...yep, just like a brownie mix.

It was my first time to use Pamela's Products and after the taste of these brownies it will not be the last. My kids commented that they liked these brownies better than "the old one's."(they mean the ones with flour) I am very pleased that after you bake these they re-heat beautifully and most important they taste good cold. A lot of gluten free products HAVE to be warmed up or softened in the microwave and that is not the case with these brownies. And on the web site they have an awesome suggestion to use the mix to make chocolate waffles. I am trying that this weekend!

I do think they should snazz up the name a bit and hope they consider the name in my title. lol

I give these a 4 out of five *'s

A new start and a better attitude

Note: I apologize for the funky pictures. Something is up with my camera and it needs to be replaced.

Today I decided to put up lunch and dinner. I have been skipping lunch because I was not interested. I am being a copy-cat cook this week and found some great recipe's on other blogs I wanted to try.

The mom at YummyAllergenFree has a great recipe for Asian lettuce wraps. I had to go school shopping today so I cooked this early this morning to eat for lunch at a park. I do not feed the toddlers lettuce so they had the turkey with rice. I loved the taste of this! The meat was so flavorful that I did not miss having a tortilla for the wrap. Everyone loved the meal so I am very pleased it turned out so well. The only thing I changed was to use mozzarella cheese instead of cheddar.

Dinner is beef stew. I cooked this in my crock pot using my own recipe. I have a family of seven so you could adjust the amount for your own family.

Ingredients:

2 1/2 lbs of grass fed beef cut in stew chunks-I just use mine frozen and do not have to thaw this-easy peasy.

6 small red potatoes cut in chunks

10 carrots cut in chunks

6 tomatoes from my mothers garden

1 large onion

1 small can of tomato sauce.

2 cups of frozen green beans

sea salt to taste

pepper to taste

1/4 cup chopped fresh basil

1 tablespoon garlic powder

Potato flour-added last as a thickener

I chop all the veggies and put them in the bottom of the crock pot along with the spices. I add the meat on top and put the crock pot on for 6 hours. I add the green beans the last hour and a half of cooking.

Even frozen the beef always turns out tender. To thicken the stew I used one cup of cold water and mixed in 1/2 cup of potato flour. I mixed this in 30 minutes before serving. Everyone loved dinner and asked for seconds. :)

When the passion fizzles

With any great love affair there can come a time when things can fizzle out. Well, I have lost my passion for food.

I have always been a foodie. I have great memory recall and remember specific times as a young child trying new foods for the first time. I had a Grandma that made everything homemade and from scratch. I clearly recall the taste of her egg noodles with chicken soup and hot waffles with sausage and eggs.

I remember the first time I tried oatmeal from a package. I was three years old and we were at a friend of my mother's house. I think we were staying there and one morning we had apple cinnamon oat meal.

At five I tasted fried veggie sticks in the school cafeteria and I have many, many more memories of my first tastes of food.

Not too long ago when I was having trouble conceiving my third child, I discovered my passion for cooking. To relieve stress I would make two or three loaves of bread everyday. I was a dedicated fan of the food shows and owned over fifty cook books. I would research exotic dishes at the library and put my own spin on them when I could not find the ingredients I needed at local markets.

I used to have a pretty sophisticated palate for someone who was not well traveled and cooked things I wanted to try on my own. Now I eat chips and salsa for lunch. For three days in a row I had the hubby go to the local Mexican Taqueria to buy me chicken tacos with corn tortillas for dinner. Granted, these are some great tacos, and one of the only ready made foods I can eat at a restaurant-but I miss cooking!

I think I am having a food mid-life crisis. I created this blog in the hopes that it would force me to get excited again. My kids love my cooking and have actually been complaining that I have not cooked all week. They are sick of Chick fil A and say their poor little tummies are hurting from all the junk food.

I miss my love affair with food. I miss that enthusiasm I had. And, I want. it. back.

I vow to research this weekend and at least try two new dishes using foods safe for me. I want at least one Wow! And one Ohhh, from the family. I want the feeling of peace I had that I was helping to provide good and nutritional meals for my family. I know I am very fortunate to have the luxury of being able to cook for my family, I am fortunate in so many, many ways in spite of these allergies. There are people that are much more restricted than I am.

I vow to get back that loving feeling!!!