Daniel's birthday dinner & dessert Lasagna & Red Velet Cupcakes w/ Cream Cheese Icing

http://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/2007/06/the_best_lasagn/

Since I decided this is more of a successful recipe for me website, I decided to go ahead and put a lasagna recipe that I made for my boyfriends birthday!

I didn't make this at all, I put the website I got it from at the top. definitely not my recipe, thanks pioneer woman! :)

Ingredients

* 1-½ pound Ground Beef
* 1 pound Hot Breakfast Sausage
* 2 cloves Garlic, Minced
* 2 cans (14.5 Ounce) Whole Tomatoes
* 2 cans (6 Ounce) Tomato Paste
* 2 Tablespoons Dried Parsley
* 2 Tablespoons Dried Basil
* 1 teaspoon Salt
* 3 cups Lowfat Cottage Cheese
* 2 whole Beaten Eggs
* ½ cups Grated (not Shredded) Parmesan Cheese
* 2 Tablespoons Dried Parsley
* 1 teaspoon Salt
* 1 pound Sliced Mozzarella Cheese
* 1 package (10 Ounce) Lasagna Noodles
* (add 1/2 Teaspoon Salt And 1 Tablespoon Olive Oil To Pasta Water)

Preparation Instructions

Bring a large pot of water to a boil.

Meanwhile, in a large skillet or saucepan, combine ground beef, sausage, and garlic. Cook over medium-high heat until browned. Drain half the fat; less if you’re feeling naughty. Add tomatoes, tomato paste, 2 tablespoons parsley, basil and salt. After adding the tomatoes, the sauce mixture should simmer for 45 minutes while you are working on the other steps.

In a medium bowl, mix cottage cheese, beaten eggs, grated Parmesan, 2 more tablespoons parsley, and 1 more teaspoon salt. Stir together well. Set aside. Cook lasagna until “al dente” (not overly cooked).

To assemble:
Arrange 4 cooked lasagna noodles in the bottom of a baking pan, overlapping if necessary. Spoon half the cottage cheese mixture over the noodles. Spread evenly. Cover cottage cheese with a layer of mozzarella cheese. Spoon a little less than half the meat/sauce mixture over the top.

Repeat, ending with meat/sauce mixture. Sprinkle top generously with extra Parmesan.

Either freeze, refrigerate for up to two days, or bake immediately: 350-degree oven for 20 to 30 minutes, or until top is hot and bubbly.

Red Velvet Cupcakes
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S9cxBhTj9Nw
http://www.kraftrecipes.com/recipes/philadelphia-cream-cheese-frosting-50972.aspx

Chicken Cacciatore

So... I basically never post on this website.
I thought that I would have time to write on a blog for other college students so they could save time, I guess I forgot that I too am I college student with a job, school, organization requirements, friends, and family, so I too, do not have time to write on a blog.
I guess this is going to turn into more recipes that I've tried that turned out successfully! :)

Here we go!

Chicken Cacciatore (this is not my recipe at all!) I got it from http://www.ourbestbites.com/2009/02/chicken-cacciatore.html Check them out, they're great :)

Here are the directions

Chicken Cacciatore
Recipe by OurBestBites.com

1 lb. chicken breasts or chicken breasts and thighs, trimmed of fat and cut into bite-sized pieces
1/4 c. white flour
1 tsp. Kosher salt
1 tsp. freshly ground black pepper
1/2 c. olive oil
1 onion, roughly chopped
5-6 cloves garlic, peeled and either crushed or halved
1 6-oz. can tomato paste
1 c. white wine, white cooking wine, or apple or white grape juice. I'll be honest with y'all, it tastes a whole lot better with wine. Just sayin'.
1 1/2 c. chicken broth
1/4 tsp. thyme
1/4 tsp. marjoram
1/2 tsp. salt (omit if using cooking wine; you may shrivel up and die if you add the salt in addition to cooking wine because cooking wine is treated with salt to make it undrinkable)
1 bay leaf
1 c. sliced mushrooms (or more if you love them. Mushrooms are divine in this dish!)
1 green bell pepper, chopped

Heat olive oil in skillet over medium heat. When oil is hot, add onions and garlic and stir frequently until onions are tender and garlic is fragrant. Remove with a slotted spoon (this is why you need to keep the onion and garlic pieces big), shake off excess oil (you don't have to go crazy here, a little olive oil never killed anyone!), and transfer to your blender. Increase heat to medium-high.

In a large Ziploc bag, combine flour, 1 tsp. salt, and 1 tsp. black pepper. Add chicken pieces, seal bag, and shake to coat pieces with flour. Dump the entire bag into the hot pan and stir quickly to prevent pieces from sticking together. Saute until chicken is golden. Remove chicken with slotted spoon and drain on a paper towel. Turn off the heat under the oil, lest you start a grease fire. I am NOT speaking from ANY kind of firsthand experience here... ;) 
Edit: Lately, I've been skipping this step. After coating the chicken with flour, I just put it straight the crock pot, and it tastes exactly the same! Save time! Skip this step! :)

While chicken is draining, add wine, chicken broth, tomato paste, thyme, and marjoram to the onions and garlic in the blender. Blend until smooth. Place chicken and bay leaf in your slow cooker and then pour the sauce over the chicken. Place lid on slow cooker and cook on high for 3.5-4 hours. When you have about 1/2 hour to go, add the mushrooms and the chopped green pepper. Cook until mushrooms and pepper are tender. Remove bay leaf and serve over pasta.
Serves 6-8.

I of course, made modifications!
-Obviously, used gluten free all purpose flour
-I didn't have a bay leaf so i substituted with an extra 1/4 teaspoon of thyme
-served over gluten free pasta
-used really cheap wine...I'm not sure if that is a modification, but I felt like it needed to be said..
-left out the green bell pepper at the end

My boyfriend said this is his new favorite food, so I'll count this one as a success!

Chili's

It’s hard to be gluten free and to have a normal social life. Most social situations are centered around food, let’s get ice cream after class, let’s get lunch to catch up, let’s all go to dinner, ect. I hate having to always say no, and provide other options. So, I finally decided to try eating out again, so I went to Chili’s, who has a gluten free menu. When I get there, I ask my server for the gluten free menu, and the manager on duty personally delivers it to me, so he is obviously aware of my allergy. I order the guiltless grill sirloin with vegetables. So, I eat it, and it’s delicious (and only $12.99). I’m feeling pretty good about everything, until about 10 minutes after I am done eating...
My stomach started hurting so badly, so I called the manager over. He was like “well, its gluten free” and I was like I just wanted to tell you because there is probably some cross contamination, and then IMMEDIATELY he said “oh, it’s probably because we cook our garlic toast on the same area we make our steaks”
…are you freaking kidding me Chili’s?
He took my meal off the tab, which is nice and all, but I am not satisfied! What is the point of having a gluten free menu if they are not even taking precautions to make sure the food comes out of the kitchen gluten free?! It seems to me that they are knowingly serving gluten free foods to guests who need to eat gluten free, and they just don’t seem to care at all.
Do not eat at Chili’s. Save yourself. It’s literally 24 hours later and my stomach STILL hurts.

Glutino French Bread and Pizza Mix Review

Hello everybody!

It’s Spring Break, so I’m at home. When my sister and I were in elementary and middle school, my family used to get pizza every Friday. We decided to bring back the tradition, but this time, make gluten free pizza so I could eat it.
Luckily for us, my father works right by a Whole Foods; so on the way home, he picked up a pizza mix. He was looking for the Whole Foods 365 Brand, but apparently he didn’t see it, so he bought the Gluten Free Pantry French Bread and Pizza Mix (which is made by Glutino).

The ingredients were fairly normal for a college student to have, the only thing I wouldn’t have had at school was the vinegar, and even at home we did not have the correct kind, but we substituted with red wine vinegar.
The directions left it unclear if we were supposed to the dough rise like the French bread or if we should just mix the dough together and make the pizza. We decided to let the dough rise, figuring that it couldn’t hurt.

The dough was pretty sticky and a little bit difficult to spread on the pizza pan. I ended up sprinkling the pizza pan with all purpose gluten free flour, splatting blobs of the dough, and just spreading it over the pan with a spoon. It took awhile but it worked. After we spread the dough on the pizza pan, we would put it in the oven for about 8 minutes to let the dough get hard so the pizza would not get soggy. Then, we would put the ingredients on the pizza and put it back in the oven for 10-12 minutes.

It actually says to put the oven on 450, but we ended up putting it on 425 and cooking it for a little longer so it would not burn.

Yall can put whatever yall want on your pizza, but we ended up cutting traditional tomato pizza sauce, Pizza style cheese, Italian seasoning, Italian sausage, mushrooms, and red onions on our pizza, and it was DELICOUS. It was better than Boston’s Pizza!
(Did yall know that Boston’s Pizza has gluten free pizza? It’s good, but it made my stomach hurt last time I went...)

I would highly recommend this pizza crust mix because it is by far the most delicious gluten free pizza we have ever made. I am a person who cannot eat out because I am overly sensitive to cross contamination, so it was amazing to have such an amazing pizza with a light crisp crust. It was one of the best pizzas I have ever had! (including before my gluten allergy...)

The only thing I didn’t like was how long it took to make. Because it made so many pizzas, we had to wait for each one to get out of the oven and it just seemed to take forever. If you were at school maybe you could freeze some pizza dough for later? Even though I really enjoyed it, I think at college it would take too long, unless my boyfriend and I planned our date night around making pizza.

I hope you get to enjoy some pizza! I know I was happy to!

-Anita

Does laundry detergent contain gluten?

Does laundry detergent have gluten?

As a kid, my mom took cleaning seriously. The only brands of laundry detergent she ever bought were Tide and Gain. I grew up thinking that even though I had food allergies, at least my skin was not sensitive to soaps and scents.

My freshman year, after the laundry detergent my mom had given me had run out, I decided to go to the store and pick up some. When I saw how expensive laundry detergent was, I picked up “Sun” which was $2.99 for 32 loads! What a deal, right? Wrong! The first week I used it I noticed I was a little bit itchy, and it made me uncomfortable. The next week I made a huge mistake. Along with washing my clothes, I washed all of my towels and bed sheets. Oh my goodness. I cannot describe to you the pain my skin was going though. I was constantly itching and my skin eventually just started burning from the nails against my skin. But, silly Anita, I did not even think that it was my laundry detergent. I just thought that I was bitten by a mosquito (all over my body?), and it would go away. Finally, my friend started asking me questions, and the question “did you just change your laundry detergent?” came up. YES! Of course, that was it! So, I went to the store and bought Gain (original fresh, mmmm) and washed all of my clothes, towels, and bedding, and sure enough, the itch finally went away.

You would think I learnt my lesson about buying cheap laundry detergent… wrong. Just a couple of weeks ago, sophomore Anita ran out of Gain, so I went to Target, and saw “All Small and Mighty” was $3.99 for 32 loads. That was the best deal that I saw, so of course I bought it! Literally, the same thing happened. The first week, I was a little itchy, and the week after when the towels and bedding was washed, I was MISERABLE! The thing that made me upset about this in particular, is that I have used “All” brand before. My aunt uses the normal blue bottle of “All” and it had never made me break out. There must be a reason that the new “small and mighty” is so cheap, and I think it is because either cheap ingredients that I happen to be allergic to, or GLUTEN FILLERS!

When I went laundry detergents websites, I felt like the only thing I was finding out is if the laundry detergent was high efficiency, or environmentally friendly: the websites say NOTHING about the ingredients.

It just makes me upset that this happens. Has anybody else seen the commercials for shampoo with “wheat complex”? It just makes me so angry, why is there gluten in EVERYTHING?!

Well, at least I have learned a lesson. When buying laundry detergent, I will stick with the good stuff. I see lots of Tide and Gain in my future…

Easy, cheap, Mexican Chicken

Hello everybody!
I am really excited about this recipe. It is literally one of the cheapest, easiest meals to make. I wish I took pictures of everything, but it's okay, I can just tell you...

What you need..

• About a pound of chicken (cut into strips or bite size)
  (I seasoned my chicken with salt, pepper, and garlic powder, but you probably don't have to season it at all)
  
• 1 package of taco seasoning (I like to buy the low sodium kind, but any works)
  
• 1 15oz can of black beans (drained) (I also bought low sodium, but any works)
  
• 1 can of Mexican style corn (undrained) (whole corn kernels with red and green peppers) (I bought Del Monte brand 15 oz, but I know Green Giant sells "Mexicorn" in the 11oz as well)
• About 1/4 cup of water
  
• Corn tortillas (...if you feel like it..)

The only kind of chicken I buy is a big bag of chicken tenderloins. I used about 7 or 8 of them. I cooked them on my off-brand George Foreman grill, but if you don't have one, you can just some cooking spray to a skillet and cook the chicken in there.

When the chicken was done cooking, I cut the chicken into thin strips, and then I ended up cutting those in half, so they ended up being bite size pieces of chicken.

Then, I drained a can of black beans and put it in a skillet, then I added the can of Mexican Style corn, the taco seasoning, and about 1/4 cup of water. I put it on medium-medium high heat and just let it cook until most of the liquid was gone.

Then, I just warmed up a couple of corn tortillas put the filling inside. Rolled it up and ate it. It was DELICIOUS! :)
I think it would be really filling even without the corn tortilla. I just like wrapping it in something to keep it neat and tidy.

I got the idea from http://www.bettycrocker.com/

I love this meal so much because not only is it quick, but it's VERY healthy! There is lots of fiber and protein, so it a very filling meal!

This is definitely a meal that any broke college student with barely any time can make! Enjoy!

-Anita

AMAZING Pancakes!

So, I really miss waking up on the weekend and making some delicious pancakes. These pancakes are so amazing, you really cannot tell they are gluten free!Now, I'll be honest, I don't ever make these pancakes unless I go home for the weekend, because there are lots of ingredients, but I highly recommend these for the people who have all of these things in the house.

• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose gluten free flour (I try to buy Whole Foods brand)
• 3 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 tablespoon white sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 1/4 cups milk
• 1 egg
• 3 tablespoons butter, melted

All you do is in a large bowl, mix together the flour, baking powder, salt and sugar. Then, add in the milk, egg, vanilla, and melted butter; mix until smooth.
These make about 8 pancakes, which is enough when my whole family (family of 4) eats them. If it's just me I half the recipe.


THESE ARE SO DELICIOUS! You won't be disappointed!

First Post!

Hey yall! My name is Anita!

I’m in college, but when I go home for my breaks, the restaurant I worked at in high school always lets me come back. On my first day back at work, my first table was a family of four. Then, the mom tells me that the two children just found out they are allergic to gluten.

I got SO excited, because I am literally the perfect server for this family! But when this woman was ordering, I started to realize how little she knew about the allergy. She tried ordering potato skins (fried), chicken (marinated in sauces with wheat), our steak (our seasonings have gluten), french fries (fried..), our rice (soaked in soy sauce and MSG!), and so much more! Finally, instead of trying to order, she just asked me what the safest thing for them to eat was! I felt so bad for this woman, she honestly had no idea what gluten free really meant.

I wanted to start this blog, because I realized how many people do not have as much experience I have with a gluten free lifestyle.

I have suffered so many stomachaches, that I do not want anybody else to suffer again! So, this is my way of helping the world!

But…like I said. I’m in college. This is my first semester in an apartment, where I will have to be cooking semi easy, and cheap meals for myself. So, this blog will not only be about my experiences, but I will also share some of my super easy, cheapish meals with yall!

The first thing I made at school was what I call corn chili, or what my friend (who so nicely shared the recipe with me) calls taco soup! She actually got this from Weight Watchers, so, we know it is also healthy! :]

The ingredients:

• one pound (a little more or less doesn’t matter!) of ground turkey or beef
• 1 can tomato sauce
• 1 can black beans
• 1 can rotel
• 1 can corn
• some chicken broth (or you could just use water…)
• 1 ranch seasoning
• 1 taco seasoning

This is literally one of the easiest things to make! You just cook the ground meat, drain the fat, and then add all of the other ingredients in the pot! I would add the chicken broth or water last though. If you want it more like chili, then you add very little, and if you want it more like soup you add more. It’s DELICIOUS! I had used chicken broth, but next time I’m using water because I added so little that I almost had a full can of chicken broth sitting in the fridge!

One suggestion I have is to try to buy everything low sodium. Since everything from a can, there will probably be lots of salt for you! However, I didn’t buy anything low sodium (because most of the time store brands don’t some in low sodium…) and it was not too salty. I’m just suggesting this for the health conscience people! :]

It’s a really easy meal, and I hope yall like it, and want to follow me on my college budget gluten free journey! :]