Yummy Sauted Cabbage

A good friend of mine came over and cooked this for me. It is very very yummy. You can find the original recipe here. You will be surprised how sweet the cabbage is and how spicy the freshly ground pepper is. A common mistake is to put too much oil or butter. It doesn't need it. I believe it is only there originally to keep the cabbage from burning.

1 head of green cabbage cut into thin strips
1 to 2 teaspoons coconut oil
salt and freshly ground pepper

Add the oil to a very large saucepan and heat over medium heat. Then, add the cabbage and cook turning regularly to prevent burning. Cook until wilted and browning . You may need to increase the temperature. Add salt and pepper. Enjoy!

Baked Sweet Potatoes

Sometimes I forget some of the simple things such as times and temperatures for baking. So here is a very simple one. Clean sweet potatoes, poke a fork or knife into the potato in several spots and place in a preheated convection oven at 375 degrees. Bake for 50 to 70 min. depending on the size. Remove when you can easly insert a knife into the center of the sweet potato. Enjoy!

Cake Doughnuts

A good friend of mine inspires me to bake. Before I met her I had no clue how to bake gluten, soy and casein free. I was just surviving and learning the basics. Well, she is an amazing cook and baker and this is one of her recipes but just in a different form. I loved donuts and it is one of the things that I really miss not having. I am also not willing to play a dollar a donut to buy 6 pre-made frozen ones, although they are yummy! I as well, prefer to be able to pronounce all of the ingredients that go into my food. So, at her blog myaspergersgirl.blogspot.com, this is the basic recipe GFCF Sandbox cake. I used her All Purpose Sorghum Flour Blend. The margarine I use is earth's balance natural buttery spread.

I took her recipe and instead of putting it in a cake pan I put it in a muffin top pan. Bake at 375 degrees. Start checking it to be done at 20 min. by inserting a toothpick until it comes out clean. Once done, allow to cool and remove from pan. Use a small cookie cutter to make the center hole. Enjoy!

Hot Cranberry and Orange Compote

I had two bottles of unsweetened cranberry juice hanging out in my kitchen and some oranges that needed eating. It was a cold day and I was curious what could be made out of unsweetened cranberry juice. Well, just as I suspected, all you have to do is add sugar. DH thought this reminded him of a Cosmopolitan

2 bottles cranberry juice
4 oranges, peeled
1 cup sugar

In a large saucepan or stockpot pour the juice in and add the sugar. Squeeze or smash the oranges and place the juice and orange into the pan. Heat on medium heat until the sugar is dissolved. Serve immediately. Store the remainder in the refrigerator. Add a cinnamon stick for more flavor or decoration. Enjoy!

BBQ Chicken

DH loves drumsticks so when I picked up a few at the store I envisioned making BBQ chicken. The only problem was my grill was out of propane, so I needed to find a way to do it in the oven. I have a convection oven but since I have not used one in the past I am still figuring out how to do it. It produces a nice crispy outside on the chicken. This was one of my first tries and it turned out wonderfully. I used this recipe for inspiration. Austin's Own BBQ sauce is the only one I have found to be gluten, soy and casein free.

6 drumsticks
1 bottle of Austin's Own BBQ Sauce

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Brush the drumsticks with BBQ Sauce and place on a cookie sheet or pan with shallow sides. This allows the air to circulate. Cook for 30 min and brush with more BBQ Sauce. Cook for another 15 min. Check to make sure the temperature has reached 165 to 170 degrees. Enjoy!

Whole Braised Chicken with Vegetables

Today I had a daunting question, what do you do with a whole chicken? I have had so much chicken lately that I needed to try a different cooking method. Sautéing is great but there must be more. A good friend of mine suggested that I bake it with thyme so I searched the Joy of Cooking and found another recipe I am interested in trying, but I could not find a recipe to guide me. I wanted to cook a whole chicken in the oven using a Le Creuset French Oven. Instead I found a fun the blog, My Own Sweet Thyme, that gave me inspiration with the recipe Herb Roasted Chicken and then I just used what I had in the kitchen. It was very yummy.

1 whole chicken
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground pepper
1/4 teaspoon dried thyme (use any herb you choose)
1 Tablespoon olive oil

3 sweet potatoes
2 red potatoes
4 carrots
1 red onion
3 stalks of celery

1 cup of white wine

Wash and dry the chicken. Then separate the skin from the breast and work your fingers from the breast over to the legs and separate the skin there as well. Rub olive oil on the skin, inside between the skin and meat, and the inside of the chicken. Mix the salt, pepper and thyme together and rub inside the skin on the breast and legs. Stuff the cavity with quartered onion. Lay on a bed of cubed vegetables breast side up.

15 min before it was done I added the celery so they would be slight crisp and poured 1 cup of Resling Relax wine over the chicken and vegetables. If you do not like wine you can use chicken broth. I am still searching for different types of wines that are casein free. That is a whole different story.

Cook uncovered at 450 degrees for 1 hour or until golden and the thickest part of the thigh is 180 degrees.

Enjoy!

Lasagna

Ingredients:
1 package gluten free lasagna noodles
1 jar of spaghetti sauce
1 bunch asparagus, chopped
2 chicken breasts
10 mushrooms, chopped

powdered garlic
oregano
basil
salt
pepper


Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 400
2. Cook lasagna noodles
3. Rinse chicken breasts, cut in half, and tenderize
4. Season with garlic, oregano, basil, salt and pepper
5. Pan fry in oil until cooked
6. Cube chicken

Layer
7. Noodles, sauce, asparagus, mushrooms, chicken and repeat until you run out.

Bake
8. Bake for 30 minutes or until bubbly