Simple Crock Pot Jambalaya (GF/CF)

I do not have a single Cajun bone in my body, but this spicy, filling meal has always been a favorite in our family. Maybe my jambalaya isn’t ‘authentic’ but it sure does taste delicious, and my carnivore-istic children sure enjoy it too!

This recipe can be modified to your liking to add more vegetables, different meat, or real garlic and onion in place of the powders very easily. Noah is just very texture sensitive so I try not to add to many textures to one dish or he won’t even try it.

Crock Pot Jambalaya

1lb bone-less, skin-less chicken breasts, diced to 1 inch cubes

1lb smoked turkey sausage ( check ingredients for milk or wheat additives if making this GFCF), sliced to preference (we do about 1/2 inch thick)

1 can diced tomatoes, with liquid

1 cup chicken broth

1 Tbs onion powder

1 Tbs oregano

3 sprigs fresh parsley, chopped (or 2 tsp dried)

2 tsp garlic powder (or 3 tsp minced garlic)

1/2 tsp cayenne pepper

2 tsp Cajun seasoning

12 oz uncooked rice

Mix ALL of the ingredients together in your crock pot (I usually do meat, seasonings, then tomatoes and broths so all the seasonings mix pretty well without much stirring).

Cook for 7-8 hours on the low setting, or 3-4 hours on high.

 Cook your rice towards the end of the jambalaya’s cooking time (we use a rice cooker, it is one of my favorite kitchen appliances!). If you want it mixed in just add it to the crock pot and allow it to set for 15 minutes before serving. My guys prefer it separate (weirdos), so I serve the rice in a serving bowl and they have as much or little as they want with their jambalaya.

Enjoy!

Chicken Tenders With Pecan ‘Breading’

Chicken tenders are a classic toddler food staple. Noah would eat anything that even just resembles a chicken tender or nugget. We have always made our own chicken tenders and chicken nuggets because the store-bought kind gross me out a little (especially after watching a few episodes of Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution and his bit about commercial chicken nuggets). Unfortunately, Noah hates store-bought GF bread crumb coating and I’m not about to make my own out of his GF sandwich bread (a precious commodity in this house). I remembered making tilapia fish sticks with a walnut crumb coating from the Weelicious.com food blog and thought that this might be just the thing for Noah’s chicken nuggets! I decided to go with pecans because I was a little addicted to chicken pecan salad when I was pregnant with both boys and I happened to have a couple of bags of them already because we put them in banana bread.

Pecan Breaded Chicken Tenders

1.5-2 cups pecan pieces (or whole, it won’t matter for the recipe but pieces are usually cheaper)

1-1.5lbs chicken tender cuts

About 1/2 cup cornstarch for dusting the chicken

2 eggs, beaten

Preheat oven to 375 degrees and line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

Place the pecans in your food processor (a blender can do an okay job) and pulse until the nuts have a crumb-y consistency (do not over do it or the natural oils will start mashing the crumbs together like a nut butter). Season the nut crumb mixture with salt, pepper, or any other spices you wish.

Place the cornstarch, eggs, and nut mixture into three separate containers or shallow plates. First you will dust a chicken tender in the cornstarch, then dredge it in the egg, and finally roll it in the nut crumb mixture. Place finished chicken tenders on the baking sheets.

Bake in the oven for 10 minutes, flip the tenders over and continue baking for another 8 minutes or until done. Serve with favorite side dish (peas and/or sweet potato fries are our usual)

I’m sorry of the lack of photos! My battery was dead on my camera and I didn’t realize it until it was too late.

Levi enjoying his chicken tender lunch with some roasted parsnip and applesauce. 🙂

Oven Roasted Chicken and Veggies!

We had a quick, and easy meal today. Noah loves loves loves chicken breasts so we can never go wrong with oven roasted chicken! Next week I’ll have to post about how we (read: Dylan) cooks whole chicken, it is delicious! This is a good alternative for those of us who don’t like working with meat on bones (guilty!).

Oven Roasted Chicken and Veggies

1-1.5lbs bone-less, skin-less chicken breasts.

1 1/2 cup chicken broth

5 carrots

2 parsnips

3-4 red potatoes

1 tsp sea salt (plus more for sprinkling the chicken if desired)

1/2 tsp black pepper

1 Tbs oregano

2 tsp onion powder

3 cloves garlic, smashed

Fresh rosemary or thyme (at least 3 sprigs)

Olive oil to brush the chicken with

Preheat oven to 400F degrees.

Peel carrots and parsnips, cut into half-inch thick pieces. Wash potatoes with warm water and dice into inch sized pieces (we like the skins and leave them on, the best nutrients are in the skins!). Place the veggies in a roasting pan. Add the smashed garlic cloves and sprigs of rosemary/thyme to the pan. Then sprinkle the veggies with oregano, salt, and onion powder. Pour chicken broth overtop of everything in the pan.

Nestle your chicken breasts breast side down on top of the veggies. Sprinkle with pepper and salt. Cover the pan with aluminum foil.

Bake in the oven for 30mins to allow the veggies to steam and cook properly, after 30mins remove the foil. Flip the chicken breasts over, brush with olive oil, and sprinkle more black pepper. Continue cooking for another 10-15 minutes uncovered to brown the chicken a little (this option can be skipped if you wish. It just won’t be ‘roasted’, but it will still be yummy! Just bake for a total of 40-45mins in a foil covered pan, be sure to check the chicken breasts and flip if necessary about halfway through).

Viola! Dinner is served. 🙂

I was very proud of Noah. Not only did he eat all his chicken, he ate a few bites of parsnip too! 😀

Crock Pot BBQ Pulled Pork (GF/CF)

I’ve been neglecting this blog the past couple days, I am so sorry! We’ve just had such a busy busy week around here and with the nice weather we’ve tried to be outside as much as possible too! I’m actually sitting here typing this while we wait for an impending bad storm to show up (it is anticipated to be tornadic and has even attracted storm chasers from across the country! yikes! This is not normal for Ky in March!). So, while everyone in this part of the state waits for this monster storm to show up I figured I’d do something productive with my spare time. 🙂

Because we’ve been so busy most of the meals I made this week were super simple to throw together. This pulled pork only needs 3 ingredients to make, and since it uses the crock pot you can just set it and forget about it until dinner time! This recipe is also very easy to increase if you have a larger number of people in your family or you want leftovers.

3 Ingredient Pulled Pork

1 (2-3 pound) pork tenderloin (or butt or shoulder, whatever you like)

1 bottle Virgil’s Root Beer (or other root beer that is gf/free of caramel color)

1 bottle GF BBQ Sauce

Place your pork in the crock pot, pour your bottle of root beer over top of the pork. Set the crock pot to low and cook for 5-6 hours or until done. You can also cook on high for about 3-4 hours. Low and slow is the way to go if you ask me, it just makes the pork so much more tender and juicy. That is it! That is all you have to do! Shred it, add sauce, and serve on GF/CF buns with the sides of your choice. 🙂

The first time I told Dylan I was going to use root beer (thanks for the idea pinterest!) to make pulled pork he was very skeptical but now that he has had it (a couple of times actually) it is the only way he wants me to make it from now on (when it isn’t grilling season that is). The boys enjoy it too. 🙂

‘Authentic’ GF, Vegan Pizza Dough.

I hadn’t planned on making a post today. But as I was packing things for the boys to take to grandma’s house where they were going to stay today while we did our taxes and some errands I realized I didn’t have anything meal worthy to pack Noah. We are really out of a lot of things that help to make up his meals(I’ve gotten behind on the baking front!). I was running out of time before we needed to leave so I thought PIZZA! That might be just the thing to save me. But the prep time for the pizza dough on the back of the Pamela’s GF flour bag needed to much prep and rise time, as does the cauliflower pizza crust Noah loves me to make. So I hit my pinterest board, I remember pinning a pizza dough recipe from The Gluten Free Vegan blog. What luck that I had all of the ingredients on hand already and if I started right away it would be done in time to leave! I even had enough time to take some pictures to make this post. 🙂 This recipe was so easy to make, and didn’t take a lot of time to do either. Just follow this link to view the original post if you wish. 🙂

Authentic Pizza Crust *[ ] denotes additions by me

1 Tbs dry yeast

2/3 cup brown rice flour

1/2 cup tapioca flour

2 tsp xanthan gum

1/2 tsp salt

1 tsp Italian seasoning

2/3 cup warm non-dairy milk [I used plain almond milk]

1/2 tsp sugar or honey [I used agave, I added an extra 1/2 tsp but that is totally up to you]

1 tsp olive oil

1 tsp apple cider vinegar

[I added 1/4 cup ground flax to the mix as well]

 

Preheat the oven to 425 F.

Combine dry ingredients in your mixer [I did not use my mixer as it was still dirty, I mixed everything by hand with a fork], including yeast [added my flax here].

Add liquid ingredients slowly and beat for 2 minutes.  If the dough bounces around in the mixer more liquid a tiny bit at a time.  (I had to do this, I probably added about 1-2 tsp. more almond milk.) [I did not have any issue and did not need to add milk when mixing by hand.]

Prepare pizza pan by oiling it with olive oil.  Put a ziploc bag on your hand and spread the olive oil around the pan and grease up the bag. [you do not need the ziploc bag unless you just don’t want to get your hands messy. I did not use one, I just rubbed some EVOO in my hands from the pan. I also laid a piece of parchment paper down before putting the oil on]

Take your mixed dough and throw it on the greased pizza pan.  Use the greased up ziploc bag hand to spread the dough evenly on the pizza pan [it made about a 12 inch pizza for me].  Make a little crust edge.  Bake for 10 minutes, then remove from oven.

Transfer to a pizza stone if you have one.  If not, just lift the crust up off the pan to ensure it isn’t sticking [I left it on the parchment paper covered pan, it did not stick].  Then top with your favorite toppings.  Return to the oven for about 7-10 minutes longer till your pizza is completely cooked thru and toppings are hot.

I promise you I am not trying to pass off take-out pizza as my own! We save small pizza boxes to use for homemade pizza so it is easy to travel with (like going to grandma’s house), and Noah just thinks its extra special if it comes out of a box haha! He also does not like any topping besides sauce and sometimes spinach if I mince it most of the time. It is very rare he wants diaya cheese or pepperoni on it. Feel free to use any toppings that suit your taste buds tho!

I didn’t get to see Noah’s reaction to the pizza since he ate it at grandma’s while we were out, but half of the pizza was gone when we got back between him and Levi eating it so it must be pretty good! I cannot give my personal opinion since we forgot the leftovers at grandma’s [the smell coming out of the oven when it was done was pretty amazing tho], but Noah won’t eat just any ole pizza, it has to meet is high standards. 🙂 This recipe gets a thumbs up from Noah!

Easy Honey Garlic Chicken Dinner -GF/CF

I’d have to say this is one of my favorite go-to dinners when I’m short on time or if I’m just feeling lazy. We used to make this before Noah was gf/cf and converting it was really easy to do. Noah loves chicken breasts cut up and served with sauce so this is a perfect meal for him, I always know he will eat if I serve this! Usually I do this in a crockpot because I can just set it so it will be ready when I’m going to want dinner on the table.

Honey Garlic Chicken:

-1-1.5lbs bone-less, skin-less chicken breasts

-3/4 cup honey

-1/3 cup GF ketchup (Heinz is GF)

-1/4 cup GF soy sauce (Kikoman has a GF option)

-2 cloves garlic diced (or about 1/2 tsp garlic powder if that’s all you have on hand)

-1/4 cup brown sugar (optional, if you do use it double check that the brand your buying is GF)

[Adjust the soy sauce and honey levels to your taste if you wish it to be less sweet]

Place all the chicken breasts in your crockpot so that they are not on top of each other. In a small bowl or measuring glass mix the honey, ketchup, soy sauce, garlic, and sugar. Once throughly combined pour over top of the chicken breasts, make sure all are coated nicely.

You can cook the chicken either on high for 2-3 hours or low for about 4 hours, turn the chicken atleast once during cooking. You could, instead, use a conventional oven. I would suggest cooking the chicken at 350F in a glass dish covered with foil for about 1hr or until done.

That’s it! That is all there is to this delicous chicken dinner!

I typically serve our honey garlic chicken with steamed broccoli and jasmine rice (the leftover sauce from cooking the chicken drizzled over some of your rice or veg is so good!). Or sometimes I will make homemade ‘fried’ veggie brown rice when Dylan requests it. What ever you serve it with I’m sure your family will be coming back for seconds!