Almond Spread

This is a gluten and dairy free spread you can use for veggie dip or in place of mayo in "sandwiches"

1/2 cup almonds
3/4 cup water
2 tablespoons lemon juice (I used 1/2 lemon)
2 tablespoons olive oil (you can also use avocado or walnut oil)
1 teaspoon of honey
1 1/2 teaspoons of mustard
1/4 teaspoon salt
ground red pepper (I didn't have this so I shook some flakes in it and it worked too)
2 tablespoons of Bob's Red Mill All Purpose Flour

Place nuts in a blender and blend until it's a fine powder
Add 1/4 cup water and process for a minute
Scrape the blender
Add the rest of the ingredients (except the flour)
This will be liquid
Add the flour and blend

Transfer the liquid to saucepan and heat for 5 minutes or until thick - constantly stirring to avoid burning.

Let cool about 10 minutes and you have a spreadable substance.

Enjoy!!!

Gluten Free Sugar Cookie Cut Outs

These are just delicious!!! Christmas will never be the same for you...

1 cup butter (softened)
3/4 cup granulated sugar
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 1/2 cups Bob's Red Mill All Purpose Baking Flour

Cream butter with blender, 30 seconds
Add sugar while blending, 1 minute
Add egg, while blending, 1 minute
Add vanilla while blending, 30 seconds
Add flour while blending until you can't use blender anymore
Then continue adding flour mixing by hand

Roll out 1/4" thick and cut out shapes

Bake 8 - 10 minutes on 375 degrees...

Delightful!

Green Chile Sauce

This is both delightful and easy. The hardest part is husking the tomatillos.

I used about 20 tomatillos of various sizes. Husk them and put them in a pot of water to boil.
Add 1 jalapeno, 1 onion, 1 clove garlic, 2 sprigs of cilantro. Boil until the tomatillos are soft.

Strain, transfer mixture to blender, add juice from 1/2 of lime and a teaspoon of salt. Blend.

Wahlah green chile sauce.

Now you can make it hotter by adding a Serrano pepper or another jalapeno. I have this super hot habenaro pepper that I add which I think is quite tasty. Others think it's too hot.

Happy Mexican dinner!

Veggies, Veggies, Veggies

Last night we had the best organic and gluten free meal. Of course I'm a little biased since I made it and now think it was delicious (grin). Anyway the hardest part was chopping veggies but after that it was so easy.

So I put in two potatoes to bake (350 degrees for about an hour) poke them with a fork after washing and stick them in the oven. Simple. They are done when the fork goes into them easily.

Then I set about chopping. Now this can be any veggie you would like to have but here is what I used.

1/2 onion (not a big onion person)
1/4 red pepper (expensive so I use sparingly)
1/4 yellow pepper (only have one until Tuesday so I'm stretching it)
1/4 green pepper (had to be even with the other peppers)
7 - 10 baby carrots (adding even more color)
1 zucchini
Optional tiny peppers (we got these at the farmers market and I don't know the name but the are potent)
1 clove garlic
3 Tablespoons Olive Oil

All veggies (not garlic or oil) are washed then chopped into bite sized pieces. Put these on a cookie sheet. Drizzle with olive oil and crush the garlic on top. Stir so that all pieces are coated with garlic and olive oil. Note: if you find the tiny peppers, cook them whole in the batch and only use like 6 - 10 peppers, they are spicy enough for the entire dish. My mouth was on fire for an hour after dinner but it was so good!

When the potatoes are done, pull them out and turn up the heat to 400 degrees. I like my veggies a little crisper so we only put them in for 15 minutes. You can do longer and I've also heard of others broiling them for the last 2 minutes (be careful not to burn here).

That's it, serve with the potato and you have a delicious, vegetarian, gluten free meal.

Bon Appetit

Banana Bread

Oh my gosh...I just cut a piece of this bread and it was delicious!!! Still a little warm from the oven! This is so easy to mix up and bake. I did it before I had my coffee today...to beat the desert heat!

3 or 4 well ripened bananas
1/3 cup melted butter
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 cup sugar (this can be reduced to 3/4 cup no problem)
1 egg, beaten
1 teaspoon baking soda
Pinch of salt
1 cup Bob's Red Mill All Purpose Baking Flour
1/2 cup Bob's Red Mill White Rice Flour

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees

2. Peel and mash the bananas in large mixing bowl with a wooden spoon

3. Add the melted butter and stir

4. Add the vanilla and stir

5. Add the sugar and stir

6. Add baking soda and stir

7. A couple shakes of salt

8. Add the cup of all purpose flour and stir

9. Add the 1/2 cup of white rice flour and stir

10. Pour into greased loaf pan and bake for 1 hour.

11. Let cool for at least 20 minutes before cutting into it

This is delicious and a great way to use bananas when they start to get soft. Here in the desert everything gets soft pretty darn quickly!

Well, enjoy!

Potato Salad

Okay, this recipe was tried out last night and fed 8 people and they all loved it....

5 lb bag of little red potatoes
1/2 cup of olive oil (I used the full flavor kind)
4 Tablespoons apple cider vinegar (you can use more or less depending on taste)
1 Tablespoon of fresh Horseradish (if you use the kind in the grocery store you may want to use 2 Tablespoons because it's not as potent)
1 Sm onion finely chopped (I used yellow, but I would say you could use any onion)
Dill
Parsley
Salt
Pepper

1) Quarter potatoes and Boil until they are fork tender (about 20 - 25 minutes)

2) While the potatoes are still warm mix in the olive oil and vinegar, the edges of the potatoes will wilt which is perfect.

3) Stir in the horseradish and onion

4) Season with Dill, Salt and Pepper to taste (approx 1/4 teaspoon of each)

5) Sprinkle fresh parsley over the top (I think I used just a few strands and the leaves only)

6) You can serve warm but I like to refrigerate and serve chilled.

It was delicious, gluten free, relatively good for you. I would say you could add more onion or horseradish if you want (the original recipe called for 2 Tablespoons of Horseradish but I knew my crowd wasn't going to go for that) I also am not a huge fan of onion so I really used a small onion. The original recipe called for a red onion but I used yellow and it was just fine.

Hope you enjoy this recipe too....

Bon Appetit

Now on the diet...ugh!

So we are starting to watch our calorie intake here at the Garrett household. It's been quite trying as some days we don't eat enough calories, some too many calories and some empty calories. But at least our caloric intake is now on the radar screen.

Our goal is to eat everything in the correct portion size. You would be amazed at how many times we eat two or three servings of something and don't even know it. So we have started this week with measuring out portion sizes for us to eat and it has been quite eye opening.

1/2 cup of strawberries is a serving (4 med to large strawberries)
15 grapes is a serving
1 cup of soy milk is a serving
15 pretzels is a serving
12 Triscuits is a serving (not gluten free)
13 potato chips is a serving

We have found if you eat serving sizes you are more apt to want to eat 6 times a day as the portions don't keep you filled for the entire day. However, our goal is to get it to the point of servings size is the norm.

So this morning we had loaded scrambled eggs

2 egg whites
2 large eggs
1/2 small onion
1 small potato
1 jalapeno pepper
2 tbls butter
1 tbls olive oil

cut the potato, pepper and onion into small pieces and saute in 1 tbls of butter
I added the 1 tbls olive oil because everything started sticking to the pan

scramble the whites and eggs together

add 1 tbls of butter to the saute mixture then pour the eggs over it

mix it up and serve up!!!

250 calories per serving (mainly from the butter and oil)

when I add in my coffee and creamer (decadent creamer, but i love it) my morning is 500 calories and gluten free!!!