Recipe - Cold Pea Salad

We had quite a warm streak here a few weeks back and I wish I had thought about this before but it's one of those dishes you really don't think of when you think 'gluten free'... specially when it comes to veggies. My mother made her attempt at a fresh cold pea salad and it was rather good but we all agreed it was lacking something. So again with thoughts in my mind, the next day I went shopping for ingredients and off I went to the kitchen to see what I could come up with. Below is what I made and it was wonderful but also made a HUGE bowl again so I would suggest for only 2 people and if you want only 1 meal or so out of it, use half the ingredients mentioned. Sorry but no photos this time... will remember next time!

Cold Pea Salad

Ingredients
1 kilo (2pounds) frozen peas
1 cup cheddar, cubed (1/2 inch works best but if you want more bite, cut them bigger)
2 medium red onions
3 large eggs, boiled
1/2 cup - 1 cup gluten free mayo

Directions
This couldn't be an easier fish except that I suggest make it the night before so that it has the night to let all the yummy flavors (like the onion) to meld.

Take the frozen peas and dump them in a strainer. Select a large bowl for mixing the salad in and then place the strainer in it. Fill the bowl with HOT water (not boiling but the hottest your tap will give you works very well). Let it sit while you prepare the rest of the ingredients.

As mentioned in the ingredients, hard boil your eggs and let cool. Finally chop your onion (this again is per taste.... if you like bigger pieces of onion don't chop it so fine... just do what you like best). When eggs are boiled and cooled, use an egg slicer and first slice them normally but then take them out carefully and turn it around and slice it the other direction as well. This will make the egg break into smaller pieces and save work for you in the end. Remember to cube that cheese too!

With all the ingredients prepared, strain peas, empty water from the bowl you are going to use for mixing and place pea without the strainer this time in the bowl :P. Place the rest of the prepared ingredients in with the peas along with the 1/2cup - 1cup mayo. Again this all depending on taste. I don't like over mayo'd items/salads so I only use 1/2 cup and it works just fine but like my father, he likes a lot of mayo so he'd probally use 1cup.

Cover and refrigerate. I suggest again over night but this mixture would be good with just a couple of hours cooling. Salad is good for about 4 to 6 days.

Recipe - Baked Mac and Cheese

It's been ages since I had mac and cheese of any sort. So with my husband's love of pasta with cheese sauces, I started again on another search. Mac and cheese here I come (ok there I went but still!).

This recipe is slightly altered from the one I found... well actually it's altered a lot and I found this works much better since I already had some experience in the making of cheese sauce from the potatoes earlier... I knew that straight cheddar was not going to work well in this nor was the amount of flour and such, so I already started changing it there.

The original recipe I found and went from was at Gluten Free Mom

Here is what I found worked best for me.

Gluten Free Baked Mac and Cheese

Ingredients
1 pound (16oz) uncooked gluten free elbow macaroni
2 TB butter
1/4 cup gluten free flour
2 cups milk (works well with lactose free milk)
8 oz (250grams) cheddar cheese, 1/4 inch cubed
4 oz emmental (or swiss) cheese, shredded
1/2 -3/4th cup gluten free bread crumbs
1/4th cup grated parmesan

Directions
Preheat oven to 375f or 190c and then prepare macaroni as required and then rinse well to remove extra startch. Butter a large enough baking dish that you can also put in about 3 cups of liquid and then toss in the cooked macaroni.

Mix together the gluten free bread crumbs and parmesan together and set a side.

In medium sauce pan over medium heat, melt butter. Leave heat on but remove pan for a moment. Whisk in gluten free flour and blend well. Return to heat and slow whist in milk. Bring to a very slow boil. Continue whisking entire time or you risk burning the milk to the bottom of the pan. When mixer starts to thicken, remove from heat entirely (yes turn heat off :P).

Quickly pour in emmental and whisk til melted and then add the cubes of cheddar. Mix the cheddar slightly til it starts to melt but til you can still see small pieces of it through the mixture.

Pour mixer over macaroni that you put in a baking dish earlier and give it a good mix (I sometimes depending on the amount, prefer to put macaroni in a big bowl so I can mix properly and then pour it into the baking dish). At this stage, if you you want to add cut up hotdogs or even pieces of smoke turkey/chicken pieces (lunch meat style) this is the time to do it also.

When ready to place in oven, sprinkle the bread crumb mixture over the macaroni mixture and then bake 30mins to 1 hr depending on how done and how crisp you want it.

This works well when a bit of meat is added to it as a full meal but also makes a LOT of mac and cheese. I made 3 meals (I had turkey added to it when I made it) for both my husband and I, with large portions of it even.

Recipe - Creamy Potato Au Gratin

Time to get over those sinfully delicious peanut butter cookies with something at least more nutritional :P

I actually made them last night and I'm impressed. Since I moved out here to Belgium, another thing that I started to miss was au gratin potatoes. So again wondering around looking at potato recipes, I came across a recipe and decided I had all the ingredients already so why not.

I think next time when I make the cheese sauce I shall put 1 cup cheese and 1/2 cup more milk to make it a bit thinner and a bit mellower in the salty cheese taste. But other then that, I loved the recipe and plan to make it again. Got some great photos to place with it too!

Creamy Potato Au Gratin

Ingredients For Cheese Sauce
1/4 cup GF flour
2 TBS butter
2 cups low fat milk (can use whole milk if you want this recipe even creamier)
1 1/2 cups shredded cheddar cheese

Ingredients For Main Dish
2 pounds potatoes (what ever ones you prefer)
1 recipe hot cheddar cheese sauce (recipe will follow)
1/2 cup parmesan cheese - optional
1/2 cup GF bread crumbs - optional
paprika - optional

Directions For Cheese Sauce - Option #1
In medium sauce pan, melt butter. Remove from heat and whisk in flour until well combined. Stir in milk slowly while whisking to make sure it is evenly mixed and you have no clumps.

Note For Cheese Sauce If you prefer to have a thinner sauce use 2 1/2 cups milk instead of 2 cups and cut cheese to 1 cup instead of 1 1/2 cups. Follow all directions otherwise.

Return to a medium/low heat. Whisk continuously until mixer is almost boiling and has turned thick. Again, remove from heat and add shredded cheese, mix until cheese is melted through out.

Directions For Main Dish
Preheat oven to 350f or 175c. Lightly grease/butter/spray rectangular baking pan.

Peel and slice potatoes into about 1/4 inch slices. Boil potatoes on high heat for about 8minutes. This step is needed because your cheese sauce will not fully cook the potatoes until soft before the cheese sauce becomes browned and ready for serving. I usually add a chicken cube to the water as I boil potatoes for an extra flavor.

Place half the semi cooked potatoes in the prepared baking dish and cover with 1/2 the cheese sauce over them. Mix bread crumbs and parmesan cheese together if choosing to use and sprinkle half the mixture over cheese sauce.

Repeat the above process with the rest of the potatoes, cheese sauce and bread crumb mixture if using the bread crumbs. Sprinkle top with paprika if so desired but this is purely for looks and not taste.

Bake in preheated oven for about 25minutes or until dish is bubbling and has turned to the dark dish of golden brown.

This dish can sit in the still warm oven with the temperature turned off for another 30minutes if needing it to stay warm with no problems or worries.

Spam Messages

Ok guys and gals... this is enough. I now have changed the moderation of this blog to have to approve, reject or delete comments. Why did I have to do this?? because when I came back here to post in this group, I already had people leaving spam style comments with such stupid crap like for plasma TV's and then last night when my newest posting, I got a couple of people trying to push through dating sites.

Get real people. I wouldn't allow it on my website blogs and I'm certainly not going to allow it on my personal blog either.

Coco, I deleted the post you made before with the dating site, I'm most likely not going to approve another one so don't even try again ok?

Sorry to be this way but I want a CLEAN blog. This is MY blog to share with everyone out there that is wheat intolerant and a bbw (even if your not bbw but still love really good recipes, advice and knowledge)... but it is NOT for dropping random links off that have NOTHING to do with the topic at hand.

Recipe - Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies

As some of you know, one of my most favorite combos when it comes to sweets is peanut butter with chocolate! When I was still in the USA, I use to LOVE reese's peanut butter cups! Well can't even have those any more thanks to this BUT I can still make peanut butter with chocolate in other ways!

So here is another recipe that I just made this afternoon and they turned out almost better I think then any real flour cookies I could have made!

Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies

Ingredients
1 1/4 cup GLUTEN FREE flour mix
1 ts baking soda
1 1/2 sticks (3/4th cup) butter, softened
1 cup peanut butter (smooth or chunky doesn't matter, just what you prefer)
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup dark brown sugar, packed
1 large egg
1 ts vanilla (optional)
1/2 cup dark chocolate chips (semi-sweet work well but I indulged and used 70% dark chips)

Directions
Preheat oven to 350f or 175c. In large mixing bowl, cream together the peanut butter and butter with a mixer on a medium speed. When well combined, add sugars and continue to beat on medium. Keep mixing until mixture becomes light colored and fluffy. Add baking soda and egg to mixer and mix until well blended... that's it for the mixer btw ;)

When creaming process is finished, by hand mix in chocolate chips and then flour 1/3 cup or so at a time until all flour is well combined and chocolate chips are throughly mixed in.

These cookies are so good that you don't even have a reason to 'press them' like normal gluten style peanut butter cookies... they WILL spread out just as a normal 'drop' style cookie will when baking.

Drop by rounded teaspoons onto an UNGREASED cookie sheet and bake in the 350f/175c oven for 12-15mins. Then let cool about 10minutes before removing from cookie sheet to paper towels to cool before storage. You MUST wait before taking these cookies off as they are so fragile that they WILL fall into almost dust if you don't wait to move them.

Repeat with left over dough/mixture until used. I personally transfer each 'set' of cookies from their paper towel cooling to a bowl every time I take a new sheet of cookies out to cool before moving. It saves on space and paper towels.

These cookies are light and every so tasty. This is one recipe I actually like MORE this way then with gluten filled flour. It's easier to mix, make and even cook and they are so much lighter then their gluten filled counter part!

Edited Later
When making these again after I ran out of 'america' style peanutbutter, I used a version of peanutbutter I could find out here in Belgium at a lower cost then the imported american style. This was not a good choice as the ingreditents are completely different. They had no added sugar to this kind, had more added fat and a different amount of peanuts even. When making this recipe, please use the original style peanutbutter by like Jiff, Skippy and other name brands.

Recipe - Tuna Melts w/ Cheese

This is a very very simple recipe and I even had it today for my lunch. I've made it so many times since I went gluten free that I even didn't think about it being a GF item! Also means atm I also don't have a photo for it... sorry! When I make it again, I'll make sure to grab a photo for you! This time it's my own recipe but yea well it's still something not too original :P

Tune Melts w/ Cheese

Ingredients
1 can tuna in water
2-4 TBS mayo
1 ts dry basil
2-4 slices GLUTEN FREE bread, I use a quite dark one for this as I like the darker breads
1-2 slices of good melting cheese, I use cheddar or a good gouda style cheese

Directions
Drain the can of tuna as well as you can and flake up into a small bowl. Mix with basil and mayo... you don't want this tuna to be too heavy on the mayo as it's going to just turn very soggy in the sandwich when it fries... so be sparing but still make sure the tuna is covered.

In a frying pan big enough for 2 sandwiches at a time (if you are making 2 sandwiches at a time, I make 2 because the bread I use is much smaller then the bread that one that can eat wheat does) drizzle the pan with squeeze margarine or lightly coat with some butter and place 2 pieces of bread down into it.

On top of bread, spoon over as much of the tuna mix as you wish but in general I use 1-2TBS of the mix per sandwich as that is really all that is needed.

Place 1 slice cheese on top of tuna mix and then place the other pieces of bread on top. If using a squeeze or spray style butter/margarine, drizzle or spray the tops of the sandwiches in preparation of turning them.

Fry like you would a grilled cheese sandwich! Medium heat until you hear it sizzling away and then flip but carefully. I usually use a small knife as well when turning so that I can hold the 'top' on while flipping to ensure it doesn't fall apart or move. Then fry until sizzling again... keeping in mind you can fry these to your desire as your just looking for that wonderful golden color you would get from a yummy grilled cheese!

That's it... be careful. If you want to eat them straight out of the frying pan, I suggest a knife and folk as the cheese WILL come out and onto your fingers... this will hurt ;) Otherwise, let sit for 10mins and then enjoy... still warm but then finger food.

Edited Later
As promised here are photos. This time I managed to get 'between' shots of this item. I will try to do this more but sometimes it's not possible depending how 'messy' the recipe is.

Recipe - Savory Potato Pancakes

I have a number of recipes to add today and even one in plan that I haven't made yet! The recipe here I made last night for my husband and my 'monthly' anniversary (hopeless romantic thing). He loves potatoes (well I do too but not as much as he seems to) and so I wanted to make something different then the standard 'bake/boil/fry' style thing so I went hunting! Again coming to my beloved GlutenFreeda site!

I stumbled on 2 recipes that made me think about what I was going to do with this. Looking up 'potato' (have to look up potato when using their search... if you use 'potatos' you will end up with only 1 recipe found) in their search because it's misspelled. I came across a recipe for 'cheddar mashed potatoes' and something called 'boxdy' which seemed to be a type of what in America is considered a potato pancake.

My mind wandering into how I can add cheddar to these made it almost go hay-wire! But I came up with the recipe below. Hope you all enjoy! These are quite hearty and I had mine with some sour cream on top but they work just as well without anything!

Savory Potato Pancakes w/ Cheddar

Ingredients
1 pouch instant mash potatoes, I used about 2 cups of flakes (do not prepare yet!)
1 heaping tsp garlic puree (minced style garlic or you can choose to crush enough to make it)
3 TBS fresh or frozen chives, I used frozen but fresh might have more flavor
1/2 cup very small cubes of cheddar cheese, about 1/2 inch large
4 TBS gluten free flour mix
1/2 cup milk
2 eggs
salt/pepper to taste
butter or margarine for frying

Directions
You will need a frying pan able to with stand medium to high heat for about 1 hour of time and preheat this pan.

Prepare the instant potato flakes with COLD water... this is to ensure that when you go about adding the cheese to the recipe before cooking, that it doesn't all melt into the batter... you are going for the 'bites of cheese' not the 'combined throughout' style thing here. Keep in mind to prepare them a bit on the 'dry' side as you will be adding another 1/2 cup liquid and a couple of eggs.

In the prepared mashed potatoes add all other ingredients (couldn't be easier!), mix it all well until you have what looks like your original mash potatoes except now speckled with green from the chives and the nice orange color of the cheddar.

In your pre-pared frying pan, use a VERY small amount of butter on it and then by small soup ladle size, drop batter onto the frying pan. This is where you MUST be patient... you need to leave these sit cooking at least on 1 side for about 10mins untouched! The potato needs to fry enough to keep a hard crust on the one side in order to stay together when you flip it. It also adds to the over dish if you can just leave them cook. I sometimes even use 2 pans at a time so that they get done faster but I still let them sit. Once you can get your spatchula under the pancake and feel that the pancake itself has a resistance and won't fall apart when flipping, then do so. If you feel the pancake give at all when you try to put the spatchula under it, wait and try again in 5minutes. Once this stage is done and you have flipped them, you can then cook the other side just until golden brown if desired or wait a bit longer to have them a bit more crisp on both sides.

Repeat with remaing batter until used... remember to add a bit of butter (only a small amount is really needed) between each fry.

These are really good on their own but also go well with just a small amount of sour cream on top!