5 Gluten Free Veggie Stir Fry - #weekdaysupper

This week for #weekdaysupper, we're all sharing easy recipes that are perfect for the busy family. All of our recipes can be prepared in under 30 minutes or less! The other recipes this week are:

Monday – girlichef - Blackened Tilapia w/ Quick Collard Greens
Tuesday – Gourmet Drizzles – Chicken Divan Mini Bread Bowls
Wednesday – Momma’s Meals – BBQ Bacon Meatloaf Cups
Thursday – No One Likes Crumbley Cookies – Gluten Free Veggie Stir Fry
Friday – Cindy’s Recipes and Writings – Chicken Sausage, Peppers and Couscous

I enjoy making vegetarian dishes when I'm under a time crunch. Not only are they normally healthy and filled with vitamins and minerals, but you can cook them quickly without worrying about the food reaching a certain internal temperature. Also, I use Minute rice in this recipe, a quick 10 minute rice that my mother always used when she needed rice made quick for us.

I list veggie ingredients that I love to use, feel free to add or remove veggies depending on what you have!

Prep time: 10 minutes

Cook time: 10 minutes

Ingredients

1 cup water

1 cup Minute rice

3 tbsp vegetable oil

1 tbsp sesame oil

1 yellow onion, minced

2 cloves garlic, minced

florets from 1 broccoli head

1/2 cup snow peas

1/2 cup shredded carrots

1/4 cup gluten free soy sauce

2 tsp ginger

1/2 tsp pepper

Steps

In a small saucepan, boil the water and add the rice. Cover and set aside for 10 minutes.

Preheat a wok to high heat. Add the oils, onion, and garlic. Stir regularly for 3 minutes, and add the broccoli. Stir constantly for about 3 minutes, and add the remaining ingredients. Cook for about 4-5 minutes, and serve with the rice when hot.

2 Ratio Rally - Gluten Free Cherry Lime Cobbler

This month I hosted the Gluten Free Ratio Rally's theme of the month - Fruit Cobbler! This was an interesting month to host, because there were definitely various different ratios that people came up with. 

There's so many different things to take into consideration. Do you go for more, or less filling in the cobbler? Do you go for a cracker or cookie texture to the cobbler? I experimented a few variants and came to my personal preference. I prefer a fruit ratio that is about 3:1 with fruit:flour. Any more and it feels like a pie without it's pants on, any less it feels like a fruit cookie flipped upside down.

The ratios I used are 3:1:1:1/4:1/4  fruit:flour:sugar:butter:milk. It's a fairly simple recipe, and turns out to be rather tasty and delicious!

Below are the links to all the participants this month!
Adina - Gluten Free Travelette - Date Night Berry Cobbler
Morri - Meals with Morri - Cast Iron Fruit Cobbler on the Grill
Heather - Discovering the Extraordinary - Pineapple Cherry Dump Cake
Brooke - B & the boy! - Apple-Cranberry Cobbler

Prep Time: 15 minutes
Cook Time: 25 minutes

Filling ingredients
3 cups cherries, pitted
1/2 cup sugar
juice of 2 limes
2 tsp corn starch

Cobbler ingredients
140g gluten free flour
50g granulated sugar
2 tbsp brown sugar
zest of 2 limes
1 tsp baking powder
4 tbsp butter
3 tbsp milk
1 egg

Steps
Preheat oven to 400F. In a medium saucepan over medium heat, cook the cherries, sugar, lime, and corn starch for about 10 minutes, until the cherries bubble and thicken into a sauce. Pour into a square pan.

In a medium bowl, blend the flour, sugars, zest, and baking powder together. Cut the butter into the flour mix, and stir the milk and egg in until well combined. Drop the dough by the spoon onto the cherries. Bake in the oven for 25 minutes, until the cobbler is golden brown on top.

0 Review - just ask josh brownies and cookies

Hi everyone! I hope you're having a good week! As some of you may know, Julie from just ask josh has been posting some of her favorite recipes and stories involving her children regularly on the blog. I love all the contributions she's made, and I was glad to have the opportunity to try her company's brownies and cookies before her online shop went live. Before I go into the details of my experience with her products, her online shop goes live today, so go check it out at http://www.jajosh.com and use the code JAJ25off to receive 25% an order you place on her site.

I had the opportunity to try both the brownies and the cookies. Both products are stored in the freezer, and the brownies were pre-baked, while the cookies come packaged as individual frozen cookie dough that needs to be baked.

I tried the cookies first (mainly because of my love of cookies over brownies) and fell in love with them. They come out of the oven with a great texture, color and taste. They're everything you want out of freshly baked cookies with the convenience of conventionally gluten-filled frozen cookies.

The thing that surprised me were the brownies. I've become used to the idea of dry brownies that don't have a great texture, especially if they were previously frozen. In fact, I've become used to dry anything gluten free if it's primary storage method is the freezer. The thing I liked about Julie's brownies is that they keep well, and have a great texture even though I may have had them stored in the freezer for a little while.

I definitely recommend both of her products, so if you're interested, be sure to take advantage of the offer she shared with us at the top of this post!

1 #mangolove: Mango Margarita

Hey everyone! Mangoes are the theme of this month's foodlove blog hop! I love using mangoes in both savory and sweet dishes, they have such a unique taste and great texture that's able to be used in tons of dishes. 

For my first mango-themed food love post this month, I did a simple mango margarita that is also gluten free! I hope you enjoy it, and thanks to Deanna Segrave-Daly of Teaspoon of Spice for co-hosting this month! Check out her twitter and pinterest under user names tspbasil!

Feel free to add your favorite mango recipes to the blog hop below!

Prep Time 5 minutes

Servings  1

Ingredients

1 mango, skinned, cubed, and frozen

2 oz tequila

1 oz orange liquor

3 oz sweet and sour mix

Steps 

Blend the mango until it has become small pieces of frozen mango, and there are no longer any large pieces.

Add the rest of the ingredients and blend until smooth. Serve and enjoy!

0 The CSA Three Step Self-Management Plan

It’s the end of May, and the end of Celiac Awareness Month. To wrap up the awareness month, I wanted to share the Celiac Sprue Association’s (CSA) Gluten Free Self-Management Plan. I followed this plan when I was diagnosed and switched to a gluten free lifestyle. You can read the CSA’s plan in detail on their website here: http://www.csaceliacs.info/self_management.jsp and I recommend that you consult your dietitian before implementing your plan to discuss with them. This article is meant as a way to share my personal experience, and hopefully bring more awareness to the CSA as a resource.

Building a solid foundation of a gluten free diet is the first step of self-management. You’ll want to approach this step after being diagnosed or if you think you may have some the symptoms of Celiac or gluten sensitivity. During this stage, you eliminate all food that contain gluten, and begin learning what foods you can eat, what contains gluten, and any supplements you may need. It is also a great time to find support groups local to your area, and to find communities online. When I began, I developed a good dialogue with my doctors, and looked into local gluten free events where I could join a community. I also brought gluten free topics into my blog (which at that point had been a mix of recipes and technology topics).

After your diet and health are under control, you can begin looking into how to expand your diet. For me I remember this period of time taking about 6 months before I felt a lot better and was brave enough and comfortable enough to expand my diet. Six months is what worked for me, but that amount of time would be different for each person. Discuss with your doctor and use personal judgment to figure out the best plan for you. Once you’re ready to expand your diet, you should start learning more about how food is made, and what is involved in processing food. This is where I got a resource called The Essential Gluten-Free Grocery Guide which was extremely useful when learning what food I could and could not buy in the grocery store.

Once you have become experienced with expanding your diet, and feel comfortable with a gluten free lifestyle, this is where you’ll be able to maintain a diet, and have the ability to experiment with foods as you please.