I experimented....and I didn't die... Mac and "Cheese"

OMG GUYS. I'M EATING "CHEESE" THAT ISN'T REALLY CHEESE, IT'S LIKE OTHER STUFF, BUT IT TASTES MOSTLY LIKE CHEESE!


Let me explain.


So, I've been searching desperately for a cheese substitute. Everything delicious is better with cheese. It's my most missed dairy product so far (and frozen yogurt). Do you know how impossible it is to find a gluten / dairy / SOY / corn free cheese? And after my stunt with "vegan cheese slices" I was NOT ready to try another cheese substitute. 


Then one day I was reading recipes online and it mentioned "Daiya - a non dairy cheese"
http://www.daiyafoods.com/
I looked it up, and it looked pretty promising, it didn't look scary vegan, it comes in shredded cheese bits like the cheese I was used to, and it's base ingredient is appropriate oils / flours. So today, I went out and bought it. According to their website, the only place around me for like 150 miles that carries it is Kroger and a local natural foods place. So I went to Kroger. It was next to the vegan cheese, ironically enough.


I brought it home and didn't know when I would use it and then I got stressed out this evening and decided to take a break and cook something simple. The only thing I had all the ingredients for and used that type of cheese - I got the sharp cheddar kind - was Cheesy Quinoa Mac and Cheese


http://aroundthetableri.blogspot.com/2012/02/cheesy-quinoa-mac-cheese.html


I cooked the quinoa for the longest amount on the package so it would be less seed like, and in the recipe I subbed 
milk => almond milk
I didn't put any veggies or extra stuff in, but I did blend up some rice crackers for breadcrumbs. I only put it on half of the thing because I wasn't sure I'd like the breadcrumbs. Turns out, I liked it more without, so next time, no breadcrumbs.


It says to put it in a 9x13 pan, which was way too big. If you are making this for a family, double the recipe and use that size pan. if only 1-2 people, just use a smaller pan. 


As the quinoa was cooking it gave off a terrible smell, which didn't make me too enthusiastic about the recipe. Then I cautiously cut open the Daiya package and leaned in to smell it - probably bad idea. It has a VERY strong, kind of strange smell. I'm sure really strong cheeses do, but I never ate really strong cheeses. So as I was mixing it all up together, I figured the disgusting smelling mixture would come out terrible and would probably make me cry. 


I made it anyway, and stuck it in the oven. As it baked, the smell and look improved. I cooked it for about 20 minutes because it was so thin. 


Then I got it out, cut a nice piece, and slightly terrified, tasted it. Then I was like PRAISE GOD IT TASTES LIKE REAL FOOD AND REAL CHEESE AND OMG I'M SO HAPPY. 


It does have a stronger/different taste, but it's good. and I am so excited about more things to make with this cheese!! 

Another cheese to try in the future is Wayfare cheeses...but for now...Daiya wins.
http://www.wayfarefoods.com/

Food Extravaganza and Amazing Sisters. Freezer Meals, soup, and steak

This weekend has already taken it's toll on me, I am quite exhausted right now. But I got a ton done thanks to my sisters! 

So yesterday my oldest sister came into town and me, her, and my other sister went out to eat at Outback Steakhouse. I asked for a gluten free menu when I got to the table, and at first I thought they forgot about me because it took them SO LONG, but they eventually showed up with it. They probably took so long finding it because it was 1/8 of the size of the normal menus, and on normal paper they had printed out. Now that I think of it, they probably had to go print it out right then...

I ordered the Outback Special, two lobster tails, a sweet potato, and veggies. all with no seasoning, no black pepper, no butter, and no salt. 

It took them quite a long time, considering it really wasn't that crowded, and we wondered if their brains exploded back there at all the instructions we gave them for my food. They eventually came out with our food though, but they gave my sister Holly the wrong thing and gave me a normal potato instead of sweet potato. We got them to correct it, but that took quite a while again. 

But, awesome news is, nothing made me sick!! :)

Afterwards, we went to Village Foods and HEB to get ingredients, because my oldest sister (Cindy) and I planned to cook all day today. 

Thus begins Saturday....

I woke up to Cindy mowing the yard and planting flowers like a crazy person,

I've honestly been wanting to clean it up and plant some flowers, but I didn't really have the extra money or time for it. And doesn't it look pretty?! My sisters were kind enough to pick flowers you rarely have to water because they know I have a tendency to kill plants. 

FOOD EXTRAVAGANZA TIME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Cindy and I started by making a meal to put in the freezer. We picked Pan Roasted Chicken with Lemon Garlic Green Beans for our first meal. 

http://www.realsimple.com/food-recipes/browse-all-recipes/pan-roasted-chicken-lemon-garlic-green-beans-10000000780291/index.html

Instead of the black pepper, just sprinkle a bit of cayenne pepper instead.

I put a double layer of foil over it, and wrote the cooking instructions on the top with sharpie, and the name so I didn't forget what I had!

Then, Cindy and I were hungry, so we made a meal we could eat. Grilled Flank Steak with Pineapple Salsa.

http://www.paleoplan.com/2009/12-02/grilled-flank-steak-with-pineapple-salsa/

We are pretty sure we got the wrong kind of steak. But it was flat and beef and didn't look bad, so that's what we got...We don't cook a lot :)

This is a super easy recipe. We cooked the meat on my George Foreman Grill (which I have honestly never used until today), and it made it a lot easier to do other things while it cooked it on both sides. Also, the recipe says to just have the bell peppers and onions raw, but I hate those things raw, so we stuck them on the george foreman grill after the meat was done. It made it SO much better. We didn't have a lime, so we just added a little squirt of lemon juice.

We ate it and it made my stomach slightly uneasy but not sick. We used a chipotle seasoning that only had ingredients as "spices" (thanks a lot jerk spice company), so that might have had black pepper or something in it. It didn't make me sick though, but I could tell I ate something my stomach did not like. 

After that, we made another freezer meal, Mediterranean Chicken with Vinegar Roasted Peppers.

http://glutenfreegoddess.blogspot.com/2006/08/balsamic-roasted-pepper-chicken.html

 For the bell peppers we used one red and three yellow, just because that's all we had left. But I would definitely use red/yellow ones. Plus they are pretty! :) And instead of cloves of garlic in all of our recipes, we used the chopped up kind in a jar already to save time. We used about 1 tsp per "clove." Give or take a little. 

The chicken is hiding underneath the mixture. Which by the way, we bought all of our meat from HEB, but they didn't have a very nice selection. I was actually happier with the meat I bought at Walmart, I got chicken at walmart that was basically already cleaned and trimmed and it was antibiotic free/organic/all that good stuff. 

We made one last meal to last for the next week. This one was from my Quick-Fix Gluten Free  cookbook that Cindy got me. 

http://www.amazon.com/Quick-Fix-Gluten-Free-Robert-Landolphi/dp/1449402933

Southern-Style Chicken and Dumplings. 

We made a few changes in the recipe:

butter => coconut oil

milk => almond milk

no bay leaf (I don't like adding things that are poisonous to actually consume to my FOOD)

no half and half  (we could have subbed in full fat canned coconut milk but we didn't want to open a whole can for the little amount it called for)

no black pepper => can sprinkle cayenne pepper in

salt => sea salt, of course

we added the full amount of thyme, but next time, we would only do half. It was very strong. 

1 1/2 quart GF chicken broth => 2 quarts GF chicken broth

Be sure and read the full recipe before making it. We forgot to cook the chicken mid way through ours. We cooked it on the George Foreman Grill again because it was so convenient. And from the look of all those changes I might as well call this recipe my own lol. Maybe I'll add it to my recipe section later.

Overall, very productive day.

THANK YOU CINDY AND HOLLY! 

Adjusting

Hi all, 


I am still creating new pages and updating them daily, so if I don't create a new "post" everyday, you should still browse through my pages. I'm trying to update the "what i've eaten" every two days or so and keep a running list of what I survive off of. 


Have to run off to class now, 
Cheers!
Brittany