Chicken - Sausage 1 Pot Meal

After a break in cooking (cheating by eating frozen prepared tamales) it was back to the stove. I had sitting on the counter zucchinis and tomatoes. In the freezer I found a nice big Frankfurt left from some I got from the farmer’s market. I was going to modify something that our Belgium girl made but then decided to actually make something between jambalaya and a recipe from my grandmother “Calabasa”.

Since my oldest granddaughter was here I had to modify what I would have liked to do, but it is more important for kids to eat good food then to try and make a point. Especially when she has an eating disorder that is not being dealt with.

Chicken and Sausage 1 pot meal

This fed 4 people:

4  Chicken breasts cut into bite size pieces

1  Frankfurter cut into bite size pieces

2  Zucchini cut into bite size pieces

2 cloves of garlic chopped into small pieces

3 or 4 tomatoes, diced

1 C. rice, I use brown rice as it is more nutritious

Put the tomatoes into a 2 C measuring cut and smash down with a spoon then add water to the amount required in the rice instructions. Add the tomato/water to a pot. Bring the mixture to a boil then add rice. Cut the chicken breasts, zucchini and frankfurter into pieces. Add these things to your rice but make sure that the rice grains are still in the moisture.

If the rice used is brown then everything should be done cooking in about 40min.

Our picky granddaughter had 3 servings of this!

Salad for Dinner

Our weekly shipment contained lots of tomatoes, bell peppers, chilis, corn on the cobs, a hand full of green beans, some basil, a handful of strawberries, some peaches, lemons and oranges. On Sunday I’d been watching Nate and Bekki’s girl so they could work the farmer’s market in Santa Barbara. I asked if they could bring me some cucumbers and lettuce which they did.

All of these veges made for a wonderful salad: tomatoes, bell pepper, corn cut off the cob, the fresh green beans, lettuce, cucumbers and a little basil. I had a nice left over BBQ’d salmon fillet that I divided between our salads then topped it with feta cheese, a little local olive oil and fresh squeezed lemon juice.

A nice warm evening dinner with no cooking involved.

Butternut Squash with Quinoa

Since we got several butternut squash in last weeks shipment I started looking for ideas as I am not very familiar with cooking these. In my “Gourmet Cookbook” I’d found a recipe that looked interesting but used couscous as it is Middle Eastern style . I decided to substitute the couscous for Quinoa as couscous is from wheat.

If you haven’t used Quinoa before, it is a very small grain that has been used for 4 or 5,000 years. It is considered a complete protein as it has amino acids along with protein. It is really easy to cook, just add 1 part quinoa to 2 parts water or broth, bring to a boil, simmer for 15 min uncovered. Take the pot off the fire and cover for about 5 min.

I started with the butternut squash which called to be peeled and cubed then roasted. The squash is a little hard so it takes a little more time to cut up than, say zucchini. I’m working with a new convection oven so I cut the temp and the time but found that the squash needed more time to bake.

The recipe calls for raisins which add an additional sweetness to the squash. Also the recipe calls for pine nuts but I didn’t have any so used chopped up almonds that I had on hand.

1 lg butternut squash cubed and seeded

Some olive oil

1 onion

1 C Quinoa

1 Cinnamon Stick

½ C chopped Almonds

½ raisins

Put the squash on a baking pan and drizzle olive oil over lightly then toss and put into the oven at 475. Check after 15 min. but bake until just done not mush.

In a skillet sauté your onion in some olive oil. When the onion is done add the almonds and just give a couple of tosses, then add your baked squash and sauté for another couple of minutes. Add your raisins at the end to heat.

While the squash is baking, put the Quinoa in a pot with 2 C water and the Cinnamon stick. Bring to a boil then simmer for 15 min or until the moisture is absorbed. Remove the stick and cover until you squash mixture is finished.

Put the cooked Quinoa in a nice dish then add the sautéed ingredients.

This is a dinner in itself but would also make a good side dish with lamb kabobs.

Tuna Sauce on Rice

I used to make tuna in a curry cheese sauce on toast and decided that tonight was the night to experiment with white sauce. I’d heard that cornstarch would be a good substitute and of course that is what we use for a thickener for other foods and pies so why not white sauce.

I used 3 Tbsp. of cornstarch and 2-1/2 C. milk. In the saucepan add about ½ milk and mix with the cornstarch; I prefer to use a whisk for mixing. After the cornstarch is mixed in well then add the remainder of the milk and heat on a medium fire. When the mixture is as thick as you like then add drained tuna, cheese and a little curry powder; just make sure that the curry is gluten free. I put cooked peas on top because the grandkids didn’t want any peas but usually I add them to the sauce.

I served this sauce over rice but you can serve this over gluten free toast.

BBQ Dinner

Today is my middle son’s birthday and he invited himself to dinner. Actually he and my oldest son Nate, plus family invited themselves. This works out well because we brought home some sausage from Minnesota to share with them plus we have some ribs that needed to be BBQ’d.

The sausage was Bison sausage, Buffalo Bratwurst and a specialty bratwurst made by “Zap’s” the store in Little Marais. For the Zap’s sausage we soaked it in beer for 20 min before putting it on the grill but the Bison and Buffalo ones we just threw on the grill.

For the ribs I made up a dry rub of paprika, fresh ground black pepper, a little salt and some chili powder that I just got in Taos.  I put a couple of tablespoons of pepper, chili and about a tsp of salt. I was nearly out of paprika so just dumped in what I had, which was more than a couple.

Dale made an indirect fire, that is coals around the outside of the ribs and threw in some wood chips that he had soaked in water. He smoked/bbq’d them for about 3 hours and the meat was very tender. Just at the end I put some commercial sauce on them but next time I will just add some water to the rub and make a sauce from that.

Dale also put on some small potatoes and sliced zucchini’s on about 2 hours into the production so that they were ready at the same time. 

Subscribing to a vege box

Opps, I wanted to start blogging about the Gluten Free Diet, well now, I haven't done so well. Either I haven't eaten or haven't blogged and by the looks of it I'd say I've eaten plenty. I’ll try to recreate some of the things as I go.

Elias, my oldest grandson has started a garden with the intent to sell the produce by the subscription. This week he has put into my box: heirloom tomatoes, banana squash, a couple of green beans and some acorn squash. I agreed to be the guinea pig here. He gave very few items but I paid him $20 as our agreement. My daughter-in-law gave me another bag of tomatoes, a bell pepper and lots of very hot chilies to make up the difference.

I baked a banana squash for dinner, cutting it into quarters then drizzling some olive oil  on it  and baking it at about 325 in the convection oven for 40 min. I served it with Risotto and salad. I found some new recipes in the Gourmet cookbook that I’ll make gluten free too.