Mix It Up Monday: Greek Yogurt Hash Brown Casserole

I am a southerner, so I have a deep and abiding love of hash brown casserole.  The original is loaded with fat and cheese and cream of mushroom soup and it’s delicious.  But not gluten free and definitely NOT healthy.  So when I came across this recipe from The Spotted Lamb, I knew I had to try it.  I made a few changes from the original.  I used fat free Greek yogurt, swapped the chicken stock and milk for 1 cup of evaporated milk (not skim!), added 2 diced onions, and omitted the Italian seasoning (as I was making this for breakfast and it just didn’t seem to fit).  The end result came out to 6 servings for 255 calories, which is a darn sight better for you than regular hash brown casserole.  I used fiesta blend cheese, but I think it would be AWESOME with smoked gouda.  Definitely a keeper recipe.

Barbeque Pulled Pork Pizza

We have a lot of standby favorites of pizza, but every once in a while I get a hankering to do something different.  When I found a last bag of pulled pork in the freezer that needed using up, I decided to turn it into an unconventional pizza.  The end result was delicious!  Definitely going in our pizza rotation!

Ingredients:

• 12 ounces pulled pork
• Your favorite BBQ sauce (we like Jack Daniels Hickory Brown Sugar)
• 3 ounces of smoked gouda, grated on a microplane (this makes it go further)
• 1/2 recipe of pizza dough (use this recipe if you are gluten free, this recipe is you are not)

Directions:

1. Tear off a piece of parchment paper approximately the size of your pizza stone.
2. Preheat your oven 450 degrees with the pizza stone inside.
3. With oiled hands, press your pizza dough out on the parchment paper.
4. Grate your cheese, and set aside.
5. If you’re using pulled pork that’s been frozen, you’ll want to heat it first and drain any excess liquid off.
6. Once the oven is preheated, prebake the crust for 5 minutes.
7. Remove from oven.
8. Top with barbeque sauce, pulled pork, and the smoked gouda.
9. Bake for another 10 minutes.
10. Enjoy!

Printable version.

Mix It Up Monday: White Pizza Grilled Cheese

I ran across this recipe on Pinterest and immediately knew I HAD to try it.  Because, seriously, it combines two of my favorite foods–white pizza and grilled cheese.  What’s not to love?  It’s a Cheese Lover’s Dream.   I opted to make these Friday night for our girls’ weekend.  Mine didn’t turn out as pretty as the original, probably because the internet had gone out and I misremembered quantities and ended up putting 4-6 sandwiches worth of filling onto 2…  But dear GOD it was good.  Decadent and rich.  We balanced out the rich with some baked eggplant fries (coming soon).  I made a few small changes to the original recipe, swapping out for part skim ricotta and using whole wheat bread.  Otherwise…yeah.  Delicious.   I definitely will have to make this again with the CORRECT portions and some gluten free bread so hubby can try it.

Gluten Free Friday: Lemon Icebox Pie

I love pie.  I love pie so much that growing up I had birthday PIE instead of birthday cake.  My favorite is one of the easiest around, lemon icebox.  The only component of this that has to be adapted to be gluten free is the graham cracker crust.  I used this recipe from About.com and the graham style crumbs from Kinnikinnick (Amazon FTW!).  You would never know that this wasn’t regular graham cracker.  Well, except for one small detail.  After the pie has chilled, the crust tends to stick to the dish.  I’m not sure why and I haven’t sorted out how to solve this problem.  Perhaps spraying the pie dish with cooking spray first?  If you figure THAT out, let me know.  Serves 6-8.

Ingredients:

• 1 prepared pie crust, store bought or using this gluten free recipe
• 1 can sweetened condensed milk (note that this is not evaporated milk)
• 2 lemons
• 1 small container of Cool Whip (I know, this is probably some kind of foodie sin, but go with it)

Directions:

1. Zest one lemon, then juice them both.
2. Mix the zest and juice with the sweetened condensed milk until well combined.
3. Pour the filling into the pie crust.
4. Top with the Cool Whip.
5. Chill for at least a couple of hours, until filling is set.
6. Enjoy!

Printable version.

Vegetarian Stuffed Shells with Classico Creamy Spinach and Parmesan

So it’s National Pasta Day!  How cool is it that we have a day for that?  So of course I had to feature, you know, pasta.  I got invited by Classico to try out their new Creamy Spinach and Parmesan Pasta Sauce, along with a fabulous pasta pot, a swanky new Oxo grater, and some pasta tongs as part of their Classico Creations starter kit.  However, no payment was given or expected for posting about the program, and as always, all opinions given here are fully my own.

I’ve also got A GIVEAWAY!  They also gave me 5, count ‘em FIVE coupons for a free jar of Classico Pasta sauce!  I will be picking five random peeps from commenters to pass these on to so you can try your own Classico Creation.  Just leave a comment saying which Classico sauce YOU’D like to try.    Be sure to leave your email address in the comment field (I won’t publish it, but I’ll want to be able to let you know you won!).

Ingredients:

• 1 box jumbo shells
• 1 24 ounce container of light cottage cheese (I like Kraft’s Simply Cottage Cheese)
• 1 28 ounce bag of frozen spinach, thawed and squeezed of excess liquid
• 8 ounces fresh baby bella mushrooms, diced
• 1 12 ounce jar of roasted red peppers, diced
• 2 zucchini, diced
• 1/2 red onion, diced
• 1 tbsp minced garlic
• 1 ounce asiago cheese, finely grated
• 1 teaspoon kosher salt
• 1/2 tsp fresh ground pepper
• 1/2 tsp red pepper flakes
• 2 tsp olive oil
• 1 jar Classico Creamy Spinach and Parmesan Pasta Sauce

Directions:

1. Cook pasta according to package directions, LESS FOUR MINUTES.  You want these to be under al dente so that you can handle them without actually tearing the pasta while you’re filling them.   Drain, dunk in ice water, and set aside to drain again.
2. Heat the olive oil over medium high heat.
3. Saute the red onion and zucchini until starting to soften.
4. Add the mushrooms, garlic, and red peppers and cook another few minutes, until the mushrooms cook down.
5. Remove from heat and set aside.
6. Combine the cottage cheese, spinach, cooked veggies, asiago, and spices.  Mix well.
7. Prep a 9×13 baking dish and a second 9×9 baking dish (this second you will be lining with foil and spraying THAT with the cooking spray because this is gonna be a meal for later).
8. Stuff the shells and line up carefully.  You should be able to fit 24 into the 9×13 and another 12 into the 9×9.  You may have shells left over.  You won’t have filling.
9. Fold the foil closed and pop that one as is into a freezer bag and stuff in the freezer to cook with some other jarred sauce at a later date.  I say this because I made WAAAAY too much filling and too many shells and this is what I decided to do with the overage!
10. Pour the jar of Classico sauce over the 9×13 dish of shells.
11. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and bake for 20-30 minutes, until heated through and the sauce kind of oozes down around the shells.
12. Enjoy!

Printable version.

Mix It Up Monday: Gluten Free Potstickers and Baked Pork Rice Paper Rolls

One of the things we missed the most when we switched to gluten free life is Chinese dumplings or potstickers.  The ones we love are absolutely a labor OF love, backbreaking and time consuming and SO WORTH IT.  Given the easy tearing nature of gluten free dough, I thought that they were out of our reach.  Then I found The Gloriously Gluten Free Cookbook, which I bought expressly because there was a recipe for potstickers listed in the index (pg. 114).  It’s taken me months to get around to trying it.

I had a few issues with this recipe.  For one, it calls for SIX EGGS in only 24 dumpling wrappers.  That’s ludicrous.  I found the dough incredibly difficult to roll out, and of course it didn’t really stretch.  Once I finally got the dumplings wrapped (and I used my original filling from the recipe linked above), which only used half the filling btw, I followed the cookbook’s advice for how to cook them.  Promptly burned the entire first batch (about half the dumplings).  Went back to cooking them the way that I cooked my regular dumplings and those turned out better.  The wrappers themselves were a little bit gummy and thick, not unpalatable but not at all what I associate with dumplings.

I’m thinking I’ll be continuing the hunt for a viable gluten free dumpling wrapper, but this was enough to give me hope that it CAN BE DONE!

 

Now, as I said, I had the other half of the filling remaining to do SOMETHING with.  So for lunch the next day, I chopped another 3 scallions, finely diced another 3 leaves and stalks of bok choy, added another teaspoon of tamari and a 1/2 teaspoon fresh ginger, and sauteed the pork until cooked through.  Then I pulled out the package of rice paper wrappers I bought FOREVER ago and forgot about, soaked them according to package directions and filled each one with 1/3 cup of filling and rolled them.  I brushed them all with oil and baked them at 425 for 20 minutes.  They were quite tasty as a gluten free alternative to egg rolls, though definitely flimsier.  They kind of fell apart when we ate them, but it was still a tasty and simple use for the remaining filling.

 

Gluten Free Friday: Reese’s Pieces Cookies

Hubs and I have had a monstrous sweet tooth lately.  One of the things I haven’t really made since our conversion to gluten free is homemade cookies.  We tried one of the store-bought gluten free cookie mixes and it was terrible.  Dry as dust and literally crumbled TO dust.  Not a keeper.  As with all things gluten free, homemade is better.  I checked my copy of You Can’t Believe It’s Gluten Free, my go to cookbook for new recipes.  I adapted the recipe for the potato-based chocolate chip cookies (p. 356) and subbed out Reese’s Pieces for the chocolate chips.  These made a very cakey, soft cookie.  The one thing I’d do differently would be to press the cookies out and THEN just press the Reece’s Pieces into the cookies rather than mixing them in (they all kind of sunk to the bottom).  The original recipe claims to make 36 cookies, but as a rule cookbooks ALWAYS claim cookie recipes make like 3 dozen when really they only make like 20 cookies, because who wants nanocookies?

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup butter
• 1/2 cup brown sugar, firmly packed
• 1 egg
• 2 tablespoons water
• 1 cup potato starch
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla
• 1 1/4 teaspoons xanthan gum
• 2 small packs Reese’s Pieces

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 375.
2. Grease your cookie sheet.
3. Cream the butter and sugar.
4. Add the egg and beat until light and thick.
5. Add the water and vanilla and beat until well combined.
6. Add all the dry ingredients except the candies.  Beat until thick and creamy.
7. Drop by rounded spoonfuls onto the prepared baking sheet.
8. With moistened fingers, press to a 1/4 inch thickness.
9. Gently press the candies into the tops of the cookies.
10. Bake for 8 to 9 minutes, until lightly browned.
11. Carefully transfer from the cookie sheet to a rack and let cool completely.

Printable version.