Yogurt

Homemade Yogurt

Homemade Yogurt with Blueberry Sauce

4 cups of milk
2 tablespoons yogurt

Turn your crockpot on hot to warm it up, add a cup of water.

Set out your yogurt so it can get to room temp

Heat milk until slightly bubbly, not boiling, about  185 degrees. Stir constantly.

Cool heated milk by placing the pan into a larger pan or sink full of cold water. Cool until you can stick your finger in it comfortably without burning, about 110 degrees.

Measure out one cup of milk. Remove water from crockpot and place the rest of the milk into it.

Mix the cup of milk with the yogurt. Pour into the crockpot.

Turn off the crockpot. Wrap it in a large bath towel.

Let sit untouched for 8 to 24 hours.

Place in fridge to cool for at least 1 hour. (Do not stir)

Serve with honey and/or fruit.

Set aside 2 tablespoons of yogurt in a separate container to use as a starter for your next batch. Once you have a starter, you do not need to buy store bought yogurt. 

If you don't have a crockpot you can use anything (Such as a cooler that has been warmed) to keep the yogurt slightly warm. 

Homemade Yogurt

Gluten-Free Biscuits and Sausage Gravy

Biscuits and gravy were a special treat in my home growing up. We only had it when my Aunt Doris came to visit about once or twice a year. When I was older, before I discovered the joy of cooking real food, I use to make them with refrigerator biscuits, powdered gravy and precooked sausage. Yuck! That just won't do anymore. This recipe is proof that you can still enjoy your favorite foods even if you do go gluten-free.

1. Start by baking your biscuits. You can make the gravy while they are baking. Click here for a great biscuit recipe form Elana's Pantry or try the one below. I am still working on making my own recipe.

Drop Biscuit Recipe

2 ½ cups almond flour

½ teaspoon salt

½ teaspoon baking soda

¼ cup butter

2 eggs

1 tablespoon honey

Combine the dry and wet ingredients in separate bowls. Combine both together and mix well. Use a spoon to scoop the dough onto a cookie sheet. Adjust the size according to how big or small you want your biscuits. Bake them (at 450 degrees F) for about 15 minutes or until brown.

2. Cook your sausage.

Homemade Sausage

We usually buy our ground pork in bulk at Costco and then make a large batch of the below recipe and freeze them in individual packages. 

1 lb ground pork

1/2 tablespoon salt

1/2 teaspoon sage

2/3 teaspoon marjoram

1/3 teaspoon savory

1/3 teaspoon black pepper

1/8 teaspoon nutmeg

1/2 teaspoon fennel seed, grounded

Place pork into a large bowl. Add all the spices. Combine together well. I usually use my hands to make sure that it is combined well.

Place sausage into frying pan. Cook until it is brown and crumbly.

3. Create Gluten-Free Gravy

Gluten-Free Gravy

1 lb cooked sausage

2 tablespoons white rice flour

2 cups of milk

When your sausage is cooked check how much oil you have in the pan. If you have less than 2 tablespoons add enough butter to make up for it. Add white rice flour and cook until the flour absorbs the oil. Add the milk 1/4 a cup at a time until it is the consistency that you want it.

4. Combining all items into biscuits and gravy

Place a crumbled biscuit in each bowl, top with sausage and then the gravy mixture.

Kitty Cat Pancakes minus the Kitty Cat Gluten-Free

Kitty Cat Pancakes minus the Kitty Cat

I decided that at 31 I was too mature for Kitty Cat Pancakes and that we should make them into regular circles. I loved how thick these were. They are the perfect texture for making shaped pancakes. They are best served with lots of butter and real maple syrup.

1¼ cups rice flour

¼ cup tapioca flour

¼ cup cornstarch

1 tablespoon coconut sugar

1 ½ teaspoons baking powder

½ teaspoon baking soda

½ teaspoon salt

½ teaspoon xanthan gum

1 cup milk or milk alternative

2 eggs

3 tablespoons coconut oil

Juice of ½ a lemon (we guessed ½ tablespoon)

½ teaspoon of vanilla

Mix dry ingredients in a large bowl.  Mix in liquid ingredients. I enjoyed the thickness of the recipe, but you can add more milk if you want them thinner.

Pour ½ cup of batter onto a hot, greased pan or griddle.  Spread into a desired shape. Cook for 2 to 3 minutes until bubbles form and then turn it over and cook for 30 more seconds, until it is brown.

Makes 5 very large, thick pancakes.

Serve with maple syrup, butter and lots of crispy bacon.

This recipe was adapted from The Gluten-Free Bible, page 114. 

Apple Crepes Gluten-Free

Apple Crepes Gluten-Free

Crepe Batter
1 cup rice flour
¼ teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon nutmeg
1 cup milk or cream
3 tablespoons butter, melted
½ teaspoon vanilla
3 eggs

Apple Filling
2 tablespoons butter, melted
5 apples, peeled, cored, and cut in wedges
1 tablespoon coconut sugar
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
¼ cup dried cranberries

To create the apple filling place apple filling ingredients in a frying pan and cook for five minutes until the apples are soft. Set aside.

Combine the Crepe batter ingredients into a large bowl, one ingredient at a time. Mix with an emersion blender. If you don’t have an emersion blender you can use a regular blender. Add more milk or cream until it is smooth.

Heat an 8 inch frying pan. Place ¼ cup of the batter in the pan and move it around until it make a thin layer.  Cook for about 1 minute and then flip it over and cook the other side for about 30 seconds.

Serve the filling inside the crepe.

You can also use other fillings. Apple is our favorite. We also like cream cheese and raspberries.

Cream Cheese and Raspberry Crepe

This recipe was adapted from the Gluten Free Bible page 34

Gluten-Free Breakfast Bars

I found this recipe at Elanas Pantry. My husband does not care for raisins so he made these with cranberries. They were really good. He eats a bar just before going to the gym. It holds him over until breakfast. We took them to work one day for a snack but they were a little too greasy. I would rather eat them at home.

1 ¼ cup almond flour

¼ teaspoon salt

¼ teaspoon baking soda

¼ cup grapeseed oil

¼ cup agave nectar, honey, or maple syrup

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

½ cup shredded coconut

½ cup pumpkin seeds

½ cup sunflower seeds

¼ cup almond slivers

¼ cup raisins or cranberries

Mix together the flour, salt, and baking soda. Then add grape seed oil, agave, and vanilla. Then add the remaining ingredients. Press into a 8x8 pan with wet hands to push down the dough. Bake at 350 degrees for 20 minutes.

Gluten-Free Bacon, Egg, and Toast Cups

Before going gluten-free I loved taking a piece of toast and putting an egg and some bacon on top of it open faced and eating it all together. Now that I now longer eat toast this is the perfect solution. We make six of these at a time and refrigerate them for up to a week. Chris grabs one on the way to the gym. They are great hot or cold. If you can eat gluten then just put a piece of white bread in the muffin tin and add the bacon and egg.

Bacon, Egg, and Toast Cups

1 cup blanched almond flour

¼ teaspoon celtic sea salt

¼ teaspoon baking soda

1 egg

1 ½ teaspoon honey

¼ teaspoon apple cider vinegar

6 slices bacon

6 large eggs

Coarse salt

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Mix the almond flour, salt, baking soda, egg, honey and vinegar in a bowl.
Divide the dough into 6 round balls. Press the balls into the sides of the six muffin cups.  Salt the cups.

Cook the bacon until it is medium done. Place a slice of bacon into each muffin cup. Break an egg into each cup. Sprinkle the eggs with salt. Bake for 25 minutes or until the egg whites are set. 

Updated August 12, 2012: Tip: Dip your fingers into a small bowl of water. It keeps the dough from sticking to your hands when you are placing it in the muffin cups. 

Buttermilk Biscuits

There is no need to buy those refrigerator biscuits when you can make them at home just as quickly. Since I am only cooking for two people I make a full batch of biscuits, then I bake the ones I want to serve and freeze the rest. When I  want biscuits I pull the dough out the night before and store it in the refrigerator. In the morning they will bake in 10 minutes and will be nice and fresh.

2 cups of flour
2 1/4 teaspoons of baking powder
1/4 teaspoon of baking soda
3/4 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons of flax seed (Optional)
1/3 cup of butter, softened*
3/4 cup of buttermilk**

Preheat the oven to 450. Mix all of the dry dry ingredients together. Add the softened butter. Mix it together with a fork until it looks like the texture of cornmeal. Then add the buttermilk until moistened. Drop the biscuits onto a baking sheet. Bake for 10 minutes or until golden brown.

*If you forget to remove the butter from the refrigerator, that is okay. Just pull out the amount you need. Cut it in small slices onto a plate and let it sit out while you are making the dry part of your biscuits. By the time you need the butter it should be soft.

**I buy powdered buttermilk. I add 3 tablespoons of the powder to the dry ingredients and add the water after I mix in the butter. It is not as healthy because it is more processed, so use fresh butter milk whenever you can. I am trying to move away from eating processed foods so eventually I will ween myself off of dry buttermilk.

Cinnamon Rolls - Easy

I love fresh baked cinnamon rolls. However I don't have much patience to deal with yeast. So I am thankful to my friend Cheri who made me cinnamon rolls one day that did not require yeast. Here is a recipe I adapted from ehow.com. If you go to their website you can see their step by step pictures. I am only posting the pictures I took of my rolls..


Read more: How to make easy Cinnamon rolls in 10 minutes | eHow.com http://www.ehow.com/how_4686415_make-easy-cinnamon-rolls-minutes.html#ixzz15xkWGzKB

These are what they looked like fresh out of the oven before I put the glaze on. I don't own a cookie sheet so I used two glass pans. They fit perfectly into my roaster oven. I used the wire rack from my toaster oven as a cooling rack.

 Things You'll Need:

DOUGH

2 cups of white flour

3 teaspoons baking power

1/2 teaspoon salt

2 tablespoons sugar

1/2 cup of butter (softened)

2/3 cup milk

FILLING

3 Tablespoons melted butter

1/4 cup of white sugar

1/4 cup of brown sugar

3 teaspoons of cinnamon

3 teaspoons of nutmeg (Optional)*

GLAZE

1/3 cup packed powdered sugar**

1 Tablespoon milk

1. Assemble all ingredients, big mixing bowl, measuring cup and spoon. Getting all your supplies together, makes for quick mixing. I measured out the dry ingredients first and set them aside because I only have one measuring cup.

2. DOUGH - Sift and mix all dry ingredients.

3. Add the butter to the flour mix. Mix with a fork or beaters until it is the consistency of cornmeal.

4. Add milk, the amount of milk tends to vary. Add until dough makes a soft ball, with a little dry flour mixture around the ball.

5. Roll out on a floured board, in a rectangular shape. Dough should be about 1/4" thick. Spread melted butter all over the top of the rolled dough.

6. FILLING- Mix the dry filling ingredients and spread them over the melted butter.

7. Roll the cinnamon buns,starting from the longest side, lengthwise. Roll tightly all the way up, slightly pinching the edges together.

8. Use a piece of dental floss or a sharp knife and cut the roll into 1" slices. I cut some thick and some thin. We decided that we like the thicker rolls better because they are soft in the middle.

9. Put on a greased cookie sheet, with about 1/2" between each cinnamon roll. Bake at 400 degrees for 8-10 minutes, or until slightly brown on the top.

10. After the cinnamon rolls have cooled, add a white icing to the top. Serve slightly warm and enjoy!

*Nutmeg is not in the original recipe I added it because Chris always asks for nutmeg whenever I add cinnamon and sugar to something.

** I did not have powdered sugar, but that is not a problem. I just took regular sugar and blended it in the blender.

Apple Banana Bread

I often make this cake when I have apples and bananas that are to old to eat. 

1 cup sugar
1 egg
1 stick butter
3 ripe bananas
1 tsp. baking soda
2 cups flour
1 tsp. vanilla
2 or 3 peeled, chopped apples

Beat sugar, eggs, and butter. Slice in bananas. Mash them with a spoon or a potato masher.  Add baking soda, vanilla, and flour. Fold in chopped apples. 

Place a round piece of parchment paper on the bottom of the crockpot and rub butter around the sides. Cook on high for 1 hour and then cook on low for 1 or 2 more hours until a toothpick in the center comes out clean. 

You can also bake the cake for 60 minutes at 350 degrees in the oven instead of the crockpot. 

Tip: When the cake is cooling remove the lid. We forgot to do this so our cake was a little gooey on the top. 

Skillet Fried Rice

I love fried rice. This is one of those dishes where you open up your refrigerator and pantry and see what you can throw into the pan. It is great if you have left over white rice.

2 cups of cooked white rice

2 Tbs of butter

2 eggs

The following items are optional:

1 can of corn

1 can of spam, ham, cubed chicken or bacon

Mushrooms of your choice

1/4 cup of white or green onions

Any left over vegatables you might have

Sea salt or salt

1. Heat the butter in a large skillet on medium heat
2. Add the rice and fry
3. Add all other ingreadents except the egg and cook until soft
4. Beat the eggs in a bowl
5. When all other items are cooked create a well in the middle of your skilllet and scramble the eggs.
6. When the eggs are cooked mix them with the rest of the mixture. 
7. For flavoring you can add a little soy sauce or season salt. 

You can make this for any meal or use it as a side dish