I need ideas!

I have a problem.  We are going away for the weekend in June.  We will be staying in a college dorm room.  The event we are going to will, of course, have tons of food vendors, but I do not trust any of them.  I need to take my own food. I don’t do well eating out at all.  

I will need two breakfast, three lunch and two dinner ideas.  I will have a cooler.  I might, that’s a big might, have access to a microwave oven.  More than likely, I will be stuck with cold food from a cooler.  I need something I can fix that is easy, but filling.  And it has to be yummy too, because everyone else will be eating yummy things from the food vendors.  

I have thought of the standard things like potato salad, teff wraps, tuna on crackers etc.  Do you have any different ideas?  I need ideas.  I’m brain dead on this one.  

My Sweet Girl

This is my sweet girl, Kati.  This is her senior picture.  I can not believe she is old enough to graduate.  I have home schooled her since 4th grade.  For her senior year, she went to a local community college and did very well.  I am very proud of her!

But, with graduating, there comes the problem of having a graduation party.  At least when you have to eat gluten free.  I was determined to have a totally gluten free party for her.  There are enough times and enough places we go where she can not eat what she wants.

If you are facing the same dilemma as I was, hopefully this post will give you some ideas.  We did not want anything fancy.  She not only had family coming, but a lot of friends.  Wouldn’t you know, I don’t have pictures of the food!  I got to caught up in everyone being there and totally forgot!  But that’s life.

My first worry was cake.  I wanted something tried and true, but easy.  I opted for my family Mayonnaise cake recipe.  It’s so easy to put together and I knew it would turn out good.  I have a large pan.  It’s the size of two 9 x 13″ cake pans.  It’s like a jelly roll pan, but deeper.  I doubled this recipe and it worked great in that pan.  I tell you, if you make this cake, no one will know it’s gluten free.

Mayonnaise Cake

1 -1/2 cups  sugar

3 teaspoons soda

3 cups flour (to make gluten free, use 3 cups Pamela’s baking and pancake mix, plus 1 teaspoon xantham gum)

4 Tablespoons cocoa

1-1/2 cup water

1-1/2 teaspoon vanilla

1-1/2 cup mayonnaise

Mix together  water, vanilla and mayonnaise in mixer.  Add sugar, soda, flour (xantham gum if making it gluten free), and cocoa.  Mix on medium speed until well blended.  Pour into greased 9×13 pan and bake at 350 degrees for 35-40 min.

Easy Carmel Icing

1/2 cup butter

1 cup brown sugar

1/4 cup milk

2-1/2 cup powdered sugar

Melt butter in sauce pan; add brown sugar.  Boil over low heat for 2 minutes, stirring constantly.  Add milk and stir till boiling.  Remove from heat.  Allow to cool completely.  Add powdered sugar gradually, beating will, till it reaches correct consistency.  Spread over cooled cake.

My next challenge was making some kind of sandwiches.  Growing up, Kati loved tuna salad.  Anyone who knew her when she was little, knew she was obsessed by it.  I knew we had to have tuna salad sandwiches as sort of a joke.  The day before the party,  I had my bread machine going overtime making bread.  I used Gluten Free Pantry French Bread mix.  On the day of the party, we put together the sandwiches (with the crusts cut off!).  The were a hit too.  Who knew everyone would love tuna salad!

For the rest of the food, we put together a list of her favorite snacks.  We had cheese and crackers, cheese spread, hummus, edemame, corn chips and salsa, potato chips, Pirates Booty, M& M’s, Snickers bars, fruit with chocolate dip and a tray of veggies.

She had a great time visiting with family and friends.  I was so glad when it was over.  Two weeks of company and cooking just about did me in.

This weekend, I was so glad to have a weekend of not cooking for a crowd!  I did grill out though :)  I think there is a rule about living in Indianapolis and race day and grilling. No, we didn’t go to the race, but listened on the radio.  It’s blacked out here, so we can’t watch it live.

Next weekend we are having a going away party for our drummer, Judy.  This will be tricky.  Most everyone there will be gluten eaters.  We are grilling out burger and dogs.  This is a dilemma I’m sure most of you will be faced with at one time or another.  Normally, I do not allow any gluten in the house unless it’s in the basement.  This however, is different.  I can’t expect everyone to eat their burgers without a bun.  And, it’s a pitch in.  So there will be gluten in the house.

I am sure most of what they will bring, Kati and I will not be able to eat. My plan is to keep the gluten and the gluten free as separate as possible.  I have a separate dining room.  I think I will put all the gluten in there.  I will keep the gluten free dishes in the kitchen.  As far as clean up, Steve and Bryan (husband and son) can help with the clean up so I don’t have to deal with it (touch it).  That’s about the best solution I can think of.

If I hadn’t had two weekends already this month where I did all the cooking myself, I would make everything for the event and not have a pitch in.  But, it’s just too much.  And, there are times when I think you have to compromise.  This is the best way I can think to manage it.  If any of you have any suggestions, I would love it.  We all have to get through these times at one point or another.

Hope you all have a great Memorial Weekend.  It did finally get warm enough here to wear shorts!  That makes me a happy girl

Potato Salad and Beans

I think I’m ready for my Mother’s Day company.  I spent most of today in the kitchen trying to get as much of it done ahead of time.  Both of these dishes are recipes my family have used for a long time.  The bean recipe is my sister-in-laws.  Her name is Sue.  She did not make this recipe up herself.   It was given to her by somebody and I don’t know the original name of it.  I call it Sue’s beans. These are the best beans I’ve ever had.  If you make them, make sure you have copied the recipe off to share because people will ask for it!  Even people who don’t normally like beans.

The potato salad recipe came from my mom.  She has been making this recipe for as long as I can remember.  We used to have it on Christmas eve with cold ham sandwiches.  It has always been one of my favorites.  This is a great recipe to take on picnics since there is no mayonnaise in it.  The dressing has olive oil in it so I think it won’t spoil as quickly as mayonnaise would in the heat, but you still need to be careful.  Also, this salad gets even better the next day.  It’s a great salad to make the day before and let the flavors meld together.

Sue’s Beans

(They have not been baked yet in this picture.  They do thicken up when they bake.)

3/4 cup brown sugar

1/3 cup vinegar

2 teaspoons dry mustard

1 lb. raw bacon, chopped ( I used Hormel already cooked bacon in mine)

4 onions, diced

Combine the above ingredients in a heavy saucepan and simmer on medium heat for about 20 minutes.  (I do not cover mine while they are simmering.)

Mix in one can (small can) each of the following drained beans:

Lima

Kidney

Butter

Pork and Beans (I used Bushes plain Pork and Beans)

Pour into a baking dish and bake at 350 degrees for about 1 hour.  Be ready to give out the recipe!

Cesar Potato Salad

5 pounds red potatoes

1/2 cup salad oil (I use a good quality olive oil)

1/2 cup Parmesan cheese

1/2 cup lemon juice

1 teaspoon salt

1 Tablespoon Worcestershire sauce

1/4 teaspoon pepper

8 slices bacon, cooked and chopped

1 medium onion or 4 large scallions, chopped

Parsley, chopped

Slice green olives, about 3/4 cup or to taste

Six boiled eggs, sliced

Place potatoes (do not peel them!) in a large heavy pan, and cover with water.  Bring to a boil and simmer till until done.  This takes a while so I always start them and let them cook while I am doing something else in the kitchen (like start the boiled eggs).  After they are fork tender, drain and place them in the refrigerator till completely cold.

After the potatoes have cooled completely, peel and chop them.  The peeling comes off very easy at this point.  Just use the edge of a knife to slide the skins off.  Place the chopped potatoes in a fairly large bowl.  Add the slice olives, onions, bacon and 3 of the eggs.

In a separate bowl mix the oil, cheese, lemon, salt and pepper, parsley, and Worcestershire sauce together.  Pour over the potato mixture and mix well.  Place the last 3 sliced eggs around the top of the potato salad for decoration. Enjoy!

Hope you all have a wonderful Mother’s Day!

Pleasant surprises while shopping

I had to go shopping today.  I’m having my whole family over on Mother’s Day.  I’m making a pork tenderloin so I went to Sam’s Club.  They have a double pack of plain pork tenderloin that I can season as I want.

If you’ve never been in a Sam’s Club before, let me tell you the first time I went shopping there after being gluten free, it made me mad.  The place is filled with “food ladies” as I call them.  “Would you like to try some blah, blah, blah?”  That’s like a land mind for the gluten intolerant.  I had to say no to everything.

In our local Sam’s, they are around every corner.  I try to avoid them.  I was almost done with my shopping today and was at the cheese area where I had avoided two of them already.  There was one lady with her table and back to me so I sneaked around behind her looking at the cheese trying to find something for Mother’s Day.  I was stressing myself a little because I was thinking I was going to have to make a special trip to find some gluten free crackers to go with the cheese I was buying.

As I came around the other side of the cheese counter and up towards the side of her, I noticed my husband reading the box the food lady had out.  I could hear him say, “I think my wife might be able to eat this.”  I was thinking he was crazy.  All I could see was whole grain from a distance.

I came over to look at the box and realized it was a rice cracker and the box said gluten free!  Geeze, I got so excited.  And the food lady was serving it with Laughing Cow cheese.  I actually got to eat something the food lady was serving!  Way.  Cool.  I bought two boxes.  Crackers for cheese crisis was solved.  No special trip for crackers needed!  And, they were darn good!

These crackers are made by Crunchmaster.  I have heard mixed reviews on the internet about the fact they are made in a facility that also uses wheat.  On the box it says less than 100 parts per million.  It seems as if some think that is not low enough and it should be less than 20 parts per million.  So, buy at your own risk.  I am trying them.  We’ll see.

Then I went to Walmart.  I usually have trouble finding a gluten free, healthy chicken broth.  I don’t like a bunch of chemicals in my chicken broth.  There on the shelf they had Rachel Ray Stock in a Box.  And right on the side the words, gluten free.  Again, way cool.  Thank you, Rachel.

On the way home, I had to stop at Kroger’s.  Yes, I was in every grocery store on the southside of Indianapolis today!  I was hoping to find a vinegar similar to the one I get at Trader Joe’s.  No such luck at Walmart, so I thought I’d give Kroger’s a try.  No luck there either, but I found a salad dressing with gluten free on the label.  So I had to buy it.  Just because.  It was good too!

I don’t know about you all, but I get so excited when I see gluten free on a label.  I think my week is ending on an upswing.  It didn’t start out to well.

Steve bought me an elliptical and it’s defective.  It has to be exchanged.  We bought a sofa a couple weeks ago and was told the color we wanted was on back order.  So after weeks of waiting, on Tuesday my new sofa was being delivered.  The delivery guy was walking in the house with a cushion and I noticed it was the wrong color.  It was green.  I ordered beige!  He asked me if I was sure.  Like I wouldn’t know the difference between ordering green or beige.  Hmmmm.  No comment.

So come to find out, the reason we had to wait several weeks was because they had keyed in the wrong color.  They had my color in stock all along.  Hopefully my new sofa will be sitting in my living room by next Tuesday.  I have high hopes because my week is getting better!

I have my menu ready for Mother’s Day and hopefully, tomorrow I will have some pictures and recipes posted.  That is if I’m not too tired after cooking all day.  I am making as much as I can tomorrow so Sunday will be less stressful.  The potato salad I make is better the second day anyway.

Here is my menu:

Pork tenderloin

Cesar potato salad

Sue’s beans

Cranberry walnut slaw

Crescent rolls

Millet bread

Swedish Pinnapple cake

Croutons!

I feel like it’s been so long since I’ve blogged!  So much to catch up on.  Saturday, I made a loaf of Gluten Free Pantry’s French bread.  It’s pretty good if you are craving white bread.  I never ate white bread much except when I was craving a peanut butter sandwich.  Let me tell you, I cut the end off while it was still hot and slathered it with peanut butter.  Wow.  Yummy.

Sunday I worked in the yard all day getting the rest of the garden in and filling pots with flowers for the patio and deck.  When I went in the kitchen after being outside all day, I saw I had half a loaf of French bread left.  All of a sudden, I got a terrible craving for croutons.  I hadn’t had any since January 2007.  It was so easy and quick that I have no idea why I haven’t made them before!  I didn’t have a recipe.  Just made it up on the spot.  Here is what I did:

Croutons

4 -1/2 inch slices of gluten free bread (Gluten Free Pantry French), cut into 1/2 inch cubes

5 Tablespoons melted butter

1/2 teaspoon garlic powder

1/2 teaspoon onion powder

1 Tablespoon fresh parsley

Mix butter, garlic and onion powder, and fresh parsley in a large bowl.  Add bread cubes and toss until they are all coated.  Spread on a parchment paper lined baking tray in one layer.  Bake at 450 until golden brown.  I forgot to time how long that took!  Sorry.  I think it was at least 15 minutes.

The kids were pretty excited because it had been so long since we had had any croutons in the house.  They didn’t last long.  We all had salad and I have to confess I munched on what was left with a glass of wine just before bed that night!

Here is the rest of the garden planted.  I have four tomato plants.  I have a  roma, big boy, celebrity and a sweet 100 cherry tomato.  I also put out some cucumbers, 3 green pepper, 1 red pepper and 1 jalapeno pepper plant.  I can’t wait to have fresh tomatoes.

Hmmm….

The weekend before last I was busy with this little girl…..

This is Cici.  She is our drummers new puppy.  We got to babysit her all weekend.  What a sweetheart.  I wish she wasn’t moving all the way to Florida, but she is.  She had a good time playing with our girls and visiting with us.  It was hard to give her back!

I’ve not kept up with having a weekly menu and I don’t think I will for a while.  Too much is going on.  This weekend I am having my family for Mother’s Day.  I sort of have the menu together and I am planning on posting about it.  Instead of trying to keep up with the weekly menu I am just going to post about what I am doing and when I make something I like, I will share it.

Today in Indiana is the big primary.  On the news we are either hearing about that or what going on at the track.  You know, it’s 500 time here in Indiana.  The track is open.

It’s been a beautiful day but it’s going to cool off again for the weekend.  I had to grill tonight.  We had a really simple meal that took only minutes to prepare.  I thawed out some talapia earlier in the day.  So when dinner came I made spinach salads.  I grilled some fresh veggies with the talapia.

For my salad, I just had spinach with some slivered almonds and chopped apples on top.  I made a very simple dressing.  I have a thing from Pampered chef I make my dressing in and I use a stick blender to mix mine up.

Lemon vinegrette

2 oz. canola oil

1 oz. honey

1 oz. lemon juice

1 Tablespoon fresh, chopped cilantro

Mix well and serve over salad.

I have a couple grill pans for the grill.  They are flat with small holes in them so you still get grill marks, but small food doesn’t fall through.  I spray them with cooking spray to keep the food from sticking.

For the veggies, I had some snow peas and sliced carrots.  I just drizzled them with olive oil, coarse sea salt, salt and pepper.  So simple.

I wasn’t sure what to do with the fish tonight.  I don’t usually grill talapia because it is so delicate.  But I sprayed the grill pan well.  I laid the fish out and drizzled them with olive oil, lemon juice, coarse sea salt, pepper and a good sprinkling of Parmesan cheese.  I pre-heat the grill to about 600 degrees and then turned it all the way down to the lowest setting when I put the fish and veggies on .  I did not turn the fish at all.  I left it undisturbed on the grill pan until it was done (about 5-10 minutes).  The veggies were turned several times during the the cooking.  Just keep a close eye on both fish and veggies on the grill as they only take minutes to cook.

So simple.  So good.  I think sometimes the best meals are foods cooked simple without a lot of ingredients.

I hope to have my Mother’s Day menu all figured out and posted by the end of the week.  So stay tuned!  Now I have to go watch American Idol.  It’s getting good!

I’ve been Grilled!

I’ve been grilled!  Carrie, at Ginger Lemon Girl has grilled me. I really had a lot of fun doing it and she came up with some great questions.  I have been a fan of Carrie’s since I started blogging.  She has some really great recipes that I have made part of my regular meal plans.  So go check out my interview and be sure to check out Carrie’s blog!

My cold has finally gone away and I am totally well except for this fever I’ve got.  Spring fever!  Two weeks ago, I was at Lowe’s looking for edging.  I was wearing my down vest and freezing to death!  I couldn’t buy the edging because it was just to darn cold.  That is Indiana for you.  By last week, the coats were off and the windows open.  The world is blooming!

Consequently, I have not done much meal planning or cooked anything very exciting.  I am a food blog slacker!  I promise I will make it up to you.  I have a very busy spring and summer coming up that I am hoping to incorporate lots of blogging to go along with it.  Mother’s Day is coming up and I always make a special meal for my mom and extended family.  The week after that we are having a graduation party for the young gluti girl.  This will be my first attempt at a gluten free sheet cake!  Sometime between now and the end of July, we will be hosting a going away party for our drummer who we will miss dearly.

I always plant a small garden.  This year I have put out more herbs than normal.  I am hoping to showcase each herb sometime during the summer with recipes how to use that herb.  So far, I have planted basil, thyme, cilantro, parsley (curly and flat), oregano, sage, chives and tarragon.  Darn it all if they weren’t out of rosemary!  I will find some somewhere.  That is a must have.

During the summer, we are making our annual trip to San Diego.  This was a very challenging trip for me last year.  It was my first real time traveling gluten free.  I hope I can take what I learned last year and share it all with you.  We will have a room with a two burner stove this year, so I am hoping to be able to cook some of our meals.  Lucky for me, I know where there is a Wild Oats, Jimbo’s and Trader Joe’s.  That should give me lot’s of options for gluten free foods.  My goal is to post nightly how it’s going.  I think it will be fun and hopefully help any of you that is confronted with traveling gluten free.

I only have one very simple recipe to share.  Last night, after working off some of the “fever” in the garden, I was so tired I could hardly cook.  I had thawed out some chicken and was about to throw it on the grill plain.  I needed something to jazz it up.  So I got out a bottle of Frank’s Hot sauce and marinated the chicken it in before I threw it on the grill.  Most of you have probably already tried this trick!  But I didn’t discover Frank’s sauce until going gluten free.  Oh man it’s yummy stuff!  That, along with some veggies I found in the fridge, was dinner for us.

Since it’s finally spring here, and I don’t have any “real” cooking going on, I figured I would share pictures of everything budding out.  Enjoy, and happy spring!

My first potted flowers of the year.

Some of the baby herbs being protected by Mr. Gnome

Triniti is checking out the other half of the garden.  I know, it’s a mess.  I’m getting old, ok.  I could only turn half of it over at a time!

One of my favorite flowers, the Peony.  I know, everyone always says, what about the ants!.  I don’t care about the ants!  They smell like heaven.  I always pick them and fill my house with them.  A friend gave me this bush.  I was from a 100 year old farm.  Way cool.  Oh, that fuzzy brown in the background is Mia’s butt.

My favorite spring tree, the Red Bud.

Oh, yeah, that feels good! Any one who has a dog knows what she is doing here.  Ah, the rubbing spot.

Another favorite plant, the hosta.  I have these all over my yard!  Many varieties.  Love ‘em.

Pretty periwinkle.

Hope you are enjoying spring!

Menu Monday April 14th

I’m still not feeling quite so perky, but I have planned a menu for this week.  Nothing sounds good.  It’s been really hard to plan a menu.  I think it will help to have one.  It will keep me from standing in the kitchen at 5:00 looking clueless.  And hopefully my appetite will come back soon!  If I could just get that cough to go away!

Pork Chops with Maple syrup and mustard, potatoes, salad

Pizza

Taco Salad

Out to dinner with friends

Steak, baked potatoes, grilled green beans and onions

Lamb chops, roasted potatoes, mixed grilled vegetables

As you can see I am keeping it very simple.  Karen at Gluten Free Sox is hosting this week so be sure to check out all the great menus!

I have a great recipe to share.  I make this fairly often in the summer.  I made it several weeks ago and meant to post it, but since I haven’t been feeling well….you know how that goes!  Matter of fact, I couldn’t even remember if I had posted it.  I had to comb through my blog to refresh my memory!

This is another dish of mine I don’t measure anything.  This is all made by personal preference.

Salmon Salad

Two small cans boneless salmon OR One large can salmon with bones removed.  (You could really use fresh cooked salmon in this as well.  Just chop it up)

2 cups cooked, cooled brown rice (approximately)

A couple spoonfuls of mayonnaise according to taste

chopped onion

chopped canned black olives

fresh parsley, chopped

curry powder

salt and pepper

Mix all the above ingredients together.  How much onion or black olives you add is up to you.  Same goes for the curry, salt and pepper.  If you’ve never used curry before, I would start with maybe a half teaspoon and go from there.

This is similar in nature to making tuna salad or potato salad.  I don’t ever measure for those recipes.  I add, I taste.

After you have your salad mixed up, chill it till it’s good and cold.  I like to place a big scoop of salad on a bed of lettuce with whatever vegetables I have around the edge.  It makes a great dinner or lunch and is pretty enough to serve company.  This makes a very hearty meal too, especially if you have some bread to go with it!

My funny dog

I have not vanished from the face of the earth!  I am still trying to get well.  This is the cold that doesn’t want to go away.  My husband has it too.  I have not done much cooking so there is nothing new and yummy to report.  I promise I will get well and be back in the kitchen soon!

Until then I thought I would give you something funny to look at.  I have been pouring through old pictures.  The drummer in our band, Judy,  is moving to Florida.  Her husband got transfered.  She has been with us for 20 plus years.  I don’t know how we are going to say good-bye to her.  She is one of those rare, one-of-a-kind people that you just can’t replace.  There will be tears.  

I am making her a scrapbook to take with her.  In the process of looking through pictures, I found my CD’s of photos from my old computer.  

This is my baby Triniti.  My brother took this photograph of her.  She is in her Matrix outfit.  I know, I am warped.  It’s my husbands fault.  I used to be normal.  

 

Sick again.

Blah.  This is my life right now.

That’s why no blogging.  No weekly menu.  Easter wore me out and I felt really bad the first of last week.  Then I thought I felt better.  Then it came back on me.  Like a ton of bricks.  We went to a wedding on Saturday night and I came home feeling horrible.

I have to share about this wedding.  This is something we all will run across when it comes to living gluten free.  Dinner served at a wedding.  It’s funny that I didn’t even think about it at first.  The wedding was Saturday.  On Tuesday before the wedding, it finally dawned on me that I had better figure out how I would eat!

Wednesday morning I called the hotel where the reception would be held.  A very nice food management lady named Heather, told me there would be no problem making a gluten free meal.  They had done it many times.  She was going to talk to the chef and call me back with a choice of what to eat.

Friday came and I had not heard from her.  So, I decided to call her back.  I did not want to sit through the whole wedding wondering how dinner was going to work out and I didn’t really want to pack food to bring with me.  When I got a hold of her, she told me all was good, they were having a buffet and there should be plenty of choices for me on the buffet.  Being a bit leery of  being able to tell what would be okay to eat on a buffet, I ask her if the servers there would be able to tell me what was safe and what was not.  She assured me they would.

Saturday came and I did pack along an Ensure chocolate drink and had a Lara bar in my purse.  Just in case.  The wedding was lovely.  We drove to the reception and upon arriving they had a buffet of cheese, fruit and crackers.  And the crackers were at the end of the buffet, far from the cheese and fruit.  That made me feel good.  I got some cheese and fruit.  Had a glass of wine.  Then came time for dinner.  I saw Heather, the lady I had talked to on the phone.  I went over and introduced myself to her.  She was very friendly.  She told me when they called our table to talk to the man in the blue shirt.  He would know what I could eat on the buffet.

Finally, it was our tables turn and the little man in the blue shirt told us to go up and get some food.  I walked over to him and told him I needed to know what food was gluten free.  He was a little Indian man.  So you must imagine him talking to me with and Indian accent.  He said, “Oh no! No. That food gluten.  I get you food!”  Okay, so at that point I might have been just a tad bit stressed.  But I had had lots of cheese, fruit and a glass of wine so I just smiled.  First I was told the chef would give me a choice, then I was told there would be food on the buffet, then I was told that food had gluten.  Now this guy was going to bring me something.  Just keep smiling.

So as our whole table and then the tables around ours went to get into the line for the buffet, I am sitting totally alone at this large round table.   Nothing like sticking out.  Everyone gets their food.  The entire room is eating and I’m still sitting there.  Finally, I see Heather.  I go tell her I don’t have food.  She said she would get right on it.In a couple minutes, here comes my guy in the blue shirt.  He’s carrying and extra large… well….let me back up a bit.  The room was very fancy.  White table clothes, white dinner plates, crystal, silver, red roses in the middle of the table, chairs covered with white cloth and big bows….you get the picture.  White and formal.  Okay, so back to my man with the blue shirt and he’s carrying this big old round orange plate.  Yes, orange.  It’s heaped with at least a half a head of both broccoli and cauliflower, asparagus and baby carrots.  Topped off with some grilled chicken.   There was enough vegetables to share with the entire table.  And, they were plain.  Totally plain.  Chicken, plain.  Totally plain.

I very graciously thanked him.  After he left, I had to start laughing.  We were at the table with a bunch of people we know and they started laughing because here I am with this big orange plate full of plain veggies and chicken.  Could I stand out any more?  It was pretty funny.

I am not complaining, so please don’t think this post is a complaint.  It was really humorous being there.  The hotel really did get me a safe meal.  I really appreciate that even if it was really plain.  I always find it so weird though that most chefs think in order for food to be gluten free it has to be plain.  I have even had some chefs at restaurants ask me if potatoes are okay to eat.  I wonder where they went to school that they don’t there’s no gluten in potatoes.

With summer coming, I’m sure some of you will be asked to a wedding.  If you are new to this, try not to stress to much.  Call ahead.  Keep calling if you don’t get the answer you need.  Always be polite and not pushy.  When you get to the event, if you got the name of who you talked to on the phone, see if you can meet them in person.  I did this with Heather when I saw she wasn’t busy. I didn’t want to be a pest, but wanted to make contact with her.  And as it was, there would have been a lot of last minute confusion and stress for me had I not introduced myself to her earlier.  Always keep your sense of humor.  And most importantly, keep snacks in your purse just in case.  A meal replacement drink is a good emergency item as well!

Lazy woman’s dinner

I was tired tonight.  I went shopping with my mom.  I came home and looked at what was on my menu for tonight, and nothing looked good.  I was not in the mood to cook.  I have already eaten out my allotted time this week so that was not an option either.

It was 52 degrees today and sunny.  Somehow my backyard grill was calling my name, but I didn’t want to spend a bunch of time prepping something and then have all the clean up.  I just was not in the mood to cook at all.

Then I happened to think back to when Steve and I first got married.  This man is not allowed to cook in my kitchen.  He is a danger.  I’m serious.  He is only allowed to cook if someone is supervising him.   He is allowed to make coffee.  He is not allowed to touch any other appliances other than the popcorn maker for the safety of everyone who lives here.  He is allow to use the grill.  It’s outdoors.

He didn’t know how to cook anything when we first got married unless it was on the grill.  He was a Boy Scout.  So he had lots of camp out recipes.  He taught me to make this dinner that they used to make on camp outs a lot.  I love it.  It’s easy, quick, good and kids love it.  It’s not fancy but there is nothing to measure and everyone can make their own.  We have no name for this recipe but call it Camp out dinner.  Tonight, it was a lazy woman’s dinner!

Camp out dinner or Lazy woman’s dinner

You will need:

Ground beef or other meat

Chopped vegetables like onions, carrots, potatoes etc.

sauce (Worcestershire, bbq, hot sauce, ketchup)

Pre-heat your grill or oven.  You can do this in an oven if you don’t have a grill.  I would heat the oven at about 400 degrees.  I use my grill.  My grill has three burners.  I turn all 3 burners on to pre-heat.  Then when I am ready to cook I leave the two outside burners on and turn the middle one off.

Get out a long sheet of heavy duty foil.  About 1 1/2 feet long for each person eating.   You will be making individual foil packets for each person.  In the middle of the foil on each packet lay one serving of meat.  On top of the meat add your vegetables. Sprinkle with salt, pepper and garlic.  Shake on some sauce.  It’s that easy!

Here I started with ground beef.  I added one carrot, a half a potato, half an onion, and a sprinkle of cabbage.  I seasoned with salt, pepper and garlic powder.   Then I added Worcestershire sauce, and Franks hot sauce.  Then I threw on some ketchup.

When my kids were little, they loved to make this.  I would cut up the vegetables and they could make their own the way they wanted.  This can be done with any meat and any veggies.  You could make chicken with peanut sauce and veggies or salmon with soy sauce and veggies.  You can use frozen veggies, fresh or leftovers.  It’s endless really!

Fold up the foil neatly around it to make a little packet.  Cut a second piece of foil.  Lay the wrapped  packet seam side down on the new piece of foil and wrap it up again.

Double wrapping helps with leaking.  It will still leak a little but not as bad as if you wrapped it once.  If you are doing this in the oven, I would put the packets into a baking dish just in case they do leak.

I grill the packets using indirect heat.  That simply means I lay it on the middle burner that I’ve turned off.  My grill gets to about 500 degrees this way.  I cooked them 20 minutes on each side.  I would cook them for an hour is I did it in the oven.

Clean up is very difficult don’t ya know!

I’m going to leave you with a little shot of spring.  This pussy willow in our back yard is in full bloom.  Spring is here at last!

Happy first day of spring!