Brown Rice Squares

I was a cookaholic today! I baked the goldfish crackers, but what I was really in search of was a granola type bar. Along with the top 8 and corn, we also cannot have oats. Which makes it that much harder to find recipes for decent granola bars.

I found one that kind of fit what I wanted. It was close, but not perfect. So here it is; perfected.

3 cups crispy brown rice cereal (I used Barbara's Brown Rice Crisps, but Erewhon makes a good one
as well)
1/2 cup brown rice syrup
1/2 cup sun butter(or whatever butter you can use. If using peanut butter, I suggest starting with 1/4 cup brown rice syrup and adjust to taste)
2 tsp vanilla
1 tsp cinnamon
1/4 cup assorted dried fruit
1/2 cup Enjoy Life chocolate chips

In pot, melt together syrup, sun butter,vanilla and cinnamon.

Take off heat and add crispy rice cereal. Coat well. Add dried fruit and a handful of chocolate chips.

Pour into greased glass baking dish. I used an 8x8. Pat down and sprinkle rest of chocolate chips on top. You can use more. I'm just not a huge sweets fan.

Put in microwave for 45 seconds or so and spread melted chocolate evenly on top.

Refrigerate till cool. Cut into squares or rectangles. Wrap individually. Keep in fridge or on counter if your house isn't hot.

Yummy!

Trevor's Goldfish Crackers

I remember goldfish. The perfect combo of cheese, salt and crisp. Our daughter would eat them by the fist full. Until we found out that's what was contributing to her behavior issues.

She is now 6 and we haven't seen the likes of a goldfish cracker in our house in 5 years.

And I missed them. In fact, I missed all things cheesy. She reacted to every cheese substitute on the market at that time, so we gave up. We got used to cheese free pizza and no goldfish crackers. We later found out she has a soy allergy which explains why cheese subs weren't tolerated.

But around 3 months ago, I stumbled across Chreese. You read that right! Cheese with an R.

Road's End Organics makes it and I can get it on Amazon! It's about 89 cents per packet. It is gluten, corn, soy and many other items free. You can use it to make mac n chreese! And it actually tastes decent. It is also great in meatballs and sprinkled over pizza.

But I still missed goldfish. After searching recipes and a few bad batches, this is what I came up with...

1/2 cup brown rice flour
1/4 cup potato flour
1/2 tsp arrowroot
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp baking soda
2 TBS chreese powder (cheddar flavor makes them more yellow-orange)

Mix and set aside. In separate bowl, mix
2 TBS oil
1 TBS honey
1/2 TBS cider vinegar
2 TBS milk sub

Pour liquid into flour. If needed, add more milk, one TBS at a time. In dry Arizona, I used 4 TBS milk (homemade hemp and flax).

Set oven to 350^.

Lay plastic wrap on counter. Form a ball of dough and top with another layer of plastic. Roll out fairly thin. It doesn't have to be see through, but not too think either. 1/8-1/4 inch. (Like I have a ruler out to measure!)

I used a fish cutter, but any shape is fine. It'll taste the same. Trust me.

Let your 4 year old cut out fish.

You will need a Trevor to make Trevor's Goldfish!

Put on baking dish lined with non stick foil (best invention ever) or parchment paper. Bake for 4-6 minutes until golden. Flip and cook 4-6 minutes again.

I made 60 fish with this recipe. On the final picture, on the very bottom is a Pepperidge Farm fish so you can see size difference.

I bought cutters on amazon and they were sold as "clay cutters).

Sample Calendar

		Sunday		Monday		Tuesday		Wednesday	Thursday	Friday	Saturday
Breakfast				Waffles		Biscuits and gravy		Fried potatoes and bacon	Pancakes	Muffins	Hashbrowns
Lunch				Tuna		Tacos		Hot Dogs	Spaghetti	Pork fingers	xxxxxxxx
Dinner				Chili		Pork stir fry		BBQ Beef	Oven ribs	Cocktail Meatballs	Meatloaf

Why mealplan?

I used to think meal planning was for THOSE moms. The ones that took their mom job a little more seriously than I do. I could just imagine these moms sitting at the kitchen table, at 11pm with coupons sprawled all over the table. They'd be clipping coupons and matching their coupons to what they had in the cabinets and to the store ads to carefully plan meals. Every now and again they'd reference their food pyramid to make sure their lovely family was getting the right nutrients every day.

And now I'm one of them. Except my little eyes won't stay open past 10pm and I don't clip coupons. It's hard to do when you're planning such a restricted menu. I gave up trying years ago. Sure there may be coupons out there for brown rice pasta, rice cakes and corn free frozen fruits (which is harder to find than you'd think!). But I cook about 80% of our food from scratch. I mill our flour (I have yet to come across a coupon for brown rice in bulk bags), we buy fresh fruits and veggies and my spices and other odds and ends are usually inexpensive off brands anyway.

I also look at store ads. Not to find the cheapest store that week to buy my strawberries, but because there are 5 stores I go to. And several I refuse to step foot into. Yes, I'm a grocery store snob. Safeway is closest to me and their produce is my favorite. Plus they deliver and I do take advantage of that every now and again. Like when I have 3 fussy kids and it's 105 degrees outside. Costco is my favorite for meats. I also buy my mommy snacks there. All the goodies I buy for myself and hide in the cupboards away from the prying eyes of my kids. And a huge sack of potatoes is always a must!
Sunflower is great for many items and Trader Joe's is good for one thing and one thing only: Sunbutter. I rarely hit Whole Foods. Takes too long to get there and their stuff is crazy expensive. But they have Wellshire ham, which is corn free. About 3 times a year I will make the trek to Sprouts. It's 40 minutes away. Too far. But I heard that they bought out Sunflower and that makes me sooooo happy! :)

I digress. I'm a meal planner. I tried it once. For no other reason than I was sick of asking the kids "What do you want for lunch?" "What do you want for a snack?" Yadda, yadda. And they'd never pick the same thing and they'd end up fighting and I got frustrated. So I made a menu one day. It was like the gates of Heaven opened and I saw Jesus smiling down on me. I did something good. Really good and it made this allergy life much easier.

The benefits of meal planning?

1. Grocery shopping just got easier! I plan my meals on Sunday afternoon. I grocery shop during the week. I typically plan my meals mostly based on what I have already in the beginning of the week and then meals where I might have some of the ingredients but not all, at the end of the week. So when I go grocery shopping, I have a list. And the meals I plan for in which I have to go shopping, I look at the sales!

2. No more complaining! I am at no fault if you don't like your dinner. The menu says it's liver and onions night and there isn't a darn thing you can do about it. Because the menu says so. If you want to know what we are eating, please don't ask. Refer to the menu. You can't read yet? Ask your sister.

3. No more scrambling! I sometimes get busy. Do you have kids? Have you ever been busy? And before you know it, 4pm comes around and there is NO dinner planned! This is ok for some families. Most families. The local pizza place's phone number is on speed dial. Or maybe we can meet daddy at a restaurant after work. Yeah, we can't do that. It's not an option. If I don't have something planned, I make some noodles. Fun, no? So now the night before, I read my menu. Is there any prep work I can get done now? Do I need to take meat out of the freezer?

Now that I have reviewed the basics, I am going to start posting our weekly menus. And as time goes on, the recipes. Steal all my idears if you want.

Homemade mustard

"We look like hippies!". My husband says this as I step outside to show him my homemade mustard while he's making fresh brown rice flour in our flour mill.
Yes, that's us: hippies. But I take pride in it. It's who we are. We're making our lives better by eating fresh, healthy food (along with a few other things that make us cross the hippy threshold).
I'm making pork fingers with honey mustard tonight. But store bought mustard contains white vinegar...corn. So I did some searching only to find recipes for homemade mustard contain eggs. No can do.
Then I found one by Alton Brown, but it has sweet pickle juice. I played around and this is what I made. Be warned! This is spicy! Not a ton, but I feel heartburn coming on!

1/4 cup dry mustard powder
3 Tablespoons brown sugar
1 TBS honey
(you can cut down on sugar if you like it spicy without sweet)
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1/2 teaspoon turmeric
1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
1/4 teaspoon paprika

Whisk dry ingredients together. In separate bowl, stir

3/4 cup cider vinegar
1/4 cup water

In a spice blender (I used old fashioned mortar pestal), blend 1/4 cup mustard seeds till most seeds have been ground. Add to dry ingredients and quickly add liquid. Whisk.

Put in microwave for 1 minute. Blend in food processor, with immersion blender or Vitamix for one minute or until thick and yellow. It was about 15 seconds with Vitamix.

Put in glass jar. Keeps for one month.

Cocktail or Party Meatballs

Yum! Party meatballs! You know the ones. The kind you find at...parties. Usually in a crockpot.
I first heard of the recipe from my neighbor. Her mother in law made them. Ingredients: frozen meatballs, jar of grape jelly and a bottle of chili sauce. Well, those are definitely NOT on our list of safe foods!
We are corn, dairy, wheat, peanut, soy, egg, various tree nut, millet, sorghum, oat, chicken, turkey and a few odds and ends free.
This made the dairy, soy, corn and wheat laden meatballs off limits. As is the corny grape jelly and the corny soy chili sauce. Arrrgh!
I really wanted to make them for Weston's 3rd birthday pirate party!
I've subbed every other food, so why not these meatballs?
I looked up a few traditional recipes. Grape jelly or jellied cranberry sauce are the preferred fruity/sweet taste. Most jellies are out and cranberries are hard to come by in April! Heinz chili sauce or close variants of it are the spicy/meaty end of the flavor. And meatballs are easy.

Step 1- Make meatballs
1 pound ground beef
1 pound ground pork
3 TBS onion flakes
1TBS garlic powder
1 TBS sea salt

Step 2- Chili sauce
I thought this would be the hard part, but it was actually quite simple!
1 cup tomato sauce (I used 2 TBS tomato paste because it is citric acid free plus enough water to equal a cup)
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/4 tsp allspice
2 TBS apple cider vinegar

I also added some diced jalapeño and Serrano chile. I had about a tablespoon total. Next time I will add more. It added great flavor!











Step 3- Raspberry jello
This was good, but next time I will use more raspberries or cranberry sauce

1/2 bag Cascadian Farms organic red raspberries (these are corn free)

I put the raspberries in my Vitamix with 2 tsp sugar. Then added water up to 2 cup line.


I then blended till smooth and ran through strainer. I used this to make jello.

Boil 1 1/2 cups strained raspberries. While this is coming to boil, put additional 1/2 cup liquid in a bowl and pour one packet gelatin over it.
When liquid comes to boil, pour in bowl with gelatin mixture. Cover and refrigerate till set.

Make the meatballs! I had a little over 100.
Bake at 375 for 20 minutes or until brown and cooked through.

Put in crockpot

Mix chili sauce and jello and pour over meatballs.

I put it all together the next day (meatballs weren't hot). They were in crockpot for 5 hours on high and they were perfect!
So good that the final photo I got was of them all gone!