Texas Chicken Quesadillas

2 tablespoons vegetable oil, divided
1 onion, sliced into rings (I chop mine very fine)
1 tablespoon honey
2 skinless, boneless chicken breast halves - cut into strips or chunks
1/2 cup GF barbeque sauce
1/2 cup shredded sharp Cheddar cheese
1/2 cup shredded Monterey Jack cheese
24 (6 inch) corn tortillas

Directions
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees

2. In a large, deep skillet, heat 1 tablespoon oil over medium high heat. Slowly cook and stir onion until translucent. Mix in honey. Stir until onion is golden brown, about 5 minutes. Remove from skillet and set aside.
3. Place remaining oil and chicken in the skillet over medium high heat. Cook until chicken is no longer pink. Stir in barbeque sauce and evenly coat chicken.
4. Layer 12 tortillas individually with chicken, onions, Cheddar cheese and Monterey Jack cheese. Top with remaining tortillas.
5. Place tortillas on a large baking sheet. You may only be able to bake 5-6 at a time. Bake uncovered in the preheated oven for 15-20 minutes, or until cheese is melted. Do not let tortillas become too crisp. Remove from heat. Cut into quarters to serve

We cooked ours on a griddle and reheated the leftovers in the oven the following day. They were fabulous.

Fruit Pizza

A summertime classic. Full of color and yummy flavor!

For this recipe I cooked mine on a 15 inch round glass pan. If you want to make it in a jelly roll pan, I would use a full cookie recipe and double the cream cheese, powdered sugar and vanilla.

1/2 Soft Batch Cookie recipe

4 oz. cream cheese
1/4 C powdered sugar
2 tsp vanilla

Seasonal fruit of your choice. I used strawberries, blueberries and mandarin oranges.

Glaze:
1/2 C pureed strawberries (or fruit of your choice)
1/2 C water
1/4 C sugar
2 TB cornstarch
Cook until thickened.

Spread cookie dough out on greased pan of your choice. I baked mine at 350 degrees for 12 minutes. Let cool. Mix cream cheese, powdered sugar and vanilla. Spread over cookie crust. Top with your favorite seasonal fruits. Drizzle glaze over the pizza. If not serving immediately, refrigerate.

Honey Nut Chex

Now available in select stores! YEAH!!!

Rice Chex has been out for almost a year now. I picked up the box of

Honey Nut at our local Walmart Neighborhood Grocery store.

Chocolate Covered Cake Pops

I found this awesome website called Bakerella and she makes these really cool cake pops. I followed her directions located on her website only I baked a GF cake and colored it pink. I was looking for a fun new birthday classroom treat for my girls and this hit the spot. They are definitely a very sweet treat. They are supposed to look like cupcakes, but it will just need to work on that!

Hawaiian Haystacks

Minus the gluten filled noodles!

Three chicken breasts cooked and cubed

2/3 C creamed soup mix plus 2 1/2 C water

4 oz. cream cheese

Cooked rice

Pineapple

Green onions

Chopped olives

Grated cheddar cheese

Roma tomatoes diced

Mix creamed soup mix, water and cream cheese on stovetop. When all blended and thickened, add cooked chicken. Serve over cooked rice and add toppings.

Deviled Eggs

Summer is approaching and these are a favorite side dish for a picnic or a barbeque.

This is another recipe where I don't really measure, it's more about looks, taste and consistency.

Today I used:
12 hard boiled eggs shelled, cut in half and the yolks removed into separate bowl.
1 tsp vinegar
1/3 C mayonnaise - approximately
1 1/2 tsp prepared mustard
Dash of onion powder

Mix yolks and all the other ingredients until you have reached your desired consistency (peanut butter) and spoon back into egg white halves. Sprinkle with paprika. Refrigerate until served.

Black Bean Tostada's

This isn't anything new, just a variations of the usual at our house. My girls have really taken a liking to black beans. I like to prepare mine in the crock pot with garlic and onions. (follow directions on package of beans for amounts to be cooked). After they have cooked all day, then I drain the juices into a separate bowl which will be added as needed to make the consistency desired. Mash or beat beans and add salt to desired flavor. It worked well for me to blend mine in the blender. Top tostada's with your family's favorite toppings.

Race Track Cake

Braden's Birthday Cake...

I used the chocolate cake recipe and doubled it to get two round cakes. For the track, I used crushed up Oreos. I frosted the cake with Duncan Hines Cream Cheese flavored frosting.

Red Robin, Red Robin!

One of our favorite family places to go out to eat was Red Robin. Well, having Celiac puts an extreme limit on your eating out choices, almost makes it none. We have baked french fries in the oven quite a few times, but it's just not the same. So we pulled out the good old fry daddy and fried up some crinkle cut french fries and then sprinkled them with our homemade Red Robin seasoning which I found the recipe for online. They were so yummy. I did not have the dry tomato soup mix the recipe calls for, but it still had great flavor. We will definitely be doing this one again!

Red Robin French Fry Seasoning

3 tablespoons salt
1 tablespoon instant tomato soup mix (Knorr tomato with basil works nicely)
2 teaspoons chili powder
1/4 teaspoon cumin
1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper

Mix all ingredients in a shaker of some sort (I used our salt shaker)

Happy St. Patty's Day

Just made up a few treats for the kiddos school class for St. Patrick's Day.

Click here for the Cookie recipe.

Click here for the cupcake recipe. (I just added green food coloring for this specific holiday)

Cinnamon Popcorn

Just another way to jazz up a bowl of popcorn!

This recipe came from my friend Erin...thanks for sharing.

8 C popped popcorn
5 oz. Dried cranberries or raisins (optional)
1/3 C butter
1/3 C Honey
1/2 tsp Cinnamon

Melt butter in sauce pan. Add honey and cinnamon until all blended together. Pour over Popcorn and raisins. Spread out on a greased baking sheet or in a roasting pan and bake at 325 degrees for fifteen minutes, stirring every five minutes so it does not burn. Let cool and enjoy!

Teriyaki Chicken

I really liked this recipe. I thought it had great flavor.

4-5 chicken breasts cubed
1 1 /2 Cwater
1 tsp minced garlic
1/4 - 1/2 tsp ground ginger
4 TB honey
1/2 C GF soy sauce
1/2 C brown sugar
1 20 oz. can pineapple tidbits plus the juices
Cornstarch for thickening

Place chicken and pineapple in the crockpot. Cook on low for about 7-8 hours. Right before ready to serve, on stovetop bring to a boil the remaining ingredients including the pineapple juice. Cook until desired thickness. Add to chicken and pineapple. Serve over rice.

Cinnamon Sticky Buns

Cinnamon Rolls have always been a Christmas tradition for us. It was hard not having them this past year. I have had this recipe laying around since the holidays and been putting off making it. I usually find it very discouraging to replace one of our favorite 'bread' recipes for a GF version. I decided there was only one way to find out if we were going to like these new cinnamon rolls....I had to dive in and make them. They definitely don't replace our old favorites, but they do taste good. I made mine in a pan with 12 mini bundt molds.
This is what they look like right out of the oven.

This is what they looked like after I turned them over and drizzled them with cream cheese frosting.

This recipe comes from The Gluten Free Gourmet Bakes Bread, Cinnamon Pecan Sticky Buns. I made the cinnamon version. Also, instead of buying Almond meal (because it is very expensive), I just bought a small bag of slivered almonds and blended them in my food processer.

Cinnamon Sticky Buns

Topping
Margarine or butter melted ¼ C
Brown sugar ¼ C
Cinnamon 1 tsp
Pecans, chopped ½ C

Dry Ingredients
Featherlite flour 2 C
Xanthun gum 1 ¼ tsp
Salt ½ tsp
Unflavored gelatin 1 tsp
Sugar 1/3 C
Almond meal or nut quick 3 TB
Dry yeast granules 2 ¼ tsp

Wet Ingredients
Potato pearls of flakes 2 tsp
Warm water 1 C
Margarine or butter, melted 1/3 C
Dough enhancer or vinegar ½ tsp
Honey 2 tsp
Eggs 3

Prepare your tins by dividing the butter into the cups and adding brown sugar blended with the cinnamon. Sprinkle on the nuts and set aside.
In mixing bowl, place the dry ingredients and blend with mixing whisks. Blend the potato pearls with the water. Add to the dry ingredients with the butter, vinegar and honey. Blend together. Break in the eggs and beat on high for 2 ½ minutes. Divide the dough into the prepared tins. Let rise for a bout 25-35 minutes or until almost doubled. Bake at 375° in preheated oven for 20 minutes. Turn out from the tins while still warm. Serve either warm or cold.

**Cinnamon Rolls: Omit the pecans and add 1 tsp more cinnamon to the topping ingredients. Drizzle slightly melted cream cheese frosting over the top while still warm.

Spanish Style Chicken and Rice Soup

I love this soup for two reason's...it has a ton of flavor and has a great variety of color. I saw this on Rachel Ray a few years back. I replaced the noodles for rice and it works out well. It can be made on the stovetop or the crockpot. I prefere the crockpot because I can start it in the morning and forget about dinner until it's time to serve it.


Ingredients

• 3 celery ribs, chopped
• 2 medium-size carrots, chopped
• 1 medium onion, chopped
• 1 to 2 tablespoons (about a palmful) chili powder
• 1 bay leaf, use fresh if available
• Salt and freshly ground black pepper
• 1 1/2 quarts (6 cups) chicken stock ( 6 C water, 6 tsp GF chicken bullion)
• 1/2 C uncooked rice, lightly browned in olive oil **
• 2-3 chicken breasts cooked and cut into bite-size pieces
• 1 can petite diced tomatoes
• 1 cup corn, frozen or fresh
• 1 15-ounce can black beans, rinsed

• For garnish:
• 1 bunch scallions, thinly sliced
• A couple of handfuls of blue or red corn tortilla chips
• 1 lime, cut into wedges
• We only garnished with grated Colby Jack cheese and dipped tortilla chips in it.

Preparation
I add everything to the crockpot but the rice and corn. Cook on low for 6 hours on low. Add rice and corn the last hour of cooking.

** FYI
The reason I browned my rice in olive oil first, is so that when I add it too the soup, it does not keep absorbing the juices.

Barbeque Chicken Pizza

It's Friday night, so that means pizza! This is a yummy change from the traditional pepperoni.

Click here for pizza dough recipe.

3-4 Cooked and cubed chicken tenders

Barbeque Sauce ( I used Masterpiece Original)

Monzarella cheese

Olives

Sliced green onions

Fresh diced Roma tomatoes (place on after pizza has cooked)

After you have moslty cooked the pizza dough, remove from oven and spread thin layer of barbeque sauce on crust. Add cheese and toppings. Place back in oven to finish cooking, long enough to melt the cheese. Add tomatoes, slice and serve!