GF French Toast Bake

One of the things that I think tastes the worst in the GF world is bread.  YUCK.  I recently went on a mission trip and the menu was PB&J for lunch, so I made sure I had a loaf of GF bread for myself.  It was awful as a two-piece-of-bread sandwich and only mildly tolerable as an open faced sandwich.  I choked it down on the mission trip, but couldn't bring myself to eat it here at home.

So I started thinking of how to improve on it.  French toast came to mind last night at about 11:45pm.  I decided to google a quick overnight French toast bake, with the idea that maybe if all the yummy gooeyness of the French toast-ness had time to soak in, you would hardly notice the bread itself.

I found this recipe  from The Girl Who Ate Everything and thought I'd give it a try, with a few LOT of changes, since it was spur of the moment and I didn't have everything on hand.

Verdict: YUM!  I haven't had French Toast in years, so I don't remember what my mom's used to taste like, but this was delicious.  And, most importantly, you couldn't tell it was GF bread.  The texture was great - not too soggy, not too GF tasting.  I think it could do with less nutmeg, but the hubs says he likes it. 

Ingredients

• GF sliced bread
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 2 tbsp Canola oil (or butter - we didn't have any on hand so I subbed the oil)
• 3 eggs
• 1/2 cup soy milk (or regular milk - whatever you use)
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• Cinnamon and Nutmeg (or pumpkin pie spice - whatever floats your boat!)

Directions

1.  Pour the canola oil in the bottom of an 8x8 pan and use a pastry brush to coat the bottom of the pan.  Sprinkle the brown sugar on the oil.
2. Put 4 slices of bread on top of the sugar.  I had some pretty big open spaces, so I used a fifth piece (torn up) to fill in the gaps.
3. In a small bowl, combine eggs, milk, and vanilla extract by whisking together.  Pour over the bread, making sure to coat evenly.  Sprinkle the cinnamon and nutmeg on top of the egg mixture.
4. Cover with foil and put the pan in the fridge overnight.  When you're ready for breakfast, pull the pan out of the fridge while the oven preheats to 350.  Bake for 30-35 minutes.

I think you could easily double this recipe and put it in a 9x13 pan to serve more.  You can use regular bread, too - someone mentioned challah and I bet that would be amazing!!

Serves 4
Calories: 370 per serving

Zucchini Noodle Lasagna

In my quest for GF food, I've been doing a lot of pinning to Pintrest lately, especially to my Kitchen Shenanigans board. As I said in my last post, I LOVE me some Italian food and have been wanting lasagna for a while now, but I hadn't found GF lasagna noodles.  (Fun fact: Wegman's now has some!  I found them after I decided to try this recipe, so if zucchini isn't your thing, but you're GF you are in luck!  As long as there is a Wegman's near you!)

I pinned this recipe from Jo and Sue awhile ago and thought I'd try it out, but with a few tweaks.  I didn't want a strictly VEGGIE lasagna, as G likes to have protein with his meals and refuses to acknowledge that you can get protein without meat or tofu.  But, whatever.

Here is my recipe, adapted from Jo and Sue.


Ingredients:

• 3 large zucchini (FUN FACT:  I totally had to google what the plural of zucchini is.  It is, in fact, zucchini.  Also, I had to spell check plural because I spelled that wrong, too.  Plaural is not correct, FYI.)
• 1 package pork sausage (or ground turkey or ground beef, whatever you prefer)
• 1 package frozen spinach
• 1 large can crushed tomatoes (I used a 28 oz can and could have used more)
• Oregano
• Basil
• 1 tub ricotta cheese
• 1/2 package mozarella cheese

Directions:

1. Slice zucchini into thin strips.  I used a mandolin because I registered for one for the wedding and figure I better use it.  If you are more talented and less clumsy with a knife than I am, you can probably just do this by hand.  Arrange the zucchini on baking sheets and bake at 425 for 5 minutes on each side. When they are done, lower the oven temp to 375
2. As the zucchini strips are baking, brown your meat protein (in my case, pork sausage) in a pot.  Once browned, add your package of frozen spinach and your can of crushed tomatoes.  Add oregano and basil to taste.  I use a 2:1 ration of oregano to basil.  Make sure your meat sauce is fully cooked.
3. When the zucchini strips are baked and your meat sauce is done, you are ready to assemble your lasagna.  Place one layer of zucchini strips on the bottom of a baking dish and then cover with about 2 cups of meat sauce.  Spread about half a cup of ricotta on top of the meat sauce, then sprinkle about 1/4 cup mozzarella on top.  Then, do it again.  When you have finished the second layer of cheese, add one more layer of zucchini strips with meat sauce and then sprinkle liberally with mozzarella. Unless you don't like mozzarella, in which case, be stingy. ;)
4. I ended up with a 9x11 pan of lasagna and had enough leftover to also make an 8x8 pan.  Basically, just use up what you have.  Or make it in a 9x13 to begin with.  Either way.
5. Cover with foil and bake at 375 for 50 minutes.  Then remove the foil and bake for another 10 mins.  When you take it out of the oven, if it seems a little soupy let it sit for about 20 minutes to reabsorb some of the liquid.
6. Serve on a plate and try not to eat yourself stupid.  It will be difficult, because this is DELICIOUS.

Just for reference, using the recipe I made I did a quick calorie estimate and came up with about 250 calories per serving - but my two pans yielded 10 servings that were BIG pieces.  It also only has 12 servings of carbs, so if you're looking for low-carb this is a great option, too.

Adventures of Gluten Free Living

A few months ago, after poking around on the internet, I decided to try being Gluten Free (GF) for the month of May, just to see what would happen.  After doing some reading on the internet, I didn't think I had a gluten intolerance, but I had read that being GF gave you more energy and was good for allergies.  I've been tested multiple times for anemia and mono due to my severe lack of energy in life and I've suffered from allergies since I can remember.  I figured at the worst, it would help me cut out too much processed crap (cake, brownies, cookies, pasta, etc) and at the best it would make me feel better.

Well.  I did feel better.  A LOT better.  I wasn't exhausted all the time (tired, yes - exhausted to the point of feeling like I couldn't function, no) and I actually stopped taking my allergy pill and felt fine.  In May.  When the pollen comes out and turns our cars yellow.

This was an exciting moment.

But then May ended and I figured I'd end my experiment and just go back to living life how I always had, eating whatever.  And I started feeling like crap.  I had headaches nearly every day - which, I realized, I had been dealing with for almost as long as I could remember.  They weren't BAD every day, necessarily, but definitely a low-grade headache almost daily.  And I had stomach aches and reflux issues, which again I realized I had been dealing with on a daily basis.

All of that had disappeared when I went GF for May.

So, after a few more months of experimenting and going back and forth between feeling great and feeling like crap, I think I have figured out that I may have some sort of gluten intolerance.  I seem to have a magic threshold that if I go over, I am miserable, but if I can stay under, I am ok with a small amount of gluten.  On the plus side, this means I can have a tiny piece of cake at birthday parties, or try my MIL's lasagna without offending her.  On the minus side, it means I can ONLY have a small piece of cake or TRY the lasagna.  Italian food is my all-time favorite.  I cried when I realized that my favorite restaurant in the world is now probably a "Well, I guess I want it badly enough that I'm willing to feel awful for a few days" place to visit.

And my obsession with baking cupcakes and decorating cakes?  Well.  I've tried pretty much every kind of GF baking mix that's out there and I have yet to find anything that I think is worth buying.  I have not yet ventured into the "buy a kitchen scale and bake from scratch" mode of GF baking, but it may be coming soon.

In the meantime, I've been trying to figure out both new GF recipes and ways to adapt some of my old favorites to be GF.  I'll post them as I use them - whether it's a keeper of a recipe or a fail.

Some people have asked me about being GF and if I have any tips.  I should preface this by saying that while I try to be as GF as I can, I am not actually as strict as others.  So, if something is processed on the same equipment as wheat or says "May Contain Wheat" I usually try it once, while staying GF with everything else.  If I don't react, I don't worry about it.

To start with, I should say that we don't eat a lot of wheat stuff to begin with. We don't eat bread, we're low on sweets (usually) and G (husband) doesn't like Italian food, so we don't eat a lot of wheat pasta. The biggest wheat thing I ate was Kashi cereals.

For breakfasts, I switched from Kashi to Chex - they have a ton of gluten free options. I also added yogurt, cheese or eggs to get protein, otherwise I am STARVING by like 11am.

Lunch was hard, not gonna lie. I ate a lot of salad with grilled chicken on it or leftovers from the night before. Most fast food was out - no Subway, no Chick-fil-a, nothing with a sandwich. Chipotle and certain Noodles dishes still work, though.

For dinner we made a few changes. Rice and rice noodles were still fine, so we based meals on that. We eat a lot of grilled meat with veggies/salads anyway, so that wasn't too hard. No more regular noodles - although Wegman's has some really good GF pasta that even G didn't mind.

Snacks were hard, too. No pretzels or cookies, cake, brownies, etc. I miss brownies and cake the most. There are a bunch of GF options we tried and they were all....dry. Not great.

The biggest swap I made was just to make sure to ALWAYS have veggies, fruits, cheese and yogurt on hand for snacks when I was hungry. And popcorn and nuts. I swapped in dark chocolate for the cakes and brownies when I needed a sweet craving.

Also, I don't drink beer, so I didn't have to worry about that.

Those are my thoughts and hints.  Tomorrow I have a GF lasagna recipe to post that substitutes zucchini for noodles.  It's SO GOOD and almost makes me not even miss regular lasagna.