Freezer Meals - Italian Sausage and Peppers

The first meal from my freezer cooking that I made was Sausage & Peppers.

Ingredients:
6 Italian Sausages
2 Green Peppers
1 Red Pepper
1 Red Onion
4 Cloves Garlic, Minced
2 Cand Italian Diced Tomatoes
2 Tbs Italian Seasoning
Split between two bags, seal, mix, lay flat, freeze
Directions for bags:
Add drizzle of olive oil, cook on low 6 hours, serve over hot noodles or fresh french bread with mozzarella cheese.

Just looks like veggies to me!

Tuna Casserole

I was never a fan of canned meat as a kid. I flat out refused to try tuna for a very long time, and I'm not sure if it was my aversion to fish or my aversion to canned meats. When I was just dating my now-husband, he introduced me to tuna salad sandwiches. I actually enjoyed the one he made for me, so I started making them. Like, all the time. I lived off of tuna salad sandwiches in highschool.

After I got married, my husband made a tuna casserole. I loved casseroles, and I loved my tuna salad, but tuna and pasta? I wasn't sure. Once again, I enjoyed it, and after that, I started making tuna casseroles. We both liked them quite a bit, so they become a staple in our early days of meal planning.

When we started eating gluten-free, I wanted tuna casserole, but I couldn't use a can of cream of chicken soup anymore. Instead of googling how to make a gluten-free version, I just made it up. It took a few tries, but I figured it out. M and I love it, and it's super easy, and uses things we have on hand (which most of the stuff I make up does). It's not dairy-free yet, but I'm getting there.

Quick Meals - Tuna Spaghetti

As I mentioned in my previous post, I don't always have a lot of time to eat, and I eat some creative meals sometimes. This is definitely one of them. Sometimes, I look at whatever ingredients I have on hand and type them into a Pinterest search. I've gotten a lot of really great recipes this way.  I'll type things like "Bacon hashbrown" or "egg spinach" and it comes up with pins where people typed something like "Breakfast casserole with bacon and hashbrowns". This time, I opened my cupboard and grabbed a box of gluten-free spaghetti and started boiling it. While it was cooking, I found a can of tuna and searched "tuna spaghetti." The recipe I found was a lot more complicated and involved sauteing garlic, but I skimmed it, got the basics, and went from there.

I dumped one cup of garlic and herb pasta sauce into a microwaveable bowl, stirred in a can of tuna and heated it up. When the pasta was done, I dumped the sauce on top and chowed down. Super quick, easy, nutritious and delicious. It could have had chopped fresh veggies or cheese to make it better, but my focus was time and ease. Feel free to make it your own. 

This made two servings, which meant it could have been a meal for my husband and I, but instead it was lunch one day and dinner another for me.

My Strainer Fiasco

Contamination is one of those tricky subjects. A lot of celiacs will turn blue trying to avoid any form of contamination, refusing to eat food that even entered a kitchen containing gluten. Some people seem to think contamination isn't a big deal at all, giving me looks when I ask that they wash that knife or grab a new spoon. There's a spectrum of people at every level in between.

Personally, I do as much as I can. People who live in my house eat gluten. That means my kitchen has gluten in it. Crumbs get on the counters, dirty dishes go in the dishwasher, things happen. I wash all of the dishes in the same loads, and I definitely don't have a separate set of utensils. I don't use a dish if someone else has used it, no matter what they used it for. I don't put my food on a bare counter unless I just wiped it down. I think I toe a pretty safe line.

Antonella's Cheddar Pasta Sauce

I recently stumbled across a new brand at Safeway. New to me, not to the market. They are a Canadian brand, but all of their sauces are gluten-free. Meet Antonella's! They have four different flavours of pasta sauce, but I only bought two to start off with. I will, however, definitely be picking up the other two.

The two I bought

Annie's Pasta and Cheese

I got around to making my little box of Annie's Rice Pasta Shells & White Cheddar. Let me just say, I will definitely be buying more of this. It is quick, convenient, cheesey, and most importantly, gluten-free. Now, I know I threw my whole dairy-free thing in the can with this, but I so don't care. 

Catelli Gluten Free Pasta

Catelli came out with a GF pasta! I'm not sure when this development took place, but I love it. All of the gluten-free pasta I've bought so far has been brands I'd never heard of before, which isn't a problem, but it certainly is nice when you can buy something made by someone you've enjoyed before.

What I really like about Catelli's pastas are that they are made with four grains. White and brown rice, corn and quinoa. Most GF pastas are either rice, or corn. If I only bake with a blend of flours, why would my pasta be made with only one?

Finally! A GF Pasta in a Box!

My best friend has long since raved about her favourite boxed pasta and cheese. I'm not really sure what makes it so special, but it's probably more wholesome and less processed than Kraft Dinner. I mean, I love me some KD, but I have always avoided reading the ingredients. Ah, this is Old Me talking. Old Me loved KD. I would eat it every once a month, maybe two months, but when I did, I ate a whole box by myself.

I never bought a case, and I hardly ever had a box on hand, but suddenly, out of nowhere, a craving for some bright orange super-processed cheesey pasta would hit, and it would all I could think about eating until I ate it. M hates it, always has, always will. Partly because he doesn't like pasta, partly because processed cheese makes him sick.

Slow cooker lasagna

Working 11 hours in a day, between two jobs doesn't leave much time for eating. I usually have one hour between getting off work and having to be at work. Thanks to two very different dress codes, I have to change in that time too. Some days, I just down a can of chicken and rice soup, some days I heat up some leftovers, and some days I actually have it together enough to make an actual meal. By that, I mean my husband who gets home fifteen minutes before me sometimes starts dinner, unless I put something in the slowcooker. The problem with slow cooker meals is that I usually have to put it in at lunch time. If I have it together, I can prepare it the night before, toss it in at lunch, and eat it at dinner. Otherwise, I have to prepare it at lunch hour, which leaves me less time to eat another meal.

Yesterday was one of those days. I prepared it at lunch, and ate it at dinner. There were three reasons I selected this recipe.

1. I miss lasagna. Like, a lot.
2. I bought gluten free lasagna noodles awhile back, but I haven't had the time to prepare a lasagna (let's be honest, they are a little intensive. 
3. My roommate recently made a lasagna, and has been slowly eating it over the last week. Staring at it every time I open the fridge made me desperate enough to try anything.

I wasn't really sure about this recipe. The blog I found it on said she thought it would dry and crunchy, but it wasn't. I thought the same, but even worse, because my noodles would be gluten free. But they weren't! Actually, they were a little bit soggy. The recipe says to cook on low for three hours, but I had to cook it for four, because my time is a little limited. I would still highly suggest it to anyone, GF, or not.

I found it here, and I made some tweaking. First of all, she didn't mention any beef, although her picture shows some. I wanted beef, so I browned some, and layered it in there as well. Second, M hates parmesan, so I took that out and added a little more mozza instead. This recipe is pretty relaxed, and you can do whatever tweaking you like.

Here's what I used

1 box lasagna noodles - uncooked

1 1/2 cups cottage cheese

1/2 - 1 cup shredded mozzarella cheese

1 egg

1/2 - 1 pound ground beef

1 jar spaghetti sauce

Here's what I did:

Brown the ground beef. Mix the cheeses and egg together in a bowl. Layer.

Start with sauce on the bottom, then dry noodles. I had to break mine to get them to fit in the pot, and then I put the broken pieces around the edges. Layer some cheese, beef, sauce, noodles, until you run out. Finish off with some sauce.

You can add cheese for the last half hour, which I didn't for two reasons. First of all, I wasn't home half an hour before I ate this. And second, I wanted parmesan, M didn't, so I put parmesan on my plate after I served it.

Day 82: Downtown Boston Pizza

So, today was my last day of my job. It still feels a little surreal. I'm probably going to wake up tomorrow and start getting ready for work. I wrapped up my projects, showed my supervisor where I was leaving off, signed a paper or two, and handed in my key. That was the saddest part, I think.

Oh, and we went out for lunch. My office is pretty small, so we planned to all go out for lunch to celebrate my last day. Actually, only four of the guys and I went, because the other five all bailed. Lame-o's. Anyways, so five of us went to Boston Pizza. I wanted to pick something downtown so we could walk, and I haven't really eaten anywhere downtown, but I have eaten at the other Boston Pizza, and they're always really good and have several options, so I naturally picked it.

Let me just say, not impressed. I mean, I had a great time. It was great to sit and chat with the guys, and it was a nice closure, and my food was good... But I'm not eating there again.

First of all, I ordered the Tuscon Linguine, sub Glutenwise pasta, and alerted the waitress that I have a gluten allergy. My food came, and I first made sure I got the right pasta, then pulled out my fork, stabbed a piece of rotini, and froze. There was a big hunk of garlic toast sitting right on top of the whole thing. Just sitting there, staring at me. Taunting me.

My co-worker said, "Did they give you the right pasta?"

I had this moment of debate, where I tried to decide if I should just move the garlic toast and eat the pasta, or if I should just eat all the pasta that wasn't touching it, or if I should make a stink, but I was afraid my coworkers would judge me, or think I was making too big of a deal about it.

All I could say was, "There's garlic toast on top of it."

As they realized what that meant, they all said things like, "You said it was an allergy, I heard you say it was an allergy!" and "Send that back. Don't eat it." and "Make sure they actually remake it. They might just pull it off and call it good." I felt very supported. I'm so thankful for all the people in my life who understand.

So when the waitress came by, I asked her to make me a new one, and then when it came, I turned the whole plate around to check for bread crumbs, and it was also piping hot, so I'm actually pretty sure they did make me a new one.

And then my coworker, who had gotten a pulled pork sandwich, discovered the bottom of his bun was moldy.

They remade his food too. And we both got our meals for free.

Which is great, and normally would make me think it's worth going there again, but it's not. There are two Boston Pizza's here, and they're about a ten minute drive apart. So I will keep going to the Thatcher BP's (where I have never had a contamination problem), and not the downtown one, ever again. So not worth it.

Day 25: Getting Glutened

So... I glutened myself today. Kind of on purpose, and I was kind of aware of it. Do you remember how I said we had two pastas, and one was weird and foamy and tasted weird, and one was normal and yummy and good? Well, we went to buy more of the good kind, and we noticed that it didn't actually say gluten-free on it. I knew I read the ingredients the first time I bought it, so I flipped it over and checked again. Apparently, under the ingredients, in bold letters, it says "May contain wheat" so awesome. We bought a different kind all together, but I still had about a serving left of that one kind. So today, at lunch, I made it. I knew I had eaten only safe foods all day, so I would know if it effected me or not. It did. Oh, did it ever. I felt awful all afternoon.

Actually, the afternoon was about it. I felt bloaty and gassy and nauseous and blurgh at work, until about four, when I started feeling a bit better. By five, I felt okay, and I dragged my butt to the gym to meet Banana. I felt actually good there. Maybe just moving and working out made me feel alive. I did the circuit again, and then 20 min of elliptical. And then we sat in the sauna for awhile. Man, the heat does wonders on my muscles. I hate how I feel in there, all hot and sweaty and burning, but I love how my muscles feel.

So here's a maybe-symptom. After the sauna and a shower I was red and splotchy over most of my body. It looked really bad. Like a rash, but it wasn't itchy or bumpy. It covered my legs up to mid-thigh, my arms, my chest, and my face. Not my stomach, upper thighs or neck. I noticed it was pretty much everywhere I used to have a tan, so it could be heat-related, melanin-related, gluten-related or new-body-wash-related. I have no idea what caused it, but it looked really bad and lasted after I cooled off.

To be honest, I didn't ever actually eat dinner. I had some cheese and crackers and a ham sandwich, but that's really it. Oh, hubby decided my new gluten-free bread tastes awful. We're out of his bread, so he tried some of mine, and it was a nope.

I felt a lot better after the gym, so I might try that the next time I have symptoms. I still have the brain fog, and I'm really tired, but my body returned to normal afterwards.

Day 24: Tuna Casserole

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

My mom asked me yesterday to meet her for lunch today during her lunch break, so we went to Boston Pizza. It must sound like I go there all the time, but you need to know it's one of two mid-price restaurants here. There's a few more expensive ones, and a lot of cheaper ones, or family restaurants, but BP's and Original Joe's are the extent of that style of dining. No Applebee's, Montana's, Rock Creek, The Keg, Earl's.... Nope. Just two BP's and one OJ's.

Anyways, so I braved the outside world this afternoon and unburied my car from a foot of snow. No exaggeration. Yuck. I picked her up from work, which is ironically where I used to work until June, and then we went for lunch.

When we talked about it, she said she wanted their original lasagna. It's like lasagna noodles with bolognese sauce and then baked with cheese. That sounded heavenly, so I set my heart on a gluten-free version. Since the noodles and toast were the only offending things, I ordered their Boston's Lasagna, sub GF noodles. Well, they have a create-your-own pasta menu, which is where you actually find the GF noodles (also where it says to add $1 for GF) and you could order bolognese noodles baked with cheese. So the waitress punched my order in like that; Gluten-Wise noodles, bolognese sauce, baked with cheese, and my mom just got the lasagna, but my bill came out $1.50 more than hers. Not sure if you're following still, but basically, we ordered the same thing, and I should have paid $1 more, but the way it was punched in, I had to pay $1.50 more.

So I was just ranting to my mom about how gluten free people basically have to eat inferior food. Why can't I order a pasta dish off the normal menu and sub the noodles? Why does my only option have to be create-your-own? So my mom pointed it out to the waitress, who reacted with a "Here, I'll go get the menu and show you." Which basically means "I did it right. You're wrong." But when she came back, she had a new bill for me, that wrote it up as Boston Lasagna, sub Gluten-Wise noodles, and said she didn't realize there would be a price difference. So that was great, and I thanked my mom, because I wouldn't have said anything.

I spent most of the afternoon at the gym with Banana, after I dropped off my mom again. I managed three rounds on the circuit, and then 4.5 miles on the upright bicycles. That was intense. My legs were like jelly when I got off. But we were thinkers and brought our swimsuits! So we went and sat in the sauna for awhile. Amazing how intense sweaty heat feels great when there's a foot of fresh snow outside. Also, it did wonders on my would-be sore muscles.

For dinner, I made tuna casserole. I know, yuck right? I like it actually, as does my hubby, so we have it occasionally. It's an easy pasta dish that isn't pasta, beef and sauce. I kind of just wing it when it comes to the casserole part. Mostly because most of the recipes I find call for something I don't have when I want it. The easiest recipe I've found calls for cream of mushroom soup, which is something I don't like so I don't keep on hand, but now I can't eat, so it's fine that I've already found my way around that. Last time, I just cleaned out my fridge into the casserole, mixing the last of the sour cream with the last of the milk with some chicken bouillon  to make a cream of chicken like soup. And it actually tasted great. Hubby liked it way better than the version he usually made. The recipe also calls for breadcrumbs and parmesan for the topping, but parmesan has always been on our no-no list (it makes him throw up) and breadcrumbs are a given... This time I wrote down how much of what I used, so next time I make it, I'll have a yummy recipe for you guys!

Day 23: Rice Cakes are not Styrofoam

There was a swap meet in town today, so Honey and I went to that. He has a motorcycle which he obviously hasn't ridden in months, considering it dumped most of a foot of snow today. But, you know, what would bikers do without mid-winter meet-ups and early spring sales? We bought a motorcycle helmet for me. I don't know when I'll ever ride, but now we have one that I like and fits. He also bought a riding jacket for himself.

We did a spurt of grocery shopping, and bought some Rice Minis. Last time I had some, Hubby only got to try the plain ones, and he determined they are Styrofoam.  Taste, texture, flavour, crunch; I guess if it quacks like a duck... This time I bought flavoured ones and made him try the caramel chocolate one, and he actually liked it. But mostly he just thinks I eat yucky food.

Then I went jean shopping with my mother. She used to hate jean shopping with me, but now that she's not footing the bill, and it's not her problem if I don't find any I like, and I'm much less dramatic, it's not so bad. I used to be a very melodramatic teenager. I mentioned this, and she says I've been high-maintenance since the day I was born. So there you go. Some of us are just always a lot of work. (:

I accidentally napped after I got home. Woke up almost three hours later disoriented and grumpy and tired. I should never nap, ever. Of course by the time I woke up, hubby wasn't hungry because he'd been munching the flax and oat granola bars all day...

So I made some pasta, and pureed some chickpeas and mixed them with some pasta sauce for dinner for one. I mixed one cup of chickpeas with 1/3 cup of water, and blended until it was a paste, and then mixed that with a jar of No Name pasta sauce (pretty standard sized pasta sauce jar), and added some spices. I used what I needed and then stored the rest for our next pasta dish. I'm definitely adding ground beef though, because the chickpeas didn't totally blend and have little chunks. It would be fine in a meat sauce, not so fine in a smooth tomato sauce.

And then I went to a movie with Banana! We saw Oz the Great and Powerful. Let me just say, it was amazing. I loved it so much. I would watch it again and again and again. Really amazing. Now, before you rush out and go see it, let me say that you maybe shouldn't trust my movie taste. I tell my friends I loved movies that it turns out they hated. I don't dislike very many movies (except ones like Hangover, Hot Tub Time Machine, The Watch that whole genre....). I've never walked out of the theatre on a movie, even if I disliked it, and a lot of controversial movies that people watch to dislike, I love. So... Don't take my word for it, but I loved it!

Day 21: Babysitting

Okay, so here's something I never thought this whole gluten crap would effect. Babysitting.

Haha. I know, I sound like I'm a preteen girl. But really, I've been babysitting since grade eleven in highschool. When I only had a part-time job, I was sometimes babysitting 4-5 times a week. Mostly for the same family, but I have sat on lots of other children. I haven't managed any children alone at their house since December, so I kind of forgot about it all, except for my once-regular family. I'm still hoping to steal them from their daycare one of these Saturdays.

Anyways, I got a call tonight just after work from a family I've met briefly, but I knew they had my number to call for sitting. They asked if I could watch their kids (who I haven't really met) tonight. Since dinner was almost done, I said yes! Ah, the spontaneous life.

So yesterday, I stuck a pound of raw ground beef in the crock pot all day to make something for dinner, but my husband remembered he had a concert to go to, so he took off before I even got home for work. So at lunch today, I took that pound of ground beef, and threw it back in the crock pot with half a can of pasta sauce, a can of tomato paste, enough water to make it soupy, and a cup of pureed chickpeas (I got brave) and a bunch of spice. Left it on low all day, and the house smelled amazing when I got home. Since hubby gets home before me, he started a pot of water boiling for pasta, and I just had to throw some rice spaghetti in. Let me tell you this, I do not like that rice spaghetti. It was the first gluten-free pasta I'd had at home, and now I've had all of two. But people also keep telling me that pasta is the best GF thing. And this pasta, is not. No way. It's mushy and tough and foams and is weird. The vegetable pasta I have doesn't do any of that. It cooks and tastes exactly like pasta. So now I know which kind I am not buying again... So I added the yucky pasta to the simmering sauce, and it was less than fantastic. The beef had been cooked to the point that it was powdery. I tried to blame it on the chickpeas, but they were not at fault here. The beef was powdery. I guess the crock pot was too warm, or next time I just add the beef right before dinner. Hmm.

So that was dinner. Didn't take long, and then I ran out the door to go take care of two toddlers who had never met me so their parents could go car shopping in the bigger city.

They're asleep now, I'm actually writing this at their house. They were the best kids. The younger one met me, and asked me to pick her up. She curled up in my lap, and poked my nose. Just super friendly, super well-behaved children. I watched a movie with them, read them a few books, gave them a snack, and shipped them off to bed. Then I watched Sleepless in Seattle. And then five minutes before it ended, their mom called to say they'd be home in about an hour.

Of course, I was hungry. I'm always hungry lately. I often munch at babysitting houses, on cereals or fruit or whatever the kids usually snack on, so I know I'm not ruining meal plans. So I looked, and they have Timbits... Mmmmm... and Cheerios. Which would have been perfect, and my favorite brand of bread, and then I had to leave the kitchen. It's easy for me to eat at home because everything I can see, I can eat, but munching at other people's houses is far from safe.

So now I'm hungry, and yet again chastising myself for not carrying snacks everywhere I go. Blurgh.

Lessons learned today: Don't over crock-pot beef, and pack snacks and stop just saying you're going to!

Day Five: Rice Spaghetti

Okay, so today had two big hurdles for me:

A) Cook dinner. I've pretty well copped out so far, eating out two nights, getting my husband to cook tacos the next, and eating crackers last night. Tonight, I was determined to make something specifically gluten-free.

B) Bake something. I had kind of figured I would just avoid that whole baking department for awhile, despite the fact that I have always loved baking, but it's just easier that way. Until I remembered there's a potluck at work tomorrow, and (sigh) I signed up to bring a dessert.

So, I tackled dinner first. My other half had to get some blood tests done today that required fasting all day, so he was ravenous at 4 when they finally sucked out some of his blood. That meant he raced to a drive-through, and had already eaten by the time I got home. Ah well, I told him, I was making pasta anyways, and right away too, because I had to bake before bed.

So I pulled out the package of rice spaghetti we bought, and studied the instructions. I was worried it would all be different, but it's really quite the same. Started a pot of water boiling, and heated up a pan for ground beef. At least I can still eat meat and tomato sauce.

The odd foam on the rice pasta

My usual simultaneous cooking of pasta and meat sauce began, and all was normal until halfway through the pasta cook time. The pot had a fondness of boiling over, so I had to stir more than usual, and then an unusual foam built up. The hubs said that's normal for rice, it happens with normal rice if you don't rinse it, it was just weird.

Also, when I drained the pasta, a thick white liquid coated the bottom of my sink. I guess it's just the rice, and it wasn't off-putting as much as unusual. The kind of thing longtime gluten-free people don't tell you, because they're just so used to it.

The finished product was okay though. It looked a little whiter than normal pasta, and it was a little more al dente than I usually cook it, but other than that, once it was smothered it my meat sauce, it tasted just fine. My husband didn't eat much, but he blamed that on having already eaten. He insisted it tasted fine. Oh, and my dog quite liked it.

Rice Spaghetti With Tomato and Beef Sauce

Piper enjoying gluten-free pasta

The very next hurdle was baking. When I signed up for this potluck, I actually selected a specific dish, being of course unaware at the time that I would need to be gluten-free. So I pulled open that cookbook and checked the ingredients. The only possible offending ingredient was oats, so I ran out and bought gluten-free oats, and the butterscotch chips I needed.

It's really a simple recipe, and I didn't have to substitute anything, and I won't have to call it "gluten-free anything" tomorrow. It's just simple. So actually, this wasn't that big of a hurdle.

I'm going to have to tackle brownies or cookies soon, because I do have gluten-free flour, and the sooner I get over using it, the easier this will all be.