Monday, September 30, 2013

Cornbread

I love cornbread but I've never actually made it besides from a box ...I know...


Hopefully you get over the horror of my admission. This time, since we were having guests, I decided I wanted to make them from scratch. Which made me think of this: 


But, whatever, this is me and this is how I roll (when I'm not being lazy).

It took me awhile to find a recipe that didn't require me to make a hole in the dough (seriously, that's a direction and, remember, I am lazy). I finally found this one that was simple to follow.

The coloring of the cornbread was less yellow than I'm used to seeing but they tasted just fine. They were also very dense so don't try to bite off more than you chew (sorry).

Cornbread

1 cup flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
4 teaspoons baking powder
1 cup cornmeal
1 beaten egg
1/3 cup canola oil
1/3 cup sugar
1 1/4 cup 2% milk

Preheat oven to 425.

Beat egg and set aside. In a medium bowl, mix together flour, salt, baking powder and cornmeal. In a large bowl mix oil and sugar. Add egg and milk. Add dry ingredients and stir only enough to combine. Fill a greased and floured 8 x 8 pan and bake for 30 minutes. Let sit in pan for 5 minutes before cutting.





Monday, September 23, 2013

Mango Strawberry Smoothie


I know the weather is getting cooler and fruit is starting to be out of season, but it is still warm enough for a nice cool drink. Plus, regardless of the weather, everyone needs plenty of fruits and vegetable in their diet. My Tuesdays are a little rushed so I like to prepare my fruit the night before so I can quickly throw them into the blender between my run and rushing off to my Special Olympics coaching duties.

I did have a thought that my naming conventions for my smoothies were not very inventive being just the names of the fruits involved. I'm thinking I need to go back and name them all, this one too, a little more creatively. I think it would be fun, but I also like the fact that when you do see the name now, you know what's actually in your smoothie. The more creative names are great, but they don't really tell you what in them and I don't like surprises. So I don't know. I'm open to others' thoughts on the matter.

Mango Strawberry Smoothie

1 mango, cut
1 cup strawberries, quartered
1 1/4 cup white grape juice

Wash and cut fruit. Place in blender with juice. Blend until desired texture.






Monday, September 16, 2013

Gluten-Free Chocolate Chip Cookies

I have a quite a few friends who have to eat gluten-free and I always feel badly when I'm all like, "look at these delicious treats that I made that you can't eat or else you will be in an immense amount of pain." Yeah, not cool, not cool at all.

I knew that finding gluten-free recipes was becoming easier, but I did have some trouble finding ones that were for high altitude. I was pretty excited when I somehow stumbled upon this page and even more excited when I realized that the blogger had a cookbook out as well. Obvi, I immediately ordered it. The book has some great ideas, but I did tweak this recipe a bit since I prefer more salt and the batter was really dry. Also, the directions were a little confusing/unclear. But it got the important things right so I was satisfied.

I was more nervous than usual making these since I've never made any gluten-free desserts before and had no idea how they would turn out. I always think of gluten-free as being pretty terrible and I certainly did not want to force my friends to eat something terrible and then have to pretend that it wasn't terrible. I was also nervous cause I was petrified that even though I was following the recipe that I would somehow screw it up and put gluten into it and then my friends would be sick. But, thankfully, neither of these things occurred.

I suspected that everything was going to be okay when I tasted a bit of the batter and realized that it tasted exactly the same as regular Chocolate Chip Cookies. I knew that everything was going to be okay when they got out of the oven and my husband asked to taste test them and then proceeded to eat them and I had to tell him to stop because I was afraid there wouldn't be any left for the people they were intended. And further proof that they were a hit? I was told that they were better than the ones my friends had gotten from a bakery.

Gluten-Free Chocolate Chip Cookies

1 1/2 cups white rice flour
3/4 cup cornstarch
1/2 teaspoon xanthan gum
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup butter
2/3 cup sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups chocolate chips
2 tablespoons water

Preheat oven to 375.

In a medium bowl, combine flour, cornstarch, xanthan gum, baking soda and salt. In a large bowl, cream sugars and butter. Add egg and vanilla and beat until smooth. Add flour mixture slowly and thoroughly, a little at a time. Stir in chocolate chips and water. Drop cookies, about an inch around, onto an ungreased cookie sheet about an inch apart. Bake for 10-12 minutes. Remove cookies from the cookie sheet immediately and place on a cooling rack or wax paper


Monday, September 9, 2013

Caesar Chicken

I mentioned before how one of my favorite ways to prepare chicken is to marinate it in dressing. This recipe is probably one of the easiest and it one of my absolute favorites. The chicken and Caesar dressing really compliment each other and the cheese on top just adds a little bit of awesome.

No, this post was NOT sponsored by Kraft
 

Caesar Chicken

2 chicken breasts
1/4 cup Caesar dressing
2 tablespoons Parmesan cheese

Cut fat off of the chicken. Place in a large zip locking bag with dressing. Shake until chicken is completely covered with dressing. Let sit in fridge for 30-45 minutes (or longer).

Preheat oven to 350.

Place chicken in a glass dish. Top with desired amount of Parmesan cheese. Place in oven and cook for 20-40 minutes, depending on the size of the chicken.