What's for Dinner?: Gluten-Free Veggie Quiche

Well, I've been teasing about this recipe for over a week now, so I suppose I should go ahead and just post it already. :-) I used to love Quiche Lorraine, and my mom made a very tasty one. Since my gluten-free days, I've tried quiche with no crust, quiche with a cheese crust (line pie plate with Muenster cheese -- SO GOOD, but SO FATTY!), and now -- quiche with a lentil crust! I think it could still use some tinkering, but I'll post what I did and see if anyone else has any breakthroughs. I made this two times, and I used a variety of veggies in the quiche. Anything in your frig will work, so it's a good leftover/clean-out-the-veggie-drawer kind of meal. Without further adieu...

Gluten-Free Veggie Quiche

3/4 c. lentils, cooked
1/2 c. mozzarella or cheddar cheese, shredded (I didn't measure this, so more or less or taste)
veggies of your choice (cherry tomatoes, scallions, carrots, spinach, garlic)
6 eggs, beaten (I used 3 whole eggs and 3 egg whites -- you may need more depending on how big your pie plate is.)
salt-free herb seasonings, salt & pepper to taste

Spray Pam on your pie plate. Layer in order: lentils, cheese, veggies, and eggs (add seasonings when you whip up eggs). Bake for approx. 45 min. at 350 degrees until eggs are set and top is browned.

It's no Quiche Lorraine, but it's WAY healthier. Great for my vegetarian friends, too! If you make this and have any suggestions, please comment -- I'd love feedback.

As a little something extra, here's a recipe for a yummy Vanilla Frappuccino from Hungry Girl (sign up for her daily email -- they're great!). Josh and I tried this when we watched a movie a few nights ago (Deja Vu -- we recommend it if you like a classic action/romance flick!)

HG's Vanillalicious Cafe Freeze

5 oz. light vanilla soymilk or skim milk
3 tsp. Fat Free French Vanilla Coffee-mate powder; dissolved in 1 oz. warm water
2 flat tsp. instant coffee (The original called for 1 tsp., but we liked more coffee flavor!)
1 oz. Torani Sugar-Free Vanilla Syrup
3 packets Splenda (We used a little stevia instead.)
1 cup ice; crushed
2 tbsp. Fat Free Reddi-whip

Place everything in the blender (except the Reddi-whip). Blend on high until all the ice chips are incorporated. Pour into a glass and top with whipped topping. So tasty (and only 2 points if you're counting!).

Enjoy!

What's for Dinner?: Pizza

I love reading foodie blogs (like Gluten-Free Girl and so many others...), and while my food photography pretty much stinks (I blame my camera!), it's still fun to share some of the things that are gracing our table here in the Hesse house.

We made this a few weeks ago, and I'm just getting around to posting it. My disclaimer is that this is not necessarily a recipe -- the amounts are approximate, and in certain spots, it's up for improvements! Let's call this...

Gluten-Free BBQ Goat Cheese Pizza

1 pizza crust ( I used the Gluten-Free Pantry's bread/pizza mix.)
2 chicken breasts
1/4 c. BBQ sauce of your choice (just enough to coat the chicken)
small container ricotta cheese
3 medium onions, thinly sliced
balsamic vinegar
small container goat cheese (2-3 oz.?)

1.) Prepare your crust and spread a thin layer of ricotta cheese. One thing we would improve next time is to add more BBQ flavor. You could do this by adding some BBQ sauce to the crust or swapping out the ricotta cheese and using only BBQ sauce.
2.) Cut onion slices in half and saute over low heat until soft and tasty. Add balsamic vinegar as they cook. This takes a LONG time to cook them without browning them.
3.) Coat the chicken in BBQ sauce and grill (it's okay to be a smidge undercooked since it will finish cooking in the oven).
4.) Add the chicken and cooked onions to your pizza. Then top everything with small dots of goat cheese.

Bake in the oven at 375 degrees or so until the crust is baked and the toppings are heated through. Enjoy!

Let me know if you try it! I'm working to perfect a Veggie Quiche recipe I made up this week. My second try tonight went much better than the first! I'll post that next week.

Wishing you tasty, nutritious meals!

P.S. I have to add that I am mostly just the secretary for this recipe -- Josh was the inspiration behind these flavors. I'm married to a culinary genius! :-)

What's for Dinner?: Mac 'N Cheese

When I was growing up, my mom's homemade macaroni and cheese was very close to the top on my list of favorite meals. Mom rotated it through on a semi-regular basis, but I also requested it for birthday dinners and other special occasions. Like most other families in the 80s, regular 'ole Kraft macaroni and cheese was also in our pantry, but it doesn't hold a candle to Mom's mac 'n cheese. A mix of creamy, melty, and stringy cheese perfectly melted in a white sauce and topped with a brown, crusty top = pure cheesy perfection.

I've carried the tradition on into my own family, only now I make it with gluten-free pasta and gluten-free flour. It's my go-to meal for comfort food, celebration food, and even hospitality food -- I often make this when I provide meals for new moms at our church. Nothing says "happy baby, don't start your diet yet" like homemade mac 'n cheese. :-) Most people feel very pampered when I tell them what I'm bringing, and that makes me happy!

Fast forward to last week. My husband is into culinary creativity, and he's always coming up with tasty combinations and delicious sauces. He's been wanting to try roasting peppers, and when I mentioned I wanted to make some macaroni and cheese, he suggested we try adding roasted peppers to the tried and true recipe. Wow! I'm so glad we did! I love the old recipe, and I'm sure we'll make it plain again...but those peppers took this old mac 'n cheese to a whole new level!

Here's the recipe, adapted from an old Betty Crocker cookbook (they don't even print it anymore!)...

GF Old-Fashioned Mac 'N Cheese
3 cups gluten-free pasta
1/2 c. chopped onions (Saute these separately if you don't want a crunch in your dish.)
3 c. cheese (1 each of mozzarella, cheddar, and velveeta)
3 cups thin white sauce (see below)

White Sauce
3 T. butter
3 T. gluten-free flour
3/4 tsp. salt
3/8 tsp. pepper
3 c. milk

Melt butter in saucepan, and then stir in flour, salt, and pepper. Keep cooking over medium heat and stir constantly until it's smooth and bubbly. Gradually stir in milk. Heat to boiling, stirring constantly. Boil for one minute and continue stirring. If you like your mac 'n cheese really thick, increase the butter and flour proportionally, not going above 6 tablespoons of each.


Spray non-stick spray in 2-quart casserole. Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Cook pasta to al dente or less (it will cook a little more in the oven). Make two layers of 1.) pasta, 2.) onions, 3.) cheese (mix all three on each layer), and 4.) sauce.

Bake for a 1/2 hour covered and then another 15 minutes uncovered (or broil for a few minutes) until the top browns. If you want to go full fat, add little pats of butter to the top to help it brown.

Now for the roasted peppers ... we used our gas grill and placed the peppers on the grates until the skins were all charred. After the peppers are charred, place them in a ziploc bag to let the skins soften. Then just peel the skins off, and underneath will be tasty, sweet, roasted peppers! We did a rough chop and added them right into the mac 'n cheese.

I highly recommend trying this recipe on the next rainy spring day. You won't be disappointed!

Comfort Food, Comfort Friends

Hugs, smiles, laughter, reminiscing, and making new memories...Thursday was one of the best days I've had in a while. We had so much fun with Luke & Luci (Congdon) Perry, and we also got to enjoy Jeremy & Kenya Whaley's company for dinner at our house. Jeremy & Luci were some of our best friends at Cedarville, and we haven't all been together since Josh and I got married in May 2001. It's been WAY too long! But now that Luke and Luci are both Southwest employees, they occasionally get long layovers in Nashville and even get to travel standby for free for as long as they're employees. Pretty awesome, right?

Josh, Delaney, and I (Kaden stayed with our neighbor for the afternoon) picked up Luke & Luci at their hotel near the airport. We then headed down to Cool Springs to visit Laurie and Petite Boutique. [The pic above is L-R: Laurie, Me w/ Laney, and Luci.] Laurie had fun dressing Luci up in just about every outfit in the store, and Luci had fun being a model. ;-) She even picked out a few things for the road! Delaney was surprisingly sunny and pleasant. Not that she's not sunny and pleasant normally, but I figured she'd get bored without toys. But I think she's already aligning herself with her gender...she was happy as a lark while we were shopping! (Get a grip on your wallet, daddy!) I guess she figured that being 5-foot-4 or under qualifies her to shop at Petite Boutique. :-) She loved admiring herself in the big mirror Laurie has outside the dressing rooms, too.

So after the shopping adventure (the guys went to get a snack while we shopped), we headed back to our house for dinner. Since Kenya is a vegetarian, I wanted to make something that she could eat, and I recently watched a Food Network show called Everyday Italian that had some tasty-looking vegetarian dishes: Baked Penne with Roasted Vegetables and Veronica's Veggie Meatloaf with Checca Sauce. In the words of Rachael Ray, YUM-O!

I am very new to this whole food photography thing, and so far, I stink. Josh said, "Hmmm...that dish tasted a lot better than it looks in your photo." But nevertheless, I had to include it here just to practice. :-)

I made the veggie loaf completely vegetarian, but I decided to add some chicken to the baked penne for the rest of us meateaters. I also made this dish gluten-free by using GF pasta.

Gluten-Free Baked Penne

1 package of boneless/skinless chicken breasts or tenders
Olive oil/PAM spray/Broth -- whatever you want to cook the chicken in
2 red peppers, cored and cut into 1-inch wide strips
2 zucchini, quartered lengthwise and cut into 1-inch cubes
2 summer squash, quartered lengthwise and cut into 1-inch cubes
6-8 white mushrooms, quartered
1 yellow onion, peeled and sliced into 1-inch strips
PAM spray
1 teaspoon salt, divided
1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper, divided
1 tablespoon dried Italian herb mix
1 pound Gluten-Free penne pasta
3 cups marinara sauce
1 cup cubed fontina cheese
1/2 cup cubed mozzarella cheese
1 1/2 cups frozen peas, thawed
1/4 cup grated Parmesan, plus 1/3 cup for topping
1-2 tablespoons butter, cut into small pieces

Preheat the oven to 450 degrees F. Place your rainbow of veggies on a cookie sheet with 1/2 tsp. salt, 1/2 tsp. pepper, and the Italian herbs. Spray the top with PAM and lightly toss together. Roast in the oven for about 15 minutes until tender.

While the veggies are roasting, bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. In a separate saucepan, cook the chicken for a few minutes on each side. When it's almost cooked through, cut the tenders into bite-sized pieces. Set aside.

When the water boils, add your pasta and cook for about 6 minutes. [You want the pasta to be undercooked so that it doesn't get soggy in the oven when you cook it a second time.] Drain the pasta.

Combine the pasta, veggies, marinara sauce, cheeses, peas, 1/2 tsp. salt, and 1/2 tsp. pepper in a big bowl. Stir gently until all of the ingredients are incorporated and the pasta is coated with sauce.

Pour this mixture into your favorite baking dish, approximately 9x13 in size. Top the pasta and veggies with the remaining 1/3 c. Parmesan cheese, and dot the top with a bit of butter (or skip this if you're cutting back on fat, like me!) Bake until golden-topped and heated through, approximately 25 minutes. Enjoy!

I don't have a picture of the Veggie-Loaf, but I highly recommend it as well. A couple of comments...I did not make the checca sauce from scratch. I used about a cup of Basil/Oregano canned tomatoes, and it came out great. The fresh basil really stands out in this dish, so if you love basil, you will go nuts for this veggie-loaf. In fact, I would rename this dish "Basil-icious Veggie-Loaf"! Oh, and it's naturally gluten-free (watch your broth, but it's easy to find a gluten-free stock at the market). Give it a try--everyone here gave it 2 thumbs up!

To our dinner party guests: Luke, Luci, Jeremy, and Kenya -- it was a blast. Let's get together again soon. :-) Seeing old friends and sharing life together in a totally new phase is a pretty amazing blessing.

Gluten-Free Chic

Anyone watch "The View" on TV? Well, last week on Friday, one of the hosts, Elizabeth Hasselbeck, announced that she has celiac disease, just like me!

Here's a link to another blog that talks about the segment: Gluten-Free NYC.

It's nice to hear of celebrities who have celiac -- people who can speak out and bring more attention to the disease. More attention, more research...maybe someday a cure?! I don't spend my days pining after bread, but every once in a while I wish I could just go back to being "normal." Anyway, just wondering if anyone saw the show and thought of me!

Now, if only that size 2 figure of Elizabeth's went along with the celiac package. :-)