MUFFINS and pancakes

One of the side-effects that I have noticed about making the transition to gluten-free meals is that Mr. A gets hungry very quickly.  There are so many fruits and veggies that he doesn't have much substance without the bread he is used to.  So, we have supplemented with gluten-free "blender" muffins.  We use the same batter for dense pancakes and waffles.

.Don't these look delicious?  I added chocolate chips and dried cranberries.  Mr. A loves these and will have one for breakfast with some yogurt.

The recipe:

In a blender combine:

2 cups quick oats

2 ripe bananas

2 eggs

1 cup plain or flavored yogurt (we use Greek yogurt)

1 1/2 tsp. baking powder

1/2 tsp. baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

1 tsp. vanilla

Blend until smooth.  Sometimes this is 5 minutes.  Add in chocolate chips, cranberries, blueberries, or whatever else your family likes.  Line muffin tins with cupcake wrappers.  Fill 2/3 full.  

Bake at 350 degrees for 12 minutes or until completely solid.  

They are so tasty.  Enjoy!!

Snacks

Someone asked me to post what we use for snacks for Mr. A.  Here goes.

We don't snack much, but when he is at the sitter's, he needs something to eat and share with his friend.

• Chocolate chips
• Marshmallows
• Clementine oranges (they are easy for him to peel)
• dried fruit (he prefers cranberries, blueberries, and apples)
• yogurt-covered raisins
• corn tortilla chips or corn chips (Fritos)
• apples and peanut butter
• Gluten free hot chocolate puppy chow.  Sounds gross, but it is so delicious...find the recipe HERE.
• 

• Veggie Straws (we found these at Walmart and like the ranch flavor)
• Veggie chips (BBQ and Sour cream flavors are delicious.  My picky Mr. A likes them very much)
• 

• Rice pudding
• Jello
• Gluten free muffins
• Protein shakes (it is hard to find a gluten-free option, but we like EAS or the vegan Shakeology)
• Any fresh fruit or veggies.  :)

More lunches and dinners

I spent a few days out of town, so I cooked and packed three lunches and dinners and breakfasts for Mr. A.  Luckily, he liked them and the sitter was so diligent in making sure he was following his new food plan.  Here are some things that he was able to eat while I was away.

Meatballs and rice, carrots with ranch seasoning, yogurt and an orange.

These meatballs are homemade and made with gluten-free breadcrumbs.  We added ketchup and a small amount of grape jelly to make a sweet and sour sauce.  

Little Smokies with the same sweet and sour sauce as the meatballs above... BBQ veggie chips (gluten free Pringles-like chips - found at Walmart and reasonably priced), dried cranberries, individual cheese.

Gluten free chocolate mini-muffins (recipe on the next post), mini-grapefruit, gogurt, and dried blueberries.

For dinners, I packed: (sorry no pictures, but there are recipe links)

1. Gluten free mac and cheese and broccoli

(Great  Value brand is actually very good and Mr. A likes it very much)

2. Taco meat with sour cream and cheese - Corn chips on the top.  Green beans.

The recipe we use is HERE.

We had to really look at the taco seasonings now since some of them contain gluten.  Who knew??!

Zucchini Lasagna leftovers (slow cooker recipe HERE).  The only change we made is drained cottage cheese instead of ricotta.  It is very very good.

Pizza luncheables

Sorry for the dark picture.  Shadows everywhere.

Tomorrow's lunch is mini-pepperonis, small amount of cheese, rice crackers, carrots and a rapidly-getting-soft-enough-for-banana-bread....  Banana.

We have had a couple of days of doctor appointments so we have eaten out a bit this week.  Tonight we went to Red Robin and Mr. A was able to eat fries and mandarin oranges.  He enjoyed it very much.

For breakfast, I found a great recipe for oatmeal banana muffins that turned out GREAT!  Mr. A loved them very much!    This is the picture from the recipe website, but they really did turn out looking like this!!

The recipe is HERE.

Fried Rice

Lunch for tomorrow for Mr. A is leftover veggie fried rice, a mandarin orange, cheddar cheese and a banana.  

Mr. A is pretty excited that we can have some Chinese food.  We had a small dinner before a church party at a local restaurant.

We are getting used to asking about the ingredients at restaurants.  Do they put flour instead of cornstarch to thicken things?  Do they use certain types of soy sauce?  It is amazing how much gluten is in everything, but since he does not have an allergy to it, we don't worry as much about "certified" gluten free, just that they don't use gluten in their cooking.  

We were really happy about veggie friend rice and Mr. A's favorite...

Egg drop soup

Seahawks!

This is his lunch for tomorrow.  Turkey and cheese rolls, fruit salad (homemade with oranges, apples, and yogurt), pea chips (again) and blue, green and yellow corn chips to celebrate the Seahawks win over Minnesota!!!

Dinner tonight was chicken vegetable soup with Parmesan cheese on top.  Mr. A ate it really well which was a shocker.  We had the fruit salad for dessert.

Gluten free pizza

First thing we wanted to figure out is how Mr. A is going to have pizza.  That is just plain the most urgent thing in his world.  We are lucky enough to have Mod Pizza nearby and they have the most amazing gluten-free crust which is even better than their regular crust.  He loved it.

That's what we had for dinner and then we packed up our lunch for the next day.

So, Mr. A had GF cheese pizza, dried cranberries, pea chips, and a banana.  (He gets milk at school)
He didn't even try the pea chips.  Go figure.  He is so picky, but we will keep trying.