Gluten Free Chocolate Coconut Bread

I have now been gluten free and sugar free for 16 months. It has been a long, hard process. I have taken great insight from the various blogs and recipe books I have found, however, I felt almost fearful of trying any of these fabulous things! I think mainly I felt afraid due to the unfamiliar ingredients and a new way of cooking. I have grown tired of the same meals and have begun to venture out a bit. I have made several things lately but for whatever reason found that I really prefer to make a recipe fit more my taste and fast-paced life. I do not like having to use a lot of ingredients or reading so many steps in a recipe.

This week I found a fabulous Paleo Coconut Bread that I made. Of course, I had to tweak it a bit to fit my needs. I did not use the honey in the recipe and added another flour instead of all coconut. But the bread came out very tasty and moist. Today I thought I would experiment further and the Chocolate Coconut Bread is the result.

As I continue on this journey it is evident that I need to branch out and step out of my comfort zone!

Enjoy!

Gluten Free Chocolate Coconut Bread

6 eggs
15 drops of Stevia
1 tsp of baking powder
1 tablespoon of unsweetened cocoa
1 cup of freshly ground coconut (carefully use a food processor or coffee grinder to pulverize your flaked coconut…it only took a couple of pulses and it was more like a flour)
2 cups of Almond Meal Flour
1 tsp vanilla

Whip the eggs, Stevia, and vanilla. Add the baking powder and cocoa to the coconut and almond meal flour. I mixed together with a fork to make sure there were no lumps. The coconut will have a texture and that is okay. Add your wet ingredients to the dry and mix together. The batter will begin to get thick. I used a glass bread pan but you can also use a metal pan. Grease the pan with Coconut Oil or use parchment paper. I used Coconut Oil.   

Bake for 45 minutes at 300 or until a knife comes clean from middle of bread

This is not very sweet. I think next time I may add five more drops of Stevia but I love the taste.

I served a slice with Almond Butter but you could also use Peanut Butter

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Crockpot Mexican Casserole

Crockpot Mexican Casserole
1 lb Hamburger
1 Onion, chopped
1 4 1/2 oz Can chopped chilies
1 can Mild enchilada sauce
10 1/2 oz Golden mushroom soup
10 1/2 oz Cheddar cheese soup
10 1/2 oz Cream of mushroom soup
10 1/2 oz Cream of celery soup
1 package Doritos chips

Brown hamburger and chopped onion, pour off grease. Put all ingredients in crock-pot except Doritos chips. Mix and cook low 4 to 6 hours. Last 15 minutes before you are ready to eat, add Doritos chips and stir! YUMMY!! I double this for my crew.

Trying something new

Update: the boys LOVED the new chocolate syrup. It is thick, rich, and oh so yummy! My husband tried some in soy milk and it was very good. I am still not sure about the savings yet. I am going to see how long this lasts.



Tonight, I tried out a recipe from Amy Dacyczyn's book, "The Tightwad Gazette". Our teenage sons have been going through a certain chocolate syrup like gangbusters. I am all about saving money but tonight I am not sure if this recipe will be a money saver or not. The jury is still out until further evaluation. Anyhoo here is the recipe:

1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa
1 cup tap water
2 cups sugar
1/8 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
In a 2 quart saucepan mix the cocoa and water with a wire whisk. Heat the chocolate water over medium heat, stirring occasionally. Add the sugar and continue to stir until the sugar dissolves. Bring the mixture to a full rolling boil. Reduce the heat to medium low and boil for a full 3 minutes. DO NOT LET IT OVERFLOW! Remove the syrup from the heat.

Add the salt and vanilla, stirring to blend. Pour the syrup into a clean pint sized canning jar, or a clean container. Put a good lid on the jar and store it in the fridge.

I cleaned and used our empty 42 oz plastic container of the 'other' chocolate syrup. Plus I also tripled the recipe since I know how much my boys seem to go through this stuff after football practice.

I had all the items on hand and it was fairly easy to do. However, next time I intend to do several things different. The first is to use a bigger pot! Oh my goodness it about overflowed everywhere and it is HOT! Also I am going to use less sugar and may even decrease the amount of cocoa. It tastes just like the other syrup and it has a great consistency but I am concerned with the amount of sugar. However I love the fact that I used more vanilla and plus the brand I use is from Mexico which is DIVINE!

I am still not convinced that this will be a moneysaver for our family. I am going to price the sugar and cocoa next time I am at the grocery store. Since I buy these things only a time or two a year and in bulk I am not in touch with the current cost of these two items.

This fall I am going to try to find ways to cut back and cook more from scratch. This time of year we are racing from football games and such and the tendency is to eat out.....I do not want to do that this fall! I have a few more ideas that I will be posting later this week that I am going to try out.

I will also post whether my boys noticed a difference or not in their nightly glass of chocolate milk!

MPM 3-3-08

Last week I tried a new recipe for skillet lasagna. Actually when I got home from work my sixteen year old son had it all put together and all I had to do was serve it up once it was cooked. He has told me that if I give him a menu he will help me out on the days that he is not at practice. He loves to cook and would love to be a chef one day. Of course this is after his illustrious NBA career and being a FBI agent. He loves to cook and is good at it so I am going take him up on the offer!

This week we are having:

Monday: Oven fried chicken legs, mashed potatoes, green beans, salad (We are taking chicken legs and after giving them a good rinse and removing the skin we are going to pat them dry. Dip in an egg wash and then roll in a mixture of plain bread crumbs, a little flour, parmesean cheese, and Italian seasonings. Spray the cookie sheet with a little cooking spray and baked until nice and golden brown. My son and I have kinda made this up and we are not sure of times yet. I will post an update.

Tuesday: Santa Fe Chicken Soup and cornbread (it is a new crock pot recipe I am going to try out. I will post it next week if it is good.)

Wednesday: Eat at church

Thursday: Turkey Meatball Sandwiches and whole grain chips

Friday: Pizza Night

Saturday: Tortilla Soup and Quesadillas

Sunday: Crockpot Lasagna, salad, and broccoli

Tune in next week. I am going to post my smoothie recipe that I make at least twice a day and have since April. One day this week I am going to try and take pictures of the process. Stay tuned!

For more great menu ideas head over to Laura's blog at Orgjunkie.com.

Frugal Fridays 2-29-08

One of the things that I encorporated several years ago that saves my family money and calories is I stopped buying processed snack foods. These foods are usually full of unwanted chemicals and filled with fat and sugar. About the only thing that we buy are whole grain granola bars and/or protein bars and I am testing out a recipe for the protein bars this weekend. I will let you know how they turn out.

However, something that I like to make ahead of time and keep in the freezer in small snack size bags are my own brownie bites.

Several times a year boxed brownies and cake mixes are on sale in the local grocer. Combined with coupons you can realistically get a box of brownie mix for pennies on the dollar and yes, sometimes even free!

This is what I do with a humble box of brownie mix. I add applesauce to the mix instead of the oil it calls for and sometimes I also add water instead of the egg. I mix well and then I add crushed nuts, sometimes a few mini chocolate chips, marshmellows, etc. I have several large pans that are the mini muffin pans. I spray them with a cooking spray and then fill them up. I bake according to directions on the box and then take them out to cool on wire racks. Once cool I bag them three or four mini brownie bites to a small snack size bag. I then place these bags inside of a large 2 gallon freezer bag and place in our freezer. When the kids are making their lunches they can grab one of these bags and place it in their lunch sack. It helps keep their lunches cool and the brownie bites defrost in time for lunch. Sometimes they like grabbing them out of the freezer and munching away on their frozen sweetness. They are the perfect size and they satisfy their craving for something sweet and chocolate.

You could also use a cake mix and do the same thing. During the fall I took a spice cake mix and instead of adding the items the box suggested I added a can of pumpkin. Mixed it up, threw in some nuts and made small mini muffins and small loaves of this spicy pumpkin cake mix. The kids loved them.

There are lots of things you can do with an inexpensive box of cake mix besides making cake.

For more frugal friday ideas head over to Biblical Womanhood.

WFMW - 2-27-08 The Best Laid Plans

Tuesday night the plan was to have Tostadas. Somehow with all the sickness going around our home the last two weeks, and my inability to function up to par, I totally forgot that I had no tortillas until that magic hour when I arrive home from work and realize I need a 'Plan B' and quick!

Something about growing teenage boys in the home really adds to the stress of getting dinner on the table since they are ALWAYS hungry plus they point out how hard they worked out at practice after school, etc.

I threw something together that we will recreate again! I thought I would share it in blogdom.

I had about a pound and a half of already cooked and seasoned turkey meat in the fridge. I opened my last two cans of pork and beans and put them in a greased 9 x 13 pyrex dish. I added the turkey meat. I threw in probably a 1/4 cup of brown sugar, the last bit in a bottle of barbeque sauce, mustard, a little ketchup, a sprinkle or two of worcheshire sauce then stirred it all up together. I took two cornbread mixes I had in the freezer and quickly opened them up and added a little milk (I never read directions....I love to create) a few dollops of sour cream, a handful of cheddar cheese from the freezer and mixed it up. I spread it out on top of the meat and bean mixture. I then topped it off with a little more cheese. I popped it in a pre-heated oven 400 degrees and set the timer for 20 minutes.

I pulled it out once it was a golden brown on top and actually it was in the oven around 26 minutes. Meanwhile I took a few more dollops of sour cream (probably was around 4 oz) and mixed in our favorite seasoning of the moment, Mrs. Dash Southwest Chipotle seasoning. I mixed it up and once I served the hot dish up everyone who chose to added a little bit of the spiced up sour cream on top.

In the words of my 16 year old son, "This is delish....make this again Mom", our 13 year old daughter, "Oh man this is great...I love this!" and finally our super duper picky 19 year old son, "This is good, will you make it again?" Our 15 year old son missed out because he was at a friends house. It had a great flavor. I wished that I had not ran out of our favorite barbeque sauce but I had enough to give it a little flavor.

It sounds like a weird combination but I had to think fast and put something on the table quick. It is not something I can eat very often because I feel it is not on my healthy eating plan and I am not aware of a healthy cornbread. I wanted to take a picture of it when it came out of the oven but the group was circling and they were hungry!

I must say that when I have times like this and I create something out of almost nothing the meals are always the best. I am not some great, fantastic cook. I like to get in and get out. I have learned though to not get so uptight in the kitchen and for the most part, my teenagers are not picky.

So this one goes down in the infamous kitchen notebook to be brought out again very soon!

For more Works for Me Wednesday ideas go to Rocks in My Dryer!

MPM

Since we are having another holiday week my menu plan is going to be much different than say the next week when I will be back at work and the kids back at school.

This is what is on the menu for this week:

Monday - New Years Eve

Family tradition to have snack food or junk food, which I never keep on hand except for special times in our household. Tonight will be Totinos Pizza Rolls. I will be making a big batch of Queso to have with chips. We usually have snack things like crackers, cheeses, sandwiches, and I make cookies or brownies.

Tuesday - New Years Day

Pot of beans in the crock pot and cornbread

Wednesday - Tostadas with refried beans, cheese, lettuce, tomato, salsa, and guacamole

Served with a salad and black bean salsa

Thursday - Quick and Easy homemade Chicken Pot Pie

Several cooked chicken breast or you can use two large cans of chicken breast meat.

2 cans of Veg-all canned veggies, 1 can Cream of Chicken soup; a little thyme (around a 1/4 teaspoon) and pepper to taste. Mix all the ingredients together. Crust: I use the roll out crust or you can use a prepared pie crust. We use two of the roll out crust - one for the top and bottom. Fit one pie crust into 9-inch pie pan; pour vegetable mixture into pie crust. Crimp the edges to seal, and prick top with fork. Bake for 50 to 60 minutes at 375 degrees (on lower rack) or until crust is golden brown and filling is hot. Let the pie to cool slightly before cutting into wedges to serve.

Since we have six people in our family, with three being young men, we always make two of these pies. I just double the recipe. I may try using a Rotisserie chicken this time and see how that turns out. My 11 year old nephew made one by himself a couple of days before Christmas. He did an excellent job and I wished I would have taken a picture of it. It looked like a professional had crimped the crust! My sister was gone to run an errand and he made it to surprise her (with supervision from my brother in law).

Friday - Family night with homemade pizza

Saturday - Turkey Chili

Sunday - Roast Chicken and veggies

For more menu ideas go check out Laura's OrgJunkie.com

Menu Plan Monday for Christmas Week

I decided to go ahead and post my menu since I will indeed be having to plan meals this week. However, I do get off pretty easy since it is Christmas.

Monday - Attending a Christmas Eve Family party after church services. We will be eating there. I only have to bring ice, soft drinks, and chex mix.

Tuesday - Christmas dinner with my family and leftovers for the evening meal. I am not sure what I am to bring as of yet. Probably a dessert in the form of a pie since my sister in law broke her wrist during the last ice storm. She is our resident pie maker in the family.

Wednesday - Quick and Easy Potato Soup and Salad

Thursday - Night out on the town with my daughter (Hubby and the boys are headed to Dallas to attend the Mavericks and Cavaliers game)

Friday - Homemade Pizza night with Salad

Saturday - Quesadillas with chicken, avocado, and onion plus black bean salsa

Sunday - Chicken and veggies in the crockpot.

For more menus, see Laura at Orgjunkie

Menu Plan Monday

This week is crazy busy at work and home. Here is what my plan is for this week:

Monday – Taco Soup
Tuesday – Mexicali Chicken and Brown Rice
Wednesday – eat at church
Thursday – Holiday party (making Broccoli Salad to take to pot luck meal)
Broccoli Salad
I take two big bunches of fresh broccoli and cut off the flowerets and chop some of the tender stems.
I add ½ of a red onion chopped to equal about a ¼ cup
4 celery stalks chopped
Craisins (I add at least a half cup or more, really depends on my mood)
Sunflower Seeds – dry roasted variety. I add at least a ½ cup but only right before serving
4 slices of crisp bacon but I use a jar of the Hormel Real bacon bits.

Dressing for Salad
Low fat Mayo – ¾ cup
Red Wine Vinegar, 3T
Sugar Substitute like Stevia (the original recipe calls for the 1/3 sugar) but we only use a tiny bit of Stevia (2 tablespoon) to give it a little flavor.
Mix all together and pour over salad and mix well
Refrigerate for at least one hour before serving. Add sunflower seeds and serve. It is crunchy, sweet, tart, and very good!!

Friday – Family Pizza Night
Saturday – Holiday Party
Sunday – Roast Chicken and the fixin’s

For more menu plans visit Laura at OrgJunkie for Menu Plan Monday.

Monday - Chili Pasta by request of my children. Since we were having an ice storm yesterday, I made a HUGE pot of my chili. My family loves it when I have leftovers of chili to add it to whole wheat pasta. So today we are having Chili Pasta with lots of great shredded cheese and then a salad to accompany the meal.

Tuesday - Easy Mexican Casserole
2 lbs of ground turkey
1/2 onion, chopped
1 can chili w/beans
1 can Ro-Tel Tomatoes
1 can cream of chicken soup
1 bag taco flavored tortilla chips
8 oz. of Velveeta cheese thinly sliced

Brown turkey with onion in skillet, stirring until it is crumbly; drain. Stir in large bowl the can of chili, Ro-Tel and soup; mix well. Pour meat into the bowl and mix it well. In a 9 x 13 inch baking dish or deep casserole dish, layer tortilla chips, meat mixture and Velveeta cheese, 1/2 at a time. End with last layer being the cheese. Bake at 350 for 20-25 minutes or until cheese is bubbly. 8 servings

Wednesday - Roasted Chicken in the Crockpot with carrots and potatoes, salad

Thursday - Cheesy Potato Soup

Friday - Vickie's Crock Pot Enchiladas
1 lb Hamburger (We use Turkey meat now and I increase the meat to 2 lbs)
1 Onion, chopped
1 4 1/2 oz Can chopped chilies
1 can Mild enchilada sauce
10 1/2 oz Golden mushroom soup
10 1/2 oz Cheddar cheese soup
10 1/2 oz Cream of mushroom soup
10 1/2 oz Cream of celery soup
1 package Doritos chips
Brown hamburger and chopped onion, pour off grease. Put all ingredients in crock-pot except Doritos chips. Mix and cook low 4 to 6 hours. Last 15 minutes before you are ready to eat, add Doritos chips and stir.

Saturday - banquet to attend

Sunday - Out to lunch with friends

Ya'll Boomama is having a Soup-Tacular today! Could not have come at a more perfect time for those of us in Oklahoma since we are expecting a significant ice storm! Since our home sits on a lot that is full of tall, beautiful, towering Oak trees I am a little nervous, especially since one is over 40 feet tall! Okay, on with the soup but if you want to get in on the fun, head on over to Boomama's site and join in!

I have a couple of standbys and a new one that I posted earlier this week. These are large quantities for a large family.

Here you go:

Vickie's Secret Ingredient Award Winning Chili

2-4 pounds of Ground Turkey (we have given up beef for the most part)
Williams Chili Seasoning NO Salt Added - 1 packet
2 cans of Tomato Sauce
1 Can of Black Beans, drained
2-3 cans of Dark Red Kidney Beans, drained
1 can of Tomato Soup
1 onion, chopped
chopped or minced garlic to taste
around a 1/2 cup of Ketchup (I never meaure it I just squirt it in the pan until I like what I see but I imagine it is around a 1/2 cup or so.)

Saute the chopped onions. Brown the meat. Add onions to the meat as well as the garlic and chili seasoning packet.
Add all the canned goods and ketchup. At this point if it needs a little water I add a can or so to the pot. You have to judge by the thickness of the chili.
Turn down the heat and simmer for a while to blend the flavors.

If you want to really turn up the heat add a can of the infamous Rotel Tomatoes. Four in my household are born and bred Texans...from South Texas so the hotter the better for them...for me...not so much!

Serve with shredded cheese, tortilla chips or Fritos, and at our house they love Jalapenos. Sometimes we use crackers but usually we use crushed tortilla chips in the chili.

It would be remiss for me not to mention something that my family loves if I have chili left over, which is usually never, but if I do, four people in my household love to heat up the leftovers and add it to their eggs in the morning. Yuck! They do say it is mighty tasty with the Jalapenos. I am more of a Southern girl who prefers bisquits and gravy or grits instead of chili and eggs. But my 13 year old daughter that eats Habanero peppers is telling me to put this in my blog about the chili so there ya go.

The other recipe for a soup can be found at the link below. I am a little typed out at the moment. Forgive me!

Quick and Easy Potato Soup

Be sure and visit the Soup-Tacular!

WFMW

Today, Shannon over at Rocks in My Dryer is having a themed WFMW edition. What do you do when you are worn out, busy, haven’t been to the grocery store and the kids are all hungry? Pull a quick meal together. That happens more often that I like to admit in our home. Most of my best meals are the ones that I fly by the seat of my pants after a long, hard day. That is why I keep a kitchen diary nearby to write down what I use so that I can re-create it again if it is a winner with the family. I am a pinch of this and pinch of that kind of cook. You may have to play around with the amounts since I did not measure out the potato flakes but poured them from the box. I have tried to be very accurate on the other measurements. I am a huge proponent of having a well stocked pantry so that great, easy meals can be created in a flash. When you have a husband who works a law enforcement schedule, two high school athletes, a college student, and an active middle school student you learn really quick how to get a meal on the table in a flash. KEEP A STOCKED PANTRY!

Quick and Easy Potato Soup
Three cans of Chicken Broth (I had the store brand on hand)
6 cups Water (I used a large stock pot and filled it halfway with hot water. I measured it out tonight and it equaled about six – seven cups of water)
¾ stick of unsalted butter
A heavy sprinkling of Garlic powder. I guess it would be around a ½ to 1 tsp.
Mrs. Dash Southwest Chipotle Seasoning (season to your families taste) This is the best seasoning!
1 tsp. Rosemary
1 jar of Hormel Real Bacon Bits
1 ½ - 2 cups of cheese ( I had fine shredded Mexican blend on hand)
2 – 3 cups of Instant Potatoes. I stirred in the flakes until it started getting a little thick and then stopped. (I had Wal-Mart brand on hand in the pantry)

Bring water, chicken broth, and butter to a boil. Add seasonings and bacon bits. Turn stove down so that soup will not boil over.
Add instant potato flakes, which I am guessing was around 2 cups or so, until the mixture begins to get opaque and thickens. Add the cheese. Turn down the heat and serve.

I served this with garlic/cheddar croutons on top which I had in my pantry.
It made the house smell so good! My 16 year old son said it was better than my baked potato soup that takes several hours to simmer.

We are a family of six with three teenage boys that eat a lot. We not only had this for the meal Sunday but had enough for my husband and I to take to work for lunch.

One more quick meal:
2 boxes of Whole Wheat Rotini
2 Steam and Fresh broccoli in a bag
Canned chicken (2 cans shredded) or Rotisserie Chicken (I happened to have two cans of great white chicken meat that I used – they had been 99 cents each)
2 Ragu Alfredo Sauce in a jar or Wal-Mart brand works too
Kraft Parmesan cheese to taste
Italian Seasoning and Rosemary: around a tsp each

Cook the Rotini as directed on box. Cook the broccoli in the microwave as directed. Open up the chicken, drain, and shred with fork. Add seasonings. Mix with broccoli. Drain pasta, add back to hot pot and add chicken mixture as well as the Alfredo sauce. Stir and sprinkle Parmesan cheese on top. Add a big salad along with some fruit for dessert and you have a great, satisfying meal.

For more quick and easy meals head over to Shannon’s Rocks in My Dryer and Works for Me Wednesday.

Menu Plan Monday

Monday Rigatoni with Red Pepper, Almonds, and Bread Crumbs (I use whole wheat spaghetti instead of the rigatoni. My teenagers love it! This is requested at least once every single week. I have used packaged Italian bread crumbs that I had on hand in the recipe instead of the croutons. My grocery store regularly has awesome garlic croutons on sale for under $1 as well as the Italian blend bread crumbs. I have used both.)

Tuesday Turkey Chili with cornbread
Wednesday Rotisserie chicken, roasted potatoes and green beans, salad
Thursday Tostadas, Salad, black bean, corn, and tomato relish with avocado, fruit
Black Bean Relish
Drained black beans, drained whole kernel corn, Can of Chili Tomatoes with Onions, about a teaspoon of Cumin ( I use the palm of my hand to measure), slice and chop one Avocado, splash of Lime or Lemon juice, liberal amount of Mrs. Dash Southwest Chipolte seasoning (depending on your families taste. I have four Texans in my family and they love things spicy)
I usually double this and use two cans beans, corn, tomatoes since my family loves it so much.
Friday Pizza Night
Saturday Black beans and brown rice w/cilantro, pineapple salsa, salad
Sunday Potato Soup with fresh whole grain bread
For more dinner ideas and Menu Plan Monday participants, please visit Laura of I’m an Organizing Junkie.