Chicken Dinner

It is cold outside and I wanted to make a nice warm dinner. It also helped that I had a half day today and had lots of time.
I made smashed roasted potatoes, green beans and carrots sauteed in balsamic vinger and a bit of oil and a roast chicken.
This was another disgustingly easy meal, but it did have a few steps and took about an hour.
The potato recipe is already up and the green been carrot thingy is pretty much slef explanatory.
For the roast chicken I took a whole chickn, sprinked it with corn starch, baking powder and mrs. dash. Then cooked it at 425 for an hour.
That was it.
Here is the real "recipe"
Ingrediants:

• 1 whole chicken
• roughly a tablespoon of Mrs. Dash orginal seasoning
• 1 tablespoon Cornstarch
• 1 teaspoon Baking Powder
• 1 Oven at 425 degree

1. Take the chicken out of the bag and put it in a baking pan or roasting pan (Make sure you take out all the insides.
2. Mix the remaining three ingrediants all together, then sprinkle over chicken
3. Stick in preheated oven for an hour
4. Check with thermometer-breast should be atleast 165, thigh 180
5. Take out when cooked, sit on cutting board
6. Let chickn rest for 5-10 minutes or so (otherwise the juices fall out and it is less tasty)
7. Carve and eat

Black bean Corn Salad

So here is another recipe I made.
It is disgustly easy. And really good.

Ingrediants

• 1 can black beans, drained and rinsed
• 2 ears of corn, blanched OR 1 can whole corn OR 1 bag frozen corn, defrosted
• Several handfuls of cherry tomatoes, cut in half OR 1 medium tomato chopped
• 1 red onion (or several salad onions) chopped
• 1 tsp cumin
• 1/4 lime juice
• a few dashes of Mrs. Dash Lime spice mix (optional)

1. Mix all ingrediants in up in a bowl
2. Add the spice if desired
3. Stir really well
4. Stick in fridge for a while
5. Eat!

I am having this with grilled pork chops, cooked with the Mrs. Dash Lime Spice thingy.

Pictures too come

Oven Smashed Potatoes

At the request of a friend, I decided to add a recipe. Along with pictures. The problem is I don't really use recipes.
First take some small potatoes. You want low starch (red, yukon gold, etc.) not high starch like russet. Below you will see some potatoes from our garden, which I used. I did not use all of them.




After you have your potatoes, wash and scrub them. You will want around 8-10. Enough to fill a baking sheet. THen boil them in water for about 10 minutes. You don't want them all the way cooked, just partially.
Here are the scrubbed, boiled potatoes.


Now comes the fun part. Take a potato masher thingy, or a small can of food, and smash each potato. You want them to still be together, not all mashed apart like some of them.
Now oil a baking sheet, with olive oil, although I used avocado oil. Then place the smashed potatoes on the baking sheet, drizzle with oil, sprinkle with salt and fresh herbs (if you have them). I used chives.

Then bake in a preheated oven at 350 for 20 minutes.

Official directions:
Ingrediants-

• 8-10 small potatoes
• oil (olive, avocado, etc.)
• salt
• fresh herbs
• Pot of boiling water
• Preheated oven at 350*

1. Boil potatoes for 10 minutes
2. Place potatoes on plate and smash gently
3. Liberally oil a baking sheet with olive oil
4. Transfer smashed potatoes to the baking sheet
5. Sprinkle more oil over the top of the potatoes, and then sprinkle salt and herbs on each potato.
6. Cook 20 Minutes.

roll ups

Not fruit rolls up. Recently I took some lunch meat (turkey) and made a roll up.
Pretty easy too, I mixed up some dill (from a tube) with a bit of mayo and spread it on the turkey. Then I added some thin strips of carrot and cucumber and avocado. Then rolled it up. Very tasty!
I then tried it with roast beef, but didn't want to get out a spoon and bowl so I made the mayodill stuff and dipped it.
I like dipping my food.
Oh! http://www.contespasta.com/ I love their peirogi and gnocchi! It is gf and dairy free! So, so, so good! I have cooked the periogies in the morning, thrown them in a thermos and had them for lunch.
Yummy!
They have other gf stuff, but the rest contains dairy.
I think it is great that more companies are making gf stuff, but now that I can't have dairy (or crab, whihc my mom has started telling EVERYONE) I would love to see more gf dairy free stuff.

Dehydrator

For Christmas my parents bought me a food dehydrator.
This summer we had a good sized garden and and canned a lot of the produce. My mom thought since I had so much fun canning, a dehydrator would be a great thing for me.
I am actually looking forward to school starting so I can add some dehydrated food to my lunch.
Today I am drying apples and carrots (for carrot chips).
I dired come tomatoes and added them to dough I used for sandwich rolls.
I love granola, but don't always have the patinece to take it out of the oven to stir every 30 minutes or so. Perhaps later I will try some gf granola.

Lunches

I HATE packing lunches. I will do anything and everything in my power to get out of doing it. Well, to be honest, I hate packing MY lunch. I will pack anyone else's, but when it comes to packing my own, I freeze up.
I used to take a frozen meal once a week (my favorite gf meal was Amy's Rice Noodles and Cheese) but I don't always have access to a microwave.
And, I am now on a dairy free diet as well.
I once figured out I will need to pack around 6,000 lunches before I retire, not to mention extra snacks, and occasionally dinner and breakfast.
Here are some of my favorite gfcf meal ideas:
I have been told my summer lunches (I have worked as a day camp counselor for 4 years) look like a kid's.
I LOVE dips!
Dips and Spreads
Hummus-with LOTS of veggies and rice chips, I also like to take it and spread it, along with a pickle, over turkey

Peanutbutter dip- Veggies, I often pack cooked chicken tenders (not breaded, from the big bag of chicken tenders you can buy at costco). The peanutbutter dip, when thinned also is great over salad.

Salsa-chips are an obvious one, but I like to take mango salsa and Toffutties better than cream cheese and spread it on lunch meat.

I am also a fan of salads-
Pasta salads-packed with (you guessed it) veggies, a little meat or egg.
Potato salad-egg, some veggies

I used to be anti sandwiches, but have discovered I like them, once or twice a week.
When packing my lunches I almost always have a large bag of cut up veggies, an apple and an orange, during summer a water bottle that I froze over night