"Creamy" Potato Soup

I LOVE LOVE LOVE potato soup and have tried numerous recipes to hit the spot but once going gfcf I thought my potato soup days were over and it made me quite sad. Daddy Fox is quite the soup lover and it's starting to get chilly here (yes even in Florida we get a chill) so I began to hunt once more for a delicious potato soup recipe that was somehow creamy yet totally dairy free. I ended up taking one recipe and building off of it to make my own perfectly delicious potato soup and it's oh so good! I never thought I'd eat such warming, comforting, most importantly creamy potato soup again.

8 cups water
1 heaping tablespoon better than bouillon chicken base (I use organic, it's way better)
3 pounds potatoes diced (you can peel them but I don't)
7-8 cloves of garlic
1 medium onion
3-4 carrots, peeled and chopped

In a stock pot, place about 3/4's of your diced potatoes and cover with the 8 cups of water. Turn the burner on med-high heat to begin warming while you prepare the remaining veggies. I like to place the whole garlic cloves, the entire onion (quartered) and the carrots (peeling and cut into 3-4 pieces each) into a food processor and chop them all together at once then add to the pot but you can chop them individually and add them that way too. When the water gets warm (but before it's boiling), stir in the bouillon. Once the soup is boiling, reduce the heat and simmer until potatoes are soft. Using an immersion blender, blend until the soup is mostly pureed. Add the remaining potatoes and simmer until potatoes are soft. Serve and enjoy on a crisp, cold evening! (Well any evening will do but the colder the better).

***Tip for peeling garlic: A friend of mine told me this tip about peeling garlic and I will probably never go back to garlic powder again. Take a knife and lay it flat on the clove of garlic (not so that it will cut the clove, lay it on the flat side of the blade). Smash the blade onto the clove with your hand. The clove will crack and the peel will slide right off!***

Veggie Stir Fry

I've been playing around with vegetarian dishes lately. We've cut back on meat since it's quite expensive and well, not exactly the healthiest thing you can eat. It has it's place in my family's diet I'm just not convinced it's place is a daily spot on the dinner table. My husband, however, is a carnivore of carnivore's and could eat meat at every meal of every day! Finding veggie meals that he genuinely enjoys is no easy task but after this stir fry, he was licking his plate clean! Score 1 for momma Fox!

olive oil (or sesame oil for a more Asian flavor, I just didn't have any)
4-5 carrots, peeled and sliced
2 leeks, chopped (greenish white parts only)
2-3 broccoli crowns cut into florets (yeah, my family LOVES us some broccoli)
2 cups uncooked brown rice
5 1/4 cups water
1/2 Tablespoon better than bouillon (veggie for a truly veggie dish, I used beef flavor and spend a little extra and get organic, the ingredients are way better)

Sauce
1/4 cup honey (raw, local is the best)
1/4 cup gluten free soy sauce (you could also use Bragg's amino's instead which I will try next time...never had it but I've been told it tastes exactly like soy sauce)
1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder (you could use 1-2 cloves garlic added into the veggies while stir frying too but I was lazy when I made it)
1-2 teaspoons cornstarch (depending on how thick you want your sauce)

Cook the brown rice in the water with the bouillon added (you may need to adjust the water amount based on how your brand of rice cooks). While the rice is cooking, use just enough olive oil to stir fry all the veggies (broccoli, carrots and leeks) until just crisp tender and perfect. In a small bowl combine honey, soy sauce, ginger,garlic powder and cornstarch. You can adjust spices to your liking at this point. Add sauce to stir fried veggies and heat until thickened. Serve veggies over brown rice. My kids and husband ate this stir fry up really fast and asked for more! It is amazing. You've got to try it!

Progress!

A few weeks ago my little engineer had his 3 year well check. I seriously cannot believe it's been 3 wonderful years since the Lord graciously gave him to my husband and me. It's been 3 years with plenty of ups and downs and the challenges are changing constantly but I love it and wouldn't change a thing! We've been gfcf for one year now and I refuse to challenge the diet until his bloodwork comes back normal so we sent for labs again. To give you an idea of what I'm talking about here I'll do a little explaining. IGE antibodies indicate a true allergy such as one that would lead to anaphylactic shock and a positive test at an allergist office. My little engineer doesn't have that kind of reaction to gluten or casein (praise the Lord!). My guy has an IGG response. His body attacks the gluten and casein proteins when he eats them much like your body attacks a cold virus. His body attacks gluten and casein and creates IGG antibodies as his body makes antibodies for viruses he comes in contact with. This kind of reaction can lead to all kinds of symptoms which for him include chronic yeast infections, eczema, diarrhea, and some behavioral issues. For a normal person, IGG antibody levels for casein are less than 2. My precious boy had antibody levels of 28 last year when they tested him which was in the severely high range. This year his levels came back at 5.6!!! Even better is his gluten antibodies. Normal people register antibody levels of less than 11. Last year his antibody levels were so high we didn't get an actual number. The labs came back saying more than 100 so really it could have been 101 or the highest number you can imagine. This year they came back at 14!!! How awesome to hear! We've taken the offending proteins out of his diet which has allowed his body to handle the antibody load it accumulated the first 2 years of his little life. Both levels are still slightly high so we are continuing to remain gfcf without a challenge. We will run labs again next year then go from there. We are hopeful that his little body is busy healing itself with this break from gluten and casein and that one day he'll be able to enjoy gluten and casein foods in moderation but for now, gfcf we remain :).

Crock pot Vegetarian Baked Beans

I've been making a lot of things from scratch lately. Well I should say I've been doing that more and more than I already was recently :) I found a recipe for crock pot baked beans and made it. It was decent however it needed work. After some tinkering with ingredients and adding some of my own I am pleased with the creation. I served these baked beans at my sons third birthday party where everyone was very pleased with them...I even had requests for the recipe :)

1 pound dried beans (I used great northern but any white bean should work)
3/4 c. molasses
1/3 c. honey
water to cover beans
onion powder to taste (or you can chop up one medium onion)
1/4 c. mustard
1/4 c. ketchup (I make sure it's high fructose corn syrup free)
Tabasco hot sauce to taste
salt to taste
2 tablespoons potato starch dissolved in water

Soak beans overnight. In a pot, boil beans in water for 1 hour then drain. Put beans in crock pot. Add in molasses and honey. Add just enough water to just cover the beans. Add onion powder (or chopped onions) to taste, mustard, ketchup and Tabasco and salt to taste. Stir it all together, cover and cook on high for 4-5 hours. When beans are done mix potato starch in small amount of cool water and add to beans stirring until thickened.

These beans are so delicious! You will keep coming back for more and so will all your family! My boys could eat this all day if I'd let them and I don't feel bad serving it...no refined sugar and loaded with healthy protein!

Honey Kissed Blueberry Muffins

Recently I purchased a gallon of raw, local honey to start cutting back my family's intake of refined white sugar. My first successful recipe was an adaptation of the blueberry muffin recipe found here. The changes were small but by using only honey instead of white sugar and also using the Whole Foods brand of rice milk (which is NOT sweetened with sugar but with rice syrup instead) I created a recipe that is 100% naturally sweetened and a muffin I feel GREAT about feeding my kids and for eating myself! The whole dozen was gone before my family even left for church on Sunday :)


1 cup brown rice flour
½ cup millet flour
½ cup tapioca starch flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
¾ teaspoon xanthan gum
¼ teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon cinnamon
1 ½ cups unsweetened fresh blueberries
½ cup milk
¼ cup oil
¼ cup applesauce
1/3 cup honey (preferably raw, local honey)
2 large eggs
½ teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Combine dry ingredients in large bowl with wisk. Add blueberries and toss until coated with flour. In medium bowl, combine milk, oil and applesauce with wisk. Add in honey, eggs and vanilla. Mix well. Add wet ingredients to the dry. Stir gently with spatula until just combined. Spoon into greased muffin tin. Bake at 350 degrees for 20-25 minutes.

You will not be able to eat just one and you don't have to feel bad about it!

Bean Quesadilla's

So I had many requests for this recipe after posting about it on facebook. Sorry it's taken so long to get around to posting about it but here it is. It is not finished and I will probably come back and edit this recipe a few more times since I've only made this once and it really was just something I pulled out of my head, but here's what I have right now.

I HIGHLY recommend getting a tortilla press if you ever want gfcf flour tortilla's. I've not tried the store bought ones but I have tried corn tortilla's (which can be bought at any store gfcf) and my family hates them. That started my search for a good homemade tortilla. I take no credit for the recipe found here. I made the rice flour version with brown rice flour. The only change is I used sorghum flour instead of chickpea because I do not like the taste of bean flours in my food. I prefer to get my beans in other ways :). Follow her recipe for the tortilla's you will need for the quesadilla's.

For the filling:
1 can fat free refried beans (check labels as not all are gfcf but I don't remember which brand I used...maybe Old El Paso?)
1 cup of prepared dried beans
1 cup of prepared brown rice
1/2 to 1 cup frozen corn kernels, heated
1/2 large onion, chopped

Taco Seasoning:
1 teaspoon onion powder
1 teaspoon chili powder
1 teaspoon cumin
1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
1/4 teaspoon salt

I like to cook the onion with the rice while it's cooking as I don't care for raw onion but you don't have to make it that way. When preparing the rice, add in the taco seasoning mix for flavor. (Side note: the taco seasoning mix can be added to browned meat with 1/2 cup water and simmered down to make excellent taco meat filling that tastes just like taco seasoning packets at the store but without all the chemicals and preservatives) Combine in a large bowl the rice, corn, black beans and refried beans. Mix well enough so the refried beans can act like the glue that cheese would be if making traditional quesadilla's. Fill tortilla's with some bean mixture and heat on skillet at medium heat until heated through and the tortilla is slightly crispy on both sides. Serve with whatever condiments your family likes such as salsa and guacamole. My little monkey ate these up so fast and loved having the extra filling for lunch the next day. My carnivorous husband could have sworn there was meat in these too which there isn't and I love that I can make him a hearty veggie meal he LOVES!

Dried Beans

Beans are super healthy for you...low in fat and high in fiber and protein. They are also relatively cheap, but canned beans are loaded with sodium and is really a pretty small amount of beans overall. I've started only buying dried beans. They take more work, yes but they save money and are much healthier! For $1.08 I purchased 1 pound of dried black beans. That 1 bag made bean quesadilla's and black beans and rice for my family. The black beans and rice recipe I use normally requires 3 cans of beans so just for one recipe I saved money buying dried. 3 cans of store brand costs $2.25 total with each can costing $0.75 so for one of the 2 recipes I made using dried beans I saved over $1.
To make them simply soak in water overnight (8-12 hours) then drain them. Once drained they are ready to be boiled for 1 1/2 hours or so until they reach the desired tenderness then add to your favorite bean recipe. If you forget to soak overnight as I frequently do you can boil the beans uncovered for 2 minutes then remove from the heat, cover and let soak for 1 hour. After that drain and boil as above. Enjoy your beans!