Thirty one hour pancakes

My daughter stayed up for 31 hours straight this weekend.  Thirty-one.  From 6:00 Friday morning until 1:00 Saturday afternoon.  That's a long time people.

She had a church event Friday night in which they stayed up all night and went bowling, to see a movie and goofy golfing.  Tons of fun!  They ended the night with a pancake breakfast at a local restraunt which is super fun unless you can't eat the dang pancakes.  She made it home about 8:00 Saturday mornig completely wiped out but.......

Several weeks ago I talked to her about taking some acting lessons at a local theater.  She had a friend that was doing it and one of her normal activites was not going on this spring so we thought it might be fun.  The first class was...you guessed it... Saturday morning.

As we say in the south, "Bless her heart!"

When she stunbled in Saturday morning I knew I had to keep her awake for 2 hours before it was time to leave.  If she fell alseep it was all over.

So I made these:

Mini Puffed Pancakes

These are alot like the Brazillian cheese rolls I've shared before.  You put the ingrediants into the blender and blend away.

3/4 cup flour (I used Pamela's)
3/4 cup of milk
2 eggs
1/8 tsp salt
2-3 Tbsp of melted butter (you know I went with 3)
Just a tip: Put the milk in first and then the flour.  I don't like the flour to get all gummy at the bottom.  And I need a new blender-not a walmart cheapy-any suggestions would be great!

Anyway- just pour the batter into a mini muffin tin that has been sitting in your oven while it preheats to 400 degrees.  I actually made these twice this weekend and the second time I spooned the batter into the cups and it did better and I got more. Bake for about 20 minutes. It made about 30 little muffins.

They poof up nice and cute and are very bite sized.  I spooned some melted butter over them (yes I did) and poured some of the good syrup on them and sprinkled them with powedered sugar.  

 I sat them in front of Jenny and went to cleaning the kitchen.  I suddenly realized that my poor, half asleep child was softly singing:

"These are so yummy, so very yummy.  These are yummy.  I really like them."

Bless her heart.

She made it to acting class and back home.  She ate a little lunch and hit the sack.  She slept for about 5 hours but had to get up for her brother's play that night.  She slept great Saturday and Sunday night but based on the melt down over science homework last night - she's still playing catch up.  Either that or compound mixtures are a lot more serious than previously thought.

Either way, make these. They are cute and yummy and will keep a 10 year old awake for long enough to compose an original song.

Recipe adapted from our bestbites.com.  And I seriously want  would like to have that heart shaped pan!

How to Sleep Well at Night

What keeps you up at night?  Worrying about your kids? About drugs and rock music and all that comes along with that-if you catch my drift.  Wondering what to do about all the problems in the world? Poverty, hunger, wars.  What keeps me up at night?  How do I make gluten free bread sticks?  How?  How to make them soft and chewy.  What if can't do it.  Jenny asked for them weeks ago! I have to figure this out!  I have to!!!  AAAAHHH!

Ok so that was a little over the top.  But I do lay awake and think about how to make certain things they ask for.  And Jenny wanted bread sticks.  She knows just how to phrase it too.

"Mommy?"

"Yes, dear?"  (You always answer your children that way, right?!)

"You remember when we used to always go to that pizza place?  You remember they had bread sticks?  You remember how good they were?  I miss those so much."

"I know baby"

"I bet you could do it Mommy."

"Sure I can do that."  I can make soft chewy bread sticks without the stuff that makes them soft and chewy.  Sure.  No sleep till I figure it out.

But I love a challenge and this one turned out great!

Bread sticks two ways :


Parmesan Bread sticks


I started out with a package of Bob's Red Mill GF Pizza mix.

I don't typically use a lot of mixes just because they are so expensive, but I hit a sale at Big Lots of all places and I bought about 6 bags of this for $2.90.  Can't beat that.

I just mixed it according to the directions and let it sit for about 20 minutes.

I grated some Parmesan cheese into a pie plate.

I then dump 1/2 of the dough onto a mat and sprinkled it with flour just to make it easier to handle.  I put the other half in the fridge.

I took a golf ball size ball of dough.

I then rolled it into a "stick" about 6 inches long.  I brushed each stick lightly with an egg/water mix just to help it brown pretty and for the cheese to stick.  (1 egg and about 2 Tbsp. of water)

I then rolled them in the cheese.

I lined them all up on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper and baked them at 375 for 20 minutes.

I had to snap this quick before someone ate the last two!  I have to say that this turned out great!  They were not really cheesy but you could taste the Parmesan.  The were a little crunchy on the outside and so soft on the inside.  We served them with pizza sauce and they were gone in minutes!  Perfect for a party or spend the night company.

Cinnamon Bread sticks:
I did the same thing with the other half of the dough as I did to the first.  I placed it on a mat.  Sprinkled with flour and rolled it into sticks.

But instead of egg and cheese I brushed them with butter and then rolled them in cinnamon and sugar.

I have no idea what the cinnamon to sugar ratio was here.  Just do what feels right to you.  I mean at least where sugar and cinnamon are concerned.

Into the oven for 15 minutes at 375.  

To make these really yummy you could make a sort of frosting/glaze to dip them in.  That would be a lot of sugar and way over the top. 

I totally did that.

About 2 cups of powdered sugar. About 2 Tbsp of milk.  The leftover melted butter and some vanilla.

Do not eat this with a spoon.  That would be immature and a little gross.

Don't judge me.

Instead put it a cute red cup and serve it up with cinnamon bread sticks.

These were good too!  My one note on these is that they were definitely not as soft as the ones the night before.  Next time I think I would let the dough get to room temperature before rolling them.  That being said my 13 year old just sat and groaned as he ate them.  That's a good thing.  At least today it was.

So rest well tonight friend.  No need to worry about how to make soft bread sticks.  We got that one covered.  

Ridiculous Groceries

So I went to the grocery store this evening and bought a ridiculous amount of groceries.  Totally ridiculous.  Seriously it was the kind of trip where people are staring at you while they try to look like they are not staring at you.  Where single guys with beer and pretzels in their carts openly stare in wonder that people need that much food.  Where 6 people start to get in line behind you but then do the slow back out while scanning for any open register.  Where the 25 year old who finally ends up in line behind you and has sushi, a bag of apples and mineral water in her cart openly stares in disdain at the cheetos and fruit roll ups on the belt and you know she's thinking how glad she is that she will never be like you.  Whatever sweetheart.  Here's my number.  Call me in 10 years.

That kind of grocery trip.  The cashier asked me how long that much food would last.  A month? She asked.  I didn't have the heart to tell her I'd see her same time, same place, next week.

I started to take a picture but my phone had died and it's probably a good thing.  It was embarassing.  The poor bagger couldn't keep up.  The cashier was already to 2 people behind me and he was still bagging my groceries while I stood there telling him "No 2 liters with the chips please."  He reached for a second cart and I said,  "Oh, no way I'm getting two carts.  We are making those groceries fit!"  I will not be a 2 cart girl.

There are a couple of reasons for the massive amount of groceries this week.
1) I bought a whole lot of 2 liter drinks.  I normally don't buy any 2 liters, but these were nearly free with the coupons I had and party season is quickly approaching and I figured having extra drinks on hand was a good thing.

2) There was no food in this house. I mean the cupboard was seriously bare.  I usually shop on Mondays, but this is a super crazy week and it just had not happened.  I went to pack Jenny's lunch this morning and I was out of the thing she likes for lunch-pepperonis.  I sent her on to school and made a swing through the Kroger later and took them to the school in bag.  Here is the really bad part.  I walked into the office and put on my best mom face and said, "Here is part of Jenny's lunch she forgot."  Why did I do that.  Cause they need to think I'm super mom-that's why.

3) And lastly I hit a deal!!!  A super deal!!!

Udi's is a great GF brand.  My kids love their cookies.  Some people swear by their bread.  My kids like it OK.  The pizza crusts are pretty good too.  Not like homemade but good in a pinch.  I found all of this on the "Oops we made too much" stand.  My Kroger has it kind of hidden over by the milk case but I know it's there and every now and then you can find Udi's stuff on it and boy did I tonight!  Look at the regular price on the cookies.

Are they serious!!  There are about 8 cookies in that tub!!  Not happening!!  Everything Udi's was regularly $5.99.  Now for exciting part!

That I can do!!!  I got 5 Tubs of cookies!!!  I also got pizza crusts for $1.50 and that loaf of six dollar bread???

Not even kidding!!  My GF bread was cheaper than the loaf of regular bread I bought for my husband!!

Exciting stuff at the Kroger this evening!!

So my ridiculous trip to the grocery store was worth it and everyone is so happy there is food in the cupboard and I can pack full lunches tomorrow, and that's good because I can't go back in the office and fib about her lunch again.  The Shame!!!

A Special Treat

If you found your way here because of the article in The Clarion Ledger today I appreciate you stopping by!!  I'm by no means an expert but I try to make life sweet for my crew.  Here is the link if you would like to read it.

My 10 year old was absolutely beside herself this morning about having her picture in the paper.  My 13 year old grunted and said "cool."  Jenny took a copy to school for her teacher to hang up.  Will shrugged and said "uhahu"when I asked if anybody at school saw it. Two very different responses but still I thought it called for a special after school snack.

I haven't done Floats in awhile and both kids have asked for them in the last week so I grabbed a bottle of root beer while I was the grocery today and we had Root Beer Floats after school today!

A little vanilla ice cream, a little root beer, and a cute soda glass from the dollar store just makes for a happy afternoon.  Even if you're 13!

**Most root beer is GF, but please be sure and check!  Barq's is just fine and Diet Barq's is caffeine free.

I bought a 20 ounce bottle but barely used half to make two floats so a can would be plenty.

Add some ice cream to your glass.  We went with 2 scoops because, you know, you don't get your picture in the paper every day.  

  

Pour in some root beer.

Maybe a little bit more.

Add a straw and a spoon.

And you end up with this!!!

And that makes me happy!

(Please excuse the laundry on the table behind the smiling girl.)

Meal Planning 101

Ok.  So I've mentioned before that I was a home ec. major in college.  Well, when your a home ec major in college you take the above mentioned class.  Yep.  A whole semester of meal planning.  Crazy right?  Actually it was a good class and we planned meals for all sorts of things including a thanksgiving meal for the faculty.  Actually that may have been for my "Institutional Foods" class.  Exciting stuff was going on in the basement of the education building.  That's where they put home ec majors.  In the basement.  It really was a blast though!

So anyway.... the point being I had a whole class on planning meals and one of the cardinal rules of running a household full of GF people and boy scouts is to BE PREPARED!  So it is my habit every Sunday night to sit down and make a meal plan for the week.  This is not Earth shattering stuff I realize.  Most people do this, but when we first went GF this was a monumental task.  I will share with you what our first GF meal was one day but I'm just still a little embarrassed by it so not today.

There are lots of fabulous organizational tools out there to make a menu and I usually love that sort of stuff but for me a yellow legal pad is my weapon of choice to make our weekly menu.  I post it on the fridge and nobody looks at it except Jenny who possibly has similar control issues as her mother.

I plan breakfast and dinner for each day and any "special things" I want to make during the week.

So without further ado-the earth shattering, a little lite on the veggies this week, Huff Family Weekly Menu!!


Monday: (This day is not a winner, but we have a crazy afternoon/evening and not a lot of time)

Breakfast:Yummy Goodness (code for sweet rolls at our house-usually reserved for Fridays, but these are left over from the weekend)

Dinner: Tacos

Tuesday:

Breakfast: Waffles with the good syrup, bacon

Dinner: Cornmeal dipped catfish, yellow rice, butter beans

Wednesday: Church

Breakfast: Eggs, sausage and bagels

Dinner: Before church: Bagel pizza  After church:  Grilled cheese

Thursday:

Breakfast:French toast, yogurt

Dinner:  Pork tenderloin (Hormel has lots of already seasoned pork tenderloins that are GF), Brazilian cheese rolls, black-eyed peas

Friday: Fall Fest at school (They have food there, but....)

Breakfast: Blueberry muffins

Dinner:  Pizza on homemade crust.  Maybe make your own.

Saturday:

Breakfast: Pancakes from the freezer cause I'm sleepy!

Dinner: Potato Soup

Sunday:  Breakfast day at  Sunday School

Breakfast:  For the kids: Chex cereal

                  For Sunday school: Sausage, egg and cheese frittata (Make 2)

Dinner:  The second frittata

Extras for the week:

Cupcakes for fall festival-I'm thinking cookies and cream!

Try to make homemade goldfish (I found this on Pinterest and I'm dying to try it-we'll see if there is time this week!)

There you have it.  I'm sure you are just blown away.  It's a little lite on veggies this week. But we'll balance it out next week.  Will is pretty good about eating whatever I fix, but Jenny is still fairly new to the GF game and is sticking to tried and true things like cheese.  Lots and lots of cheese and candy.  That would be all she would eat if given a choice so scrambled eggs are a pretty big deal.  Baby steps!

I hope if your new to being GF that this will help give you some ideas.  It is possible.  It just takes time.   

Pizza, Pizza!!

Remember when you always got two pizzas from Little Caesar's.  "Pizza, Pizza!" the little Caesar guy would yell and sure enough you did get pizza, pizza!  Then Little Caesar's went away for awhile-I wonder why?!  Anyway several years ago Little Caesar's started popping up again- no more pizza, pizza! but you can't beat  a $5.00 large pizza! Hot and Ready now instead of pizza, pizza but good non the less!  I would pull up to little Caesar's after a day at the water park, give money and my rewards card to my child and in a minute out he'd come with dinner.  Of course I could see him through the class, but he thought he was big stuff!!

Well, those days are gone.  No more pizza, pizza for us and I'll be honest I miss that!  Cheap convience is hard to come by!   We do pizza a couple of ways around here;

1)  Kinnikinnik has a good pizza crust.  It's frozen and comes four to a box.  It costs about $8.00.  The kids like them and its easy.
2) Sometime  we will order take out pizza from Biaggi's where you can get a GF pizza.  With a teeange boy who can eat almost one himself and at $10 a pop this is not the best option for us.
3) There are frozen GF pizza's.  Gluten free and Fabulous makes a good one and so does Amy's.  Price wise they are about $6.00-$8.00 each.

and last but not least....
4) We make our own!

I have tried several different recipes for pizza crust with out a huge amount of luck, but this one I found not long ago and it is easy and was really good.  We ate it as a BBQ chicken pizza which is super yummy and feels more like a real meal than pepperonis although if I could grab that $5 large I so would!

BBQ Chicken pizza w/ homemade crust

2 1/2 cups flour (I use Pamela's bread mix)

1 Tbsp sugar

1 tsp salt

1 Tbsp dry milk powder 

(I use buttermilk powder because I keep it in my fridge and add it a lot to things.  It is found near the powdered milk on the baking aisle.  It is helpful to have on hand)

2 1/4 tsp yeast (1 pkg)

3 Tbsp oil

1 cup of very warm water (I let the tap run until it is very hot)

Combine 1 cup of the flour, sugar, salt, milk powder and yeast in a large bowl.

Add the water and oil and mix

Stir in remaining flour.

Stir until it comes together and then dump onto the counter and knead until it's "cohesive"

Put it back in the bowl and let sit for at least 30 minutes.  I let mine sit covered with a towel for several hours and it was great.

Now I know pizza from a restaurant is perfectly round but it's really nor necessary.  Just mash out your dough into a roundish shape.  I should have made this thinner but you can do it however thin you like.

I poked it a few times with a fork.  No real technical reason to do this.  Just seemed like the right thing to do!

Put it on a baking sheet and stick it in a 425 degree oven for about 3 minutes.  Just to let the top get a little toasty.

Now for the yummy part!

I cooked several chicken tenderloins on the stove and then chopped them up and put them back in the pan with a lot of BBQ sauce.  That is a very precise amount-a lot.  

BBQ sauce can be tricky-be sure it's GF.  I used Kraft original but Sweet Baby Rays is also GF.

I then spread more BBQ sauce on the warm crust.  Again I just used whatever amount felt right.  

Add the cheese.  Lots of cheese.  Whatever kind you like or have.  We had Kroger brand something.  We added a lot.  Its hard to mess this up.

Add the chicken

 Stick it back in the oven until the cheese is all melty and the house smells yummy.

Eat up! 

 You could add a salad to the table to make it balanced but to be honest we just had pizza!

This makes a pretty big pizza.  We all had several pieces and there were still several left over.

I haven't tried to freeze this dough yet but next time I think I'll make 2 recipes of the dough and freeze one.  I'll let you know how it turns out!

Then I'll have Pizza, Pizza!!

Tailgating

Even though we are from Mississippi my husband and I didn't go to Ole Miss or Mississippi State.  We didn't go to Southern Miss either.  We went to Samford University in Birmingham, Alabama.  We loved every minute of it but its not exactly a football powerhouse.  There was no major tailgating going on.  In fact I don't think there was any tailgating period although we did drive through the Checkers burger at half time for a cheeseburger and a strawberry milkshake.

So although we never perfected tailgating as an art form we do love to hang out with friends.  Our local high school (Go Jags!)  is right next door to our neighborhood and we love to go to the games on Friday night.  There is a large area out front where people gather to do some tailgating.  We have some friends we meet there before home games and its a lot fun.  Nothing over the top.  If you want to cook, that's great.  If you want to pick up a pizza, that's great too!

I wanted to take something my kids could eat but that everyone else would like too.  It needed to be easy to eat and transport.  So here it is:

Taquitos 

I found this recipe here on Our Best Bites and have tweaked it a little here and there and it has turned into a family favorite.  It is easy and good.

I used Hormel's canned chicken.  In a perfect world I would have baked or boiled chicken breast and then shredded them but it wasn't happening on Friday and canned chicken was made to be used right?  Be careful with anything canned.  Hormel's is clearly labeled GF so that is what I always use.

I shredded the chicken good and then added:

1/3 block softened cream cheese

Juice from 1/2/ lime

1 tsp. Chili powder

1/4 tsp. chipotle chili powder (totally optional-I had it so I used it)

dash of garlic powder

1 cup cheese- pepper jack is really the best but all I had was mozzarella and it was good)

Mix this all up and then pull out the corn tortillas.  I used extra thin Mission brand tortillas.  Microwave a few at a time for about 30 seconds.  This makes them good and pliable.  Put about 2  Tbsp. of chicken mixture on the end of one tortilla.

Then rolls those suckers up.  I put them all on a baking sheet and then, and this is kind of weird, spray the tops lightly with cooking spray and then sprinkle with kosher salt.  Or any salt, but I like Kosher salt for this.

Bake them at 425 for about 15 minutes.  Line 'em up on a tray and you are good to go!

My kids are NOT corn tortilla fans, but they love these.  The tortilla gets crunchy not mushy.  These are great with sour cream or salsa.

Happy Tailgating!!

**I know it's a little weird to post about tailgating on a Tuesday morning but Blogger was giving me fits this weekend or it would have been a little better timed.  Kind of like the fact that I'm about to write one called "Monday Morning Muffins."  Oh well, better late than never!

Woot! Woot!!

It's the little things in life isn't it!!!  These brown rice tortillas are really good and my kiddos love to eat quesadillas on them.  Before today I could only find them at whole foods.  Since there is NO WHOLE FOODS in the entire state of Mississippi I loaded down with them anytime we were anywhere near a Whole Foods.  We have been out for months.  I dropped by the heath food store I frequent to pick up some flour for chocolate chip cookies and low and behold, a light shown down and there they were!!!!

Made my day!

Fried Cheese!

Ok.. so I normally don't necessarily cook this much after church on a Wednesday night but I ran across this recipe the other day and I can't get it out of my mind.  Does anybody else do that?  Please say yes.

There are some things I'm not sure my kids ever ate before they were GF and mostly that's fine.  If you don't know what your missing then no sweat right!  But some things it makes me a little sad for them.  Awhile back Shane and I went to a certain chain restaurant with excellent fried cheese.  It had been ages since we last had fried cheese and we indulged.  It was soooo good and I just thought it a little sad that Will and Jenny couldn't have that pleasure.

And then I found this recipe on The Pioneer Woman.  I love her blog and lots of her recipes translate well GF.  I decided to give this one a try.  Here is what you need:

  Cheese sticks, egg, milk, oil and 2 specialty ingredients:
1) All purpose flour.  I have a whole post planned about that one but for this I used Pamela's bread mix
2) Bread crumbs.  I found these at a local health food store.  I'm glad to because I tried to make my own a few weeks ago and it really was not pretty.  The recipe calls for Panko bread crumbs and Kinnikinik makes those GF but alas no where in Jackson, Mississippi so regular bread crumbs it is!

Cut the cheese sticks in half and roll them in the flour, then dip them in the egg and milk mixture and then in the bread crumbs.

I used 10 cheese sticks, so ended up with 20 of the finished product. Math was my strong point.

Well, not so much but I was a home ec major!

I just lined it up like an assembly line and dipped and coated.

 I did all the sticks before heating the oil and frying them up

It did not take long for them to cook at all.  Maybe 1 minute total in the oil.  I left the last batch in a little longer and the cheese began trying to escape it's breadcrumb shell.

Here is the finished product!  We didn't have any marinara sauce but pizza sauce seemed to work just fine. 

These turned out really good!  The kids gobbled them up and they got Shane's approval.  This was all the leftovers I had.

I would say this was a success!  Total prep and cooking time was around 30 minutes with the hardest part being undoing all those cheese wrappers!

Enjoy!