Taco Meat in the Crockpot - GFCF

This is my all-time favorite recipe. There is absolutely no prep to this recipe. Just throw it all in, stir it up, and ignore how gross it looks. Six to seven hours later, stir it up again and voila you have "taco meat".

Use the meat for nachos, tacos, burritos, whatever your heart desires. And, of course, it's cheap...and GFCF. I found this recipe somewhere on the internet...not sure where... and adapted it to make it a bit cheaper.

Taco Meat in the Crockpot

2 lb. ground beef or turkey
1 1/2 c. dried pinto beans
1 medium onion, chopped
1 heaping tbsp. minced garlic
1 tsp. salt
2 packets GFCF taco seasonings or the equivalent of your own homemade mix
4 c. water

Put all in the crockpot. Stir till mixed. Cook on high for 6 to 8 hours. Stir and drain if necessary. Serve as desired.

This recipe serves our family of 7 for about $3.50 without toppings. We have enough leftover for our ASD son's lunch box. You can substitute dry onions in this recipe, just increase the water by 1/2 cup.

Beef Enchiladas - GFCF Style

Here is the promised recipe and review for Beef Enchiladas! The picture at right is before baking. This recipe originally comes from Hillbilly Housewife. Her website is full of very frugal recipes. Many can be adapted for the GFCF diet.

Beef Enchiladas
2 lb. ground beef or turkey
1 chpd. onion
2 6 oz cans tomato paste
4 cups warm water
2 tsp. salt
1 tbsp. chili powder
1 tsp. cumin
1/2 tsp. garlic powder
Dash EACH oregano, black pepper
20-25 soft corn tortillas

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Brown ground beef or turkey and onion. Drain. Mix tomato paste, water, and spices in a separate bowl. Pour 1/2 of sauce mixture into skillet with meat. Heat together for a minute or so. Remove from heat. Warm corn tortillas. Roll each tortilla with about 3 T. of meat. Place in a large baking dish with seam side down. Cover with remaining sauce. Bake uncovered for 30 minutes. Top with refried beans, soy sour cream, lettuce, or desired toppings as you serve.

A few notes...

Don't squeeze 25 of these enchiladas into the same pan. It looks good in the picture above, but trust me, this recipe works much better when divided between two dishes.

Corn tortillas do not roll well unless they are hot. I've never been able to achieve the right temperature with the microwave. I've taken to heating them on a dry skillet for a few seconds in each side. You should see them steaming before they're done.

My son loves these in his lunch! I always hope there will be a few left for the next day. But there rarely is. If your family is not as big ours, consider using the extra for lunches.

This recipe feeds our family of 7 for about $5.

Tortilla Chip Pie - GFCF Style

One of my favorite frugal recipes is Hillbilly Housewife's Tortilla Chip Pie. It's extremely easy to make this GFCF by leaving out the cheese and double checking that your chips, spices, and tomato sauce are GFCF. Here's my adaptation of the recipe for our large family and the GFCF diet. The picture at left is before the dish is baked.

Tortilla Chip Pie

4 - 15 oz. cans kidney beans, drained

2 lb. ground turkey

1 small onion, chopped

2 tbsp. chili powder

1 tsp. salt

1 tsp. cumin

1/2 tsp. garlic powder

1/2 tsp. oregano

1/4 tsp. pepper

4 - 8 oz. cans tomato sauce

tortilla chips

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Brown turkey and onions. Drain. Add
kidney beans, tomato sauce and spices. Let simmer five minutes or so. Pour into
9 x 13 baking pan or casserole of similar capacity. Top with tortilla chips,
poking them into the meat mixture. Bake for 20 minutes. You can serve this as is, or serve as a taco salad with lettuce, salsa, soy sour cream, etc.

I usually can make this dish for around $6, feeding a family of 7. I highly recommend sifting through the recipes at Hillbilly Housewife. She cooks very simply without using seasoning mixes, cream soups, pre-made sauces, etc. I find those factors make her recipes very frugal and easier to adapt for GFCF. I'll be highlighting her Beef Enchiladas next time we have them for supper. It's a wonderful recipe!!

Packing GFCF Lunches

Packing school lunches has been the hardest part of the GFCF diet for me, and I think for my son. He loved eating the hot lunches our little Christian school provided. I'm so thankful that Joseph is so easy going. He has rarely complained about the switch, but I can see the wistful look once in awhile.

So here is what has worked for us, so far...

1. Leftovers from the night before. This is by far Joseph's favorite. We pack up a container of last night's Tortilla Chip Pie, Crock Pot Chili, or Enchiladas and he's a happy camper.
2. Rice Crackers from the Oriental section of Kroger and cut-up GFCF deli meat. A homemade Lunchable!
3. Peanut Butter on Health Valley Rice Bran Crackers. These crackers have a similar taste to Graham Crackers. I find them in the organic sections at both Kroger and Giant Eagle.
4. Rolled GFCF deli meat. Sometimes I roll it plain, sometimes with a lettuce leaf. He likes it either way.
5. GFCF bun made from Bob's Red Milk GF Bread Mix and a GFCF sausage pattie, with mustard of course!
6. GFCF sliced bread (above brand) with GFCF deli meat.
7. And on Friday, which is pizza day at our school, he gets homemade pizza using this recipe, topped with Ragu Organic Garden Vegetable Spaghetti Sauce and Hormel Pepperoni.

Only the protein/main dish is listed above. I find the rest of the lunch easy to pack. I try to include a fruit or vegetable and a GFCF cookie or tortilla chips. We have reusable juice boxes that I put in lemonade, 100% juice, or caffeine-free tea.

Packing GFCF lunches has forced me to think ahead more. But it's doable. And worth it, especially since we're now seeing more smiles and eye contact!

Laura's Slow Cooker Chili

There's various forms of this recipe on the Internet. But I wanted to share with you how I've adapted it for our gluten-free, casein-free, frugal family. I've made a few changes to the original recipe for our family-size, dietary restrictions, and taste. This recipe is just enough to feed our family of 7, including three teenage boys. It goes even further with a pan of cornbread. But I've yet to perfect GFCF cornbread...

Laura's Slow Cooker
Chili

adapted by Beth @ I Can Fly

2 lb. ground turkey

3 8 oz. cans tomato sauce

6 tbsp. honey

3 tbsp. cornstarch

1 1/2 tsp. salt

3 15 oz. cans kidney beans, drained

2 15 oz. cans black beans, drained

3/4 medium onion, chopped

3 tbsp. chili powder

2 1/4 tsp. garlic powder

1 1/2 pinches black pepper

1 1/2 pinches allspice

additional salt to taste

Brown turkey; use oil if necessary. Drain. Mix tomato sauce, honey, cornstarch and salt in a saucepan. Heat to boiling. Simmer till thick. Coat slow cooker with cooking spray. Put in browned turkey, thickened sauce, and remaining ingredients. Stir to mix. This is a thick chili; add water if desired. Cook on high for 4 hours or low for 8. Good served with corn chips, soy sour cream, cheese-sub or cheese if tolerated.

I would estimate I make this meal for under $6.50, feeding 7.

You can find loads of frugal tips at Frugal Friday on Crystal's Blog, Biblical Womanhood.

Loaded Baked Potatoes - Frugal, GFCF, and Yummy!

My ASD son loves potatoes. With this diet, that's a huge blessing! He particularly likes baked potatoes. And so one of my new favorite GFCF meals is loaded baked potatoes.

To bake a potato, preheat your oven to 400 degrees. Scrub the skin of your potato. If you want a soft-skinned potato rub the skin with oil or GFCF margarine. Prick the potato several times with a fork to let steam out during cooking. You can wrap your potato in foil or not, either way works. Medium sized potatoes will be done in an hour. My potatoes last night took about and hour and fifteen minutes. To tell if their done, just plunge the fork in. There should be little resistance with a done potato.

I don't like microwaved potatoes. I'd rather just have something else, but there are days when the microwave is a life saver. So here are the directions for microwaving your potato. Prepare the skin as if you were baking. Do NOT wrap in foil. Some will wrap in saran wrap, but I have found that unnecessary and it leads to burns! The saran holds in steam and when you unwrap it...you get the picture. Anyway, put your potato on a plate and microwave between 3 and 8 minutes, depending on the size of your potato. You don't want your potato to be completely done. Give it an additional 5 minutes of rest time in the microwave so it can continue to cook as the steam is released.

Have you ever baked your potato in the crockpot? I love this option! Prepare your potatoes as you would for baking. Use foil if desired. Pack the crock pot full and put on low for 8 to 10 hours, high for 4. No need for water in the crockpot. The potatoes will steam themselves.

Now for the yummy part: Loading your potato! This is where you can please all members of your family (hopefully). Everyone can top their potato as they like. Non-GFCF family members can have their goodies and hopefully you have the equivalent on hand for your GFCF child.

Toppings we enjoy:

GFCF margarine

sour cream/soy sour cream

cooked broccoli

crisp bacon

chives

and for the non-GFCF, sharp cheddar cheese

salt & pepper

The options are limitless. You could have vegetarian chili, any chopped veggie known to man, salsa, gravy, herbs, sauces...you name it!

5 out of 7 in my family will eat this meal. In our home, that translates to "a keeper"!

Frugal, Homemade, Aluminum-Free Baking Powder - WFMW

In our pursuit to remove all offenses from my autistic son's diet, aluminum-free baking powder is a must. I'm frugal at heart so throwing away my reserves of baking powder was painful! They were purchased for a small percentage of what aluminum-free baking powders cost.

Then I had one of those "duh" moments! I had completely forgotten about my Tightwad Gazette books. The detailed price comparisons of baking powders complete with homemade recipe had slipped my mind!

2 parts cornstarch, arrowroot, or tapioca starch/flour
1 part baking soda
1 part cream of tartar

The above recipe is good if you would like to pre-mix your baking powder. The cornstarch keeps the baking soda and cream of tartar from reacting. If absolute frugality is your goal then use this combination...

1/4 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. cream of tartar
in place of each teaspoon of baking powder in your recipe.

If you have a bulk foods store near you (we live near Amish communities) then you can find the cream of tartar at very reasonable prices, making your baking powder even more cost effective!

Cooking GFCF has not been good for the grocery budget. So I get excited when I stumble across little helps like this!

Happy Works for Me Wednesday!

GFCF Pizza Crust Recipe - Review

Chewy Gluten Free Pizza Crust

from Recipezaar
1 tbsp. yeast

2/3 cup brown rice flour

1/2 cup tapioca flour/starch

2 tsp. xanthan gum

1/2 tsp. salt

1 tsp. unflavored gelatin

1 tsp. oregano

2/3 c. warm water

1/4 tsp. honey

1 tsp. oil

1 tsp. cider vinegar

cooking spray

Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Mix yeast, flours, xanthan gum, salt, gelatin and oregano. In seperate bowl mix warm water, honey, oil and vinegar. Add liquids to dry ingredients and beat with a mixer on high for three minutes. Add water if needed, one tablespoon at a time, if dough becomes too stiff. Spray 12" pizza pan with cooking spray. Spoon dough onto pan. Spread out using either rice flour or cooking spray to keep the dough from sticking to your fingers. Bake for 10 minutes in preheated oven. Then either add toppings or freeze crust for future use. Bake the topped crust for 20 to 25 more minutes.

Review:

Success!! This crust would've been suitable for my whole family! We've been using Bob's Red Mill Bread Mix for pizza crust and it has not been so great. We will be using that mix no longer!

The original recipe (which you can see by clicking the recipe title) called for garbanzo bean flour OR brown rice flour. I'm not a big fan of the bean flours. The brown rice worked great! I used honey instead of sugar; trying to keep as whole food as possible. I subbed canola for olive oil, just because I was out. I also subbed oregano for the Italian Seasoning mix since I didn't have any in the cupboard. Powdered milk from the original recipe was ommitted.

Instructions said to mix with regular beaters, not dough hooks. The dough started climbing my beaters, so I added the water, 3 tbsp. total. The dough hooks may have worked better in the long run.

The dough was easy to spread. I used cooking spray rather than flour to press it out. My son doesn't like the flour texture on baked goods. I wasn't too concerned about neatness, so please don't take the messy crust edge to mean that this dough was hard to handle. The picture at your right was after baking ten minutes. At that point we could have frozen the dough.

The picture at the begining of this post shows the pizza after toppings and baking twenty minutes. It definitely browned nicely on the edges and just right on the bottom. I baked on the middle rack. When cutting the pizza, it definitely felt crispy. But on the inside the dough was nice and chewy. This is just a great, great crust recipe!!

Thumbs way, way up!