Easy Potatoes Boulanger

I modified this recipe from the potatoes that accompanied a pork recipe in our McCall's Cooking School cookbook. The pork is killer and I'll post my variation of that recipe sometime, but it's a time-consuming beast, best for special occasions. I enjoy making the potatoes on their own (even though they don't get any pork flavoring this way) because it can be done much more quickly and adds some great flavor to any meal!

Easy Potatoes Boulanger

Recipe by Eileen Rhoadarmer - 2nd Generation Allergy Mom

A great side dish to add flavor to any meal. And the best part is, it's Top 8 Free!

Prep time: 10 min
Cook time: 20 min
Total time: 30 min
Ingredients

• 4-6 potatoes
• 1 onion, diced
• 1 clove garlic, minced
• olive oil
• 1/2 - 2/3 cup chicken broth or stock
• 1/2 tsp salt
• pinch pepper
• pinch thyme
• 1/2 tsp parsley
• 1 tsp cornstarch (optional)

Cooking Directions

1. Cut your potatoes into chunks or discs.
2. Heat your olive oil in a large skillet over medium heat.
3. Add potatoes, onions, and garlic. Pan-fry, covered, until almost done (15-20 minutes), stirring occasionally.
4. Once potatoes are nearly cooked through, add chicken broth to pan and sprinkle potatoes with spices.
5. Continue to cook, covered to control loss of fluid, until potatoes are done.
6. If the sauce is too thin, mix 1 tsp of cornstarch with water and then slowly add to the potatoes while stirring. Stop adding as soon as the sauce thickness is to your liking.

Chop your potatoes. They would more traditionally be in discs, but I've found it easier to pan-fry potatoes when they're cut in small chunks.

Heat your oil.

Start frying your potatoes, onions, and garlic. Make sure to stir them intermittently so they don't burn on the bottom. This part could be done without a lid, but they cook faster and more evenly when the heat is contained.

Prepare your broth and seasonings. I like to use Better than Bouillon, but you should use whatever stock is safest for your family.

Add the broth and then sprinkle on your seasonings. Stir, and then put the lid on to continue cooking.

If the sauce is too thin once your potatoes are cooked through, mix cornstarch into a few spoonfuls of water and then slowly pour this into your potatoes while stirring. Stop as soon as it's thick enough, you don't need to use all of the cornstarch! (You could alternatively use another thickener of your choice.)




A tasty accompaniment to a variety of meals!

Linking up at Allergy Free Wednesdays and Gluten Free Fridays

Top 8 Free White Chocolate and Make Your Own Easter Bunnies - Guest Post for KFA

Are you tired of all the allergen warnings on Easter chocolate?

I am too, which is why I decided to make my own chocolates this year! Head over to the Kids with Food Allergies Blog to see how easy it is to make Easter goodies you know you kids can enjoy!

Make your own Chocolate Easter Bunnies!

All pictured sweets are Top 8 Free!

http://community.kidswithfoodallergies.org/blog/how-to-make-allergy-friendly-chocolates-easter-bunnies

But that's not all! You can also read Part 2:

Top 8 Free White Chocolate Recipe!

That's right, you can make and sculpt your own white chocolate! Go see how it's done!

http://community.kidswithfoodallergies.org/blog/how-to-make-dairy-free-white-chocolate

White Chocolate recipe will be shared on Allergy Free Wednesdays and Gluten Free Fridays

Stuffed Onions

I first made this recipe for hubby years ago on his birthday. It was a side dish for a larger recipe, but we both decided this was the only part of the recipe worth repeating! If you like onions, check out this delicious way to serve them as a side dish for your next killer meal!

Stuffed Onions

Recipe by Eileen Rhoadarmer - 2nd Generation Allergy Mom

These stuffed onions make a great side dish for many entrees! Free of peanut, tree nut, egg, soy, fish and shellfish. Contains wheat and dairy (substitutions would easily make it free of those as well.)

Prep time: 20 min
Cook time: 45-50 min
Total time: 1 hour, 10 min
Yield: 2 stuffed onions
Ingredients

• 2 medium onions
• 2 Tbsp butter, dairy-free alternative, or olive oil
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/4 tsp pepper
• 2 Tbsp grated Parmesan Cheese (omit for dairy allergy)
• 1 cup croutons, crushed

Cooking Directions

1. Peel your onions and chop off the bottom and the top (be careful not to cut too much.)
2. Using a combination of a sharp knife, a spoon, and a grapefruit knife if you have one, hollow out the center of each onion leaving roughly 1/4 inch all around.
3. Finely chop the center pieces of onion (you'll probably have about 1 cup.)
4. Heat your butter or oil in a skillet over medium heat. Add the chopped onion and saute for about 3 minutes.
5. Remove the pan from the heat and mix the salt, pepper, Parmesan, and crushed croutons into the onions.
6. Stuff the mixture into the hollow onions, mounding it on the top.
7. Wrap your stuffed onions in foil and bake upright at 350 degrees for 45-50 minutes.
8. Serve warm. Delicious!
9. Easily double (or more) the recipe to serve more people.

Hollowing out the onions does take some practice. You need to be particularly careful not to cut all the way through to the bottom. Just go slow and be careful.

Sauteeing the onions.

Make sure you chop or crush your croutons before mixing them in. Onions aren't big enough to handle large chunks of breading.

Pack your onions as tightly as you can. Even so, you will have some stuffing leftover. Bake it alone wrapped in foil, or just allow the moisture to penetrate the croutons and you've got another great side dish for the next day!

I bake these in my toaster oven when I'm only making two. The actual stuffed onions don't keep as well as leftovers, so I tend to only make as much as we'll eat in one night. If you increase the recipe to make more you'll need to put them in your regular oven.

You can add them to the oven with other items like turkeys or roasts. You may need to increase baking time by up to a half hour if they're sharing the heat.

Wrap them in foil to protect them from burning or spilling while they bake.

Look at those delicious beauties!

This was a perfect accompaniment to our late-night, much-delayed Valentine's dinner. What will you pair them with?

Happy eating!

Linking up at Allergy Free Wednesdays and Gluten Free Fridays

(Adapted from a recipe originally found in McCall's Cooking School.)

Pizza Crust

I've been using this pizza crust recipe for a while, when we make homemade pizza. I like it's ease of use--your bread machine does most of the work for you, and it behaves nicely when you spread it out on the pan. If you'd like a way to make your own pizza at home, this is a great foundation on which to build your masterpiece!

Bread Machine Pizza Crust

Recipe by Eileen Rhoadarmer - 2nd Generation Allergy Mom

An easy way to make great-tasting pizza right at home! Contains wheat. Free from other major allergens!

Prep time: 1 hour 30 min (most of it passive)
Cook time: 15 minutes
Total time: 1 hour 45 min to 2 hours
Ingredients

• 1 cup and 2 Tbsp warm (120 degrees) water
• 2 Tbsp olive oil
• 1 tsp salt
• 3 cups bread flour
• 2 tsp granulated sugar
• 2 tsp rapid rise yeast (bread machine yeast)

Cooking Directions

1. Place ingredients in the above order in your bread machine. (It is particularly important to follow ingredient order if you will be setting the timer on your bread machine. Yeast should be the last ingredient added, sitting on top of the flour, not touching any liquid ingredients or salt as those will prematurely activate the yeast. Ingredient order does not matter as much if you're starting it right away.)
2. Select your bread machine's dough cycle and start it. (Note: if you will be delaying it, use hotter water as it will lose heat sitting on the counter. If you delay for a long time, the yeast may not activate as fully.)
3. Once the dough cycle is done, the dough should have risen to about double its original size. Punch it down, remove it from the bread machine, and transfer to a pizza pan. You can grease your pan or dust it with cornmeal, if you like.
4. Stretch and roll the dough out until it covers the pizza pan evenly.
5. Prebake your crust at 400-450 degrees for about half of your pizza's total bake time--usually around 6-8 minutes.
6. Remove from oven, top with your choice of sauce, cheese, and toppings, and then return to the over. Bake until the cheese is melted and bubbly all the way to the center.
7. Enjoy!

Ingredients.

I "preheated" my bread machine by filling it with super hot water and letting it sit for a few minutes before starting this recipe. I also used water that was too hot for the yeast, because I was preparing it before picking my kids up from school, and I wanted the dough to be waiting for me when I got home and was ready to make dinner. I don't know the exact temperatures, but it worked out just fine!

When using the timer to delay the making of bread or dough, add all the wet ingredients and the salt FIRST, then the flour and other dry ingredients. Then make a well in the center of the flour and fill it with the yeast. This keeps the yeast away from anything that could activate it until the bread machine starts mixing.

This device saves me so much time. I love it!

What will you top your pizza with this week?

Linking up at Allergy Free Wednesdays

The Bright Side of Life

I'm handing the blog over to my husband Dean for another guest post today. And it's not about donuts! It is about something sweet though. Take it away, Dean!

Oh, I should warn you that he likes puns.

He really likes puns.

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Time for another guest blog post from Dean (the SuperDad in this family of Superheroes). When Zax was diagnosed with his egg allergy, it wasn't completely alien to us since Eileen has her tree nut allergy. And she had an egg allergy when she was much younger. He's just a chocolate chip off the old block. But it was still a newer and different allergy than we were used to. Unlike peanut, we came to realize just how prevalent egg is in so many items, especially baked goods.

We didn't want to stop baking or completely give in to that's how the cookie crumbles, so the search was on for an egg replacer. We came across Ener-G, a powder that you mix with water. It works pretty well for a lot of things, (I use it for pancakes), but it works well for cookies too.

I've always loved chocolate chip cookie dough, especially in ice cream. It's my favorite. When anyone around me would make cookies, I would sneak some of the cookie dough. Sometimes I would be caught with my hand in the cookie dough bowl, sometimes I would get away with it. It was a small amount and to me, worth the risk of salmonella poisoning. Tsk, tsk, to me.

But a silver lining to Zax's egg allergy means being able to eat the cookie dough (or cake batter) without the fear of getting ill! For me, it's one of the brightest spots to his otherwise crummy allergy.

The first time I made cookie dough with the egg replacer, Eileen asked if I was making cookies. I told her no and she raised an eyebrow. She's one tough cookie. I was making it to go in ice cream. That way it was more cost effective and more importantly, I could control the amount of cookie dough in each bowl.

So here is the recipe that I love for chocolate chip cookies (it might have been posted here before by Eileen, but here it is again!)

Free From: Egg, Peanut, Tree Nut, Fish and Shellfish. I hate sea flavored ice cream. It could easily be soy free with Enjoy Life chocolate chips, and substituted with your other allergy friendly substitutions so it's not just another cookie cutter recipe.

Ingredients:

• 2 1/2 cups of flour
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 3/4 cup of firmly packed brown sugar
• 1 tablespoon Ener-G egg replacer mixed with 4 tablespoons of water = two eggs
• 1/2 cup applesauce
• 1 teaspoon baking soda (and definitely can't substitute with baking powder!)
• 1 cup butter
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 2 cups chocolate chips

Directions:

In a small bowl, combine flour, baking soda, and salt; set aside.

In a large mixer bowl, combine butter, sugar, brown sugar and vanilla; beat until creamy.

Beat in egg replacer.

Gradually add flour mixture.

Stir in chocolate chips.

Test cookie dough to make sure it's good enough for your family.

Have your family double check your work.

Drop in as much cookie dough you want into your favorite ice cream (I used chocolate chip ice cream, you can't get enough chocolate chips) and enjoy! My family said it was good, I like to think I'm one smart cookie. Until my next blog post, don't forget how super you are!

My apologies for offending anyone with my cookie puns, especially Cookie Monster. Please don't eat my cookies or cookie dough.

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Linking up at Allergy Free Wednesdays

I did warn you that he likes puns.

Chocolate Sugar Cookies

I purchased a set of football cookie cutters a few years ago, and I decided to break them out again for our annual Superbowl party, since our home team THE DENVER BRONCOS made it to the Superbowl!!!

Rather than make brown or chocolate frosting, I decided to make chocolate cut-out cookies so that the cookies would already be brown. These are very similar to my regular cut-out sugar cookies, except better, because EVERYTHING'S better with chocolate! They sure were a hit at the party!

Chocolate Cut-Out Sugar Cookies
Contains wheat and dairy
(Gluten-free flour and Earth Balance (or similar) butter substitutes would easily remove those)

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 cups (3 sticks) butter, softened
• 2 cups sugar
• 2 Tbsp Ener-G egg replacer + 8 Tbsp water (or 4 eggs equivalent of your favorite egg replacer)
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1 cup cocoa powder
• 4 cups flour
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp salt

Directions

(I forgot to take pictures while making the dough this time. Sorry, it was late the night before a party.)

Cream butter and sugar.

Beat in Ener-G and vanilla. Stir in cocoa, baking powder, and salt.

Switch to a dough hook if using a stand mixer. Then gradually add flour and mix until fully combined.

Cover/wrap and chill 1+ hours.

Heat oven to 400 degrees F. Roll out cookies and cut. I cut the cookies on the plastic wrap I had used to refrigerate the dough, and I didn't have to dust anything with flour. It worked well!

Place 1 inch apart on a cookie sheet. Bake for 6 minutes. Remove to a rack to cool completely.

Once cool, decorate with your choice of frosting. I used my aquafaba royal icing, tinted blue and orange.

(Or hand frosting bags to children, smile as they decorate five cookies, and then finish the job they got bored with. ;)

Enjoy! GO BRONCOS!

Linking up at Allergy Free Wednesdays and Gluten Free Fridays

Shrimp Pizza

I got this recipe out of a magazine a while back, and it is scrum-diddle-e-umptious! If you're looking for a break from plain-old red sauce, cheese, and pepperoni, this pizza hits the spot! Whip one up for your next pizza night, or even for the Superbowl!

Shrimp Pizza
Contains shellfish (shrimp)
Mine also contains wheat and dairy, but those depend on your crust and cheese choices

Ingredients

• 1 uncooked pizza crust of your choice (refrigerated from the store, gluten-free, homemade, etc)
• 2 Tbsp olive oil, divided
• 2-3 large garlic cloves (to your taste), minced
• 1 lb shrimp, peeled
• 5 plum tomatoes, cut into 1/4 inch slices
• 1/4 cup fresh basil, slivered
• 1 cup shredded mozzarella cheese or dairy-free mozzarella-style substitute
• Pepper to taste

Directions

Preheat your oven to 425 degrees F. Spread/roll out your crust to fit a pizza pan (or a large cookie sheet works fine, too.)

Pre-cook your crust for 4 minutes to prevent it from getting soggy in the middle once topped. Don't pre-cook for any longer, though, or you risk it getting black on the bottom.

Remove crust from oven and brush with olive oil. Sprinkle the garlic on the crust and brush around until evenly distributed.

Pat your shrimp and tomatoes dry with a paper towel--this will also help keep your crust from being soggy when done. Top the pizza with shrimp and tomatoes, spreading both evenly.

Bake for 12 minutes.

Remove pizza from oven and sprinkle with basil and cheese. Drizzle with the remaining olive oil.

Return to the oven until cheese is melted, about 4-7 minutes.

Grind pepper over the pizza (to taste.) Cut and enjoy!

How do you like your pizza?


Linking up at Allergy Free Wednesdays and Gluten Free Fridays