Kid Friendly Corner: Gluten Free Chicken Nuggets

Good morning!  As I was going through my recipes for the week I realized that there are a few Little A might not eat so I decided to play around with a gluten free chicken nugget recipe because what kid (and grown up) doesn't love a chicken nugget!  I already had some gluten free flour in my pantry but knew that wouldn't give me a crunchy nugget and the crunch is essential for a good nugget :)  I have also recently discovered the joys of making my own gluten free flours in the coffee grinder, so for this recipe I decided to make my own almond meal*.  Then Little A and I set up an assembly line on the kitchen table and got to work!

Gluten Free Chicken Nuggets:

1lb chicken breast tenderloins                         
.5c gluten free flour
1 egg
water
1c almond meal
Salt and Pepper

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Prepare baking sheet with cooking spray (be generous so your nuggets don't stick!)
Cut chicken breast tenderloins** into cubes and place in bowl. (I am not a big fan of touching raw chicken so I used my kitchen scissors and then popped them in the dishwasher but you could also use a knife.)
Pour gluten free flour into a bowl and season with salt and pepper to taste.
Pour almond meal into a bowl. 
Beat egg with a bit of water to create an egg wash.
Now you are ready to make nuggets!  Dip chicken cube into flour, then egg wash, then almond meal and place on prepared baking sheet.
Repeat until you have dipped all your nuggets.
Bake for 15 minutes (or until chicken is no longer pink in the middle)

These nuggets were delicious!  I made enough to keep in the refrigerator for the week for Little A's dinners when I make something for the grown ups that might be not so kid friendly.  One quick note, these nuggets don't have the typical friend, processed crunch but the almond meal gives them a great texture.

Happy Eating!! :)

*Almond Meal: ground almonds with skin on, Almond Flour: ground blanched almonds with no skin
**Chicken breast tenderloins have a silvery tendon that runs along the top of them that you will want to be sure to remove when you cut them.

Recipe Review: Cocoa Crusted Pork Tenderloin

Tonight we had Cocoa Crusted Pork Tenderloin with a Cranberry Red Wine Glaze for dinner and I have to say it was pretty good.  I found the original recipe on Spark People and only made a few minor changes.  First off I was using 2.5 pounds of pork loin so I doubled the spice mixture.  Also I added a bit of nutmeg and clove to the spice rub.  In addition I seasoned the pork with salt and pepper before putting on the spice rub.  

Image Credit: porknifeandspoon.com

 The original recipe called for a mole sauce but I was not that motivated today, so I made a quick glaze.

Cranberry Red Wine Glaze:
1/2-3/4c red wine
2T brown sugar
1/4c dried cranberries (or cherries)

Remove the pork from the pan and de-glaze using the red wine scrappy up all the yummy bits of flavor on the bottom of the pan.

Pour the red wine mixture into a sauce pan and add the brown sugar.

Simmer on low heat and allow to reduce to the consistency of thick glaze.

Add the dried cranberries and stir.

Serve immediately.

Pork: 3 Points+/serving
Sauce: 1-2 Points+/serving depending on how much you use

This pork can stand alone or have a sauce (we also ate it with unsweetened applesauce and that was really yummy too-and lower WW points+!)
Overall I am really happy with this recipe and definitely plan to make it again, in fact I can't wait for leftover day on Thursday to try the pork in a taco :)

Happy Eating!

Meal Planning Monday...a little early

This weeks meal plan is going to have a few new meals I want to try out before I go back to work next week...yikes!  We are also trying to stick with low sugar, less processed foods and I will include the Weight Watchers Points+ for a serving of each of the recipes.

Monday: Salmon with Tomato and Basil  7PP/serving
Tuesday: Italian Meatloaf Cupcakes with Mashed Potato "Frosting"  (I am linking to the recipe that inspired mine and will include my Italian Meatloaf recipe in a post later this week.) 6PP/serving

Wednesday: Turkey Burgers with Peaches and Blueberries 8PP/serving

Thursday: Leftovers

Friday: Pizza

Saturday: order out

Sunday: Braised Brisket with Potatoes and Carrots  7PP/serving

Breakfasts for the Week: Oatmeal Pancakes 3PPserving and Apple Cinnamon Slow Cooker Oats 4PP/serving

Dessert for the Week: Lemon Cake made with Diet Sprite  When I make this cake I line the bottom of a 9x13 baking dish with frozen peaches and then pour the cake mix over the top.  4PP/serving

All the dinner recipes this week are new to me, so expect reviews as I make them.

Happy Eating! :)

Oatmeal Pancakes (gluten free, sugar free, dairy free)

Today's breakfast was delicious!  I started searching last night for oatmeal pancake recipes because I had a craving, but all of them I found had regular flour in them and I didn't want to use regular flour, or they used cottage cheese which I can't stand!  So after about an hour of frustration I decided to just make my own recipe.  I did use an egg but you can sub 1T of flaxseed meal mixed with 3T of water to eliminate the egg.

Image Credit: macheesmo.com

These were so yummy I didn't get any pictures before we gobbled them up (hence the picture of oats for this post haha!)  I do plan to make more to freeze in 2 packs for weekday breakfasts with a little bit of peanut butter.  The recipe makes about 12 pancakes and a serving size of 2 is only 3 WW Points+ and super filling!

Oatmeal Pancakes:

2.5c oats (2c ground into oat flour, .5c whole oats) 

1T baking powder

.5tsp salt

1tsp cinnamon

.5c unsweetened applesauce

1.5c water

Grind 2 c oats in a coffee grinder to make oat flour.

Add all ingredients except water to a bowl mix.  Pour in water and mix again.  (There should be little to no lumps.)

Heat skillet or griddle (you can use a bit of oil if you want, I use my Misto to limit fat.)

Pour .25c servings of batter onto heated skillet.  The surface will not “bubble” like a traditional pancake (you may see a few bubbles) to indicate when it is ready to flip, so you just have to watch closely.

Add ins: diced apples, cinnamon, blueberries, chocolate chips, nuts, raisins, cranberries

Notes:

Make sure your oats are gluten free if you are on a gluten free diet.  I used a coffee grinder to make my own oat flour and it was so easy!  I decreased the amount of salt from 1tsp to .5tsp because it tasted too salty to me, but you could increase if you wanted to.  You could sub milk for the water as well, but I wanted dairy free and lower points for this breakfast :)

This recipe is being shared on Shrinking Kitchen's Cook and Tell board!

ChocoNana Bread: whole wheat, no oil, no sugar added

Went to bed last night thinking that the bananas on the kitchen table were looking a little brown and I needed to use them for something.  Then today I woke up with a chocolate craving, big shocker right? ;)  So I began browsing my recipes looking for something low sugar that uses chocolate and banana, but couldn't find anything and I thought "why not make up my own?"  I have been wanting to try my hand at writing my own baking recipes lately and now is as good a time as any, so here is what I came up with.

Doesn't this look delicious???

ChocoNana Bread

1.75c whole wheat flour

2-3 mashed bananas

.5c cocoa powder

1tsp cinnamon

1tsp nutmeg

.5tsp salt

1.5tsp baking powder

.5tsp baking soda

.5c applesauce

2 eggs (can sub flaxseed meal and water)

Preheat oven to 375.   

Mix together mashed bananas and applesauce (I did this in my food processor because I don't like banana chunks in my banana read).   

Pour banana applesauce mixture into the bowl of a stand mixer and add in eggs.  Mix well.

In a separate bowl mix together all dry ingredients (flour, cocoa powder, cinnamon, nutmeg,  salt, baking powder and baking soda).

Gradually add dry ingredients to wet ingredients, mixing as you go.

Pour into greased 9x5 loaf pan (or muffin tins if you prefer).

Bake 50-60 minutes, or until toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

Notes: 

This is not a very sweet bread since the only sweetness comes from the bananas and applesauce.  If you prefer a sweet banana bread you can try adding honey, sugar or even some chocolate chips.  This is a very dense bread because it uses whole wheat flour.  You could probably use whole wheat pastry flour for a lighter bread, I just didn't have any.  Also, if you don't like nutmeg eliminate or reduce the amount as you can taste the nutmeg in the bread.  

So here is how it looked right before I couldn't resist and ate it still steaming from the oven, delicious!!  

 Happy Eating :)

No Sugar Added Raspberry Peach Sorbet

So as you all know by now, we are on a low sugar kick in our household.  We are trying to stick with only natural sugars for the time being like the ones found in fruit.  If you have read any of my recent posts, you also probably know by now that I am a sugar addict!  I also happen to be pretty fond of ice cream.  Combine the sugar addiction, the ice cream obsession fondness and summertime and you have a recipe for a major ice cream craving!  I decided to stick with my low sugar meal plan though and make my own instead of buy some since most store bought ice creams have either tons of sugar or artificial sweeteners.

Ingredients:
2 pints raspberries, frozen
1/4c milk of your choice, I used fat free but you could also use almond, coconut, soy, 1%, etc.
2 fresh, ripe peaches diced
Optional: Honey to taste.  I didn't use any, but this really depends on your taste buds

I started with 2 pints of frozen raspberries.  I purchased these before we went on vacation and froze them using a method I found on the Jewel grocery store website.  The method is quite simple and you don't end up with a pile of stuck together or mushy berries at the end.

Image credit: Jewel foodstores website

I placed all the frozen berries in my blender because it was already out, but you could also use a food processor.  I chopped the berries using the "chop" setting and when they started to look like sand I slowly poured the milk through the opening in the top of the lid (I would not suggest removing the entire lid because you may end up with a big mess).  I continued to blend the mixture until it began to look like sorbet.  At that point I removed the lid and used a spatula to scrape the sorbet into a bowl and mixed in the diced peaches. 

Image Credit: www.under400.tumblr.com

This recipe was absolutely delicious and definitely satisfied my ice cream craving and the sugar monster!  I will happily be making this again soon.

NOTE: I would suggest serving immediately as when I froze the leftovers to eat later it got really hard and was difficult to eat.

Happy Eating :)

Recipe Review: Skinny Monkey Cookies

I found this recipe through Pinterest posted by Once a Month Mom.  I love her site, her recipes and her ideas and knew when I saw this recipe that I had to try it!  Over the past week and a half our household has been working very hard to recover from a vacation filled with less that stellar eating and a bit too much sugar (in the form of sweets and alcohol!)  The problem for me was I am a sugar ADDICT!  I knew I would never make it through the vacation detox period without serious tricks up my sleeve.  One of them I already posted about, Whole Wheat Blueberry Muffins.  They were delicious and helped with the sugar cravings, but I needed something more...I needed chocolate!  Oh the sweet, delicious, addictive substance of my dreams :)  Now I knew that I didn't really need chocolate, I just wanted it, but I also knew that if I didn't find a way to get the chocolate into my diet in a "healthy" way I was going to cave and eat a Snickers bar large cake shake from Portillos (no judging please!!)  So I searched my trusty resource, Pinterest, and found these cookies with a simple search for no sugar cookies.

I am not going to list the whole recipe, you can find it with this linkon Once a Month Mom's page: Skinny Monkey Cookies.  What I will share are my thoughts and changes.  First off, don't let the reviews on the page sway you, these are delicious!!  They are not a traditionally sweet cookie, but if that is what you are looking for why would you make a sugarless cookie?!  The texture is like a really soft oatmeal cookie, so if you don't like that these might not be for you.  Also, I added cinnamon (listed as optional) and a pinch of salt.  I have found in most of my healthier baking recipes that salt is not included, but I have also found that most baked goods need a pinch of salt to bring out the flavors (even the Quaker Oats package says to add salt to their oatmeal!)

After having made these once there are a few changes I would make, nothing major just more fitting to my tastes.  I would change the number of bananas to 2 and increase the applesauce and peanut butter to compensate.  I found the cookies to be very banana-y and I am not a huge banana person.  I would definitely keep the cinnamon, but add a full teaspoon because I love cinnamon.  I might also consider using chunky peanut butter for texture, but not sure on that one yet.  Finally, make sure you store them in the refrigerator (or freezer) and eat them all within about 5-7 days (longer if frozen), otherwise the banana takes over and you taste nothing else.

Overall this is a fantastic recipe and I am so excited that Once a Month Mom posted it and that I found it.  If you make these let me know what you think, and if you make other changes, please let me know.  I am always looking for new ways to satisfy my sweet tooth...without feeding my guilt monster!  Don't these look delicious???

Happy Eating :)