Chicken and Gravy over Mashed Potatoes and Biscuits

Here is how you can get the most bang for your buck when buying whole chicken, which is usually quite a bit cheaper than buying the boneless, skinless, breasts, which is what I typically buy. Here is what I did with my whole chicken!

Chicken and Gravy over Mashed Potatoes with Biscuits

Directions:
 

-Place whole chicken in crock pot, breast side up.

-Add your favorite chicken seasoning rub on top.

-Let cook on low about 10 hours, if frozen.

-Shred the cooked chicken and place on a platter, separating from the bones, skin, and fat. (I placed all the bones and excess on a plate to use for broth later.)

-Use the juices to make a chicken gravy in a skillet using cornstarch to thicken.

-Place all of the bones, skin, and fat, back into the crock pot.

-Fill the crock pot with water and cook on low overnight. (I cooked mine about 24 hours before I got a chance to work on it).

-I made biscuits according to the directions on a box of Gluten Free Bisquick and they turned out amazing!

-I also made mashed potatoes.

-I plated the mashed potatoes, put a biscuit or two on top, added the shredded chicken, and topped with the chicken gravy.

-After the chicken broth was finished in the crock pot, I strained it into separate containers and added salt to freeze for later use.

We really got a lot of use out of this one chicken!

Enjoy!

Gluten Free Peach Crisp

This stuff was seriously delicious with the light coconut flavors added into it. And I doubled what people normally did for the topping because one bit of it and I was hooked so this recipe is for a lot of topping mix! YUM! Serve it warm with some whipped topping or ice-cream….ahhhh!!!! Heaven!

 

Gluten Free Peach Crisp

Ingredients:

8 cups of fresh or frozen peaches

¼ tsp almond extract

1 tsp vanilla extract

¼ tsp nutmeg

1 tbsp cornstarch

2 cups gluten free oats

½ cup coconut flour

½ tsp salt

1 tsp cinnamon

½ cup brown sugar

¾ cup of coconut oil, melted

Filling:

-Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

-Grease a 13x9 inch pan

-In a large bowl mix together peaches with almond and vanilla extract.

-Place the mixture into a 13x9 pan and sprinkle with nutmeg and cornstarch.

Topping:

-For the topping, in a large bowl, mix together 2 cups of gluten free oats, coconut flour, salt, cinnamon, brown sugar, and coconut oil.

-Once combined, top the peaches with your topping mixture. Add nuts on top if you would like.

-Bake about 30-40 minutes.

Enjoy!

 

Gluten Free Peach Pie

I bought a few large bags of frozen peaches so I wanted to try making a peach pie for the 4th of July celebration we had with family. This pie ended up being a hit!

 

Gluten Free Peach Pie

1 box Gluten Free Pantry Perfect Pie Crust Mix

6 cups worth of frozen or fresh peaches (peeled and sliced)

1 cup sugar

1/3 cup Domata Living Flour

2 tsp of almond extract

¼ cup of coconut oil, melted

1 egg, mixed with water for egg wash

 

Directions:

Crust:

-Preheat oven to 325 degrees.

-Make the box of pie crust according to the directions. You will only need half the dough for the bottom and top crust.

-When it’s finished, take half the dough and split it in half for the bottom and top of your pie.

-Put half the dough (rolled out) into the bottom of your pie dish and bake about 5-10 minutes until lightly cooked.

Filling:

-In a mixing bowl, mix together sugar and gluten free flour until blended.

-In a separate bowl, mix together peaches and almond extract.

-Add in the sugar mixture until coated.

-Place peaches into the crust.

-Drizzle coconut oil over the peaches.

-Top the pie with the other half of the dough and crimp the edges.

-Brush egg wash over the top of the crust and sprinkle more sugar on top.

-Bake about 1 hour.

Enjoy!

Hot Hamburger

My husband LOVES hot hamburgers so I made a version of this with the fries instead of the mashed potatoes like we usually have. This was really quick and easy using a bag of fries and already shaped hamburgers for something to throw together last minute.
 

Hot Hamburger

Ingredients:

1 bag Ore-Ida frozen fries

1 box frozen hamburgers

Burger Seasoning

Olive Oil or butter

 Cajun seasoning

Directions:

-Cook fries according to directions on bag, sprinkle with Cajun seasoning.

-Heat a large skillet with butter or olive oil to cook your burgers.

-Season burgers with seasoning salt or your favorite burger seasoning.

-Place burgers on preheated skillet over medium heat, cooking until done.

-When burgers are cooked through, remove them from the skillet.

-In a small bowl mix together 2-3 tablespoons of corn starch with cold water.

-Add the corn starch mixture to the skillet with the burger drippings, whisking constantly.

-Simmer until the gravy is thickened.

-Season the gravy with salt and pepper.

-Place fries on a plate, hamburger on top, cover it with gravy, and enjoy!

 

Pan Seared Steak and Roasted Steak Fries

I think this turned out better than grilling it or better than you get in a restaurant. It’s rather tedious to sit and baste the steaks but oh so worth it! I also cut up potatoes and cooked them in the pan drippings
 

Pan Seared Steak

Ingredients:

Steak

Salt & Pepper

Olive Oil

Butter

Garlic, minced

Parsley

 

Directions:

-Salt and Pepper your steak

-Heat a cast iron skillet until hot with a couple teaspoons of olive oil

-Place steak seasoned side down in skillet

-Add salt and pepper to the unseasoned side of the steak

-Let steak cook a couple minutes before turning

-In a small bowl mix together butter, garlic, and parsley

-Add a couple slabs of butter mixture to the skillet on the sides of the steak

-Let cook a couple more minutes before flipping, continuously ladling the butter to the top of the steak.

-After you flip the steak, continue to baste the steak with the butter

-Keep basting and flipping until steak is cooked through or finish cooking in the oven like I did at 400 degrees for about 6-8 minutes.

-Allow steak to rest about 5-10 minutes before serving.

Potatoes:

I cut up steak fries with potatoes, topped with olive oil and seasoning and baked until done.

I left the drippings in the pan, added butter, and finished the potatoes in the drippings for a nice crisp to them... Yummy!

Hawaiian Loco Moco

Here is an interesting dish to try that the hubby loved (but then again, he loves anything with an egg on top). It is a Hawaiian dish called Loco Moco. It's an easy supper consisting of a hamburger patties, eggs, rice, and gravy.

Loco Moco

Ingredients

-Hamburger Patties
-Eggs
-White or Brown Rice
-2 tbsp Cornstarch
-Beef Bouillon Cube with water or 1 can Beef Broth
-1 tbsp Worcestershire Sauce
-Pepper

Directions

-Fry up the hamburger patties in a large skillet, season with salt and pepper.

-Meanwhile, make your rice according to directions.

-When patties are cooked, remove burgers and add in a beef bouillon cube with water or beef broth (about 1 can) and pepper to the burger drippings in the skillet.

-Bring to a simmer and cook about 5 minutes.

-Add in Worcestershire sauce.

-In a separate bowl, mix together 2 tbsp of cornstarch with cold water and add into gravy.

-Whisk together until smooth.

-Then you can make your eggs!

-When everything is done plate your rice, with a hamburgers patty on top, then the fried egg!

Enjoy!

Gluten Free Cupcakes with Raspberry Filling

My best friend just got married this last weekend and I have the worst time watching people eat desserts or cheesecurds when I can’t have them. I received the guest list and saw that there was going to be a few of us that can’t have gluten so I decided to whip up some cupcakes! These freeze extremely well to keep on hand to bring with for events like this or even school events for children.

I used Solo Raspberry Cake & Pastry Filling (which verified as gluten free from their website: http://www.solofoods.com/gluten-free) since I didn’t really have time for making the filling homemade.

 

Gluten Free Vanilla Cupcakes with Raspberry Filling

Ingredients

¼ cup softened butter

¾ cup granulated white sugar

2 eggs, lightly beaten

1 Tablespoon pure vanilla extract

1½ cups Gluten Free Flour (I used Domata Living Flour)

2 teaspoons baking powder

¼ teaspoon salt

½ cup milk

 

Instructions

-Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
-Line a muffin tin with 12 paper muffin liners
-In a mixing bowl, combine butter and sugar and beat until smooth
-Add in the eggs and vanilla
-In a separate bowl, whisk flour, baking powder and salt.
-Add half of flour mixture to the mixing bowl
-Pour in milk and then add remaining flour
-Stir until batter is smooth
-Spoon batter muffin tin
-Bake 12-15 minutes until cooked through and light golden brown on top
-Remove from oven to cool

Adding in the Raspberry Filling

-Once cupcakes are cool you can begin adding in the filling
-Take a butter knife and create an X on the center of each cupcake, without going all the way down to the bottom of the cupcake.
-Place raspberry filling inside of a piping bag with a large round piping tip
-Place the tip inside the cupcake and squeeze the filling in until it reaches the top
-Once you have finished all of them, you can pipe on the buttercream frosting.

Buttercream

I always use 1 cup unsalted butter, ½ cup milk, ¼ tsp salt, 2 tsp vanilla extra, and 2 pounds of powdered sugar in a mixing bowl. You can adjust as needed for thicker or thinner icing for the cupcakes.

 
Enjoy!