Yummy Fruit Syrup

7 cups pureed fruit (I used peaches)
7 cups sugar
1/3 cup lemon juice
1 package fruit pectin

In 2 quart saucepan add fruit and lemon juice. Add sugar and stir. Bring to a rolling boil on high heat and stir continuously for 1 minute.

Add fruit pectin and bring back to a rolling boil. Stir one more minute and remove from heat.

Pour into sterilized hot jars and seal (with new lids).

Sweet & Sour Sauce

This recipe originally came from "Deseret Recipes", a cookbook published by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. I altered the recipe to better suit our tastes and it is definitely a favorite in our house. It is great served over the homemade chicken nuggets I posted a couple of weeks ago. It is also good served over chicken that has been baked or sauteed if you are trying to cut the amount of fat in your diet. This makes quite a bit of sauce, so you may need to halve the recipe if you have a small family. :)

Sweet & Sour Sauce

2 cans (13 0z) pineapple tidbits - drain juice and reserve

add enough water to pineapple juice to equal 3 3/4 cups of liquid

2 cups sugar

1/2 cup brown sugar

2 Tablespoons soy sauce or gluten free, low sodium Tamari sauce

1 1/8 cups vinegar

Cornstarch (about 2-3 Tablespoons) Sorry I don't have an exact measurement on this...the original recipe calls for flour and to make it gluten free I switched to cornstarch.

Optional: thinly sliced onions, celery, and carrots

If using the veggies, saute them lightly in just a little bit of oil until crisp tender. Add all other ingredients except cornstarch and pineapple tidbits. Bring to a boil and reduce heat to simmer. Dissolve cornstarch in a bit of cold water and add to mixture. Stir quickly to keep it from clumping together and stir until thickened. Add pineapple tidbits and serve over steamed rice and chicken.

Gluten Free Chicken Nuggets

Wow! I can't believe I've neglected this blog for so long! I've been dabbling in gluten free cooking over the past few months since my diagnosis of gluten intolerance. One of the foods I have missed the most is chicken nuggets....and I had especially been craving chicken nuggets from Chick-fil-A.

I should warn you now that I am notorious for not measuring when I cook (especially main dishes). Hopefully this recipe will turn out as yummy for you as it did for me. We've made it a couple of times now and it's become a family favorite. My daughter even made it one night for her and hubby while I was out of town (she's gluten intolerant too). They poured homemade sweet and sour sauce over them and served over steamed rice. Yum!!! I'll share the sweet & sour sauce recipe another day soon. Probably next week since we'll be camping this weekend and enjoying the last bit of summer. :)

If you don't need these to be gluten free, simply use regular flour instead of gluten free flour.

equal amounts of gluten free flour blend & cornmeal (approx. 1 cup of each)
Spices (I used Mrs. Dash, black pepper, onion powder, and garlic powder)
2 eggs beaten and thinned out with about 1/4 cup of milk
1 1/2 - 2 pounds of boneless skinless chicken breasts cut into bite size pieces

Blend gluten free flour, cornmeal, and spices together. Dip chicken pieces in egg mixture and then in the flour & spice mixture. Fry in hot oil until golden brown and cooked all the way through. Drain on paper towels and serve with your favorite dipping sauce.

Cashew Chicken

This recipe came from my mother-in-law, who got it from my sister-in-law, who got it from her sister-in-law....LOL Isn't it amazing how quickly the good recipes can travel? I love it! Anyways, this was e-mailed to me a while back and I made it for dinner a couple of weeks ago. It was a HUGE hit. As an added bonus, as long as I buy gluten free soy sauce, it fits into my new eating habits just fine. These days, it just doesn't get much better than that! :-D

¾ cup Orange Juice

1/3 cup Honey

¼ cup Soy Sauce

1 tsp. Garlic Powder

½ tsp. Pepper

4 boneless Skinless Chicken Breasts

1 1/2 Tbs. Olive Oil

1 Tbs. Corn Starch

1 cup Cashews

4 green onion

1 lg, carrot sliced

1 celery stalk, sliced

Combine and set aside the OJ, Honey, Soy Sauce, Corn Starch, Garlic Powder, Pepper. In a large pan sauté the chicken. In a separate pan cook olive oil, green onions, carrot, and celery until softened. Add veggies, sauce, cashews to chicken and heat through.

After sauteing the chicken, I remove it from the pan and cut into bite size pieces. I then add the carrot, celery, and green onion to the same pan as the chicken. I basically turn it into a one pot meal. I guess I'm just lazy like that. ;)

Candy Apple Pie

I pulled this recipe out of an issue of Backyard Living quite a few years ago. As I've said before, with our kids having their birthdays so close together, we often have anything but cake to celebrate. Our son has asked for pie for his birthday...half apple & half cherry...when I think apple pie, this is the recipe that comes to mind. Enjoy!

6 cups thinly sliced peeled tart apples
2 Tablespoons lime juice
3/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon or nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon salt
Pastry for double-crust pie (9 inches)
2 Tablespoons butter

Topping:
1/4 cup butter
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
2 Tablespoons heavy whipping cream
1/2 cup chopped pecans

In a large bowl, toss apples with lime juice. Combine dry ingredients; add to the apples and toss lightly. Line a 9-inch pie plate with bottom crust and trim even with edge; fill with apple mixture. Dot with butter. Roll out remaining pastry to fit top of pie. Place over filling. Trim, seal, and flute edges high; cut slits in pastry. Bake at 400 degrees for 40-45 minutes or until golden brown and apples are tender.

Meanwhile, melt butter in a small saucepan. Stir in brown sugar and cream; bring to a boil, stirring constantly. Remove from the heat; stir in pecans. Pour over top crust. Bake 3-4 minutes longer or until bubbly. Serve warm.

*While you might be tempted to not use heavy whipping cream because it only calls for 2 Tablespoons, it is better if you do use it. Rather than having the remainder of the heavy cream go to waste, I whip it with a bit of sugar & vanilla and serve it with the pie. :)

Sausage Potato Soup

It's been a really rough few weeks and has been hard for me to get excited about cooking and even eating! Right before Mother's Day I was put on a gluten free and dairy free diet (perfect timing huh?). It's been amazingly hard to follow and very overwhelming at times. I am doing better about it and am slowly getting back into wanting to cook. I'm having to either revamp old favorites or having to create new favorites - in order to avoid living on nothing but baked chicken, fish, salads, veggies, and fruit. We've had some rather chilly weather this spring and even had some snow last week. It's been an interesting spring! LOL Anyways, I created this soup last weekend since it was cold enough here to be perfect for soup.

1 lb. Jimmy Dean All Natural Breakfast Sausage (I'd love to try making it again only with Italian Sausage)
1 onion coarsely diced
6-8 scrubbed and diced potatoes
1 - 2  quarts Organic All Natural Beef Broth
Milk of choice (I use whole milk. You can also use unsweetened almond or rice milk)
Potato Flakes (if you need to thicken the broth any)
Spices to taste ( I use salt, pepper, parsley, and Mrs. Dash)

Brown sausage with onion in a large pot. When cooked all the way through, use a little bit of the beef broth to deglaze the bottom of the pan. Add the remainder of the broth and the potatoes. Simmer until potatoes are tender with some of them breaking apart so that they thicken the broth. Add almond milk to the soup to add some creaminess and to thin it out if the soup has become too thick. Serve immediately.

It's a simple recipe that I totally made up on the fly with ingredients on hand, but boy oh boy was it good. There wasn't even a ladle full of it leftover. Gone in a flash! Hope you enjoy it as much as we did!

Angel Biscuits

This recipe is from a church cookbook that my stake published in 1997. We affectionately refer to it as "the red cookbook" since it has a red cover on it. :) It is stained, tattered, dog eared and in general well used and much loved. Over the years I have yet to find a bad recipe in it. While some of them may not end up being to our tastes, the recipes themselves are sound. This recipe is so easy that with very little supervision from me, our 13 year old daughter made them to go with dinner last week and they were delicious!

5 cups flour
1/4 cup sugar
3 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 package dry yeast
1/4 cup warm water
1 cup shortening
2 cups buttermilk

Sift dry ingredients. Cut in shortening. Dissolve yeast in warm water and add with buttermilk to dry ingredients. Mix well. Roll out between 1/4" and 1/2" thick. Cut out and bake on a greased (or parchment lined) baking sheet at 400 degrees for about 15 minutes. The cut out biscuits can be refrigerated or frozen. If frozen, let thaw and rise before baking.