Gluten free, dairy free
Ingredients:
1/2 tsp powdered ginger or 1” peeled fresh ginger
1 clove garlic or 1 tsp minced garlic
1 Tbsp honey
1/2 cup smooth peanut butter
1/4th cup gf tamari
1 Tbsp rice vinegar
1 Tbsp sesame oil
1/4 red pepper flakes
Salt and pepper to taste
Directions:
Mix together. Add or remove rep pepper flakes to taste
Gluten-free, low carb w modifications, dairy free w modifications
Ingredients:
1lbs left over pulled pork
1 1/2 cups of chopped onion
2tsp salt
2 tsp ground coriander
4 tsp ground cumin
6 Tbsp chili powder
4 cloves minced garlic
1 1/2 ounce chocolate (leave out for dairy free)
2 cans (28 ounces each) Tomato Sauce
1 can (15.5 ounces) kidney beans rinsed
4 cups beef broth
2 tsp black pepper
2 tsp red pepper
4 bay leaves
Instructions:
Thaw leftover pulled pork. I know many of you are screaming left over pulled pork? Just cook so much you can’t finish it and freeze some.
Chop onion, mince garlic, & chop up chocolate.
Rinse kidney beans.
Put everything in a largish slow cooker
Cook on low for 4 hrs.
Take out bat leaves before serving.
For low carb leave out kidney beans and use a very dark chocolate. Tomato is a bit high in carbs so it may still be to high carb for some diets. Decide for yourself.
Nutrition: (I put all the ingredients to a nutrition app so your mileage may very)
Makes 10 bowls
Calories- 338, fat- 12.8g, carbs- 35.4g, protein- 20.6g
Low carb version
Calories- 244, fat- 12.3g, carbs- 18.4g, protein- 14.6g
possibly Gluten-free, possibly dairy free, possibly vegan, Possibly vegetarian, possibly low carb, possibly low fat
Taco bars can fit so many diets by how you dress them. Skip the shell and make it a salad, skip the cheese and sour cream and it’s dairy free, go corn shell instead of flour and it’s gluten-free. This makes a great party food.
Note: these are American tacos not Mexican tacos. They both have their own merits and share some ingredients. I recognize that these bare little to no resemblance to the street tacos many of us love.
Possible Ingredients:
Ground beef &/or chicken &/or flank steak &/or fake meat product
Taco seasoning packet (I like McCormick)
Flour tortillas, &/or soft corn tortillas, &/or crunchy corn shells, &/or tortilla chips
Shredded &/or leaf lettuce generally iceberg
Mixed shredded taco cheese
Chopped onion (you can sauté if wanted)
Chopped bell peppers (sauté if wanted)
Avocado &/or guacamole
Sour cream
Picklesd &/or fresh jalapeños
Hot sauces (whatever kind you like but if you are having a party a selection at various heats is nice)
Refried beans &/or black beans
Chopped tomato (I use roma)
Kernel corn
Rice
Instructions:
Cook your meat of choice (or skip if you don’t want meat)
Chop all the toppings to the appropriate sizes and styles you want
Put everything on a surface and assemble whatever Americanized food item you want.
Optional combinations:
Low carb taco salad- shredded lettuce, meat, cheese, onion, peppers, hot sauce, jalapeños
Vegan taco salad- lettuce, black beans, corn, chopped onion, chopped peppers, chopped tomato, avocado, if available vegan cheese &/or fake meat.
Gluten-free tacos- crunchy corn taco shells, meat product (double check spice mix has no flour), lettuce, tomato, pepper, onion, sour cream, cheese, hot sauce, jalapeños
Dairy free Burrito- flour tortillas, black beans, corn, meat, onion, hot sauce, rice
Have fun and mix up your own combos at home.
Nutritional content:
To many options to calculate. I recommend putting your options into my fitness pal or some other nutrition calculator.
Gluten free, dairy free, modify to low carb
Ingredients:
1 lb stew beef
2 containers/8 cups beef stock/broth
6 golden potatoes roughly 3” sized (leave out for low carb)
12 ish baby carrots
1/2 small white onion
Spices: 1 tsp garlic powder, 1/2 tsp black pepper, 1 tsp salt
Instructions:
Cut up stew beef into bite sized pieces. (Ours store cuts them into biggish pieces to large for stew/soup)
Brown beef in a skillet. It’ll add a smidge of flavor to the beef and keep it from looking grey when boiled in the broth. (You can skip browning it and it won’t change things a lot).
Dice potatoes into bite sized pieces of roughly equal size. Don’t measure them or anything. If you want this to be lo wish carb leave out the potato.
Dice baby carrots into bite size Pieces of roughly equal size. You could use regular sized carrots but will have to peel them.
Dice onion into bite size pieces of roughly equal size.
Adjust spices based on what you like. Keep in mind some broth/stock has salt and adjust accordingly.
Put everything into a slow cooker and set on high for 4 hrs or low for 6-8 hrs. If you’re home stir it sometimes but you don’t need to. (The benefit of a slow cooker is you set it and walk away).
Rough Nutritional info: (6 servings)
Calories 296, fat 9.6g, carbs 30.9g, protein 22g, iron 10.1%
Modified for low carb: calories 186, fat 9.4g, carbs 4.9g, protein 19g, iron 10.1%
Gluten-free, modifiable to vegetarian
Ingredients:
4 cups corn kernels
4 slices (ounces) bacon (or 2 Tbsp butter)
1 1/2 cups diced onion
1 cup diced carrot
1 cup diced celery
4 cups chicken (or veg) stock
1 1/2 cups milk
1 cup heavy cream
1 can diced potato
1 Tbsp salt (to taste)
2 tsp pepper (to taste)
Green onion, tortillas chips, sour cream, and/or bacon bits for garnish
Instructions:
Do all the prep of dicing veggies and cutting up bacon.
I used a Dutch oven but feel free to do it in a large pot or slow cooker. If you use a large pot keep a close eye on it so nothing burns to the edges. (Milk does that)
Cook bacon, when it’s brown, toss the onion in. Cook onion until it’s translucent. Add in carrot & celery and coat it w the bacon grease.
(If you are doing the veg option skip the bacon, melt the butter in the pan, add the onions, cook until translucent, and add in celery + carrots. )
Add in the stock/broth and deglaze the bottom of the pan. This is just making sure you stir in the brown stuff from the bacon that is sticking to the bottom. It gets the tasty bacon in it.
Add milk, heavy cream, salt, & pepper. Know that at this point everything is cooked so it’s fine to taste. But you really wanna heat the milk and cream for awhile. It changes the flavor. Plus, this one is a hot soup.
Add in corn. Frozen, canned, fresh off the cob. Use whatever you have. If you use canned i’d drain them and rinse. We get several dozen ears of corn once a yr and process it so we can have close to fresh corn all yr. it’s a tiring day and I don’t expect everyone to do it but I like having it.
About 15-30 min before you pull the soup off the stove add in potatoes to get hot. If you use fresh potatoes I’d add them right after the corn but I like canned potatoes cause lazy. Canned ones are almost done being cooked cause of the canning process.
Rough Nutrition:
394 calories, 42.g carbs, 18g fat, 12g protein, 5.3% daily iron.
Thank you to natashaskitchen.com thechunkychef.com foodandwine.com simplyrecipes.com whose recipes I read to put together what I liked and avoid what I didn’t.
Gluten-free & can be vegetarian
Ingredients:
1 3/4 cup Arborio Rice
3 Tbsp butter
Small onion
4 cups chicken or vegetable broth/stock
2 or 3 boiled & cubed chicken or ham or leave it out
Frozen peas
1 1/2 cups shredded mixed cheeses
Salt and pepper to taste
Instruction:
Take pre cooked chicken out of freezer and defrost (I precook chicken whenever I buy it because it is cheaper to buy 6-8 chicken breasts than 2-3. I boil it, cube it, divide it into per meal sizes, & freeze it.)
If you don’t have pre cooked chicken feel free to either leave it out or cook some. If you want a vegetarian meal leave out the chicken & use veg broth.
In a large pan melt the 3 tablespoons of butter. Add in the onion and cook until translucent. When butter is melted, & onions are ready, add the rice to the pan. Toast the rice. It will still be hard at this point and that’s as it should be.
Start adding chicken or vegetable broth 1/4 to 1/2 cup at a time. stir constantly until you can part the rice and almost no liquid oozes out. Add until the rice is just about done. Add salt and pepper sometime during this slow adding of broth.
When you are adding the last bit of broth add the chicken and peas so they heat. When the liquid is cooked off and the chicken and peas are hot/warm take it off the heat.
(I use peas because they cook fast and easy. If you don’t want peas feel free to leave out or add a different veggie but if using something else you might need to pre cook them.) (you could add cubes of ham, or some other meat product (nothing to greasy) or leave it out all together).
Add the cheese and stir until melted in. Notice I didn’t specify what kind. That’s because it barely matters. Basically if you can shred it you can use it. Probably not great to use goat cheese or feta but I haven’t tried it maybe it’s awesome. Risotto purists say you can’t use pre shredded cheese but I have done this with pre shredded cheddar and Parmesan cheese and was just as happy as when I hand shredded it.
Enjoy!
Nutrition ish:
4 servings
Calories 690, fat 22.2g, carbs 67g, protein 51.7g
Gluten free, vegetarian
Psst… there are only 2 of us so I usually make a half batch.
Psst psst wash your veggies.
Ingredients:
3 1/2 seeded and rough chopped English cucumbers
1 seeded and diced English cucumber
1/4 cup White vinegar
3/4 cup chopped dill
1 3/4 cup sour cream
2 tsp salt
2 tsp black pepper
3/4 cup heavy cream
1/2 bunch Green onion (40 grams roughly)
Instructions:
Purée the rough chopped cucumber and vinegar until smooth and transfer to a large bowl
Whisk or blend in sour cream, heavy cream, dill, salt, & pepper.
Stir in diced (pretty cucumber) and scallions.
Cover and chill overnight. I like to store this soup in canning jars. serve cold
Inspiration:
original recipe from Zingerman’s bake house. Changes have been made.
Nutrition: (makes 6-8 bowls)
Calories – 272, carbs – 11.9g, fat – 23.3g, protein – 3.8g, dietary fiber – 1.4g
Quick guide: shuck, clean, boil, vacuum seal, & freeze.
More details below.
Step 1 – get corn in season for cheap in bulk. I go to a local farm that has a small store but you might go to a market or grow your own.
Step 2 – shuck corn (remove the green outside and as many of those little hairs you can) we like to do this outside when the weather is nice cause those hairs get everywhere.
Step 3 – get your biggest stock pot and start heating the water.
Step 4 – while you wait for that to heat rinse corn.
Step 5 – cut cobs to manageable pieces and cut off icky bits.
Step 6 – boil corn for 4 min.
Step 7 – put boiled corn into an ice bath to cool.
Step 8 – sort corn for vacuum sealing . I put them on this cookie sheet w a grid thing so that it dries. I sort by size so we can vacuum seal better.
Step 9 – vacuum seal
Step 10 – freeze
Gluten-free
Ingredients:
8 cups of broccoli
1/3 cup of real hormel bacon bits
1/2 cup red onion minced
1/2 cup sunflower seeds
1 cup golden raisins
Dressing:
1 1/2 cup mayo
1/3 cup sugar
3 Tbsp lemon juice
3 Tbsp Apple Cider Vinegar
1/2 tsp salt
Instructions:
Mix chopped broccoli, chopped onion, sunflower seeds, chopped bacon, & raisins.
Mix mayo, sugar, lemon juice, apple cider vinegar, and salt.
Pour dressing over broccoli mix. Let sit refrigerated for a day stirring occasionally. Enjoy.
Inspired by:
Themodernproper.com
Rough Nutritional Guide:
12 servings, 354 calories, 16.2 carbs, 2.6g fiber, 19.6g fat, 11.3g protein.
Gluten-free, vegetarian
Ingredients:
Fruit filling:
2 cups nectarines sliced
1Tbsp sugar
1tsp King Arthur gf flour
Squeeze of lemon juice
Topping:
1/4 cup sugar
1/4 brown sugar
1/3 cup King Arthur gf flour
1/3 cup oats
1/4 tsp baking powder
Healthy dash salt
3 Tbsp soft butter
3/4 tsp vanilla
1/2 egg
Instructions:
Preheat oven to 350F
Mix the sliced nectarines, lemon juice, & sugar in a sauce pan and heat until they get wet but not until they’re mush. Remove from heat and add flour.
Mix all the dry ingredients for the topping. Then add the wet ingredients.
Grease pan, add filling, put on topping by the spoonful.
Cook for 25-35 minutes until topping is lightly browned.
Great with vanilla ice cream.
Inspired by:
Spicysouthernkitchen.com
Rough Nutritional information: 185 calories, 6.5g fat, 32g carbs, 2g protein