Then along comes Facebook. A friend posted about a cookie recipe she had seen previously and one of her friends linked to the Melted Snowman cookies. How cute?! Finally living in a decent house with a great kitchen that I can actually use, I just had to give this a try. I looked at few recipes and then remembered that pink box. Seemed like a good time to bust it out huh?

I’m sooo glad I did. Maybe I’m becoming immune to that gluten free aftertaste or maybe it just (as I hope) doesn’t exist with this recipe. Either way, this is one to keep and reuse and I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

UPDATE: Be sure to read the comments. We made our own little version of this tonight for dinner and while 3 of the kids weren’t exactly thrilled, it was really good and we will be making it again. You just can’t beat a quick and easy dinner.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xBOZxAQvoyM

Getting tired of plain rice, or even plain rice jazzed with a little chicken broth, I set out to search the web for the perfect chicken rice recipe. Imagine my surprise when within a few clicks I came upon Homemade Chicken Rice-A-Roni from Stolenmomentscooking.com! Ok, so I’m halfway there. A quick look through the ingredient and I know I can pull this together. Even better! No trips to the store for special ingredients!

So, I made a few tiny modifications and here you have a Gluten Free Rice-A-Roni! This is so good that we’ve made this about three times in one week.

First, Thieve’s Oil Blend. This is something I mix and use often, as in daily. Thieve’s is a blend of clove, lemon, cinnamon, eucalyptus and rosemary. There are many different variations of how much of each to mix, I use a 1 to 1 ratio of each. Easy to remember and smells great. I mix these in a brown glass bottle and have it on hand when I need it. For cleaning, I mix vinegar with water and then add drops of my blend until it overpowers the vinegar smell.

My second favorite use of oils happens every month. Clary Sage is wonderful for monthly cramps. You need a carrier oil, I like jojoba oil. Add 15-20 drops of clary sage to 50mL of carrier oil and store in a dark glass container. Massage this oil to ease cramps. I’ve even used this for backaches and it works nicely.

Aura Cacia makes wonderful aromatherapy sticks. We use the tea tree oil stick for bug bites or cuts and scrapes.

The last one I wanted to share is Lemon Eucalyptus. This stuff repels mosquitoes. If we’re sitting outside in the evening, I like to put a few drops on a cotton ball and set it on the table. I also have some plug in diffusers that I’ve used outside with this oil and it really helped to keep the mosquitoes away. Some studies have shown Lemon Eucalyptus to be as effective as repellents containing DEET.

One of my favorite books for aromatherapy is Aromatherapy for Women by Maddie Tisserand. There are some great recipes for the health of your family and yourself.

There are several bread mixes out there from Bob’s Red Mill to Pamela’s. I’ve tried many of them, but it’s always the same, they’re too dry or crumbly. They never bake completely without burning and worst of all, they never turn out the same the second time. Inconsistency is not cool!

I began searching out recipes and trying one after another. Some of them were quite complex calling for tons of different ingredients, that many times I didn’t have on hand. I like to keep things simple. Maybe when the kids are older and I have more time, I’ll enjoy the complex recipes, but for now, I like to keep it simple

Elana’s Pantry’s Simple Bread
It doesn’t get any easier or yummier! The only downside is the expensive almond flour, but it is so worth it. I’ve lowered the cost of the flour by making it myself. I buy a bag of almonds from Costco, blanch them and then grind them in small amounts in my coffee grinder. Apparently too much time in a food processor will give you almond butter so a coffee grinder is preferred. A little work is worth the savings, and honestly, slipping the almonds from their skin is a bit therapeutic.

Another thing worth noting is that this is a small loaf. Really small. I’ve not tried doubling it to get a taller loaf, we just make mini sandwiches.

What You Need:
2½ cups blanched almond flour
½ teaspoon celtic sea salt
½ teaspoon baking soda
3 eggs
1 tablespoon agave nectar
½ teaspoon apple cider vinegar

What You Do:
In a large bowl, combine almond flour, salt and baking soda
In a medium bowl, whisk the eggs, then add agave and vinegar
Stir wet ingredients into dry
Scoop batter into a well greased 6.5 x 4 inch loaf pan (I use a regular loaf pan)
Bake at 300° for 45-55 minutes on bottom rack of oven; until a knife comes out clean
Cool and serve

What You Need:
1 cooked chicken breast, shredded
1-1/2 cans of creamed corn (we used Green Giant since it’s Gluten Free)
1 bag of spinach leaves
1 pkg of 10 corn tortillas
Lots of shredded colby cheese or other shredded cheese
1 jar of Salsa Verde from Trader Joe’s
Sour Cream
Cilantro
Freshly made Salsa

What You Do:
My chicken breast came straight from the freezer so I quickly cooked it on the stove and shredded it. In a large mixing bowl, combine the chicken, creamed corn, about 1-1/2 cups of shredded cheese, the entire bag of spinach and as much cilantro as you wish. Mix well. Stephanie wrapped her enchiladas seperately, I went the layering route. Layer about 5 corn tortillas in your crockpot, next time, I think I’m going to spray the crockpot with olive oil. Spoon the mixture into the crockpot. Top with the remaining corn tortillas. In your mixing bowl (I didn’t rinse mine out before doing this) pour in the Salsa Verde and a few spoonfuls of sour cream, I didn’t measure. I just made it look creamy Pour this on top of the tortillas, top with some shredded cheese. My crockpot has a nice “automatic” setting where it heats to high and then cooks on low. I left it for about 5 hours and it was perfect! Spoon a glob on the plate, top with fresh salsa and sour cream.

Three of the crew turned up their noses at first, but as soon as those littles got a bite in, they asked for more. No, it doesn’t look too appetizing, but it was delicious. This is definately on our “make again” list!

Quick and Easy Gluten Free Berry Cobbler
Adapted from About.com

Preheat the oven to 350. Grease an 8×8 pan and put the berries in, set aside.

Filling
4 Cups of Berries (I didn’t measure, just used what we had)
3/4 Cup of Sugar
3 tbsp Tapioca
1/4 tsp cinnamon
3/4 Cup Water
1 tbsp lemon juice

Whisk the sugar, tapioca and cinnamon in a small saucepan.  Add the water and lemon juice and bring to a boil over med-high heat. When bubbly and thick, pour over the berries. We added a little more tapioca than called for.

Topping
1 Cup of gluten free flour blend (I used Bob’s Red Mill)
2 tbsp of sugar
1-1/2 tsp of baking powder (gluten free)
1/4 tsp salt (we use sea salt around here)
2 tbsp of butter
1/2 Cup of milk (regular 1%)

Combine the flour, sugar, baking powder and salt. Cut in the butter. Pour in the milk and mix with a hand mixer. My batter never got really thick and clingy like the original recipe stated. Pour over the berry filling mixture and pop into the oven.  In about 35-40 minutes, remove and let cool before enjoying.

The first recipe called for corn syrup. Nope, don’t have that. The next recipe looked good and I had everything so off to the kitchen I went. Non-toxic, easy to make finger paint:

Gather jars or plastic cups, a plastic spoon, plastic knives or popsicle sticks (one for each color!), a small pot, a spoon, a stove.

In your pot mix the following on low heat:
1 cup of cold water
1-1/2 tablespoons sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup cornstarch

The recipe I followed said low heat for 10 minutes. It should be runny, then firm up. Fifteen minutes later nothing was happening. I upped the heat. Soon I noticed some globs beginning to form and kept on stirring. Finally it was getting thicker. Remove from heat and let cool. Mine turned out pretty thick, it did not thin or thicken as it cooled so when it reaches your preferred consistency, remove from heat!

On to your jars. Once cooled, use a plastic spoon (or whatever) to spoon the mixture into your jars. I used 6 jars, I wouldn’t recommend more than that. Here’s where the 6 knives come in handy! Add food coloring to your jars and stir with a knife. I put about 5 drops in each jar, except purple which was 3 red and 3 blue and teal which was about 4 green and 5 blue. Leave the knives in the jars and turn the kids loose! By using seperate knives, I wasn’t mixing colors and they can easily glob some onto their paper again, without mixing colors.

The kids were in charge of gathering paper and utensils- paintbrushes, sponges, popsicle sticks, etc. I think this is a small amount of paint for 4 kids, but then again, that means they’ll use it all up and I won’t have to worry about storing it. The clothes drying rack is outside to hang wet pictures on and for once, they’ve been outside for 15 minutes without coming back in!

I’ll update on how easily (or not) clean up goes!

Ingredients
1 half gallon of milk
1/2 cup of yogurt

I’ve decided to go as organic as I can so I shelled out the $6 for a gallon of organic milk. Also went ahead and bought plain, organic yogurt (Safeway’s O brand) which was somewhere around $3.50 or so if I remember correctly for 27oz.

Action
Pour half the gallon of milk in the crockpot, turn on low for about 2 and a half hours. (Last night I forgot about it and it was on for probably 3 and a half hours, oops!) This should bring the temperature of the milk up to about 180 give or take. This kills off the current bacteria in the milk, sterilizing it and the crockpot (or so those Google searches say). I’m thinking this part could be done on the stove top to save time, but you’ll have to watch the milk and not over do. I’m not a fan of heating milk and anything I can turn on and not stand over totally wins for me!

Now turn the crockpot off and allow the milk to cool down for about 3 hours or until the temperature reaches between 115 and 110 degrees, though I’ve also read as low as 105 via  Google. Just don’t let it get too low. It needs to be right around this range to allow the good cultures to mulitply and take over.

Spoon approximately 2 cups of warm milk into a bowl and stir in about half a cup of yogurt. Mix thoroughly and add it to the crockpot.

Now the fun part. Your crockpot needs to sit, undisturbed, in a warm place for several hours. If your house is warm, just wrap your crockpot in a heavy towel and leave it. It’s winter, my house is cold. I preheat my oven to about 150 while I bundle the crockpot in a heavy towel. The monstrosity is then shoved into the warm oven (that has now been turned OFF) and left to sit for 10-12 hours.

In the morning, or when you remember it, pull it out. Smells like yogurt! It is thinner than the regular grocery store stuff you buy. Transfer the yogurt to whatever container you wish to store it in and refrigerate for a few hours before serving. It’ll thicken slightly.

Serve
My kiddos will not eat plain yogurt and this stuff is not sweet like they’re used to. Spoon yogurt into a bowl, add a dallop of jam (your choice of flavor), sprinkle on some flax seed and granola and you’ve got one tasty, healthy treat! It’s dessert-able! Makes for a yummy breakfast!

Notes
My first attempts I did not use organic milk and the entire thing was quite runny. I switched to organic and while it is thicker, it seems a bit clumpy. I think I’m going to try less heating in the beginning next time.

There are things you can do to thicken if you desire- add powdered milk, add pectin, but I found these unnecessary, we just adjusted to thinner yogurt.

You might find a thin, yellowy liquid on top, that’s whey. I mix it in to the yogurt, you could drain it and use in other recipes if you desire.

Set aside about half of a cup of your yogurt for your next batch! You can continue this for a few times before you’ll need to purchase yogurt again to restart your cultures. I did 3-4 batches  before replenishing. It slowly got thinner and thinner.

If you like tart yogurt, let it sit longer. It will also be slightly thicker the longer it sits.

You could strain it through coffee filters or cheese cloth to get it even thicker if desired.

Rough math: For about $3.58 I’m making 64 ounces of yogurt (rounding out the purchased starter yogurt to .66/half cup).  That comes to $0.055 per ounce. Currently at Safeway, Lucerne is on sale (as it often is) 10 for $5. That’s only 60 ounces of yogurt for $5 ($0.083 per ounce) and it isn’t even organic and I’m sure, loaded with unnecessary ingredients.

Chili lime butter adds a delicious finishing touch to grilled corn on the cob. Perfect to accompany any barbecue gathering, large or small. The butter can be flavored one day ahead and then brought to room temperature before serving.

Serves 6

• 6 tablespoons (3/4 stick) butter, softened
• 1/4 teaspoon chili powder
• 1/2 teaspoon grated lime peel
• 1 teaspoon fresh lime juice
• 1/2 teaspoon jalapeño, minced (or to taste)
• pinch of salt
• 6 ears corn on the cob in the husks

Place the butter in a small bowl, add the chili powder, lime peel, lime juice, jalapeño and salt. Mix well. Shape the butter into any form you like, cover and place in the refrigerator until ready to serve.

Heat grill to medium-high.

Place corn (in husk) on the grill, rotating the corn so you cook on all sides, for approximately 15 minutes total. Remove from grill and cool slightly (so you are able to peel the husk). Place corn back on grill over the same flame for about 4 minutes, once again rotating the corn for even grill marks.

Serve the corn immediately with the chili lime butter.

Cooking options: Place the corn (in the husk) on a plate and microwave for 5 minutes (2 1/2 minutes per side). When ready to grill, remove the husks and grill over a medium-high flame for about 2 minutes per side.

Nutrition Info

Per serving (125g-wt.): 200 calories (110 from fat), 12g total fat, 7g saturated fat, 4g protein, 25g total carbohydrate (3g dietary fiber, 4g sugar), 30mg cholesterol, 35mg sodium