Banana Bread

I have been working on getting my recipes all typed out and into a printable format.  I even made a goal to print a cookbook for at least my family....  for a few Christmas's ago lol..

Many of my favorites are posted on this blog already so I am consistently referring friends and family and decided THIS is where I should focus!

For those who have never seen my blog before, it was really active quite a few years ago, a quick search should find you a few good recipes to try!   Life changed and my posting slowed down but it's time to finish what I started, more recipes that use up ingredients you can actually find in the stores!!

Here is one I get asked for often!!

This recipe will work well if you use GF flour blend in place of the Flour listed here as well!

Cornbread chicken pot pie..

** I found I have two post that were never published.. from 2018.  So here they are!! **

Ok, so I kinda made up this recipe, but adapted it from several ideas. Either it was really good, or everyone was really hungry, because the pan was practically licked clean.

I start almost EVERY recipe with sauteed onions, garlic and mushrooms.  No I don't measure, just use bacon grease or butter and cook them up!

I then added some fresh peeled and cubed carrots and potatoes, as well as leftover chicken!
You can easily replace the leftover chicken with canned chicken or any cooked meat.

Simmer with some cream of mushroom soup and broth until they are almost cooked and it thickens a bit.  I use Progresso GF Cream of Mushroom soup but you can use which ever your go to is.







Pour into your favorite casserole.  I feel deeper dish is better, but as long as it fits, it should work.

I topped with our corn bread recipe (posted below).  You can use a box mix or make it from scratch.  Aldi has a GF corn bread mix as well!

Bake @ 400  until the bread is cooked. 

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Broccoli & Cheese soup

I love one pot meals.  Especially since we have limited space.  So when it feels like a soup kind of day, I don't hesitate.  Broccoli & Cheese is an awesome recipe because itn
can be so versatile.  I am not impressed with our local options for ham, and bacon gets mushy in soup....  so I tried something new, ground sausage.  It's all pork, right?

1# cooked and drained ground sausage ( or chopped ham or cooked bacon)
4 or 5 peeled and cut potatoes
8 cups of broth (canned, boxed, homemade, bouillion all work
Chopped onion, garlic, celery, mushrooms (I don't measure)
Chopped carrots, just a few is fine.  I add any leftover veggies I have as well

Boil and simmer until the potatoes are almost done.

Add 2 c. Fresh or frozen
Simmer until veggies are all cooked

Add cheese.  I use a mix of whatever I have.  About 2 c total.

If you like it thicker you can add cream of mush soup, a mix of flour and water like you would gravy, some instant potatoes or some leftover mashed potatoes.

I opt for mashed potatoes since I am Gluten free

And enjoy!!!!

Stuffed Mushrooms

Everything is better homemade right??  Well that depends lol, but we always have to try!!

We love stuffed mushrooms so I attempted to make some home made, so they could be GF as well.  After looking up some suggestions (aka recipes) and asking a friend who makes them, here is what we did!!  I made to much filling and ended up stuffing more mushrooms.. I halved what we did in this post so it would come out to the correct amount for one package of mushrooms.

Ingredients:

One 8-14 oz pkg of large mushrooms (I used whole Bellas but they make some called 'stuffing mushrooms')

Onion

Garlic

Celery

Green pepper

2 oz cream cheese

Shredded cheddar

1/2c cooked rice

4 oz of seafood meat (I combined imitation lobster and crab)

Wash and remove the stems from the mushrooms.  Chop 1/4 of an onion, 1/4 gr pepper, 1/2 stalk of celery, some cloves of garlic and the mushroom stems.  Combine them together and chop/mix to small pieces (I use my PC food processor)

Cook the mixture in your grease of choice (I use bacon grease).

Add the cooked rice and mix well.  (If the rice is leftover than add it to the pan and warm it together.)

Add the 2 oz of cream cheese, cut into chunks.  The heat from the mixture will melt the cheese as you stir it together.

Chop up the meat into small chunks.  Add to mixture.  I did 3 parts rice mix to 1 part meat but you can add more or less for your taste.

Arrange the mushroom tops in a pan.  I used my small cast iron pan and it was a good fit for one pkg of mushrooms.  

The mixture will clump into a ball, fill each mushroom with a nice clump.

Top with some shredded cheese.  Keep the mushrooms together in the middle and it helps keep cheese from falling to the bottom of the pan.

Pour about 1/4 c of melted butter/marg or even broth on the tops and into the bottom of the pan.

Bake at 350 for aprox 30 min.  All the meat and rice is cooked already so you really only need to melt the cheeses.  You don't want to cook it to long and make the mushrooms mushy.

These are best hot from the oven but that doesn't mean they aren't good leftover (if they last that long). They are not good for very long, after a few days in the fridge we did throw them out.

I am going to try another idea someone suggested.... Bacon :-)

The recipes I found all had bread in them.  I want to try some with GF cereal or crumbs to see if they are better!!  These are good and the rice definitely makes them very filling.

~ enjoy~

Turkey Meatballs and Mushroom gravy

Turkey Meatballs and Mushroom gravy

In our quest to be healthier without raising our food bill we have cut out most of the red meats in our diet.  I rarely buy beef and when I do its for burgers or to mix with Turkey burger.  Here is one way we use Turkey instead of beef and it still taste delicious!!

I made a quick and easy meatball mix, which is also Gluten free!

2#'s of ground meat (turkey, sausage, beef, venison... Mix up what you have, use spicy sausage if you like it hot.  We like part turkey, part sausage)

1 onion chopped

garlic (fresh, dried or powder works)

Salt and pepper

Chopped celery

Mix together.  Note: season it to your taste preference.  We like a lot of garlic but not much pepper... Sausage adds alot of flavor so if you like spicy, use some spicy ground sausage in it.  

Get the pan hot with some grease in it.  I prefer to use bacon grease but oil, butter or even lard works.  Once its melted put the meatballs in by scoopfulls.  I use an ice cream scoop so they are uniform and less mess.  

Let them brown a bit and roll around so all the sides get browned.  I added some bacon to the pan since it was getting dry. 

Once the pan is full and all the sides were browned, put a cover on and put the pan in a 350 oven to bake.  Bake until they are cooked through, about an hour?  They were ready by the time I was done with the rest.

Get some potatoes boiling and your gravy of choice.  I made a mushroom gravy to go on top (chicken stock, fresh mushrooms, onion, garlic, celery and Italian seasoning.. Thickened with GF flour).  We served it all in a bowl, I may have licked the bowl clean.

2#'s of ground meat filled my family of 6 and even left a few for me to eat the next day. 

If your gravy is thin, make your potaoes thicker and vice versa!

Of course you can also serve this with your vegetable of choice.

~~ other things we tried ~~

I made this last night with 1 roll of Italian seasoned turkey burger and 1 roll of plain turkey.  I only added some garlic powder to the mix and it was also very good!  You can use what ever meats you have on hand and keep it interesting.  

We served it in a bowl on top of noodles and a thin broth gravy.  I had a rice and quinoa mix instead of noodles.  Yum!!