Quick GF Lunch Idea: Tuna Salad w/ Veggies

Two out of three Junior Chefs love tuna salad for lunch!
In the past it was served with crackers, as we prefer it as a dip instead of in a sandwich.
However, because we needed a gluten-free and grain-free option we decided to test out a few different veggies we had lying around and discovered that celery and bell peppers work perfectly as "dippers"! They have such a satisfying "crunch" so serve as a wonderful replacement cracker.

GF Tuna Salad
10-15ounces of  tuna- drained
5-7 Tablespoons of homemade mayonnaise
Spices*- We used a little celery seed, parsley, mustard powder, chives, onion powder, and dill.
(If we aren't in a hurry we use fresh onions, parsley, and celery or even hard boiled eggs and organic dill pickles but this is our quick version.)
Mix well and serve with sliced veggies!

*Little Chefs love playing with spice containers while test tasting the celery. :-)

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Junior Chefs' Opinions!
Sister Chef: "I don't like tuna but the veggies are awesome."

Brother Chef: "9 stars, yum!"

Little Chef: "I like to dip, it's good!"

Easiest Gluten-Free Pancakes Ever!

What do you do when you have two over ripe bananas and 6 eggs that really, really need to be used up right away?

Why, you make gluten-free pancakes of course!

Yup, that's all you need!

So simple and perfect for junior chefs to whip up on a weekend morning!

Here's how we did it...

We cracked the 6 eggs into a bowl and let Little Chef go nuts on them.

Then we added in two mashed bananas and had Brother Chef whip them with the beaters until the batter was fluffy. We also added a few drops of Vanilla Stevia, you could use a teaspoon or so of honey instead if you don't have any stevia on hand.

While the boys were working on the batter Sister Chef greased and heated up the griddle.

Now we were ready to fry up some hotcakes! The batter was really thin so we made sure to pour it really slowly so it didn't spread out too much and they cooked really fast, just took a minute or so until it was time to flip them, which we did carefully as they are pretty soft.

We were so surprised with how well they turned out! They were not only really tasteful but so fluffy, reminded us of crepes. In fact we might have to roll and fill them next time.
We topped them with bananas and pure maple syrup... so decided to renamed them "Banana, Banana Pancakes"..
(They would also be great topped with berries or other fruits but all we had on hand was bananas. They'd be good plain too, in fact we ate a lot of them straight off the griddle with nothing on them!)

And this next photo is something that cracked us all up. Little Chef refuses to eat crusts. Bread crusts, pie crusts, pizza crusts....he hates them all with passion. Today though we think he went a little overboard. Yes, he left a pancake "crust" on his plate! Silly boy...pancakes don't have crusts!

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Junior Chefs' Opinions!
Sister Chef: 10 Stars! I can't believe it's only eggs and bananas!

Brother Chef: 10 Stars! Best way to eat bananas!

Little Chef: They are really good! Well the insides are, I love them! 


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Gluten-Free Pumpkin Delight Muffins

These are full of all things yummy and delicious.

They are also gluten-free, sugar-free, grain-free, corn-free, dairy-free, and paleo.



We give you... Gluten-Free Pumpkin Delight Muffins w/ a blackberry filling, a date/nut/cinnamon topping, dark chocolate drizzles & coconut sprinkles!!

And don't worry, they are really easy to make and kids just love all the steps! Makes 18 muffins. (Well, ours only made 17...someone must have been sneaking bites of the materials. Or three someones.)

First make your batter and your topping.

Batter

Wet Ingredients:
7 eggs
1/2 cup coconut milk
1/2 cup maple syrup
1 cup pumpkin puree
1 teaspoon vanilla

Dry Ingredients:
3/4 cup coconut flour
1 teaspoon corn-free baking powder
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon salt

Beat your eggs, just let the kids go nuts on them. Then whip in everything else. Set aside.
In another bowl mix all the dry together.
Then add the dry to the wet and mix really well.

Now in your food processor toss in about
1/4 cup nuts (I used walnuts and almonds)
10 dates
1 tablespoon date sugar
1 tablespoon finely shredded, unsweetened coconut
and 1 teaspoon cinnamon

Process until it looks like a crumb mixture, don't go too long or you'll end up with a nut butter!

Now, on a table you should have your batter, your toppings, oh and some pure fruit blackberry jam. (You can find this in jars at health food stores or make some yourself, or even use fresh blackberries instead.) You will also need muffin pans and liners.
Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.

Now, in each liner (which you can grease if you want, the batter is sticky) put one tablespoon of batter. Then in the middle put a teaspoon of blackberries, then another tablespoon of batter on top, and finally sprinkle the nut topping on. You can see each step here, first row is batter, next row has the filling added, next row has more batter, and the last row has the topping.

Bake for 25 minutes and then let them cool. Or you can eat them now, they are great without the chocolate drizzles...we just like to go overboard sometimes!

While they are cooling melt some dairy-free dark chocolate and then drizzle over your muffins with a spoon.

And then sprinkle on some unsweetened coconut flakes!

And then....ENJOY!!!

For Slightly Indulgent Tuesday Recipes click HERE!
For Gluten-Free Wednesday Recipes click HERE!

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Junior Chefs' Opinions!
Sister Chef: 10 Stars!!

Brother Chef: 10 Stars!!!

Little Chef: 10 Stars!!!!

Easy, Quick, Gluten-Free, No Bake, Burger Buns

Momma Chef was trying to make a batch of gluten-free pancakes.
Brother Chef was helping and talking about how he missed burger buns.
The pancakes were a massive failure.
Fluffy and soft they were not.
They were more chewy.
However, a light bulb went off in Brother Chef's head.
"Hey! I can use these as burger buns!"
And by golly, that's just what he did.

This recipe made enough for 12 "pancakes" so enough for 6 burgers.

"Pancake" Burger Buns

4 eggs- separated
1/4 cup coconut milk
1/4 cup coconut flour
1/2  teaspoon baking powder

We mixed the egg yolks and milk together, then stirred in the flour and baking powder. Next we beat the egg whites for a long time and folded those into the mixture. It seemed too thin so we added a little bit more flour. Then it seemed to thick so we added a tiny bit of milk. Then we realized that we were being crazy and left it alone.

We dropped a tiny bit into a heated skillet and it didn't move, so we spread it around with the back of a spoon, we used the spoon to smooth it into the shape we wanted. We had to turn the heat down to "3" because it was cooking too fast. After all that though, it was easy. Just cook them like a pancake and you shouldn't have any problems.

You could add some garlic and spices to give them an extra kick.

Check out more

Slightly Indulgent Tuesday Recipes!

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Junior Chefs' Opinions!
Sister Chef: "8 stars. They were a bit dry in my throat but a nice change from just a patty."

Brother Chef: "10 stars. Made my burger so tasty!"

Little Chef: "I don't like burgers! I don't like tomatoes! I don't like lettuce! I like buns though. Can I have a bun sandwich?"

Little Chef's Refrigerator Soup (GF, DF)

Little Chef's Refrigerator Soup

Little Chef can be a picky eater at times. We're working on that. In the meantime the one thing he will eat is chicken soup, especially if he gets to make it himself!

Today he helped Momma Chef throw all the leftover veggies, some chicken breasts, and a big spoon-full of coconut oil in the stew pot!

The first thing he learned is that it's awfully hard to get solidified oil out of its container, but he worked on it for a bit and found a solution!

Little Chef's Refrigerator Soup

1 spoonful of coconut oil
Onions- diced
Chicken Breasts - cubed

Place stew pot on stove, medium heat.
Drop oil into pot and left melt.
Toss in the onions and cook until translucent.
Toss in the chicken and cook until done, or mostly done.

Go on a veggie hunt in your fridge!
We found:
zucchinis
potatoes
carrots
corn
tomatoes
okra
celery
green beans
and spinach!

Dice them and toss in pot along with some chicken broth and spices/herbs of your choice.

Stir and simmer for around an hour.

Then eat your yummy soup!

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Junior Chefs' Opinions!
Sister Chef: "9.5 stars. It lost half a star because of the spinach."

Brother Chef: "8 stars. Too much veggies and not enough meat."
Little Chef: "It's yum 'cause I MADE it and it's CHICKEN SOUP!! And I made it. ONE GIANT, BIG, Star!"

Gluten-Free Birthday Cake and Frosting!

It was Momma Chef's birthday and all us Junior Chefs wished for nothing more than to bake her a cake, because we all knew how much Momma Chef loves cake!

We decided to use this recipe  from NourishingDays and renamed it Zesty Orange Birthday Cake! We knew we could make the cake just fine, with Daddy Chefs help but her frosting looked a little bit complicated so we whipped up another kind, which was really awesome! We just mixed together a little pure coconut cream, few drops of stevia, and a little bit of orange zest and then melted some dark, dairy-free, chocolate to melt over the top!

 Our cake ingredients  

Brother Chef mixing the batter

The cake turned out so perfect!

Our frosting ingredients 

Squeezing orange juice over the cake



Sister chef decorating the cake

So pretty, Momma Chef was in love!

And sooo delicious too!

Momma asked if she could have her birthday every day! :-)

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Junior Chefs' Opinions!
Sister Chef: "This was a pretty easy recipe to follow, we had a lot of help from Daddy Chef and together we could all figure it out. The cake was amazing, really moist and sweet! 9 stars! It lost a star because of the strong orange flavor."

Brother Chef: "12 stars! No wait,  10 stars because it didn't make enough for me to have 4 pieces."
Little Chef: "YUM! It's good!"

Gluten-Free "Breaded" Pork Chops

Momma Chef had an odd variety of bits hanging around in her fridge so she had the junior chefs mix them up and coat some pork chops. 2 out of 3 junior chefs agree that this was a tasty idea!

"Breaded" Pork Chops served with sweet potatoes fries and steamed cauliflower.

Gluten-Free "Breaded" Pork Chops

10 boneless pork chops

3 eggs
1/4 cup coconut milk

1/4 cup coconut flour
1/4 cup slivered almonds - crushed (Little chef gave this part 10 stars.)
Spices of you choice

These measurements do not have to be exact. In fact, we didn't measure at all as we were just pouring the items out of tupperware containers into the bowls so feel free to adjust however you need.

Mix the eggs and milk in one bowl.
Mix the dry ingredients in another bowl.

Dip the meat first in the wet mixture and then in the dry and then place on an oiled cookie sheet.
Bake however you normally bake pork chops.

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Junior Chefs' Opinions!
Sister Chef: "8 out of 10 stars. The coating was really good."
Brother Chef: "8 stars, it's good dipped in BBQ sauce!"
Little Chef: "I don't like it!"

For more slightly indulgent recipes, visit Amy’s Simply Sugar and Gluten-Free Slightly Indulgent Tuesdays.

Meatloaf Muffins (GFCF)

Momma Chef isn't afraid to admit that she can not, for the life of her, make a meatloaf. They either refuse to cook in the middle or fall apart or turn to mush and she hates that they take so long to bake. What if you want meatloaf and need it in 30 minutes?

You make meat muffins, that's what you do. (Doesn't that sound really gross?)

Just make up your favorite gluten-free meatloaf mixture, we use ground beef, eggs, lots of chopped veggies, and spices. Then fill up some muffin tins and bake for 25 minutes at 400 degrees. Easy Peasy! They freeze really well so are great for lunches too! (If you don't like spending 45 minutes scrubbing out muffin tins after dinner, we suggest you bake them in those foil cupcake liners.)

We served it with a side salad and some mashed cauliflower. Now...the kids didn't care for them that much (they never been found of meatloaf...too many bad ones from momma chef), but momma and daddy chef gave them 2 thumbs up and can't wait to eat all the leftovers for lunches and midnight snacks!

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Junior Chefs' Opinions!
Sister Chef: "6 out of 10 stars. I just don't care for meatloaf that much, even if they are cute little muffins."
Brother Chef: "Ew"
Little Chef: "Eh"

Chocolate Chip Banana Cake (GFCF)

Chocolate Chip Banana Cake
Gluten-Free, Dairy-Free, Grain-free, Paleo, Sugar-Free, and Corn-Free if you make your own baking powder. 

These are great alone or you can add nuts to the batter if you wish. We had a bag of dark, dairy-free, cacao chips we decided to use for a special treat! They worked perfectly, this is the best cake we've ever had! It's so moist but holds together and the banana flavor is awesome! Yum! 

Recipe:
2 very ripe, mashed bananas
7 eggs (If you can't eat eggs, try using flax seeds and if you do let me know how it turns out.)
1/2 cups honey or maple syrup or agave nectar (or experiment with stevia or coconut sap)   
1/2 cup coconut milk
1 teaspoon vanilla

3/4 cups coconut flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt 
1 teaspoon cinnamon


This was really easy to make!
Beat the eggs up, don't be gentle with them - we had fun with this part.
Add in the bananas, sweetener, coconut milk, and vanilla and mix it all really well

In a small bowl mix all the dry ingredients really well and then add the dry to the wet and mix well again.

Pour it into a greased pan and baked at 350 for oh, we don't know 25 minutes or so, just keep an eye on it.

Oh before we put it in the oven we sprinkled the chocolate chips on the top! Delicious!

And pretty! Would work wonderful for parties!

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Junior Chefs' Opinions!

Sister Chef: 10 stars! (out of 10) "It's really nice and gooey and it has a good, sweet flavor."
Brother Chef: "It looks like a domino. I'll eat anything that looks like a game."
Little Chef: "I smashed it all over my plate and then eatted it all up because it was yummy!"

Hello and Welcome!

I'm Momma Chef!

I love to cook and having three children that all have dietary sensitivities doesn't stop me any. It's a challenge I enjoy and excel at, most of the time. Combined they are allergic or sensitive to wheat, corn, dairy, soy,  beans, sugar, preservatives, and additives to name just a few. I know what you are thinking,"What does that leave?" I'll tell you. Coconuts. That's about all we eat. (I'm just kidding...mostly.)

Now there are some really amazing gluten-free blogs out there and I've just had tons of fun whipping up all the gourmet and delicious recipes they provide. However, now that my children are getting older they love to help out in the kitchen and well, they have short attention spans. Somewhere after "OK, now after we scrape all the vanilla off the bean we infuse it for 30 minutes while we julienne all these veggies." they tend to lose interest and wander off. Also, we live in a town of 900 people...it's not like I can run to a Whole Foods or Trader Joes at all, the closest one is hours away. We need to be able to cook with the simple items we can find locally or the items I order online and we prefer our meal prep to be under 30 minutes...3 kids = no time!

So, this blog is a place for them to create and review kids friendly, gluten-free recipes and products that will encourage other kids with allergies to have fun in the kitchen! We try to keep the posts short and simple so that other GF kids can follow along!

The Junior Chefs:

 Sister Chef, a teen who has a hard time finding "cool" foods to pack in her school lunch. She has the least sensitivities of the bunch but foods that raise her blood sugar levels cause her lots of problems with refined sugars being the worst.

Brother Chef, a middle school-er who is always on the lookout for gluten-free items to replace the breads he misses. He has the most allergies of the three, complicated by his Asperger's Syndrome, SPD, and DCD. He stays away from gluten, corn, dairy, additives, preservatives, and soy. He can handle a little bit of beans and starch such as rice or potatoes, but not much.

Little Chef, a preschool boy who is super picky and just wants to live off soup and chocolate. He avoids dairy and gluten and is Momma Chefs most enthusiastic helper even though most of the time the foods he helps to create receive a "I don't like it!" :-)