Devilled Eggs - Ya love 'em or ya hate 'em

With BBQ season almost at an end, not that we ever really stop BBQing unless it's -20F and takes too long to cook the meat, we have one more weekend packed full of the BBQ foods. I know a lot of people don't like devilled eggs but a lot of people LOVE them and I am part of that crowd. My girl is right there with me and requested these little babies for her birthday. They are quick and easy and if you love eggs give them a try.

Devilled Eggs

From Better Homes & Gardens

6 eggs

1/4 C mayo

1 t mustard, I like Woeber's Sweet & Spicy Mustard

1 t vinegar

Paprika

Hard boil the eggs. I bring them to a rolling boil and boil for 10 minutes. Rinse in cold water then peel the shell off the eggs.

Cut the eggs length-wise and place the egg yolks in a small bowl. Add the mayo, mustard, and vinegar to the bowl and mix well. Put the egg yolk mixture in a sandwich bag. Cut a small piece off a corner and squeeze the mixture into the egg whites. Sprinkle with paprika and watch them disappear.

Rhubarb Vanilla Sauce & Fruit Spring Rolls

Rhubarb season is in full force at my house. My rhubarb plant is HUGE and I have a couple rhubarb dishes to share. This sauce worked great as a dip for fruit spring rolls. A nice tart and sweet touch, yum! It would also be delicious on pancakes and ice cream.

Rhubarb Vanilla Sauce

Adapted from Better Homes & Gardens

2/3 C sugar

1/4 C water

1 vanilla bean (optional)

3 C sliced rhubarb

In a saucepan stir the sugar, water, and seeds from the vanilla bean. Bring it to a boil then add the rhubarb. Bring again to a boil and reduce the heat to medium-low. Cover and allow to simmer for about 5 minutes or until the rhubarb is soft. You can stir/mash the mixture at this point to get the rhubarb into smaller pieces. Serve warm or cooled, I opted for cooled with the spring rolls.

If you want to thicken it up a bit add about 2 t of rice flour at the end and incorporate well.

Makes about 2 C of sauce.

These fruit spring rolls are easy to whip together and are a nice light lunch or appetizer. My family aren't big fans of the rice wrapper texture. I know! They're crazy!

You can find spring roll wrappers at Oak Street Natural Market and at Rosauer's in the Asian aisle of the regular grocery section. I'm sure you can find them in other places but those are the ones I know of for sure.

Fruit Spring Rolls

20 rice wrappers (spring roll wrappers)

2 bananas, chopped

10 or so strawberries, chopped

1.5 C blueberries

Mix the chopped fruit and blueberries in a bowl and set aside. Wet a papertowel (wring out any water, you just want it damp) and place on your counter top, this will work as your surface to place the rice wrappers on. If you are making these a couple hours ahead of when you'll serve them then wet another papertowel and place on a cookie sheet. If you will be serving them right away just have your serving plate nearby.

Fill a cookie sheet with sides with warm water and place 1 rice wrapper in the water. Let it sit for about 30 seconds, you want it to become soft and pliable. Be careful not to let it sit too long because it will dissolve and fall apart. Trial and error is needed here.

Once your wrapper is pliable place it on your damp paper towel and then put another wrapper in the warm water. Put about 1/4 C of the fruit mixture toward one end of the wrapper. Fold the end of the wrapper over the fruit then fold in the sides. Roll and squeeze the filling to the end of the wrapper. Place on the serving plate or damp papertowel on the cookie sheet and repeat until all of the filling is used up. If you aren't using them right away place another damp papertowel on top of the rolls and place in the refrigerator.

This is a great way to enjoy the lightness of summer.

Sorry for the spacing issues, Blogger is NOT cooperating!

Bacon Wrapped Dates - Naturally Gluten Free

Need a quick appetizer that is a big hit? Bacon wrapped dates are a delicious answer. They don't take much time to whip together and they bring a fanatstic sweet and salty combination to your tongue. I never knew this sweet treat existed until we went to Over The Tapas and after falling in love with them there I had to give it a try. I love that most people have never had these before but once they try them it's hard to stop.

Bacon Wrapped Dates

1 package pitted dates

1.5 packages bacon, thinner is better here

Toothpicks (optional)

Preheat oven to 400 F. Cut the bacon in thirds and wrap one piece around each date. You can either spear it with a toothpick or just place it seam down on a cookie sheet. Bake for 20-25 minutes or until the bacon is cooked.

You can find dates in the grocery aisle that has raisins and other dried fruit. This brand was tasty.

This is the bacon I use, it's thin so it's perfect for these. I get this at Lee & Dad's in the frozen section near the other GF and natural products.

Grilled Polenta with Tomato Bruschetta

My mom and I attended the Gluten Free Italian cooking class at Olivelle in June and we loved it. It was a lot of fun learning some new cooking tricks and the food was fantastic. I plan to get all of the recipes on here but I'm starting with the dish I fell in love with. I could live off this dish. It's an easy yet elegant appetizer and I've already made it for two BBQ's.

Grilled Polenta w/ Tomato Bruschetta

From Olivelle

1 log prepared Polenta, 1/4" slices

Garlic Olive Oil, an item from Olivelle I always have on hand

4 tomatoes, diced

3 basil leaved, chopped

2 garlic cloves, minced

1/4 C EVOO

2 T white balsamic vinegar, you can find this at Olivelle

Salt to taste

Ground pepper to taste

Balsamic glaze to finish. Another Olivelle item.

Heat your grill to high. I haven't tried this on the grill but my electric skillet at 350 F has worked well though I don't get the grill marks on the polenta this way.

Drizzle the polenta slices with the garlic olive oil and place oil side down on the grill. Heat for about 10 minutes before drizzling oil on the top side and flipping to cook the other side for 10 minutes.

In a glass bowl combine the tomatoes, basil, garlic, EVOO, vinegar, salt, and pepper. Spoon some tomato mixture on each polenta slice. Drizzle with the balsamic glaze.

I used the balsamic glaze with cherry, yum!

Chocolate Pretzels

I read online about a week ago that Glutino has come out with GF chocolate and yogurt covered pretzels. They haven't hit the shelves in most places and I haven't seen them here yet but they did get me craving chocolate covered pretzels. I had to find a recipe and my taste buds were happy I did but my hips, not so much. I played with this recipe a bit and it leaves a lot of combinations. The best part is it's fast and gives a great snack both kids and adults will love.

Chocoalte Pretzels

Adapted from All Recipes

48 GF pretzel twists
1 package of Hershey's Kisses (chocolate, dark chocolate, caramel, hugs, or peppermint)
1 package of M&M's (chocolate, dark chocolate, peanut butter, peanut, or almond)

Preheat your oven to 275 F. Lay the pretzels on a cookie sheet and then place a kiss on each one. Heat in the oven for 2-4 minutes or until the kiss is softened. Remove from the oven and place a M&M on each kiss pressing down lightly to spread the kiss on the pretzel. Cool in the refrigerator for 15-30 minutes and enjoy!

Do a flavor combo of the kisses and M&M's that sound the best to you. I made two combos and they both tasted great. One was a caramel kiss topped with a chocolate M&M, this was the favorite in the house but after I made them I realized the caramel kisses have HFCS in them so until I find a HFCS free option we won' be having this combo again. Boo! These only needed about 2 minutes in the oven.

The other combo was a chocolate kiss topped with a peanut butter M&M, also a delicious duo. These needed 4 minutes in the oven.

I think these will be on the to-make list for the kids' birthday parties.

New Finds & Reviews

I like sneaking to the various grocery stores around town without the kids, this way I can scan the aisles better and see if there are new products to try. Here are a few things that got me excited when I saw them AND they taste great.

Applegate Farms Genoa Salami

This salami is free of gluten and nitrites. I never thought I'd get to have salami again but thankfully Applegate Farms knows some of us avoid nitrites. It has a great flavor and I splurged with some tasty cheese to go with. You can find this at Rosauer's in their cheese area on the way to Huckleberry's Market.

De Boles Rice Pasta & Cheese

I have never seen this box of mac & cheese before and when I saw it was GF I had to pick it up. I was skeptical at first because the noodles were tiny and it makes a white mac & cheese rather than yellow but it was very good. Both of my kids scarfed it down and kept asking for more, it will be a nice option for variety when I need a quick meal for them. I found this at Smith's.

Nesquik Chocolate Syrup

My kids love having chocolate milk when we get home at the end of the day and I've been using AH!Laska since that's the only brand I've found free of High Fructose Corn Syrup. We ran out so I planned to pick some up at Lee & Dad's but they were out, I about died since the kids were expecting chocolate milk. In my panic I grabbed the Nesquik syrup to see if it was free of HFCS (I knew Hershey's wasn't) and saw that it was, then I looked at the front of the bottle and noticed the large statement of being free of HFCS. I'm so observant. It tastes great and flows like "normal" chocolate syrup, the AH!Laska, which we like, is kind of boogery in texture. Not sure how else to describe it.

Eyeball Tarts

Every Halloween I try to make a Halloween themed dinner, it’s never anything extensive because I just don’t have time for that but it does make dinner a little extra fun. This year I decided to try eyeball tarts and I found them to be pretty good, I did make a couple changes beyond making them gluten free. These work as appetizers or as a main meal.

Eyeball Tarts
Adapted from razzledazzlerecipes.com

Cream Cheese Tart Shells

½ C butter, softened
3 oz cream cheese, softened
3-4 T milk
1 ½ C Gluten Free flour (I used GFM’s Almond mix)
½ t xanthan gum
1/8 t salt

1/2 t garlic powder

Mix the butter and cream cheese thoroughly and then add the milk. Add the flour, xanthan gum, salt, and garlic powder mixing well. You may need to add a bit more milk if it’s too dry, you want it to come together as dough. Chill for a couple hours and grease a mini-muffin tin. Take about 1 T of dough and press it into a muffin cup using your thumb to smooth it on the edges and push a well into the middle of the cup. Fill all 24 muffin cups with dough. Bake at 425 F for about 10 min. They will not be very browned but that’s OK because they will be cooked more later on.

Eyeballs

24 fully cooked gluten free meatballs about 1” in diameter
1/3 C pizza sauce
24 small slices of mozzarella cheese*
24 sliced pitted black olives

Spoon some pizza sauce into the baked tart shells, don’t skimp since the flavor will be really nice (I wish I had put more in mine). Top each shell with a meatball. Bake at 350 F for 15 minutes. Top each meatball with a slice of cheese and place an olive on top. Put into the oven (turned off) until the cheese has melted around the meatball. Serve with more pizza sauce on the side if you like.

*You can buy a pack of mozzarella slices and then just break each slice into 4 equal pieces, these are the perfect size to cover the meatball.