Chili Spaghetti & a Review

This is a fast dinner that my family likes and it’s one that you can fudge with if needed. Sometimes I like to do a little fudging. The original recipe calls for spaghetti squash to be used but since I never have spaghetti squash on hand and want it quick I have substituted with rice noodles. If you have the time or want to make it even healthier try the spaghetti squash.

Chili Spaghetti
Adapted from New Dieter’s Cookbook

8 oz Gluten Free spaghetti noodles
12 oz lean beef or buffalo burger
½ C chopped onion
1 clove garlic minced
1 t cornstarch
1 8 oz can tomato sauce
2/3 C tomato juice (I never seem to have this on hand so I use a small can of tomato paste)
11 oz can corn
2 t chili powder (decrease if you don’t want it to have a little kick)
½ t oregano
½ C shredded cheese *Omit for DF or used Daiya

Bring a pot of salted and oiled (1 T olive oil) water to a boil. Add the spaghetti noodles, cook and drain.

Brown the meat, onion, and garlic. Stir in the cornstarch then add the tomato sauce, tomato juice (or paste), corn, chili powder, and oregano. Cook and stir occasionally until thickened and bubbly.

Serve the meat sauce over the noodles and topped with cheese.

I served this meal with one of my favorite snacks, it’s odd but I love it. Glutino’s gluten free breadsticks are yummy, they surprised me actually. I love to eat them with cottage cheese and thought they’d go great with this dish. They are nice and crispy and the kids like them so we have a keeper.

Turkey Tetrazzini

It's time for a recipe.

Here’s another casserole and this one is a favorite of mine. It’s great for leftover turkey but also really good with leftover chicken. I like to buy the rotisserie chicken from Costco (gluten and MSG free) just so I can have leftovers to make this casserole. I didn’t know what the kids would think of this but they have gobbled it up each time it’s in front of them so it’s a winner at our house. This recipe does make a lot so I always freeze half of it.

Turkey Tetrazzini
Adapted from Allrecipes

16 oz gluten free spaghetti noodles (I use Tinkyada)
½ C butter
½ C GF flour (I used Gluten Free Mama’s Almond Flour)
3 C chicken or vegetable broth (make sure it’s GF)
2 C milk
1 2/3 C grated Parmesan Cheese
4 C chopped and cooked turkey or chicken
2 cans peas
1 C croutons or bread crumbs


Preheat oven to 350 F and lightly grease a 9x13 baking dish.

Bring a large pot of water to a boil, lightly salted with 1 T of Olive Oil. Add the spaghetti and cook until al dente. Drain and put in the baking dish.

Melt the butter in a large skillet over medium heat and stir in the flour. Mix in the chicken broth and milk. Cook and stir until it comes to a boil then stir in 1/3 C Parmesan cheese and remove from heat.

Mix the chicken broth mixture, turkey, and peas with the spaghetti. Top with croutons and the remaining cheese. Bake for 45 min or until its bubbly throughout. You can make this ahead and keep in the fridge until you’re ready to bake it, you’ll want to bake it about 1 hour if you do that.

I like to use fresh Parmesan mixed in the casserole and grated Parmesan for the topping.

Gling.com

There is a new gluten free networking site that is free and I love it. Its gling.com and it has everything from recipes, to GF eating locations, to tweets and blogs. It’s a great place to share information with other GF people so please check it out.

I received some exciting news too and I hope you all can spread the news to get people to sign up for this great option. Gling.com is partnering with a new startup that delivers GF pizza (frozen) to your home. They are planning to start in WA, OR, and CA but if we can get enough GF buzz in Montana we could get us added to their launching list. All people need to do is join gling to let them know we’re here and want more GF options. The pizza would be about $9 per pizza delivered to your door with a minimum of 4 pizzas per order. It’s the same pizza that Garlic Jim’s serves, which is a west-coast gourmet pizza chain for those of us that have never been to a Garlic Jim’s. I hear it’s very good.

So if you’re interested join up at gling.com and hopefully we can get some yummy GF pizza delivered to our homes.

Staggering Ox

My sister in law e-mailed me with some exciting news for those of you in Billings. She was watching Hello Montana and heard that the Staggering Ox in Billings now offers GF soups, sandwiches, and salads. I think I know where I may be eating the next time I’m in Billings. I did a search to see if I could get more information and I couldn’t but I did find information on the Helena Staggering Ox. It looks like they have GF options and you can contact wade@mt.net for more information.

If you’re not in Billings but have a Staggering Ox in your town give them a call to see if they also have GF options. Let me know what you find too!

Gluten Free Goodies

I apologize for not getting a post in last week, the kids both had a virus and I was busy with that. I’m at work with swollen lymph nodes though I already went through their virus so I’m worried this is something different, it has already begun. On happy news I found a couple fun gluten free goodies at Oak Street Natural Market that I wanted to share with everyone. I haven’t had a chance to use either one yet but I can’t imagine they’ll treat me wrong.

The first is travel packets of GF soy sauce, how fantastic for sushi eaters?

The second is Toast It bags. They are reusable toaster bags that you can put your GF bread in and toast safely in any toaster. These would be great when visiting relatives or using a toaster at a hotel when travelling.

An update from my last post. Hubby is doing OK with eating gluten daily, he’s starting to break out but with only 2 weeks left he’s at least getting close to the home stretch. We weren’t able to try Biga Pizza in Missoula because it was busy and they were out of GF crusts, there’s always next time. My conference was at Fairmont Hot Springs and they did a great job providing me with GF food, I was very pleased. I even discovered that they have a portobella mushroom burger that uses the mushroom as a bun, it was yummy.

Gluten Fun

The past few days have been filled with gluten, purposefully and not. My boy was accidentally glutened at a friend’s house after she tried so hard to have safe options for him. She had bought him Barbara’s wheat free Snackimals thinking they were safe because they said wheat free not realizing that they are not gluten free. This just brings up an annoyance I have when things are wheat free but not gluten free, the confusion is frustrating! My boy didn’t have the effects until the next afternoon when his tummy was hurting him and he spent some time on the toilet. I don’t know if giving him Pepto helps or not but I always do, it may just be a placebo effect because he thinks it makes him better.

Hubby went to an allergist yesterday and has decided to do the gluten challenge so he can be tested for Celiac disease. We had to actually brain storm to figure how he could get gluten into his system, how sad is that? He has his own cereal, bread, cookies, crackers, and beer. He’s excited to have things that he hasn’t been able to enjoy but he claims no matter what the results are he’s going to stick with a GF diet. His plan is to eat gluten for 4-6 weeks and then take the test. If he keeps ingesting as much as he did yesterday I think 4 weeks will be plenty. He had a hard time finding cookies and crackers that didn’t have HFCS in them so he still had to read labels, hehe!

I have a work conference this week and I’ve stated I need GF meals so we’ll see how it goes. I am bringing snacks just in case but I’m hopeful I won’t need them. We are then heading to Missoula for the weekend and I’ve found a gluten free pizza place in town. Biga Pizza has a rice crust that is gluten free. They cook it on an oiled pizza pan so it doesn’t come into contact with the deck and it is also sliced with a different pizza wheel. I hope to give them a try and was told to call ahead and reserve one in advance as they tend to sell out quickly. They also have salads just say no toast points or that you have a gluten allergy.

Birthday Parties

Last weekend we had a neighbor’s birthday party to attend and I pulled out the cupcakes I had frozen so the kids could enjoy some cake with everyone else. This is a great option for anytime there’s a party and you don’t want your little one to go without cake. It also means that if you find out there’s a party tomorrow you don’t have to stress about baking a whole batch of cupcakes that night. When I freeze my cupcakes I let them cool completely then wrap each cupcake with plastic wrap. I then place them in a Ziploc bag and freeze. This way you can grab as many as you need and it keeps freezer burn at bay.

I don’t want my kids to feel like they’re missing out so my goal is to make their cupcakes fun. I filled each cupcake with frosting and then frosted the top. We had a great time doing this together, which meant the boy has his own cupcake to cut, destroy, and eat. I’ve tried filling them without removing cake and it just doesn’t put enough filling into the cupcake so I used the following method and the results were sweet, very sweet.

Take a small paring knife and cut about an inch into the cupcake at an angle cutting a cone shape out of the cupcake. Cut the bottom off the cone so you can place the top over the hole that is now in your cupcake. Fill each hole with frosting, top with the circle you cut out, then frost the rest of the cupcake.

This is really easy and results in an extra special GF cupcake. The frosting color choice was from my boy, we were trying for red but he was happy with this dark pink. I think he thought I was providing the cupcakes for everyone because he had me bring an extra one for the birthday girl. I smiled when it was time to eat cake and the other kids kept asking for the cupcakes, it probably didn’t help their desire when they were told those were special cupcakes.