Gluten - Free Taco Pie

I have told you about Pinterest, so now it is time to talk about what I have done there and what the results are.
Well, let's start with food :) That's always good, right?  I made taco pie on Sunday because we have had crock-pot food a few days in a row and I wanted a change of pace. However, the temperature is supposed to be in the 90's, 91 to 99 F or 33 to 37 C, all week. I sense another crock - pot week coming on .... did I tell you that I found this one site on Pinterest with crock-pot recipes for a whole year without any repeats? Oh, I digress, sorry, yeah, the taco pie - also from pinterest ;-)

It was very easy to make and quick, which is always a plus, because everyone is hungry when we come home from church. I had planned to stop by the Health Food Store and see if they have the Betty Crocker Gluten Free Bisquick mix because I wanted to use that instead of the regular wheat version. But the car was overheating very fast and very much and so the logical choice was to go home asap. I found a recipe for homemade gluten free bisquick mix, which is probably cheaper. Well, at least if you have the different flours at home, which you very well might if you live gluten free.

So, without further ado, here is the picture......

Impossibly Easy Taco Pie

It's very easy, click here for the recipe for the taco pie and here for the recipe for the gluten free flour. I put the bisquick mix in a mason jar and store it in the refrigerator - oh, yes, I almost forgot. I didn't have shortening so I used coconut oil, which I feel is healthier anyway, you could probably also use olive oil or whatever you have on hand.

This was so delicious, that we had almost all gobbled up before I remembered to take a picture. Now, our picture isn't that pretty because we didn't put tomatoes on the pie while it was in the oven, I just added tomatoes and lettuce and sour cream on side on our plates. So, here is our picture of the left overs ;-)

Yummy treats....

This week we have spend a little of our time watching "The West Ladies" aka Homestead Blessings. We watched the Dairy Delights, Crafts, Cooking and Herbs. It was really fun to see how easy these wonderful ladies make the work look like. Even my little guy had fun watching it and he learned about herbs and such as well. It was pretty cool. Since we were drooling over the cooking dvd and got really hungry, we decided to try some things. Of course we have to adapt some of recipes because we need them to be gluten-free. I have been buying Jules flour for a little while now and really, really like it. It doesn't taste gluten-free at all. We really enjoy it. Anyway, I searched her recipes for peach cobbler and found it. I haven't had peach cobbler since I lived in the south, about 16 years ago. It took me about 10 min to prep it and put it in the oven. It came out very nicely and tasted so delicious! I had a hard time to defend it from certain children (who got up in the middle of the night to steal another piece of peach cobbler). In the morning we had only two pieces left - I guess I have to make some more  :D

A quick picture before it was all gone. Unfortunately GF flour doesn't brown like regular flour.

Yesterday we treated ourselves to homemade ice cream. No we don't use the hand-crank the West Ladies use ;-)  We have a little electric one, which works very nicely and produces about 1 1/2 quarts of ice cream. We tried it last night for the first time and boy, was it good ! The recipe is very easy.

2 cups heavy cream
1 cup whole milk
3/4 cup sugar
pinch of salt
2 teaspoons vanilla

Though I must say that the 2 cups heavy cream was a little too rich. We had some of the cream stuck to the roof of our gums. So next time I will try it with only 1 cup of heavy cream and 2 cups of whole milk. I think that might be just a little less rich. I use vanilla without alcohol, which I think makes it so much better tasting. I will write an update on the reduced fat ice cream. It was too late last night to make chocolate sauce, which I really enjoy, so we used the sprinkles we have on hand.

I liked mine without anything, just pure :)

An Amazing Find :D

Two days ago I went to the Goodwill store with my lovely daughter Nina. She needed to buy a dress for the senior formal. We thought we start looking at Goodwill and so we did. She was by the dresses and I looked around in the store. Since they were in the middle of rearranging the order in the store, it took me a while to find things. When I heard something metallic clinging. One of the ladies who work there brought a stand mixer to put into the shelf. I happened to stand next to it and so I looked at it first. I have wanted to get one of those things for almost the whole two years we are here now. They are so great and durable. I had one hand held mixer that died after only a few short months and started to make strange noises after running for only about two minutes or so. After it finally died, I bought another hand held which was a little more expensive but not really much better. So there was this really nice piece of kitchen equipment that had eyed (though from different companies) for quite a while now. I looked at it and was surprised to see that it was still in really good shape. After I looked at the price I put it in the shopping basket and guarded it jealously. The price tag was $ 15 ! I did struggle with myself while I kept walking through the store. It was really hard to justify buying it, because I didn't really need it. I have a hand held mixer that is working at the time. I could use the money better on Nina dress and accessoires .... finally I caved and just bought it. 

So here is the newest addition to my little kitchen

    By the way, Nina never found a dress at Goodwill. We ended up going JC Penney where she found a very beautiful dress  :D