December 2012 ALREADY.... 21 days until Christmas! How are you handling the stress of the holiday season? Make sure to check out the December Sanity Retreat 2012, begun by Cheryl Harris and hosted by several wonderful gluten-free bloggers. This past week's post was written by Valerie of City Life Eats. Iris of The Daily Dietribe also wrote a fantastic post about the event in which she shares her own personal goals for the month.
Do you make lots of cookies or candy for Christmas? Generally I don't, but I'm working on a new project so I hope to test a bunch of recipes in the next few weeks, and my plan to try out some new gluten-free Christmas cookies! What are your favorite kinds? The theme of the Gluten-Free Menu Swap this week is gluten-free christmas cookies, so share your favorites over at Lisa's blog "Extraordinary Life." She is hosting the menu swap today!
A few cookies I definitely want to make this year:
This Week's Menu:
- Monday -- Big ol' batch of slow-cooker beef stew, this will probably last for 2-3 meals throughout the week. (Will freeze leftovers in portion size containers.) This beef stew was made with about 1 cup of frozen leftover beef stew from another batch added to: 1 pound browned, grass-fed ground beef + 3 diced carrots, about 1 1/2 cups frozen lima beans, 1 large chopped sweet onion, 2 chopped potatoes (yes, it's a starch heavy stew... lol), and about 3-4 cups of beef broth + salt, pepper, and fresh garlic. All added to the slow cooked and cooked on low for about 9 hours.
- Tuesday -- A big salad plate with mixed greens & raw veggies, shaved ham, poached eggs, with an oil & vinegar dressing. PS... GF Rice Chex make awesome croutons!
- Wednesday -- I'm still in Thanksgiving mode, so I am going to slow cook turkey chops (thick slices of turkey breast) and serve with Cheryl's Celery in Chestnut sauce with steamed broccoli and my favorite apple-cranberry sauce on the side.
- Thursday -- Dinner out since we have errands -- Hibachi stir fry with no sauces -or- leftover slow cooker beef stew!
- Friday -- Homemade GF pizza using this vegan pizza crust, it's a super easy, super crispy crust! I'm thinking of making a BBQ chicken pizza with caramelized onions.
- Saturday -- Leftover slow cooker beef stew from Monday, as I'm having a gluten-free baking class that day.
- Sunday-- We've made this crustless kale & bacon quiche from Jenna's Everything Blog at least 3 times and we love it so much we're making it again... really delicious and hearty meal!
