{Gluten Free One Pot Meals} Ground Turkey & Quinoa Skillet Meal Recipe

Okay, I know this isn't the most appetizing meal you've ever seen. And the lighting in my kitchen at 8:30pm in the winter kinda stinks... but the one pot meal? Very good, very quick, and even husband friendly!

I'm starting a new series this week entitled, "Gluten Free One Pot Meals." I think I deserve a sticker for originality.

So the concept isn't anything new. But whether you work full time, commute an hour to work, stay home with your kids, dinner time can often be tough to figure out.

Last summer we addressed this issue with Gluten Free Quick & Easy Meals. A number of wonderful gluten free bloggers helped me out by sharing their favorite quick and easy meals.

This time I'm hoping to post a "One Pot Meal" once a week. I don't plan on having a time frame for this series. One pot, easy meals are needed year round.  "One pot" can meal anything from my dutch oven, to the pizza pan, to the frying pan, to a wok, etc...

This week's one pot meal uses my favorite large skillet. It's a 12" non-stick pan I received when Michael & I got married. It's still one of my favorite pans. These recipes will not be meals that are set in stone. Make them with the ingredients you have on hand. If you don't have any quinoa, or if it scares you, or if you have picky eaters... then use brown rice -or- gf pasta -or- gf bread cubes -or- cooked potatoes. Go crazy and try your own variations!

Ground Turkey, Vegetable & Quinoa Skillet Meal
- a gluten free recipe template by Carrie @ Gingerlemongirl.com -
free of gluten, dairy/casein, soy, and eggs

1 lb. ground turkey (or ground beef, or ground pork, etc...)
1 med. sweet onion, finely chopped 3 cloves garlic, finely minced
2 cups fresh spinach, roughly chopped
2 cups fresh button mushrooms (or baby bella mushrooms) stems removed, and sliced
3 carrots, sliced thinly diagonally
1 cup uncooked quinoa, that's been rinsed with fresh water (or 3 cups cooked quinoa, rice, diced potatoes, etc...)
Olive oil

Directions: In your skillet add 2 cups water and the dry quinoa. Bring the water to a simmer and cook covered for 10-12 minutes until quinoa is fluffy and very little water remains. (A great tutorial on cooking quinoa). Remove the cooked quinoa from the pan, place in a bowl & set aside. Add 1-2 tablespoons of olive oil to the pan. Brown ground turkey. Add onions, and cook for 5-10 minutes until the onions are translucent. Add the garlic to the pan and cook for 2-3 minutes. Add remaining vegetables and cook for about 10 - 15 minutes until they are soft. Stir the cooked quinoa into the mixture. (Alternatively, you could served the cooked vegetables & meat mixture over individual servings of quinoa.) Now, if you're not feeling up to a highly flavored meal you could eat the meal as is. But if you want some flavor variations for your one pot meal, here are some ideas you could use:

For an Asian Inspired Meal: 

• 1-2 tbsp. soy sauce (or soy sauce sub)
• a splash of sesame oil
• a few shakes of roasted sesame seeds
• a splash of rice vinegar
• a splash of fish sauce

For an Italian Inspired Meal:

• Add 1/2 cup of diced tomatoes to the skillet 5 minutes before serving
• 1 teaspoon dried basil (or 3 tablespoons julienned fresh basil)
• 1-2 teaspoons dried oregano
• splash a bit of extra virgin olive oil on each serving, right before eating!

For a Mexican Inspired Meal:

• Add 1/2 cup of your favorite salsa to the skillet 5 minutes before serving
• Add 1/4 cup freshly chopped cilantro
• Serve with diced avocado or avocado slices
• 1-2 tsp. chili powder
• 1-2 tsp. cumin
• 1 tsp. adobo seasoning

What flavorings/seasonings/add in's would you use? 

What types of skillet/one pot meals would you like to see featured? 

Gluten Free Girl's Whole Grain Muffins

I really love Gluten Free Girl. To be honest, before I met her at IFBC 2010 I thought she was a bit of a food snob. One more reason I need to stop judging people before I meet them! :-) I'm so glad I had the opportunity to meet her!  Shauna is a gem. She has an incredible hug and even more incredible heart for people. Her laughter --a joy to hear, her boots red, and her smile is warm & inviting.

I truly enjoy her writing & her blog. One thing I love about reading blogs is that you get to watch as the seasons change, as writers evolve, as their food changes.

Shauna has recently decided to stop using white sugar in their home. She's using more natural choices such as sucanat, date sugar, coconut/palm sugar, etc... She's also using more whole grains and she's cutting gums out of her baked goods.

I absolutely love all of these changes. They cater to my own natural & healthy food choices and I'm excited about the new possibilities in Shauna's baked goods. I'm eagerly awaiting her gluten free yeast bread that doesn't contain gums!

Last night I tried her whole grain muffins.

The muffins don't use xanthan gum or guar gum. The first thing I loved about them! Shauna also uses a 70% whole grains and 30% starches for this recipe. She tells you how to make your own personalized gluten free whole grain mix and then shares a basic recipe template. She wants you to play. She wants you to start thinking off the page.

Recipes are simply the outline, the basic idea of what you can make. It's up to you to make them unique. To use what you have available. To be creative and inspired.

The muffins we made last night used a combination of almond flour, sorghum flour, brown rice flour, quinoa flour (I love the taste of quinoa with cinnamon & raisins!), arrowroot starch, and ground flax seeds.  As Shauna stated, you'll probably never make the same muffins twice! That's certainly the case at our house. For the add in's we used about 1/4 of raisins (which cleaned out my stash of raisins) and a handful of sliced almonds. Apparently my chopped walnuts & pecans have hidden themselves in the freezer beyond my reach.

Since I'm watching my calorie intake I calculated that basically my overall recipe (including the amount of sugar & oil used in the original recipe) had 3693 calories. I was able to make 18 muffins from the batter, which means each muffin had about 205 calories. Overall, not bad! Plus, the health benefits of these whole grain muffins is substantial. I love that our version contained healthy proteins & fats with the almond flour + quinoa flour + ground flax seeds.

To reduce the calories in my next batch, I'll probably use a bit less sugar and replace half the oil with applesauce or pumpkin puree.

I was thrilled when I caught my husband (who generally isn't a huge fan of baked goods) packing 3 muffins in a plastic bag to take to work with him today. As I munched on my muffins for breakfast this morning, I was pleasantly surprised at how moist they were.

Do you enjoy muffins? What you would you include in your 70/30 gluten free whole grain mix? If you need some inspiration, here are a few of my favorite muffin recipes and most of them are whole grain:

• Gluten Free Whole Grain Banana Nut Muffins
• Gluten Free Streusel-Topped Blueberry Muffins
• Gluten Free, Whole Grain Vegan Banana Bread - easily made into muffins!
• Gluten Free Carob Banana Muffins
• Gluten Free Vegan Dark Chocolate Muffins
• Gluten Free Ginger Lemon Muffins 
• Gluten Free Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Muffins
• Gluten Free Orange Cinnamon Muffins

*This post is linked to The Gluten Free Homemaker's Wednesday Carnival for 1/26/11. 

Basic Gluten Free Pancakes Recipe 2.0

I originally shared this post  for basic gluten free pancakes on Tuesday February 23, 2010.  I'm proud to say this has been one of the most popular & enjoyed recipes on Gingerlemongirl! (Thanks Dad!) Today though I wanted to share a slight variation on the recipe to thicken the batter slightly without the use of gums.

Shauna over at Gluten Free Girl & The Chef has recently been experimenting with recipes that use no xanthan gum or guar gum. Here is her recent recipe for gluten free whole grain gum-free muffins! I plan on making these this week.  In 2008 and 2009 I also experimented with using little or no gums and I agree with Shauna, I think for most gluten free recipes you don't need them. I plan on creating more recipes this year without xanthan or guar gums. The biggest challenge in not using xanthan gum or guar gum is creating good tasting gluten free yeast breads, but we'll worry about that another day.

For now though... let's talk pancakes. These pancakes are great as is... but a question I've received often is how to make the batter a bit more thick. It's a thin batter because there is no xanthan gum or gluten to thicken it up. However, you can easily make this batter a bit more thick (and make pancakes just as delicious) by adding ground flax seeds that have been mixed with boiling, hot water to create a gel. This will thicken your batter -- not as much as xanthan gum would -- but enough to make a thicker batter that works great to get pancakes that are more round and have a better shape.



So if you tried these pancakes in the past, but wanted a thicker batter, here you go. The same recipe with a single addition of the ground flax seeds mixture. Please give these delicious & easy gluten free pancakes a try and tell me what you think!


Dad's Best Pancakes (Made Gluten Free)
-Or- Basic Gluten Free Pancakes
Adapted by Carrie Forbes @ Gingerlemongirl.com
(Free of gluten, casien, and soy)
(Printer-friendly recipe)

Dry Ingredients
3/4 cup brown rice flour -or- millet flour -or- sorghum flour
1/2 cup tapioca starch
3 tablespoons gluten free rolled oats -- really adds some great thickness to the batter 
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt

Wet Ingredients
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 egg
1 cup non-dairy milk (I used almond milk)
1 tablespoon canola or grapeseed oil
1 tablespoon ground flax seeds + 2 tbsp. boiling hot water = mix & set aside for 5 min. to gel - then add to wet ingredients.

Directions:
In a medium sized bowl add all dry ingredients and whisk together thoroughly. Make a well in the center of the dry ingredients and add the vanilla, an egg, 1 cup of non-dairy milk, and the oil. Whisk wet ingredients together with dry ingredients until thoroughly mixed. You will have a very wet, but slightly thick batter that will cling to the whisk. Brush skillet or non-stick pan with olive oil or non-stick spray. Heat pan on medium high heat until it's hot enough to make a drop of water sizzle. Pour a few tablespoons - 1/4 cup of batter per pancake. Cook until bubbles form on the top and pop and the edges are slightly dry. Flip and cook the opposite side for 1-2 minutes. Serve piping hot with casein free margarine or ghee and real maple syrup!

Enjoy!

Thoughtfully,
Carrie

Weekend Setbacks

2008 Flashback

January 19, 2008 - Gluten Free Crescent Rolls

As you know I've been monitoring my food intake very closely lately. I've been journaling, writing down what I eat along with just being much more conscious about my food choices. (And not eating those awesome gluten free crescent rolls! If anybody figures out how to successfully make them dairy free you have to let me know!)

I had a wonderful weekend visiting family. The only downfall was my food choices. Actually it wasn't the choices, but the portions. It's amazing how quickly I want to revert back to large portions if I'm not actually writing down what I'm eating. Emotional eating can quickly follow.

So back to the basics this week. Portion sizes in check. Last week I found these really cute lunch boxes online and I purchased a set. It's similar to a bento type lunch, but it's all one container which is really convenient! Today's lunch was brought in the cute lunch box. Somehow packed lunches seem much more appetizing when they are in cute containers. Yes?

Setbacks are frustrating for me. I want to beat myself up. I get frustrated that I don't see immediate results when I drastically change my eating habits. And these feelings often revert back to emotional eating... which can revert to messy counters... which can revert to eating out. It's one big messy cycle.

Yet even though I do have a few dishes in the sink today (and really it is only a few -- much better record than before), and even though I just went through a few days of emotional eating... I'm jumping back on track today.

How do you handle food/activity/emotional setbacks?

Thoughtfully,
Carrie

Gluten Free 2-Ingredient Fudge Sauce Recipe

One of my favorite blogs of all time is "Heather Eats Almond Butter." If you're not a fan you should be! Heather's blog is fun and full of simple, easy recipes and she just had a lovely little daughter.

Heather lost weight several years ago and even after having a baby has maintained a healthy weight. She eats almond butter... among other healthy things!

One of the struggles I've had is that I really love healthy fats! Natural almond butter, peanut butter, coconut oil, extra virgin olive oil, etc.. you name it and I really love it!

Part of my problem was that I was simply eating too much of it... you can have TOO much of a good thing! Too much of a healthy food!

So if you decide to make this "healthy", dairy free, gluten free chocolate sauce... make sure to keep your portion in check! 1 tablespoon has about 55 calories... and 1 tablespoon is just enough of a treat to add to my morning bowl of 1/2 cup of gluten free cooked rolled oats!

This "not really a recipe" was sort of an accident. Heather, of the above mentioned blog, had a post on a 2 ingredient fudge that she made. She used coconut milk and baking chocolate. BUT... being the "ADD, prone to not paying attention" kind of girl that I am. I didn't fully read the directions. She used 16 oz. of baking chocolate. My chocolate bar was only 4 oz. And therefore, I ended up with a lovely & decadent chocolate SAUCE, rather than a fully formed fudge! And really after figuring out the calories on this delicious concoction... I'm glad I only used 4 oz of chocolate! lol!!

This is not a really sweet fudge sauce since we don't add any sugar, but it's so creamy, rich and delicious! Enjoy!

Gluten Free 2-Ingredient Fudge Sauce Recipe
free of gluten, dairy/casein, and soy protein (the chocolate does contain soy lecithin)
makes about 1 1/2 cups of chocolate sauce
that's about 24 tablespoons at roughly 55 calories per tablespoon - so use it sparingly!

1 (12 oz.) can of full fat coconut milk - Native Forest is my fav brand - No sulfites
4 oz. dairy free chocolate - I used 4 oz. of  Lindz 70% chocolate bars

Directions:
Melt the chocolate bar over low heat in a small saucepan. Add the coconut milk and stir consistantly for about 3-4 minutes until the sauce is slowly simmering and is a deep chocolate color. Pour into a glass jar and refrigerate for at least 8 hours. The sauce will be thick enough to hold a spoon upright in the container. Makes 24 servings!  Add a tablespoon to your oatmeal, your ice cream! Enjoy as a treat!