More Cooking and More Updates

I've been trying to find the time to sit down and make some muffins with the gluten free pantry muffin mix but with school and two kids, time is not really on my side. Finally I put my foot down and made them tonight. The recipe came from Beth Hillson's gluten free newsletter and was supposed to be for chocolate cherry muffins but I omitted the cherries b/c I didn't have any on hand. The results were so much better than my last attempt even with all our substitutions so I guess I will need to swear off baking from scratch and stick to prepared mixes for now. I can definitely still taste a difference b/w these and regular muffins but these came out so much more moist and cake like than did the other ones. Bottom line, both me and my husband agreed that these were edible for everyone in our family. See recipe at bottom.

Also the other night, I was surprised to see a recipe on Austin's tortilla chip bag. It called for dipping chicken in crushed chips and seasoning and the best part about it was that you dipped the chicken in water, not eggs or milk, before coating so we tried that. I would have to say it tasted like a faux shake and bake and was not too terrible but in my opinion there are lots of better recipes for GFCF chicken. No picture because I didn't think about it. For kicks the recipes is posted at the bottom. I served it with GFCF mashed potatoes and corn.

As for improvements, the only thing I can say is wow! At first, the husband and I didn't know whether or not we were imagining it but several people including some who did not know about the diet have commented on how well Austin is doing. The two major things that we have noticed is a lot less stimming and way more spontaneous language. This is my little boy who a few weeks ago had lots of words but had to be prompted almost every time to say just one or two of those words. He is now using 2-3 word phrases unprompted most of the time and every now and then we will get a 5-7 word phrase with a little modeling. Some of the things he has said recently are: "bye bye daddy", "Love you daddy", "all done diego bubble bath", and "eat dora(cereal)please mama". There are so many more and there seems to be something new each day so we are thrilled with his progress.

Beth Hillson's Chocolate Cherry Muffins

1 box Gluten Free Pantry Muffin Mix
1/3 cup vegetable oil (I used Canola)
1 1/4 cup buttermilk (I used potato milk with vinegar added)
1 1/2 tsp vanilla
1 egg (I used Ener-G egg replacer)
1/2 cup chocolate chips (enjoy life)
1/2 cup dried tart cherries chopped

Mix oil, buttermilk, vanilla, and egg. Add to muffin mix. Stir until well mixed. Gently fold in chocolate chips and cherries. Scoop into lined muffin pans. Bake at 350 for 20 min. Let cool for 10 min in muffin pan. Makes 16 (or 14 in our case) muffins.

Mission Crunchy Chicken Dinner

2 cups Mission Tortilla chips crushed
1/4 tsp garlic salt
1/8 tsp pepper
1/4 tsp oregano
1/8 tsp paprika
2-3 pounds chicken (we used tenders)

Add crushed chips and seasoning in large ziploc bag. Dip chicken in warm water and then place in bag. Shake to coat until well covered. Bake in lightly greased dish at 375 for 60 minutes or until cooked and tender. Serves 4.

Baking is hard!

Grrr... So I've been trying to find some good muffin recipes to start baking so that Austin can have something else to eat for breakfast. I scoured the internet and found a rice flour muffin recipe. I checked and I had all the ingredients so I decided to make blueberry muffins. What a disaster. I think the recipe did not call for enough liquid because I followed everything to a T and it was like dough instead of muffin batter. Then I though well this is GFCF baking so maybe it is supposed to be this way. I went ahead and baked the dough in muffin cups and they were terrible. They stayed the same shape, did not cook well, and of course were awful tasting. To the trash they went and back to the internet I went. I found a good looking banana chocolate chip recipe from GFCFmommy.blogspot.com and once again I had everything to make it. These ones actually turned out well for us but the taste is very different than regular muffins. I almost think they taste like banana chocolate cardboard but I'm not sure if that is how most GFCF bread products taste like since we are new to baking. I made them from scratch and plan to try again with gluten free pantry muffin mix. I'll be back to report!