Simple.Delicious.Chicken.

Simple is what goes in our household. I'm not a gourmet chef and I probably never will be. I don't have the patience to cook a meal with 10 or more ingredients, half being ones that I've never heard of or are probably to expensive for my budget. Besides that, I have picky eaters in my household! I have seen the following recipe on many sites so there is not really a "source" that I retrieved it from; I just wanted a simple way to prepare chicken one day and I remembered reading about this. Sorry for not posting pictures but I never thought to take any. The outside of the chicken comes out beautifully golden brown and the inside comes out incredibly moist.

Honey Chicken

Boneless Skinless Chicken Breasts
Honey
Salt & Pepper

Layer chicken in a pan. Season with salt and pepper to taste and drizzle with honey. Bake at 425 for 25-35 min. until done. Enjoy!

Pretend Play

Austin's therapists have started working with him on pretend play. For kids with autism it is a difficult to produce symbolic play (ie.. pretend that a cup is a telephone) although they may be able to do functional play things such as pushing a toy car or drinking from a play cup. We started with using the most basic things like pretending to eat or feed the baby but now the therapists have been wanting to introduce new concepts like driving a car by using chairs or just squatting or pretending to eat but with no play food. They haven't really done to much of this yet but today out of the blue, Austin took his play golf bag and told us it was a cup with pear juice and that he was drinking. Then he told us it was granddaddy's car and he pushed it around saying vroom vroom. Later he put it on his arm and said it was his back pack and that he was going bye bye. Finally, while he and his therapist were playing with blocks, he lined them all up and said it was a line and then a train, choo choo.

For us this is amazing!!! It was a really neat moment.

Convenience Items I DO buy

I spent my last post writing about why I don't buy the prepackaged chicken nuggets. This post is dedicated to prepackaged snacks that I DO buy. I find most of these reasonably priced and buy them because after all my son does have to eat and a lot of times he needs to eat on the go. Not many of these products are organic and although I try to buy organic when I can, I don't always have the money to. However, most of the products have limited ingredients and all of them are pronounceable.

Gerber Pear Juice - I've been told and read that pear juice is very easily tolerated and digested. I've only found 2 brands - RW Knudsen at $4.99 a bottle or Gerber at $1.87 a bottle. We stick with the Gerber and as always half water and half juice.


Hormel Natural Deli Meats - It's not organic but there are not any nitrates/nitrites, no msg, no added anything and it says Gluten Free right on the box. They have bacon as well!



Motts Natural Applesauce - If the apples that motts used were organic then it would be exactly the same as Earth's Best organic applesauce.


Lundberg Organic Rice Cakes - I buy the lightly salted ones because I think they need a little flavor but still only 2 ingredients with organic brown rice and sea salt.



Organic Brown Rice Snaps - Organic brown rice flour and organic white rice flour make these. I serve them as chips or sometimes with a little organic fruit spread.



SunMaid Raisins - Like the commercial says, "grapes and sunshine".


Gerber Graduates Fruit Twists - Like a twizzler but with real fruit. I'm assuming these are similar in taste (not texture) to Trader Joes Fruit Leathers. Of course they have more than just fruit in them but no preservatives or artificial flavors and they are cheaper for one serving.



Wylde Pretzels from Ener-G - These are the only GF pretzels I have found that are free of sesame in addition to being free of everything else. They also have a version with sesame.


Mission Tortilla Chips - As much as I would like to buy a different brand of tortilla chips, any that I have found are either made with soybean oil or have sunflower or safflower in them. Some of the Mission ones are done in corn, palm, or cottonseed oil. Other than that they are made with just corn, lime, and salt.



Last but certainly not least, I serve fresh fruit. He likes a little of everything except for bananas and oranges but we stick to apples, pears, strawberries, and grapes. Every once in a while I pick up pinapple, peaches, or mangos.

Why waste your money?

I'll admit that I'm a sucker for some convenience items on the diet. I'm a busy mom of 2 children, one who is a toddler, and the other who has several hours of therapy and school every day. I need meals that are quick and easy to make. Almost every time I headed to the store, I used to pick up a box of Ian's chicken nuggets. The awesome thing is that these nuggets are free of gluten, casein, soy, eggs, and nuts. The bad thing is that they are about $6 a box and only have 9 nuggets which amounts to a measly 2 servings. When I finally got around to trying more homemade recipes, I discovered a recipe for "McDonald's" chicken nuggets on gfcfrecipes.blogspot.com. The author takes no credit for the recipe as he found it somewhere on Yahoo but I must say these nuggets are great, simple (calling for only 6 ingredients), and much much cheaper than $6 for 2 servings. The downside is that these are fried. However, I don't serve these every day so it works for us in moderation. You'll have to adjust the serving for your child but for my son who is 3, I can make 8 servings on a regular package of chicken tenders. I divide each package into 4 and freeze. Then when I'm ready, I make 2 servings (each about 6-8 small nuggets) out of each quarter and then Austin has 2 ready to heat meals for the week. I could easily make all 8 servings but like I mentioned, they are fried so it's a treat. I also don't know how good these will taste or how long they last if frozen once made. But it's simple so it's easy to do a serving at a time. Here is the recipe:

Chicken - cut up into small nugget size pieces (mine are about the size of chick-fil-a)
1/3 cup gf flour
1/4 tsp sea salt
1 1/2 tsp vinegar
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/3 cup water

Mix the flour and salt in a bowl. Then, combine the vinegar and soda in another small bowl, quickly dumping it in the flour as it reacts. Then, quickly add the water. Whisk well. Let this sit for about 5 minutes. It thickens. Meanwhile, heat some oil in a frying pan. Mix your chicken pieces in the batter and let them sit in there while the oil heats. When hot, fry until golden brown and cooked through.