WEMP Free Chocolate Chip Waffles

Not only are these safe for Derek, but they are awesome! Chris said they are the best waffles he's ever had even! Yey! Can't wait for Derek to try them!!!
So long $6 boxes of cardboard waffles!!!!!!!!!!

WEMP Free Chocolate Chip Waffles
(makes 9 standard square waffles)

Ingredients:
4 Tbsp water
2 cups soy milk
6 Tbsp canola oil
3 cups wheat free all purpose flour mix
1 tsp xanthum gum
8 tsp baking powder
4 tsp sugar
1 tsp salt
1/2 to 1 cup ENJOY LIFE brand allergy-free chocolate chips

Directions:
1. Whisk together water, soy milk, and canola oil into small bowl.
2. In large bowl, combine flour mix, xanthum gum, baking powder, sugar, and salt. Mix together well, and then add soy milk mixture.
3. Using a large silicone spatula, mix together until fully blended...but do not over mix. Some clumps are ok! Once blended, add chocolate chips.
4. Heat waffle iron. Spray generously with cooking spray - or they will get super stuck!
5. Add about 1/3 cup or so of batter to each waffle "space" in iron. Lower lid and cook until ready!

*Note - this batter is extra thick and fluffy, not like a typical waffle batter, so you may want to spread it out a bit on the waffle iron so it fills it completely.

Wheat Free All Purpose Flour Mixture

This recipe comes from Cybele Pascal's book The Allergen-Free Baker's Handbook. Let me just say that I've tried a few recipes from this book, and although one didn't work for me (totally could have been MY fault!), there are several awesome recipes in here! :)

I've begun experimenting with my own recipes, seeing what I can do to alter them so that we can still eat the same food we love, but altering it in such a way that Derek can enjoy it with us! :) He REALLY does NOT like it when he's eating something different than what everyone else is eating! So, I have to either make everyone the same food, or disguise his really REALLY well!

Anyway, so far this mixture is working wonders for us (we even made an excellent bread, just by substituting the flour mixture for all purpose flour, and adding some xanthum gum!).

Wheat Free All Purpose Flour Mix

Ingredients:
4 cups finely ground brown rice flour
1 1/3 cup potato starch
2/3 cup tapioca starch

Directions:
1. Combine flours into container, whisking well to fully mix. Store in air tight container (can place in refrigerator if you are not going to use soon).
2. Use in place of all purpose flour in recipes. You may need to add xanthum gum for different recipes, as that is what binds together flour in wheat-free cooking...but I don't know enough about xanthum gum at this point to give any guidelines about how much to use. I just look at other similar recipes :)

HINT: If using Bob's Red Mill brown rice, you can actually remove 1/4 cup from a full bag, and you'll be left with the 4 cups you need!

Best Asparagus Ever! :)

My kids LOVE LOVE LOVE asparagus. Isn't that weird?! They also love brussel sprouts. That's weirder! LOL!

We had just started eating roasted asparagus with a bit of lemon and some parmesan cheese recently, but with Derek's WEMP allergies, we can no longer top our veggies with cheese. :( Luckily it's not something I did that often that our kids will even notice that we are no longer doing it.

BUT, I wanted to make asparagus the other night that was just as flavorful and satisfying as the cheese covered kind we'd been eating, so I decided to top it with some pre-cooked bacon pieces, and it was fabulous! It satisfied my need for cheese and salt all with just a touch of bacon! :) And, Chris said it was the BEST asparagus he's ever eaten!!!!

Ingredients:
2 bunches asparagus, with bottoms removed
3 Tbsp olive oil
1 tsp minced garlic
2 Tbsp lemon juice
salt and pepper to taste
1 Tbsp pre-cooked bacon pieces

Directions:
1. Heat oil in large skillet. Once hot, add asparagus and garlic and saute until tender (3-5 minutes). Add lemon juice and salt and pepper, and continue cooking for another minute or two until you get some browning on the stalks. Sprinkle with bacon and heat for about 30 seconds.

WEMP Free "White" Bread

This recipe came from Betty Crocker's cookbook, but we just tweaked it to make it wheat free! :)
It turned out FABULOUS! Not only did Derek like it, but we all did! It was soft and slightly chewy, and just had a great flavor to it!

I had read somewhere that large loaves of wheat-free bread don't turn out as nicely on the top and that they don't rise as well, so we made two very small loaves...but will definitely try this one as a larger loaf to see how large of one we can make and it still turn out ok. Right now it's ok that his sandwiches are the size of his little hand (although on a normal day he could probably eat 3 or 4 of these size sandwiches!), but I don't think he'll like it in high school :) Although, hopefully he'll outgrow these allergies way before then!!!!

WEMP Free "White" Bread

Ingredients:
1-2 cups flour mix
1 tsp xanthum gum
1 Tbsp sugar
1/3 Tbsp salt
2 tsp dairy-free shortening
2/3 package instant yeast
3/4 cup very warm water (120-130 degrees)

Directions:
1. Mix 1 cup flour mix, sugar, salt, shortening, and yeast in large bowl. Add warm water. Beat with electric mixer on low speed 1 minute, scraping bowl frequently. Beat on medium speed 1 minute, scraping bowl frequently. Stir in enough remaining flour (up to about another cup) to made dough easy to handle. You want the dough to come together like regular wheat dough, only you want this to remain a little more moist than wheat dough. That will help to keep the bread soft and moist after baking.

2. Because wheat-free dough has no gluten, you don't need to knead it! :)

3. Grease bottoms and sides of 2 small loaf pans (these were about 2x4 or 2x5 that we made), with shortening.

4. Form dough into 2 small loaf shapes, and drop into bread pans. Cover and let rise for about an hour, until it looks like it's about 1 1/2 to 2 times larger.

5. Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Bake 25 to 30 minutes or until loaves are slightly golden on top. Remove loaves from pan and allow to cool on wire rack.

6. Store bread in zip loc bags so that it doesn't dry out. The best way to store loaves is in the freezer for short periods of time, as without wheat they do tend to dry out a lot quicker than regular bread.

Just look at this!!!

WEMP Free Cinnamon Apple Muffins Drizzled with Caramel

YUM! I was so excited to try out a wheat-free "all purpose" flour mixture today with an old recipe! :) I used my generic create-a-muffin recipe found here and this is how I did it...

And, it turned out great! Of course you can tell it's wheat-free because it's not as light and fluffy as a regular muffin might be, but it's close enough that I wouldn't mind serving them to guests :)

AND, the Starbuck's Caramel is SO GOOD! The perfect touch!!! HOWEVER, the caramel contains milk ingredients! So, for Derek I used a bit of honey on top...but you could probably make caramel with brown sugar and soy milk (and whatever other ingredients are in caramel!) :)

Ingredients:
2 cups flour*
1/2 cup sugar
2 Tbsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
Ener-G Egg replacer for 1 egg (mix together 1 1/2 tsp egg replacer with 2 Tbsp water then add to mixture)
1 cup soy milk
1/4 cup canola oil
1/2 apple, diced
Starbucks Caramel sauce* - this contains milk ingredients though! So for Derek, I used honey
instead

Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Mix together flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, and cinnamon. Add egg replacer (mix egg replacer and water together first!), soy milk, and canola oil and mix until well blended. Stir in diced apple pieces.
2. Spoon batter into greased muffin tin. Bake for about 20-25 minutes, or until lightly golden brown on top.
3. Remove from pan and drizzle with a little caramel sauce.

Check out what the caramel does...
It takes these muffins from this:


To THIS!

Can't you just taste that ooey gooey goodness?!
I think I'm gonna have to try and make a WEMP free caramel sauce for Derek so he can enjoy it as much too! :)

Safe Chicken Nuggets

So, I started making Derek's homemade chicken nuggets with brown rice flour, but the texture is so odd. It's more gritty than regular flour so it doesn't stick as well, which makes it not coat as nicely as wheat flour.

I tried cornflour last night and it was so much better! It coated just as well, if not better than wheat flour!

I added a bit of seasoning to spice it up a bit, and they were very tasty! I would probably not do the curry again, as it wasn't bad, but just not the right flavor for a typical chicken nugget :)

But, will definitely stick with using the cornflour! Yey!

Ingredients:
1 chicken breast, cut into 1-inch pieces
1/4 cup corn flour
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp garlic powder
1/4 tsp curry powder
1/4 cup canola oil

Directions:
1. Place corn flour and seasonings into a small zip-loc bag. Drop chicken pieces into bag, zip, and toss to coat.
2. Heat oil in skillet until hot. Add coated chicken, and cook for about 8-10 minutes, or until cooked through, turning occasionally.

AWESOME Ribs!!!!

OH. My. WORD! These were SO amazingly good! Tons of flavor and yummy goodness! There wasn't an ounce of meat leftover! :)

I got this recipe from Summer 2010 Cuisine Grilling Magazine, but changed it a tiny bit. It called for frozen orange juice concentrate (instead of the cola), and I added the liquid smoke.

For the Ribs -

2 racks spareribs (7lb total)
2 Tbsp each kosher salt, black pepper, brown sugar, and chili powder
1 Tbsp each paprika, dried oregano, and thyme leaves

For the Sauce -
1 cup diced onion
1 Tbsp vegetable oil
1 Tbsp minced garlic
1 cup cider vinegar
1 cup ketchup
1/2 cup cola
1 Tbsp Worcestershire sauce
1 Tbsp prepared yellow mustard
1/2 tsp Tabasco sauce
1/2 tsp liquid smoke

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 300 degrees.
2. Trim the skirt flap and excess fat from ribs; pull off membrane. Pierce the meat between bones, using a fork, then arrange on a baking sheet. Combine seasonings and generously rub both sides of racks. Tightly cover baking sheet with foil; roast ribs 2 hours.
3. Saute onion in oil in a saucepan over medium heat 3-4 minutes. Add garlic and cook 1 minute.
4. De-glaze with vinegar and reduce by half, about 6 minutes. Stir in remaining ingredients and simmer 10 minutes; season with salt.
5. Preheat grill to medium-high. Remove ribs from oven, coat with sauce, and grill, covered, until charred, 15 minutes, flipping and coating with sauce occasionally. Remove ribs from grill; rest 10 minutes. To cut, hold racks upright on a cutting board and slice between ribs.