A week of Gluten-Free meals

I've been trying to figure out what to post about for my first official post (beyond my introduction), so I think I'm going to just tell you about our weekly menu of yummy gluten free food.

Every Thursday or Friday, depending on the week, I make up our dinner menu for the week.  I pick 7 to 10 meals that we are likely to want and then make the grocery list from those items.

Remember all of these meals are gluten-free!

This week, we are having:

1. Chili
2. Chicken Parmesan 
3. Chicken marinated and baked in Kraft Zesty Italian Salad Dressing and baked potatoes
4. Manwiches and homemade french fries.  Manwiches served on my homemade bread baked as buns.
5. Turkey breast (Jennie-O) and mashed potatoes.
6. Greek-style Chicken
7. Grilled steak and mashed potatoes
8. Some sort of seafood, grits, and fries.

The chili is pretty easy.  I throw a bunch of tomato stuff in a giant pot with browned hamburger, add spice, let simmer.  I use canned whole tomatoes, some diced and a can of sauce, then add tomato paste later on to thicken it up.  I use McCormick's chili powder.  I also use Bush's Chili Beans.  I had read from a poster somewhere online that chili beans were impossible to find Gluten-Free.  Well, the only chili beans I have ever picked up say right on the back "Gluten-Free," so it's not impossible.

Number 2 is a staple in our house.  Thaw chicken, put in a glass dish, pour Zesty Italian dressing all over it, bake it for about an hour.  I buy the biggest bottle I can find of the zesty Italian because we use the dressing in the dish to pour over our baked potatoes, and I use it on top of my broccoli.  It's VERY yummy!

I think the manwiches are pretty self explanatory, so I won't bore you with any details of that one other than that I bake my own buns.  I just use our favorite bread recipe and scoop it in to quiche/tart tins that I found at Bed, Bath, and Beyond.

Mashed potatoes:  We make them from scratch...potatoes, milk, butter, salt, pepper, mix.  Yummy!

Steak: It had been a while since we had had grilled steak.  Martin used a rub on it of garlic powder, onion powder, salt, and something else he bought GF.  It worked and was wonderfully seasoned.

Greek-Style Chicken:  I have NO idea where this food got its name, but we've been eating it for probably 20 years or more in my family.  You take chicken and put in on a baking sheet.  Cut up as many potatoes as you want.  Put generous amounts of butter around on top of the potatoes and chicken.  Sprinkle Oregano and salt on top of it all.  Bake it.  I bake mine at about 375 for an hour or more.  We love the buttery potatoes.  I prefer my potatoes slightly crispy on the outside.  You can also add onions to the whole thing if you want.  This was one of the first meals that I realized I wouldn't have to change AT ALL for our new diet.

Seafood:  Martin hasn't decided what yet.  I'm hoping for shrimp but he may decide he wants fish.  We coat our seafood in corn flour and fry like normal.  It's the same think we do when we make fried Chicken.

Chicken Parm:  Since I can't bake or broil the chicken in bread crumbs like I used to, I dredge the chicken in SOY flour! and then pan fry it with some melted butter.  After browning both sides of the chicken, I add Bertolli Vidalia Onion pasta sauce and simmer until the chicken is done.  I use the Heartland spaghetti pasta that Walmart sells.  It's a corn and rice mix so it stands up pretty well.  It is a very close substitute for Gluten pasta, and yummy too.  After eating it the first time, my husband said he liked it BETTER than regular pasta.  To make our plates, we put down a bed of baby spinach, a little bit of fresh grated mozzarella cheese.  Then we put the drained GF spaghetti on top of that, then some of the pasta sauce, chicken, and then top with more mozzarella cheese.  It is so good, and it's always a hit with the entire family.