Saturday, February 18, 2012

Lunch Special

Do you know what kind of plate this is? Yep - it is an egg plate. I guess you know how much use this gets in our house now. Zilch. None. Zip.

Well, Julia saw it the other day and wanted to eat her lunch on it. Luckily, I hadn't decided what she was going to have. This made it super easy.

What you see is what you get with this one. Diced turkey lunch meat in some of the holes. Cheese in another. Bean dip in the rest. Sun Chips in the middle. She was thrilled. This lunch mirrored what I sent with the other two for lunch at school that day. It is an allergen free meal for us.

The turkey is something we have checked to make sure it doesn't have diary in it. A lot of lunch meat does. Didn't know that until we had to start checking labels.

We cook up a whole bag of beans whenever we do beans so that we can freeze them. These beans were leftovers from that big pot. I just got some and mashed them with a fork and some water until they were the consistency of bean dip. Then I added a bit of salt and garlic powder until I liked the taste for a dip.

The cheese is goat cheese, or chevre. It appears that Louisa can handle this. We have not done any big challenges to her system with it but she can have several slices with a meal and it doesn't bother her.

Sun chips are another thing that Louisa can eat. As long as they are not the flavored varieties. Most of the flavors have things in them we are trying to avoid. The plain ones are good, though.

So, just a quick and easy lunch. I thought it was cute, though, so I shared it, too. YES!

Saturday, February 11, 2012

Chicken and Rice

I got a very good compliment tonight. Well, 3 actually. All the girls liked dinner. It was almost as good as the stuff Aunt Jenn cooks. That is a tough challenge to live up to but I am evidentally getting closer. I'll take that.

Dinner tonight was chicken and rice. (No pictures today - I forgot) It was based on a recipe that I grew up making. I think Campbell's puts this recipe on a lot of their soup cans. It is the one where you put water, rice, and soup in a dish and mix it up. Then put the chicken pieces on top and bake it. A good recipe, except for the cream soup part. Dairy products are not allowed for us. So, remake - here I come.

I used the exact same concept but I had garlic flavored chicken broth in the fridge. (Never would have bought it but it came in a meal deal during one of our shopping trips to HEB. Nice freebie!) I put the chicken broth and rice in and the chicken on top (frozen!). Bake and voila! The girls didn't stop talking about it until they were done eating it!

CHICKEN & RICE:
2 C garlic flavored chicken broth
1 1/4 C long grain/slow cook rice
4 - 6 chicken breasts (thawed or frozen, doesn't make too much difference except for cooking time)

Put the broth and rice in a 9 x 13 dish and stir it up. Place the chicken on top and cover with aluminum foil. Place in 375 degree oven for 40 - 60 minutes (40 for thawed; 60 for frozen), checking to make sure the chicken is baked thoroughly. If you want a little bit of color to your chicken, uncover and bake for another 10 minutes. You could even sprinkle a tiny bit of paprika over it. Serve. Makes 4 - 6 servings.

I served this with corn and broccoli (both frozen and cooked in the microwave). This was a good dinner with very little work involved. My kind of cooking. And it was all from the YES list!!!