Cabbage Rolls and Caprese Salad

Tonight's dinner featured a completely gluten free (and white sugar free, of course) meal.

I was advised by my mom that the best Cabbage Roll recipes are the ones with a little brown sugar in it and hooooray I found one on pinterest, here. It's a crockpot recipe.

And it's a lovely recipe! However, DO NOT BOIL THE CABBAGE LEAVES FOR TOO LONG. Or else you end up with a rather mushy mess to work with. However, as evident by the success of my beautiful cabbage rolls, It can be done! Never say never my friends. Also, I started the crockpot cooking a bit late so instead of cooking it on low for 6-8 hours I cooked it on high for a little over 3 1/2 and it worked out just fine. 

Here is my captive experimental dinner audience in the flesh, posing in just the way I forced them to. (but aren't they cute like that?! I think so :) .) 

And of course a Caprese salad always looks so colorful and lovely with any main course. We suffered the death of yet another basil plant recently, so in lieu of fresh basil I just sprinkled a little dried basil flakes on the top along with tomatoes, mozzarella, capers, olive oil and lots of balsamic vinegar. 

Perf! 

Pink Breakfast Smoothie

An absolutely delightful and easy smoothie was born, courtesy of Pinterest. 

Also, please keep in mind that.....

all burgers are beautiful. 

That is all. 

Oh. my. gosh.

THESE ARE THE BEST BROWNIES I'VE EVER MADE.

Welcome to heaven.

I mean how can you go wrong?

PEANUT BUTTER BROWNIES WITH PEANUT BUTTER CUP FROSTING! A miracle. 

Change your life by following the recipe, here. 

This piece was a little messy coming out of the pan, but it's CHOCOLATE. Where can you go wrong?! Plus it proves it was ultra warm and gooey when we ate it. 

Brown eating a brownie. (and loving it). 

I don't like eggplant.

That is what I discovered with this meal. Gross.

Eggplant Caprese Stacks

Good recipe, bad vegetable. Sorry to all those eggplant lovers out there, but I think there's a reason it was not included in the Veggie Tales entourage. 

This gluten free dish, however, is easy, simple, and delish. 

Ground beef, onions, rice, tomato sauce, and cheese! 

It's Too Easy Cheeseburger Casserole

Find the recipe here! 

*Make sure to use a sauce pan with taller sides than I did! That's a lot of ingredients in one place.*

Zuchinni soup, green bean fries and healthy pie!

Welcome to the world of totally gluten free at the Houston's! The No White diet is in full swing over here, and we also don't eat potatoes of any sort. Let the improvising begin!

I would also like to say that the no white sugar part of the diet is not heavily emphasized at the Houston household so....yea. Take all the "No White diet" recipes with a grain of salt...or sugar. HA.

This meal was one of my/our personal favorites so far!

Zucchini soup!

This recipe is one my mom made a year or two ago that she got from her friend Dee. And lo and behold, here it is. It's like a soup you'd get at Zuppa's! Versatile as either a fall or summer soup. And perfectly delicious either way. 

Zucchini Soup 

-1/2 pound onions, chopped

-1 1/2 pounds zucchini, washed, peeled, and sliced

-3 cups chicken broth

-1/8 tsp nutmeg

-1/8 tsp salt

-dash cayenne pepper (can leave out if you don't like spicy food whatsoever)

-1/2 cup half and half

-cheese, bacon bits, and sour cream to top it

Cook chopped onion in butter until clear but not brown. Combine onion, zucchini, chicken broth in heavy saucepan. Bring to boil and simmer 15 minutes or until zucchini is tender. Add seasoning and blend in blender until smooth (BUT DON'T BLEND IT BOILING HOT LIKE I DID cause it like explodes. There is no other way to describe it.). Adjust seasoning to taste (for fall you may want to add more nutmeg, for summer you may want to add the cayenne.). Add 1/2 cup half and half. Reheat but don't boil. Garnish with toppings of choice. 

Crispy Baked Parmesan Green Bean Fries! 

These are really great if you are bored with just steaming green beans. And personally I don't think they would be good with ketchup. They are plenty flavorful all by themselves. (*side note, I used garlic salt and real minced garlic instead of garlic powder and it was still delish.) 

Find the recipe HERE. 

Healthy No Bake Chocolate Berry Pie! (with coconut milk!) 

This pie is so pretty it deserves two pictures, I think you'll agree. 

Do not skimp on the freezer time. It won't work. I tried. Freeze it for AT LEAST 2 hours before consumption. It is such a creative use of coconut milk! Who knew?! 

Find the tasty recipe HERE. 

Delish zucchini bake and GF cookies!

To go along with our roast, I tried out this squash and zucchini bake that I found on Pinterest. It's really quick, and a good way to use up those veggies that you keep getting for free from your neighbor's garden (or your own!) :) It turned out so tasty! It's cheesy too!

Find the recipe here. 

I made yummy Coconut & White Chocolate Chip Cookies! TOTALLY GLUTEN FREE! And really not too bad for you, either! As far as sugar goes, they have only 1/3 cup of brown sugar in them. 

Find the recipe here. 

I know gluten free cookies often don't look too pretty on the outside, but these are good! TRY IT! 

Just a little chicken fried

I hope you all know that country song. If you don't, please look it up ("Chicken Fried" by Zac Brown Band). Thank you.

My favorite munchkins (because they're both fun-sized humans, not because they're any younger than me) in the whole world, Sara and Nimisha came over and we made dinner together last night! And it was DANG GOOD.

We made Crusted Honey Mustard Chicken (It's like very flavorful, healthy, homemade fried chicken. And ridiculously easy!), mashed potatoes (with garlic salt, milk, and cheese added), and a salad.

Find the recipe for the chicken here! It's weight watchers as a bonus! 

*we sprinkled a little bit of fried onion on the top (like the kind you sprinkle on salads and such) after it was all cooked, and it was delish. 

Unfortunately, this meal isn't quite in the "no white diet" category because you have to specifically buy gluten free cornflakes. Apparently cornflakes have malt in them which is *NOT* gluten free. What a bummer. But this can be easily fixed! Have no fear! 

In other news, I made these cute little tacos for lunch today. Literally just threw some corn tortillas on a cookie sheet, put some pieces of rotisserie chicken from costco on there with sliced black olives, a little bit of mild green taco sauce, red salsa, and cheese and broiled it in the oven for about 5-7 minutes. Boom. Lunch is served. Also, this is gluten free thanks to the corn tortillas. 

Improvised Dinner with Friends

My parents (aka my guinea pigs for trying healthy new things I make) were gone last night for dinner so I invited my friend Courtney over to make dinner with me and our friend Miranda joined us later once it was all cooked :) (not on purpose of course). So, Courtney chose a chicken stroganoff recipe we found on this website. BUT. It said it was going to take an hour so we improvised a few parts. And we served it over pasta!

It was delicious! Although we did add too much mustard. Whoops!

We served it (Court's idea) with this lovely spinach salad which has cucumber, celery, red onion (still my new fave!), blueberries, sliced almonds, and a soft Mexican cheese (with the texture of goat cheese pretty much). Balsamic vinaigrette or Red Blush Wine vinaigrette is perfect on this type of salad. 

Success!