Life seems to get busier with every season. Everyone says “enjoy it the kids will be out of the house before you know it.” Part of enjoying the time is not stressing over dinner. Easier said than done with so much going on and so many foods to avoid, I had read that pasta in a pressure cooker was easy. I was skeptical but it turned out really well.

I browned the ground beef on the stove instead of using the sauté mode of the pressure cooker. I just find it easier. You could definitely do this the day before or earlier in the day.

I still feel new to the world of pressure cookers. I haven’t been wow’d by everything I’ve made and there are a few recipes that I am hoping to improve upon.

Enjoy this fast dinner.

Pasta in the Pressure Cooker
Servings: 8 large servings
Time: 30 minutes
Difficulty: easy-moderate
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1 pound cooked ground beef (Italian Sausage)
1 package gluten-free pasta
1 jar pasta sauce
2 cups water

Directions

Place ground beef as a bottom layer in the pressure cooker
Add the jar of pasta sauce
Add pasta (if using spaghetti break in half)
Fill pasta jar with water (approximately 2 cups) and pour on top of the pasta
Put on the lid set to seal
Cook on high pressure for 8 minutes
When done quick release, stir and enjoy!

Our leftovers from last night are helping with celebrating National Bean Day.

Yesterday I made Chili in the crockpot and Quinoa Black Bean Soup (aka My No-Nightshade Chili) for dinner. Along with some corn bread.

I have started buying dried beans and making them in my pressure cooker. For the black beans for the quinoa soup I put about 2 cups of beans in the pressure cooker and covered them with water about two inches above the beans. I then cooked them for 25 minutes on high pressure. I let it depressurize for 30 minutes then spooned then out into mason jars and covered them with the cooking liquid.

Making the Chili helped me check one thing off my January 2019 Wish List. And the rest of the black beans will be made into brownies!

We had a really cold January and we had been traveling, so it was nice to come home and make a nice pot of soup and some corn bread. When traveling with food allergies sometimes you end up eating the same thing over and over.

I like to make this soup when I make Chili for the nightshade eaters. I’m not sure if it’s the color of the soup or the fact that there is beans in it that remind me of Chili. It could be the fact that it tastes better with corn bread. If you have not had chili with corn bread it is the best!

This soup reheats well and I love to add tons of cilantro, avocado and lime on top. Enjoy!

Quinoa Black Bean Soup aka Nightshade-free Chili
Servings: 6 cups
Time: 40 minutes
Difficulty: easy
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Ingredients

1 tablespoon olive oil
1 onion chopped
7 cloves garlic minced
1 can pumpkin puree
1 teaspoon cumin
1/2 teaspoon oregano
1/2 cup quinoa
1 can black beans
5 cups broth
2 bay leaves (I like to use fresh bay leaves)

Toppings

avocado
cilantro
lime wedges

Directions

Add oil to soup pot over medium heat.
Add onions and stir till soft.
Add garlic and cook for just a minute.
Add pumpkin and spices to the pot and stir until heated.
Add broth and quinoa and bring to a boil.
Once boiling add beans and bay leaves. Bring back up to a boil and simmer till the quinoa is cooked through.
Serve with avocado, cilantro and a squeeze of fresh lime.

A day without school means we are making bone broth. I think we could make this a few times a week and it still wouldn’t be enough.

Chicken Bone Broth – in the Pressure Cooker

The holidays would not be complete without green bean casserole. When we first went dairy and gluten free we went many years without this holiday staple. Then I learned to make a roux and I started making this casserole again without the French Fried Onions. And then, ALDI started making gluten free french fried onions and holidays dinner was complete!

Personally I like it if the green beans are still a little crunchy so I use fresh beans. Using can or frozen beans is fine too. The other ingredient that can be changed around is the onions. I like using dried chopped onions, the ones you get in the spice isle. These make me think more of the dried onion soup mix that I used before we started our gallery journey.

I hope this recipe helps make your holidays complete. – SB

Green Bean Casserole
Servings: 5 cups+
Time: 1 hour
Difficulty: easy-moderate
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Ingredients

Green Bean Casserole for Thanksgiving 2017

1/4 cup olive oil
1/4 cup sweet rice flour
1 cup chicken broth
1 cup unsweetened rice milk
1 tablespoon lemon juice
16 ounces sliced mushrooms
1 tablespoon chopped garlic
2 cups green beans
2 tablespoons dried chopped onions
1 tablespoon nutritional yeast
2 cans french fried onions
salt and pepper

Instructions

Pre heat oven to 350 degrees.
Heat olive oil in a sauce pan.
Whisk in rice flour.
Slowly whisk in chicken broth followed by the rice milk. Whisk until thickened.
Season with salt and pepper, and add 1 tablespoon of lemon juice.
In a saute pan heat a few tablespoons of olive oil and add mushrooms and stir occasionally until mushrooms are softened. Add the garlic to the mushrooms and heat for just one minute more.
In a casserole dish combine green beans, roux, mushrooms, chopped onions, nutritional yeast, a whole can of french fried onions, and season with salt and pepper.
Cook at 350 for 20 minutes. Take out casserole and stir. Top the casserole with some more french fried onions and cook for 10 more minutes.

This can be made a few days ahead of time and reheated for you r holiday dinner. Enjoy! – http://www.cygnetorganize.com

Avoiding nightshades is hard. I’m constantly saying “I can’t eat that.” In the winter it is nice to have something hearty and warm. I currently think one of the easiest ways to make sweet potatoes is in the crockpot. I wrap them in foil. No wholes poked in them. No oil. Just the sweet potatoes wrapped in foil. I put them in the crockpot on low for 8 hours.

When the 8 hours are up I take them out. Leave them in the foil and allow them to cool. I store them in the refrigerator. When I want one, I unwrap, split in half and heat it up in the microwave.

Enjoy!

What is it about these cold dreary days that make me want to cook bright looking food? I try to cook a soup at least once a week. I have some tried and true, and then some “only if we are snowed in and have all day” recipes. This recipe falls into the “tried and true” category.

This recipe originally called for potatoes, but I do not eat night shades so I needed a substitute. When I am looking to replace potatoes, if there is not celery in the recipe then I always choose to use rutabaga. (If there was celery I would have used celery root.) I really like rutabagas and wish more people would try them. They have a nice soft texture and a somewhat sweet taste.

The other substitution from the original chowder recipe was the milk. I started out with canned light coconut milk as the liquid for this chowder. Using the canned light coconut milk makes a very smooth thick soup. Recently I have been using the SoDelicious Coconut Milk Unsweetened (green box) to cut out a few calories. The soup ends up not as velvety, but is still very tasty.

There is a tablespoon of flour used to thicken the soup. I used sweet rice flour when I made it, but you could use any gluten free flour or starch.

This soup is gluten-free, dairy-free and nightshade-free.

Shrimp and Corn Chowder

Servings: 4-6
Time: ~30 minutes
Difficulty: easy
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Ingredients

2 tablespoons olive oil
2 leeks, chopped
fennel bulb, chopped
2 tablespoons rice flour
8 ounce bottle clam juice
3 cups coconut milk
1 pound rutabaga, peeled and chopped
10 ounces corn
2 tablespoons flat leaf parsley, chopped
2 tablespoons lemon juice
3/4 pound cooked, peeled and deveined shrimp

Directions

Add olive oil to sauce pan over medium heat
When warm add leeks and fennel, stirring occasionally. Once these are soft add rice flour and stir.
Pour in clam juice, coconut milk and rutabaga and bring to a boil.
Stir occasionally. Simmer until rutabagas are soft.
Stir in corn, parsley and lemon juice. Once these are up to temperature add the shrimp. Season with Salt and Pepper to taste.

Serve while warm. This soup can be kept in the refrigerator for a few days and reheated in the microwave.

I hope this soup brings some bright summer color to your cold winter day.

Enjoy! Susan B.

Cygnet Organizing LLC

Cygnet Organizing

Helping those newly diagnosed with food allergies/Celiac find flow in their new lifestyle.

Category: Dinner

Gluten-free pasta in the pressure cooker.

Pasta in the Pressure Cooker
Servings: 8 large servings
Time: 30 minutes
Difficulty: easy-moderate
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