Category: celiac kids

3 Easy 10 Minute Meals

The election is now behind us and whoever you voted for, we can all agree its time to move forward! Now we can occupy our brains with the holidays instead! Which unfortunately for many can be just as stressful, especially when you cannot rely on take out. I, like many of you have a endless list of things to do: keep the children alive and fed, go to school meetings, do laundry, clean, pay bills, juggle all the activities, work and do more laundry, so I completely understand that dinner needs to be done in 10 minutes time most nights. Especially with the holidays coming, our time is even more limited. These are three of my go to super fast recipes for when dinner needs to be on the table ASAP and hopefully help keep your stress levels down!

Kielbasa and Peppers with Mashed Sweet Potatoes

kielbasa-and-sweet-potato-10-minute-meal

Ingredients

1 Tablespoon of olive oil

1 Turkey kielbasa (make sure it is GF if you need it to be), diced

1 red pepper, diced

1 green pepper, diced

1 package of already made mashed sweet potatoes (I like Wegman’s) or a couple of large sweet potatoes

Directions

Heat your cast iron skillet (or sauté pan) over medium heat with the olive oil in it. Once hot, add kielbasa and peppers, stirring occasionally. Cook for about 5-7 minutes. While that is cooking follow the instructions on your mashed sweet potatoes (or just microwave a couple of sweet potatoes-remember to poke holes with a fork!- and serve with a little butter, salt and pepper). You can either leave out the kielbasa for a vegetarian meal or substitute leftover turkey, chicken, steak or your favorite already cooked sausage.

Asian noodles are always a hit in my house and are a great option for an easy weeknight meal. Healthy, tasty and a great alternative to take-out.

Asian noodles with shrimp and broccoli

asian-noodles-10-minute-meal

Ingredients

1 package of Maifun Rice Sticks or your favorite noodles (GF if you need them to be)

1 pound of shrimp (frozen or fresh, even faster if already cooked!)

1 head of broccoli, roughly chopped

1/3 cup soy sauce

1/3 cup rice vinegar

¼ teaspoon fish sauce, optional

¼ teaspoon sesame oil

2 teaspoons of ginger (either this stir-in paste from Gourmet Garden or minced fresh)

1 clove of garlic, minced

1 teaspoon onion powder

3 Tablespoons lime juice

4 Tablespoons brown sugar

Directions

Cook noodles according to package. Add the broccoli to noodles with 3 minutes left in cook time. Drain all. Mix the soy sauce, vinegar and rest of the ingredients in a large bowl. Toss noodles and broccoli with sauce. Toss in cooked, peeled shrimp and its ready to serve. I serve it with fresh cilantro, chopped peanuts and a couple splashes of siracha. A squeeze of lime juice is also a great way to finish the dish.

If shrimp are fresh or thawed and not cooked, this can still be a quick meal, as long as they are cleaned and deveined! Here is a quick delicious way to cook them. Mix 1/8 cup vegetable oil, splash of sesame oil, 4 cloves of garlic – minced and juice of ½ a lime. Toss with the shrimp and cook for 3 to 4 minutes each side in a 400 degree oven. Cool, peel and toss with noodles.

This dish is extremely versatile. It would also be great with, zoodles (zucchini noodles), rice or cauliflower rice in place of the noodles. You can easily substitute tofu, scrambled egg, leftover chicken, steak or even turkey from Thanksgiving. It is good hot, room temperature and cold.

Having these jack-of-all trade meals in your back pocket will make dinner easier to make with what you have on hand.

Pasta with Pink Sauce

pasta-with-pink-sauce-10-minute-meal

Ingredients

1-16 once package of spaghetti or your favorite pasta (gluten free of course if you need it to be)

1 jar of pasta sauce (or one 15 ounce can of tomato sauce)

4 ounces (1/2 block) of cream cheese

Directions

Cook pasta according to package. While water is boiling, pour pasta sauce into sauce pan and heat on medium. Add cream cheese and stir until combined. It will be clumpy. While pasta is cooking pour pink sauce into a large serving bowl and then add drained pasta. Stir and serve.

This is a great base to add whatever cooked vegetables, leftover turkey, chicken or shrimp if you like. I recently made this and served steamed green beans on the side. Stop and Shop steam in the bag green beans. My husband liked them more than when I buy green beans, clean them and steam or roast. Lesson learned! I don’t need to exert the energy!

These three easy dinners will hopefully make your busy nights less stressful and your holiday leftovers easier to finish and disguise! What are your favorite ways to use leftover holiday food? Comment and let us know! I am working on creating Pins for Pinterest for these recipes, so for now just follow me on Pinterest or follow this page and you will be the first to know when you can save these recipes!

Super Easy Pasta Night

I keep hearing from friends and readers that they wish they could cook what I do. Truth is…you can. Yes, I love to cook. It is my passion and stress reliever, but I completely understand (and have those nights or weeks!) of not wanting to cook or not having the time to cook.  I do make more complicated meals some nights, but everyone needs to have super easy meals that they can make with very few ingredients and with very little effort. I’ll be sharing some of my favorites over the next couple months.

I have been sharing my “theme night” meals (Breakfast for Dinner, Tex Mex Tuesday, etc.), to show how I keep organized and take the stress out of my cooking. Easy meals like this Pasta with Mascarpone can help change up your pasta night. This recipe is very easy and a new take on mac-n-cheese if you are looking for something a little lighter.

Pasta with Mascarpone
Ingredients
1 pound elbow pasta (use GF pasta or even roasted cauliflower if making GF)
1 – 8 ounce tub of mascarpone cheese
2 Tablespoons of grated parmesan
1 Tablespoon onion powder
1 teaspoon of salt
¼ teaspoon of pepper
1 to 2 cloves of garlic minced or 1 teaspoon of garlic paste
Red pepper flakes to taste, optional
Grilled, sautéed or cooked vegetables, chicken or shrimp, optional


Directions
Cook pasta according to directions on the box.  Reserve the pasta water. Pour the pasta into a serving bowl. Add the mascarpone, parmesan, onion powder, salt, pepper and garlic.  Add a ladle of pasta water, or more if needed to help melt the cheese and create a sauce.  Serve. 

This makes more than enough for a family of five as a main meal with some vegetables and leftover chicken. We usually have enough for all five of us for lunch the next day too! You can also use it as a side dish.



A great friend of mine (who just launched an AMAZING blog: Momma to Go), tested this one for me. She is a busy mom with 2 young kids so understands that dinner needs to be easy and needs to be good. This got a thumbs up! Thanks Harmony for testing and for the picture!

What is your favorite super easy meal? 

While I’m singing praises of another blogger, I will remind you that Tuesday, October 25th is the release of Nicole Hunn’s Gluten-Free Small Bites, so you only have two days to get the pre-order goodies available here! I’ve already made good use of mine! 


Gluten free fresh pasta, really?

Yes really. I used to love making pasta from scratch and eating fresh pasta. There is just something so comforting about it. I had just gotten the handle on a good recipe when our house went gluten free. My challenge now is to find the right gluten free recipe (and get a pasta machine!). I am determined!

I knocked one item off my 2015 Cooking Bucket list and made a brown rice pasta last week. It was really good, but I don’t have a pasta machine or the attachment for my Kitchen Aid, so I tried to hand roll it, like I used to with fresh gluten filled pasta. This did not work as well. I rolled it until it was almost transparent, but it was still a little too thick and gummy when I cooked it. Taste was there, but consistency was not. This was the recipe I used: http://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2014/05/gluten-free-fresh-pasta-recipe.html. I may try a couple of other recipes to see if hand rolling can work with them. If they don’t, you know what my next investment will be!

I didn’t have any sauce in the house, so used some tomatoes, onions, garlic, salt and pepper and sauteed together for a about 10-15 minutes.

I served it with some steamed peas and sockeye salmon I cooked in a foil packet in the oven with salt, pepper, lemon slices.

This weekend I may try to make Julia Child’s coq au vin! Not the most appropriate football or tailgating food, but hopefully it will be good 🙂 Here is a link to some old blogs that have more gameday appropriate food. 

A New Food Adventure…Gluten-free not just trendy but necessary

This has been my longest hiatus from posting since I started Mamma’s Cooking over 6 years ago. This blog has morphed along with the changes in our family. Initially, I blogged about making food for my first baby. Then it went through her toddler years with the addition of her twin brothers and my back and forth working outside of the house, working from home and periods of hard work as a stay-at-home mom. That boomerang has continued for the past 4 years as I strive, like many, to find that balance between career, home and self.

If you follow me on Facebook you will have seen some of the recent changes to our family diet. Our weekly pasta nights, quesadilla nights, pizza nights and pancake Sundays have been turned upside down. My son, Paul, was diagnosed with Celiac disease. This is an autoimmune disorder that effects the stomach and esophagus. He had stomach issues for a while, we tried cutting out dairy to no avail and I asked his doctor to test him. Autoimmune disorders, including Celiac, run in my family. Today there is a simple blood test that can tell you if you are likely to have celiac. An endoscopy can confirm it. Let me tell you how fun that was with a 3 year old stubborn boy who hates being told what to do! The Celiac diagnosis is a blessing in disguise. Yes, I’d rather he did not have it, but if he gets “glutened” once it is not going to require an epi pen or hospitalization for an allergic reaction. Rather, if he is continually “glutened” it will have severe consequences for his health and growth. 
I thought gluten-free was just a trend. Everyone is going gluten-free. There are people, like Paul, who need to be completely gluten-free and others who do it to help them eat less processed food and live a healthier lifestyle. It has made us eat healthier. It also costs a lot more but we wouldn’t think twice about paying for a medication, so why not pay more for gluten free foods to keep up health?
It has been overwhelming, but will be manageable. We eat lots of the same items, just healthier versions. Sure, Paul asks sometimes for Goldfish or cake, but there are so many alternatives these days that he is easily appeased and distracted. Visiting other people’s houses and eating out are a challenge, but nothing that we cannot overcome.
This is a copy of the email we sent to family when we discovered the diagnosis, 
“Hope you all are well. We are settling in back at home after a whirlwind trip to Disney World last week. The kids had a blast! Fortunately and unfortunately, just before we left we got an official diagnosis of Celiac disease for Paul. He has had stomach issues for months and we have tried various things, but knowing that celiac and autoimmune diseases run in the our family, Marie pushed to have him tested and there is something to be said for a mother’s intuition 🙂 
We just wanted to give you all a little information on Celiac if you are interested in learning more. We do not expect when we visit your homes for you to be fully prepared for gluten free meals. We will have a travel kit so we make sure to keep Paul safe. Unfortunately even a crumb can set off a flare up once gluten has been fully removed. We even had to buy a separate toaster, utensils, plates, tupperware, cutting boards, etc for our kitchen! Gluten is in things you wouldn’t even think of like ketchup, soy sauce, mustard, some candies,some ice cream and more. He can’t even have things made on equipment that may have wheat. Oats are a good example of something that is naturally gluten free but is often grown in the same fields and processed in the same factories as wheat, so it must say gluten free on the box/bag or else it is not safe.
We are trying to teach Paul not to accept food offered without asking first if it is gluten free, but for now are just not letting him accept offered food. He doesn’t fully understand yet, but with the help of our GI and nutritionist at Children’s and his teachers and nurse at his pre-school he will adapt 🙂 
If you have any questions, let us know.”
We have been grilling a lot and eating brown rice pasta and taco shells that are gluten free. We found a great gluten free pizza crust (Udi’s) that works really well until I figure out my own recipe. We  still have pizza night, taco Tuesday and pancake Sunday, just modified. There are so many wonderful foods that are naturally gluten free, we just need to make sure that they are not processed with any wheat, rye, barley or related products. 



Paul is now feeling better, smiling, potty trained!!!!, and enjoying life as a healthy 4 year old. My new bucket list and food challenges will come, but this year keeping everyone healthy is first on our minds. I hope you’ll stay with me as I document this journey.

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