Coconut Lime Chicken

OH goodness! This was dinner tonight and it was SO GOOD! The original recipe that I altered can be found here.

Coconut Lime Chicken

2 boneless, skinless chicken breast*

3 tbsp. oil (I used grape seed)

1 lime, juiced

1 tsp. ground cumin

1 1/2 tsp. ground coriander 

2 tbsp. La Choy soy sauce

1 1/2 tsp. kosher salt

2 tbsp. sugar

2 tsp. curry powder

1/2 c. coconut milk

Pinch cayenne pepper

1 tsp. chili sauce

1/2 c. fresh cilantro, chopped

*There was plenty of marinade to do more than two chicken breasts

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a small bowl combine oil, lime juice, cumin, coriander, soy sauce, salt, sugar, curry, coconut milk, cayenne, and chili sauce. Place chicken into ziploc bag with marinade. I only let the chicken sit in the marinade for about 15 minutes but you could marinate it however long you want in the refrigerator. Place the chicken and marinade in a baking dish. Bake chicken for about 45 minutes. Serve with sauce from the pan and top with chopped cilantro.

     
I also found these really yummy sweet potato puffs at the grocery store that we had with dinner as well. Yeah, kind of random... but they were awesome! And allergy friendly!

Hope you enjoy this silly picture of the little man! His new goofy face just CRACKS ME UP!

Sesame Noodles

Just wanted to share a quick dinner idea! We like to do a vegetarian meal once a week to help cut down on grocery costs but you could easily add chicken or shrimp to this dish! Check it out!

Sesame Noodles 

16 oz. package brown rice pasta (fettuccine style)

6 cloves garlic, minced

6 tbsp. sugar

6 tbsp. oil (I used grape seed)

6 tbsp. rice vinegar

6 tbsp. soy sauce*

2 tsp. sesame oil

2 tsp. chili sauce

6 green onions, sliced (I did not include) 

1 tsp. sesame seeds, toasted

*Make sure you get La Choy soy sauce- it's gluten free!

Cook brown rice pasta according to package instructions. The water turns really cloudy when cooking brown rice pasta.

Meanwhile, in a saucepan combine garlic, sugar, oil, vinegar, soy sauce, sesame oil, and chili sauce and cook over medium heat until sugar dissolves.

Pour over pasta and toss to coat. Throw in the sesame seeds. (I also tossed in a bag of broccoli.)

 
Super quick, super delicious dinner!

(Original recipe here from allrecipes.com) 

Bread Experiment

Seeing since it's been over a month since I posted, I've got some updates on Sawyer's progress! He has been doing so well with the solids since we started a couple months ago. We stuck with rice cereal through the month of December and on January 1 we brought out the purees! So far we've conquered sweet potato, apples, avocado, oatmeal, squash and banana. His little system just needed some extra time to adjust to solid food so now it's exciting to get rolling with the new foods again!

Last week we tried out oatmeal for the first time. I found this oatmeal cereal recipe and mixed in some organic apple juice for a little flavor. Sawyer's reaction was pretty funny! I tried to snap a few pics of Daddy feeding him but missed the really funny faces. He wasn't really a fan so we tried it again mixed with sweet potato and another time with banana and he liked it much better.

On Thursday I tried out a recipe for gluten free rice flour bread that I got from a friend. I called it an experiment because any gluten free bread type recipes I've tried have usually failed miserably so I didn't have high expectations. For the first time ever making this bread it didn't completely fail. It turned out to be too moist so maybe less liquid next time? Anyways, here's the recipe if you want to give it a shot!

Rice Flour Bread (bread machine recipe)

1/3 c. rice milk

1 c. warm water

2 tbsp. flax combined with 6 tbsp. water (or 2 eggs)

1 tsp. apple cider vinegar

4 tbsp. oil

2 tbsp. sugar

1 tsp. salt

1 1/2 c. brown rice flour

2/3 c. white rice flour

1 1/2 tsp. xanthan gum

2 tsp. quick rise yeast

Add the ingredients to the pan in the orders listed for your bread machine. Mine is wet ingredients first so that is the order I listed them above. Warm the milk in the microwave for about 30 seconds before adding to the bread machine pan. I didn't have white rice flour so I used all brown rice flour (which could have made the bread so dense). My bread machine is pretty old school and I wasn't sure what setting to use so I chose the "Whole Wheat" cycle... again, part of the experiment.

The end product came out to be a dense, short loaf of bread, but nonetheless, bread!

Sliced up it was not edible unless I toasted it well to remove a lot of the moisture. But once it was toasted it really wasn't too bad.

I found a gluten free bread ebook for free on Amazon today that I started reading. She has a lot of great tips for bread making so I may try one of her recipes next.

But while we're on the subject of failing recipes... here's a banana pancake recipe that I tried out that definitely flopped. The pancakes looked so pretty and yummy on her blog! Maybe you can try to make some adjustments and see if you can find success!

Banana Oat Pancakes

3 small bananas, mashed

2 tbsp. coconut oil

1 tbsp. lemon juice

1 tsp. honey or maple syrup

2 tbsp. flax combined with 6 tbsp. water (or 2 eggs)

1 c. oat flour (ground up rolled oats)

1/2 tsp. baking soda

1/2 tsp. salt

1/2 tsp. cinnamon

1/4 tsp. nutmeg

Stir together bananas, coconut oil, lemon juice and honey/syrup. Beat in flax mixture/eggs. Combine remaining dry ingredients in a separate bowl then add to wet ingredients.

The batter is pretty thick so you may need to spread it out a little when you pour it into the pan.

And........ here's what they looked like. Flat.

Does it help if I add chocolate chips and bacon???

Well, yes. The pancakes failed. But I still have two cute boys that always make me smile!