Quick change in dinner plans...

Well, it has been a while, and I'm still not back up to speed. Lots of things have been going on, and now I'm getting ready to head off for possible jury duty for the next 2 months... so lots of limbo right now.

A few weeks ago we had signed up to feed the missionaries from our church. We had heard that they had some food allergy issues that hadn't been being taken into consideration when people were having them over for meals. The issues were fairly simple ones. One is allergic to mushrooms, the other has to be dairy free. Well, those are easily enough handled so we signed up and decided to provide a wonderful all out meal to make up for the lack they'd been getting.
I planned on making a slow cooker pot roast with a nice tangy sauce, gluten and dairy free dinner rolls, corn on the cob, my infamous pickled potato salad - with a home made mayonnaise, and a nice slow cooker dairy and gluten free chocolate cake. Note: The cake recipe isn't mine. It's one from another GF blogger and the link can be found at http://www.glutenfreegigi.com/slow-cooker-gluten-free-chocolate-cake-with-fudge-sauce/   

 Then things changed. The night before we were to have them over for dinner, they called to confirm, and let us know that the person with the dairy issue was no longer in the group. Instead, we had someone who could not have sugar or sweeteners of any kind, and could not have any grains or starches. Ok.. time for a challenge. This meant that most of my dinner plans had to be quickly rearranged and simplicity was going to be the key.

So, we still had the slow cooker pot roast, but instead of the sauce I had been thinking of using, I simply threw in most of a chopped onion, gave the beef a lovely salt, pepper and garlic dry rub, and then added a splash of my home made turkey stock to the bottom of the pan. For sides, well, we knew she was good with leafy greens and most veggies, so we had green beans and a lovely salad full of all sorts of things. Cucumbers, carrots, radishes, green onions, cabbage, lettuce and tomatoes all went into that salad. And I made a simple vinaigrette using some garlic balsamic and olive oil with a little garlic, ginger, onion and pepper added to it. Not the best I've ever made, but, you make due with what you have and get things done.

I don't have any pictures from tonight's dinner. Most of the things that would need a recipe were from the original plan and have been covered in other posts anyway. But, I just wanted to get back into the posting sadle and show that, no matter what plans you make, things can always go a bit sideways at the last minute and cause changes. A few years ago, that sort of thing would have thrown me into a melt down. I really did not do well with change or surprise. Since going gluten free, that has gone away. And I also wanted to show that you don't need to be afraid of feeding people with food issues. We had a very simple meal, but it was delicious and everyone at the table had a good time and felt included. 

Chicken and Black eyed-pea Soup

So, my online classes are coming to a close, and the boys are off camping with their father this last week before their mom gets back. M has gone back to her mother's home and B2 has not yet arrived..
So I'm going to try to start getting back and active with this blog.
Tonight I made a very simple soup for dinner. Didn't take a lot of photos because I wasn't sure I was going to be posting this, but, here we are..
Ingredients that went into this soup:

1 large frozen chicken breast, diced
1/4 diced onion
1 quart chicken stock
@ 1 quart of water
1 can stewed tomatoes, diced, plus juice
garlic
Worcestershire sauce

These items were placed into the pot and allowed to come to a simmer, cooking the chicken.

Then I added:
1 cup frozen corn
1 can black eyed peas
1 pint carrots
pepper
basil, sage, or whatever combo of herbs and spices you like. Taste it and adjust as needed

Allow this to come back to a simmer and when everything is heated through, it is ready to serve.

It's a cold and rainy Sunday here, so soup seemed just the thing. And since it's down to just the 2 of us for a few weeks, we're going to try to focus on very simple foods. We'd also both like to drop a few pounds, and soups are a great way to help that along. The are nice and filling, but can be lower in calories because you are filling up with liquids.

Tonight's soup was served with some rolls we had in the freezer. (Hubby's were sourdough, I believe, and mine were Udi's whole grain, gluten free rolls.)