Meatloaf Ala Gluten Free

Gluten Free Meatloaf - 

Ingredients:

• 1.5 lbs Ground Beef
• 6 oz Gluten Free Stuffing Mix
• 2 Eggs
• 1/2 cup water
• 1/2 cup Ketchup
• 1/2 cup BBQ Sauce
• 3TBS of Worcester
• Onion chopped
• Tsp Garlic
• 4 slices sharp Cheddar cheese

Directions:

1. You will want to mix Ground Beef, Stuffing, Eggs, water and Worcester sauce and chopped onion together in a bowl.
2. In a separate bowl mix the BBQ Sauce, Ketchup and Garlic. 
3. split the mixture into two halves. 
4. Work the 1st half into the bottom of your pan and poor on half the BBQ sauce mixture on this layer.
5. Add the 4 slices of the cheddar cheese on the bbq sauce mixture.
6.  Work the 2nd half of the meat mixture on the previous layer in the pan.
7. Add remaining BBQ Sauce mixture to the top and place in the oven.
8. Bake at 375 degrees for 1 hour

I improvised and used a round [pan instead of a loaf pan, but it all tastes the same in the long run!
Served with home made mashed potatoes, Viola! a great meal for a cold night in!

Stuffed Peppers

Gluten Free Stuffed Pepper 

Honestly I'm not sure I ever had stuffed peppers growing up. So I found it interesting i started to crave these one day. 1st off the Green peppers are the cheapest of the large bell peppers to buy. But the other colors looked so yummy I had to try them out. But you can use any color pepper you want. 

Ingredients:

• 1 cup of Rice (Cooked and cooled)
• 1 lb Ground beef
• 1/2 cup of mushrooms
• 1/2 cup of corn
• 1 cup of diced tomatoes
• 1 can tomato sauce
• 2 tsps garlic salt
• 1 tsp basil
• 1 cup your favorite shredded cheese 

Directions:

1.  You will want to boil the peppers for about 15 minutes to make them softer.
2. While boiling the peppers, brown your meat, and dispose of the grease. You want the meat cooked before you bake the peppers.
3. Once you've drained the grease, add Garlic Salt, Basil, corn and mushrooms to the pan and cook a little longer. 
4. Heat up the sauce and half the diced tomatoes.
5. Once the meat has cooked another 10 minutes mix in the rice and the balance of the diced tomatoes. 
6. You can now "Stuff" the filling inside the peppers. Make sure to really fill in the bottom of the peppers. 
7. Cover the top of the pan with foil and bake in the oven for 15 minutes at 350 degrees. 
8. After 15 minutes remove the foil, and sprinkle with cheese. Bake for another 10 minutes.

Once the peppers are done the sauce will be warmed up, you can now serve the pepper and top with as much or as little tomato sauce as you please. Really the hardest part of this recipe is the time involved to cook each part before you actually make any stuffed peppers.

Eggsperience Cafe ~ Park Ridge

New Year, New adventures to try new places to eat. That’s my resolution, try new places, and find new awesome options. Also getting back to more home cooked meals, especially new and different options… Then trying to get them typed up and posted. Let’s see how well that goes. Life seems to take over somewhere in the middle of this every time.

Starting off on the right foot on new adventures we went for breakfast at Eggsperience Café in Park Ridge. I’d looked them up previously for a different location and didn’t see anything on gluten free items. It seems they are specific to each location on what they can or cannot do. Looking at the menu in Park Ridge they had quite the Gluten Free selection including waffles, pancakes, toast, Scramblers, and Omelets. I was in the mood for a scrambler, and a smoothie for breakfast. It was cool because I could get Udi’s Toast on the side!

We got our smoothies and waited for breakfast, when we got there we got seated right away, but it was starting to fill up quickly. The one thing I noticed is they need to dust better, the ledge between booths next to me was rather dusty. Our food arrived. Presentation was awesome, it looked really good. My boyfriend said his food was OK. I thought the same of mine. I felt like my scrambler was lacking some taste. There was a lot of food, and it looked really good, I just was slightly.

They had a lot of options, and the food all looked good. I would go back for the sake of finding a place everybody can find something they like, even if it isn't the most flavorful. Maybe we caught them on a bad day... But I'll go back. I give them 3 dragonflies for variety and quick service, but overall flavor was lacking.