Chicken-Ham Lasagna - creamy and satisfying

I've been trying to use up items in my pantry lately (mostly in an effort to try some new things and stop spending so much on groceries), so I was looking for a recipe to use up some chicken broth that was about to go bad, and some No-bake lasagne noodles.

Since I know most pasta is fairly fattening, I decided to look on Cooking Light's website. One of my favorite things about this website (and magazine) is that they don't necessarily have the typical "diet" foods, but they try really hard to lighten up the yummy comfort foods we all want to eat anyway. One of my major pasta weaknesses is Alfredo sauce, and my all-time favorite thing from Olive Garden (though it hasn't been on the menu in years) is Fettuccine Chicken Florentine. It is a mix of chicken and spinach on top of fettuccine with a rich alfredo sauce and covered in Parmesan cheese. TO DIE FOR. Seriously.

Anyway, I ran across this recipe for Chicken-Ham Lasagna and knew it would be the perfect fit. Using suggestions from other people's reviews, I sauted up some white onion and garlic before adding in the chicken broth, and I added spinach (about 2 9oz. packs of frozen spinach, de-thawed of course) as a layer with the chicken and ham. I also chose to use cornstarch instead of flour (to make it gluten-free - about 3 Tbsps.), omitted the parsley, and significantly reduced the cheese as I didn't have enough. Nevertheless, this recipe was spectacular! Love that it was light in calories and still packed the punch of the craving!

NOTE: I am still not a fan of the no-bake lasagne noodles, but thankfully they are almost gone! =)

Pina-Colada Cupcakes (Gluten free)

I have a slight obsession with anything pineapple. My latest love affair, and afternoon snack, is Yoplait's "Pineapple Upside Down Cake" Light yogurt. It really makes my days bright and my sweet tooth dwindle.

I have some leftover ingredients I'd been meaning to use (coconut from my dad's German Chocolate Cake and Cream Cheese Frosting from Brad's Red Velvet cupcakes), so the creative juices were flowing. The other day I saw a recipe for a coconut cupcake on Sunset's website and thought it sounded delicious. However, I am not a huge coconut fan plain, so what better to add then some pineapple and rum to make it that much better? I have also been told the gluten-free flour works better on baked good such as breads, so I figured it would be a great opportunity to try again with the flour.

My changes from the recipe:

• Used Jules' Nearly Normal Flour to make it gluten-free (plus I added an extra 1/2 cup)
  
• Only 1/2 cup of coconut milk (I used light)
• Add 1/2 cup of pineapple juice
• No almond extract - substituted rum (It wasn't nearly enough though, next time I'd probably add about 1/2 cup instead)
• Added the pineapple chunks (1 small can) to the frosting, and topped the cupcakes with maraschino cherries.

The outcome:

• The frosting was absolutely sinful! It was a bit too runny, but it was sure tasty. (I have extra so I may have to make something else with what's leftover. Perhaps something with real wheat flour next time.)
• The cupcakes were good, but they were a bit too cake-y (vs. light and fluffy)/ If I try it again I will definitely add more liquid and probably leave out the extra flour.
  

* I must complain minorly for a moment as the house I am staying in does not have a stand mixer. I have become spoiled by mine, I had forgotten how much work it is to do by hand! Yikes! I may have to go rescue mine from storage...

Gluten-free Chocolate Chip Cookies...

As I mentioned in a previous post, one of my co-workers is a celiac (AKA allergic to wheat), so he complains bitterly whenever I bring baked goods into work as they always have flour in them. I have told him for some time that if he purchased some gluten-free flour I would bake for him.

He has experimented with many different "flour" combinations, but none of them really tasted right. (Truthfully I think they have tasted pretty nasty) The other day after one of our many gluten-free discussions, I was searching the internet and ran across Jules' Nearly Normal All-Purpose Flour and was very intrigued as all the reviews said it was used cup for cup as normal flour, and people truly couldn't taste a difference. Thus, my co-worker ordered a ton of it and delivered me a 5 lb. bag to play with yesterday.

In trying to decide what the best thing to try first would be, I figured the ultimate test for cookie would be the original Nestle Toll House cookies. I was a tad worried when the dough was REALLY sticky (perhaps I should have added more of the flour), but the dough tasted good (a great start!). My only real complaint is that the cookies spread really thin, making the chips look like giant craters, and they were very light and fragile. However, the taste was great! I've saved a few for Brad - we'll see if he can tell that they are gluten-free!


A guy at work said they looked like giant poop cookies... though he still ate them (and liked them).