Wednesday, October 14, 2009

Ode to Some Wonderful Bloggers

We had company last night - a few folks that I used to work with. They have all been amazingly supportive of me, so of course I would want to throw them a nice dinner party. We tend to get together about once every 6 weeks or so. We rotate houses and do it potluck style. Last night, I needed to create a main dish, side dish, and an appetizer. Three bloggers were the inspiration:

For the appetizer, I made Cheesy Garlic Bread Sticks. For these, I used Shirley's Flourless Pizza Crust recipe posted at Gluten Free Easily. I added garlic powder to the mixture and instead of making it into pizza, I cut it into long rectangles and served them with marinara sauce. They were a big hit!

Knowing that I'd be busy with work and running around all day, I wanted a fairly no-fuss main and side dish. Diane at The Whole Gang pointed me to Ali and Tom's recipe for Balsamic Roasted Chicken with Figs and Onions posted at The Whole Life Nutrition Kitchen. I brined the chicken first to ensure that it would turn out moist, using water, salt, maple syrup, onion, and fresh rosemary. I used onions and figs, but also added turnips, carrots, potatoes, and parsnips from our farmer's market. For my guests, I actually used split chicken breasts instead of a whole chicken so that I didn't have to carve it. The picture shown here is actually the same recipe with whole chicken that I made just for us last week.

We also had a lovely salad to go with it all. My friends rounded out the meal with stuffed grape leaves and roasted artichokes for the appetizers and various sweet treats for dessert. We had a fun evening and they left feeling full and satisfied. Did I mention that they don't have any dietary restrictions??? That's always a great test for "special" recipes.

Thanks again, fellow bloggers!

One more thing - Amazon sent me an email stating that they are running a special - Enjoy Life Foods 15% off.





3 comments:

  1. How are you sure that your chicken is GF. I know they inject perfectly good chicken with gluten liquid to "fatten" up the breasts and meat.
    I love free range chix but a packaged one will almost always hurt me bad.

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  2. Rats ... lost my comment. Okay, shorter version this time ... well, maybe. Your garlic bread sticks look fantastic ... why didn't I think of that variation? I'll be using it from now on! Great way to introduce folks to the flourless pizza concept, too. :-) The chicken looks wonderful. I've seen it so many times that I'd love to make it, but haven't found any figs yet. :-(

    Glad you had a such a wonderful get together and thanks so much for the shout out and this lovely tribute! This wasn't shorter ... oh, well,

    Shirley

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  3. Hi Gary,
    Definitely give the manufacturer a call if you suspect hidden gluten. I'd also be open to the possibility that it could be something else other than gluten to blame for your symptoms. Whenever I can, I like to get my chicken from a local farmer whom I can talk to face-to-face about their chicken.

    Shirley,
    Thanks for the comment and sorry you lost your first one! That's maddening. I should have mentioned that I used gluten free dried figs this time - I had seen fresh ones at the store, but when I went to buy them, they were all gone...I quartered the dry ones and it worked out well.

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