Spicy Baked Chicken

This is my mom's go-to chicken recipe, so I figured it should be posted!  This chicken always turns out great and isn't super dry like a lot of chicken.

Ingredients

1 3-pound broiler-fryer chicken, cut into pieces 

1 chicken bouillon cube 
1/2 cup boiling water 
2 tsp. Worcestershire sauce 
2 cloves garlic, minced 
1 tsp. curry powder 
1 tsp. dried oregano 
1 tsp. salt 
1/2 tsp. dry mustard 
1/2 tsp. paprika 
1 teaspoon Tabasco pepper sauce (for less spice: 1/2 tsp.)

Directions
1.  Preheat oven to  375°F.  Place chicken pieces, skin side down, in a large, shallow baking pan.  
2.  In a measuring cup, dissolve bouillon cube in boiling water.  Add the rest of the ingredients and mix well.
3.  Spoon mixture over chicken and bake for 30 minutes.  Turn chicken over and baste with juices (pour juices on chicken) in pan.  Bake another 20 to 30 minutes or until chicken is done.

Classic Sandwich Bread

This bread is just the best, no doubt about it.  Before I talk more about it, let's take a second and appreciate how our bread looks like the picture in the book (America's Test Kitchen, the How Can It Be Gluten Free Cookbook). 

Impressive!

This morning for school, this is the bread I ate.  No embellishments, like you need with Udi bread; just butter.    

My mom says, "It's the first bread that has reminded me of the bread we used to have.  It's not as starchy as a lot of the other breads".  My sister, a girl of few words, says, "Yummy."  My dad, the baker, says, "One of the easiest GF recipes I've tried."

As you can see, this bread is a winner!

Ingredients:

2 cups of warm water (110° F) 

2 large eggs 

2 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted         

   and cooled 

1 1/2 cup rice flour

1/2 cup millet flour 

1/4 cup quinoa flour

1/3 cup tapioca flour

1/2 cup potato starch

1 1/3 cups gluten-free oat flour 

1/2 cup nonfat dry milk powder 

3 tablespoons powdered psyllium husk* 

2 tablespoons sugar 

2 1/4 teaspoons yeast

2 teaspoons baking powder 

1 1/2 teaspoons salt

Directions:

1.  Spray 5 x 9" (about) loaf pan with vegetable oil spray.  Whisk water, eggs, and melted butter together in bowl.  Using a mixer, mix all the flours, potato starch, milk powder, psyllium, sugar, yeast, baking powder, and salt together on low speed until combined.  Slowly add water mixture and let dough come together for about one minute.  Increase speed to medium and beat until sticky and uniform, about six minutes.  (Dough looks like cookie dough, but does not taste like it.)

2.  Cover and let rise at room temperature until dough has risen by about a third in volume.  This takes about an hour.

3.  Adjust oven rack to the middle position and heat oven to 350°.  Spray loaf with water.  Bake until top is golden brown, crust is firm, and loaf sounds hollow when tapped, about 1 1/2 hours, rotating pan halfway through baking.

4.  Move pan to wire rack and let cool for 10 minutes.  Remove from pan and let cool completely on rack, about two hours.  Eat with butter, honey, or jam.   

*Psyllium husks are tricky to find.  We found ours in a Natural Grocers type store in the bulk section.

How to Cook Quinoa

Quinoa is world-renowned for being a healthy superfood.  In fact, it contains all nine amino acids (amino acids are essential in most bodily functions).  My family cooks quinoa (keen-WAH) pretty often, and every time we go to cook it, we forget how to make it.  It's a nice, healthy break from rice, which is at practically every meal.  Here is the basic how to for making regular old quinoa.

Directions:

For every one cup of quinoa, use two cups water. (1-2, 2-4, 3-6, etc.)

One cup of dry quinoa makes about three cups when cooked. 

1.  Combine quinoa with double the amount of water in a medium saucepan. Bring to a boil. 

2.  Cover, reduce heat to low, and simmer until quinoa is tender, about 15 minutes.  

Note: you can rinse the quinoa first, it makes it less bitter.