My family loves the Mexican Pizzas that I make. Since they are a copycat type recipe, I have been buying and using the taco sauce you buy in a jar at the store. We liked the famous fast food restaurant brand best, so that is what I was buying, and it worked well.

Every time I bought the sauce though, I would think about how expensive and unhealthy the bottled version was. I knew I could come up with a version at home. I searched for a recipe online, but did not find anything that was exactly like I wanted. I found a few recipes I liked, but none were quite right.

So, I changed some things and came up with a version that turned out really well.  I think this sauce is better than anything I can buy and my husband says that it is as good as the sauce you get at the fast food mexican restaurant type places.

Recipes like my Mexican Pizza are my quick and easy recipes. I like to be able to make them fast. So, when I make sauces like this or my enchilada sauce, I like to make large batches and freeze it in small containers. This way I don’t have to make up a batch every time I need it. Doing this ends up saving me a lot of time.

Taco Sauce

• 8 ounce tomato sauce
• 1/4 cup water
• 1/4 teaspoon chili powder (more if you want this hotter)
• 1 teaspoon cumin
• 1 tablespoon of onion, chopped
• 1 tablespoon white vinegar
• 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon paprika
• 1/4 teaspoon sugar
• 1/4 teaspoon ground red pepper

Mix all together in a blener until smooth. Pour sauce into pan and cook over med-low heat for 15-20 minutes. Don’t skip the cooking part of this. You need to heat the sauce up to really blend the flavors together.

For more recipes and frugal ideas see Life As Mom, Grocery Cart Challenge, and Foodie Fridays.

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Yesterday I had a major meltdown, seriously I stood with my pantry door open looking at all the food I could not eat and cried.  This gluten free diet is more challenging than I thought it would be. Temporary or not this is hard. I feel like I am learning to cook and eat all over again.

I had no I idea how much stuff contained wheat, barley, and rye and to top it off I realized I should not be eating oats either. Well, I can eat gluten free oats, but they are like 3 times more expensive than the regular ones. I think I am going to have to break down and buy some even though I don’t want to.

Yesterday, I was so hungry.  This is a problem I am having going gluten free.  Last week was not so bad, but this week I feel like I am starving.  The gluten free stuff is just not as filling.

It was 1:00 and I was trying to decide what to fix for dinner.  I finally found a crockpot soup recipe that I “thought” would be perfect because it did not contain any gluten.  I started opening a couple of cans of food to make the soup and decided I should read the labels to make sure they were gluten free before putting them into the crock pot. Sure enough two of them contained wheat.  There went my dinner plans.

So I feel apart, it was not exactly my best moment and I was glad my kids were busy playing upstairs because they missed the whole thing.  After a few mintues I pulled myself back together realizing that I had to figure out something. We had to eat dinner. 

I started reading labels and figuring out things I could have.  Then I just started dumping things in the crockpot and hoped for the best.  I was not sure how good it would be, but it was food and gluten free food at that, so at that point I really did not care.

I served up the soup for dinner not saying a word about what happened.  I figured I would just keep that part quiet until everyone tasted the soup.  What happened was the soup was surprisingly good.  Everyone enjoyed it. What I created may become a family favorite. Maybe I should have a meltdown more often if I come up with dishes like this. Seriously, this soup was so good and it was gluten free, so I could eat it.

(I will post the recipe soon)

I have now packed up all the things I can’t have and put them in this tub so I don’t have to keep looking at them. I am hoping out of sight, out of mind will work, but I am not so sure.

There is no menu plan this week. I needed a break from menu planning to step back and figure out a few things.  Last week’s plan did not go at all as planned and to be honest I am not sure what this week’s meals will look like.  The name of my site is “Lynn’s Kitchen Adventures” and over the next few weeks I will definitely be on a new adventure in my kitchen.

I am on a temporary gluten free diet. Yes, me the person who loves to bake bread and make cookies, am on a gluten free diet. I have suffered with severe GERDS (acid reflux) and other health problems for years, really, since I was a child.  Over the years I have been to many doctors, had many tests, and taken many medicines and we still do not know why I have these problems.  So, in an effort to try to figure some things out, I am off of all gluten.  I don’t really know how long it will be maybe a few weeks, maybe a few months. 

The problem I am having is that I have a family that I still have to cook for.  I have a daughter that has severe asthma and I have been trying to get more whole grains down her. Right now I am trying to figure out how to work all this out. Figuring out how I can avoid gluten and yet still feed the rest of my family healthy meals that they will enjoy will be a real adventure.

I do plan hope to continue cooking pretty normal for the rest of my family, so my posts and recipes should be pretty much the same here.   We may just be eating more meat and potato type meals and less pasta and breads. I figure some of the time I will just end up eating something different than they are. I do know I will still be baking plenty of desserts.  I enjoy that too much to stop.  However, I will not be tasting them. 

I also figure this may give me a chance to try a few new recipes that I wouldn’t have tried otherwise. Many Asian and Mexican foods are already gluten free. I wouldn’t have to do anything to change those.

However, if I post about cookies and cakes over the next few weeks and say how good they were, it means my family thought they were good.  If I say we liked it, it will really mean my family liked it, because I will NOT be eating foods with gluten no matter how big of a temptation they are. (I really hope I can do this)

And as always thank you for following my adventures in the kitchen.

I have been eating homemade yogurt since I was a kid. I was a very sickly child.  I had a lot of health problems and allergies,that are to long to describe in this post, but because of this my mom made almost all of our food from scratch.  She made the majority of her baked goods with whole grains and honey and she made everything she could from scratch. One of those things was yogurt and she made really good yogurt, including flavored ones.

Fast forward quite a few years and I no longer ate very healthy.  What I considered healthy was the store bought yogurt, like yoplait.  This yogurt is really good and tasty and yes a low fat breakfast or treat, but it is full of sugar and other ingredients that are not so healthy. This is the yogurt my family and I ate for years.

Long time readers know that my daughter suffers from severe asthma. Her main triggers are chemicals and smells. After she was diagnosed I really started to look around at the things in my house and the foods that we ate. I really started to read labels and pay attention to the ingredients of the foods we eat. 

One of the things we ate a lot of was yogurt.  Once I really started paying attention to what was in the yogurt I felt bad feeding it to my family.  I decided to try some of the healthier, more organic yogurts in the stores.  My family did not like them at all.  They did not like the taste or texture.  I could use them in smoothies, but my family enjoyed eating a bowl of yogurt for breakfast and they did not like these healthier varieties. 

I decided that I needed to figure out how to make really good yogurt at home.  This actually was not the first time I had tried.  I had tried in the past in order to save money.  Homemade yogurt is usually more frugal, but I had not found a homemade yogurt my family would eat.  Sometimes it was sour and other times the texture was off.  I tried all the tricks, I used powdered milk. I tried gelatin. I tried whole milk and I tried low fat milk. 

I used several different methods of cooking it.  I tried the crock pot and I tried the overnight in the oven trick.  I never got consistent results.  Sometimes it would turn out and my family would eat it, but most of the times I ended up using it for cooking or smoothies. The main complaint was it was too sour and had poor texture. They would not just sit down and eat a bowl of it like they wanted to.

But when I visited my parents in June my mom made some of her homemade yogurt.  She had not made it in years, but had recently started making it again.  One bite had me, it was the best homemade yogurt. This is what I had been looking for, but had not been able to get.

What was her trick?  A yogurt maker, yes a yogurt maker and I came home and bought one just like hers. Now, I know many of you that make your own yogurt will disagree with this.  But in my opinion if you want really good and consistent results you need to use a yogurt maker. A yogurt maker gives you the perfect environment for the yogurt cultures to work.  It is the perfect temperature that you need to get consistent results.  It is not too hot or too cold.  There is not guessing, no messing, it gives you the easiest, best results every time. The yogurt maker I bought is the Euro Cuisine Yogurt Maker – YM80 and I love it.

I know this is not the most frugal option, but I think it does pay for itself.  Plus, my main goal is not just the cost.  I am trying to find a healthy alternative to the store bought varieties and not only that, I want a homemade yogurt my family will eat and enjoy. I have finally found it.

The basic recipe I use came with my yogurt maker.  It is the easiest homemade yogurt I have made.  It says that it gives you a more European style yogurt because you do not heat the milk.  From what the recipe book says, heating the milk gives you an American style yogurt. 

You may find that this recipe works using some of the other methods, like the crock pot or oven, but I have only made this in my yogurt maker.

See it is thick and creamy.

Here is what I do.

Homemade Flavored Yogurt ( leave the jelly out if you want plain yogurt)

4  3/4 cups milk at room temperature ( do not use fat free milk, it does not work well)

8 ounces of high quality plain yogurt (yes this is more than most recipes, but it works)

10 tablespoons of powdered milk

For flavored yogurt use:

1/4 cup of jelly or jam, I use homemade ( we like jelly because it has no seeds in it and we like the berry flavors best because they have a stronger flavor)

Your milk must be at room temperature!  I measure it out and place it in a bowl that is covered for a few hours.  Once the milk is at room temperature mix together the remaining ingredients, including the jelly. I find this mixes together best in a blender. It helps the jelly mix in really well.  But if you are just making plain yogurt you can mix together with a whisk.  I then fill my yogurt cups and heat for 7-8 hours.  Remove, let cool to room temperature, refrigerate, and enjoy.

For more recipes see Tempt My Tummy Tuesdays and Tasty Tuesday.

Back in March, I posted about making homemade vanilla extract.  I know several many people thought this was a strange idea.  I am pretty sure my sisters thought I was a bit crazy for making it.  But I really want to make most of our food from scratch and making homemade vanilla is so simple to do. I figured it was an easy thing make myself.

I started using my vanilla a few months ago and I love it. I really, really like the homemade vanilla. It has such good flavor.  You can just tell by smelling it how much better it is.

One tip though is that I really should have let it sit longer. I was out of the store bought vanilla and I really hated to buy more when I had some almost ready to go.  I started using it when it was about 4 1/2 months old and I really should have waited a while longer.  The longer it sat the better it got.  So, I am enjoying it even more now that it has sat longer and developed an even better flavor. It now has a much stronger flavor than it did when I first started using it.

I have been enjoying the vanilla so much I started my second batch.  I even have a friend from church now making it for herself. In fact we ordered vanilla beans  from amazon and split them in order to make them cheaper for us to buy. I was not sure about ordering vanilla beans through amazon, but I read the reviews and decided it was worth the savings to give it a try.  I was really happy with them, especially since they were so much cheaper.

One other thing that I did different this time was to use more expensive vodka.  I know nothing about vodka, so last time we just bought cheap vodka.  After talking to a friend and reading comments and emails from several of you, I realized I should not have used the cheapest vodka. So, this time I used better vodka and I think it will make a difference.

I can’t imagine why I would ever go back to store bought vanilla.  This is so simple to make and it is so much better. Homemade vanilla definitely works for me.

Do any of you make your own vanilla?

 Do you agree that it is so much easier to eat healthy during the summer?

My family is finally getting used to whole wheat pasta. It only took about a year, until the complaining stopped. So either they got used to it or they decided that I was not going to stop serving it.

What I have found though is that they like it mixed. I mix it about half whole wheat and half regular pasta. I just mix it together and cook it.

I recently served whole wheat pasta with my easy pasta sauce and it was really good. No one complained at all. In fact it was the end of the meal before anyone even asked if it was whole wheat pasta

So, do you use whole wheat pasta? Does your family like it?

In my effort to avoid a lot of processed foods, I have been reading a lot of labels. This has made me aware of things like vanilla that contain things like corn syrup. One of the labels I never thought to check though was soy sauce. I mean it is soy sauce right? No, it is not.

I read an article by Kimi this week on soy sauce. It was a great article and I really enjoyed it. I have known that there was a difference in taste in soy sauce, but did not really know all the reasons why. After reading her article I checked the bottle of soy sauce in my fridge. And guess what? My soy sauce contained corn syrup. Corn syrup! Why does soy sauce need corn syrup? They really do put corn syrup in everything don’t they.

So, now thanks to Kimi, I am going to change the type of soy sauce I use. Not only will it taste better, it will be better for my family.

I was able to find some naturally fermented soy sauce at my Walmart. It is not the brand she mentioned, but I think it will work fine. And more importantly it does not contain a bunch of preservatives.

If you want to read her article go here.