The Cupboard Was Bare (or so you thought)

based on a list provided by Victoria DeLano

I probably should have posted this the very *second* Victoria shared it but, well, you know...time got away from me once again. ;)

I think the most intimidating thing about going top 8-free is: What can you eat?? You start looking through your pantry and realize that there's almost nothing in there that you can have anymore! You still have lots of options, of course. Like fruits & veggies. But--let's be realistic--that's not always practical, or even feasible. I can almost promise you that my preschooler would actually starve if all he had to eat was fruits & veggies.

Here's a list of foods that should be safe to have in your pantry. (And I will update this as I learn of new products...so if you subscribe to posts, expect to see this one pop up from time to time.) Please, as always, check ingredients labels carefully every time you purchase these or any other products. Ingredient lists can (and do) change without warning. Please help me keep this list current! :)

Meats
Ball Park brand all beef hot dogs
Hillshire Farm Beef Summer Sausage
Ian's Chicken Nuggets, Chicken Patties, Mac & Meat Sauce, Mac & No Cheese, Popcorn Turkey Corn Dogs
Jennie-O turkey - tenderloins, ground turkey, turkey sausage
Oscar Meyer Deli Fresh lunch meat
Market Pantry (Target) pork sausage patties-fully cooked

Pasta & Sides
Ancient Harvest corn-quinoa pastas
Eden Foods Rye Spirals pasta
Food Merchants Polenta
Ian's Alphatots
McCain Home Style Baby Cakes potato cakes (Target)
Mrs. Leeper's rice pasta
Tinkyada rice pasta
Asian rice noodles
Asian rice paper wraps (Asian markets or Whole Foods)

Chips, Crackers, Snacks
Edward and Son Rice Snaps Crackers
Frito's Original
Garden of Eatin' Vegetable Chips
Glutino Gluten Free Breadsticks (crackers)
Glutino Gluten Free pretzel sticks
Good Health Veggie Chips (the Stix have wheat)
Lay's Classic potato chips
Market Pantry (Target) tortilla chips
Mission tortilla chips
Terra Chips - some flavors
Trader Joe's Lite Kettle Corn popcorn

Desserts
Betty Crocker Gluten free baking mixes
Enjoy Life products
Kinnikinnick's Animal Cookies (has a 'may contain' statement on the box)
Kinnikinnick's S'moreables graham crackers (has a 'may contain' statement on the box)
Let's Do Gluten Free Ice Cream Cones
Namaste cake & cookie mixes
Newman's Own= Newman-O's Wheat free, Dairy free creme filled chocolate cookies (contains soy lecithin)
Newman's Own Fig Newmans (contains soy lecithin)
Rice Dream frozen dessert
marshmallows

Fruit Snacks
Archer Farms (Target) fruit strips & bars
Brother's All-Natural Fruit Crisps
Clif Kid Organic Twisted Fruit real fruit rope
Florida's Natural Nuggets fruit snacks
Stretch Island Fruit Co. fruit strips
apple sauce
dates
raisins (many other dried fruits will also be safe, but watch for 'may contain' warnings)

Cereals/Breakfast
Cocoa Pebbles
Corn Chex
Honey Comb
Ian's French Toast Sticks
Kix Cereal
Rice Chex
Rice Krispies

Bread
Ener-G Foods (shared ovens--not pans--with egg)
Outside the Breadbox Imagine Egg-Free Oat Bread

Condiments
Kraft Original BBQ sauce


Victoria also suggests the top 8-free cookbook "8 Degrees of Ingredients" saying, 'I LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE this cookbook!!!!!!!' (Yup, direct quote.)

What's for Dinner? Turkey Tenders

Last time I tried to make nuggets I used a 'just like McDonald's' nugget recipe. Well, I'm not a fan of those but my kids usually like that junk so I figured it was worth a shot. No go. I don't know if it was my choice of flour sub (buckwheat & something, IIRC) or what but DS1 would barely touch those things.

Because I'm a glutton for punishment, I thought I'd try again and just be careful about the flour. I looked at a few recipes and then (largely because I didn't want to take the time to go fire up the other computer so I could print out a recipe) I made one up on the fly.

Here we go...I'm pretty sure this would work for anything you might want to eat a 'tender' of. Since chicken's a no-go for Ponyo, I used turkey. The quantities shown here fed me and the two boys, with 2 tenders left.

Turkey Tenders
2 turkey tenderloins, cut into wide strips
2 cups Chex cereal of choice, crushed (you might want to add just a tad of safe flour for better sticking, unless your crumbs are really tiny)
2 tsp California Garlic Pepper Blend (or other combination of spices to taste)
EnerG egg replacer to equal 2 eggs
1/2 cup safe flour (I used masa)

Put out three bowls: one for flour, one for egg sub, one for Chex cereal. Coat turkey tenders lightly with flour. Dip into egg sub and then into Chex crumbs, making sure the tenders are well coated. Handle tenders carefully so coating doesn't fall off.

Cook in a skillet over medium heat until golden brown and turkey is cooked through. Serve with your choice of dips, over pasta, whatever strikes your fancy!

Now, neither boy was a big fan of this until I gave them some dip. Then Wee Laddie ate three tenders (that's pretty good for him) and the Sprog at at least three. Nobody but me ate the green beans, but I keep trying. ;)