I admit, I have a rice cooker. So it may sound a little odd that I am taking a look at Boil in Bag rice from Success® Rice, right? But you would be wrong! There are lots of times that Success® Boil in Bag Rice is a great choice, especially since they are the only brand that has boil-in-bag Jasmine rice (my go to white rice).

4 Instances that Success® Rice is a must:

1) When I don’t have time to make rice in my rice cooker! Making Jasmine rice in the rice cooker can easily take 30 minutes or more. Success Jasmine rice only takes 10 minutes.

2) When we are on vacation. We tend to stay in places that have kitchens but I don’t really want to do a lot of cooking;). All I need is a pot and some water;).

3) When I just want a little rice. My giant rice cooker can’t handle real small amounts.

4) When my rice cooker is busy;). Yes, you read that right. When I created this recipe I wanted some dessert and my rice cooker was full of rice and seasonings for dinner.

So that said, let’s get to the recipe!

We are gluten free over here so rice is a staple! While I love traditional rice pudding I don’t make it often because it is heavy and takes a while. I wanted something a little lighter that would quench my sweet tooth.

So I present to you, Chocolate-Coconut Rice!

 

(This post is sponsored by Success® Rice. While they paid for the subject all thoughts, words and recipes are mine! Check out more rice recipes from Success® Rice by checking out their Pinterest and Facebook!)

I can’t believe that I am already in the 3rd week of the #LivingNowFoods Challenge!!! For those who have missed this, I am doing a paid Ambassadorship through Mamavation and Living Now Foods. Basically I am using their products this month and sharing some of my experiences weekly!

I made a family favorite this week! I made a gluten free take on Cheddar Bay Biscuits, which are the kind of rolls they serve at Red Lobster. These were really tasty! I used the All Purpose Flour as the base of the rolls. They are a bit pale because I used mozzarella instead of cheddar but you have to use what you have;). The secret to this biscuits really is the melted butter and garlic powder  mixture you put on after the biscuits are cooks. Yum!

It was my (now) 11 year old daughter’s birthday on Tuesday and she wanted breakfast for dinner. And she was specific that she wanted eggs, bacon and pancakes. So I made some gluten free buttermilk pancakes with the All Purpose Flour. My secret ingredient is vanilla and brown sugar. It leaves them so sweet that you don’t really need syrup. I used a pancake pen to make a variety of shapes! I made dots, hearts, stars and snakes. The kids loved it!

I also made my family staple of my fabulous Gluten Free Chocolate Chip Cookies. These are such a hit that people don’t know that these cookies are gluten free. The main starch in this is white rice flour. Made with fresh dough, they are good but the texture tastes a little grainy. But if you freeze the dough and cook it from frozen, they are magic. They will stay poofy and light and you can make a giant batch ahead of time;). This is one dish my husband always asks me to keep in the freezer and they are a huge hit at our monthly game night.

That brings this week’s adventures to a close. But wait! There’s more! Living Now Foods has decided to do a giveaway for the readers of all the Ambassadors! You can enter here, or any of the blogs, because it is a combined giveaway with 1 unified Rafflecopter. There will be 3 winners who will receive big boxes of Living Now products!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

(Disclosure: I am being compensated for this piece but all thoughts and opinions are mine and mine alone!)

I am bringing week #2 of the #LivingNowFoods Challenge to close! For those of you who missed last week’s post, I am doing a 30 day gluten free challenge with Living Now Foods and Mamavation! This is the kind of work I love getting paid for! Cooking and eating! I have made some very yummy stuff with the Living Now Foods! Lets take a look!

I made the Living Now Foods Chocolate Chip Banana Bread this week and was so good! Matter of fact I am finishing it off as I type (shh, don’t tell Jeremy because he went to be early;). I am very open with the fact that I was prepared to hate this but I love it. I am a banana bread snob. My family has always made it from scratch and my mom didn’t do a lot of cooking so that says something. But I haven’t developed a gluten free recipe yet and I have been craving banana bread something awful. This is moist and flavorful. Just enough sweetness with a good texture. It is so good! And because it is a mix this is something you can have on hand when gluten free friends (specifically me) visit. So good and so easy!!

I also made Greek Yogurt Muffins this week! It may not look like much but it may be my new favorite gluten free baked good! This is a tweak off an old gluten filled muffin recipe that I had laying around. These are tender and sumptuous. they have this melt in your mouth baked quality that is hard to get in gluten free recipes! My key ingredients for this are a flavored Greek yogurt and the Living Now All Purpose Flour. These also only took about 10 minutes to put together and I can’t wait to see how they freeze (if I can get enough left to freeze;).

Zucchini is starting to come into season around here so finding recipes for them is great. Fritters and pancakes are always a big hit around here so I thought it would be perfect to come up with a gluten free zucchini and corn cake! The most time consuming part of all this was shredding the zucchini. Other than that this is a super easy recipe that comes together with Living Now Foods Brown Rice Flour. You mix and fry them on a flat top or skillet. And it was a huge hit with my kids! So any way to get just a little more veggies in them is a win!

So that is this week’s adventure! If you want to keep up on everyone’s experience just follow the hashtag on Facebook! Since I have already made the gluten free switch I am challenging you all! Can you substitute 3 meals a week with gluten free alternative? What are you biggest gluten free challenges? Let me know and maybe I can take them on for you!

(Disclosure: I am being compensated for this piece but all thoughts and opinions are mine and mine alone!)

 

I am so excited! I recently got chosen to be one of 15 Ambassadors for the 30 day Living Now Foods Challenge through Mamavation! They issued a 30 day challenge (and compensated me) to go gluten free with the help of a giant box of their fabulous products. As many of you may know, I am already gluten free and so I was really excited to get a chance to discover these awesome products!

Starting this week (and continuing for the next 3 after) I will do a round up of a few things and recipes that I have made with the Living Now Foods products! Then on July 2, 2014 there is going to be a fabulous twitter party to wrap up the challenge.

So lets get to the food!

My first adventure with Living Now Foods was with Living Now’s Tapioca Flour. I made my ever popular Brazilian Cheese Rolls to go with a dinner of roast and broccoli! The great thing about Brazilian Cheese Rolls is that it gives you a bread type component to go with meals! When we first went gluten free we missed dinner rolls. And while these aren’t super bread, they are cheesy and delish! The tapioca flour is the key ingredient in these rolls. It is a great starch! The 1 think to remember is (at least with this recipe) you heat up the liquid and allow the starch to hydrate.

My second adventure is a completely new recipe I created with Living Now’s Quinoa!  I am not super used to dealing with quinoa but it is a complete protein and really good for you. And I had been craving all the flavors of a traditional Caprese salad so I put together this spring themed Caprese Quinoa! The quinoa was super easy to deal with! I just used my rice cooker with a 2:1 chicken stock to quinoa and set it on white rice. It was that easy!

And last but not least for this week is a little dessert! I made chocolate chip cookies using the Living Now Chocolate Chip Cookie Mix. I was blown away that this cookie mix was dairy free, soy free, egg free, and nut free in addition to being gluten free. They were super easy and had a great chewy texture! I will be honest, I may like my home made chocolate chip cookies better but these were pretty tasty! They are great to have on hand for quick treats. They are also the perfect thing to have on hand if have people in your life that have any of these allergies! A super clean mixing bowl and baking sheet and you can make them a clean and uncontaminated dessert!

So that is this week’s adventure! If you want to keep up on everyone’s experience just follow the hashtag on Facebook! Since I have already made the gluten free switch I am challenging you all! Can you substitute 3 meals a week with gluten free alternative? What are you biggest gluten free challenges? Let me know and maybe I can take them on for you!

(Disclosure: I am being compensated for this piece but all thoughts and opinions are mine and mine alone!)

 

(I received compensation from Tyson® Foods for the purpose of this review. This post was made possible by Mom Spark Media. Thoughts are my own.)

My poor kids. A few years ago I and my husband went gluten free due to gluten intolerance. And while I think it has been over all better for my kids too I still feel bad. Why? Because on my lazy nights, where it is just me and the kids, I can’t make them the fun, easy, treat-like meals I used to make. A big one is chicken nuggets. I didn’t do it all the time but when the husband is working late, I love popping in nuggets and fries into the oven for an easy dinner! But alas, being gluten free means those nights were always gluten free pasta and alfredo sauce. But no longer thanks to the opportunity I received to try Tyson® Gluten Free Chicken Nuggets!

Tyson Foods has created a fulfillment of every gluten free child’s dream! You all know that I loved the Tyson® Gluten Free Grilled & Ready® Chicken Breast Fillets for great family meals and that they are gluten free. But I had no idea that Tyson Foods has the line of Gluten Free Chicken Nuggets and Chicken Breast Strips!

Tyson® Gluten Free Chicken Nuggets are 100% white meat and all natural like you would expect with Tyson Foods. They are also super easy to make even though they are gluten free! Just throw them on a baking sheet for about 12 minutes with a flip half way through. That is it! And they come out as perfect chicken nuggets!

No sub-par texture or taste that some gluten free products have. My 10 year old daughter declared them better than McDonalds nuggets! The kids didn’t realize they were gluten free and wanted to know what I was going to get to eat for dinner. When I said I was having nuggets and stars they were concerned that I was going to make myself sick. I almost had to show them package to prove that these were gluten free.

I have to say a last thing that really impressed me about Tyson® Gluten Free Chicken Nuggets. It was the price. I was expecting them to be about 10 dollars and at my Target they were about $6.50. And that is for enough nuggets to feed my 4 kids and myself. We paired them with Target’s star tater tots and broccoli. So our entire meal was about $10 and that is cheaper than fast food but actually gluten free too!!! Did I mention that the tater tots cook at the same temperature so I could make everything at once;). Anything to save time!

So the NerdFamily ruling is 10 stars! We highly recommend them and will be getting them again! This is a kids pleaser and a mom one too;).

(I received compensation from Tyson® Foods for the purpose of this review. This post was made possible by Mom Spark Media. Thoughts are my own.)