Can you boil water?

(This was a post I started when I forgot that life keeps moving, whether you blog it or not. Please pretend is is still Sunday, January 27th as you read!)

Today's meals include a long list of gluten-free mishaps. Let's get started.

Breakfast
Plan - Gluten-free waffles (thank you Bisquik) with applesauce and cinnamon for all three of us.
Reality - Gluten-free waffles with applesauce, cinnamon, and copious amounts of whipped cream for me, gluten-free waffles with chocolate chips, peanut butter, and syrup for husband and baby.

Gluten-free? Yes. Healthy? Not so much.

Lunch
Plan - Exploding Chicken Taquitos (click here)

1 can chunk white chicken breast in water, drained and flaked
1/2 cup salsa
8 small (6-inch) yellow corn tortillas
1/3 cup shredded fat-free cheddar cheese
1/4 tsp. dry taco seasoning mix
Optional dips: additional salsa, fat-free sour cream

• Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. 
• In a medium bowl, combine the chicken and salsa, and mix thoroughly. Cover and refrigerate for 15 minutes.
• Dampen two paper towels, and place tortillas between them. Microwave for about 1 minute, until tortillas are warm and pliable. Set aside.
• Remove chicken mixture from the fridge, and drain any excess liquid. Add cheese and taco seasoning, and mix to combine. This is your filling. Set aside.
• Prepare a baking sheet by spraying it with nonstick spray. Set aside.
• Place one tortilla flat on a clean dry surface (keep the rest between the paper towels), and spoon about 2 heaping tablespoons of filling onto the tortilla. Spread it evenly across the entire surface, and roll tortilla up tightly, so that you have a cigar-shaped tube. Secure with toothpicks, if needed, and place seam side down on the baking sheet. Repeat with remaining tortillas and filling.
• Bake in the oven until crispy, 14 - 16 minutes. (Don't worry if they crack and "explode" a little!)
• Allow to cool for 5 minutes. Remove toothpicks, if using. If you like, serve with additional salsa and sour cream for dipping. Enjoy!

Reality - I have made these several times before and they are always delicious. I have heard that some taco seasoning mixes are not gluten-free, but we have a giant container of McCormicks, and it is safe. So at 'oh my goodness, we have to be out the door soon or we will be late for church and we will die if I don't make lunch 5 minutes ago!' o'clock, I pulled out this quick recipe and got to work. If wasn't until I finished the filling and was ready to roll them up that I looked for my corn tortillas. We always have corn tortillas. Unfortunately, on this morning, we only had 2. Crap. 2 tiny corn tortillas cannot handle 8 tortillas worth of filling.

Instead of rolling them up, I spread the filling into a 9x9 dish and popped it into the oven to melt the cheese. Voila! Chicken dip. We ate the dip on blue corn tortilla chips and it was so yummy. Crisis averted.

Dinner

Plan - A delicious new pot roast recipe that I found on a reliable website, and raspberry jello with blueberries

Reality - The pot roast, though tender and decently tasty, was not something I will repeat. Onion soup mix roast is good enough for me (is onion soup mix gluten-free? We were out, I don't know...)! And now the jello. I love jello. I was going to put some whipped cream on my jello and call it dessert. I thought about it all the way home from church, and as I ate my pot roast and veggies. And then it was time. JELLO TIME!! I opened the fridge, I grabbed the pan, and IT WAS LIQUID!! It had not set up at all!!! Travis blamed the blueberries (he hates them) but after a quick google search to make sure, they were not the culprit. I was utterly disappointed and confused. I have made jello dozens of times. I even pulled off jello jigglers for the first time in my life just weeks ago. It wasn't until hours later that Travis dug the box out of the trash and asked me 'Did you boil the water?' .....no.....

In my speed lunch and church and get us out the door moments of that morning, I had cut corners and used hot water from the tap, skipping the apparently crucial step of microwave boiling, to mix up my jello. Stupid. stupid. stupid. That was my last pack of jello too... 

Dessert

Plan and reality - I was so despondent over my lack of jello that I spooned nutella onto some big marshmallows and called it a night. 

Gluten-free lives another day, but I should really double- and triple- check ingredients and recipes more often.