Recipes and Foods For The Milk Free

My 30th birthday was last Saturday and we had a few friends over for drinks and appetizers.  The hubby and I made taco layer dip as one of the appetizers.  We made a dairy version and a dairy free taco layer dip.  I would like to have had a picture but I was laughing and socializing and by the time I remembered that I needed to take a picture to share with all of you I had already ate most of it.  I will try to get a picture the next time I make it!

Dairy Free Recipe Taco Layer Dip

1 can refried beans

1 package of dairy free cream cheese

1 container of dairy free sour cream

1/2  jar of salsa

1 cup chopped black olives

1 green onion chopped

2 cups finely chopped lettuce

1 package of taco seasoning

Instructions:

Mix 1/2 of the taco seasoning packet in the dairy free cream cheese and the other half into the dairy free sour cream. Next, layer the dip in this order.  Refried beans, dairy free cream cheese mixture, 1/2 jar of salsa, dairy free sour cream mixture, lettuce, lives, green onions.  Chill and serve with tortilla chips! Yum!  This stuff can be addicted so don’t be surprised if you eat the whole thing!

I was in the mood for some comfort food last night so I made my easy and cheap version of Shepards Pie.  I love how the potatoes crisp up in the oven in this dairy free recipe and the ingredients are something I almost always have on hand.  This is also a very frugal dairy free recipe and is a great way to feed your whole family for very little.

 Dairy Free Recipe : Shepards Pie

1/2 pound ground beef

1/2 pound ground turkey

2 tbsp chopped onion

1 can creamed corn

4 medium potatoes

1/2 cup melted butter

Instructions

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.  Boil and make mashed potatoes.  Brown ground beef and ground turkey in a pan, add onions to the meat.  In a casserole dish layer the meat mixture then the creamed corn then the mashed potatoes.  Drizzle the melted butter over the top of the mashed potatoes.  Bake in oven for 25 minutes or until desired crispness of the potatoes.

Do you have a dairy free recipe of Shepards Pie?  What do you make your shepards pie with?

I made myself an excellent dairy free recipe for lunch today with some extra ground turkey I had thawed for dinner tonight (Shepards Pie Recipe coming soon!).   I am a meatball fanatic, or I should say I am recently a meatball fanatic.  When I was young I wouldn’t eat any meatball, even in the Spaghetti-O’s.  I have found in the last year that I like experimenting with many different varieties of balls of meat. 

Today’s meatball was made with ground turkey, making it a bit healthier than your normal meatball.  I added way way way to much garlic and I didn’t really measure as I was going so some of this will be trial and error.

Dairy Free Recipe : Turkey Meatballs and Pasta

Made two servings 

Ingredients for Turkey Meatballs

1/4 pound ground turkey

3 tbsp chopped carrots

3 tbsp chopped celery

3 tbsp chopped onion

1/2 tsp garlic powder

1/2 tsp ground cumin

1/8 cup bread crumbs

Ingredients for Pasta

1 cup noodles  (boil according to package instructions)

1/4 can of red kidney beans

1/4 can of creamed corn

1/4 can of stewed tomatoes

Directions

Mix all of the meatball ingredients together and form into small meatballs.

Fry the meatballs in a small amount of oil.

Throw creamed corn, tomatoes, kidney beans and cooked meatballs in with the pasta and mix together.  Heat through and serve.

I’m not sure what the health value is on this with the creamed corn but it does have a lot of veggies in it so I’m thinking if you made it a full meal with a salad it wouldn’t be too bad.  What do you think?

I love coming up with random recipes with whatever I have on hand.  This is one of those recipes.  I came up with this last week the day before I went to the grocery store, AKA the day with little food in the fridge.   I had already been making sausage for my breakfast sandwiches so I just used the sausage that was left over but I’m sure this could also have been made with hamburger as well.

Dairy Free Recipe : Sausage and Rice

This made one serving

1/4 cup brown rice (cook according to package directions)

1/4 cup chopped carrot

1/4 cup chopped celery

1/4 cup chopped onion

1/2 cup cooked ground sausage

1 tsp garlic powder

Instructions

I began by cooking the rice in its own pot then added the rest of the ingredients while there was still liquid in the rice.  This let the veggies cook some while the rice finished cooking. 

 This recipe did remind me that I think I would like a rice cooker.  Does anyone have one?  What do you think of it? Does it work as well on brown rice as white rice? 

I go through stages where I freeze large amounts of food for later.  I’ve even tried Once a Month Cooking (OAMC) though it was a lot of work and I don’t have the freezer space anymore.  I do still tend to cook large batches of certain foods to freeze and eat later.  One of these is the breakfast sandwich.  I’m not much into cooking first thing in the morning but I am hungry so I prepare a dairy free breakfast sandwich that I know is dairy free because I’m the one that made it.  Plus, its portable so even the hubby can grab one and go in the mornings.  It tastes much better than a fast food sausage biscuit though I would like to have some hash browns with it!

Dairy Free Recipe : Dairy Free Breakfast Sandwich

4 bagels sliced

1/4 cup ground sausage

8 large eggs

dairy free butter

Instructions

Brown sausage in pan.  Take one egg and crack in a bowl with a bottom about the same size as the size of a bagel.  Stir the egg s the yolk breaks and add 2 tablespoons of cooked sausage.  Stir this all together. Place bowl in the microwave for one minute or until egg is completely cooked (solid but not overcooked).  Repeat with a second egg.  Butter both sides of the bagel.  Place both cooked eggs on one slice of bagel and top with the other half.  Cut the bagel sandwich in half.  Repeat until all the bagels are used.  Place the bagels on a cookie sheet and place in the freezer for about two hours.  After breakfast sandwich is frozen then wrap individually and place in a ziplock bag then place back in the freezer.

To Reheat

I take out a dairy free breakfast sandwich and place it on a cookie sheet in the oven.  Then I turn the oven on 400  degrees.  By the time the stove heats up the breakfast sandwich is warmed up. 

Enjoy!

Let me know what you think!

I’m always on the lookout for new dairy free products and this one kind of just appeared on my counter.  The in-laws were in earlier this week and they brought along bagels for breakfast.  I love bagels.  I love them toasted with dairy free butter, or toasted with peanut butter, or toasted with dairy free cream cheese, or toasted and made into a club sandwich. Seriously. I love bagels.

Bagels, as well as many other breads, sometimes don’t make it onto the dairy free products list.  Earthgrains Plain Bagels make it on the dairy free products list though! They may be lacking in milk but they are by no means lacking in taste.  These bagels are very moist, and were even moist two days later when I used them in a recipe. And they toasted up perfectly (though that could be the brand new toaster I just bought and used for the first time on the bagels!).

I was so excited that I made one of my favorite freezer meals with them. Check back tomorrow for the dairy free recipe for Freezer Breakfast Sandwiches a OAMC meal. 

We are having so much fun cooking at home again!  Every night has been a treat, and a challenge, to not only get to cook but come up with something good with the limited supplies we could afford right now.  Last night we had an old stand-by that we both enjoy and is easy to cook as well as being a great dairy free recipe!

I had never had salmon patties until my mother-in-law made them one night and I’ve been addicted ever since!  She generally serves them with macaroni and cheese (dairy free butter noodles for me), peas, and corn bread.  I don’t make mine with the corn bread and neither the hubby or me is very big on peas so we end up with just the pasta and patties!

Dairy Free Recipe : Pasta and Patties

Salmon Patties 

1 can salmon (drained and flaked)

1/4 cup chopped green onion

1 large egg

1 tbsp lemon juice

1 tbsp brown mustard

1 cup bread crumbs

Directions:  Mix all of this together in a bowl and form into patties.  I then fry these in a skillet with very little oil until browned on both sides.

Butter Noodles

2 cups noodles (boil and drain the water)

1/2 cup dairy free butter

1 tsp garlic powder

Directions: After boiling the noodles and draining them I throw the butter and garlic powder in the pot with them.  The heat of the cooked noodles helps to melt the butter.

 I serve these together and throw in some microwave mac and cheese for the hubby.  This is an easy dairy free recipe that takes almost no time to cook!

We were very excited to use our stove for the first time tonight.  The hubby was so excited that he even made dinner!  It seems right that our first meal is also a favorite dairy free recipe.  Well, a dairy free recipe for me because the hubby drowns his in cheese!  Instead of regular tacos we crumbled the shells and threw everything together to make a taco salad. 

I was not able to have my dairy free cheese and dairy free sour cream that helps make this dairy free recipe so scrumptious because we can’t afford the extra expense this week.  So instead of showing you what we had tonight I have pulled out a picture of this dairy free recipe from a night I did have dairy free sour cream and dairy free cheese! 

Dairy Free Recipe : Taco Salad

1 box hard taco shells

1 can red kidney beans

1 can whole kernal corn

1 can rotel tomatoes

dairy free cheese

dairy free sour cream

1 pound ground turkey (or hamburger, ground turkey is cheaper and healthier)

1 package taco seasoning

1 small onion chopped fine

1 tbsp chopped garlic (I use the chopped garlic in the jar)

chopped lettuce

Brown the turkey and add half the chopped onion and the tbsp garlic.  Cook until turkey is done.  Add seasoning according to package directions.  Cook taco shells according to package directions.  Open cans of beans and corn and tomatoes. 

 The hubby then makes regular tacos from the shells, meat, lettuce, and his dairy cheese.  I take my taco shells and crumble them on a plate, then I layer lettuce, the rest of the onion, dairy free cheese and dairy free sour cream.  I then add some of the beans, corn and tomatoes to my salad as well as the meat mixture.

Let me know what you think when you try this dairy free recipe!

We are hoping to have electric tomorrow which is a very exciting prospect!  I cannot wait to actually go to the grocery store for real food and not just sandwich products and potato chips.  We are beyond broke right now so I’m going to be hitting our local Aldi’s.  I’m hoping to only spend about thirty dollars but at Aldi’s that can equal quite a bit of food.  Especially since we already have dog food for the week, potatoes and, of course, some sandwich stuff. 

This weekend I will cook an actual meal for my family.  Perhaps tacos or lasagna.  Then I may make some goulash for myself (the hubby doesn’t care much for goulash).  I would also like some meatloaf or maybe a roast but the hubby doesn’t like those either! 

I do know that mashed potatoes and homemade french fries will be in order.  I can get hamburger and turkey burger and mix them together so I don’t have to spend as much money and some eggs would be great! 

As you can see I don’t even know where to start so look forward to some old fashioned, home cooked, dairy free recipes in the next week and perhaps even some new recipes that I may come up with to make some frugal recipes for the next week!

I’m not big on frozen dinners that you pop in the microwave but there are times when they are easier than cooking something and will warm you up faster than a sandwich.  The adventure comes in finding milk free products.  My favorite brand of frozen dinner is Marie Callender’s.  The problem is Marie Callender’s isn’t known for its milk free products.  Marie Callender’s seems to want to put milk in every one of its products, which is probably what makes them taste so much better than say, Banquet. 

I havent bought them in years but Marie Callender’s frozen dinner was on sale the other day and we’re still cooking with an extension cord plugged into the microwave.  I was excited to find Marie Callender’s Chicken Teriyaki frozen dinner is dairy free!  It isn’t the best chicken teriyaki I’ve ever had but it is pretty good for a frozen dinner and Marie Callender’s gives you a lot of food as well.  This is a good meal for those who need something quick and dairy free.