Dinner and Dessert

I hope you all had a wonderful mother's day!  Mine was good and actually turned out to be better than I thought it would be.  My hubby had to work, but ended up getting home early and getting to spend most the day with us.  It was a nice surprise!  He took me out to get running shoes and I'm so excited!  Now, no more excuses, I'm going to do this!  I'm going to run a 5K this year and I'm going to actually jog/run the whole thing.  That's my goal.  I started out in the beginning of year wanting to do this, then I got the flu, kids got sick and then before I knew it I got here....  4 months of doing absolutely nothing.  I'm feeling good about my diet, for the most part.  I do have horrible days of eating terrible or weeks where I eat a whole cheesecake myself, (This really happened a couple weeks ago.) but as a whole I feel good about where I'm at with food.  Now, I just got to get all these jiggly bits under control!
I'm going to share 2 recipes I made this past week.  The first is another one of my mom's classics that I did a little twist to, Stuffed Pepper Casserole.  I took my mom's stuffed pepper recipe and made it into a simpler casserole.  My hubby and I both liked it more then the whole pepper thing, and we still got all the same flavors.

Stuffed Pepper Casserole

1 1/2 lbs. ground beef
1 onion, diced
2-3 green bell peppers, cut in chunks
1 14 oz. tomato sauce
2 cans tomato soup
3/4 cups raw rice, then cooked according to package directions
1-2 tsp Worcestershire sauce
s&p

Preheat oven to 350.
Brown beef, draining grease, add onions and peppers 1/2 way through cooking.
Add in tomato sauce and soups, stirring to combine.  Stir in cooked rice.  Add in Worcestershire sauce and salt and pepper to taste.
Pour mixture into 9x13 baking dish and bake for 30-40 minutes or until bubbly.

The second recipe I want to share is for a Gluten Free Chocolate Angel Food Cake.  It was much easier then I thought it'd be and tasted amazing!  I wish I had a prettier picture of my cake, mine doesn't give it justice.  I meant to take a picture of a slice of the cake with strawberries and whip cream, but I'm not going to lie, it was demolished in about 10 minutes by about 10 people, including 6 kids.  It was a huge hit!  I don't think they'd even know it was gf if I hadn't told them.  I will absolutely make this one again!

Gluten Free Chocolate Angel Food Cake
 from Tasty Kitchen

Ingredients

• ½ cups Rice Flour
• ½ cups Unsweetened Cocoa Powder
• ½ teaspoons Xanthan Gum
• 1-½ cup Sugar
• ½ teaspoons Salt
• 1-½ cup Egg Whites, Room Temperature (about 10 Eggs) (I used 100% egg whites from a carton and they worked perfect!)
• 1 Tablespoon Water
• 1 teaspoon Lemon Juice
• 1 teaspoon Cream Of Tartar
• 1 teaspoon Vanilla

Instructions

Preheat oven to 350.
If your eggs aren’t room temperature, sit them (before separating) in a bowl of warm water for a few minutes until no longer cold to the touch.  (Since I used all white I measured them out and let them sit out in the cup for a couple hours before I made the cake.)
Sift together the rice flour, cocoa powder, xanthan gum, 3/4 c sugar, and salt in a bowl and set aside.
Combine egg whites, water, lemon juice, cream of tartar, and vanilla in the bowl of your mixer. Beat on low speed for about a minute. Increase speed to medium-high and beat until mixture increases 4-5 times in volume. Mixture will be foamy and will hold very soft peaks.
Bring mixer back to medium-high, and add the last 3/4 c sugar a tablespoon at a time. Beat until the egg whites hold soft, glossy peaks, not stiff ones!
Sprinkle a little of the flour mixture over the top, then carefully fold in. Repeat about seven times, sprinkling and folding.
When everything is incorporated, scrape the batter into a clean, ungreased tube pan. Bake 40 minutes, until no longer jiggly and starting to pull away from the sides. A toothpick will come out clean.
Immediately after taking the cake out of the oven, flip it over and cool it upside down, to keep the cake from falling. Cool completely before removing from the pan.