This comfort food is a traditional French Canadian Christmas pie called: Beef Tourtiere. All though it's called All Beef Tourtiere it's commanally made from a combination of pork and beef, and traditionally with carrier pigeon. But to offer a heartier and healthier alternative I offer my version of this wonderful winter dish, with no pork just beef. However, if you like pork go ahead and use half pork and half beef!

This pie is best suited for the cold seasons because it's loaded with what are termed warming spices. Warming spices are those spices which actually do warm your blood. Here are some examples of warming spices: ginger, nutmeg, cinnamon, cardamon, allspice. I offer my humble alternate definition of warming spices: heart warming spices; i.e. those spices which a reminiscent of what mother used to make on a cold day (e.g. applesauce cake, gingerbread, and pumpkin pie)!

Between hearty beef and heart warming spices this is a sure crowd pleaser.

The wonderful array of flavours all coalesce in this warming dish. The ingredients are many but the taste is divinely simple, and in fact the recipe is quite easy to compile.

Anyway enough of my chitter-chatter go ahead try the recipe for yourself, and please when you get a minute let me know what you think of it in the comments below!

Double Crust Pie Dough (SEE RECIPE HERE)
2 lb. Ground Beef (Blade Roast is adds a deep beef flavour!)
1 medium Onion, Diced
3 sm. Cloves Garlic, Minced
1/4 cup Celery, Diced
1 1/2 cup Beef Au Jus Sauce or Beef Gravy
3/4 tsp Salt
1/4 tsp Black pepper
6 Whole Cloves or 1/2 tsp Ground Cloves
1/2 tsp Cinnamon
1/2 tsp Nutmeg
1 tsp Sage
3/4 cup Mashed Potatoes
1/4 cup Lightly Packed, Fresh GF Bread Crumbs

Preheat an oven to 400F. Roll the pastry dough into 2 equal-sized circles to fit a 9-inch pie pan. Line the bottom of the pie pan with 1 circle and set aside the prepared pie pan and remaining pastry for later.

Using a large skillet, heat the oil over medium-high heat and sauté the beef, onion, garlic, and celery until the vegetables are tender and the meat is mostly cooked.

Drain any excess fat from the pan. Add the beef stock, herbs, and spices to the meat and vegetables; simmer the mixture over low-medium heat, covered, for about 15 to 20 minutes.

Remove the skillet from the heat and stir the mashed potatoes and dry breadcrumbs into the mixture. Allow the meat filling to sit for 3 minutes. Spoon the filling into the prepared pie pan and top with the remaining pastry dough. Crimp the dough shut, flute the edges, cut vents in the top, and bake the pie for 12 minutes. Reduce the oven heat to 350F and continue baking the pie for 25 to 30 minutes, until the pastry is golden brown.

The other day, my mom and I were in town and decide to stop off at a little restaurant for lunch. They had no gluten free sandwiches so I decided to have there “low carb” breakfast.

When it came so did a side of creativity. I took a few bites of my sausage and realized that this plate of sausage, fried eggs, broad cheddar cheese, lettuce, and tomato slices could easily be turned in to a GF sandwich with cheese bread! How so? Simple layer a slice of cheese with one egg, one slice tomato, one leaf lettuce and top with another slice of cheese. Now you have a fried egg sandwiched in cheese! It turned out grand, the cheese held together up until the very last bite. Go ahead try it next time you're out, almost all restaurants have these basic items. Just make sure the egg isn't too hot when you compile your sandwich r the cheese will begin to melt.

Remember gluten free doesn't mean your limited you're free! So use a little creativity and you'll enjoy your meals a lot more.

Hi everyone,

Sorry for the delay in this post but I was too busy making this entire Greek menu! I hope you enjoy it as much as my family and I did!

Why did I choose to make an entire Greek meal? After reading about Greek mezethes from Georgia A and writing last weeks post about how I love making authentic ethnic cuisine, I felt like creating a Greek menu plan of my own; and so here it is!*

So want to know how to make all these goodies? Than KEEP READING! :)

I made this according to this recipe Food by Country but I cut the salt from 2 tablespoons down to 1/2 teaspoon and still found the salt excessive due to the high sodium content in the chicken broth, so I suggest if you're not using homemade chicken broth then to omit the salt altogether.

I made this according to this recipe: Delicious Briam recipe (Greek mixed Roasted Vegetables) my only recommendation is that you use young small zucchini with a tender skin as the skin on a zucchini is much tougher than all the other vegetables skins and needs more time in the oven to soften up but that means too much time for all the other vegetables.

This one was great! I use this recipe for the Chicken Souvlaki this one for the GF Pita . The only changes I made to the the pita recipe was I substituted the cornstrach for arrowroot powder (for health reasons, lets face it corn ain't the doctor's best friend).

I used this recipe: Tzatziki sauce recipe (Greek Yogurt and Cucumber Sauce). It depend on your lil' ol' taste buddies but we're prefer tzatziki with a more predominant garlic flavour. Make sure you drain the Greek yogurt (if you're using plain yogurt than drain an even longer time).

I made this once before with great results using this recipe from Food By Country but I was trying to make sure the recipe was traditional and I found quite a few recipes more akin to this one from Cook Me Greek so that is the recipe I went instead.

My family agrees that we prefer the melopita recipe from Food By Country but the ricotta one is still good and probably more authentic but tastes more like a dessert omelet than a cake (perhaps use one less egg?).

Here's a time table I made showing when to start each dish, so that it's possible for one person to make by themselves (but much better for two to do!). It starts at 3 o'clock and ends at 7 o'clock.

• The GREEN denotes when you will be actively involved in making the recipe (e.g. stirring, measuring, fast pace cooking/baking).
  
• The RED denotes when you can take it slow on a particular recipe (e.g. the items is roasting, marinating, rising, etc.)
• And of course WHITE denotes when nothing is being done on that recipe at all!

I served the egg lemon soup at 5:00 as an appetizer and the main course and vegetables at 6:00 and lastly the dessert at 7:00 pm.