Beyond Rice and Tofu

This week’s Gluten Free Menu Swap is hosted by Heather at Celiac Family where the chosen theme is “Spooky Delights”. We don’t do a lot to celebrate Halloween around here since we don’t have children and we live in the boonies – thus, no trick-or-treaters to get us in the mood. So nothing really spooky planned for our menu this week.

I am trying to be conscious of what I have in the refrigerator and pantry and what needs to be eaten. We still have a few things coming out of the garden, including the last of the okra and tomatoes, and kale, kale and more kale! Plus I went to the Santa Fe Farmer’s Market this weekend and picked up some yummy stuff. So, here it is:

Veggie burgers with okra (Thanks, Alta!) and sautéed Yellow Finn rosemary potatoes with a massaged kale salad

Tofu and Bok Choy Stir Fry, with whatever other remaining vegetables need to be gobbled up, and brown rice

Pinto-Poblano Stew with corn tortillas and massaged kale salad

Napa Noodles

Pupusas with massaged kale salad (yes, again!) and/or whatever leftovers need to be eaten

Perhaps, in the spirit of the holiday, I may have to make a sweet “spooky” treat this week…hmmm, I am thinking pumpkin and chocolate….

Be sure to head over to Celiac Family later this week for some additional meal planning inspiration.

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Although we had our first snow this week (only at higher elevations, thankfully) and a freeze warning, I am still wallowing in end-of-summer vegetables and haven’t really turned the corner into the fall foods yet. Soon enough, right?

Today I had a thought that I might take the dogs to the top of the mountains to wallow in the fresh snow. But then, I thought, why rush things? The snow will be here – down at our elevation – soon enough.

The first snow as seen from our front porch this weekend. Luckily it was above 7000'.

So last night when my friend Jennifer, over at The Gluten Free Advocate, messaged me to say that there was a freeze warning in our neck of the woods, my husband and I hurriedly put on our head lamps and ran out to harvest the more tender items still growing in the garden. I should have taken a picture of it all. Basil, sage, parsley, cukes, tomatoes (both the red and green), tomatillos (even the tiny ones), okra and peppers of all kinds. We covered both counters in the kitchen with it all. And of course it didn’t freeze. But I am still glad we harvested it all. Although in hindsight I wish we would have left a lot of the tomatoes on the vine as I already had a pile of ripe ones on the counter top and now I have to figure out what to do with all these green tomatoes, besides feed them to the chickens!

So today, I made a ton of tomatillo salsa and it all went into the freezer next to all of the other containers of it. (After two years of bugs eating my tomatillo plants, this year they finally grew and I have had tomatillos coming out of my ears all summer, so I have a lot of salsa in the freezer. My husband says that now we need to make more tamales. Maybe. )

And I made pesto. Then for lunch I had a pesto-tomato grilled cheese sandwich. And I have cucumbers in the frig to be eaten. So I am stalled in summer. And I am okay with that.

I noticed that this week’s theme for the Gluten Free Menu Swap is cranberries. I almost bought some this week. (So I am feeling the pull of fall, just a little.) I had them in my basket but the price was still too high in my opinion and so I put them back. Soon enough. Fall is indeed coming but I am in denial still… (Be sure to read Cheryl’s story about her cat and cranberries. Our dogs love them too, even frozen.)

This week’s plan:

Quinoa Salad with tomatoes, cucumbers and parsley – gotta eat up the garden goodies before the freeze really does show up!

Moroccan Chickpea Salad – one of our favorites.

Swiss Chard and Potato Curry with Veggie Burgers on the side (no buns!)

Kale with Sun-Dried Tomatoes and Garbanzo Beans over Polenta

Poblano Pinto Bean Stew – okay, this is starting to get a little fall-like.

What about you, are you still stuck in summer? Or are you feeling the pull of pumpkin and squash and warm, cozy soups?

Be sure to jump over to this week’s Gluten Free Menu Swap, later in the week, to see what everyone else has planned. They’ll probably have more fall-like ideas for you than I do!

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This week’s theme for the Gluten Free Menu Swap is “Back-to-School”. Our hostess is Angela, from Angela’s Kitchen. We don’t have any of that back-to-school stuff around here these days, but my husband and I do pack our lunches almost every day for work. And we’re creatures of habit when it comes to lunch – he, more so, than me though. His lunches have consisted of (for years) a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, cheez-its, carrots, and an apple. (No, he isn’t always gluten free, he’s the vegetarian.) I tend to stick with the same things for months at a time, but I do switch it up. Here are some of my usual lunch ideas:

Chicken – I have been eating more meat lately to try to increase my B-12 levels, and it is easiest to make it for my lunches. (I am not the veggie in the house, remember.) So I have been grilling some up on the George Foreman grill that has been collecting dust in the pantry. Sometimes marinated or sometimes with a splash of barbecue sauce on the side.

Cheese and GF crackers

Carrots, red bell pepper or celery with hummus or white bean puree

Cherry tomatoes

Mozzarella cheese sticks and GF crackers

Green beans, snap peas or kale – put in a glass bowl with a lid, add a dribble of water and microwave for 60-90 seconds with the lid partially on. Quick steamed green veggies at work! I will even just put the green beans in the dish frozen in the morning and they are thawed enough by lunch to only need a quick zap. Add a dash of salt or a drizzle of salad dressing on the kale.

Apple, cherries, blueberries – whatever is in season. And I usually take two servings.

Sweet treat – lately I have been eating Spaan’s meringues that I find at Whole Foods. Either chocolate or vanilla.

And of course, leftovers are always good when you have the use of a microwave at the office like I do.

So anyway, back to the meal plan…I was a naughty girl last week and ended up at one of the still-open Borders stores and was enticed by their going-out-of-business sale. I walked out with three new cookbooks…two of which are huge!! The first one, 660 Curries and the second, Deborah Madison’s Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone.

Also, a skinny (but not for my rear!), but tasty cookbook, Jeni’s Splendid Ice Creams from the shops by the same name. I still haven’t made it to back to Columbus (OH) to try her ice cream and several other bloggers have been tempting me with their testing of recipes (evil Jackie!), so I had to buy it when I saw it. This week I am planning to make the Lemon and Blueberry Fro-Yo and the Pineapple Piment d’Espelette Sorbet. I am so excited!

But we will be eating more than just ice cream this week (in theory):

Stir-Fry Tofu and Vegetables in a Peanut Sauce with Rice – tofu with red bell peppers, bok choy, water chestnuts, etc.

Curry Simmer Sauce with Chickpeas

Quick Summer Pasta with bell peppers, balsamic onions, chickpeas or white beans, tomatoes, fresh basil and oregano, feta, olive oil, balsamic vinegar and olives

Cabbage, Potatoes and Peas – from 660 Curries!

And then this weekend I need to head to the international market to pick up a bunch of spices and different legumes so I can make some more yummy curries! Also note, vegetarian friends, most (at least half) of the curries in the cookbook are vegetarian with paneer, legumes or vegetables as the star. And when I get done reading through the curries, I will start browsing through the Deborah Madison cookbook…so many new recipes!

Be sure to check out the other menu’s linked up over at Angela’s Kitchen. And if you need more inspiration, check out OrgJunkie for tons more (not gf or veg, but adaptable).

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This week’s Gluten Free Menu Swap is hosted by Carrie at Ginger Lemon Girl. She chose a theme of “Blogger’s Choice”, so I guess we each get to chose our own theme. Cool! My theme this week is ‘Cooking for One’. The hubby is at a conference all week and I won’t need to cook for him, so I am on my own.

Do you eat differently when you eat alone? I know I do. There is even a book of this title, from one of my favorite cookbook authors and fellow New Mexican, Deborah Madison. “What we Eat When We Eat Alone“.

So, this week I don’t really have a plan as of yet but I have a few things in mind based upon what is in the frig and freezer. Apologies to the vegetarians, when I eat alone I often chose meat since I don’t eat it often and my body needs it. So I will focus on upping my B-12 levels and getting some fish/seafood in my diet this week.

Here’s some of the ingredients I have hanging around to use:

Salmon

Pulled Pork

LaTortilla Teff Wraps

Kale, tomatillos, basil and cherry tomatoes from the garden

Leftover Three Bean Taco filling

Leftover brown rice

Fresh broccoli and bell peppers

And I am eyeing this recipe with shrimp in it.

So, we’ll see what I can come up with. I find that when I am only cooking for one, I do tend to be more off-the-cuff in my cooking.

When you cook for only yourself – are you more or less creative – or more or less healthy (cake for breakfast?). Or?

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This week’s Gluten Free Menu Swap is hosted by Celiac Family and the theme is pineapple.

Yum! We love fresh pineapple. It is one of my husband’s favorite fruits and I always try to buy him one when they are on sale. I will have to see if they are on sale this week. We usually don’t do anything special with pineapple, just cut one up and eat it, mainly because my husband isn’t one for sweet fruits in his savory food. We have grilled it once before and that was pretty good. So I will be interested to see what others do with their pineapple. Maybe I can convince him to try it as part of a dish one of these days!

This week’s menu:

Red Kidney Beans and Tomatoes with Rice and Steamed Broccoli – and perhaps some dosa, if I can get my act together! The kidney bean recipe is new-to-us and from one of our favorite cookbooks, Indian Vegetarian Cooking from an American Kitchen by Vasantha Prasad.

Chickpeas in Tomato, Ginger and Garlic Sauce with Rice – one our all-time favorite recipes from the same cookbook above, Indian Vegetarian Cooking from an American Kitchen by Vasantha Prasad.

Quick Summer Pasta – this is one of my very simple, make-it-up as I go along recipes that I will attempt to document for you.

Spicy Tofu with Vegetables and Rice and Cucumber Salad – one of our go-to quick summer recipes.

Be sure to head over to Celiac Family later this week to check out everyone’s menus for some inspiration.

I am hosting next week’s GF Menu Swap with a theme of “Light and Easy for Summer”. What are your favorite, quick and easy, don’t turn on the oven (or even the stove) meals? I hope you’ll let me know next week!

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