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Meal Plan Monday, July 12, 2010

Posted in Meal Plan, Salad, tagged , , , , , , on July 12, 2010| 8 Comments »

This week’s theme is SALAD over at The Gluten Free Menu Swap. And our lovely host is Heather at Celiac Family. Thanks for hosting, Heather! Salads are great this time of year because you don’t have to heat much of anything up and you and your kitchen can stay cool! And it is going to be red-hot here in the Albuquerque area again this week, so salad is a great idea.

I had already been thinking about making a cold rice salad after seeing this one over at Cinnamon Spice and Everything Nice last week. And this past weekend we had Moroccan Chickpea Salad, which I love! It makes a lot and is great leftover too, in fact we had some tonight. Some other salad ideas for you: Quinoa and Black Bean Salad, Wild Rice Tabouli, Taco Salad, Lentil Salad Provencal.

In other meal planning thoughts, I know we still have Swiss chard growing strong and I need to use some more up. We are also headed out to dinner with some friends at a gluten-free friendly restaurant this weekend. It is one I have never been to before, Casa Vieja, but they list gluten free options on their menu so hopefully it goes well! I am sure it will, other celiacs I know have been there and they say it is very gluten-free friendly. Perhaps another Restaurant Review is in order?

So with that in mind, this is the plan for the week:

Italian Rice Salad with some added white beans

Black Eyed Peas with Swiss Chard perhaps with a side of rice or polenta

Mediterranean Salad with added salad greens

So, yes, only three meals planned for this week since we will be eating out one evening and the other three evenings are saved for leftovers. With only two people in the house, we have plenty of leftovers usually, and I enjoy not having to cook every night. If we need to we always have our emergency go-to foods, like plain-old spaghetti or a chickpea curry, or a Trader Joe’s something-or-other in the freezer, just in case.

In other exciting news, I bought myself an ice cream maker this weekend! I have been coveting them for a couple of months now, especially the recipes over at The Whole Kitchen and Simply Sugar and Gluten Free. And we just happened to stop in Bed Bath and Beyond, and oh, surprise, they had just the one I wanted! (They had previously been sold out.) And I had a 20% off coupon. Yeah! So, this week, ice cream is on the list too! And since it is my husband’s birthday week, he gets to choose the first batch. And he chose Peanut Butter Cup. I will be sure to let you know how it turns out!

Also, next week, I am hosting the Gluten Free Menu Swap and the theme is cucumbers! I have about five cucumbers ready to be picked and they are just going to keep on coming, so please, post (or send) cucumber recipes! Even if you don’t have a cucumber recipe, please join us, we’d love to have you! The ‘rules’ and all the info is over here at Gluten Free Goodness.

This post is also cross-posted over at Org Junkie where you will find hundreds, literally, hundreds of other meal plans for inspiration.

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Blueberry Cobbler

Posted in Cake, Dessert, Fruit, tagged , , , , , , on July 11, 2010| 9 Comments »

I love cobbler. And just this week I noticed that they were selling the new Gluten Free Bisquick at my local Smith’s (a Kroger Co.). Of course I had to buy a box. You see, my mom made strawberry shortcakes from Bisquick and I had been thinking about that lately. The Strawberry Shortcakes I made recently were great but not quite what my mouth and mind remembers. So I was excited when I saw that the GF Bisquick had made it to my store shelf.

And while I wanted strawberry shortcake, I had an overabundance of blueberries that were picked too late for me. You know when they have started getting seedy? I can’t eat them raw that way. So I knew I needed to cook them down into some sort of yumminess. I looked around on the Live Gluten Freely website but couldn’t find any cobbler recipes there. So I went to the regular General Mills website and looked at Bisquick recipes and found one for a Peach Cobbler (another favorite) that I figured would work.

And work it did. The entire 8″ x 8″ pan was gone in less than 48 hours.

Blueberry Cobbler

Adapted from Betty Crocker

1/3 cup sugar

1 Tbsp cornstarch

1/4 tsp cinnamon

6 cups of blueberries *

2 Tbsp water

2 tsp lemon juice

1 cup gluten free Bisquick mix

1 Tbsp sugar

1/3 cup milk

1 Tbsp butter, melted

2 tsp turbinado or raw sugar

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. In a large saucepan, mix 1/3 cup sugar, cornstarch and cinnamon. Break up any lumps of cornstarch. Add the blueberries, water and lemon juice. Bring to a boil over medium-high heat, stirring frequently. Boil and stir for one minute. Turn off heat.  Pour berries into an 8″ x 8″ (ungreased) baking dish.

In a separate bowl, mix together the Bisquick mix, 1 Tbsp sugar, milk and melted butter. It will form a soft dough. Using a teaspoon, drop lumps of the dough over the top of the berries. Sprinkle with turbinado or raw sugar. Bake for 20-25 minutes or until dough becomes golden brown.

Serve warm with vanilla ice cream or whipped cream.

Notes:

* Six cups of blueberries may have been too much. I think next time I will try 4-5 cups of berries. The berries bubbled up and over the pan in the oven. Be sure to place a cookie sheet or foil below your baking dish in the oven to catch any spills. I caught mine too late although I managed to catch the majority of the mess.

* In the photo above it doesn’t look like there is much of a “crust”. I was concerned initially. At least until I ate it and discovered that a lot of the dough pieces sank down into the blueberries. But I do think that there were too many berries and not enough dough so next time I will try less fruit. And I may also try to spread the dough into a more even crust over the top and see what happens.

I think next time it will be peaches or blackberries!

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Catching Up…

Posted in Asian, Avocado, General, Round-up, Salad, Stir Fry, Tofu, Vegetables, tagged , , , , , , , on July 11, 2010| 4 Comments »

This past month I haven’t been blogging so much about each of the individual meals I have been making, although most meals have been photographed. So I thought I would do a little round-up of photos of the meals and a brief yea or nay vote on some of them.

Spinach Avocado Grapefruit Salad from In My Box

I enjoyed this salad, although my husband, who is not a big fan of spinach, did not. The oil in the avocado and then the tang of the grapefruit is all the dressing this needs. The leftovers even held up and made it into my lunch the next day. Yea for me.

Gingered Skirt Steak with Snow Peas from goodLife{eats}

Instead of steak, we used tofu ‘steaks’. We also omitted the oyster sauce and added 1/2 Tbsp more of both the hoisin and soy sauces. We served this over rice vermicelli noodles which I had attempted to pan-fry. (They didn’t turn out so great.) The stir fry was delicious and next time I will serve it over rice instead of the noodles. The noodles didn’t have much flavor and actually detracted from the rest of the dish. Snow peas were fresh from our garden. Yea for us both.

Baked Salmon (me) and Baked Tofu (husband), Stir-Fried Snow Peas with Scallions and brown rice

I baked the tofu in Book of Yum’s Yummy Grilled Tofu marinade. And the snow peas and carrots were sautéed in sesame oil with green onions. I baked my salmon with a red pepper/five spice powder rub and a rice vinegar/honey marinade. It was very tasty. Yea for us both. And yea for using up the rest of the snow peas we had from our garden this year.

Sichuan Tofu with Garlic Sauce from Fat Free Vegan

We’ve made this dish before and really enjoy it. We used canned, sliced water chestnuts instead of fresh ones. On the side we had some brown rice and steamed broccoli. I follow Susan’s recipe for the most part except I have found that we like a little more sauce in the final dish and so I double the marinade. Yea for us both.

That’s it for now. More to come this week…

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White Beans in Tomato Sauce with Sage

Posted in Beans, Pasta, Quick, Tomatoes, tagged , , , , , , , on July 7, 2010| 12 Comments »

Every time I make this meal, my husband comments that it “smells like Thanksgiving”, essentially because of the liberal use of sage. This is a family favorite that I have been making for years. I wasn’t sure where I found the original recipe but when I did a Google search I found a very similar recipe at Epicurious. The meat-eaters out there may enjoy that version although my meatless version is quite hearty and delicious too. We serve ours over Trader Joe’s Brown Rice Penne. I think this would also go well over polenta.

White Beans in Tomato Sauce with Sage

Adapted from Epicurious

1 Tbsp olive oil

2 cups chopped carrot

2 cups chopped onion

1 cup chopped celery

3 cloves of garlic, minced

3/4 tsp sage

2 – 15 oz cans of cannellini beans, drained and rinsed

1 – 14 oz can diced tomatoes

1/2 cup vegetable broth or water

Cooked pasta, 3/4 – 1 pound

In a large skillet, heat the oil. Add the carrots, onions and celery and saute for about 10 minutes, until they are beginning to soften. Stir in the garlic and sage. Cook for about 30 seconds. Add the beans, tomatoes and broth. Bring to a boil, turn down heat and simmer for about 10 minutes. Add salt and pepper to taste. Serve over pasta.

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Red Curry Coconut Noodles

Posted in Asian, Beans, Chickpeas, Coconut Milk, Pasta, Quick, Thai, tagged , , , , , , , , , on July 6, 2010| 3 Comments »

If you haven’t checked out Tasty Kitchen, I would highly recommend it. It is a project of Ree Drummond of The Pioneer Woman. Lots of goodies and plenty of inspiration over there. And you can also post your own recipes too, if you’re so inclined. I saw the following recipe and although I have another recipe similar to this one (Creamy Chickpea Curry), I thought I would try this version, substituting the chicken of course. I liked the inclusion of the additional vegetables with the broccoli slaw.

It was very tasty, although, right off the bat, I began changing it up to fit our tastes and needs.

Red Curry Coconut Noodles

Adapted from nika at Tasty Kitchen

1 Tbsp olive oil

1 onion, julienned

2 red bell peppers, julienned

1 Tbsp fresh ginger, grated

1-1/2 tsp red curry paste

2 – 15 oz cans light coconut milk

2 –  15 oz cans chickpeas, drained and rinsed

1 cup packaged broccoli slaw

1/4 cup sweet Thai chili sauce

1 package of rice noodles, such as these

2-4 cups vegetable broth

1 tsp salt

1/4 cup cilantro, chopped

Heat oil in your largest skillet. Saute onions and peppers in oil until they are beginning to soften. Add ginger and saute another minute. Stir in the curry paste and cook for 2-3 minutes. Pour in coconut milk. Bring to a boil and reduce heat to a simmer. Add chickpeas, broccoli slaw and chili sauce. Add rice noodles and enough broth to cover the noodles. Cook until noodles are tender. Stir in salt to taste. Serve in large bowls topped with cilantro.

Notes:

* The original version called for full fat coconut milk (2 cans!), I used the lower fat version and added a bit of olive oil for sauteing.

* I think you could omit the Thai chili sauce. The curry paste dominates the flavor and the chili sauce is lost.

* This was great as leftovers except that the broccoli slaw pieces got really hard and were not good the next day. Omit these if you plan on eating as leftovers.

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Meal Plan Monday, July 5, 2010

Posted in Meal Plan, tagged , , on July 5, 2010| 6 Comments »

I suppose it is Monday. With the long holiday weekend, I wasn’t really thinking it was Monday and hadn’t thought about our meal plan for the week. And then I checked my email and saw all my fellow food blogger’s Meal Plans for this week. So I got on it.

I started by looking in the refrigerator and freezer to see what needs to be eaten. We have some leftover quinoa, a couple of red bell peppers and half a bag of frozen stir fry vegetables. This past weekend we went to the Santa Fe Farmers Market and I picked up some chard to go along with my own small harvest of chard. I also harvested a bunch of basil this weekend and made some pesto.

Also, over at Gluten Free Goodness, the theme for this week’s Gluten Free Menu Swap is Summertime Foods. So with all that in mind, here’s our plan for the week:

Quinoa, Black Bean and Sweet Potato Burgers – some variation of the many recipes I have found out there with the leftover quinoa, beans and sweet potato. Served with steamed artichokes and salad.

Potato and Swiss Chard Curry –  probably with some rice or salad on the side.

Edamame and Vegetable Stir-Fry with San-J peanut sauce and brown rice.

Moroccan Chickpea Salad – one of my favorite salads, especially for summer. Omit the pita for gluten free.

Creamy Pesto Rigatoni with Chunky Tomato Vinaigrette – it’s even better when you can find fresh, ripe tomatoes but I have been craving this, so I will make it with cherry tomatoes.

This meal plan is also linked up to Meal Plan Monday at OrgJunkie.

What are you eating this week?

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Strawberry Shortcake

Posted in Cake, Dessert, Fruit, tagged , , , , , , on June 30, 2010| 2 Comments »

As I mentioned the other day, I had the opportunity to make some sweets for a couple of events over the past week. I have been loving the seasonal strawberries and so I decided to try Amy of Simply Sugar and Gluten Free’s Shortcake. It turned out great! The shortcake was very subtly sweetened, allowing the fruit and cream to supply the sweetness.

I followed Amy’s recipe to the letter and even used her All Purpose Baking Blend consisting of sweet rice flour, sorghum, cornstarch and tapioca, for the flour mix. It worked well. The cornmeal also added a nice, rustic touch to the cakes that we liked.

Since I was baking for a large group (and my husband) I made a double-batch of the recipe and baked it in a 9×13″ glass baking dish. It was the right size dish and made the pieces of cake just the right thickness to cut in half horizontally and layer with berries as we did in the picture above. It looks a little like the Leaning Tower of Shortcake…a little too much whipped cream, perhaps?

All in all, a success. And my husband and I even liked eating pieces of the shortcake by itself – not too sweet, just right. Nice job and thanks for the recipe, Amy!

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Meal Plan Monday, June 28, 2010

Posted in Meal Plan, tagged , , on June 28, 2010| Leave a Comment »

Just a quick post this evening as I try to figure out the grocery list for the week. Once again this week I am trying to work on some of the food we have in the freezer and refrigerator.

One item I need to get out of the freezer is part of a box of Sandwich Petals. I ordered two boxes of them back when they had their Buy One, Get One deal and I couldn’t eat them quick enough so I put the second box in the freezer. I hope they are still good. I couldn’t decide whether I wanted to make enchiladas or quesadillas with them… But I think in honor of not turning the oven on, I will be making quesadillas. I also have a lot of leftover shredded cheese from making pizza.

So here’s the plan:

Sichuan Tofu with Garlic Sauce and Steamed Broccoli

Black Bean Quesadillas with Rice and Salad

Lemon Quinoa Salad

Pasta with Chickpeas, Sun Dried Tomatoes and Goat Cheese

This menu plan is posted over at Org Junkie on Meal Plan Monday – be sure to check it out for other ideas.





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Easy Gluten Free Sponge Cake

Posted in Dessert, Fruit, Quick, tagged , , , , , on June 27, 2010| 6 Comments »

Strawberry season. Love it! And there have been a lot of great strawberry recipes posted out there in the blogosphere lately. So of course I needed to try some. Luckily this week I had two excuses to make some special sweet treats.

For our monthly gluten free group potluck meeting, I decided to make Easy Sponge Cake from Kate over at Gluten Free Gobsmacked. Now I was taking a chance, waiting until the morning before the noon meeting to make this, but I managed, with only one small mishap (and I always have a back up plan!). You never know…

I followed Kate’s recipe exactly. Well, almost exactly. Her instructions don’t say to accidentally break your sixth (of eight) egg yolk into the egg whites. Eek!! As you may know, if you have slightest bit of yolk in your whites, they won’t whip. Unfortunately I only had nine eggs. And now six were contaminated. So I ran to the store at 10am for more eggs. And I hate buying eggs you see, because we have our own hens! But I had saved back these eggs knowing I was going to use them because we sell our extra eggs to friends. I should have had a back-up plan because unfortunately, hens do not lay on-demand.

Standing in front of the eggs at the store, I thought about only buying six eggs, since that was all I needed, but I was afraid I would screw it up again. So I bought a full dozen. But then in the two minutes driving home, I realized I could make things easier on myself.

So, I got the new eggs and sat them in a bowl of lukewarm water in order to bring them to room temp, fast. Then I pulled out another measuring cup and one-by-one, I broke my whites into the measuring cup and one-by-one, I put the white into the bigger mixing bowl. Just in case. And it worked. No more mishaps. Lesson learned. But now I have a lot of extra eggs.

Kate’s recipe was super easy, just like she says. I used my largest jelly roll pan and it was almost too much for the pan. And I should have let it cool longer – but I was on a deadline! It probably would have come off the parchment paper better if I could have waited longer. And the cake smelled wonderful while baking – all those yummy extracts were great!

I also chose to roll mine from the long side, as Kate suggests. I can’t imagine rolling it the other way – it would have been a huge roll! I filled mine with lightly macerated strawberries and whipped cream.

As I said, the roll was quite large, more than 3 inches in diameter. It was almost too large to cut – you’ll need your long bread knife. And I had to cut it in half in order to fit it on the largest platter I have – you’ll just have to excuse its tiki theme.

I think next time I may make half a recipe and try to get the cake slightly thinner so that it rolls more easily. And has more room for a filling.

So, in the end, I made it to the meeting on time and with a lovely dessert in hand. Of course it was gone instantly! Luckily for my husband, I left a slice at home for him before I left. (It’s the picture on top here.) He agreed, delicious! I WILL be making this again!

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Meal Plan Monday, June 21, 2010

Posted in Meal Plan, tagged , , on June 21, 2010| 4 Comments »

This week I am looking around carefully at what I have in my kitchen and what I need to use up. And I was determined to use the (frozen) block of paneer from the trip to the international market! I looked in one my favorite cookbooks for a recipe and decided on the classic Muttar Paneer (Mutter Paneer, Mattar Paneer, so many different spellings, you pick…). A lovely dish of homemade cheese (paneer) and green peas in a tomato sauce.

We have also had a good crop of snow peas this year, even though I thought we planted them too late. We ate some last week but they have surprisingly kept on coming, despite the brutal heat (and lack of rain) we’ve been having here in New Mexico. So back to the cookbook shelf to see what else we might do with them.

I also have some salmon in the freezer (for me, the flexitarian) that needs to be eaten.

And I also have a couple of special events this week for which I need to bring a dish. I am thinking of making desserts for both events, but I haven’t decided which ones yet. I have been looking at the following: Slow Cooker Peanut Butter Cup Cake (who doesn’t love chocolate and peanut butter?) or Almond Butter Blondies (I need to use up some almond butter) or Gluten Free Flan Cake or GF Easy Sponge Cake (with fresh June strawberries!)…it’s official – I have too many recipes bookmarked!

As usual, just four recipes and we will eat leftovers or something out of the freezer the other three days. So here it is:

Baked Salmon (me) and Baked Tofu (husband), Stir-Fried Snow Peas with Scallions and brown rice –  the snow pea recipe is from Madhur Jaffrey’s World Vegetarian cookbook.

Muttar Paneer with rice – Muttar Paneer recipe from Indian Vegetarian Cooking from an American Kitchen by Vasantha Prasad – one of our favorite, well-worn, well-splattered cookbooks.

Spaghetti and Salad – for the one busy night when I might be getting home late.

Red Curry Coconut Noodles – with chickpeas instead of chicken. I like the addition of the broccoli slaw for more vegetables.


This Meal Plan is linked up to Meal Plan Mondays and Gluten Free Menu Swap. Check them out for more ideas!

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