Beyond Rice and Tofu

Well, it has been a few weeks since I have posted, but that doesn’t mean I haven’t been cooking! Although, we have had a variety of things going on, preventing me from experimenting too much in the kitchen.

Last week we had family visiting and we convinced them to help us make a new batch of tamales with my new stand mixer. Can you believe that in 16+ years of being gluten free that I have never owned a stand mixer? Some people probably think that’s a little strange. But if you know me, or have been around here long enough, you know that I am not much of a baker. If I make bread, I now make the no-knead boule which uses no mixer. And so it was the promise of more homemade tamales that finally led me to buy a stand mixer. Mixing masa by hand is not my idea of fun, and I had finally burnt up my hand mixer, after 16 years. So, off to Costco I went for a new mixer!

KitchenAid Pro-Line 575 watts with all-steel gears - for only $250 at Costco! Cheaper and more powerful than the 'Artisan' ones at BBB and Kohls. Woo-hoo!

We made another full batch of Green Chile-Cheese Tamales and a half a batch of sweet ones – Pumpkin Chocolate Chip. They were both wonderful. And now we have a bunch of frozen tamales to grab when needed. Yum.

This past week I was feeling under the weather – between the juniper and Siberian elm pollen – whew! And then I wasn’t sure whether I was getting a cold on top of it all. Turns out it was *just* allergies gone haywire. Whatever you do, don’t believe someone if they tell you to move to the Southwest “for your allergies”. It isn’t true!!! There are certain times of the year when our allergies here are waaay worse than they were back in Chicago and Ohio. So I didn’t feel much like doing anything except make this Miso Vegetable Noodle Soup. (Watch the ingredients in the miso paste, some contain barley! And so I use whatever ‘color’ of miso I can find that is gluten free.  I also just use GF brown rice spaghetti.)

Juniperus monosperma - One-seed Juniper - the evil one in this ecosystem we know as Pinyon-Juniper.

And it's prolific male pollen. ~ah-choo!~

This week I am back to cooking, as long as the juniper pollen stays at bay! I was rooting around in the deep freezer this afternoon and found a few things that could stand to be eaten up, so you’ll see those below. I also worked on our taxes and a revised monthly household budget this weekend so I am feeling especially frugal today!

How much do you spend on groceries and eating out every month? I am curious. I think we spend a lot for a two-person household, but then again we don’t eat out more than once or twice a month, unless we’re traveling or have company, so pretty much ALL of our food is purchased from the grocery store(s). I rarely bake and I don’t buy a whole lot of “prepackaged” gluten free items, I don’t eat much meat, and so I thought we were probably doing well. But in looking back over the past three months, we spend an average of $150 per week for two people, including household and personal items like toilet paper and deodorant. This seems like a lot to me. If you feel comfortable, share below how much you spend each week (or month) on groceries. I know I can reduce our monthly bill…any tips?

This week’s menu swap theme is eggs and Heather at Celiac Family is the host. Despite having our own hens, we don’t do a lot with eggs. I am allergic to them, except when baked. So, hubby eats the majority of our eggs, unless I do get the urge to bake something. Go on over and check things out for more meal planning inspiration.

And now, on to our plan for the week:

Three Bean Tacos – this favorite makes a lot and I think the leftovers are even better the next day as taco salad, nachos, etc.

Quinoa, Shrimp, Avocado and Lemon Salad – minus the shrimp for us, perhaps some chickpeas instead.

Sloppy Lentils with Napa Cabbage Salad with Red Bell Pepper and a Dijon-Ginger Dressing – the lentils are from Stephanie O’Dea’s cookbook, More Make It Fast, Cook It Slow, and pulled from my freezer. And I will need to use up the leftover napa cabbage from last week’s Miso Vegetable Noodle Soup I mentioned above.

Tofu Vegetable Stir-Fry with San-J Peanut Sauce over Rice – I love having the San-J GF sauces handy because I can whip up a quick vegetable stir-fry with frozen vegetables, maybe some tofu and sauce. (Did you see that there is a new-to-me sauce out called Asian BBQ? Sounds delicious!) The sauces are one of those prepackaged items I will buy, especially since I frequently find coupons for them. And since I found a stray package of frozen stir-fry vegetables in the deep freezer…

Pizza with salad or leftover Napa Salad from above – a frozen gluten-full pizza for the hubby and a Chebe one for me, perhaps with some barbecue chicken, balsamic onions, mozzarella cheese, and cilantro for me (my take on CPK’s BBQ chicken pizza). Chebe bread has been a stand-by for us for years. It was one of the first edible pizza crusts around. I just use their Original Cheese Bread mix as my crust. I haven’t tried their actual Pizza Crust Mix. Have you?

So, I am interested to hear…how much do you spend per week or month on groceries for how many people?

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This week I am just hurriedly posting my plan…my brain hasn’t been in meal planning mode, nor much of  a cooking mood. Not sure why. But we still have to eat and I still have to get groceries tomorrow night. So here it is, nothing too extravagant:

Veggie Burgers with Wild Rice Tabouli

Roasted Tofu with Roasted Brussels Sprouts with Asian Vinaigrette

Roasted Fennel, Tomato and Chickpea Soup

Potato and Green Bean Sambar with Brown Rice – from one of our tried and true cookbooks, one of the oldest in our ‘collection’, Indian Vegetarian Cooking from an American Kitchen by Vasantha Prasad.

Five Spice Chicken (Tofu) Noodle Salad

Pierogies with Salad

Be sure to jump over to Celiacs in the House to check out some other menu plans. The theme this week is cauliflower and I think I might have to add that roasted cauliflower with curry to a future plan – it looks delicious!

And in more exciting news, I am finally buying a Kitchenaid stand mixer since the hand mixer I have had since college, and my celiac diagnosis, has finally died after 16 happy years together. Hubby keeps asking for tamales, and I think last year when we made tamales, that it was the beginning of the end for my mixer. So there may be tamales in our (very near) future!

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There are typically two evenings a week that I do not actually make dinner and rely on leftovers or something from the freezer. That is why you typically only see me post four meals or so a week. And this weekend I was finally craving warm soups. As I looked through my cookbooks for some inspiration I realized that there were quite a few soups that sounded especially nice. So today (Sunday), I decided to fire up both crockpots so that a good part of this week’s meals are already made. Yay! I know I will definitely enjoy my forethought even more later this week.

So, can you call soup that you cook and put immediately into the frig, leftovers? Not in my book. Especially since a lot of soups and stews are even better the second day, right?

Black Bean Chili with Winter Squash-Smoked Gouda Pupusas – we ate this for dinner tonight. The pupusas were awesome (recipe from Vegetarian Planet) and the slow-cooker chili recipe came from one of our well-used cookbooks, Fresh from The Vegetarian Slow Cooker.  (Yes, the pupusas were on last week’s menu but we didn’t get to them.)

Corn-Red Pepper-Potato Chowder with massaged kale salad – we still have kale! And the chowder recipe is also from Fresh from The Vegetarian Slow-Cooker, see above.

New Mexican Green Chile and Pinto Bean Enchiladas – it’s been time for pinto beans and green chile but I haven’t yet been in the mood for them until this week, so I am bringing this recipe back out.

Sweet Potato Kale Pizza with Rosemary and Red Onion – I’ll make this on an Udi’s crust and hubby will eat his own glutenous pizza.

Have you moved into a fall food mood finally, like me? Or did you move into winter this weekend with the surprise snow? Thankfully it was still sunny and warm here.

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