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Posts Tagged ‘vegetarian’

On the Road Again

Posted in Travel, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on October 16, 2010| Leave a Comment »

Last month when my family was in town we took a weekend road trip down to the southern part of the state to visit White Sands National Monument and Carlsbad Caverns. I knew we would be hitting up some small towns and wasn’t sure what I would be able to eat. As well, we were headed to – and through – some less-populated areas so I knew I couldn’t count on having many food choices, let alone nutritious, gluten free food available. Sure, you can always stop at a gas station for a Snickers and some chips but nutritious gluten free road-trip foods are not always easy to find.

So, like I always do, I packed us a cooler full of yummy stuff. For this trip I packed rice crackers, hummus, carrots, cherry tomatoes, smoked gouda and pepper jack cheeses, apples, nectarines, trail mix, Kettle Korn, and Chex Mix for the gluten eaters. I also always pack multiple, reusable water bottles filled with either water or iced tea, a knife for cutting fruit and/or cheese and cloth napkins (or paper towels).

On our way down south we stopped at the Valley of Fires Recreation Area near Carrizozo to eat some lunch and check out the black volcanic rock formations. We had a nice little picnic of our packed goodies overlooking the park and a short walk along the trail as well to stretch our limbs after sitting in the car for a  while.

We continued on down the road to White Sands National Monument and checked out some of the park trails and took a Sunset Stroll with Ranger Julie. The cool, white gypsum sand felt wonderful on my bare feet – and we even got to see some wildlife!

We were on the road for a total of three days and two nights. When I have a choice, and the price is right, my preferred hotel is Hampton Inn as they have good breakfast for both my husband and I can scrounge enough off of it for me. The first hotel we stayed at had a decent, free continental breakfast. Yes, it still had all the sugar-laden, gluten-filled items but there were individual containers of gluten free yogurt. I had two (!) along with the Udi’s Vanilla granola (my favorite flavor!) and a nectarine I had brought along just for this occasion. The only fruit available were some oranges and those highly waxed Red Delicious apples that are always flavorless and mealy. So I was glad I brought some fruit of my own. They also had hard-boiled eggs, which my husband likes, since we both know we need protein to start our day.

These days, in addition to the gluten, I can not eat eggs (except in baked goods) and so eating a gluten free breakfast out is very difficult. We are usually quite happy to grab what we can from the free breakfasts and supplement with our own items.

Our next stop was Carlsbad Caverns, which was amazing. We took the natural entry trail down into the cave and walked a couple of miles within the caves.

After all that walking, we were quite hungry and had some time before the evening Bat program began, so we had another picnic from our cooler of goodies.


If you visit Carlsbad, be sure to stick around for the Bat Program. Wow. Just incredible. Massive amounts of bats leaving the cave in a big swirl every evening. They don’t allow you take pictures during the action because it disturbs the bats but I took one while walking back to the parking lot and you can see them waaay off in the distance, over on the left side in the picture below, between the farthest left  two stalks of yucca.

After this awesome experience we headed back to the town of Carlsbad to check into our hotel and find something for dinner. We found a Chili’s and since my mom had her laptop, we were able to look up their gluten free menu, which they update every month. So I had a safe dinner there that evening. The next morning though, the free breakfast was not as gluten free friendly. They had the usual bagels, sugar, muffins, sugar, cereals, sugar, but no yogurt or eggs. They did have some pre-packaged cereals that I checked out just for the heck of it, hoping for some gluten free rice Chex or something. There were bowls of Trix which apparently does not contain gluten ingredients. I don’t eat a lot of cereal, besides my Udi’s granola, so I am not sure about Trix’s true gluten free status, but it looked like it was safe, with no “May Contain Wheat” statement. So, again, I was lucky to have my granola and fruit as well as our other snacks.

We had a lovely trip exploring part of the big state of New Mexico, with no apparent, accidental glutenings!

Coming up we are headed to the Phoenix area to visit Taliesin West. I am almost more excited for all the gluten free food options in that area, than for the tour, so I will be sure to take some pictures and let you know what we find. Although, I am tempted to eat at Picazzo’s the whole weekend since they have so many gluten free options!

Of course, on this trip we will be packing a cooler again, full of necessities – and goodies! What do you like to pack for your road trips?

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Meal Plan Monday, October 4, 2010

Posted in Meal Plan, tagged , , , , on October 4, 2010| 7 Comments »

I made it to the Santa Fe Farmer’s Market on Saturday – hooray! I picked up a great haul; poblano peppers, shishito peppers, okra, kale, napa cabbage, Golden Supreme apples, Green Zebra tomatoes, Penasco Blue garlic and Cranberry Red potatoes. And I have figured out what I am doing with everything except the kale.

I want to try a raw kale salad but I haven’t had the courage to jump right in there yet. I know that Ricki over at Diet, Dessert and Dogs is just about the queen of raw kale salads but so many of them have special ingredients that I don’t keep in my house, like stevia and such. Does anyone have any suggestions for a yummy, simple, first-timer, raw, kale salad?

Since I made it to the market, it threw off our meal plan from last week a little bit. We did not get to the Lasagna or Tortilla Soup. Instead, last night we ate Quinoa Stuffed Poblanos (recipe to come!) and tonight we had some frozen homemade tamales with sautéed shishito peppers! Both the lasagna and soup are easily made from pantry staples and few fresh ingredients, so I typically save those dishes until the end of my meal planning week anyway, just in case I don’t get to them, as it happened this week. I had also planned a lot more meals than usual last week, six meals instead of my usual four. So this week, I am getting back on track and only planning five meals!

And before I forget, this week’s theme at the Gluten Free Menu Swap is Brussels Sprouts! We love Brussels Sprouts! I did not see any at the farmer’s market yet but I know I can get some at the store so I added them to our menu this week. Our favorite way to eat them is roasted with a little olive oil and salt and then drizzled with balsamic vinegar when they come out of the oven. Or sprinkled with a little Parmesan cheese. And to think that two years ago I had never eaten a Brussels Sprout! This week’s host for the Swap is Celiacs in the House, so go on over and see what everyone is up to!

Now, for the plan:

Roasted Tofu with Roasted Vegetables (okra, potatoes, carrots, onions, and Brussels sprouts)

Napa Noodles – to use the napa cabbage and edamame as protein

Creamy Pesto Pasta with Chunky Tomato Salsa – I need to work on my basil plant, before the frost hits! More frozen basil cubes are probably in my future too!

Tex-Mex Lasagna – from last week

Tortilla Soup – also from last week

As for our sweet treat for the week, I am trying to decide which flavor of ice cream to make. This past week I made Simply Sugar and Gluten Free’s Coconut Chai Spice Ice Cream. It was tasty, although my husband and I aren’t sure we really like coconut milk ice creams. I suppose if we couldn’t have dairy, we’d probably love these ice creams. But we can and so far we’ve found them to be a bit too coconuty for us. So a dairy-filled treat for us this week it is. Either Chocolate Chip Salted Butter Caramel Ice Cream or Nutella Ice Cream. Decisions, decisions, huh?!

What’s on your menu this week?

This meal plan is also cross-posted over at OrgJunkie. Check it out for a ton of menu ideas, some gluten free, some vegetarian, and some not!

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Sushi Rice Bowls

Posted in Asian, Japanese, Rice, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on October 1, 2010| 10 Comments »

Do you like sushi? We sure do! I wish we could go out for sushi more often. Unfortunately we don’t have a sushi place very close to our house. Plenty of New Mexican food, but not a lot of Asian options available, let alone gluten free Asian options.

Of course since my husband is vegetarian we like a lot of vegetarian sushi; cucumber rolls, avocado rolls and before I became intolerant to eggs, tamago nigiri (sweet egg omelet). (I also learned that the tamago often have soy sauce in them, which typically isn’t gluten free.) Now I have branched out from only eating the vegetarian rolls and I like Spicy Tuna and Philadelphia rolls too. My husband will also often get the Green Chile Tempura rolls (only in New Mexico!), which unfortunately are not gluten free.

But simple sushi at home? Yes you can! A few months ago I saw a recipe for sushi rice salad on Dana Treat’s blog, Treat Yourself, and knew I had to try it. We have made sushi rolls before but they are quite a bit of work so I thought this might be easier. And it was! These ‘scattered sushi bowls’ do have an actual name, they are called Chirashizushi.

Below I have adapted her recipe to better suit our tastes. One particular change I made was to broil the tofu. I like tofu fairly dry and chewy. You could also try dry-frying it. We also felt like there was too much of the vinegar-sugar sauce for the amount of rice, so we upped the rice quite a bit.

Sushi Rice Bowls

Adapted from Dana Treat, Treat Yourself

Serves 4-6

2 cups long grain rice or brown rice, uncooked

8 oz. extra firm tofu, cut into small cubes

1/4 cup + 2 tbsp. rice wine vinegar

1/4 cup sugar

1 1/2 tsp. salt

1 tbsp. vegetable oil

finely chopped pickled ginger

green onions, thinly sliced

shredded carrots

cucumber, seeded and chopped

1 sheet nori (seaweed), cut with kitchen shears into small pieces

avocado, chopped

toasted sesame seeds

Dressing:

1 tsp. wasabi paste

3 tbsp. water

2 tbsp. soy sauce, gluten free

2 tsp. pickled ginger juice

Start cooking the rice in your rice cooker or on the stove.

Turn on broiler. Cut tofu slabs into small 1/4-1/2″ cubes. Place in a greased, foil-lined baking dish. Place under the broiler for 10 minutes, stir and broil for 10 more minutes. Allow to cool. (Don’t place your rack too close to the broiler as you don’t want the tofu to burn but instead dry out and firm up. Your oven may be different from mine. Check your tofu frequently until you know how it does under your broiler. My oven is feisty. Also, I cooked up the entire pound of tofu and put half in the frig for something else. Pictures below.)

When the rice is finished cooking, transfer to a large, shallow bowl and spread out to cool.

Meanwhile, in a small saucepan, stir rice vinegar into sugar and salt. Bring to a boil and stir often, until the sugar dissolves. Remove from heat. Pour over cooled rice, drizzle oil over rice and stir gently to mix.

Mix together dressing ingredients. Add more wasabi if you wish. (My husband does not like too much wasabi, just a tad so you taste it. This is surprising coming from He-Who-Loves-to-Sweat-While-Eating.)

Spoon rice into bowls. Top with remaining ingredients and a couple spoonfuls of the dressing. Enjoy!

Notes:

* Rice vinegar, pickled ginger, nori and wasabi can be found in the Asian food section of most large supermarkets. Also, toasted sesame seeds can often be found there in large containers for a cheaper price than in the regular spice section.

* I have also made a Philadelphia Roll version of this before by adding tiny bits of cream cheese, cucumber and chopped smoked salmon instead of the cucumber, carrots, green onions, avocado and tofu. I have also been known to add chopped tomato. Yum!

This post is linked to Slightly Indulgent Tuesdays at Simply Sugar and Gluten Free. Thanks, Amy! And also, Gluten Free Wednesdays over at The Gluten Free Homemaker.

 

Tofu cubes before they went under the broiler.

 

 

Broiled tofu cubes.

 

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Meal Plan Monday, September 27, 2010

Posted in Meal Plan, tagged , , , on September 27, 2010| 7 Comments »

Well, it’s been a couple of weeks since I have done any serious meal planning. We’ve been eating a lot of whatever-we-can-come-up-from-the-cabinets and frozen stuff, not to mention the tamales in the freezer. I have been off my regular grocery shopping schedule. And I haven’t had any time to go to the Farmer’s Market. Boo. But this next weekend I am already planning to go to the Farmer’s Market and then I was hoping to head up to Dixon’s Apples, but it looks like they are already out of my favorite apple, the Champagne. They have only been open since Thursday! Wow! I knew I should have gone up today but alas, I needed to go into the office. Oh yeah, that’s the other thing that has been wreaking havoc on my meal planning. Unexpected overtime and late meetings.

Okay, enough whining already and on to the main purpose of today’s post – a meal plan! But first, one more thing…I recently got a few new cookbooks. Of course, this one:

Gluten Free Girl and The Chef by Shauna James Ahern and Daniel Ahern

I haven’t made anything from it yet but I will be sure to let you know when I do!

I also recently joined Paperback Swap and have a wish-list a mile long. (I love to read instead of watch TV.) I also love to browse through cookbooks. So I have wish-listed just a few cookbooks… This is one of the ones I recently received:

Vegetarian Planet by Didi Emmons

There are a lot of wonderful ideas in here. In fact, we have one of them on the schedule for this week.

And this one:


Fast Vegetarian Feasts by Martha Rose Shulman

So, you’ll probably be seeing some renditions of items out of these cookbooks. There are some great ideas in all of them.

Okay, for real, the menu plan. This week’s theme for the Gluten Free Menu Swap is pears. Unfortunately I don’t like pears. So no pears here this week. But there are lots of other yummy things on the list this week! If you do like pears (and even if you don’t), go check out the other ideas at the Menu Swap. This week is hosted by Cheryl of Gluten Free Goodness.

Our plan:

Peanut Noodles with Tofu (we had this tonight – recipe to follow soon)

Tex-Mex Lasagna with Salad

Penne with Red Pepper Sauce and Broccoli from Vegetarian Planet by Didi Emmons

Tortilla Soup with Tamales or Salad

Sushi Bowls

Tofu with Spicy Vegetables and Rice

Unfortunately there is a lot of tofu and pasta on the menu this week. I usually try to avoid eating tofu more than once, maybe twice, a week, as I like to mix up my protein sources. But apparently I wasn’t paying attention when I wrote this up and then went to the store. I am sure we’ll be fine this week but next week we probably won’t be eating too much tofu!

What’s on your menu this week? Any new cookbooks that you are enjoying?


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Falling Into Autumn

Posted in Cookies, Dessert, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on September 25, 2010| 19 Comments »

The nights are getting cooler and the days are not quite so warm. The sun is sinking low in the sky earlier. And the corn stalks in the garden are drying up.

Autumn is coming and with it, my food cravings are beginning to change. The past week or two I have been craving some of those autumn foods, like pumpkin and cozy soups. And it may be because I have a couple of pie pumpkins and butternut squash ripening in the garden. But those pumpkins can’t ripen fast enough for me, so I went to get some canned pumpkin…

Have you been able to find canned pumpkin lately? Normally the stores carry it year-round and I can get some anytime I want, but this past year was different. No pumpkin to be found. Did you know there was a pumpkin shortage this past year? Last year in Illinois, where most pumpkins are grown, there was excessive wet weather which caused a particularly bad harvest. But things are going better this year and they are expecting to have a good harvest. Thankfully! And thankfully there will be pumpkin pie for Thanksgiving, no worries!

Since I knew pumpkin has been hard to find, I asked my buddy Heidi over at Adventures of a Gluten Free Mom, also known as Gluten-Free CNN, if she had seen any around town. She gets around to all the stores and I knew that if it was to be found, she’d know where! Sure enough, she said that Whole Foods had some this past week. It wasn’t Libby’s but Farmer’s Market brand, which I had never heard of – but it was pumpkin! Heidi said she had left me a few cans, so I ran over there and grabbed some.

I had plans to make my pumpkin chocolate chip muffins but thought I would change things up a little. I decided on Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies instead! If you have never tasted pumpkin and chocolate together, you have to try it – absolutely delicious!

Last night I was trying to decide what to make for our monthly celiac support group meeting/potluck and I knew I needed to use up some of the Gluten Free Pantry mixes that I had bought at our local Smith’s in the clearance baskets (I can’t resist buying gluten free items when they end up in there!). My favorite chocolate chip cookies are made with the Gluten Free Pantry’s French Bread and Pizza mix, so I figured I would start there. I looked around a bit and came up with the recipe below.

As I was making them, my husband stated that I had to leave half of them at home! He hates it when I make sweets for an event and take them for others to eat and leave him none at home. Oops! But oh-so-much-better for my waistline! So since I was playing with the recipe, I went ahead and ended up with almost a double batch. So he got some of his own. But there are still too many on the counter for my comfort, so I anticipate some will be going to work with one or both of us on Monday!

We had lots of delicious things at our meeting today. Heidi brought some delicious Raspberry Cheesecake Brownies that I am hoping she will post on her blog soon! These cookies were devoured at the meeting today, so I hope you will enjoy them too.

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies

Inspired by many, but an original by Renee

Makes about 3 dozen cookies

2 cups of The Gluten Free Pantry’s French Bread and Pizza Mix

2 tsp baking powder

1 tsp salt

3/4 tsp cinnamon

a generous pinch of each: ground ginger, ground cloves, nutmeg

1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened

3/4 cup sugar

1 egg

1 cup canned pumpkin puree

1 tsp vanilla extract

1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. Grease your cookie sheets. In a medium bowl, mix together the flour, baking powder, salt and spices. Set aside. Cream the butter and sugar together with your hand mixer. Add the egg and thoroughly combine. Then add the pumpkin and vanilla and mix well. Slowly add the flour mixture and mix until combined. Fold in the chocolate chips.

Using a teaspoon, scoop out small balls of cookie dough onto your greased cookie sheets. Use wet hands to smooth the cookie dough, if desired. Bake 12-14 minutes or until the edges begin to brown slightly. These cookies will be soft and more cake-like than most.

This recipe is cross-posted over at Slightly Indulgent Tuesdays at Simply Sugar and Gluten Free.

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Meal Plan Monday, September 13, 2010

Posted in Meal Plan, tagged , , , , on September 13, 2010| 2 Comments »

Did you know that today, Monday, is National Celiac Awareness Day? What a great day for a Gluten Free Menu Swap! Besides it being Monday and that’s what we do… But anyway, it is, and here’s how it came to be on September 13th:

“What is the significance of September 13? That is the date of Samuel Gee’s Birthday in 1839, who is credited with finding the link between celiac disease and diet. Gee felt that “if the patient can be cured at all, it must be by means of diet.”

Did you also see that in honor of today, P.F. Chang’s restaurant, one of the first restaurants to have a gluten free menu, has released a new gluten free dessert – Triple Chocolate Mousse Mini Dessert – and they posted some of their gluten free recipes on their website? How cool is that?!

But now, back to your regularly scheduled programming…Meal Plan Monday!

This week’s Gluten Free Menu Swap theme is beans and is hosted by Heather at Celiac Family. Surprisingly I am not doing too much with beans this week. Unless soybeans as tofu counts? Probably not. But if you’re looking for bean recipes, there are plenty of them around here. Check out Italian White Beans and Polenta, Sweet Potato, Quinoa and Black Bean Burgers or Three Bean Tacos for more bean ideas.

And be sure to check out the other menus at the Gluten Free Menu Swap and over at Org Junkie.

As I mentioned in yesterday’s post, we have company coming to town and we are planning on traveling a bit, so I am not planning too much for meals this week. I will have a couple of things on hand to make when and if we want to, but nothing serious is planned. I will also make sure that we have appropriate road-trip food to take with us. What are your favorite road trip foods?

Otherwise, I’ll have ingredients for the following on-hand:

Spicy Tofu with Vegetables and rice and a Spicy Cucumber Salad– the tofu is a favorite recipe from The Complete Book of Thai Cooking by Linda Stephens

Homemade Tamales, of course, with Spanish rice, salad and guacamole.

Mattar Paneer and/or Saag Paneer with rice.

Grilling stuff – chicken, tofu, potatoes and mixed vegetables.

And as for traveling food, we typically take a cooler and bag with cheese, fruit (grapes and apples), crackers, baby carrots, granola/granola bars, KIND bars, M&M’s, trail mix and candied ginger. Sometimes we’ll also take hummus, yogurt and salsa and chips. And if we’re staying at a hotel, I’ll often throw in a bag or two of microwave popcorn and some instant gluten free ‘ramen’ noodles.

So that’s it for this week. Hopefully next week I will be back to cooking more and will post a more interesting menu!



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I’m Back!

Posted in General, tagged , , , , , , , , on September 12, 2010| 6 Comments »

Hello world! Sorry to be MIA for so long but we’ve had a lot going on. I think in my last post we were headed out-of-town to visit friends in Boulder, CO. The day before we left, my company laid off another 30 people. I, luckily, was not one of them. So it was a much-needed getaway after that chaos and we had a great time eating lots of yummy gluten free food and drinking some gluten free beer. But more on that later! Boulder and Denver are both very gluten free friendly. Check out the Boulder Farmer’s Market below.

After we returned from our trip we packed up our house (except for the kitchen and master bed/bath) and put everything in the garage in order for our concrete floors to be stained. It took the contractor quite a bit longer than anticipated – six days to remove the existing paint from the floors and then two days to stain, seal and wax it. Ugh. And during that time one of our dogs got kennel cough so he couldn’t stay at the kennel, making things a bit more complicated than they had to be! Isn’t that always the case? So we spent two days at the Days Inn down the street with two dogs. (Days Inn is one hotel/motel chain that allows dogs.) During this time we had no internet connection since everything was unplugged in the office and our laptop, when we had a connection at the hotel, is slower than molasses and about to croak. So I didn’t get a lot accomplished online during this time. Sorry!

And in case you’re ever thinking of doing it, can I just say, don’t ever paint your concrete floors!!! The previous owner ripped up all the carpet in the house and painted the concrete slab. And while they didn’t look horrible painted, they were starting to show some wear. But the amount of work to get paint off of concrete so that you can do anything to the floors is incredible. A couple of months ago we attempted to remove the paint ourselves. Can I just say that there were a lot of swear words and tears involved with that? Don’t. Do. It.

So I called a contractor I had met on the USGBC-NM Green Built Tour. We ended up paying him as much money to remove the paint as it cost to stain the floors. But now we have beautiful floors!

And now for the past week, we have been working on putting the house back together and purging some of the unnecessary stuff we’ve accumulated. My husband has also been working on sanding and refinishing the baseboards, which aren’t back on yet.

So…it has been busy around here and we’ve been eating a lot on the fly and simple stuff that doesn’t take too much time to prepare. Those tamales we made a while back and stuffed in the freezer sure have come in handy!

We also needed a new car. So we finally bought one! During the rest of the chaos! Yeah! Yes, we’re crazy to do so many things at once! A new Toyota RAV4 with plenty of space in the back for two pups and 4 adults! We already took it up to the mountains – to escape from the contractors working through the weekend at our house. We found a lovely stream to walk along where the pups could splash.

The wildflowers were gorgeous, the butterflies and dragonflies were flitting about and there were plenty of mushrooms for my husband to discover. We can’t wait to get out more and explore this beautiful state with the two dogs and our new car.

This week we have visitors coming to town, my mom and stepdad, and so we will be getting in the new car again and traveling south for the first time, down to Carlsbad Caverns and/or White Sands.

Do any of you have any recommendations for particular trails to hike, things to see, places to eat or stay in either of those areas?

I will be checking in tomorrow with a Meal Plan and I will post more now that we have our internet connection back and the house put together!

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Meal Plan Monday, August 16, 2010

Posted in Meal Plan, tagged , , on August 16, 2010| 6 Comments »

This week’s Gluten Free Menu Swap theme is zucchini and summer squash and it is being hosted by Scrumptious of In My Box, a blog about how she uses up all the goodies that show up in her weekly CSA box. (CSA = community-supported agriculture. Check this out for more information.) Scrumptious and I would love to be neighbors since we’re always ooing and aahing over each others meal plans. We’d be eating at each others homes all the time. I think we could learn from each other too. Too bad we live 1100 miles apart. Perhaps some day when we have our ‘commune’, we’ll invite Scrumptious to come live with us as we seem to be kindred spirits. (Yes, we dream of our own little co-housing community of like-minded folks with chickens, bees, goats and alpacas. Weird, I know.)


Here at the Beyond Rice and Tofu household, we don’t care for zucchini or summer squash, so we won’t be participating in the theme. Although, we do have quite a few cucumbers to eat – they are in the curcubit family and gourd family, similar to squash, so does that count?

When we first moved to New Mexico we frequently found calabacitas on the menu, especially in New Mexican dishes. Since we didn’t want to look like a couple of Midwestern gringos, we didn’t ask. Well, it only took once to discover that we don’t like calabacitas – zucchini, squash and often corn together and frequently used as a filling for burritos or as a side dish. We just don’t care for the summer squashes. But we are beginning to enjoy winter squashes and luckily we have a few butternut growing in the garden this year. So, now that we have the issue of squash out of the way…

This week will be a short one for us as we are heading out of town to visit friends. So I did not go to the farmer’s market this weekend. Boo. And I am also trying to use up what is in the frig and not make too much so there aren’t too many leftovers. But if we get really desperate, there are more than 4 dozen tamales in the freezer for us (but I think we may be tamale’d out for a couple of weeks).

Spicy Tofu with Vegetables and Rice from The Complete Book of Thai Cooking by Linda Stephens – it’s becoming an old standby.

Spicy Cucumber Noodle Salad with Edamame – a new-to-us recipe that I had bookmarked a while back . I will use gf spaghetti instead of soba noodles as I have yet to find 100% buckwheat noodles. Most are made from a mixture of buckwheat and wheat. (BTW: Buckwheat is naturally gluten free, and is not wheat at all, unless it’s mixed with wheat of course.)

Veggie Burgers and Cucumber Salad with Spicy Thai Lime Vinaigrette – we had this salad a couple of weeks ago and it was fabulous!! A few minor changes for us, we omitted the carrots and instead of fish sauce I used GF soy sauce. Delish!

And if we need it – Red Beans and Rice with some added leftover vegetarian chorizo.

Well, that’s it for us this week! I hope to have some fun pictures and gluten free info from our travels this coming week. Over and out!

This meal plan is linked to OrgJunkie and the Gluten Free Menu Swap. Check out both for a ton of meal planning ideas!

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Sun Dried Tomato and Spinach Pesto

Posted in Chickpeas, Pasta, Quick, Spinach, tagged , , , , , , , on August 15, 2010| 8 Comments »

I love pesto. But my husband does not. So it is one of those things I make for myself, and I only make him eat it occasionally. This summer I have been keeping a small bowl of traditional basil pesto in the frig and I have been enjoying it smeared on toasted Udi’s or Canyon Bakehouse bread with a slice of fresh mozzarella and a slice or two of tomato. So delicious.

I had made some basil pesto earlier this week because my basil plants needed trimming and when I was digging around for something for lunch today, I found some leftover brown rice penne.  So I lightly heated up the pasta (add a bit of water and put a lid loosely on it – I’ve found that it helps to reheat leftover gluten free pasta slightly, even if eating it cold or room temperature) and stirred in a big spoonful of pesto. Then I sliced up some cherry tomatoes and added a few little chunks of fresh mozzarella, salt and fresh ground pepper. What a delicious lunch!

But I have also been known to make other types of pesto. A while back I made sun-dried tomato and spinach pesto. And when I saw Linda’s Pesto Challenge over at The Gluten Free Homemaker, I knew I needed to post this recipe since it has been languishing in my “future posts” folder for about six weeks now. I initially made this back when I was still harvesting a lot of spinach. No spinach growing right now, but it is almost time to plant spinach for a fall harvest.

Sun Dried Tomato and Spinach Pesto and Pasta

Inspired by all, but an original recipe by Renee

1 pound bag of brown rice penne *

3 cups fresh spinach, divided

4 oz sun-dried tomatoes in oil, drained

3 cloves garlic

1/4 tsp salt

1/8 tsp pepper

olive oil

1-15 oz. can garbanzo beans, drained and rinsed

1-15 oz. can artichoke hearts in water, drained and coarsely chopped *

4 oz goat cheese, crumbled

Cook pasta according to directions. If you are making gluten free pasta, be sure to use a lot of water, more than you would for regular pasta. And be sure to stir the pasta frequently when you begin cooking it as it can clump together easily. Drain pasta. (Drain pasta into a colander with the remaining spinach in it if you prefer your spinach to be wilted.)

In a food processor, combine 1 cup of spinach leaves, tomatoes, garlic, salt and pepper. Pulse it while slowly adding enough olive oil until it is of a pesto consistency. Taste and adjust according to your preference.

Stir pesto into warm pasta and remaining 2 cups of spinach leaves. Add chickpeas and artichoke hearts and top with crumbled goat cheese. Easy, delicious and nutritious!

Notes:

* My preferred gluten free pasta is Trader Joe’s brown rice pasta. For this dish I used the penne but you could use any shape. My other favorite pasta is Tinkyada, which may be the same as Trader Joe’s pasta, just under a different label.

* I prefer the artichoke hearts that are canned in water, not oil. I typically find them at Trader Joe’s. And depending on what I am making with them, I will buy the water or oil.

**This post is linked to The Gluten Free Homemaker’s Pesto Challenge on Gluten Free Wednesdays and Simply Sugar and Gluten Free’s Slightly Indulgent Tuesdays.** And be sure to check out past Gluten Free Wednesday pesto posts here.

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Meal Plan Monday, August 9, 2010

Posted in Meal Plan, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on August 9, 2010| 26 Comments »

Last week’s meal plan got derailed by a trip to the Farmer’s Market as well as time to finally make something we’d been wanting to make for a while now – tamales!!! About a year ago we bought the book, Tamales 101 by Alice Guadalupe Tapp. We have both read through it multiple times and drooled over the recipes. Last Christmas, we thought we might make them but I don’t have a stand mixer and the mixing of the masa by hand was a bit intimidating. But I knew that other people make them without, it was just an excuse for a mixer! But still I refrained from buying one and so we didn’t make them. Finally, when my in-laws were here a couple of weeks back we thought we might make them then since four pairs of hands seemed better than two. But we ran out of time.

So this weekend, my husband was determined. We made two kinds, Green Chile and Cheese (vegetarian) tamales and a dessert tamale, Raspberry Chocolate pecan. They were both wonderful!!! Both recipes were from Tamales 101. It’s a great book. And it isn’t really very hard, once you get the hang of it. My handy-dandy hand mixer also managed the challenge just fine. Here are some photos for your drooling pleasure.

A giant bowl of masa.

The mess of assembly.

Green Chile and Cheese tamales steaming in the pot.

Green Chile and Cheese on the left and the Raspberry Chocolate Pecan on the right.

Between that and  trying to take care of the things in the frig that needed to be eaten or ‘dealt’ with and impulse-buying at the farmer’s market, I really don’t need to buy much at the grocery tomorrow.

Also, this week, the Gluten Free Menu Swap is being hosted by Celiac Family and the theme is tomatoes! Who isn’t eating tomatoes right now? It’s prime time. Last week I made white bean gazpacho with some of my tomatoes. I wish I had more tomatoes coming on than I do but we have been struggling with pests this year and both of my big, beautiful San Marzano paste tomato plants are slowly dying. But our Black Russian and Stupice varieties are beginning to come on. So we’re still hoping for more tomatoes, I just wish it was the San Marzanos.

At the farmer’s market I picked up some more beets, some okra, oyster mushrooms, leeks, tomatillos, three different kinds of fingerling potatoes and some cute little Japanese shishito peppers.

So, for the meal plan:

Mushroom and Leek Pasta with Salad – we made this tonight and it was delicious. I used the oyster mushrooms and leeks I picked up at the farmer’s market. Thanks for a wonderful recipe, Jenn!

Cucumber and Avocado Soup, Sauteed Fingerling Potatoes, Oven Roasted Okra – the soup never got made last week as my avocados were not ripe. But I still have plenty of cucumbers! And thanks to Amy at Simply Sugar and Gluten Free for the idea of roasting the okra.

Our very own tamales with shishito peppers and tomatillo salsa – I will fry the peppers in very hot oil and sprinkle with salt. And we will roast the tomatillos with some garlic and onions and make a salsa out of them. Great for dipping the tamales in!

Sesame Maple Roasted Tofu with roasted beets and stir-fried sugar snap peas

And lots of leftovers!

As for desert this week, we still have homemade vanilla frozen yogurt, David Lebovitz’s cherries in red wine sauce, Shirley’s honey cinnamon ice cream and of course, the raspberry chocolate pecan tamales. So there is probably no need for additional ice cream this week.

If you are looking for any more meal ideas, be sure to check out OrgJunkie and all the ideas over there (most are not gluten free or vegetarian).

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