Normally I’m annoyed when one of my sons tells me what he’s “going to have for dinner” before lunch time has even passed. Today though, I let it go because what my oldest ‘ordered’ happens to be my favorite thing to give him, a broccoli and tofu wrap. It’s easy, healthy, and the fact my son gets excited for it leaves me smiling no matter what kind of day it’s been. (And it actually hasn’t been a very pleasant day.) Here’s the basic recipe: lightly steam cut-up broccoli and cubed tofu with a bit of balsamic vinegar, (gluten-free) soy sauce, and a turn or two of cracked pepper. Pile that into a couple of warm tortillas, corn if gluten intolerant of course but my son’s favorite are spelt. Add some garlic sauce on top and enjoy. I usually steam more than I need of the broccoli and tofu and keep it in the fridge for warming up the next day~ it works well, plus the mixture can always end up on rice instead if that sounds better. Great weekday recipe.
Author: kristenann
Gluten free, mainly vegetarian herbalist living in beautiful Western Washington, but love to travel. My two boys have various other food intolerances including gluten, so I think and write about food quite a bit. Author of the children's book, The Knight Owl, which has it's own blog:http://theknightowlblog.wordpress.com/.
Veggie Breakfast
Lately my boys can’t get enough of gluten free waffles for breakfast, one has peanut butter on top with syrup and the other just plain syrup. I’ve tried three different brands now as well as just putting my own mix together, but it does not seem to a matter one bit~ the boys think it all tastes the same, maybe because I always add cinnamon to the batter and use vanilla almond milk. Although it smells delicious, I’ve been preferring a sweet potato for breakfast lately, and love how eating a vegetable for breakfast makes me feel healthy and not bloated. Even my skin feels smoother when I indulge in a sweet potato first thing in the morning, which is great since my skin is not liking the change of weather much. I follow this recipe on Whole Living. It is actually from the detox diet we did last January and it was one of the meals I loved enough to keep as part of my regular diet. I usually cook three sweet potatoes in the oven at once, in the evening when we are home and not busy (about an hour on 450, wrapped in foil). Then the next morning I take one out of the fridge and just have to microwave it for a minute or so, depending on how big it is, after first slicing it, squeezing some orange on it, adding the dash of salt and a good amount of cinnamon. (I don’t use the nutmeg~ personally I like it better without it.) Then after it is warm I add the almond slivers. Of course this is good any time of day, there is just something about having a vegetable at breakfast that makes me feel like I’m starting the day off right.
Sneaky Gluten
I was feeling a little bad for a couple of weeks. Not terrible, just kind of like I was fighting a little virus or something~ bit of a headache, less energy, skin looking bad, vague sense of un-well-ness. After about a week I started thinking, wait a minute, this feels like gluten! But what could it be? My diet has not varied much lately and I rarely eat out and the symptoms were persisting, telling me I was taking it in continually but it seemed in low doses because of how stealthily the bad feelings crept up. That is when I thought about the supplements I take everyday and I began to wonder when was the last time I checked to make sure those are gluten free…and let me just say as someone who used to work in the natural foods industry and as a certified herbalist I tend to take more supplements than the average human, so that’s a lot of bottles about which to keep vigilant. Sure enough, my three Whole Foods brand supplements were made in a facility that also processed wheat, etc. They weren’t made with gluten mind you, just had potential to be cross-contaminated. To be honest I was dubious these were the culprit~ am I really that sensitive? After I stopped taking them, I felt a little better the next day, and even better the day after that, and by the third day I woke up with no headache. Bingo. It is a bummer to be so sensitive although I do take those supps every day and who knows for how many months it’d been before either a. it built up in my system as a problem or b. I just had starting taking some that were indeed contaminated. It was a good reminder to keep vigilant. Now I make sure my supps have a cute little gluten-free symbol on the bottle~ these are the most common:
I’m partial to that top one…tatoo material maybe? I’m gluten-free after all. Or at least I try to be.
Rain, Pistachios, and the Essence of Laziness
If you want to know what the weather in the greater Seattle area is like this time of year just go stand under your shower with the lights off. I know there is no point in complaining, this happens every year and every year we live through it and in fact start to ignore it and then one day it is sunny and warm and lush and everyone is all smiles and hugs and it’s like the rain never even existed expect to unobtrusively water all the wonderful greenery around. It’s like all that greenery gives off some sort of “forgetting” spell and everyone says it’s so worth it and it wasn’t really that bad anyway. Kind of like giving birth actually. Except I remember giving birth and I remember the dark, dreary rain, though I wish I didn’t care. I wish I were the type of person who did not look outside when deciding if I want to take a walk or run or to stay indoors, but I am, unfortunately, a lover of dry warmth. Not that I would complain to the natives here, as they are completely incredulous that one would alter plans because of some piddling rain. It’s just rain they’d say under REI gortex as they biked on over to the nearest trail to hike. Before moving here I really considered myself an outdoors person, but now I know better, there are real outdoors poeple here, ones that actually look forward to camping and don’t mind not-warm not-dry weather and wear clothes that at any moment will facilitate a jaunt of a nearby mountain. I’m more of the really-like-to-be-outside-when-it-is-nice kind of outdoor person, which doesn’t count for much here. I can’t help it though, the rain makes me feel like staying home, being cozy, doing warm things like baking or else just being lazy. If you have had a lazy day I’m about to make you feel like a champion of productivity, because I do believe I summit-ed some kind of lazy peak today. After making it the grocery store this morning, I was moving food around the kitchen and filled up our ever disappearing pistachio jar with fresh ones when I spent a good five minutes moving the nuts around to find pistachios that had fallen out of their shell. It feels like such a bonus to find those that I just couldn’t stop~ so much salty goodness and I don’t even have to open the shells, awesome! Even if it isn’t the rain making me this lazy, the drastic difference in sunlight between now and one month ago is enough to have me lying in bed in the mornings until the last possible moment. I finally got some St.John’s Wort this past week~ it has seen me through about a decade of winters now. I have also been splashing myself with oragne essential oil which is a ‘happy’ scent and it reminds me that good things do come in winter too~ like satsumas. I’m ready for something orange, round and bright, and though I’d prefer the sun, I’ll settle for a satsuma. If only there weren’t that cumbersome peel…
Gluten Free Lunch in Kirkland~ Cactus
A couple of days ago my dad and I were walking around Kirkland for a bit of distraction before he headed to a trade show in Seattle. After coffee we decided to get lunch there too, unwilling to leave the slightly sunnier, always adorable center of Kirkland, or “little California” as my husband calls it. After narrowing our lunch choices down to “Mexican” we wandered into Cactus right in the middle of Park Lane. The atmosphere is slightly more upscale than a family style restaurant, though it is casual and I watched a young mom having lunch with her toddler a few tables over and they looked completely at home in the setting. After we sat down I started my usual gluten-sensor skimming that counts as menu reading when the waiter informed me that they have a seperate gluten free menu, oh yes! You know you can trust a restaurant when they take time to make a separate menu for the gluten intolerants. The waiter continued to be extremely helpful, somehow knowing I was vegetarian before I even said (was it the Birkenstock clogs?) and had a great recommendation for me which I never would have thought to get on my own~ Butternut squash enchalidas with spinach and mole sauce. She did bring my dad the wrong item, but he liked it anyway and later she insisted on bringing us a dessert to share because “it was our first time there” but probably actually because of the messed up order. Whatever the reason it was a thoughtful touch and we enjoyed the food and experience thorougly. Great find in Kirkland and they have several more restaurants in Seattle.
Easy Croutons (Can Be Gluten Free or Not…)
The other day I made a garlic soup following, more or less this recipe from The Splendid Table. I went the potato route with it and it turned out pretty good, though pureeing soup is one of my all time least favorite kitchen tasks. If I make it again I’ll add more garlic than the recipe suggests because it was actually quite mild and I won’t make the same mistake of letting people try the soup without the croutons, because the croutons are by far the best part of the whole meal. First of all, the recipe calls for drizzling warm butter on the finished soup before serving but that seemed over the top so I ignored that suggestion. Then you add the croutons which changes the soup from a porridge consistency (that wasn’t well received in my house) with a more soup with crunch taste~ much better! Plus the way the recipe calls for making the croutons is far easier than I had ever seen. In the past I’ve always made them by coating cut up stale bread in oil, then stirring in herbs and salt and pepper, then sticking them in the oven with occassional stirring. This recipe just says to cut up the bread, any bread, into crouton size chunks, put some olive oil in a pan and cook them up on the stove for a couple of minutes. So easy and so good! I used fresh gluten free bread~ Maninis to be exact which is sliced nice and thick, and added only Mediterranean salts while they sizzled in the olive oil . It took five minutes tops and the soup will never be the same. I also used stale sourdough bread (not gluten free) for my husband’s croutons and he loved them. In fact he ate the croutons like a main dish and ignored the bowl of soup they were supposed to support. That’s what I get for serving it plain the first time. I have a feeling I’ll be adding these croutons to a lot more soups and salads now.
Falling into the Schoolyear
So many things happen as soon as that first school bell rings at the beginning of September. It has taken me about this long to get a grip on some time to write. Though it was a non-school day (teachers got to plan. They must be collectively sitting down and wiping their foreheads, grateful the moment to plan instead of react) the day is not free from school activities. My friend picked up my youngest while dropping off her oldest about an hour ago so our oldests could play while the younger ones attend a party of some school friends. It seems there is always something to do, and even in the quiet between moments there are reading logs to fill, homework to check, and playdates to arrange. It all goes by so fast, I’ve heard it over and over, and I’ve experienced the crazy blinks of years that disappear into camera phone videos alongside pictures involving forgotten teeth, stained favorite tshirts and long lost toys. The kids are actually agonizing to look at old pictures with because it is one long whine of “where did that truck go? I remember that lego set! Let’s build it again! We actually had a fire station like that? Where is it?” In this craziness we get distant reminders to stop and soak it in, and I do try, although I must admit that soaking it in makes me feel kind of creatively nostalgic so I end up taking black and white photos, viewing the world through my camera phone which is not exactly how I want to remember these young years of my boys. We all have our phones up to our faces these days~ either texting or tweeting or photographing…I actually want to make a movie with the camera phone in the middle of the screen the whole time, and on the phone’s screen you see the little darlings of someone doing all the average things we all do daily, then all around the phone there are all kinds of crazy, beautiful, strange things going on. So like there will be the kids at a park and on the phone’s screen, but on the big screen you see like a quiet but gruesome fight take place. Then the next scene will be the kids walking on a street and the phone’s screen just shows the kids and the sidewalk and all around on the big movie screen you see intense beauty~ Fall colors, amazing architecture, meteor showers. Anyway, I’m rambling. It just feels so good to be thinking about something other than the immediate. Oh, I need to cook dinner. So much for the revery, back to the immediate.
Change is good
Currently moving platforms. Pardon the mess, under construction…
Chickpea and Lentil Stew (Whole Foods Recipe…modified)
This slow cooker recipe from Whole Foods caught my eye but I have a slight slow cooker problem…I don’t have one. People were surely making chickpea stew before the invention of slow cookers though, so I thought I would give it a try, and I’m so happy I did. It is delicious. Here’s the original recipe and below it I’ll list my modifications, which were plentiful.
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| Bad picture of yummy stew |
- 2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil*
- 1 medium yellow onion, chopped
- 1 chile pepper, such as serrano or jalapeno, stemmed, seeded and chopped, more to taste
- 4 cloves garlic, chopped
- 2 teaspoons garam masala
- 1/4 cup sesame seeds
- 2 cans garbanzo beans (chickpeas)*, drained and rinsed
- 1/2 cup dried red lentils
- 1 can tomato puree
- 2 cups vegetable broth
- 1/4 cup pitted black olives
- 1/2 cup yogurt
Heat olive oil in a pan and sauté the onions. Add peppers, garlic, garam masala and sesame seeds and cook until peppers begin to soften. Combine everything except the yogurt in the slow cooker and cook on low 8 to 10 hours. Add yogurt about 15 minutes before serving.
I added a chopped leek (it was a giant!) and one chopped carrot and left out the olives and yogurt. I used diced tomatoes because I couldn’t find puree (14.5 oz can.)
For serving it I got naan for the rest of the family but put layered it on top of fresh spinach on a warmed corn tortilla for myself. I might add a dollop of yogurt on top of the stew next time, but really it doesn’t need anything~ it is stewiliciously good. It tastes like Indian food but is not spicy at all. Seriously, not at all~ despite the warming garam masala, the garlic nor the big old hatch pepper I used, so next time I might add another pepper such as jalapeno as they suggest. This was easy and I imagine it’d be even easier with a slow cooker, though I’m just not convinced it’d really improve our family’s life at all. (If anyone wants to convince me otherwise, I’m open to changing my mind…)
I added a chopped leek (it was a giant!) and one chopped carrot and left out the olives and yogurt. I used diced tomatoes because I couldn’t find puree (14.5 oz can.)
For serving it I got naan for the rest of the family but put layered it on top of fresh spinach on a warmed corn tortilla for myself. I might add a dollop of yogurt on top of the stew next time, but really it doesn’t need anything~ it is stewiliciously good. It tastes like Indian food but is not spicy at all. Seriously, not at all~ despite the warming garam masala, the garlic nor the big old hatch pepper I used, so next time I might add another pepper such as jalapeno as they suggest. This was easy and I imagine it’d be even easier with a slow cooker, though I’m just not convinced it’d really improve our family’s life at all. (If anyone wants to convince me otherwise, I’m open to changing my mind…)
Lentil Soup Version 8.0 or so
It’s that time of year again, and waking up to the rain this morning confirmed it even more so than the kids climbing aboard the big yellow bus again~ it’s fall and soup weather has taken over for the next 9 months. This weekend my soup looked liked this: warmed one chopped yellow onion with olive oil, added a leek, broccoli, carrots, potatoes, and 3 cloves garlic, all chopped into small bits and stirred for a couple of minutes. Then I added a splash of balsamic vinegar and another splash of gluten free tamari, freshly ground black pepper, oregano, thyme and basil. Once that all looked a bit cooked but still vibrant, I added 4 cups of gluten free vegetable stock and two cups of French green lentils. (This made a very lentil-thick soup~ looked more like a stew. I might reduce the lentils to 1.5 cups next time.) Once the lentils softened a bit I added about a teaspoon or so of Mediterranean sea salts and squeezed some lemon in as the soup cooled. I tried gluten free sourdough bread from Wheatless in Seattle and it was a delicious pairing, and with such a cute name I will just have to try more of their goodies. I also made pumpkin bars from 1-2-3 Gluten Free which turned out really well. To top them I made a cream cheese icing which is really easy~ I only had neufchatel cheese so I used that~ about 4oz, and 4oz of unsalted butter. I let those warm and soften a bit before mixing them together, then adding 2 cups of powdered sugar and 1 t. of vanilla. My youngest liked it so much he said he wanted that for his next birthday cake. Easy enough!
spice of life blog 