While living in Prague my spectacular flatmate and I talked about everything under the sun, but really, the majority of the time, by a significant amount I’d say, we talked about food. Usually it was what we’d be eating if we were home right now, or in some other city, or what we ate at such and such restaurant, and what we would like to cook if only we could find the ingredients in these tiny little grocery stores. Because of that, I know far more about the frozen foods in Canada’s fine stores than any American should, and she probably will make a pilgrimage to a certain dark coffeehouse in a bad corner of Cincinnati one day. At the time we were both pescatarians in a city that is more red meat and potatoes than Texas. Needless to say, our options were limited. We lived on bread and cheese and surprise, surprise, I got horribly sick for months. At that time I was not aware of my gluten intolerance, but my natural foods background let me know it was something diet related. I started steaming broccoli for breakfast and living off Uncle Ben’s minute brown rice. And pineapple juice. Prague didn’t have much in the way of juices, but it had the best pineapple juice ever~ we drank it daily out of the same kind of box we later in the day would drink our ‘fine’ wines. The juice sections in Prague grocery stores at the time amounted to about half of an end cap. My flatmate went to Berlin over the holidays and all I remember from her trip was that the juice sections there were whole aisles, just like here. Anyway, at Trader Joe’s last night I saw they have a new pineapple juice in the cold section and I just had to try it. The ones in glass that sit on the shelf have never lived up to Prague’s standards so I have cautious hopes for this one. It isn’t organic so I won’t get it often, but in homage to my lovely friend and our days in Prague I’m going to down a glass and then throw together a sopsky’s salad, hold the fried cheese, please.
Category: gluten free food
Herbs and GF Frozen Pizza Review
Ahhh, I do love Kava. Actually I am using a combination I found at Pharmaca. It is their own brand and it has two types of Kava, Passion Flower, St.John’s Wort, Lobelia and Pulsatilla. Very good stuff. Herbs are mostly meant to be taken over a long period of time, similar to eating your greens every day, but calming herbs seem to have a very immediate effect. When I worked at natural foods stores the rule of thumb was always to take a new supplement for two months and at least two bottles of it before deciding if it works for you. That is a good general rule considering most people expect herbs to work like aspirin~ take two pills and the effects will follow immediately. But herbs are on a continuum between food and medicine and are meant to built into your diet and therefore your body. I remember this Richard Scarry book my grandmother had that had a fantastic picture of the old saying, “you are what you eat” and the older I get, the more I see how very true that is. I hate to think what exactly that makes my youngest son who is an extremely picky eater. I love this article about picky eaters because I can relate to every single part of it. I was my own family’s picky eater and turned out to be gluten intolerant. My youngest son has tested negative to food allergies, but I don’t honestly believe it. A naturopath is the next step in that mystery, and although I hate the idea of him having food allergies, especially because he eats such few foods, it would certainly be a good thing to catch early.
Speaking of gluten intolerance eating, I tried Glutino’s frozen pizza yesterday and was very impressed. The crust was delicious~ no weird taste or texture like a lot of gluten free products. The individual size was perfect for dinner although I tried to share it with my oldest son who said he’d rather not. He did share my artichoke later though, so perhaps he just wasn’t hungry at that time. The only thing I would change is the sauce was a little weak. It is probably a good sauce for kids actually, but for me I’d rather have a bit more taste in my red sauce~ specifically more garlic taste. For a frozen pizza though, it was really good.
Gluten Free Mexican style
I had a major craving for black beans on Saturday night, but had none in the house, so I ran to the store and ended up getting a whole lot more. On Sunday I cooked up the beans, which had soaked overnight, with cumin until they were almost refried beans texture. While they cooked I made guacamole: 2 avocados, 1 tomato, 1 small onion, 3 cloves of garlic, some lime juice, salt and pepper blended together. It made a lot more than I expected actually, so I’ve been eating it pretty much nonstop since it turns so quickly. After blending all that together I put it in the fridge while making corn tortillas: 1C masa harina with about 1C warm water and 1/8t of baking soda (to give it ‘lift’). After mixing, I rolled the dough into about 3 equal balls, then patted them as flat as I could before putting onto a hot pan. Once in the pan, I tried to flatten them further, but they were still the thickest corn tortillas I have ever had, but good. Next time I’m going to throw some herbs like rosemary and dill in to flavor them a bit though. After cooking on both sides, I took out a tortilla, layered on the beans and guacamole, rolled it up a bit and ate. Bliss! The only thing it was missing was some cilantro. Next time I’ll add that first, then the beans and guacamole. A good thing about this combo is that it could be done a whole lot easier with canned beans, pre-made tortillas and some guac from the store. (I love Whole Foods’ brand) but making everything from scratch was lovely.
spice of life blog 