Gluten-free cooking

While planning the menu for my husband's birthday party, I was faced with a challenge.  How can I feed my dear, gluten-free friend Karen without making her sick?  Rather than making one dish just for her, I decided to deglutenize dinner entirely!

First off, major kudos to Hannaford for having a whole gluten-free section.  Thanks for making my life easy.

Entree 1: Lasagna
Easy. I picked up some rice noodles, made one pan of lasagna with meat sauce, and one pan with marinara sauce. Hannaford carries DeBoles noodles; I don't know if they're the Rolls Royce of gluten-free noodles or what, but use enough cheese and sauce and anything will taste fine.

Entree 2: Chicken Parmesan
I had fun with this.  The store sold bags of readymade gluten-free bread crumbs, but they were really expensive for such a small bag.  In a rare flash of brilliance, I bought two loaves of sliced white gluten-free bread and decided to make my own.

1. Get toasty.  Throw the slices right on the rack at 250 degrees. Bake for 10, then flip and bake for another 10.
   
   I was glad to do this because I tasted a "raw" slice, and honestly? Yuck. Burn, nasty bread, burn!
   
2. Pulverize!  Throw those slices into the food processor and process the shit out of it. 
3. Spice it up.  Add parsley, oregano, basil, garlic powder, onion powder and salt.  Just eyeball it until it looks like the stuff you buy in a can.
   
   That nasty bread doesn't taste so nasty now!
4. Follow your favorite chicken parm recipe.

Entree 3: Sausage and Peppers

No gluten to avoid, and stupidly easy to make.

Of course, I didn't take any pictures of the finished products.  But everyone ate it, everyone LIKED it, and most importantly, it didn't kill Karen. Mission accomplished!

Chump, Chive & Kale

I'm drawn to cheesy recipes like a moth to a flame, or Lindsay Lohan to meth.

We got a metric ton of kale, and a CSA-suggested recipe was Raw Kale Salad with Gouda, Pear, and Walnuts. Gouda is one of my most favorite cheeses, so hell yeah I made it.

I need to take food photography lessons from wholeliving.com. Look at this photo. Wooden bowl! Carefully placed matching utensils! Slightly rumpled tablecloth! And are those flowers in the salad? I expect nothing less from Martha Stewart.

Now here's mine:



Maybe I should buy a tablecloth.

Something I need to work on: Portion control. I'm super paranoid that our vegetables are going to go bad before I use them, and one day I will open the fridge to a bevy of mold, slime, and bugs. Shut up, bugs can get in the fridge. I made two BIG bowls of this salad (see?) the day before my husband left on a 5-day business trip.

I tried so hard to eat it all, I really did.  It was so tasty, but just too much.  After a few days, the sliced pears turned brown and the cheese got slimy.  Next time, I will prepare the salad in smaller portions as I go. Kale's pretty hardy; it was fine at the end of the week despite the grody toppings.

The recipe's linked above, but for the lazy:

Raw Kale Salad with Gouda, Pear, and Walnuts

1/2 cup walnuts, coarsely chopped
1 tablespoon sherry vinegar
1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil
Coarse salt and ground pepper
1 bunch of kale (about 1 1/4 lbs (I had a LOT more)), tough stems removed and torn into bite-sized pieces
2 1/2 oz goat's milk gouda, cut in 1/2 by 1/4 inch pieces (How snobby! Regular cow's milk gouda is fine, and cube that sucker all you want (AND ADD MORE CHEESE).)
6 chives cut into inch-long pieces
1 Anjou pear, halved, cored, and very thinly sliced crosswise

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Place walnuts on rimmed baking sheet and bake until golden brown, tossing once during baking, 8-10 minutes.
2. In a medium bowl (or two, if you're me!), whisk together vinegar and oil; season with salt and pepper.  
3. Add kale, cheese, chives, walnuts and pears.
4. Toss to combine.
5. EAT.

Doing the carrot conga

Carrots galore!  We got a big bag of 'em this week, and we haven't started on our big bag from last week! 



Fair readers, I beseech you! What are your favorite carrot recipes?