gluten free

Lemony and Refreshing Quinoa Salad

I made some lemony quinoa salad the other day, the same one I posted last year stuffed in tomatoes.  This time I just mixed in chunks of ripe homegrown tomatoes and it was very tasty as a side dish to a meal.  Kept well in my fridge for the 2 more days it took me to finish it. So easy to make too.  You could even make it the day before; just add the tomatoes before serving. So I am posting it here so you can try it; one caveat; only use local tomatoes.  Do NOT make this with those pale imitation supermarket tomatoes. It is not possible to create something tasty if you start with poor quality ingredients and those plastic flavored “tomatoes” just will not work in this salad.

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Lemony Quinoa Salad

Makes four servings.

Ingredients:

½ cup regular quinoa, (not red or black)

1 cup water

½ a veggie bullion cube

2/3-3/4 cup small dice burpless cucumber

½ cup small dice zucchini

1/3 cup small dice red onion

2 tbsp. fresh mint or parsley, diced finely

1 lemon

3 tbsp.  EVOL (extra virgin olive oil)

1 tbsp. red wine vinegar

Sea salt and fresh black pepper to taste.

2 large ripe tomatoes cut in chunks

Directions

Put the quinoa in the water.  If it doesn’t say rinsed you should put it in a strainer and rinse it for a minute to get off any coating which can be bitter.  Add the half bullion cube, bring to a boil. Reduce heat to a simmer and cook 15 minutes.  Let cool to room temperature before continuing.

Place the cooled quinoa in a mixing bowl.  Dump in the finely chopped veggies and stir.  Sprinkle the fresh herbs on top; even fresh chives chopped fine or basil will work great.   Use a zester or a very fine grater and get as much zest off the lemon (wash the lemon first); you can zest right into the quinoa mixing bowl.  In a small mixing bowl put the juice of that same lemon, the EVOL and red wine vinegar.  If you have more than 3 tbsp of lemon juice add a bit more EVOL and whisk to combine; add in up to ½ tsp salt and ¼ tsp freshly grated black pepper.  Pour ¾ of it over the quinoa and veggies and stir to combine.  Taste and adjust seasoning and add the rest of the dressing if it is needed.  Chill at least 30 minutes. Add the chunked tomato and serve.

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This is a great side dish or, if you have a vegetarian visiting, it is a substantial main dish choice as quinoa has a lot of complete protein in it.

So simple but the combination of fresh lemon juice, lemon zest, red wine vinegar and EVOL makes a great salad dressing.  Do not cook the zucchini – if it is fresh and tender it is fantastic raw in a salad.  If you can’t get one of those European cucumbers use a small regular one and peel the skin off it before dicing. If the seeds are large do not use the center with the seeds.  Your salad will not be as pretty if there are sloppy cucumber seeds in it.

Quinoa salad will keep a few days in the fridge, if it lasts that long! Try it with different fresh herbs: it just won’t taste the same without the fresh summer veggies.  I try to eat seasonally and this is definitely a summer treat!

Refreshing Spanish Gazpacho Soup: Ole Tomatoes!

Hot Hot HOT summer days mean I need a cool recipe. One with minimal cooking: that is easy and tasty.  Plus I want to use some of my garden produce.  This classic Spanish soup called gazpacho is perfect for all of that and my family loves it. It absolutely must be made with ripe summer tomatoes, never ever attempt it with any less than the best vine ripened fruit.  You can get great tomatoes at farm stands, farmer’s markets and even the grocery store; look for the grown local label for the best flavored tomatoes. Please do not use greenhouse tomatoes grown far away and shipped while not really ripe. Your soup will not be full of tomato flavor and it will taste disappointing.  These ripe locally grown tomatoes are vital to the flavor of gazpacho.

I make my gazpacho in the blender but I believe a food processor works okay too.  No heat,  minimal fuss.

My version allows you to add chopped raw veggies in the amount you prefer just before you slurp it down. I prefer its fresh pure flavors to those soulless restaurant versions that are gelatinous and crammed full of a wide assortment of chunked veggies…uggh.

I once had a version of gazpacho similar to mine in a Philadelphia restaurant made with golden yellow tomatoes which was beautiful looking and quite tasty too.

Warning: you do need to peel the tomatoes but that goes pretty fast.  I heat about a wide sauce pan filled 3 inches deep with water to a boil and pop the ripe tomatoes in for 2 to 3 minutes. I put in 4 at a time; done in a couple batches.  Let them cool a bit and then peel off the skin and cut out the blossom end (top) and they are ready to use.

One more important instruction: gazpacho HAS to chill really good; make it early in the morning to serve as a late lunch or better yet; for supper. The colder the better, I actually put my soup bowls in the freezer for 15 or 20 minutes and yank them out just before filling and serving this cold summer delight.

It is a flexible recipe; depends on the size of your tomatoes. This should make close to 60 ounces or just shy of 2 quarts; cut in half if you don’t want too much. But you will wish you had made more…I promise!  It will keep 3-5 days in the refrigerator.

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tomato juice for thinning the soup

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skinned tomatoes ready for soup making

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I am about to press the puree button!

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Still in blender, just pureed soup.

Summer Chill Gazpacho

Soup ingredients:

8 to 10 ripe fat tomatoes (large ones)

About ¼ cup EVOL; best you can afford

2 slices white bread (GF if you have celiac)

1 lemon

2 garlic cloves, peeled

1 to 1 ½ tsp. sea salt

Toppings:

2 large tomatoes diced, heirloom if possible

1 cup diced burpless cucumber

2 scallions, sliced thin, green and white parts

Directions: peel the tomatoes as described above.  When I peel them I do it over a bowl to capture the juices and seeds. I save them, strain off the seeds and I add back the juice as needed to thin the finished soup.    Put 4-5 tomatoes in the blender; add a slice of bread broken up, 2 tbsp. olive oil, the juice of half a lemon and one garlic clove.  Put the lid on and blend well.  Note: do not fill the blender more then ¾ full. Taste; add salt; ½ to ¾ tsp.

Repeat entire process with the rest of the ingredients and thin with reserved tomato juice – it should be thick but not porridge thick.  Mix the two batches together in a big glass bowl; never metal because of the acidity of tomatoes and cover tightly with plastic wrap.  Then chill it at least 3 to 4 hours.

Serve with bowls of toppings to sprinkle on top of the thick soup; diced ripe tomatoes, scallion slices and cucumber ( preferably burpless) cut in small dice.  If you want to guild the lily, top with croutons (gf ones if you have celiac), I don’t bother.

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Note: gluten free bread often gives a slightly different texture to the soup; somewhat less smooth in the look of it and the taste.  It’s okay as it doesn’t affect the flavor: it still is delicious and a bowl of it is so very refreshing on a hot day.  Serve with a sandwich and you have a perfect summer lunch.

Grilled Boneless Chicken Thighs on a Skewer: Succulent!

Grilling is one of the joys of summer cooking.  I made this recipe up for a recent camping trip but it works just as well on the grill at home!  Not too many ingredients and simple to put together.  It does have two marinades though but really simple ones; first one is one ingredient and some salt.

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I love Sweet Baby Ray’s BBQ sauce but use what ever you like.  You need to get out the skewers; I used the flat sided metal ones but you could use bamboo ones, soak them for 30 minutes first. If they are flat sided the meat doesn’t tend to spin around on the skewer; makes turning them easier.

I don’t put veggies on the skewers for a reason; they cook at a different speed than meat and generally don’t turn out so great; you could skewer some separately if you really want them fire cooked.  I would brush them with olive oil before grilling.

This chicken dish was a hit and is a keeper!

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Angie’s Grilled Boneless Chicken Thighs

Ingredients:

4-6 boneless, skinless chicken thighs

1 cup buttermilk

1 tsp. sea salt

1 lemon

1 garlic clove

2 tbsp. mild olive oil or canola if you prefer

½ tsp. dried oregano

Directions

Put the chicken in a Ziploc bag, add the buttermilk and salt.  Seal and shake up good.  Put in the fridge or cooler for 1-5 hours. This tenderizes the meat really nice. Drain chicken, rinse off buttermilk marinade.  Put in a clean Ziploc and add the zest of the lemon (I just peeled bits off with a potato peeler, the garlic clove (peel it and squash it a bit!), the oil, oregano and the juice of half the lemon.  Zip and marinade at least 30 minutes, up to 3 hours, in cooler. This marinade is for flavor.

Heat your grill or campfire. Not really hot; will char the chicken; medium is best.

Drain off the marinade and pat the chicken somewhat dry with a few paper towels; you don’t want a ton of marinade dripping into the fire. Thread the thighs onto flat metal skewers; I put 1 and a half on each skewer; you can leave the chicken thigh whole or cut in half or long strips; will need to cut one in half for sure! I put a quarter of a lemon on the end to help hold chicken in place and add flavor.   Grill over a medium flame.  I did about ten minutes on each side. I used a meat thermometer to check for doneness.  When it was cooked fairly close to 180 degrees; maybe 170 degrees, I used a cheap pastry brush I keep for camping to paint BBQ sauce on the side facing up; let it cook a few minutes, flip and do the other side.

I served it with a simple rice pilaf cooked on a camp stove, sliced summer tomatoes and corn on the cob cooked on the camp fire.  No fuss and very tasty: my kind of camping recipe. I made it up on the fly with what I had available and I know I will make this or some variant of it again for sure.  It was a big hit with both of us; the whole meal was excellent.  Super easy to make on your grill at home if you don’t camp.

Musikfest Update Friday 8.14.15 GF Brownie Alert!

Eating gluten free at the Musikfest is sure challenging and when you are volunteering with only 30 minutes for a meal break it can be tough.  Snacks might be easier.  Last year I had some great kettle corn and some super Creamery ice cream up by the Hotel Bethlehem.  I am guessing you can still get those treats this Fest.

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I did find some incredible brownies, up on the edge of Leiderplatz; right at the back of the Sun Inn.  Hempzel Pretzels has a small stand there.

hempzel signI used to eat their tasty soft pretzels years ago at the fest, when I could still eat wheat and gluten.  They still have many great pretzel products for sale but there are also some certified gluten free brownies.  I didn’t get a picture of them but the stand has a big basket of them.  The flavor is outstanding, creamy and very chocolaty.  Well worth the trip up to Leiderplatz.  They also sell a garlic jam, didn’t get a taste of it but it is gf and looks like it might be great on a sandwich.

garlic jam  I didn’t find anything else at Leiderplatz that was gf and safe for me other than ice tea. I like the one that is half lemonade. Thirst quenching…

Saturday I plan to trek down to Voltzplatz on my break for their crazy good baked potato with pulled pork topping.  It was incredible at last year’s fest, lots of tender meat topping a creamy baked spud. Can’t wait!

Trader Joe’s and Gluten Free….For Me?

I made my first pilgrimage to Trader Joe’s.  Been wanting to go for years.  I was on vacation in the Boston, MA area, and went to one in Brookline near my sister’s condo.  Saturday morning, crazy busy parking lot; we were thrilled to find a space! I was not so thrilled with what I found inside.  No separate gluten free area.  IT was all mixed in all over the place.  Like a treasure hunt but unfortunately I found cross contamination issues with their products and had to put lots of the treasures back on the shelf.  I also was not happy to have gf stuff right next to all purpose wheat flour based products.

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Missed these……next time.

I couldn’t accept foods that were “processed on equipment that may also process wheat, etc.”  Nope.  Been there, tried that and got pretty sick: total waste of money to purchase, waste of time to bake with it and not be able to enjoy and so not good for my digestive system.  Yes, the possibility of a small contamination due to shared equipment for processing food is definitely enough to cause a celiac to not buy a food product. Happens all the time to me when I shop; I read the label and then regretfully put the product back on the shelf.

espresso beans

Now, I hear Trader Joe’s has a reputation for gluten free products and after the fact I discovered that you can get a list of gf foods from the service desk and their staff will help you find it.  Frankly I saw no staff around the store but I can say that they were very friendly at the check out and gave me a free TJ’s bag for it being my first ever TJ experience.  Sweet of them.  Would have been sweeter if I had been able to buy some salad dressing and chocolate covered nuts.  Neither of which was safe consider the cross contamination issue, here-to-for referred to as cc.

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Today I did find a blog posting giving me some direction on what was great at TJ’s; gonna use it next time, check it out: http://dragonflyglutenfree.blogspot.com/2014/05/trader-joes-gluten-free-love.html

Something else bothered me; the shelving of gluten free products.  Two reasons for my dismay; first: when they are blended together it is frighteningly easy to mistake something and take it home and as you are munching on it you realize it was not gf, just looked a lot like the gf product next to it! Secondly, I hate seeing gf products next to or on a lower shelf than regular products that have loose flour in them; bags of wheat flour for instance.  Before you jump to conclusions of me baking with wheat flour by accident; the problem is those wheat flour boxes and bags do leak at times or even burst.  Then a shower of wheat based product sifts down or over onto the gf boxes/bags.  I might touch that gf bag or box to read the ingredients.  I don’t even have to buy it to get sick.  If I get a small amount of flour which contains gluten on my fingers and then touch my face/lips it is shockingly easy for me to get quite sick.  That brief touch of flour is all it takes to make someone with celiac very ill.  tf english muffins

Smart managers of some grocery stores have a dedicated gf baking area for products so they are not next to wheat based mixes: Wegmans does that.  They have the best gf department in general and the don’t spread their gf stuff all over the store.

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Wegman’s GF aisle

Other stores, at least, put the gf stuff on the top shelf so if the flour leaks; it doesn’t get on the gf stuff which is above it.  Giant does this which I applaud.  Sadly, Whole Foods doesn’t nor do most heath food stores. I have told mangers about this issue but unless they know a celiac well enough to realize how easily products get contaminated, they just don’t get it and can’t be bothered to move the arrangement of products around to make it safer for us celiac sufferers.  I would be curious to know what other grocery store chains do in how they shelve gf products.

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I did buy a jar of this!

My friend Josh who is a total TJ addict didn’t understand what I meant by cc and suggested I share some of this in my blog so you understand it when your gf family member freaks out about such stuff.

It may seem minor but when your life depends on you eating consistently safely, then you look at all the little stuff.  I hate getting ill from gluten and if I suffer several bouts in a short period of time I feel so terrible I can barely function and spend weeks feeling nauseated all day long as a result of the multiple glutenings.  So I look at all the ways I can get glutened and avoid food with any possibility of cross contamination as well as outside the package contamination.

fig butter

Finally, I also belong to several celiac support groups and have heard serious rumblings about the authenticity of Trader Joe’s gluten free designations on their products.  I take that gf label very seriously and if they are found to be slapping it on unsafe products you will Never find my personage in a Trader Joe’s again. I hope it is not so, I really do.  Meanwhile I am going to go open my fig butter and indulge in a little fig jam party!