It’s springtime in Wolfeboro, New Hampshire. The snowpiles are melting and giving way to early blooming flowers like crocus and daffodil, a welcome, colorful change.
This was partly the motivation for this salad, that and trying to find a satisfying gluten free, dairy free lunch. It also happens to be vegan and very tasty!
Ingredients:
1 ripe avocado, peeled, chopped
1 med. sweet potato, peeled, chopped
2 tbspns finely chopped red onion
1 red and 1 green jalapeño, finely chopped
Juice of one lime
1 1/2 cups fresh pineapple chunks
1 tbsn fresh cilantro, finely chopped
Freshly ground black pepper to taste
Recipe:
Steam the sweet potato chunks until tender. Then toss all the ingredients together until the lime juice has coated everything.
Serve on a sunny porch with some calypso music playing and think about warmer weather coming real soon!
This is a very satisfying gluten free, dairy free, vegan dish full of flavor and zip.
Serves 4
Ingredients
6oz package rice noodles
1/4c extra light olive oil
2 garlic cloves, peeled and minced
2 inches fresh ginger, peeled and minced
2 medium yellow onions, thinly sliced
2 chiles, finely chopped
8- 10 napa cabbage leaves, finely shredded
4oz bean sprouts
1/4c gluten free tamari
Juice of two limes
6 scallions, chopped
4oz raw, unsalted cashews, chopped
Directions
Cook the noodles in a large saucepan according to the package. Drain and transfer to a bowl if cold water. Set aside.
Heat oil in a wok and add garlic, ginger, onions, and chiles. Cook over medium heat for 5 minutes until softened. Add the cabbage and bean sprouts and stir briefly.
Drain noodles well and add to wok. Toss gently then add tamari, lime juice, scallion, and cashews. Mix well. Serve immediately. Use chopsticks!
Salads are great – and can really provide long-lasting energy. Especially if you take the time to add some variety and some satisfying proteins along with all those yummy vegetables.
Here’s a very satisfying addition to today’s lunch salad, that is gluten free, dairy free and paleo friendly. Also – you don’t need many of these as they are very rich and very filling.
Ingredients:
Broccoli spears
Uncured bacon slices, cut in half
Instructions:
Preheat oven to 425F
Wrap the bacon around a broccoli spear stem, then pin the end into the stem with a toothpick. Cut the toothpick so that just an 1/8 of the end is visible. Three for each person is plenty. Place them in a glass baking dish on their sides.
Bake uncovered for 20 minutes. Remove from the oven and using a basting brush, pick up some of the bacon fat from the bottom of the pan and brush the broccoli heads. Then return to the oven for another 10 minutes or so, or until the bacon is cooked to the desired doneness. This will keep the broccoli from getting too crispy.
When the bacon is cooked, the broccoli will be too. Drizzle the broccoli heads with the remaining bacon fat, let them cool 5 minutes and serve!
Once the broccoli is in the oven, you have time to make an epic salad to be the main course!
a handful of cherry tomatoes, quartered, slightly seared
10 haricots verts (French green beans), slightly steamed
a couple red, orange, and/or yellow baby bell peppers, also slightly seared
a couple fingerling potatoes, boiled fork tender then quartered
3 or four slices of cucumber
1/2 ouce field greens
1/2 ounce baby spinach
1 sardine fillet, packed in oil, drained
a teaspoon of capers
3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
2 teaspoons red wine vinegar
1/8 teaspoon freshly crushed black peppercorns
a pinch of salt
Mix together the olive oil, vinegar, salt and pepper. Arrange everything around the sardine fillet, drizzle with the dressing mixture. Voila. A delicious and hearty gluten free, dairy free meal that will fill you up and give you long-lasting energy for quite a while… and fish breath. (cats will love you)
We got this idea from Uno Chicago Grill. They serve a dish called rattlesnake pasta, but since we like to eat gluten free, we replaced the pasta with broccoli. It’s healthier and it’s delicious!
I posted a picture of this on Facebook, and people were asking for a recipe, so here you go. (and no Diane, no rattlesnakes were harmed in the making of this recipe….) 😀
Ingredients for two servings:
3/4 lb skinless, boneless chicken breast (or seitan for you vegans)
2 large crowns broccoli
16 oz of Alfredo sauce
1 cup of pickled jalapeno rings
1 tbspn extra virgin olive oil
Dash of crushed red pepper flakes
Directions:
Sautée the chicken breast in a little olive oil over medium heat, turning occasionally, until cooked through (juices run clean when pricked with a fork.) Remove from, heat, dice it into 1″ chunks and set aside.
Warm the alfredo sauce in a saucepan, over medium heat until hot enough to eat, reduce to warm.
Put 2 cups of water on to boil. Rinse the broccoli crowns well and steam them for 5 minutes.
Place a steamed broccoli crown on a warm plate, add half the chicken, pour half the alfredo sauce over it. Sprinkle with jalapeños and crushed red pepper. Serve hot.
Traditions (from “The Fiddler On The Roof”) “Here in Anatevka, we have traditions for everything.”
“How to sleep.”
“How to eat.”
“How to work.”
“How to wear clothes.”
“For instance, we always keep our heads covered, and always wear a little prayer shawl. This shows our constant devotion to God.”
“You may ask, how did this tradition get started?”
“I’ll tell you.” “…I don’t know.” “But it’s a tradition.”
Thanksgiving – The Tradition That Keeps On Giving
Part of the Thanksgiving tradition is to always prepare way more food than any person should ever eat, and then for the week that follows, trying to find creative ways to get junior to eat them . Why? I don’t know… but it’s a tradition.
This year, instead of just warming over leftovers and slogging through another big hot dish of tradition, today I broke with tradition and went with my craving. Hence:
The Thanksgiving Taco
Just dice up some of your favorite Thanksgiving Day leftovers and spoon them into some taco shells. I jazzed up the cranberry sauce with some cayenne pepper, and I was in taco heaven. Our forefathers (or should I say “antepasados”) would be so proud.
BTW – This is a gluten free, dairy free recipe. With the right shells, it could also be made grain free. For a vegan recipe, you could leave out the turkey, perhaps replace with some tofurky or seitan. Thankfulness is for everyone. Viva el taco!
Several people on Instagram asked for a recipe for this. Traditional quiche has cream, cheese and a flaky crust, but since this is gluten free and dairy free, it’s way easier!
Here’s the world’s easiest gluten free, dairy free (and grain free) recipe for crustless salmon quiche:
1 lb sockeye salmon
1/2 lb green beans
6 farm fresh eggs
1 tsp olive oil
Broil the salmon in the oven, skin side down 350 degrees for 20-30 minutes, or until it flakes in the middle when you poke it with a fork. Sauté the green beans in a teaspoon of olive oil in a frying pan over medium heat until tender.
Mash the salmon into bite size pieces with a fork, and spread it around in the baking dish. Spread the green beans around in the baking dish. In a separate bowl, beat the eggs slightly just to break the yolks and pour them over the salmon and green beans.
Bake at 350 degrees for 20 minutes or until the egg is cooked in the middle of the baking dish. Voila.
Some other ideas for this: I could have added onions, sautéed along with the green beans, or almond milk to make it fluffier, or broccoli instead of green beans… you get the idea.
That’s what I love about quiche, it’s rife with possibilities!
Bibimbap is a classic Korean dish we first had at Street, one of our favorite restaurants in Portsmouth NH. The word literally means “mixed rice”. Bibimbap is traditionally served as a bowl of warm white rice topped with spiced vegetables and a thick sauce.
We decided to eliminate nearly all wheat and most grains, after reading about the benefits of a paleo diet, so here’s our take on BiBimBap. This is a dairy free, grain free, gluten free recipe and could easily be made vegetarian or vegan by eliminating the egg. Karen calls this: “Bap Veggies.” August is a perfect time to make this, since we have an abundance of fresh garden vegetables to harvest right now.
Ingredients:
2 crowns of broccoli, cut into bite-size pieces
1 red bell pepper, cut into bite-size pieces
3 stalks of kale, stems removed, torn into bite-size pieces
1 medium onion, peeled and sliced
a handful of cherry tomatoes
2 eggs
extra light olive oil
some gluten free tamari
and of course some Sriracha Rooster Sauce!
Heat a few teaspoons of oil over medium heat in a wok or other frying pan. As soon as the oil is hot, add in a the broccoli, stir around occasionally for about 4 -5 minutes. Add in the onions, stir for a few more minutes. Add in the rest of the veggies and cook until they are all slightly tender. Push the veggies to the outer edges of the pan, crack the eggs into the center and shut off the heat. When the eggs are flippable without breaking the yoke, flip them over. Turn the heat back on briefly if necessary to get the egg cooked to desired doneness. Serve by laying the veggies out, egg on top, chop sticks and sauces nearby.
As a variation to this, try adding some mushrooms, bean sprouts, summer squash, or green beans. It’s fun to try different combinations for color and flavor.
So a few weeks ago, I talked about broccoli being an edible flower, and that there are many others. I know, I know, I was surprised by the idea too, but in fact, there are many edible flowers such as Gladiolus, Fuschia, Impatien, Pansies and Sunflowers to name a few. To see a longer list of edible flowers, click here.
Edible flowers add color, flavor and aroma to salads. The salad pictured above uses Nasturtium and Cilantro blossoms. Nasturtium has a great orange color and a black pepper taste. The dainty white Cilantro blossoms taste like cilantro leaves and look kind of like the flower: Gypsophilia AKA: “Baby’s Breath.”
It’s a little uncommon in America to find flowers on your food, but other cultures have used them for many years in cooking and why not? Be mindful of allergies and such and keep to the list of known safe-to-eat flowers, but have some fun with artful and tasty flowers in your salads.
I just did not want another salad today. 😀 My Asian heritage and and abundance of vegetables led me to this:
Raw Veggie Sushi With A Side of Cauliflower “Rice”
Gluten free, Dairy Free, Grain Free and Raw Vegan
Recipe:
– Gather up your favorite raw veggies: carrots, cauliflower, cucumbers, asparagus, peppers, scallions, spinach, etc. You name it.
– You will also need:
Nori Sheets
Wasabi Paste
Gluten Free Tamari (soy sauce)
Pickled Ginger
1. Rinse your veggies well in cold water then julienne them into thin strips about 3″ long, as narrow as you can get them. (If you need help with julienne, check out this video) Put a couple crowns of cauliflower into the food processor and pulse until it looks like rice. (Careful not to over pulse.)
2. Put a tablespoon of wasabi powder in a small bowl. Add a few drops of water and mash it around with a spoon. Add a few more drops of water and mash again, until you get a thick, play-doh consistency. Then mash some more. (The more you mash, the hotter it gets…)
3. cut the nori sheets into strips 2″ wide and 8 or 9″ long. Put a few tablespoons of water in a small bowl and keep nearby.
Rolling Sushi
4. Lay a strip of nori on a wooden cutting board or other smooth flat surface, lengthwise away from you and place a few pieces of each veggie in the sheet about 2″ from the closest end. Let some veggie pieces stick out further than others for better presentation. Dip your finger in the water bowl and wet the far end of the nori sheet, all the way from the top, down to the veggies.
5. Carefully roll the nori away from you, while pulling the veggies toward you, trying to keep the roll as tight as you can without tearing the nori.
6. Press the “riced” cauliflower into a small bowl and quickly put it upside down on your serving board to make the mound.
7. Serve on a sushi board with a small bowl of tamari, the wasabi paste and ginger.
Tanoshimi kudasai!
Don & Karen Perkins – Local Foodie Farmers in the Lakes Region of New Hampshire
