Eating 5 Days a Week!

Lately I've been posting a lot of things for those of you who are just becoming gluten free. As much as I love sharing my recipes I also know that for the other 5 days a week you just want to stay full, fed and healthy. So today's entry is an example of food planning for the week.

These are just some basic suggestions, I'm vegetarian so I've also made recommendations for proteins to accompany the dishes for those of who are not. Also I don't address desserts or sweets really here but its always good to have some chocolate, sorbet, gluten free cookies on hand during the week for when a craving hits.

MONDAY

BREAKFAST: Warm gluten free oatmeal with butter and brown sugar. 

LUNCH: Egg salad or tuna salad scoop on top of leafy green salad with vegetables of your selection.

SNACK:  cheese cubes, apple slices, almonds

DINNER: Steamed rice with stir fry of mixed vegetables seasoned with garlic, olive oil and italian spices, or go asian with it and add sesame oil, sriracha sauce, garlic and tamari sauce. Add tofu, chicken or other protein of your choice.

TUESDAY

BREAKFAST: scrambled eggs with salsa on a warmed corn tortilla with cheese and avocado. 

LUNCH: left over stir fry from prior night's dinner.

SNACK: hummus with vegetables and corn chips 

DINNER: Sauteed pre-cooked polenta topped with marina sauce and parmesan cheese. Add vegetables to your sauce or meat to make it just a bit heartier. Side salad.

WEDNESDAY

BREAKFAST: fresh fruit, berries, sliced bananas, or other seasonal fruit on top of greek yogurt with honey drizzled on top. 

LUNCH: Crustless quiche, side salad with vinaigrette.

SNACK: Olive topenade and feta mixed with olive oil, chopped garlic and paprika or pepper flakes, spread onto corn chips. Slices of cucumbers. 

DINNER: Smashed Potatoes, stuffed zucchini. Can be served with a protein for those of you who are meat eaters, like a piece of steak or something like that. Side of veggies, think green beans, corn, whatever is seasonal. 

THURSDAY

BREAKFAST: Scrambled eggs, with spinach and onions and a sprinkle of garlic salt. Side of sliced tomatoes. 

LUNCH: Shepherd pie, use the left over potatoes and meat from the night's prior meal. Place diced meat and veggies in bottum of tupperware and top with potatoes. Can be reheated at work in microwave. 

SNACK: fresh fruit, celery sticks with peanut butter or cream cheese. 

DINNER: Enchilada casserole with beans and rice on the side. Enchilada casserole is essential corn tortillas layered with cheese, onions and beans. Pour premade enchilada sauce, store bought or made ahead and frozen. Cook plain rice seasoned with salsa and heat up a can of beans. Serve with sour cream and avocado slices. 

FRIDAY

BREAKFAST: Fried eggs, pre-made hash browns, topped with katsup and side of fresh sliced avocado. 

LUNCH: Left over enchiladas. Top with fried egg or boiled egg sliced up. 

SNACK: Mixed nuts, dried fruit, fresh juices like carrot or a green mix.

DINNER: Cauliflower Mac and cheese with side salad. Also for the meat eaters add baked chicken.

Hope these suggestions help, of course there is always a can of soup and a salad if you are in a bind... healthy, happy eating to all!

xoxo- Iris

How to grocery shop gluten free...

I was chatting a bit ago with a friend who has recently gone gluten free, she has been struggling, as I hear a lot of people do, when adjusting to a gluten free lifestyle. I say lifestyle because there is a huge adjustment one must make when becoming gluten free, so much of our socialization centers around going out to eat and consuming food with family and friends. When you suddenly find that your diet is restricted you need to make accommodations in a lot of places in your life. Many restaurants are becoming more sensitive to the needs of the gluten free consumer so luckily while eating out there may now be a few more options available. But lets talk now about  a basic trip to the grocery store, how do you feed yourself throughout the week? especially if you have a busy schedule and can't always spend a whole night preparing a gourmet meal from a gluten free cookbook or blog...

Vegetables: The good news here is when you are in the produce section you can go crazy! Think salads, stir fry, carrot sticks and other sliced veggies for munching on throughout the day. Fruit, lots of fruit! Apples, oranges, whatever is seasonally available.

There are also vegetables that make excellent substitutes, for example thinly sliced zucchini is wonderful quickly boiled and used as a pasta for any marina or cream sauce that you would typically toss a wheat pasta in. I have also heard of spaghetti squash being used for this purpose too but have not done it myself.

Starches: Potatoes, which can be prepared a ton of ways, boiled, mashed, fried, baked, potato salad... don't forget potatoes aren't just russets either. There are baby potatoes and fingerling potatoes, red and white potatoes, even purple potatoes and each is excellent. I love boiled potatoes (any variety except the russet) tossed with boiled green beans dressed in pesto sauce. Serve warm or cold its awesome.

Rice... white rice, brown rice, jasmine rice, wild rice. This is the time to become a fan of risotto. Saute garlic, onions, carrots and other vegetables in a pan, toss in a little white wine, simmer down, throw in your rice, arborio is the rice of preference as it become creamy but you can use short grain regular rice, now add vegetable stock (I'm vegetarian, this would work with chicken or meat stock too I assume.) Once the rice is cooked stir in a ton of Parmesan cheese. Salt, pepper... herbs, anything to taste.

Other excellent and easy uses for rice, make it like mac and cheese, use it as a base under a stir fry, rice pudding, or brown rice cooked up and served like a warm porridge.

Alternative grains like quinoa are great but are not always available at all stores.

Breading: right now my favorite way to bread things for frying or baking is corn. It is fairly easy to find Masa Harina and the grocery store. You'll find it in the Spanish section, it is a corn flour used for tamales or homemade corn tortillas. If you wish to make breaded mushrooms, zucchini or perhaps fried chicken I suggest salting and herbing some buttermilk and tossing the vegetable or chicken into the buttermilk and then rolling till covered in seasoned masa harina. By seasoned I mean salt, pepper, whatever you like. You can fancy it up by adding some garlic powder or paprika, personally I like adding this to the buttermilk and keeping with just a little salt added to the masa, I find it seasons the food but the spices have a tendency to burn. Fry your food in corn or canola oil till crispy and cooked through.

Baking: For basics it helps to have a few things around like butter, eggs, sugar but in place of wheat flour I always keep corn starch, brown rice flour and potato flour on hand, which I use as a blend as a flour substitute  I have an earlier post where I sing the praises of Bob's Red Mill products, if you are not able to find these at your local grocery store you can purchase them online (amazon.com) and also you can use gluten free instant potatoes ground finer as a replacement for potato flour.

If you are not a baker and want something instant I will confess its readily available and not bad, check out the Betty Crocker line of box mixes. http://www.bettycrocker.com/products/gluten-free-baking-mixes The cool part is Betty Crocker's gluten free line is actually way nicer than their other products with none of the weird unpronounceable ingredients. How ironic, eh?

Condiments: be wary of salad dressings and mustards, they can contain wheat... look for soy sauce, wheat germ things like that, do not buy those products. The good news is some very basic brands now clearly label themselves as gluten free. Hidden Valley ranch dressing, gluten free. :) My personal preference is to stick to things like oil and vinegar, toss a salad in a basic herb mixture and then some nice quality olive oil and balsamic vinegar, its very lovely.

Remember soy sauce comes from wheat but Tamari does not and is exactly the same thing. Some folks are using Braggs amino acids, which is a brown sauce, I've never used it but it is popular. I also like things like sriracha and sesame oil for seasoning my Asian style dishes.

You are pretty much safe with all pickles, olives and things of that sort. Heinz Ketsup... yup, its gluten free. http://www.heinz.com/glutenfree/products.html

Salsa, this is always safe, keep a jar in your fridge at all times, can't go wrong with some chips salsa and guacamole, but it is also great scrambled in eggs and topped with cheese in a corn tortilla (breakfast tacos.)

Cheese: Buy blocks of cheese, do not buy grated Parmesan cheese or shredded cheese, there are starches and powders and "cellulose" added that are not gluten free and questionable at best. This is used to prevent the cheese from sticking together, grate your own cheese fresh, it will taste better and be safe. Other than that you are pretty safe, there is some debate on blue cheese so I personally avoid it and don't eat cheeses with beer added, that goes with out saying.

Eggs: Of course eggs are safe... you can make omelettes with veggies and meats or scrambbled eggs to eat with potatoes. Or even breakfast tacos...

which leads me to...

Breads, etc.: I personally like Udi's gluten free white sandwich bread, its also reasonably priced at trader joes. Always keep some corn tortillas on hand. Easy to make a corn quesadillas for lunch or breakfast tacos for, well, breakfast. Also a warmed up corn tortilla makes a lovely side with any breakfast that you otherwise would have had toast with.

Beverages: You should be pretty safe to drink nearly anything. No beer though. Also none of those fancy wine cooler malt beverages. Stick to things like tequila, wine, vodka(potato vodka only, Absolut vodka is made with wheat)... non alcoholic things like juice are safe and all Hansen sodas are gluten free. Beware of carmel color in sodas.

Candies: Watch out for wheat hidden in candy, that means no more jelly beans. There is wheat syrup and gums used in a lot of candies, chocolate are pretty safe but also keep an eye out for things that contain malt. Skittles are gluten free though and you can see that they label clearly which always makes me happy.

Other snacks: potato chips, NOT BBQ, all pretty safe, just check the ingredients if you are getting the seasoned ones. Corn chips, cheetos, SOME but not all Doritos.

Things to avoid, if you see any of this listed in ingredients it either means the product does or could contain wheat or wheat products:

• Cellulose
• Glucose Syrup (can be made from wheat or potatoes, barley or rice, no real way to know if its "safe")
• Soy Sauce (in the US its made from fermented wheat, so if you see it listed as an ingredient its not "soy." Look for this in marinades, salad dressing, etc.)
• Triticum vulgare (wheat)

• Triticale (cross between wheat and rye)

• Hordeum vulgare (barley)

• Secale cereale (rye)

• Triticum spelta (spelt, a form of wheat)

• Wheat protein/hydrolyzed wheat protein

• Wheat starch/hydrolyzed wheat starch

• Wheat flour/bread flour/bleached flour

• Bulgur (a form of wheat)

• Malt (made from barley)

• Couscous (made from wheat)

• Farina (made from wheat)

• Pasta (made from wheat unless otherwise indicated)

• Seitan (made from wheat gluten and commonly used in vegetarian meals)

• Wheat or barley grass (will be cross contaminated)

• Wheat germ oil or extract (will be cross contaminated)

• Vegetable protein/hydrolyzed vegetable protein (can come from wheat, corn or soy)

• Modified starch/modified food starch (can come from several sources, including wheat)

• Natural flavor/natural flavoring (can come from barley)

• Artificial flavor/artificial flavoring (can come from barley)

• Caramel color (now considered a safe ingredient, but if you're in doubt, check with the manufacturer)

• Modified food starch

• Hydrolyzed plant protein/HPP

• Hydrolyzed vegetable protein/HVP

• Seasonings

• Flavorings

• Vegetable starch

• Dextrin and Maltodextrin (both sometimes made from wheat)

Also please be aware that the FDA does not presently monitor what food or standards a product must meet to be considered "gluten free." That means don't trust labeling because that can just be marketing. The industry accepted standard is that the food must fall below 20PPM (20 parts per million.) This means your "gluten free" food product may contain wheat ingredients, so check the nutritional list anyways, if you are like me you will avoid food with wheat in them at all not just 20PPM, that is a personal choice and depends on your sensitivity.

If you ever are not sure call the number listed on the container, most companies will be fairly educated and transparent when you say that you want to know if the product is gluten free. If they can not or will not give you the information don't eat it... companies should be proud of what they are putting in their food and if they don't know or won't tell you then to me that raises a red flag anyways. 

I may think of more things but this is it for now... safe eating, safe shopping and safe consumption. 

xoxo- Iris

GlutenFreeda Bean and Cheese Burrito Product Review

 Glutenfreeda Gluten-Free Burrito, Vegetarian Bean and Cheese *** (2.5 out of 5 stars)

I picked one of these up from Sprouts during their large Gluten Free Sale. First off the price on these, on sale $2.50 each is less than impressive. Especially considering the size of the little thing.

Next the ingredients list is a major turn off for me as it has about a million ingredients.

Ingredients:

Gluten-free flour tortilla (white corn masa flour and a trace of lime, water, pregelatinized rice flour, potato flour, high oleic safflower oil, corn starch, xanthan gum and cultured dextrose), refried beans (beans, water, canola oil, salt), rice, cheddar cheese (pasteurized milk, cheese cultures, salt, enzymes, annatto color), salsa (tomatoes, tomato juice, (water, tomato concentrate, salt, vitamin C), onions, bell peppers, peppers, parsley, garlic, cilantro, apple cider vinegar, spices, sea salt, herbs), GMO free corn, sour cream (grade A cultured cream (milk), enzyme), garlic salt (garlic, salt, garlic oil). Contains dairy (milk).

Once I microwaved it the burrito's tortilla broke up in several places and the texture was all around much more like a corn tortilla than anything flour-like. So essentially its a pale wrapped up bean and rice taco.

OK, so I dwelled on the negative so now lets talk about the positives. Those millions ingredients are all recognizible food products and none that I mind with the exception of the xanthum gum (it reads xanthan gum, is that the same thing?) Anyways gums in general, I don't want in my food! However, the burrito tasted just fine, essentially nothing spectacular and what you would expect of a microwaved store bought burrito but good enough that I was able to eat it.

No, I would probably not ever purchase one again, however if I was somewhere and they were offered as an option and I was hungry I would eat it.

xoxo - Iris

Vegetarian Gluten Free Chili Pizza - Quick and Easy

I'm not for spicey foods but I do enjoy the comfort of a good warm bowl of chili. It's the best when it's slow cooked from dry beans and allowed to absorb all the wonderful seasonings, however I am going to give you my recipe for 10 minute chili which can come in handy after a long day.

A few days ago I made this with a friend and she and I had it with French fries. It made enough that I had leftovers which leads us to the pizza part of this story.

To make 10 minute vegetarian chili, sauté half an onion chopped, and 2 finely chopped cloves of garlic in about 3 tablespoons olive oil. Once the onions are translucent and the garlic is golden dump in one 29 oz can par drained black beans and one 29 oz can par drained pinto beans. You can use other beans instead like kidney or another combination of dark beans of your preference. Add one can puréed tomatoes, the 16 oz size. I typically do all my seasoning to taste but here is a break down of what I like in my chili: 1/2 tsp cumin powder, 3 Tablespoons smoked paprika, 3 Tablespoons Ancho chile powder, 1 tsp prepared gluten free mustard (Dijon, spices, whatever) and salt to taste, sneak up on it, your canned beans are presalted. You can also add a tiny bit of cayenne pepper to raise the heat level to where you like it best.

Simmer on stove till heated through. If you are making a salad or fries as a side let your chili cook on a low heat for the duration. Do not overcook as the beans will just dissolve but it's nice to let the seasoning simmer.

Serve hot with grated cheese, sour cream and diced onions on top.

Now for how chili becomes pizza...

You can use your leftover chili for this or buy a can of chili or use whatever other chili recipe you have. Be careful that any store purchased chili is gluten free, many contain wheat protein for texture.

I made my hush puppy batter and let it sit while I preheated the oven to 400. Letting the batter sit lets it thicken. Generously oil your pizza pan with olive oil, do not use one with holes. Spread batter across pan thinly but make sure you have no holes. Allow edges to be thicker than the center.

Bake in preheated oven for approximately 15 minutes or till the crust looks baked through but has yet to reach the golden stage.

Dice a quarter of an onion and grate 1 cup of cheddar or Monterey Jack cheese. Remove crust from oven and top with layer of chili. Do not go too thick with the chili just spread over the crust to cover leaving edge bare. Top with grated cheese and sprinkle with diced onions.

Return pizza to the oven and bake another 10 to 15 minutes until the cheese on top starts to bubble and gets hints of browning. Your crust on the outer edge should also be showing signs of goldening. As long as the cheese is melted you can remove pizza from the oven at any point if it seems like the crust might be getting too dark.

Resist the temptation to slice the pizza immediately and let it rest for about 5-10 minutes, this will make it easier to slice.

Once sliced the crust should be nice and thin but easy enough to pick up and eat the pieces with your hands... Or a fork if you prefer. :)

I enjoyed this with a nice home prepared vanilla cola. (Hansen's cola with torani vanilla syrup over ice)
Xoxo - Iris

Creamy Lemon Salad Dressing

In Hollywood there is an italian restaurant called Fabiolus Cafe, no self respecting italian or anyone who has been to the east coast would eat their pasta however... but they have a salad that every once in a while my whole body craves. I am however seldom believe that there is a salad worth $10, though I have made an exception. Well, no more! The salad Fabiolus sells is an arugula green salad with fresh mozzarella, avocado, and corn with a lemon creamy dressing. This can be easily constructed at home.

My copycat dressing is as follows...

• 1 cup sour cream
• 1/2 cup mayonaise
• 1/2 tsp salt (or more to taste)
• juice of one lemon
• pinch of cracked black pepper

1. Mix all ingredients together and chill.

2.  To this you can add your own herbal additions, tarragon and dill are excellent. This makes a lovely dressing or dip. 

Happy dipping everyone!

GLUTEN FREE TIP: Read labels on salad dressings carefully, its best to select only dressings labelled as gluten free. Many dressings can include soy sauce, malt, or "modified food starch." Wheat products are often used as a cheap thickener.

Letter to a newly gluten free eater...

A few weeks back I received an email from a young man who had recently become gluten free but was having difficulty knowing how/where/what to eat... someone referred him to talk to me and this was my response:

So happy to hear its making a difference in your life. I'm happy to help you with this, I know, and am myself gluten free and my life has been transformed by it. You will also find the longer you stay gluten free the times that a bit of wheat does sneak its way into your diet how harshly it effects you. I also know a lot of people including myself who test negative for celiacs. I think that this area of medicine is just now being understood. I tested negative twice, I get sick for weeks just from a teeny bit of wheat. I also know people who have gotten rid of their acid reflex with elimination of wheat from their diet. 

I think the key problem with antacids is that is does not allow your body to properly regulate so once you are off them your body goes full force in its acid production, which is counter productive. 

now as far as the "produced in a factory that also produces wheat" labeling. I personally have not had problems with products that are gluten free and produced in a place that is not a "gluten free facility" you will find most products fall into this category and so you should be fairly safe. I eat a lot of mexican food and Mediterranean food in my daily diet, both are diets easy to avoid wheat, corn tortillas, etc. Be careful because asian food can me misleading, soy sauce is made from wheat, so while the rest of the food is wheat free most of the time its cooked with soy sauce so thats a no-no too. 

It will probably take about 3 months before you will see the full effect of going gluten free. Because it effects your digestive system it can effect your intestines and your ability to properly absorb nutrition so you will find overall your health will improve as you stay away from wheat. 

READ labels very carefully though, some things contain wheat that will really surprise you. For example i once ate potato salad, got really sick and then after discovered it had wheat in the ingredients. Also be careful about alcohol like rum and beer... those are both wheat based. Also read the ingredients in salad dressings too, some vinegar is wheat based.

Luckily trader joes has a lot of options, I like the Udi's bread and their corn pasta. It will take a little while but eventually you will find your way. In the meanwhile I hope you enjoy tacos. :)Mexican food is always my fall back food. 

Feel free to msg me if you ever have any questions. I'm happy you on a road to feeling better and I know how hard it can be to find all the information you need out there. :)

cheers, Iris