Monthly Archives: September 2010

Featured, Food

What is a typical gluten free meal?

1 Comment

There’s a lot of confusion about gluten free diets and meals, and some might be asking:  What is a “typical” gluten free meal?

Well first of all, just because one can’t eat wheat doesn’t mean there aren’t still thousands of other ingredients and combinations available!  In that sense, it could be almost impossible to declare a typical or normal meal, but I can at least show you what kind of dinner is fairly typical for myself when I don’t particularly feel like cooking anything that takes effort.

A gluten free meal of steak, fried potato, and steamed vegetables

Nothing too fancy here, just the basics:  A small piece of flat iron steak, a few steak fries (Ore Ida), and a carrot steamed with a head of broccoli.  There’s a pretty nice slice of butter sitting on the vegetables, a bit of Cattleman’s Classic BBQ sauce (also gluten free), as well as a little salt and a whole lot of freshly cracked pepper on top of everything.

As you can see, this isn’t terrible different from a typical meal for anyone, whether or not they’re intolerant of wheat protein.

Cooking a gluten free meal can be easy

For this meal, there really aren’t that many steps.  First of all, peel and slice the carrots then break up a head of broccoli in to the steamer pot with them.  Wash it up, cover the lid, and then just let it sit on a low to medium heat while the other stuff cooks.

Carrots and broccoli in a steaming pot

For the steak and fries, just lightly cover the surface of a frying pan with some peanut oil, then cook for about 10 to 15 minutes on each side at a medium temperature.

A flat iron steak and steak fries in a frying pan

Once it is cooked, season and enjoy!  The vegetables are great with just a bit of butter and salt, and as you can see from the first picture I just love to put black pepper on everything!

Total prep time is about 5 minutes or less, and total cooking time is about 30 minutes or just a little bit less.

So next time you find yourself trying to cook a gluten free meal, don’t despair!  Just make sure the cooking surfaces are clean from any potential cross contamination, and try a recipe that doesn’t stray too far from fresh ingredients.

Food

Prepared horseradish and a creamy gluten free sauce

Leave a comment

When you’re eating gluten free and you want to try various sauces & flavors, you’ve basically got two choices.  You can either research every brand and their production methods, or you can skip the risks and hassle by making it fresh at home.  While cooking everything is definitely time consuming, it is also a chance to capture the flavors when they are at their peak.

With that in mind, I decided to get some horseradish back on my plate.  I finally got my camera, so I took a couple photos to help demonstrate prepared horseradish and its use in a nice creamy but tangy sauce.

Preparing Horseradish

Whole horseradish you can find at the store is a brown dusty root.  Once you peel the barky skin off, cut the remaining spicy pulp in to roughly even chunks.  Take the chunks and put them in a blender with a tiny bit of water (just enough to make it blend!)  The smell is extremely powerful, so you might want to do this outside or in a well ventilated area.  Also, be sure to not touch your eyes or nose when your hands have been working with the root.

Now, when the horseradish is finely shredded, you’ve got to give it a minute or two.  As the flavor molecules interact with the air, the pulp will actually get spicier for up to three minutes before it starts becoming milder again.  The secret to capturing the flavor is to add in some vinegar at the point of the reaction you want to keep.  So about 2 minutes after the blender is done, add in that vinegar and shake it up.

Now you’ve got prepared horseradish!  Chill it in the fridge for up to a month of fresh root, or freeze it for as much as six months.

Creamy gluten free horseradish sauce recipe

The hard part is done when you’ve got your horseradish prepared.  To make a creamy sauce with some kick, all you have to do is mix about one spoonful of horseradish with about three spoons of mayonaise or sour cream, and a small bit of spicy brown mustard.

Now all you’ve got to do is stir that up and put it in the fridge for a bit!  It definitely tastes great as a dip with steaks and chicken.