Tag Archives: potato

Featured, Food

Happy Gluten Free Holidays

Leave a comment

With Thanksgiving a recent memory, Christmas will be upon us soon – and that means a season of food and potentially tough times for Celiacs and anyone on a gluten-free diet.

Luckily, knowledge of the condition and appropriate products are spreading like wildfire.  We attended a few Thanksgiving meals in the last few weeks, and at each one I was able to find some appropriate grub.  With a six- or twelve-pack of Woodchucks in hand, I’d even have some drinks to keep up with the college kids.

For our actual Thanksgiving meal, we had some beef ribs marinated in Stubb’s regular BBQ sauce.  I also cooked up some green beans with bacon and red bell pepper, grean peas with minced onion and garlic, as well as Colcannon – an Irish dish so nice they made a song about it.

Ok, so the song might be about a little bit more than just the potatoes, but they still taste pretty great.

First you cook potatoes, fry up some bacon or ham, boil up some kale, and heat a bit of milk and cream with scallions. Drain the kale well and chop it finely before mixing the whole thing up, and serve it with a bit of melted butter in an indentation at the top of a potato hill.

Anyway, we had some gluten-free muffins on hand but there wasn’t much talk of dessert. We pretty much ate the main course until we were ready to pass out for the holiday nap.

On that front, my fiancee has been baking quite a bit in our new, gluten-free kitchen. Since we don’t have any wheat products in the house, she’s been craving some breads and pies so in the last few weeks there have been some very interesting and delicious experiments in biscuits, apple pie, and banana-nut muffins.

The recipes are definitely in an experimental phase or else I’d share them, but for now I can at least post some pictures of that delicious gluten free applie pie we enjoyed last month:

The taste was spot on, but the texture of the crust was a bit too crumbly and it didn’t hold up well with cutting. Hopefully we get that figured out before too long and I’ve got some tips to share about overcoming that little defect of the gluten-free flours.

Until then, here’s hoping that you and your loved ones have a happy, and gluten-free holiday season!

Food

Gluten Free Beef and Veggie Roast in a Crock Pot

4 Comments

Oh boy, I just cooked up a monster of a meal and now I can’t stop thinking about it.  Its delicious, healthy, and a good value – but unfortunately its going to take a few hours to fully cook.

In the meantime, let me tell you what goes into this feast.

  • 2 pounds eye of round roast ($6.70)
  • 1 medium onion ($.50)
  • 1 medium tomato ($.75)
  • 6 potatoes*** ($1.50)
  • 3 stalks celery ($.50)
  • 1 can green peas ($.50)
  • 1 pound carrots ($1.60)
  • 1 pinch thyme
  • Black pepper
  • 3 shakes oregeno
  • 1/2 tsp. olive oil

Its about $12 and its pounds and pounds of fresh food and naturally savory flavors.  The best news is the prep takes almost no time if you’re using a crockpot.

Place the beef in the bottom of the pan, and cover it with chopped onions.  They don’t need to be chopped too finely, the moist heat will turn the whole thing into something close to a soup.  Six potatos go next to the beef, and this forms your bottom layer since they require the most cooking.  (The bottom layer is closest to the heatsource and touching the water, so it should cook a tiny bit quicker.)

Next, I got about a pound of baby carrots in a small bag.  This was under $2 at Walmart and its ready to eat, so just dump ’em on top of the beef & potato layer.

Now a little more chopping:  the celery and the tomato.  I end up cutting them a little long and a thin:  I want the flavors to get mixed up real good.

Then I just pop open a can of peas…  Normally I wouldn’t use canned food, but this recipe does call for water and some salt.  The celery will provide a tiny bit of salt, but the can of peas just happened to be a convenient fit.  If you’ve got dried peas, you might want to soak them before cooking even though the heat inside the crockpot is humid.

Finally, a pinch of thyme, a dozen cranks on the pepper grinder, and a few shakes of oregeno make the perfect seasoning.  Cover up the crock pot and find some way to distract yourself from how long it will take to cook.  The good news is, the only step after being patient is enjoying dinner.

***This recipe fills up a pretty big crockpot, and its going to cook slower than usual due to the amount of food stuffed inside.  Its also going to make enough meals for a family + leftovers, or a week’s worth of bachelor grub.

Food

Saved by the Potato

Leave a comment

Prices are going up, everywhere.  If you’ve been to a gas station or a grocery store in the last few years, you know exactly what I’m talking about.  However, the guys at the federal budget office apparently don’t go to these places because they say inflation has been kept moderate at about a 2% rate.

Of course, when you manipulate the numbers like they do, its easy to see how they come to such an out of touch conclusion.

The government argues that food prices only rise at about 4% a year, but this is only true if the people substitute fresher, healthier, more expensive foods with cheaper ones.  According to the CPI, food is only slightly more expensive but what you’re eating isn’t as good as it used to be.  Here are some examples comparing the 1970s to now:

  • Fruit:  In the 1970s, the average person ate about 22 pounds of fresh fruit in a year.  Since the price of fruit is skyrocketing, you only get 4 pounds a year today – and you pay way more for way less.
  • Beef:  You can eat the same amount of beef today that you did in the 1970s, but it will cost a bit more.  Of course, the standard for beef in the 1970s was lean steak and today its high-fat ground beef patties.
  • Fresh vegetables:  Fresh vegetables have risen 20% in the last two years.  So CPI assumes that you will eat less vegetables.  What’s it replaced with?   Sodas, cookies, cakes, and candies actually dropped in price, so they expect we’ll have more of that.

Now, for someone eating gluten-free on a budget, this is quite the conundrum!  Processed foods are essentially off-limits and fresh foods are becoming more expensive by the day.

This brings me to the title of my post, “Saved by the Potato”

  • They’re cheap
  • They’re naturally gluten-free
  • They’re healthy
  • There are literally hundreds of ways to cook them, season them, and serve them
  • The high plant-starch seems a good replacement for wheat and helps promote a balanced diet

Don’t get me wrong, potato prices are going up too.  Unfortunately though, its only candy and baked goods that are dropping in price, and that won’t help you if you’re going gluten-free.