Of course, I eventually learned the error of my ways, under identical circumstances each time: I got invited on a date that involved said international cuisine, and I decided I liked the guy enough to suffer silently through a meal of torture. Come to find out, in both cases the food was much better than the gentleman after all! But that’s another story.

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The point is, I defected to the other side, and became a staunch sushi advocate. And it turns out, sushi rolls are surprisingly easy to make at home. First, of course, you’re going to want to start a batch of sushi rice (minus the wakame, in this case.) While that cooks, prepare your other ingredients for assembly. I’m making a modified California roll, so we’ll need a cucumber, peeled and cut into long thin slices.

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Make sure you cut the seeds off of each section, because nobody likes cucumber seeds.

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Also, we’ll need a bunch of avocado slices. (See this post if you need a rundown on how to properly cut up an avocado.)

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Now, traditionally, California rolls use “krab,” a substance that makes both foodies and English teachers cringe in unison. Those brightly-colored, perfectly straight sticks are not in fact made of crab at all, and more importantly, they are made of gluten. If you’re lucky enough to have a kid who will eat sushi, you must remember that all crab on a sushi restaurant menu is probably going to be the fake kind, even if they spell it like the real thing. But if you look in the right place in your grocery store, you will probably be able to find real, actual crab meat, and that’s something we can use.

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This is a sheet of nori, or seaweed paper. You can find it at an Asian market if your grocery store doesn’t carry any, but check your ethnic foods aisle first, you might be surprised. It has a shiny side and a bumpy side, and the shiny side goes face down.

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Spread out a layer of your sushi rice on top of the nori, leaving only a small space around the edge. The rice will be very sticky, so it’s easiest to do this with the back of a wet fork. You can also tell that I was too impatient and started spreading the rice on while it was still hot, thus partially steaming and shriveling my seaweed paper. Try to let it cool as much as you can. Then, line up your inner ingredients along the bottom edge.

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The bamboo mat is an essential piece of equipment for this, by the way. If you try it barehanded, your fingers are guaranteed to stick to everything and tear the delicate paper to pieces. Also, the proper technique would be to use both hands to make sure you’re rolling it as tightly and evenly as possible, but a photography assistant is just a teensy smidge out of my price range, so you’ll have to bear with me. (Truth be told, if I were filthy rich I’d hire a real sushi chef instead and still take the pictures myself.)

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As you inch forward, squeezing the roll tightly the whole way, peel the mat away from the front edge so it doesn’t actually get wrapped into the roll. I wouldn’t normally be doing this with one awkwardly stretched index finger, but again with the one-handed photography thing. Incidentally, there’s this pervasive idea on the internet that you should put a layer of plastic wrap on top of your bamboo mat to keep it clean. I’m here to tell you that’s ridiculous, and it just gets in the way. Use the bamboo mat the same way the Japanese have been using it for thousands of years, and wash it when you’re done; it’s not that hard.

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Slice your roll with a very sharp, wet knife, and voila! (Sorry for the linguistic insensitivity, but I don’t know how the Japanese would say it.) You should get 3-4 rolls out of this quantity of rice, depending on how full you stuff them with other things. I ended up with a little bit of cucumber and a ton of crab leftover, but I’m sure I can find a use for the crab later in the week. And if we’re lucky, it’ll turn out to be something worth documenting and I’ll share it with you!

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Happy Eating!

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Sushi Rolls

1 batch of sushi rice
1 cucumber
1 avocado
1/2 cup 100% crab meat (not krab stick)
3-4 sheets of nori

What you are seeing here is no less than a revolution in cheese substitutes. Joining the ranks of coconut milk, and coconut yogurt, there is a new product available that could rightly be called coconut cheese. But really, they’d prefer you call it Daiya. This product has been around for awhile — there’s a restaurant near me that’s been serving it for at least a year now — but Whole Foods and other consumer outlets have just recently begun carrying it on the shelves. If yours doesn’t have it, see if they’ll special order it for you. This stuff blows all the other fake cheeses out of the water, and I say that as someone who has roundly condemned cheese substitutes from day one.

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Anyway, enough about cheese, we’re making pizzas here. You could bake your own GFCF crust, but then this wouldn’t be a no-bake pizza, would it? What I’m doing here is placing a layer of Daiya cheese shreds between two Food For Life brown rice tortillas. The end result will be moist, yet crispy — the perfect New York style thin crust. [As always, the brands I use were GFCF at the time of posting, but manufacturers can change formulas without warning. Always check your labels!]

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This is Muir Glen organic tomato sauce. There are indeed some tomato sauces that contain gluten, so make sure you can identify every ingredient listed if you choose another brand. Stay away from “natural flavors,” unidentified “seasonings,” or any other nonsense like that. Also note the proper way to spread the sauce over the crust: with the back of a spoon in an outwardly expanding spiral. My very first job as a teenager was at a Domino’s Pizza, and the gigantic flat ladle they use for this purpose is officially named a “spoodle.” Seriously.

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Add whatever toppings float your boat, but do be aware that pepperoni, Canadian bacon, or any other kind of processed meat is likely to contain gluten.

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Applegate Farms does make a official pepperoni, but I ended up using this package of salami instead. Technically, pepperoni is a type of salami to begin with anyway. The word’s not even Italian. If you went to Italy you’d have to order “spicy salami” instead, or they’d just stare at you funny.

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Pop it in the oven for about 10-15 minutes at 425, until the cheese is nice and melty. And boy, does it ever melt. I couldn’t get a good shot of it, but when you lift your first slice, you’ll see those stretchy strings just like real cheese. I am truly awed at what the Daiya people have accomplished here. But even if you go for another brand of fake cheese, or a completely different thing like grated polenta, this pizza crust is super-fast and sure to please.

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Happy Eating!

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No-Bake Pizza

2 Food For Life brown rice tortillas
1 package Daiya cheese substitute
1/4 cup Muir Glen tomato sauce
Applegate Farms pepperoni
Other toppings as desired

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Of course my version is GFCF. (That’s kind of my thing. Did you know that? Sorry if it was too subtle.) So we start with a package of Applegate Farms hot dogs. They also make a decent turkey hot dog if you happen to prefer that.

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Slice the hot dog into bite-sized chunks, and jab half-sticks of uncooked gluten-free spaghetti into each piece. I’m actually using this cool new King Soba pasta my store started carrying, made out of sweet potato and buckwheat. Now before you go into palpitations, remember that buckwheat is not actually wheat. It’s a completely different plant, contains no gluten, and is one of the better GF flours to work with, in my opinion. It just has a stupidly inaccurate name, that’s all.

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Speaking of inaccurate, octopuses might not be the best name for these, since most of them end up having more than eight legs. You can call them jellyfish if your anal-retentive kid is gonna call you on it. When they’re still uncooked like this, I actally think they look like little Sputniks (which makes sense, because they’re Russian, remember?)

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Toss them into boiling water and cook according to your pasta’s package directions.

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And voila, we have noodly appendages! Do I think it looks appetizing myself? Well no, not really. But I don’t have a Y chromosome. Little boys think this stuff is hysterical, and they eat it right up. Literally.

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Happy Eating!

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But can I really improve on these delectable GFCF chicken nuggets I showed you how to make way back when? Oh, indeed. You may recall that at the time, I said, “I’d probably bread everything in nothing but almond meal, if the stuff weren’t so darn expensive.” Well it turns out, there was a less expensive source sitting right under my nose. Much less expensive, in fact!

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Honeyville Grain sells blanched almond flour at half the price of Bob’s Red Mill. (The price drops even more if you buy it in 25 lb. bags, but I realize most of you aren’t going to be able to go through it that quickly — though it does keep for a very long time in the refrigerator…) I’ve been experimenting with this stuff like a madwoman, and I have to say, I’m an almond flour convert at this point. The texture is just miles better than anything else out there in my opinion, and with the obstacle of cost removed (or at least reduced to the equivalent of every other GF flour out there,) there’s no reason not to use it in practically everything.

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I’ll try to post some recipes for baked items involving almond flour in the near future, but for now, let’s get back to these amazing chicken tenders, shall we? I was exaggerating slightly when I said “nothing but” almond flour, there are a few seasonings that help this meal reach its full potential. Specifically, that’s 1/2 teaspoon each of salt, garlic powder, and ground ginger, and 1 teaspoon of paprika.

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Blend all that into 1 cup of almond flour. (That’s another important distinction between the Honeyville product versus Bob’s Red Mill, by the way: Bob’s Red Mill officially makes almond meal, which is a coarser texture, and doesn’t work as well for baking. It would still work fine here, except for the part where it’s twice as expensive.)

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I’m using 2 pounds of chicken tenders straight out of the package, but you could certainly cut up your own chicken bits if you’d prefer. As always, make sure you get chicken meat that isn’t injected with broth, as that may contain gluten. “Retained water” = good, “up to 3% solution” = bad. There’s really no need to do an egg wash in this recipe, especially since the almond flour is already packed with protein. I just use about a Tablespoon of high-quality olive oil.

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Roll your oiled chicken in the breading, and lay them out on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper.

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I sprinkle any leftover bits on top for a little extra crunch. The reason you can get away with doing these in the oven instead of frying them in oil is because the almond grains are too dense to get soggy in the oven like other GF breadings. They come out just as crunchy, with less effort.

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30 minutes in the oven at 400 degrees, and just look at that golden deliciousness! My whole family prefers the taste, plus it’s more nutritious, costs the same as anything else a gluten-free cook would use, and involves less work and cleanup than frying. Time to light the fireworks!

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Happy Eating!

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Oven-Baked Chicken Tenders

2 lb. chicken tenders
1 Tbs olive oil
1 cup Honeyville almond flour
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp ground ginger
1/2 tsp garlic powder
1 tsp paprika

Making your own jello — er, excuse me, your own flavored gelatin — is so incredibly easy, y’all. Also, it’s cheaper. Oh, and healthier, too. Did you know gelatin is good for digestion? Jell-O used to advertise that on their products back in the 50s, but then their devious marketing guys figured out they could sell more if they promoted it as fun for kids! instead. No offense to Bill Cosby, I’m sure he’s not devious.

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Most people don’t even know you can buy this stuff, but every grocery store will have it in the baking aisle. It’s just plain gelatin. Basically, it’s a box of Jell-O, but without the chemicals, dyes, and artificial sugars. Well, actually it’s like four boxes, since it comes with four envelopes. And yet it costs less. Crazy, huh?

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And here I have a bottle of Not Artificial Flavoring. Look how sneaky I am, tricking my kids into eating vegetables yet again! That’s another advantage of making it yourself, you can put in whatever blend of juices that you want. And every drop of real juice you put in is a whole drop more than that Jell-O box would have had. Just because they put a picture of a cherry on the box doesn’t mean there’s a single molecule of actual cherries in there.

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Pour one cup of your juice into a decent-sized bowl, and sprinkle one packet of gelatin all over the surface. Let it sit there for a minute. Meanwhile, heat another cup of plain water in the microwave. About one minute ought to get it to boiling, conveniently enough.

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Notice that I’m holding the glass with an oven mitt, because it does contain boiling water, after all. So be careful. This is exactly what you’d be doing with a box of Jell-O, by the way: put the packet in the cold liquid, then pour in the boiling liquid. You are expending zero extra effort by making your own, and getting a whole ton of benefits.

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Now, if you’re making your gelatin with a fruit juice, there’s no need for extra sweetener. But if, like me, you’re secretly foisting purple vegetable juices upon your kids, you may want to add a Tablespoon or two of honey just to make it convincingly dessert-like.

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Once everything is thoroughly stirred together, just pour the whole bowl into a 9×9 glass baking dish. I’m proud to say I do not now, nor have I ever owned a jello mold — but if you do, hey, go for it!

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Place it in the fridge for 3 hours, and voila! If you want, you can go all crazy with fun cookie cutter shapes, or you can just cut the whole thing into cubes like boring old me.

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This recipe actually makes a pretty firm gelatin, because I like to pop several of these cubes into my kids’ lunchboxes, and I don’t want them reduced to slush by the time they’re ready to eat. If you want a softer result, just add another 1/2 cup of juice to the recipe, or even a full cup if you’ve misplaced your dentures, or had your wisdom teeth pulled recently. Of course, you could also pour them directly into tiny serving cups before chilling, so they’d be ready to throw in a backpack or purse at a moment’s notice.

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Happy Eating!

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Non-Branded Gelatin Dessert

1 envelope plain Knox gelatin
1 cup boiling water
1-2 cups fruit or vegetable juice
1-2 Tbs honey, if desired

There’s two ways you can go with this recipe: you can make a traditional chunky soup, or you can make just a basic chicken broth, which is good for cooking, or for drinking out of a cup if your kids don’t like eating soup. I’ve actually mixed it half-and-half with fruit juice before, and mine couldn’t even taste the difference.

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Start with a whole chicken, sometimes called a “fryer.” It should be somewhere between 4 and 6 pounds, not too huge. Make sure you choose one that’s all-natural and hasn’t been injected with any broth, which might contain gluten. “Retained water” is the only phrase you want to see, never the word “solution.”

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Take a pair of sturdy kitchen shears, and carve the chicken up into its typical chicken parts: cut off each drumstick and wing at the joint, then go up the middle and split the ribcage. Your chicken may or may not come with giblets (the chicken’s organs) stuffed inside, but if so, they’re good for boiling, so just toss them in the pot with everything else.

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Cover everything with filtered water and bring it to a boil. Now, there are two types of fat that are going to come off this bird. First is this nasty foamy stuff. Scoop it off with a spoon and throw it away.

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Then a few minutes later, this rich golden layer will start to rise to the top. This is the good fat.

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Good though it may be, you still need to remove it from your broth. Skimming this fat off the surface takes a more delicate touch. You can dip a spoon very shallowly like this, and remove it one spoonful at a time. Or you can just slurp it up with a baster.

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Here’s the awesome thing, though: this stuff is actually useful. Instead of tossing the liquid fat down the sink, you can put it in a tupperware, or use an empty coffee can with a fitted lid like me. Then stick it in the fridge, and soon…

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It will have solidified. Looks an awful lot like butter, doesn’t it? Cooks an awful lot like butter, too. Except of course this is 100% dairy-free, soy-free, chemical-free, everything-free. It’s just pure clean rendered chicken fat, and you can use it in pretty much any recipe that calls for butter. This is old-school pan-greasing material, right here. When the apocalypse comes and we’re all reduced to subsistance farming out of our backyards, don’t say I never gave you any tips.

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Anyway, back to our chicken broth. After the chicken pieces have boiled for 30 minutes, pull them out of the pot with a pair of tongs and set them aside. Once they’ve cooled enough to handle, pull all the cooked meat off the bones. If you’re making plain chicken broth, just save the meat for an easy meal later in the week, like tacos or pasta. If you’re making real chicken soup, just hang onto it for now, we’ll add it back into the soup later. But either way, collect all the skin in a separate little area, because boiled chicken skin is not good in either soup or tacos.

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Put all the bones back into the pot (and don’t feel like you have to pick them completely clean like I got this one, just get the bulk of the meat off and throw anything inedible back into the pot.) It’s important to boil the bones, because they have just tons and tons of nutrients that you can steal away into your broth.

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At this point you want to toss in 2-3 carrots, 2-3 stalks of celery, one teaspoon of salt, and one bay leaf. Leave the carrot and celery pieces very large for now, even if you plan on putting them into your final soup. Add in some more water until the level is back up at the top of the pot. Then let it simmer for… 2 hours? 4 hours? It’s up to you, really. The longer you let it simmer, the more you’ll get out of your vegetables and bones, and the richer your broth will be. I know some people who just let theirs go all day, 8 hours or more. As long as you keep adding water so it doesn’t completely boil off, you can do whatever fits your schedule. (In my opinion it’s a waste to go for less than an hour, though.)

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When you’re ready, scoop out all the big pieces with a slotted spoon. If you’re making real chicken soup, now is the time to take those carrots and celery and chop them into little bite-size pieces. The chicken skeleton has finally worn out its usefulness, so you can toss the rest of that stuff.

Now is also the time to add your final amount of water. I generally fill it almost back to the top of the pot, because I need to feed a lot of people with one batch of soup. But if you are able to leave it more concentrated, you’ll end up with a tastier soup, so lucky you!

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Unless you’ve got a very finely-slotted spoon, you’re still probably going to want to strain what’s left. I use a big pitcher set in the sink with the strainer balanced on top of it, so I can use both hands on the giant soup pot. Rinse the junk out of the pot, and pour the broth right back in, along with your good chicken meat, carrots, and celery, plus maybe some gluten-free noodles or rice if you want to make it a little more filling.

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Of course, if you’re only making plain chicken broth for cooking, you can stick that pitcher of golden perfection right into the fridge the way it is. Or if you’re cooking ahead of time, you can freeze it into ice cubes so you can thaw precisely the right amount as necessary.

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Here’s another handy tip. Remember how I said boiled chicken skin is no good? Well if you’re feeling decadent, you can remedy that sad state of affairs. Throw all your leftover chicken skin onto a baking sheet, and cook it in a 350-degree oven for about 15 minutes, and you will end up with little bits of crispy deliciousness that will go straight to your hips. But you know what? You spent all afternoon making homemade chicken soup for somebody, so you deserve it.

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Happy Eating!

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Homemade Chicken Soup

1 whole fryer chicken (about 4-6 pounds)
2-3 carrots
2-3 stalks celery
1 bay leaf
1 tsp salt

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The key ingredient here is the rice paper that the spring rolls are wrapped in. My grocery store carries it in the ethnic food aisle, but you may have to go to an Asian market to get it, it just depends. The ingredients should literally be nothing but rice and tapioca starch.

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My shrimp are looking pretty pathetic here, to be honest. They were frozen. They look better by the time they’re cooked, I promise. You’ll want to boil three shrimp for every spring roll you plan to make. They should only need maybe 7-8 minutes to cook, even if you start from frozen.

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The bulk of the spring roll is going to be filled with these tiny white noodles called vermicelli, or cellophane noodles. Often they are made of rice, but sometimes they are made of mung bean, as is the case here. Again, any Asian market will have them.

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Mine come conveniently clumped into single-servings, which will fill two spring rolls each. But if yours are in a big block, just break off what you need. Boil them for about 5-7 minutes, just until the noodles are soft and slippery, then you can turn the heat off and let them hang out in the water while you assemble the spring rolls.

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Fill a huge bowl with warm water. Dip one sheet of rice paper carefully under the water, and hold it there for 30 seconds.

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See? Soggy and floppy! I mean, ah, soft and pliable. Yeah.

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Traditionally, shredded cabbage is the main vegetable of choice in spring rolls. But I’m kind of partial to this random product I found. It’s basically just shredded broccoli stalks. Plus, it’s got this weird carrot-and-broccoli superhero lady on the bag, so that’s something else in its favor. I think. Anyway, just pick something green and slightly crunchy, whatever floats your boat.

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It’s hard to see, but my wet rice paper is laying on the cutting board, and the filling is about two inches from the bottom edge. Lay three shrimp in a line, then top with your shredded cabbage (or broccoli shreds, like me.) I also added some shredded carrots and a thin slice of yellow bell pepper. Really, the fillings are up to you. We’ve filled some with cooked rice and leftover pulled pork before, and it turned out great. Anything you can put in a burrito, you can put in a rice paper wrapper.

That herb I’m topping it off with is cilantro, by the way, also known as coriander. If you hate cilantro (and many people do,) another traditional herb you could substitute is mint.

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By now your noodles will be a tangled mess inside your pot. Take a fork, and twist up a hefty amount like spaghetti, so that the dangling column is about an inch thick. Then just take a pair of kitchen scissors and snip it right off. Instant spring roll size!

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Fold the sides of your rice paper inward…

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Then roll tightly from the bottom upward, making sure the top flap gets a nice wet seal against the rest of the roll. If you let the rolls sit for awhile before serving, the rice paper will have a chance to dry out just a little bit, which will reduce the chances of it tearing. Assuming you can stand to wait that long. These hold up great in lunchboxes, by the way.

And of course, don’t forget the peanut sauce.

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Happy Eating!

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Spring Rolls

8 rice paper rounds
24 small shrimp
shredded cabbage or broccoli
shredded carrots
cilantro
Vermicelli noodles (rice or mung bean)

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You can certainly make your own gluten-free crust if you’re feeling bakey, but in my opinion that’s only worth doing when the storebought versions aren’t any good. And I’m here to tell you, these Kinnikinnick GFCF pizza crusts are good. (And just so we’re clear, they don’t pay me to say that — they don’t even know I exist. I’m just a happy customer, that’s all.)

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Of course you could always go with a standard Italian pizza, tomato sauce and pepperoni and all that, but I’m jumping continents for a less conventional dish. On my Mexican pizza, we’re going to be using a black bean mixture for the sauce. First, start with a can of Bush’s black beans, mostly drained. [As always, the brands I use were GFCF at the time of posting, but manufacturers can change recipes without warning. Always check your labels!]

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Mash the beans up with a potato masher, or just use a fork if you don’t have one. Alternatively, you can start with a can of refried black beans instead, and save yourself the work. This might also be a good option if your kids are sensitive to lumpy textures.

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Now add in two Tablespoons of your favorite GFCF salsa. Mine’s a local brand, but one national brand option is Tostitos (the All-Natural line of flavors only.)

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Next add in 2 cloves of minced garlic (or 1 teaspoon of the jarred kind,) and 1 teaspoon of dried cilantro.

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And while you’re at it, toss in one teaspoon of cumin, too.

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Mix everything thoroughly, and spread it onto your crusts with the back of a spoon. This will make enough to liberally cover 2-3 of the Kinnikinnick crusts, so if you’re making more than that you’ll want to increase the recipe accordingly.

Now as for the cheese substitute… You can of course use any of the soy-based fake cheeses available, but I believe I’ve mentioned before what I think of those. (Do also be careful with them, as many fake cheeses still contain casein. “Sodium Caseinate” is the deadly ingredient you’ll need to watch out for.) There’s actually a brand new cheese substitute on the market called Daiya, which is made from coconut instead of soy. We had a chance to try it at a local GF restaurant, and it was awesome! But while it is slowly starting to get distributed to grocery stores for individual sale, I still can’t get it in any of mine yet (I’m looking at you, Whole Foods!) So in the meantime I am continuing to use something a little more unorthodox…

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Polenta! Let me be the first to admit, this was not my idea. I honestly cannot remember where I first read this suggestion; if anyone knows please leave a comment so I can give proper attribution. For those of you not familiar with it, polenta is a kind of cooked, mashed up corn meal, usually stocked in these plastic tubes in the pasta aisle of regular grocery stores. It tastes like pretty much nothing, which is far better than tasting like a bad fake cheese, in my humble opinion.

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Most importantly, you can grate it just like real cheese! Leave the wrapper over the part you’re holding though, because otherwise it’s going to get all mooshed up in your hand.

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Granted, it’s not really going to melt, but it will brown on the edges a bit, so in the end it looks pretty darn good. Just sprinkle it on exactly like you would shredded cheese.

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Pop it in a 375 degree oven for 10-15 minutes, and you’re good to go!

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As with any pizza, the range of toppings is completely up to you. But I do highly recommend tomatoes and green onions with this black bean sauce. It’s very Mexican-y, don’t you agree?

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Happy Eating!

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The GFCF Lady’s Mexican Pizza

2 Kinnikinnick GF pizza crusts
1 can Bush’s black beans
2 Tbs GFCF salsa
1 tsp minced garlic
1 tsp dried cilantro
1 tsp cumin
3/4 cup grated polenta
1 roma tomato
2 green onions

I know you already know how to assemble your basic GFCF taco, so really this is about the preparation of the fish. Step one is to rinse the slime off your fish filets. Always rinse your fish — for one thing, it’ll help any seasonings or marinades absorb better, and for another, you won’t be eating slime.

Make sure you pat them completely dry with paper towels on all sides. Then slice them into decent-sized chunks for tacos. At this point, of course, you could roll them in GF breading and make fish sticks, but we’ll save that for another time.

Melt 2 Tablespoons of Fleischmann’s Unsalted (not Original) Margarine, then mix in 1/4 teaspoon of cumin…

…And 1/8 teaspoon of garlic powder. None of the appropriately-sized measuring spoons were clean, so I improvised. I don’t have it in me to run the dishwasher more than once a day, or do dishes by hand just because we don’t have any more. If this means I’m serving something like hamburgers in bowls, so be it.

Lay your fish pieces in a greased baking dish, and brush the garlic butter liberally over the tops. Then bake in a 450 degree oven for only about 4-7 minutes, until the fish is flaking apart easily when you poke at it with a fork.

And the rest is just dressing. Or fixins, as we say down here. Corn tortilla, rice tortilla, salsa, guacamole, beans, whatever you fancy. Your fish is ready for it, bring it on!

Happy Eating!

Fish Tacos

2 fish filets
2 Tbs Fleischmann’s Unsalted Margarine (not Original)
1/4 tsp cumin
1/8 tsp garlic
Toppings as desired

Granted, plain white potatoes are not really that nutritious in the grand scheme of things, but they can be an excellent vehicle for a wide variety of toppings. Like a lot of meals, they aren’t traditionally GFCF, what with all the butter and cheese and sour cream, but who wants to be traditional anyhow? A little creativity goes a long way.

But before we can revel in our topping choices, we have to get our potato into a baked state of mind. First, jab it liberally on all sides with a fork. (If you don’t, you will have yourself an exploding potato instead.)

Then wrap it loosely in a paper towel, and microwave it for 4 and a half minutes. Now, this is important: take it out of the microwave and let it sit for another 5 minutes. It will continue to cook as it rests, so that by the end the middle will be perfectly cooked without the outside being overdone.

If you are making several potatoes instead of just one or two, you may want to do it the slow but simultaneous way, which is to put all of them in a 350 degree oven for one hour. Of course you don’t want to put a paper towel in the oven, but the fork-jabbing step is still quite necessary, believe me.

Now, on to the toppings! Today I decided I was going to go with kind of a modified version of a BLT, because I had some leftover bacon in the refrigerator. “Leftover” is a bit disingenuous, actually, since it’s always part of my plan when I make bacon to cook a few extra slices so I’ll have some ready to use in a salad or whatever later in the week. See here for a description of how I make bacon in the oven with zero effort and very little mess. Unfortunately, this wasn’t destined to be a true BLT, because I didn’t have any lettuce, and I wasn’t convinced the texture would be that good on the potato anyway.

But I did include what I consider to be a vital part of a BLT, and that’s chipotle mayo! The chiles in Sriracha (also sometimes known as Rooster Sauce) are not truly chipotles, but they get the point across. You could mix in real chipotles in adobo, or even dried chipotle spice or chili powder, whatever you have on hand. The proportions are a little fuzzy; start with 1 teaspoon of spicy stuff in 2-3 Tablespoons of mayonnaise, and go from there. Not all mayonnaises are gluten-free, but Hellman’s actually prints it right on the label for us, isn’t that nice of them? [As always, the brands I use were GFCF at the time of posting, but manufacturers can change formulas without warning. Always check your labels!] And, if you mix it up in one of these tiny single-serving disposable tupperware things, then you can just pop a lid on whatever you don’t use and save it for a sandwich or GF tortilla wrap later in the week. Efficiency is your friend!

And here we have my completed Bacon-Tomato-Chipotle-Mayo potato. (Read that out loud once or twice, it’s fun.) I was really wishing for some fresh green onions to go with it as well, but my empty refrigerator mocked me in this regard. But what’s important to understand is that anything, absolutely anything, can go on a baked potato. Meats, beans, veggies, GFCF dressings, guacamole… If you’re not up for baking gluten-free hamburger buns, for example, you could just fill a baked potato with ground beef and hamburger fixings. Or rather than always buying the expensive gluten-free pastas, you could fill one with chicken and spaghetti sauce. Why, just a few days ago I even made one with Thanksgiving leftovers:

That’s turkey, cranberry sauce, and some extra deviled egg filling I still had hanging around after I’d already filled all my egg halves to overflowing.  This was one of my favorite baked potato combinations I’ve ever eaten, and believe me, I’ve made a lot.

Happy Eating!