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First, put two boneless chicken breasts on to boil in a small pot. While that gets going, dice up a medium yellow onion.

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Add a little oil to a very large skillet and begin sauteeing your onion pieces on low heat while your chicken continues to cook. (It should stay at a rolling boil for about 15 minutes, maybe more depending on how thick your chicken pieces are.) Add 1 teaspoon of salt, and 2 cloves of minced garlic to your onion.

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Also add 2 teaspoons paprika, 1 teaspoon cumin, and 1/2 teaspoon black pepper. Stir it so the spices are evenly distributed, then let the onions settle in to get nice and translucent.

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Meanwhile, chop up about 1/2 cup of fresh cilantro. Unless you are morally opposed to cilantro, don’t skip this step. It completely makes the dish. Then, while you continue to tap your toes waiting on your onions and your chicken (will this 15 minutes never end?!) whip up a double batch of avocado cream, for a total of 2 cups. Set it aside for now, we’ll get back to it in a minute.

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About this time your chicken breasts should be done, so yank them out of the water and give them a quick chop job. Then dump both chicken and cilantro into your giant sautee pan (you did choose a large enough one like I told you to, right?) Mix everything together thoroughly, then let it hang out and keep warm while you start to assemble your layers.

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First, start with a gluten-free tomatillo salsa, also known as salsa verde. This is kind of a specialty food, so there aren’t any nationally-recognizable brands I can suggest for you all (mine’s actually made in Mexico, so you’re not likely to be able to find it unless you live near the border like I do.) Of course the best thing is if your label contains nothing but whole, recognizable ingredients, but in a pinch I’ve even pulled out my cellphone and called a manufacturer’s customer service number right there in the grocery store aisle. Whatever gets the job done.

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Pour about 1/4 cup of the tomatillo salsa on the bottom of your greased 9″ by 9″ baking dish. This is just a thin little drizzle that’s going to help keep your bottom layer from sticking, it doesn’t really count as a layer. Your official first layer will be corn tostadas, broken up and overlapped a bit as necessary. You could also use soft corn tortillas, or even tortilla chips — though both are going to get soggier than these nice thick tostadas — as long as it’s 100% corn, whatever it is.

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Next, grab your avocado cream, and dollop half of it (or about 1 cup) on top of the tostadas, using the back of a spoon to spread it out evenly.

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Next, add a layer of tomatillo salsa. It’s about 1/2 cup, I think, but I just kind of eyeball it.

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Then, layer on half of your chicken mixture. Press it down a bit so it’s not full of air bubbles.

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Now, the final item in our layering scheme is diced green chiles. “But GFCF Lady,” I hear you say, “that can says whole chiles.” Well, yes, so it does. My son really, really likes the grocery store, you see, and shopping trips with him can be classified anywhere from mildly hyperactive to a Category 5 hurricane. In my hurry to get out of there on this particular occasion, I grabbed the wrong can. But no biggie, I just diced them up on my cutting board. Whether you buy them whole or diced, however, this is another one of those items that should contain nothing but the chiles. Don’t settle for added junk.

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Sprinkle half of your chile bits over the chicken, then start the layers over: tostadas, avocado cream, tomatillo sauce…

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…chicken mixture, green chiles. Bake uncovered in a 450 degree oven for 25 minutes, and the result will be the creamiest, tastiest enchilada casserole this side of the Rio Grande.

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Happy Eating!

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The GFCF Lady’s Enchilada Casserole

2 chicken breasts
1 medium yellow onion
2 cloves minced garlic
1 tsp salt
2 tsp paprika
1 tsp cumin
1/2 tsp black pepper
1/2 cup chopped cilantro

8 corn tostadas
2 cups avocado cream
1 1/4 cups tomatillo sauce
1 can chopped green chiles

And thanks to everyone who posted about what they’d like to see in the future, I’m going to do my best to provide the most helpful recipes I can. Speaking of, have you ever made your own beans? I avoided it for so long, because it had such an old-school mystique about it, I thought it must be terribly hard. But it isn’t! What’s more, beans are very healthy, and homemade ones cost one-tenth what canned beans do.

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Look, it’s a bag of beans! Everything I’m about to describe goes for all types of beans, by the way, I just happen to be using black beans because they’re my favorite.

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The first thing you must do with real beans is soak them overnight. There are ways you can try to speed-cook them, but the beans don’t come out as well, and what’s more, soaked beans cause less flatulence. That’s better for everyone involved, don’t you think? I find a drink pitcher to be the most convenient way to soak them.

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Fill it most of the way with water and just stick it either on the counter, or in the fridge, before you go to bed. Being at room temperature will speed up the soaking, and help the oligosaccharides break down faster, which is what makes the beans easier to digest and ultimately leads to less gas. But they probably shouldn’t have more than about 12 hours soaking at room temperature. So if I’m going to be slow-cooking them in the crock pot all day, I soak them overnight at room temperature and deal with them in the morning. If I’m going to be cooking them in a normal pot on the stove, I soak them in the fridge, and leave them there all the way until the late afternoon when I’m ready to start cooking them.

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One way or the other, when you’re ready to start cooking your beans, pour your nasty water out (see how handy the pitcher lid is for this?) and cover them again with fresh water.

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Boil them for 2-3 hours on the stove, or 5-6 hours in the crock pot on low. If you have to leave them in there for longer, it’s not really a big deal, they’ll just be extra soft. Make sure you start with at least 3 times as much water as you have beans, because they’re going to absorb and swell a lot.

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The seasonings depend entirely on what kind of beans you’re making, and what kind of recipe you’re going to use them in. I was going for a Mexican flavor this night, so I put in 1 teaspoon each of chili powder and cumin. (After it was done, I kinda wished I’d put some dried cilantro in there too. Oh well, there’s always next time.) Now is when a lot of people like to put bacon or other pieces of pork in with the beans to flavor them. If you do this, make sure you get a gluten-free brand of bacon, and preferably one with no added nitrates or nitrites either, like Applegate Farms. [As always, the brands I use were GFCF at the time of posting, but manufacturers can change recipes without warning. Always check your labels!]

When you store the leftovers — and you should definitely have some, because the whole point of cooking beans is to make a huge batch at once — keep them covered with some of the remaining liquid so they stay moist. They’ll freeze well this way too. When it’s time to reheat them, you can drain them like you would a regular can of beans, or…

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You can dump the whole thing back into a pan on medium-high heat, and shove them around a bit until they mash up and become refried beans. Who knew it was that easy?

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Here we have my concoction for the evening: sorta-refried black beans over Mexican rice, topped with corn and mango pico de gallo (you can find a discussion of pico de gallo in the comments section here, if you’re not familiar with it.) You could also put them in tacos, in a soup, as a side dish… one batch can be used for several very different meals throughout the week, saving you lots of time, money, and effort.

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Happy Eating!

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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

I don’t know if I buy it, but I’m desperate for approval, so I’ll try to conform in my own lazy way. Let’s cook up some breakfast tacos!

I don’t know about you, but I like potatoes in my breakfast tacos. Ore-Ida also makes a more traditional hash brown product, which would strictly speaking be more, well, traditional here. But you know what you would have if you took a bunch of hashbrown pieces and squashed them back together? A french fry! And by the transitive property, it is therefore completely legitimate to cut these fries up and call the result a suitable potato ingredient for breakfast tacos.

Also, it was what I had in my freezer.

We like the Zesties fries, but you could go with a plain Ore-Ida frozen potato product of pretty much any kind. [As always, the brands I use were GFCF at the time of posting, but manufacturers can change their formulas without warning. Always check your labels!]

Anyway, the whole point of getting the potatoes out first is they have to cook in the oven according to package directions. And toss the bacon in there while you’re at it.

Wait, what? Yes, I said cook the bacon in the oven. A friend of mine taught me this trick, and I’m telling you, it has changed bacon consumption in this house forever. Just spread some parchment paper on a large pan, and lay out your bacon strips. A general cooking guideline for them is anywhere from 15 to 35 minutes at 350, depending on how crispy you like your bacon. But if the oven has to be hotter for the potatoes, don’t sweat it, just keep an eye on the bacon and pull it out whenever it’s done. It will come out perfectly, with far less mess, and then you too will be a bacon-in-the-oven convert. (And for the record, you don’t have to use turkey bacon, regular bacon is fine too, though you will need to stick with a brand that uses no gluteny preservatives, like Applegate Farms.)

Now, grab some Food For Life brown rice tortillas out of the freezer, and pop them in the microwave for about 10 seconds. Then peel off the actual number of tortillas you need from the now not-quite-frozen stack, and toss the rest back in the freezer for another day.

Okay, it’s finally time to cook the eggs. See why I don’t put out this much effort often? Although I will admit that in dinner terms, it’s not as much work as most other meals, so half the time we’re not actually eating these for breakfast at all. But regardless of what the clock says, you’ll need to grease your pan. I use tub stuff for pans because you can use more or less than an exact tablespoon without messing up those handy measurement markers they put on my margarine sticks. Please note that not all Smart Balance products are casein-free–as far as I know, this one “light” flavor that says “Now with Flax Oil” is the only one.

Scramble your eggs in a bowl, and dump them in the heated pan. Resist the urge to shove them around the pan too much while they’re cooking, just let them sit until the bottom starts to set, then scrape it up so more liquid can flow underneath it. Repeat this a few times, and it will naturally create the right texture. Seriously, don’t stir them all over the place the whole time, it messes them up. Scrambled eggs is one of the few things I was really good at cooking before embarking on this adventure (and I lucked into the technique just by ignoring the pan for the most part–see, sometimes being a lazy cook works out for the bettter!)

Finish heating the tortillas, and fill with scrambled eggs, bits of french fries, and a slice of bacon. Feel free to add a GF salsa, if that’s your thing. Down here, it kind of goes without saying: everything gets salsa on it.

Happy Eating!

Breakfast Tacos

Food For Life brown rice tortillas
Ore-Ida frozen potatoes
Applegate Farms bacon
Eggs
GF salsa (optional)

Let’s make some tacos! You have three options for the wrapper: a 100% corn crunchy shell, a 100% corn soft tortilla, or… these crazy things. They’re corn tortillas, but they’re from “sprouted corn.” Basically it means they grind the corn up later in the growth process, so the plant is more mature and it’s had longer to build up more nutrients. I dunno, we like them mostly because the texture is much thicker and chewier, like a flour tortilla, rather than those translucent corn tortillas that tear if you look at them funny. Plus, the GFCFHusband says normal corn tortillas taste like lard and he hates them.

Anyway, they’re in the freezer section of our health-food store. You can either microwave them, or go all fancy and toast them in a dry pan on the stove, whatever floats your boat.

Shred some cooked chicken, or brown some ground beef if you swing that way. If you season the meat, don’t use those pre-made “taco seasoning” packets, because they’re always full of gluten. You can easily put the spices together yourself–those things are basically just cumin, chili powder, maybe a little onion powder, and salt. My chicken up there? Totally unseasoned. This was a lazy, lazy night for me as I recall.

This fabulous stuff is mango pico de gallo (pico de gallo is just finely diced tomato, onion, cilantro, and jalapeno pepper, for you people who don’t live within spitting distance of the Mexican border.) It’s not hard to make, but it is a little time-consuming to chop everything up, so I’ll confess I usually buy it pre-made at our grocery store. Plain old diced tomato would work just fine too.

Sprinkle on some lettuce and you’re good to go! What these tacos really need is some avocado, but alas, I didn’t have any this night. That is a surprisingly rare occurrence, I should tell you. I almost always have guacamole in the house. You could also add refried beans, black beans, or mexican rice to bulk them up a bit, if you wanted.

Happy Eating!

Tacos

100% corn tortillas or tostadas
Shredded chicken or ground beef
(Season to taste with cumin, chili powder, onion powder, and salt)

Toppings:
Tomato
Lettuce
Avocado
Beans

But in this recipe, it’s at least a reasonably fair moniker, because it does include some very Southwestern ingredients. If you’d rather call it Arizona Chicken Soup to promote diversity among the Southwestern states, that’s fine by me. We start with about one pound of plain old chicken. (And I do mean plain–stay away from broth-injected packaged chicken, unless you like to gamble with your gluten content, which I’d hope you wouldn’t, being on this site and all.) These are some extra tenders I had leftover in the freezer, but you could do any kind of light or dark meat, it doesn’t matter. Boil them until they’re cooked through, about 15 minutes depending on the thickness of your pieces.

Drain the chicken and set the pieces aside. In the same pot (it doesn’t have to be the same pot, but why get extra dishes dirty?) pour in 4 cups of gluten-free chicken stock. Pacific Foods makes a good one. [As always, the brands I use were GFCF at the time of posting, but manufacturers can change formulas at any time. Always double-check your lablels.]

While the stock is warming up, shred the chicken pieces with two forks.

Also, measure out 1 1/2 cups of gluten-free salsa. The spice level is entirely up to you (and what your kids will tolerate.) They make some salsas that are as mild as ketchup, and others that will take a few layers of skin off your mouth. Mine is a local brand, so you’re unlikely to be able to find it in your area, but Tostitos (All-Natural line of flavors only) is another option that’s sold pretty much everywhere.

Oh and look, this one even calls itself Texasalsa. In my defense, I used to prefer a different flavor of Jardine’s 7J Ranch salsa, but that one had gluten in it, alas. Just goes to show, you can’t mentally mark whole brands as safe or not, you have to verify each individual product.

Add the chicken and salsa to the pot, and toss in some frozen corn. I guess this is probably about a cup, I just give the bag a couple of shakes until it looks right.

Also add in 2 Tablespoons of lime juice. You can cut back on this if your salsa is already on the acidic side. Mine is, but I like the extra bite anyway. And yes, the GFCFBoy likes it this way too–he’s got sensory issues with his mouth, and loves extremely spicy or sour flavors. Used to eat wasabi peas as a toddler, no joke.

Chop up about 1/4 cup of fresh cilantro. If you don’t have fresh, just skip it, don’t even bother with the dried stuff for this. Chances are decent your salsa already has some of that in it anyway. Fresh makes all the difference in the flavor here. Plus, there is evidence that cilantro is a natural detoxifier, among its many other health benefits. Some even go so far as to suggest that in the right doses it can be as effective as chelation drugs at removing heavy metals from the body, which is a topic of interest to many parents of autistic children. (And if you’re looking for other places to sneak cilantro into the diet of you or your offspring, I’ve got a nice cilantro pesto recipe that I promise I’ll post sometime soon.)

Now, I know that cilantro is a very polarizing herb; people either love it or they hate it. There are even some scientific studies confirming that a portion of the population has a genetic variance in their tongues’ chemical receptors, which sadly makes cilantro taste absolutely horrid to them. If you’re one of these people, don’t worry, there’s a community just for you. Also, if you’re one of these people, just try using parsley in this recipe instead. It won’t be the same as my soup, but I’d imagine that’s kind of what you’re going for.

Jeez, enough with the cilantro already, eh? Just scrape it into the pot and get on with it! Okay, I hear you. We’re almost done.

Season with salt to suit your tastes. Again, this depends on the base flavor of your salsa. I use about a teaspoon or so.

At this point what we’ve got is pretty thin. If you like it that way, great, but I tend to like my soups to be just a little thicker. So I mix a Tablespoon of potato starch in the minimal amount of water needed to dissolve it, and add that to the simmering pot. Sometimes I’m impatient and add two, it just depends. Another thing you can do if you want to stretch the soup further is add a cup or two of cooked white rice.

Let it simmer and reduce for as long as you like. Me, I usually just barely get everything warm enough before I start greedily ladling it into my bowl. This goes great with tortilla chips (make sure they’re 100% corn,) and even better with a side of guacamole. I gotta tell you, guacamole absolutely saved me when we first started this diet. It had that perfect creamy texture I was craving–everything that used to get cheese or sour cream on it got a heaping glop of guacamole instead. I’ll spare you the details, but suffice it to say that no combination was too weird. I was a guacamole fiend for weeks on end.

Happy Eating!

Texas Chicken Soup

1 lb. boneless chicken pieces
4 cups Pacific Foods chicken stock
1 1/2 cups GF salsa
1 cup frozen corn
1/4 cup fresh cilantro

OPTIONAL:
2 TBS lime juice
1 tsp salt
1 TBS potato starch dissolved in water
1 cup cooked rice

Mexican food is one of the safer cuisines to eat on this diet, since so much of it is corn-based. But nonetheless, it turned out that our favorite pre-diet Mexican restaurant not only served tortilla chips made with wheat flour and whey, but even their rice was unsafe. The GFCFBoy absolutely loves to eat refried beans and Mexican rice, so I knew I had to find a workable recipe right away.

First, dice up 1/2 an onion. You can add other veggies if your kids will tolerate them, like some frozen peas or carrot bits. Unfortunately our old restaurant didn’t do that, and my kid has always been fixated on the look of his foods, rather than whether he actually likes the ingredients or not. So I can put carrots and peas in other dishes, no problem–but not his beloved Mexican rice.

Toss the veggies in a pan with some olive oil and 1 clove of minced garlic, and let everything sautee over low heat while you prepare the rice cooker. If you don’t have a rice cooker, you are really missing out, I’m telling you. This thing is the greatest kitchen appliance ever. We used it probably once a week even before we had to rely so much more on rice for our meals. If we had to start selling our personal possessions, this is the very last thing I’d get rid of. I’d be wearing a burlap sack and still happily cooking perfect rice with zero effort.

But if you insist on doing things the old-fashioned way, you can still use this recipe. It just won’t be as cool. Instead of cooking the rice in water, we’re going to boil it in the following concoction: first, 3 cups of Pacific Foods gluten-free beef broth (yes, I know the picture only shows two cups, I don’t have a measuring cup that will hold three cups all at once.)

1 tsp of McCormick chili powder (YES, I know that’s not the right measuring spoon, I use two scoops of the littler one because it fits inside my spice jar. I’m practicing my math skills while keeping my kitchen counters clean at the same time.)

1 1/2 tsp McCormick cumin…

And 6 Tablespoons of Contadina tomato sauce. Please note that the Contadina tomato sauce “with Italian Seasonings” is not gluten-free. But seriously, why would you want to put Italian seasonings in Mexican rice anyway? Ya weirdo. [As always, manufacturers can change formulas without notice. Always check your brands.]

Once all that is mixed up in your rice cooker, and the onions are translucent, add 1 1/2 cups of uncooked rice to the pan.

Sautee the rice lightly, stirring frequently. You probably want to use a larger pan than I did, I always try to get away with the pan that fits better in the dishwasher, and it doesn’t always work out. The point of cooking the rice like this is to sort of seal each grain before you boil it, which will result in that nice non-sticky texture that Mexican rice is famous for.

See how the grains are turning translucent, but there are still some that are mostly white? If all the oil in the pan has been absorbed, you can add another Tablespoon or so. You don’t have to get every grain translucent, but the more the better.

Now scrape the whole pan into the liquid in the rice cooker, and give it all a good stir. If you were doing this without a rice cooker, at this point you’d put it all in whatever pot you were going to use, bring it to a boil, cover with the lid, etc.

But all I have to do is push this button down and walk away. It will pop back up at the precise moment the rice is done, and not a moment sooner or later. No burned rice on the bottom, no accidentally checking your pan too early and letting all the steam out.

Ta daa! Just like at the restaurant. Except gluten-free, cheaper, and available even in the middle of the night if you get some sort of weird craving for it. Which you just might, you never know.

Happy Eating!

Mexican Rice

1 1/2 cups uncooked rice
1/2 chopped onion
1 clove garlic
3 Tbsp oil
3 cups Pacific Foods beef broth
1 tsp McCormick chili powder
1 1/2 tsp McCormick cumin
6 TBS Contadina tomato sauce