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In my defense, I do call it Tomato Carbonara to help avoid confusion. So it should not surprise you to learn that there are, in fact, tomatoes in the recipe. 4 small-to-medium ones, to be precise.

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Quarter the tomatoes and throw them in a blender. You do want to slice off the little stem bit at the top, but the rest should go in, seeds and all.

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Chop up three or four big leaves of real basil, and add 2 cloves of minced garlic.

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1 teaspoon of salt, and 1 Tablespoon of olive oil, and you’re ready to blend! Don’t forget to put the lid on.

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Now me, I like to do this part ahead of time, and save it in the fridge until I’m ready. It makes my last-minute dinners that much more triumphant. But there’s no reason you have to do that. If you’re going to use your sauce right away though, you should be more efficient and get the bacon cooking before you work on the sauce.

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Take a pair of kitchen shears and cut cross-wise several times over a whole package of Hormel Natural Choice bacon. [As always, the brands I use were GFCF at the time of posting, but manufacturers can change formulas without warning. Always check your labels!] The pieces will separate as it cooks, and now there’s no need to wash a cutting board. Notice that it’s a deep pan, so it can hold everything else once the bacon’s done.

Of course “done” is a very subjective term when it comes to bacon. I like mine pretty soft, while others like it burnt to a crisp. I’ll leave the negotiations in your family up to you.

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At any rate, once it’s reached the state you desire it to be in, just dump in your tomato sauce and 12 ounces of cooked gluten-free noodles (pasta shape negotiations are, again, up to you.) These King Soba brand, if you’re curious.

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Let it simmer a bit until everything’s warmed through. If you want to make your dish taste like something gourmet rather than gussied-up marinara sauce, add 1-2 Tablespoons of white cooking wine. I usually serve the kids first, and then add this to the pot for the adults at the meal. For one thing, the kids don’t appreciate the flavor, and for another, you have to boil something for a good 20 minutes if you want the majority of the alcohol content to be cooked away, and the whole point of this meal is it’s not supposed to take that long.

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Happy Eating!

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Tomato Carbonara Pasta

4 medium tomatoes
3-4 leaves fresh basil
2 cloves garlic
1 tsp salt
1 TBS olive oil
1 pkg Hormel Natural Choice bacon
12 oz. gluten free pasta
1-2 TBS white cooking wine (optional)

Anyway, my nightly cooking has reflected this uncontained chaos, and the truth is I haven’t been cooking much at all, let alone trying to experiment with new recipes. On the other hand, I was forced to be a little more creative most nights given my lack of time, and did actually manage to throw together something that turned out unexpectedly great.

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First, start grilling two chicken breasts in a pan with a little olive oil. Make sure you are looking at something more important when you season them, so you waste a bunch of salt and pepper in the pan like I did. Don’t be nervous about seasoning without measurements, it’s only salt and pepper. Just make it look like the picture does.

Resist the urge to turn them too early; you want the cooked part to be crawling more than halfway up the sides, and the underside to be good and browned before you flip them over.

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Meanwhile, start boiling about 4-8 ounces of gluten-free pasta. Given the color I’d say mine was at least partially corn-based, but the truth is I have no idea what brand this was.

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After it’s cooked and drained, drizzle 2 Tablespoons of olive oil in and stir well. I’d blame the steam for the blurry photo, but really it was just my unsteady hands.

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Now then: lazy secret ingredient number one. This is a random jar I found near the spaghetti sauces in my grocery store. It’s basically chopped up artichokes, garlic, oil, and salt. I think it’s supposed to get dolloped onto little toasty rounds of bruschetta at a fancy dinner party or something. But instead, I scooped about 1/2 cup of it directly into my pasta. I bet your store has something similar. Of course you should always be extra careful to check the label on any unfamiliar foods you buy.

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And lazy secret ingredient number two, a pre-made pico de gallo, which you may remember seeing before. I’m nothing if not consistent. Adding in the mango bits is a local thing, but if you’re too far north of the border to get anything remotely like this, you could always make your own. It’s literally just one red onion, one tomato, one small jalapeno, (one mango,) and a little cilantro, diced finely. I think I probably dumped in about a cup. I was not measuring this evening, believe me.

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Around this time your chicken breasts should be close to being done.

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Cut them into slices, lay them neatly across your bowls of pasta, and you might even get away with looking like you put some effort into this.

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Happy Eating!

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The GFCF Lady’s Artichoke Pasta

2 chicken breasts
salt and pepper
4 ounces gluten-free pasta
2 TBS olive oil
1/2 cup diced artichoke mix
1 cup pico de gallo

What-what-what? Is that a fresh garlic clove I see? Yeah, sometimes I end up going the extra mile. I was going to be making something later in the week that called for whole cloves of garlic, so I had the extra garlic lying around and figured I shouldn’t let it go to waste. Anyway, I snipped the ends and got them peeled, but I’ll warn you, I did not even come close to properly mincing them, probably out of defiance more than anything. My mother has told me I was very contrarian as a child too.

Where was I? Oh yes, Greek Flank Steak! We’re making a flavorful marinade here, so we’ll need at least three cloves of garlic, chopped into whatever consistency you can manage.

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Next we’re going to add the juice of two lemons. Again with the fresh stuff! Don’t worry, that little plastic container of lemon juice still has a home in my fridge. But they were having a sale on lemons, and I figured why not? In general, a medium lemon will produce 2 Tablespoons, so this equals about 4 Tablespoons (or 1/4 cup) of lemon juice.

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Now toss in 1/2 teaspoon of pepper, and 1 Tablespoon of salt.

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Also, 3 teaspoons of dried oregano (which is the same as 1 Tablespoon, if you’re into measurement conversions.)

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Pour in one cup of quality olive oil, and mix everything thoroughly.

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Now put the whole concoction into a ziplock bag with a 2-3 pound flank steak, and let it marinate overnight in the fridge. This is important, because flank steak is generally a fairly tough cut of meat, and the acidity of the lemon juice is going to slowly break it down and tenderize it. If you shorten the marinating time, you will still have an excellent flavor, but the meat may end up pretty chewy.

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The next day, just place the steak on a rack and broil it in the oven for 6-10 minutes on each side, depending on how thick your cut of meat is. Of course you can also do it on an outdoor grill if you’re into that sort of thing.

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I like it best sliced very thin, which for the record, this is not. The GFCF Husband didn’t realize I was photographing this meal, and started cutting in his own quick-and-dirty way before I had a chance to do it. Certainly can’t fault him for trying to help me get dinner on the table faster, though.

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Happy Eating!

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Greek Flank Steak

2-3 lb flank steak
3 cloves garlic
1/4 cup lemon juice
1 Tbs salt
1/2 tsp pepper
1 Tbs oregano
1 cup olive oil

Let’s face it. There are a lot of gluten-free substitutes out there that individuals who have been eating gluten-free for awhile will insist, “Oh, it tastes just like the real thing, you can’t even tell the difference!” We all know they’re delusional, plain and simple. They’ve forgotten what the originals tasted like. A lot of gluten-free stuff tastes good in its own right, so that’s fine — but don’t give me applesauce and try to convince me it tastes just like mashed potatoes, you know? There’s nothing wrong with applesauce tasting like applesauce.

The point is, I would read about these fabled kale chips, and all I could do was shake my head in pity at these pathetic people who had somehow convinced themselves that cooked lettuce could taste like a chip. How badly must they want to eat chips, I thought, to be able to pretend this stuff tastes good at all, let alone like anything resembling a chip?

Let me cut to the chase, here: I was wrong. Boy, was I ever wrong. These things are completely amazing. They shatter in your mouth, like a wafer-thin potato chip. They don’t quite taste like potato chips, but they definitely don’t taste like a leaf. The predominant flavor is the salt, just like with a potato chip. But of course what really matters is the kid-test. And I am here to tell you, Girl Scout’s honor, my kids have been wolfing these down since the first day I made them. I had to sneak-force the first bite into the GFCFBoy’s mouth, that’s the kind of resistance he was putting up… and after the look of surprise wore off, he started grabbing them straight off the pan.

Seriously, y’all. I’m not making it up. My two children under the age of four are eating fistfuls of baked kale. It’s insane.

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It’s important to note this can only be done with kale, because it has such a naturally dry, dense leaf. You absolutely cannot make this with spinach, for example, because it will just wilt. So first, wash your kale leaves, making sure to get the middle of the stem where the dirt tends to hide.

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Next, run your knife along each side of the main stem to remove it. We just want the leafy bits.

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Crosscut them into chip-size pieces. You could also tear them with your hands, precision isn’t really important here.

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Now, this is important: after you cut all your pieces, let them sit until the leaves are completely dry again. You’ll know they’re ready when that ashy-white color has come back. You could speed it along with a towel or a salad spinner or something, but the best thing to do is just give it time to fully evaporate. It’s critical that these things be as dry as possible in order to cook right. Then, and only then, pour about 2-3 tablespoons of olive oil into the bowl, and work it all around with your hands.

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And I mean really work it. You want every square millimeter covered with oil. I actually find that it’s kind of a waste of time to do it in the bowl, because these curly leaves always manage to hide their inner surfaces. Instead I work it around the bowl for maybe 30 seconds so my hands are nice and oily, then I rub each leaf flat between my palms as I lay them out on the baking sheet. It’s messy, but it goes fast.

So. Critical step number one is they must be totally dry when you start. Critical step number two is they must be saturated with oil over every membrane. And critical step number three is: don’t crowd the pan. You want lots of shiny foil showing up between the leaves. I spread one head of kale over at least two large baking sheets.

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Put them in a 350 degree oven for 12-15 minutes. They’re done when the leaves are dark and stiff, but not yet brown. You can literally just stick your hand in the oven and brush it very lightly across the tops — if they feel stiff like autumn leaves, they’re ready! But if they’re brown like autumn leaves, they’re burnt, and don’t even try tasting them, because they will be nasty. Better to pull them out too early than too late, trust me.

UPDATE: I have since settled upon a much more effective cooking method, if you happen to have a convection oven (this sometimes masquerades as a “speed bake” button on the front panel.) Basically the convection function turns on a fan inside the oven, which dries out the air — generally resulting in things cooking faster, but the drying aspect is the key here. Cook the kale chips at 250 degrees, with the convection fan on, for 25-30 minutes, stirring once. They will come out perfectly even, and you will never have to worry about burning them even a little.

Sprinkle them liberally with salt, and possibly other seasonings if you’re feeling adventurous. Garlic powder is a popular choice, and some kale chip mavens even go for things like paprika or dill. I like just plain old salt, though. You must not salt them before they go in the oven, though, only after, because otherwise the salt will drastically shorten the cooking time (by drawing the moisture out faster) and it will be almost impossible to catch them in that narrow window between cooked and burnt.

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See how they’re shiny, but dry? It’s almost like they’ve been fried in the olive oil. They’ll keep in an airtight container at room temperature for more than a week. I’d like to tell you exactly how much more, but I can’t, because I swear to you, my kids keep eating all of them! And these are not children who appreciate anything of a leafy variety, not at all. I know exactly how skeptical you’re feeling right now, but give kale chips a chance. I’m so glad I finally did.

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Happy Eating!

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Kale Chips

1 bunch of kale
2-3 Tbs olive oil
salt

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Thankfully, I have this thing called the grocery store that keeps me stocked up year round. I like to use about 10-12 roma tomatoes for this recipe because they’re firmer, but you could use a smaller number of larger tomatoes if you wanted. Cut them in half and scoop out the insides with a knife, spoon, thumb, or whatever you have available.

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Lay them out on a kitchen towel and sprinkle the insides liberally with salt. This will help draw the moisture out a bit.

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Then turn them upside down on the towel so they can drain. Sure, you’ll have to wash the towel after this, but I’m such a messy chef that I have to break out a fresh kitchen towel almost every night anyway.

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While the tomatoes drain, mix up your filling. Start with 1 container of coconut milk yogurt, and add 1 teaspoon of basil, 1 teaspoon of parsley, and 1 teaspoon (or 2 cloves) of minced garlic.

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No need to use a separate bowl, just mix it all right there in the container.

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Turn your tomatoes onto a baking sheet with parchment paper, and liberally brush the herb yogurt mixture into your little canoes. We’re not looking to fill them all the way, because the end result would be extremely messy. Just a thick coating should be good.

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Now crush up about a cup of Rice Chex. [As always, the brands I use were GFCF at the time of posting, but manufacturers can change recipes without warning. Always check your labels!] I used to do this in a ziplock bag, but my bags always got little holes poked in them as I was crushing and then chex dust would leak everywhere. It works much better to just gently punch it in the bowl with your hand.

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If you’re serving these to guests, you might want to be more diligent in your crushing so they don’t necessarily know your bread crumbs are really Rice Chex. But I’ve got nothing to hide.

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Once they’ve all got a good crumb coating, give each tomato a very quick drizzle of olive oil. But be quick about it — I hesitated on this one trying to get the action shot with my camera, and it ended up with too much olive oil. You want less than what’s in the picture.

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Then just pop the tray in a 400 degree oven for about 10-15 minutes. The end result can be served several to a plate as a side dish, or individually as appetizers. Not that we ever deal with that sort of thing around here, but maybe some of you still have a social life that involves entertaining non-relatives in your house. But if not, don’t worry, these things will still disappear from your kitchen like ninjas, even if you’re the only one eating them.

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Happy Eating!

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The GFCF Lady’s Roasted Tomatoes

10-12 roma tomatoes
1 container So Delicious coconut yogurt
1 tsp basil
1 tsp parsley
1 tsp minced garlic
1 cup Rice Chex
olive oil

First, of course, comes the honey. 1/4 cup of it, to be precise.

Then, 1 Tablespoon of orange juice. Can orange juice contain gluten? Why yes, yes it can. How sad is that? Minute Maid is one safe choice. [As always, the brands I use were GFCF at the time of posting, but manufacturers can change their formulas without notice. Always check your labels!]

Then add in one Tablespoon of extra virgin olive oil.

And this trio of spices! 1/4 teaspoon each of garlic powder and thyme, and just a pinch of cayenne pepper.

And a half teaspoon of salt. Isn’t it interesting how the garlic powder spreads all over the surface and avoids the oil, while the thyme just sinks and sits there in a mound? I’m sure there’s an elementary school science project in there somewhere.

Ruin the aforementioned science project by vigorously stirring all the substances together, then marinate your pork chops in your sauce for anywhere between 30 minutes to a few hours, depending on how your schedule works out. (Of course make sure to place the marinating bag back in the fridge while it sits–I’d be so sad if any of you died of trichinosis on my watch.)

When you’re ready, just dump the whole bag into your pan, extra marinade and all, and sautee them until they’re cooked through. You’ll need anywhere from 5-10 minutes per side, depending on how thick your pork chops are cut. My little digital meat thermometer is one of my favorite kitchen tools. No guessing, no cutting the meat to check… just stab it in, and when it reads 165 degrees, they’re perfectly done. If only all cooking were that easy.

And hey, by that time your marinade will have reduced to this awesome glaze. Man, I think I’m going to cook these again tomorrow night…

Happy Eating!

Honey Orange Pork Chops

2-4 pork chops
1/4 cup honey
1 TBS Minute Maid orange juice
1 TBS extra virgin olive oil
1/4 tsp garlic powder
1/4 tsp thyme
pinch cayenne pepper
1/2 tsp salt

And what could be more basic than the humble potato? I love the little red ones, they’re so cute. Just cut them in half, maybe quarters for the bigger ones, and toss them with a couple tablespoons of olive oil. Normally you would see my little oil spigot thing, but somehow it didn’t make it into the frame. Just imagine there’s a thin stream of oil about to hit these apples of the earth.

That’s what they call potatoes in French, you know: pommes de terre, or “apples of the Earth.” In Spanish it’s patata, but that’s not nearly as interesting. Oh look, we’re oiling a sheet of foil on a baking pan up there. I think that’s what, sunflower oil? I don’t even remember; I play pretty fast and loose with my oils.

Salt them generously. How generously is up to you, but I like it pretty generous. Then again, you can always add more after they’re cooked, so if you want to stay on the safe side, that’s okay too.

Then sprinkle them with rosemary, and put them in a 350 degree oven for about 45 minutes. I wish I could tell you an actual measurement of how much rosemary to use, but I just keep sprinkling until it looks right. I determined what “right” was by the highly scientific method of “remembering what those new potatoes looked like at that one wedding buffet I went to.”

That’s how you know this is an easy dish, by the way: anything that can sit in a chafing dish for an hour and still taste good by the time you get to the front of the line must be impossible to ruin. So if they have to sit in the oven a little longer, or if you’re cooking something else at a different temperature and you want to cook the potatoes at the same time, don’t sweat it. You can throw them in at pretty much any temperature, and just pull them out when they’re starting to brown on the edges, and they’ll be good.

Happy Eating!

Roasted New Potatoes

Small red new potatoes
olive oil
salt
rosemary

As promised, here is a handy little cilantro pesto recipe, good for using up leftover bunches, sneaking cilantro into your children’s diet for its detoxifying effects, or both. You may notice I was relying heavily on the “use it up” excuse this time, as my cilantro was getting a little wilty. So much so, that I figured it wasn’t even worth it to try to pick out the good parts from the bottom half, I just chopped it right off.

Of course, even when you try to take the lazy way out, you still end up having to pick out tons of thick stems from the top part. Learn from the error of my ways, people.

Once you’ve got a tightly-packed cup’s worth of usable leaves, throw them in the blender, and add 1/2 cup of Bob’s Red Mill ground almond meal. Or grind up your own almonds in the food processor, but really, that’s so much more work. And you already did all that work pulling out the stems, you deserve a break.

Add one clove of minced garlic…

2 Tablespoons of lemon juice…

And 6 Tablespoons of olive oil.

Now make a bunch of noise with your blender, and pray it doesn’t wake the kids up from their nap.

If it’s too thick, you can add a little more liquid. Just remember to keep the ratio of lemon juice to oil at 1:3. So one 1/4 teaspoon of lemon juice…

And three 1/4 teaspoons of oil.

Repeat as necessary until you have a lovely green paste. The lemon juice acts as a preservative, so it will keep in an airtight container in the fridge for weeks. Dip tortilla chips in it, use it as a spread for burgers, add some extra oil and toss it with rice pasta, or mix it into ground meat–whatever your kids will let you get away with.

Happy Eating!

Cilantro Pesto

1 cup packed fresh cilantro
1/2 cup of Bob’s Red Mill almond meal
1 clove of garlic
2 tablespoons lemon juice
6 tablespoons olive oil