Wait, that doesn’t sound right — I mean for one thing, I don’t even get minimum wage.

Fortunately, I already had everything I needed to throw together some steak sandwiches, GFCF Lady style. You probably do, too. It really doesn’t require much. I started with one onion, cut into long strips and sauteed to extremes in a little oil. To get the onion fully soft and caramelized without burning, it helps to put a lid on the pan to trap in the moisture and cook it from all sides. I let the onion cook the whole time I was making everything else, so probably about 20 minutes in total.

Next, a steak marinated in Lea & Perrins worcestershire sauce. [As always, the brands I use were GFCF at the time of posting, but manufacturers can change formulas without warning. Always check your labels!] I just laid it on a rack and tossed it under the broiler in my oven for about 6-8 minutes per side. (I’m morally opposed to using an outdoor grill when it’s still above 100 degrees after sunset, you know. But if you don’t live in a state adjacent to Hades itself, you might choose to see things differently. I’m also morally opposed to cleaning greasy pans, which is why I always line mine with foil.)

Meanwhile, I whipped up a tasty little sandwich spread by combining 2 Tablespoons of gluten-free mayonnaise (try Hellman’s if you’re looking for a national brand) and 2 teaspoons of worcestershire. The GFCF Husband likes to call this “flavornaise,” and I like to ignore him.

Thin slices of steak, thin slices of onion, thin slices of tomato, all on a sandwich-spreaded gluten-free bun. Oh my god y’all, it was so good.

But here’s a tip: do not, I repeat, do not put this on a round hamburger bun like I did. Use GF hot dog buns instead. There’s a reason this kind of sandwich typically gets put on a long roll, and for once the children weren’t the only ones making humongous messes on their plates. We gave up and got out forks within the first 3 bites. But man, I totally didn’t care.

Happy Eating!

Steak Sandwiches

1 onion
1-2 lb. steak
1 tomato
2 Tbs Hellman’s mayonnaise
2 tsp Lea & Perrins worcestershire
2-4 Kinnikinnick hot dog buns

.

We start by hardboiling three eggs. (They should spend 15 minutes at a full rolling boil, if you don’t happen to keep egg timing tables in a readily accessible part of your brain.)

.

Peel the eggs and slice them in half, then gently pop out the yolks. They’re not part of this recipe, so you can toss them, or mix in some mayo for a sandwich spread, or even sprinkle on a little salt and snack on them while you’re cooking. That’s what I always end up doing. I’m sure my arteries are so grateful to me.

.

Meanwhile, cut the whites lengthwise again, then cross-cut into thirds. Or whatever, just get them bite-sized.

.

Slice and dice about half a cucumber.

.

And do the same with two roma tomatoes.

.

Now, the critical question: what dressing to use? Generally speaking, we’re going for an Italian flavor here. (Notice how the salad is a lovely red, white, and green? That’s no accident, my friend.) There are a lot of GFCF Italian dressings out there, but then again, there are a lot that aren’t. Personally, I’m in love with Brianna’s New American dressing, which is basically a thick balsamic vinaigrette. It’s darn tasty, whatever national heritage it wants to claim. [As always, the brands I use were GFCF at the time of posting, but manufacturers can change formulas without warning. Always check your labels!]

.

Drizzle with impunity, toss lightly, and dig in! Another option is to substitute tofu for the egg whites, if you happen to be vegan, or just like the taste of tofu. I don’t fall into either category, but I promise I won’t judge. Well, not very harshly, at any rate.

.

Happy Eating!

.

The GFCF Lady’s Cucumber Tomato Salad

3 hardboiled eggs
1/2 cucumber
2 roma tomatoes
3-4 Tbs Brianna’s New American dressing

.

This recipe earns its south-of-the-border credentials right off the bat with a can of diced green chiles. Dump them into a pan with a diced onion and a little oil, and let it all start to get nice and soft. The mild green chiles are definitely kid-friendly; it’s about the flavor, not the heat. Of course you can go with a spicier blend if you prefer, but either way make sure your can has nothing but green chiles in it. There’s really no excuse for any added ingredients with this one.

.

Meanwhile, cut up one roma tomato into chunks, and throw it into the pan as well, seeds and all.

.

While your onions, peppers, and tomatoes continue to sautee, crack open 8 eggs and scramble them. A drinking glass works just as well as a bowl for this, by the way, and it’s easier to fit into the dishwasher.

.

When the onions are translucent, pour in your eggs…

.

…and stir them frequently as they cook. They’re going to tend to stick to the bottom of the pan a little more than plain scrambled eggs, so you have to keep them moving.

.

When the eggs are about half-set, break up a corn tostada, or handful of 100% corn tortilla chips, and mix it into the pan. The tostada bits will absorb just enough moisture to still be firm like a corn tortilla, but not sharp enough to stab you in the roof of your mouth.

.

Traditional migas call for cheese, so sprinkle some Daiya on top of your finished eggs if you want. Serve with salsa and slices of avocado for a traditional Mexican flavor, or a pile of bacon for an American slant. Or transcend the borders and go with both!

.

Happy Eating!

.

Migas

1 medium onion
1 can diced green chiles
1 roma tomato
8 eggs
1 corn tostada (or six 100% corn tortilla chips)
Daiya cheese substitute (optional)

.

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.)

.

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!]

.

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.

.

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.)

.

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

.

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

.

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…

.

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.

.

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.

.

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.

.

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

.

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?

.

Happy Eating!

.

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

Lamb! If that gives you an initial shudder, just remember: a baby lamb is no cuter than a baby cow, and we cook those little guys up all the time, right? Right. I get this stuff frozen at my normal grocery store, and I bet yours has it too. You just have to ask someone who works in the meat department, because it’s not going to be on some big obvious display. In an ideal homage to Greek food, it would actually be a lamb roast rather than ground lamb, but the important thing is the flavor.

Season it with 1/2 teaspoon of paprika, and 1/2 teaspoon of oregano.

Also add in 1 Tablespoon of dried, minced onion (or onion powder, whatever you have.)

Mash it all together so the seasonings are evenly distributed. Really stab at it; cooking is a great way to let your aggression out.

Okay, while that browns, we’re going to prepare the tzatziki, that yummy cucumber yogurt sauce that is a necessity for Greek food. Start by peeling one whole cucumber. You could use a peeler, but I find that with such a thick skin, it’s pretty easy to just cut it in half and then slice downward around the edges with a sharp knife.

Then we want to cut the seeds out. First quarter your long pieces…

And again, slice vertically to neatly remove the core of seeds all at once. (Don’t go thinking I do this one-handed though, I just paused mid-cut to take a photo. You do have to brace the top with your fingers for this to work right.)

Throw away the seeds and peel, and dice up everything you have left.

Now, you could just blend this into a pre-made casein-free yogurt and call it a day. But for us, that doesn’t work. I personally think soy yogurt is the most disgusting thing on the planet–I seriously can’t even stand to smell it in the kitchen. I don’t know what it is, but my tastebuds completely reject all soy “dairy” products on a very intense level. And while the flavor of the cucumber might not clash too badly with the mild flavor of coconut milk yogurt, the GFCF Boy is severely allergic to coconut, so that option is out for us too. But if it works for you, go for it!

Instead, I just make a modified version of my Ranch dressing. You can’t see it, but underneath the cucumber is 1/4 cup of Bob’s Red Mill finely ground almond meal. Then on top we add 1/2 Tablespoon of canola oil…

1/2 Tablespoon of potato starch, 1/2 teaspoon of salt…

And 1/4 cup of water. (This is less water than the dressing recipe uses, because the cucumber is going to add a ton of liquid to the mix.) You should also add in 1/4 tsp of garlic powder for a more authentic flavor–we’ve recently discovered that one of the GFCF Boy’s other longstanding, hard-to-pin-down allergies is garlic, so we’re avoiding it for now, but please don’t skimp on flavor just on my account.

Blend thoroughly, and pour into a small saucepan.

Cook over low heat for a few minutes until it has thickened to the right consistency, stirring frequently. As with the Ranch dressing, this is not a perfectly smooth dip, there is a little bit of graininess to the texture. But the flavor is great, and when it’s all mixed up with the other ingredients in the wrap it shouldn’t be an issue.

Oh yeah, did you forget we were making wraps, here? Your meat should be about done by now, and man, does it smell good. Just like Tino’s! (But I wouldn’t say that where he can hear you.)

I have tried and tried, but so far all of my GF pita experiments have been whopping failures. I’ve basically given up at this point, especially because these Food For Life brown rice tortillas are awesome. Even the GFCF Husband raved about how good they were. It’s not a thick doughy pita, it’s true, but for a GF bread product, it’s a darn good substitute.

One other tip, if you’re not using all the tortillas at once, don’t try to separate them in the package while they’re still frozen, you’ll just break them. Microwave the whole stack (outside of the plastic bag, of course) for about 15 seconds until you can peel off the number you need, and then refreeze the rest. It won’t hurt ‘em.

Add in some diced tomato and greens and you’re ready to go! Strictly speaking, romaine lettuce is the most authentic, but I just use the same baby greens I make salads out of. And if you have any tzatziki left over, it makes a great dip for chips or carrot sticks, or even a sandwich spread.

Happy Eating!

Greek Wraps with Cucumber Tzatziki

1 lb. ground lamb
1/2 tsp paprika
1/2 tsp oregano
1 TBS dried minced onion (or onion powder)

1 cucumber, peeled and seeded
1/4 cup Bob’s Red Mill almond meal
1/2 TBS canola oil
1/2 TBS potato starch
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 cup water
1/4 tsp garlic powder (optional)

tomatoes
lettuce
Food For Life brown rice tortillas

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

Simple is best, y’all. Simple is best. Add about a Tablespoon of Lea & Perrin’s worcestershire sauce to a pound of lean ground beef. [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!]

Divide into equal balls, and smoosh them right in the pan. If you believe it’s sacrilege to cook burgers on the stove instead of on a grill, I cordially invite you to come stand on my back porch in the 90% humidity, when it’s still 95 degrees even after the sun’s gone down, and count the number of mosquitos that bite you before you come around to my way of thinking.

Are there recipes for making your own GF hamburger buns out there? Sure. And maybe someday I’ll work up the energy to experiment with them. But I figure I do so much cooking and baking as it is, I allow myself to splurge on some of the basics that do have commercially-premade versions available. I’ve honestly found that the amount of money I save by no longer buying dairy products far outweighs the extra cost of a few GF hamburger buns. Cheese is expensive! Anyway, Gillian’s is our favorite brand. Whole Foods carries them, in a little freezer case next to the bakery. The texture is more like a biscuit than a typical hamburger bun, but for what it’s worth it’s a darn good biscuit. These are also especially useful if only some members of the household are eating GFCF, or if you’re trying to host non-GFCF guests at a cookout, because you can just heat up one at a time as you need. Just remember, if you toast your buns, never do it in the same pan or grill that you toasted the gluten buns on!

The burgers ought to be done after about 7 minutes per side over medium heat, but to be honest I never really pay that close attention. I just busy myself with pulling out all the fixings, slicing the tomato, warming up the buns and cutting them in half… and round about the time I’m finished the burgers are too. Do pay attention to your brands, as there are unsafe versions of all of these condiments. If you’re one of those heathens who puts mayonnaise on burgers, go for Hellman’s. It’s not pictured here because I’ve raised my children right, you see.

And if you just can’t have a burger without cheese, you can always go for rice cheese slices. I wouldn’t, but you (and the GFCF Husband) certainly could.

Happy Eating!

Hamburgers

1 lb. lean ground beef
1 TBS Lea & Perrin’s worcestershire sauce
1 pkg. Gillian’s GF French rolls
Heinz ketchup
French’s mustard
Hellman’s mayonnaise
Vlasic pickles
tomato
lettuce
onion