Brown Rice Couscous, tamales and possibly the best salad EVER!

Two days, two new GF meals to add to the list: 1. Grilled shrimp and veggie skewers with Mediterranean brown rice couscous 2. Tamales with Mexican Salad Both pretty easy, and fairly quick. Both also fab when the weather decides to be nice here in San Francisco (which is not all too often despite it being a part of "Sunny" California). The weather WAS nice last week, so we decided it was grillin' time. Having a big event upcoming, the menu had to be healthy. I had some shrimp in the freezer (flash frozen, not cooked, tails on) that I cleaned and made a marinade for out of olive oil, Dijon, Worcestershire, agave, garlic, onion, red wine vinegar and cayenne powder. I skewered the shrimp, put them in Tupperware, and poured the sauce over. Then I skewered some zucchini, yellow pepper, onion, mushroom and cherry tomatoes (on separate skewers - veggies and fish cook at different rates so you cannot skewer them together) and threw those in the Tupperware with the shrimps. Threw the whole thing in the fridge for awhile until it was ready to grill. For a side, I'd gotten a box of brown rice couscous (which is really just chopped up rice and no couscous, so totally fine for the gluten-phobes of the world like myself). I decided to do it a little bit Mediterranean style, so I chopped some almonds, toasted those with some olive oil, threw in some golden raisins and let them brown up a bit. For the couscous, I got the boiling water ready, added some cumin, chili oil, garlic powder and onion flakes. Unfortunately, I completely misread the instructions and thought it should cook like regular couscous where you boil the water, toss in the couscous, stir, cover, take off the heat and 5 min later you have couscous. Not so much with the brown rice. After a generous 5 min of sitting, during which I thought it was doing its thing, I realized that there was an extra step of boiling the whole mixture for an extra 10-15 min and THEN letting it sit. So, I had to improvise a bit, and it got a little bit overcooked (when I reboiled after letting it sit and then had to let it sit again), but it covered the basics. When it was done, I threw in some goat cheese and stirred int he almonds and the raisins. The flavor was spectacular, but the couscous itself was a little dry. Could have used some following of instructions and maybe a little bit of olive oil :) My husband took care of the grilling, and even though I threw off the schedule a bit with the "need to boil" delay, the food was good. We'll make this meal again but will coordinate the timing better. Higher heat for the shrimp and the veggies, more time for the veggies so they get nice and charred. This could have been a truly spectacular meal, but at least with some nice wine, it was a good one! Tamales and Mexican salad was a kind of cheat meal. I pre-bought the tamales at the Arrogant Hippie Grocery That Charges More Than Whole Foods - vegetarian tamales (locally made) with zucchini, tomato and corn. I decided to steam them rather than microwave. When they were done in the steamer, I topped each with some green salsa and some grated pepper jack and put in the microwave for less than 30 seconds just to melt the cheese. For the salad, I combined romaine with a bunch of cilantro for the greens. Added pinto beans, scallions, some crushed up blue corn tortilla chips (just a few for crunch), tomato (chopped), black olives. For dressing, I took some olive oil, a bit of dijon, a good amount of habanero hot sauce, some red wine vinegar and a few spoonfuls of Greek yogurt and whisked that all together. I feel like I may have added some garlic or some salt as well, but can't be sure. In any event, I seasoned it to tasted and then tossed it with the salad. All in all, super yummy and a totally fancy version of a lazy dinner. Will definitely make again!!! Next post: PIZZA!!!!

Chinese Food!

Chinese food presents an interesting problem in my gluten free world: Soy Sauce. Yep, most soy sauce is made from 40-60% wheat. Tamari, a soy sauce made from 100% soy beans, is a great alternative, but I've yet to find a restaurant that uses it in cooking, and the majority don't even carry it for dipping (this applies more to Japanese/Sushi spots). While I've yet to find a dining out solution for Chinese food, I've managed to make some very nice and MSG free dishes at home. Example - last night's dinner: Chicken with chinese eggplant, cabbage, baby bok choy and pea shoots. YUM!!! I've been making stir fry forever. Usually I buy the bag of prechopped stir fry veggies at Trader Joe's, make a sauce, add some chicken or shrimp, serve over brown rice and call it a day. My husband appreciates that I accompany the dish with egg rolls (great quasi healthy ones are available in the freezer section at TJ's). Last night I went in a slightly different direction, inspired by a trip to the Rainbow Co-op, or as I refer to it, the arrogant hippie grocery store that costs more than Whole Foods. I had some chicken at home (the hippie shop does not sell any meat products), as well as some frozen TJ's brown rice (so easy, cooks in 3 min and tastes exactly like it was cooked in a pot, with no dish to clean). In the hippie store produce section, I picked up 2 mini purple cabbages, 2 baby bok choy, 3 chinese eggplant, some crimini mushrooms, an onion and some peashoots. At home, I made a sauce from Tamari, the juice from 2 small oranges (one may have been a large tangerine), some agave syrup, dried onion flakes, garlic powder, chili garlic sauce (from the Chinese section of the grocery store) and Sriacha. I also added some cornstarch as a thickener (so much easier if you mix cornstarch and water in a separate container first into a slurry and add that to the sauce). I'd also on a prior trip to Whole Foods picked up some Asian Stir Fry oil, so I heated that in the pan until hot (on Medium High) . Added the chicken breast (just used one - trimmed and diced), cooked for a few min. Added the onion, mushrooms (sliced) and eggplant (sliced). Let those cook at a high heat for a few minutes until the eggplant and mushrooms were browned. Added the sliced/diced bok choy and cabbage, cooked for about 2 min, then added the sauce. Stirred everything together, then covered, and cooked on high for a few min (maybe 5, maybe 10 - just until it looked right). Once it was all done, I added some frozen edamame (out of the shells), stirred that to warm it, then added the pea shoots and stirred it around until they wilted a little bit. Served it over the TJ's brown rice, with one eggroll for my husband. It was great! The cabbage got almost carmelized and the flavor was excellent! A good amount of spice (we like heat, so if you don't, just don't add too much chili or Sriacha). I'm not going to lie, I was a little bit jealous of the eggroll, but was so full and satiated by the meal itself that by the end, I did not mind one bit :) I just ate the leftovers for lunch - they were FAB!!! Healthy gluten free delicious MSG free Chinese? Check!