In my last post, I talked about using pre-packaged gluten free foods. I took a picture of a delish example. Tomato, mozzarella, and turkey panini made with a Glutino brand g-f bagel with the top of the bagel cut off to mimic sliced bread. Most g-f breads taste nasty. This Glutino bagel is amazing.

Alongside the panini is Trader Joe’s Organic creamy tomato soup. Believe it or not, most name-brand creamed soups are not g-f. Trader Joe’s is extremely g-f conscious and offers many g-f soups.

I made eggs benedict for my family this morning. I made the hollandaise sauce with a little help from a new cook book I bought. It’s called “The Cook’s Book” and it’s a pretty fundamental book written by accomplished chefs. Each chapter has a new author and a specific topic (ie: sauces) with many techniques and recipes. It’s very helpful considering I know nothing about cooking.

I put a poached egg on top of a sausage patty (very classy) and then put them both on a rather tasteless gluten free toaster waffle from Trader Joe’s. The waffle made a great substitute for an english muffin.
The picture doesn’t really capture the tastiness of the meal, but it was really good.

There’s lots of gluten free blogs out there, but most if them are really impractical. I mean, I’d love to make homemade English muffins, but most recipes are made with things like millet flour, tapioca flour, xantham gum, and almond flour which usually cost like $12 a pound. Plus, they’re really hard to come by. I love pre-packaged food just as much as the gluten tolerators. Having a food allergy is already really inconvenient, if I can buy semi-tasty and economical pre-packaged stuff, I’m all about it (thus the toaster waffles). Most of my gluten free experimenting involves using practical substitutes. It sounds funny, but accomplishments like today’s breakfast really makes me feel like this diet is lifelong possibility.

Sorry.. no picture.

I was in the mood for mexican food tonight. I was reading a ton of fajitas recipes online today and I fully intended to follow one recipe precisely. However, I have very poor short-term memory and forgot most of the ingredients for the recipe I wanted to do. I had read too many recipes and everything started to blur together by the time I made it to the grocery store. There are usually a slew of attractive men at the neighborhood Pick N Save, so my focus was easily lost.

I knew I wanted to try adding tequila to my marinade, so I started there. Here’s what happened:

Ingredients:

1 package of Sirloin steak that looks like it could serve 2-3 people
1 Yellow Pepper
1 Green Pepper
1 medium sized Jalepeno
1 Lime (juiced)
1/4 cup water
2 cloves of garlic minced
1 tsp of red pepper flakes
1 tsp cumin
1 tbs Vegetable oil
1 heaping pinch of cheese of your choice
1 dollop of sour cream
1 single serving bottle of Jose Cuervo Tequila
A few corn tortillas
A few flour tortillas for the gluten tolerators.

Marinade: Combine tequila, water, lime juice, garlic, cumin, red pepper and steak together and let sit in the fridge for an hour or more.

Add the oil to a pan of your choice and add onions and the 3 types of peppers and cook them until you are satisfied with their consistency. Some people like mushy, some people like firm. Set aside.

Remove the meat from the marinade and saute. The garlic and the red pepper stayed with the meat for the most part, so their flavors followed. I sliced the meat before I put it into the marinade, but you might like to keep the meat in steak form while marinading and slice after saute. Combine peppers and onions with the meat and heat it up a little. Add salt and pepper if you like, but I’d be surprised if you needed it.

I need to say that finding tequila was a chore. I am not a huge tequila fan, so I didn’t want to buy a 20$ bottle of tequila at the grocery store that would sit on a shelf for a year. I have bought single servings of liquor before, so I was determined to only buy as much tequila as I needed. Needless to say, the liquor store that I thought was “2 blocks away” ended up being a mile walk one-way in snow and 20 degree temps without a coat on. When I got to the liquor store, I found the stupid tequila and had the following conversation with the lady working there:

[Enter girl with red face and hands, pick n save grocery bag, very underdressed for inclement weather]

Me: I’d like this small bottle of tequila, please.
Lady: Can I see your ID?
Me [Struggling to get my ID out of my very tightly packed wallet]: Sorry, can you just look at my birthday through this clear thing over my ID
Lady: *Annoyed Sigh* I guess so. Illinois huh?
Me: Do you serve people from Illinois here? [jokingly]
Lady: Depends. Where the hell is your birthday on this thing?
Me: Right here [pointing accidentally to the expiration date]
Lady: Wrong. It’s here. [points to birthdate] Hmmmmm.. [long pause]…..1986….[Looking at the ID, then looking at me, looking at the ID, then looking at me- very suspicious..... that makes you how old, huh?
Me: 22.
Lady: I bet you are. That will be 3.96
Me [nervously laughing and too offended to notice that 3oz of tequila was $4! Handing my credit card to her]: I don’t need a bag, thanks.
Lady: $10 limit. Try again. Give me back the tequila.
Me [stunned]: Ok, I guess…
Lady [interrupts]: NEXT!!!!!
(When “next” is yelled, it should be noted that there is only one other man in the store standing directly behind me, who obviously knows he is next in line. I spent the next five minutes walking around the tiny liquor store wondering what I should buy. I spent most of my time trying to talk myself out of buying an old people’s liquor like Scotch just to prove to the lady I am not some stupid kid with a bad fake ID. Suddenly, it dawns on me that I have a twenty in my wallet left over from a rare time in my life where I was using cash. I expel the Scotch notion out of my head and decide I will march my way back to the counter with 6 extra dollars to my name and get the stupid tequila)
Me: I realized I have cash.
Lady [genuinely skeptical]: You *magically* found cash, huh?
Me [too astounded to say something clever like "abracadabra"]: Yeah.
Lady: I bet.

A word of wisdom to those ballsy enough to use fake IDs: Be careful when you buy a single serving of tequila. You will get caught. Apparently, it is quite plausible that an individual buying 3oz of tequila with an out of state license is an irresponsible underaged binge drinker with magical abilities to make cash appear out of thin air… so watch out. Try buying Scotch instead.

(For legal reasons, I will be clear that I am indeed 22 years old and do not have a fake ID)

Overall, I give it a 1 thumb up out of 1 and 1/2 thumbs. The lime was overpowering (maybe a lemon would work better) and I would probably not use cumin. It threw the flavors off a little.

So much has happened since I last posted. Go ahead and see when I posted last and you’ll understand why I won’t try to summarize.

I’ve decided to use my blog for a new purpose.

I’ve been getting into cooking lately. I experiment with new recipes and flavor combos just about every day. As of January 1, 2009, I’ve also decided to do one entire year gluten-free. Putting these two interests together hasn’t been the easiest. I’ve had a few successes and a lot of failures and I’d like to share them with the world.

I’m sure I’ll still do some “traditional” blog posts alongside my cooking endeavor-related posts. I just really want to re-join the blogosphere.