This month was an especially fun challenge to make – enchiladas!  My mom always made the best enchiladas when I was younger, and it was one of a number of dishes called “California style” – though I’m not quite sure what that [...]]]>

This month was an especially fun challenge to make – enchiladas!  My mom always made the best enchiladas when I was younger, and it was one of a number of dishes called “California style” – though I’m not quite sure what that means in terms of enchiladas.  We would have enough to feed an army – not that any of us minded, my mom’s enchiladas were one of those dishes that you looked forward to eating leftovers every night that week for dinner.

Until this Daring Cooks challenge came around I am ashamed to say I had never actually made them before, only been merely someone who enjoyed their cheesy gooey flavorful wonderfulness – ha, surely more than one past English teacher of mine would cringe at that particular selection of adjectives, but I think that description is actually pretty accurate.  I usually pride myself on having some ability to articulate, but then there are just those times that call for half made-up words like wonderfulness.  Enchiladas embrace the concept of “wonderfulness” completely.  Even my spellchecker must realize that about enchiladas because it has no problem with my description

I think they seem intimidating to many to prepare but in principle they are really rather simple.  Their only issue is that they have several parts – roast the chiles, make the sauce, cook the meat, fry the tortillas, fill them, and bake.  But no one part is particularly difficult or time consuming – unless of course you have my kitchen, which involves about an 8″ x 10″ sized counter-space, two tiny burners and a toaster oven.  Preparing these enchiladas took me the better part of 4 hrs, and I only got about 4 servings out of them because I had to make such small portions given the space I had.  I just can’t fit a larger dish in that toaster oven no matter how much I want to.

Living in my parents’ house I probably could have cut at least 30% of the time out, and made a good 20 servings.  Ah, the joys of apartment living….one day, hopefully sooner than later, I dream of having a kitchen with a real oven, 4 full burners, and an actual counter instead of trying to slice veggies on my cutting board placed on a rolly cart that moves causing me to slip and slice part of my finger off.  Did I mention that yet?  I have a sizable dent in my index finger now.  Safety note to self – don’t do your cutting on a rolly cart.  And thank goodness for Neosporin.  My husband then continued the chopping on the rolly cart.  He didn’t injure himself

Ok, onto the food!  Truth be told, when it came time to actually make the enchiladas, I really wasn’t feeling like eating Mexican at all, nor anything cheesy.  I still roasted a bunch of chiles, but instead blended them with some homemade Thai green curry paste and made a Thai version instead.  Chicken was marinated and then sautéed in roasted chiles/green curry, and a sauce was made with the rest of the chiles, curry paste, and coconut milk.

My husband quickly fried corn tortillas that we got from our favorite gluten-free shop while I then raced to fill them with the chicken, some greens, bamboo shoots and sauce before they cooled so much that they risked cracking.  I LOVE the flavor of corn tortillas, but they are hard to bend once they are fried.  I elected to do the filling of the enchiladas because I am more heat tolerant than my husband, so I could arrange them and fill and roll them while they were still hot enough to manipulate, literally right out of the frying pan.  I squished as many as I could all in a row in our little baking dish, topped with more sauce, and baked for about 30 minutes until everything melded together and the aromas of the chiles and fresh lemongrass permeated our entire apartment.

I didn’t use a timer, I just waited until it smelled right.  That’s often how I cook.  It’s almost an instinctual feeling, like a sixth sense sometimes.  I just let them be in the oven and then a while later said to myself, “Hmm, they smell like they’re ready to eat.”  Turns out I was right, they were ready.  So there you have it.  Thai enchiladas, gluten and dairy free.  And they were full of wonderfullness

Blog Checking Lines: Our hosts this month, Barbara of Barbara Bakes and Bunnee of Anna+Foodhave chosen a delicious Stacked Green Chile & Grilled Chicken Enchilada recipe in celebration of Cinco de Mayo! The recipe, featuring a homemade enchilada sauce was found onwww.finecooking.com and written by Robb Walsh.

Also linked to – Slightly Indulgent Tuesdays and Gluten Free Wednesdays

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Sometimes I have to remind myself, that while we generally like the same tastes, it’s just so rewarding to see my husband’s face light up when he gets excited about some things, like this dish.  I asked him as we were walking home from work one day if he [...]]]>

Sometimes I have to remind myself, that while we generally like the same tastes, it’s just so rewarding to see my husband’s face light up when he gets excited about some things, like this dish.  I asked him as we were walking home from work one day if he thought this sounded good, and he instantly transformed from a serious scientist to a 6 year old boy again.  You would have thought I had just suggested having Christmas, it was so precious.

I made a yummy cheesy dish, a creamy “taco mac” – I saw Annie post this a few days ago and while I knew I would certainly like the flavors, I knew that my husband would just fall in love with the dish.  He goes out of his way to do so many great and wonderful things for me, I want to show my appreciation even if it’s something as small as dinner.

For you see, food is like poetry.  It can be a simple short and sweet sonnet, like this quick and easy dinner, or it can be an adoring ode to love, saying what ordinary words never could.  I am not so good with my words, so I choose to write poems with food instead.  All sorts of different types, blending new flavors together to bring out emotions and memories, but with each one pouring out a little bit of my soul, and my love.  I’m so glad my husband knows how to translate

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Read the rest of Creamy Taco Mac (244 words)

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If you are in the US, and unless you’ve been living under a rock lately, you’ve probably heard about Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution.  I mentioned his mission a little bit before in a previous post, but today want to talk about it a bit more.  While [...]]]>

If you are in the US, and unless you’ve been living under a rock lately, you’ve probably heard about Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution.  I mentioned his mission a little bit before in a previous post, but today want to talk about it a bit more.  While I’m not going to get into the politics of American food policy, I do think that everyone can benefit from learning to enjoy fresh quality food that came from real ingredients.  Providing ways to eat real foods has always been what my cooking has been about – if for no other reason than quality homemade food tastes good!

Though for the yet uninitiated, the entire process of converting from processed to fresh foods can seem extremely daunting.  Produce is expensive, and so is local grass feed beef.  Not to mention the “withdrawal time” it takes to readjust the body and taste buds away from the salt.   And what’s with all those crazy ingredients?  For ex. celery root?  How in the world am I supposed to eat something that ugly?? Ok ok, celeriac, or celery root, is intimidating to a lot of people, but it’s alright!  However, you’d never know this vegetable has the most delicate taste and makes for a fantastic mash!

Switching to fresh produce and cooking for the first time is about as daunting as learning that my husband was gluten free and I could no longer cook with conventional bread, flour, pasta, oats, beer, etc. etc….  To make such a drastic switch, one has to reteach themselves their way around the kitchen.  But it’s alright.  You can do it.  It may take a little time, but one can learn the routine again, and the benefits of cooking present themselves in so many great ways besides the health.   Cooking can be a family activity.  It can definitely be a tasty activity.  And my favorite, cooking is a form of communication, a way to share friendship and love.

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Read the rest of A Food Revolution (635 words)

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Couscous is one of those dishes that seems impossible to replace gluten free.  Quinoa just doesn’t cut it.  Quinoa’s flavor is too distinct, and its texture is not quite right.  I find it very hard to flavor quinoa in a way that lets it melt into other flavors – [...]]]>

Couscous is one of those dishes that seems impossible to replace gluten free.  Quinoa just doesn’t cut it.  Quinoa’s flavor is too distinct, and its texture is not quite right.  I find it very hard to flavor quinoa in a way that lets it melt into other flavors – it’s always standing out above the rest.  This is great for some dishes, but not so much for others, such as cous cous.

I thought I could make couscous myself.  After all, there is nothing really gluten-dependent about couscous – no stretchy dough, no air pockets to trap – and this great lesson on flour from Rouxbe shows that you could basically make it by adding water to flour in a food processor until small pellets form.  Figuring out the right amount of water to add is not obvious though, and I kept going from my starting gluten free flour to a play-dough-like consistency – not really ideal for couscous!  I didn’t feel like wasting flour trying to get this right, so decided I may not just be ready for homemade gluten free couscous yet…

Giving up on making my own, I sought out a decent replacement, and whole millet seemed to be about the right size and shape.  I love using millet flour because of its mild flavor, and was thinking whole millet would be similar in taste.  Besides, if we can find a new grain to use, that opens up my culinary options a lot!  Millet is apparently decently nutritious as well, with a good protein content and lots of great things like B vitamins.  Asking around on twitter it seems that not that many people use millet – is this the “forgotten” gluten free grain?  If so, millet really deserves more credit.  I’ll even admit until this week I had never had whole millet before either, but now we will definitely be having millet more often!

For my first time making it, I really liked it.  It absorbed flavor well and had a very pleasing texture – easy and relatively quick, preparing millet “couscous” made for a convenient week-night meal.  We do need convenience sometimes, especially on those nights where neither one of us gets home from work til 8 pm.  After an a 10 hr work day and lunch having occurred 8 hours ago, dinner needs to be simple!

Couscous dishes are very versatile in that you can flavor them pretty much anyway you want.  For my millet version, I kind of threw together a rather random looking set of ingredients and flavors, but they came together quite nicely.  Ok, I may have gone a little overboard on the paprika, but I love that earthy smoky flavor, and it worked really well with the chicken here.  If you are not such a huge fan of paprika, definitely use whatever flavors you actually like.  This was essentially a one-pot, no frills, no fuss meal – there’s nothing wrong with throwing in your own ingredients or ideas, it’s better to keep things no fuss than to stress about having exactly what is in one particular recipe.  This recipe is just an idea that we happened to eat and love.  I encourage you to make your own variations, and get creative!

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Read the rest of Millet “Couscous” (219 words)

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I love how serendipitous life can be.  Sometimes the most rewarding experiences come in the unlikeliest of places.  For example, my husband and I planned an entire weekend trip to a different country all because of a conversation [...]]]>

I love how serendipitous life can be.  Sometimes the most rewarding experiences come in the unlikeliest of places.  For example, my husband and I planned an entire weekend trip to a different country all because of a conversation on twitter.  There, I met a certain M. Jean-Charles Fagot, vintner and restauranteur in the heart of Bourgogne, France, who invited us to come try his wine and food.  We’d been wanting to take some short holidays in France as it was, and so quickly agreed and made reservations.  Ha and yes, we are the types who think nothing of planning an entire trip centered around one meal.

After the hustle and bustle of our current lives en Suisse, the entire trip was a welcome reprieve, with a theme of leisure and relaxation.  From the fresh Springtime flowers, to the gorgeous textured old buildings, to the sweet and succulent tastes of everything from delicate macaron cakes (did you know you can make a layered cake from giant macaron cookies? omg amazing) to succulent and rich l’escarboeuf, the entire weekend was about stopping to admire and fill the senses.  Dinner at Jean-Charle’s restaurant was no exception.  On the taxi ride to Corpeau we got a great tour of some of the history and wines of the area, and entering the restaurant, we were immediately greeted by Jean-Charles, whose charisma can fill a room with excitement and energy.  Down into le cave we went to taste some wines – I really wish I knew more about how to taste wine – I knew which I liked best, and we talked a bit about the differences between American and European tastes – what I tasted as lusciously smooth he remarked most local people would think was rather spicy.  I think this means I just need to taste more wine from the area and broaden my current wine palate.  He also explained to us how the Côte d’Or gets its name, from the blazing golden hue all the hills become in the Fall when the leaves on the vines change color.  I shall have to go back I think, just to see this

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Read the rest of Un Voyage en France: Julia Child’s Bourguignon, avec Canard (905 words)

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