Tag: gluten-free

Hot or Cold Garlic Spinach

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Well, it’s hot. I am not a person who enjoys heat. I mean, you can always warm up, but it seems much more difficult to cool down. I suppose it’s because of where I live, all cool and inviting and rainy…and yes, that lack of sun does come with a corresponding vitamin D deficiency, but! I’m not overheated, and that’s a plus.

And, honestly, when the temperature rises outside, do any of us want to make the temperature go up inside? It just seems like a horrible idea that leads to sweat and hardship and dishes. (Okay, everything leads to dishes, but everything is harder when it’s hot!) That’s why I like hot weather recipes that don’t take a lot of time, that absolutely don’t involve the oven, and that I can eat hot or cold. Enter….Hot or Cold Garlic Spinach!

It’s easy, it’s delicious, and it doesn’t take a lot of a) time or b) ingredients. It’s perfect for summer or the unlooked-for heat snap!

You’ll need (serves 2 – 4):

4 cups spinach

4 tsps. olive oil

2 tsps. rice vinegar

1 tsp. mirin (optional)

2 garlic cloves, diced

1 tsp. sesame seeds

1/4 tsp. sesame oil (optional)

Salt

White Pepper

Get out a frying pan with high sides and heat the olive oil on medium-low. Thoroughly wash and shake out your spinach, and then dice the garlic. Add the spinach, garlic, salt and pepper to the pan, and stir to coat the vegetables in oil as they begin to wilt (about 5 – 10 minutes, depending on heat.) When you can smell the garlic and the spinach has turned malleable, add the rice vinegar and the mirin to the pan. Keep stirring until the steam goes away, and then drain any excess water. If you want to eat it hot, then serve immediately and top with the tiniest amount of sesame oil and the sesame seeds. If you want to eat it cold, toss on the sesame oil and seeds, and then stick it in the refrigerator to cool down and have as a salad!

Additional comments:

If you don’t want to cook the spinach in the pan, you can blanch it first in a pot of boiling water for 2 minutes. You’ll have to cook the garlic in the olive oil in the fry pan separately, then add the spinach, salt, and pepper. Then sauce as directed above!

Zucchini and Tomato Side Dish

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Okay, there’s some onion in there too, but I like alliums, sue me! One of the best things about summer is the vegetables, and one of the hardest things about eating vegetables when you’re allergic to certain foods is picking safe ones to eat. I can’t answer that for anyone but myself, really, I’m not a doctor of any sort, but I do know that right now we all have to be as mindful and careful with ourselves as possible.

So look on this meal as a starting point. The vegetables I can eat are inside it: zucchini, tomatoes, garlic, and onions all from sources I can trust. If you have a garden, I suggest getting out your favorite squash and onions, slap on a tomato or two, and get to chopping. If you don’t have safe access to fresh foods, then frozen works just as well. The key here, as with all allergic cooking, is to do your research. Stick with brands you haven’t had a reaction to before, or email their information departments. I have had good luck with organic in my area (though corn-based farming aids can be just as rife in that area!) and this is always a good time to inquire about local CSAs, or places like that.

In any case, this is a quick, light dish meant for a satisfying side to chicken or pork, or as a mixer in your favorite pasta. It feels very summery to me, actually, hot and peppery, but also light and not overwhelming. I like this sometimes just on garlic toast!

You’ll Need (Serves 2 -4):

2 medium zucchini, chopped

1/2 onion, chopped

1 – 2 tomatoes, chopped, or a handful of grape tomatoes

1 garlic clove, sliced

1 heavy pinch of thyme

Salt and black pepper

Olive oil

Heat the oven to 350F, and line a baking dish with aluminum foil. Wash and chopped all your ingredients and add them to the baking dish. Give it a stir to make sure the oil is evenly distributed, and that you add just a little more salt than you think you’ll need. These vegetables are watery, so they’ll make their own sauce, but it’s water…it needs a kick! Cook for about 20-30 minutes, or the tomatoes pop, and then serve.

Oh! And if you want a bit more flavor, add some red pepper flakes as well.

Chicken Stir-Fry Lettuce Cups

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Who else likes the idea of restaurants better than the execution? It’s always kind of struggle to sit politely, waiting for the service person to decide if they want to give you food or not. You can try to ameliorate the experience by emailing or phoning ahead, but that often adds a layer of social interaction it can be tough to add on, even though it’s necessary. So many people want to be helpful (and are!) but when you’re eating out with allergies, it can be exhausting to explain yourself time and time again.

I don’t honestly have an answer for that feeling, other than to say that one of the ways I try and get around it is through attempting to make my meals at home…not finicky, but a little more special sometimes. Even when it’s a simple dish, I feel like a meal should make you feel included rather than excluded. It’s what sharing food is all about!

When I lived in South Korea, one of the things I loved to do was go out for BBQ. It was so much fun to go out and cook a little meat and veggies, and wrap it in a shiso leaf or some romaine with a ton of gochujang (that’s a fermented hot pepper paste). Just sit around and stuff our faces and talk about our classes, and have a nice night out.

These days, I’m actually allergic to a lot of ingredients in basic Korea cooking (more’s the pity!), but sometimes I still try to capture the feel of it around the dinner table at home. My Chicken Stir-Fry Lettuce Cups are in no way traditional, and they’re really only vaguely in the culinary style of East Asia, but they are a meal meant to share. The red peppers are sweet and the chicken pieces are savory, and I love how warm and full it makes me feel. The process of wrapping the lettuce around my bites of food feels wonderfully interactive, and I like piling on red pepper flakes and white rice and sesame seeds to build the perfect cup.

You’ll need (serves 2 -4 ):

1 – 4 chicken thighs or chicken breasts, cut into chunks

1 red bell pepper, or 2 – 4 small mixed sweet peppers

3 green onions, chopped

1/2 onion, chopped

1/2 tsp ground ginger

1/4 tsp. cinnamon

1/2 tsp. cumin

1 tsp. white pepper

1 1/2 tsp red pepper flakes

Salt (to taste)

Black Pepper (to taste)

2 tbsp. olive oil

1/2 tsp. fish sauce

1 tsp mirin

Lime juice (to taste)

Sesame seeds (optional)

Big lettuce leaves, washed and torn into foldable sizes

First off, chop all your vegetables into chunks you can easily scoop up into lettuce. Then, cut all your chicken into chucks. Heat a wok or frying pan on medium with 1 tbsp. of olive oil, and add the chicken and half the amount of your spices. Make sure you at least season with salt, if you would rather cook all the spices in with the vegetables instead, because other wise the chicken will be bland.

Make sure to cook the chicken completely on both sides, and then set it aside while you cook the vegetables. There should be some great tasting-crust in the bottom of the pan, so add the rest of the olive oil (if necessary. You can definitively use less oil!) and the vegetables and get those pan drippings into your food! This is also where you toss in half or all of your spices, so that everything cooks together. When the onions have softened, add the chicken back in to the pan, and then add the fish sauce, mirin, and lime juice. Be careful with the fish sauce! Too much will overpower the meal and make the food taste a bit strange. The whole cooking process shouldn’t take more than thirty minutes.

Serve family style with white rice, the lettuce leaves, and a good pinch of sesame seeds. I also like a swirl of sesame seed oil right at the end, but it’s not necessary. If you can have hot mustard, sweet chili sauce, or chili oil, these make excellent toppings as well.

Additional Comments:

  • If you can use soy or coconut aminos as a soy-substitute, then add about 1 tsp. when you splash in the mirin, instead of the fish sauce.
  • If your meat is bone-in (as mine was) cook them whole and then set them aside and shred the meat before adding it back in. If you’re making this vegan, I recommend using a squash that doesn’t lose its shape, such as pumpkin or butternut squash!
  • Once again, if you’re having lettuce or any type of leafy green, make sure you know the farmer doesn’t use corn-based cleansers, fertilizers, or sprays in their agricultural cycle. These vegetables have a high water content and people with even simply a moderate corn allergy can be affected if ingested! (Oh the sore throats I have had!). Get them from a farmer’s market, or grow them yourself, but always use caution in the supermarkets, and remember: What works for one allergic person might not work for the next. Be cautious!

Peppery Potato and Leek Soup

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Look, I love soup. I just do! I make a lot of broth, I spend a lot of time figuring out ways to use it, and if it’s not in a sauce, then it’s definitely going to show up in a soup later on. I can’t help it! It’s so easy and filling, and I don’t think it’s too much to say that, when you start staring into the cupboard, wondering what you can possibly make with what you have left…soup is going to be the answer almost every time.

This soup, when hot, is more of a winter/fall menu item, where you could maybe stretch into a particularly cold early spring. If served cold, I think it could be a passable Vichyssoise in the spring and summer months, though I confess it’s not my go-to summer dish (that would be strawberries and chicken salad). It’s very simply, requires nothing much from the pantry, and you can beef it up with anything from a good piece of toast to a pat of butter to a smattering of chopped green onion. I add more pepper, which possibly says something about me as a person.

You’ll Need (serves 2 – 4):

6 small potatoes or 4 large ones, peeled and chopped

1 – 2 large leeks, cleaned and chopped

1/4 cup onion, chopped

2 tsps white pepper

2 tsps black pepper

1 – 2 bay leaves

3 cloves roasted garlic

3 tsps salt

4 cups chicken broth

1 Tblsp olive oil

Get a large pot with a lid and heat the pot on medium-low with the olive oil. Add the leeks and onions, salt and peppers, and begin to wilt them, stirring occasionally. Once they begin to soften, add in the roasted garlic and smush them all together, stirring for two minutes until you can smell the garlic.

Add in the bay leaf, the potatoes, and the broth. Then, bring it to boil and simmer it with the lid covered for about twenty – thirty minutes. Check the potatoes occasionally by sticking them with a fork to see if they’re done. Once they’ve started to crumble, get a potato masher out, or a large spoon, and mash the potatoes in the broth. This makes the dish look creamy while still preserving a bit of texture, so that it’s not entirely smooth. Stir it up, remove the bay leaf, and serve!

Additional Comments:

  • A lot of traditional Leek and Potato soups add heavy cream or sour cream as an ingredient, to make a very luxurious, silken soup. I don’t honestly think it needs this, both because of my allergies and also because I don’t like just adding things like that to soups. I prefer them as personal add-ons, a dollop of non-dairy sour cream or yogurt here, a pat of butter there, so that you can enjoy this soup in the same way you might enjoy a baked potato.
    • If you do want to add dairy, or a non-dairy substitute, reduce the amount of broth by one cup and then add in the dairy close to the end of the cooking time.
  • If you like blended soups, take the pot off the hob and let it cool for a few minutes. Depending on the size of your blender, either carefully ladle the whole thing into the blender, or blend half the soup and then half again.
  • This can easily be made vegan by either substituting a vegetable broth or simply using water and upping the amount of spices/herbs and salt.

Quick Time Tomato Sauce

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Got thirty minutes and some tomatoes burning a hole in your fridge? I have a sauce for that!

Now, I will be honest, this isn’t a fancy sauce. It’s straight up tomato sauce meant to clear space in the fridge and create a quick, hearty meal with maybe three or four ingredients total (not counting the herbs). Which is to say, I think of this sauce as a base for any kind of vegetables or meat that I have leftover, or that maybe wouldn’t be great served on its own, but lets face it: Almost everything is better slapped onto pasta.

This sauce is great for a quick dinner solution. I have a weirdly hard time eating up raw tomatoes, but stick them in a salsa or a sauce and I can slurp it up like nobodies business. The way I make it is very simple, gluten-free, and vegan, but you could add anything you’d like to it to personalize this tomato sauce into your own special treat!

You’ll Need (serves 2 – 4):

1 lb grape tomatoes, or 4-5 medium tomatoes

Around 3 cups of water (or stock)

2 tsps salt (and then more to taste)

2 tsps pepper (and then more to taste)

2-4 cloves of garlic, or 2 tsps. garlic powder

1/4 cup chopped onions, or 2 tsps onion powder

1 carrot, finely shredded

2 tsps parsley

2 tsps oregano

2 tsps basil

Make sure all your vegetables are thoroughly rinsed! This is no time to be cavalier with hygiene, especially if you’ve got food allergies. I have been doing okay with store bought veggies, but stick with a brand you know you can eat safely, either from the store or a farm.

Get out a large saucepan and add your vegetables all in with the water, salt, and pepper. Be liberal with the salt at this stage, because you’ll want to be stingy afterward, and the salt in the water here will flavor your sauce. The water should be about level with the tops of the tomatoes. Turn the burner to medium or medium-low, and bring it up to a soft boil for about fifteen minutes, or whenever the tomatoes start to burst their skins. Take the saucepan off the heat, and let it cool down for a minute.

Toss the entire thing, veggies, water and all, into a blender, and blend it until smooth. If you have a small blender, like I do, just blend it in shifts until everything looks…well, until it looks like a sauce. I like it smooth, but if you want it a bit chunky, then I’m not gonna fault you!

Return the frothy sauce mix to the sauce pan and stir in the herbs. Remember that this is going to boil down by half, so when you taste it, don’t be alarmed if it’s not as flavorful as you might expect. Turn the burner on to about medium-low, and reduce by half, or when it reaches the kind of consistency you like in a tomato sauce, stirring occasionally. Taste it before serving to see if it needs any salt or pepper. It shouldn’t take more than thirty minutes or so, from start to finish!

I chose to pair this with pasta for a quick and filling dinner, but you could easily add this to bulk up a soup, or as a dip for garlic bread. I hope you like it!

Additional Comments:

  • If you are having difficulty sourcing safe food, and need to find a CSA in your area, the USDA has a directory here.
  • If you’re using stock, please make sure to decrease the amount of salt you use, or risk the entire sauce tasting like the ocean!
  • You’ll notice I don’t have any sugar in here. That’s because I’m hesitant to add sugar to savory foods. My workaround for cutting the acid in the tomatoes is the finely grated carrot, which adds a nice layer of sweetness and texture to the sauce. I grate it using my microplane, but you can also just use a regular grater, or chop it up and then blend it with the tomatoes. The choice is yours!
  • A note about sieving: This recipe leaves the tomato skins in, rather than taking them out. If that texture bothers you, and you have a little time, when the sauce is still in the blender, ladle the sauce back into the pan through a sieve. That will get rid of the skins, and will also smooth out the sauce even further.

Savory Breakfast Soup

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I think I’ve told you all before, but I don’t actually eat a lot of what we think of in the US as ‘breakfast food.’ Since I can’t have eggs or soy that generally rules out quiches, bagels, omelettes, casseroles…you get the idea. The USA loves its eggs and cheese (for which I cannot blame them!) but it does tend to rule me out.

In general, I eat leftovers from the day before with my morning coffee. I honestly can’t stand the texture of most porridge (oats make me itch!) and since I almost always have cooked rice in the fridge I either end up eating that with fake butter, or a smoothie. I don’t have as much of an appetite in the morning anyway, so a little something that wakes my stomach up works just fine for me.

That being said, one of the things I’ve discovered I can eat (with attendant changes for my allergies) is this Thai breakfast soup I’ve learned from Hot Thai Kitchen. It’s savory without being too rich, and fragrant without being overwhelming. Better still, the rice never becomes mushy or sticky, and it comes together very quickly.

In Pailin’s version, this is ‘Kao Tom Koong,’ made of rice, an onion/cilantro/garlic mash, broth, and shrimp. She also calls for soy sauce, which is not happening, but her version looks delicious and entirely worthwhile. Check out her channel for more recipes!

My version is made out of chicken (I don’t often have shrimp), and I like a lot of rice and slightly less broth. When I made it this time I decided to garnish it with some red pepper and green onion, which were wasting away in my fridge, but the sky’s the limit with regards to things to add. Ginger is delicious, and I think bits of crumbled bacon might be nice as well. It’s so good and so quick, and it uses a very few ingredients. I’m pretty sure I could eat three gallons of it, but I won’t! I will just eat it many times instead.

You’ll Need (Serves 1):

1/2 – 1 cup rice, already cooked and heated for 1 minute in the microwave

1/2 cup – 1 cup chicken broth

1 clove roasted garlic

1 tsp. cilantro

1/4 cup chopped onions

1/4 cup already cooked chicken, chopped (optional)

1 tsp. white pepper

1-2 tsps. fish sauce

Salt (to taste)

1 tsp. red pepper flakes

1 tsp olive oil

Heat a saucepan and cook the onions, garlic, and cilantro with the spices until the onions are translucent. Add in the broth and then the warm rice. If you’re using chicken or some other protein, add that in too, and then warm it all the way through. Pour into a bowl and then garnish with whatever you want!

Strawberry and Banana (and Mango!) Smoothie

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Got any fruit that needs a home, fast? Do what I do, and make a smoothie! It’s a good way to wake your stomach up if you need something light to start your day, or to have as a good snack. I’ve found it’s also a wonderful way to make certain fruit doesn’t waste away completely, which always makes me feel horrible to be honest.

I’m the sort of person who doesn’t like to bite into cold fruit, but I’m perfectly willing to chug it down in a smoothie or shake. I have no idea why, but that’s the way it is! So if you’re looking for something sweet, cold, and creamy to drink, I think I’ve got the smoothie for you! And if you don’t like it, I’ve got another smoothie recipe right here!

You’ll Need (Serves 1 large, or 2 small cups):

1 banana, kind of brown

1/4 cup mango, chopped and frozen

4 – 5 large or 6 – 9 small strawberries, sadly wilting

2 heaping tsps non-dairy yogurt

1 tsp maple syrup

1/3 cup cashew milk

1 tsp flax seed, ground

1/4 tsp ginger (optional)

Put the frozen items in the blender either first or last, depending on what kind of blender you own. I have a magic bullet, which means I put the frozen items in the cup first, so they’ll be blended last. It helps the consistency of the smoothie to have the frozen bits be blended at the end. Then add the flax seed and any spice you’re thinking of adding. It’s not necessary and the strawberry/banana combo by itself is delicious, but I like to add things spices like ginger because it makes it feel healthy to me. It’s entirely apocryphal, of course, but there you are!

Anyway, blend the whole shebang together in the blender (either using the mango to make it chilly and sweet, and with a few ice cubes instead). In the Magic Bullet I press down the cup three times to get it all…well, smooth, and then I pour it out and enjoy! I hope you do as well.

Lemony Lentil Chickpea Soup

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One of the consequences of making cookies when you’re allergic to eggs is that you wind up with a bunch of cooked chickpeas. (Sounds antithetical I know, but the liquid leftover from cooking chickpeas makes a good egg replacement!) When that happens, my horror of wasted food rises up, and forces me to Do Something.

Hummus, however, gets really old after awhile. I mean, there’s only so many times you can eat it and think “I’m having a treat.” So, when I need to make my food into a multi-tasking dynamo, I do the next best thing: I make soup!

The inspiration for this dish today comes from Yotam Ottolenghi, who makes dozens of dishes I would love to try, but sadly can never eat because of my allergies. Lemony Lentil Chickpea Soup is nourishing, tangy, and smoky with cumin, roasted garlic, and onions. It doesn’t take long to put all the ingredients together (I often use pre-cooked lentils and chickpeas, and just cook the onions through. It’s also great for those times when the pantry is looking a little scarce, and you need a solid contender for lunch or dinner.

I can eat way too much of this, frankly, and so it keeps for about a week in my fridge. It can also be frozen in single servings for a month, but the texture becomes a little too mushy for my tastes. However, if you want a pantry staple in your back pocket for those times you have leftovers and don’t know what to do, or simply have odds and ends that don’t quite seem to go together, then I submit this recipe. I hope you enjoy it!

You’ll Need (2 – 4):

2 cups chicken broth

1/2 cup of lentils (dry) or 1 cup cooked

1/2 cup of chickpeas, cooked

1/2 cup onion, chopped

2 tsps. cumin

4 tsps. salt

4 tsps. pepper

1 tsp. red pepper flakes

1 bay leaf

1 small handful of cilantro, chopped

1 handful of fresh spinach (optional)

Juice of half a lemon

2 tsps. olive oil

Heat a saucepan to medium with the oil and onions. Add the garlic, cumin, salt, and pepper to the vegetables and let the onions become translucent. When the onions et al are fragrant, add in the lentils, chickpeas, and bay leaf. Stir together and then add in the chicken broth. Stir again, reduce heat to medium-low and let the soup simmer until it just starts to bubble.

Add in the cilantro and let it wilt. Then, pour in the the lemon juice. Stir and let it heat for about two minutes, and then turn off the heat, and stir in the spinach. Serve hot and delicious!

I like this soup (as you can see from the photo) with a dollop of unsweetened non-dairy yogurt stirred into it, but it’s delicious on it’s own as well. It’s also really good with a nice dense piece of bread!

Additional Comments:

  • If you’re cooking the lentils in the soup, make sure you’ve rinsed them thoroughly in cold water, and then looked them over for small stones. Increase the amount of broth by 2 cups, and add the lentils with the broth second to last after frying the onions, spices, and bay leaf, cook for about 15 minutes before you add the cooked chickpeas. I don’t recommend cooking dry chickpeas and lentils together, as they have different cooking times.
  • If you can’t find spinach safe from corn-based derivatives (often they drink up fertilizers as well as water!) then try a green safe for your consumption. I have been doing okay with the spinach from my grocery store for now, but I also wash it very well and there’s no guarantee!
  • If you’re vegan/vegetarian, you can easily sub a vegetable broth for the chicken, and still have a delicious gluten-free soup.

Building Block: Chicken Broth!

elizabeth2 Comments

Sheltering in place? Self-isolating? Working from home like you always do? Or, my favorite floating around twitter, merely “exiled to your country estate for the good of the realm?” (No idea who started that, but I like it.) Make broth!

It’s what I’m doing anyway (in between laundry, sweeping, and writing!). If you’ve got time on your hands at home and you need something that is easily freezable, healthy, and soothing to the stomach, then now is the perfect time to start making broth. In our house, it’s usually chicken, since I always have bones and some vegetal odds and ends in the fridge.

I know there are fancier recipes out there, and it seems like everyone has their own personal broth recipe. It can get bewildering! Which one is best? Which one is the most healthy? I don’t really have the answer to that, but I can tell you what I think. To wit, the best broth is the easiest. It should meet your needs for taste and content, and it shouldn’t take a ton of your attention. You should be able to put it in a large pot, turn the heat to medium-low and forget about it for an hour or so.

My recipe for broth works for my family. I find it flavorful, nourishing, and really good for when I don’t feel well, or I need a quick meal. I generally make a huge amount and then freeze some, or use it up throughout the week. Please think of it as a starting recipe, and adjust for your or your family’s needs accordingly!

You’ll Need (Serves 4-8):

1-2 chicken carcasses (I know people who get whole chickens just for broth. I do not understand that, but it must be nice to have money. Just use leftovers!)

1 small knob of ginger, peeled, or 2 tsps. ground

2 tsps. lemongrass, or 1 handful of lemon thyme

3 cloves garlic

1/2 onion

1 tsp. sage

Salt and Pepper

2 stalks of celery

2 medium carrots

1 small handful of parsley (optional)

1 tsp olive oil

Stick all your ingredients into a large pot and let it heat on medium until you hear it begin to sizzle and a slight crust forms on the bottom of the pot. Add a little water and scrape up the crust. Fill the pot with water until it covers all your ingredients, and then let it come to a slight boil. Once it starts to bubble up, decrease the heat to medium-low or medium. You want the top to be bubbling, but not a fast or rolling boil. Leave it for one-two hours or until the water turns into a deep golden broth. I generally let the water boil down by half, because I want to make sure the collagen comes out of the bones and forms that healthy ‘jelly-like’ texture you see in bone broth.

Remove the pot from the heat and let it cool down, and then strain the ingredients out, and pour the broth into lidded tupperware or glass. Let it cool for about five minutes on the counter, and then sling it in the fridge. Basically, anything with a lid. If you want to freeze some, always remember to refrigerate first! Let it cool completely in the fridge to avoid bacterial growth once you start lowering the temperature.

Then, make soup, make rice with it, make a fantastically yummy sauce! We’re all stuck in our houses in the interests of our loved ones and our community. Take a moment to make yourself something nice, and if you have to go out, remember to take care of yourself!

Additional Comments:

  • Lots of people tell you to sieve off the foam that appears when the bones are heated. I never do! It doesn’t matter, and I can’t be bothered. Removing it will make the broth more clear, but I honestly don’t see the point and can’t taste the difference. As a person allergic to eggs, clear broths are rather my nemesis, as a common way to get that clarity is with an egg white ‘float’ to catch all the stray proteins. Always ask if you’re not sure!
  • I sometimes have this for breakfast either to jazz up leftovers (which is what I usually have for breakfast) or as a great way to make a smoother mashed root vegetable puree

Cucumber Tomato Salad

elizabeth3 Comments

Sometimes what you need is a quick, bright splash of acid with a decent crunch, a salad to complement something fatty like lamb, or heavy like a red Thai curry. Also, sometimes you realize you have the end of one sad English cucumber and a box of cherry tomatoes you forgot about and it’s time to either fish or cut bait. And lo! A salad is born!

Winter is not my prime season for salads. If you live somewhere without the darkest days of the year (Say…California where it gets down to fifty and people reach for their woolens) you might not have the same urge to eschew all cold foods and sink into soups, stews, and baked sweet potatoes until you’re as fluffy as the mashed potatoes you just ate. I know they’re good for me, but they’re cold, and I’m cold; my core temperature is going to win out every time.

But when the weather starts warming up, my fickle eye turns towards fresh vegetables once more. This can be a bit tricky (when isn’t it when eating with food allergies?) because a lot of fertilizers or sprays that extend the life of fruits and vegetables can be derived from corn or soy. If you have a sensitive allergy, the produce section is always a minefield.

I don’t have a dedicated vegetable garden, so I rely on my local supermarkets. So far, it’s been without any incident. I’m always careful to go for foods that have some dirt on them, a sign that they probably haven’t been washed or sprayed with something to make them more attractive, and if there’s a rind I generally don’t eat it, even if it’s edible. Thus, I can still have apples and citrus fruits.

In regards to tomatoes and cucumbers, I’ve had good luck. I generally get tomatoes on the vine, though in this case we had a punnet of cherry tomatoes, and the cucumber came from Trader Joe’s so I felt a little better about my chances. As always, approach food from new places with caution until you’re sure you won’t be affected.

Back to the food, this salad has good sharp flavors that wake my tongue up from its winter slumber, and the acid from the rice wine vinegar makes a fantastic complement to the more subtle flavor of the cucumber. I like it with rice and curry, but you could also have it alongside a sweet potato and garlic spinach, or Lemon Paprika Chicken and rice stuffing. It punches up a heavy dinner or makes a great addition to a light lunch. I hope you like it!

You’ll Need (serves 2 -4):

1 English cucumber, diced

2-3 medium tomatoes or a good handful of cherry tomatoes, diced or sliced in half

2 – 3 Tbsp. olive oil

2 Tbsp. Rice Wine Vinegar

1 clove garlic, minced, or a good shake of garlic powder

1 green onion, diced (optional)

A good shake of sesame seeds (optional)

Salt and Pepper

Cut up your vegetables, and place them in a bowl or container with a tight lid. Add the oil, vinegar, salt and pepper. Close the lid on the bowl and give them a good shake so that everything mixes easily. Can be served immediately, or placed in the fridge to marinate. Lasts about a week, but I would recommend taking it out of the fridge a few minutes before serving, to allow the olive oil to become liquid again.