Vegetable Fajita

The other day I had a couple of friends over for dinner and we made fajitas together. Fajitas are really fun to make this time of year. For these use whatever vegetables you like. The night that I made these I was really wanting peppers (even though they are not in season in Eugene), so these costs me more money then they normally would. If you want to kept costs down remember to use vegetables that are in season where you live.

Filling for the Fajitas
One Onion
One yellow pepper
One red pepper
One orange pepper
One zucchini
About 15 baby carrots
2 cloves of garlic
Olive oil

Topping for the Fajitas
Salsa
Avocado
Olives
Spinach (from my garden)
Cilantro
Black Beans
Rice
Sour Cream
Tortillas corn or flour

1. Saute onions in olive oil for three minutes.

2. Add in the rest of the vegetables and cook on medium heat until they are tender.

3. While the vegetables are cooking warm-up black beans on the stove and cook your rice. I love using my rice cooker because it cooks my rice perfectly every time. I got mine for about 15 dollars and it has been worth every penny. If you are going to be gluten free for life I suggest investing in a rice cooker!!!

4.Make sure to stir your vegetables!!

5. Cut up spinach, tomatoes, cilantro, olives, and avocado. I like to put these on a plate so that everyone can put on what they like in the amount that they like it! Also get out the sour cream and salsa!!

6. Make sure to stir your vegetables!!

7. Then once everything is hot than call in your friends and family to put together their own fajitas.

You can always cut costs by not using so many toppings. Of course you can also put in tofu, chicken, beef, or even shrimp.

Here are the fajitas that my friends and I made.

Breakfast Scramble

One of favorite dishes to make are egg scrambles. I like them because you are able to put whatever you want in them. The trick to making a good scramble to making sure that you cut small pieces of vegetables and that you always cook vegetables in the order of whatever takes the longest to cook. For example if you were cooking a scramble with onions, cauliflower, bok choy then you would want to first cook the onions and cauliflower and then finally add the bok choy. You want the vegetables to be cooked but still have a little crunch. Play around and use whatever vegetables or meats that you like or have on hand. Sometimes I will put in salsa, top it with avocado, wrap it in a tortilla, put cheese in at the very end, or even serve it on toast. Just play around and have fun with scrambles!

Scramble for two
Broccoli
Cauliflower
zucchini
Peppers
Garlic
Spinach
4 eggs
Salt and Pepper (to taste)

1. Cut all the vegetables (except the spinach) into small equal size pieces.

These vegetables will need to cook for about five minutes before you add the spinach.

2. Cut the spinach into smallish size pieces. I have a lot of spinach so I used about three cups in this recipe. Then add the spinach into the pan with your other vegetables. Let the spinach cook with the other vegetables for about two minutes.

3. Take the eggs break them into a bowl and then whisk them to make them a little fluffy. I like to add a little bit of milk so that I am able to stretch the eggs and cook with a little less cholesterol and calories.

4. Add eggs in with the vegetables. I cook this on a medium heat because then the eggs do not stick.

5. Serve and enjoy!! I like to serve my eggs with fruit instead of gluten free toast because then it will have less calories. Serve with toast, fruit, cottage cheese, or even do potatoes (there is a recipe for potatoes in with the Indian Food post that is before this post).

More tips to save $

Buy your spices in bulk. Normally you will only need a couple of teaspoons so just buy that. Also that way you can always have fresh spices.

If you can plant a garden and then plant what you like but also plant what cost you a lot of money to buy. Also plant a variety of things so that you are able to buy less at the store.

Get to know your locally farms and go visit them at least once a week during the growing season. The produce is legally grown, fresher, and often times is much cheaper than at the grocery store!

Popcorn is a great gluten free snack. I buy the kennels (not the microwave stuff) and put a little olive oil in the bottom of a pan and cook it over my burner. You simple take a pot and cover the bottom of the pot with a layer of popcorn kennels than you put a tablespoon of oil in the pot. Make sure to move the popcorn around often so that it does not burn. You sometimes will need to let some of the popcorn out if the lid is coming off. Put it is a bowl and than leave it plain, or salt and or butter it :) It is much cheaper to make popcorn this way. You can also buy popcorn in bulk which makes it even cheaper!!

Indian Food

So I still have a ton of spinach in the garden. Therefore the other day I decided to try my hand out at a Saag. I had never tried one before, so to get some ideas of how to do it I went online and found some simple easy Saag recipes. The first time that I made Saag it did not turn out well at all. This was because the first time I did it I used ginger root and coriander that was chopped instead of ground. The second time I did it I used ground spices and it was completely smooth and tasted wonderful! The recipe that I ended up using is basically a recipe that I made up after looking at about twenty different recipes and deciding what sounded good in what ratios. This is what is came up with! I also wanted it low fat and cheap. So are not many ingredients to buy.

Sagg
One and a half pounds Spinach
One large onion
4 to 10 cloves garlic(Use as much as you taste buds like:)
1 Tablespoon ground ginger
2 to 3 teaspoons ground coriander
1 Teaspoon Turmeric
One cup plain yogurt
1 cup water
salt to taste

Saute onions until they are translucent. Then add in garlic and spice saute another 2 minutes. Add spinach and cook with the water. You want to spinach to cook on a slow boil. It will take about 7-12 minutes to cook. Then you want to puree your spinach with a blender or food processor. Once it is completely smooth than return it to the pot or sauce pan and bring to a boil. Make sure to stir or it will stick. Once boiling add yogurt and remove for heat. Then serve over rice, potatoes, polenta, steamed vegetables or plain.

Potatoes
Andi wanted potatoes so she cooked the potatoes with garlic salt and a little salt and pepper and a little oil olive (so that the food does not stick). She covered them in tin foil and then put it on the grill. Rotate every five minutes and cook for 20 about twenty minutes. she used red, Yukon, and purple to make them look so pretty.

Cauliflower
All that I did was steam it with a little water and curry sauce. I used a curry powder. You could use coconut milk instead of water if you wanted it to be a little sweet.

Peas
The peas are also from my garden. These peas I grew in pots on my balcony. I like to grow them because sugar snap peas are pretty to watch grow and they like cold and a lot of water so you can start them in pots as early as March in Eugene,Oregon. Also they are expensive!!

This was a wonderful meal and was only about five dollars to make. First the spices cost twenty cents because I buy my spices in bulk. Then all I needed was a quarter head of cauliflower, an onion, about a dollar worth of potatoes, one cup of rice, one head of garlic, and one yogurt. All of the spinach was from my garden:)

Hamburgers

Yesterday was the first day that I was able to barbecue and eat outside. So we made up amazing hamburgers. For me a hamburger is not just about the meat it is about all the toppings that can go on a hamburger and if you have a lot of vegetable toppings then you do not need as much meat to fill up and you are still getting a good portion of vegetables in your meal. On the burgers we put tomatoes, spinach,olives sprouts, avocado (that I mixed with a little mayo), a slice of provolone cheese, and then top with whatever condiments (mayo, mustard, ketchup) you like. I am gluten free so I served my burger on gluten free rosemary ficasa bread (Tarte Bakery, and you can buy at Market of Choice or Sundance in Eugene, Oregon). My partner is not gluten free so I put hers on a regular roll. Use whatever rolls, bread, or buns you want or serve without a bread source and use lettuce, kale, or spinach to act as your bun.

Teriyaki Chicken and Vegetables.

A couple of weeks ago I made a delicious teriyaki chicken with broccoli, zucchini, Asian greens, garlic and of course teriyaki sauce. I cheated with the sauce and used a per-made  gluten free teriyaki sauce. I marinaded the chicken over night in the sauce. The first thing that you do is cook the chicken. I cooked in a fry pan. I find that it cooks best on medium heat. Once the chicken was cooked in put in the broccoli, zucchini, and garlic. I find that if I turn down the heat to medium-low it cooks best. I than added a little more of the teriyaki sauce while the vegetables and the chicken cooked. While is this cooking I prep the sauce that is going to cook in when I add the Asian greens. I put a little water in  a glass and added a little teriyaki sauce or soy sauce. Once the vegetables were almost cooked all the way I added in the Asian Greens. I then took the soy sauce/teriyaki with water and add it into a fry pan at this point and let everything cook for about 5 minutes. Then serve and enjoy. I served this over rice however you could serve it plain, over rice, or even our noodles. Rice noodles are fun to put this on top of and it is then still Gluten Free :)

Of course you can substitute any vegetables that you want and you can also use tofu, beef, pork, or fish for the protein source instead of using chicken.  Make it with the vegetables and Protein or no protein that you like most or happen to have. I also have been known to do this recipe without the teriyaki sauce. For the sauce I mixed together peanut butter, garlic, soy sauce. and water and that makes a delicious peanut Asian infused sauce.

Salads

Salads need to have a ton of goodies. When most people make a salad they give you a ton of lettuce and then a couple slices of tomatoes, carrots, and cucumber if you are lucky. So the first couple of bites are good because you can have a bite of lettuce with a piece of carrot, but halfway through your salad there is nothing but lettuce left and most people (including myself)don't want to finish it then. Therefore when making a salad add many different ingredients so that the salad is always different and exciting.


In my salad tonight I put in spinach (that I grew in my own garden)carrots,tomatoes, broccoli,cauliflower,cucumbers,olives,avocado,eggs,steak,and then for toppers I have chooses of raisins, sunflower seeds, almonds, and croutons. If you want gluten free croutons you can take gluten free bread brush the bread with olive oil and then broil. Once browned on one side flip and brown the other side. Watch to make sure not to burn the bread. Take out let cool and cut pieces into the size that you want, and than you have gluten free croutons for half the cost that they charge you in the store. I had these vegetables on my salad tonight because when I was at the store this week I bought a head of cauliflower, 2 heads of broccoli,and a cucumber. A great way to save money is to buy produce every four or five days and plan out your meals for those days off of the food that you buy. That way you have no wasted food and no food that spoils. This week a lot of my spinach was ready to harvest so I harvested and was able to make salad three times this week. One of the salad I did had chicken instead of steak and one of the salads did not have cucumber because I ran out.

Tips to save money

One of the ways that I save money and eat great food is by having a garden. Right at the moment I am harvesting spinach, cilantro, and Asian Greens. Therefore in the next couple of posts you will see recipes that are using a lot of those vegetables.

I like to buy whole chickens instead of just pieces. It is cheaper to make a whole chicken and then you are able to use this protein source for recipes throughout the week. In addition when I buy a chicken I almost always plan on doing a chicken and vegetable soup because I can boil the carcass and use it as the protein source.

Learn to like and how to cook many different vegetables. This way you are able to cook whatever is on special. I also use many different vegetables in my cooking so that I am able to use only a little bit of one thing. For example with a head of broccoli I will put the crowns in a salad, stir-fry, curry, or korma but then I will save the stem. Then with the broccoli stem I will peel the broccoli and the I will cut the inner core into pieces and will use these in a soup. Therefore I am able to get two meals out of one head of broccoli. I always try to use every part of the vegetable. In addition when I can buy cheap vegetables I use more of these vegetables and then I am able to stretch the expensive vegetables over a couple of meals.

Shop at multiple places. For example in Eugene I shop at The Grocery Outlet because they have a fairly good selection of organic food for fantastic prices I also shop at Sundance and they have a 50% shelf and there I am able to go distressed produce. This normally means that the foods needs to be eaten that day or the next. Distressed could also mean that there is one spot that needs to be cut off and then it can be enjoyed!!

Hello My food Rocks!!

I love to cook, eat, and dream about food!!! I love cooking for other people, and whenever I do they rave about my food. The food that I cook is healthy, simple, and delicious. The other day my partner suggested that I start a blog about my food so that other people can enjoy simple, good, healthy, gluten free food.  Therefore that is what this blog is for.  I will share with you my simple, scrumptious, and fun recipes. In addition to living a gluten free life I live on an extremely tight budget.  I am a poor educator and so I have to make a lot of food from scratch because boxed and pre-made gluten free food is extremely expensive and high in preservatives. When I first started eating gluten free three years ago it was hard because I did not know where to shop, what to buy, or even how to get variety in my food. However I have learned that eating and cooking gluten free can be really fun, exciting, and easy if you have the right help!!