Adventures with Celiac

In an effort to embrace my new way of eating, I ordered 3 cookbooks online (got to love Amazon) so that my family and I would have something on the table for dinner each night. It has been one interesting culinary adventure after another. I think the term that can best sum up this past week is "OY!"

The titles of these cookbooks held a lot of promise:
The Gluten-Free Vegetarian Kitchen
1,000 Gluten-Free Recipes
Gluten-Free Baking Classics for the Bread Machine

Next to the microwave, our bread machine was the most used appliance in our kitchen. I was known to easily bake 1 to 2 loaves a week. There is nothing better than a fresh baked loaf of bread and getting to control the ingredients you put in it is the icing on the cake. Getting the diagnosis of Celiac really put the kibosh on my bread making and the bread machine has sat lonely and unused for the better part of the last 2 months. Finding the cookbook Gluten-Free Baking Classics for the Bread Machine made my heart sing again.

Let me just say, I was a little dismayed at the size of the bread machine book that arrived. I would say it is more like a thick pamphlet. Pre-Celiac, my go-to bread machine cookbook was The Bread Lover's Bread Machine Cookbook; it totals 643 pages. This new Celiac approved way of making bread cookbook was all of 72 pages. Dare I tell you it takes until page 22 before the recipes begin? In the interest of full disclosure, The Bread Lover's Bread Machine Cookbook does have a small gluten-free section - there are 6 recipes included.

Armed and dangerous with my new ammo, I sat down last Saturday night and planned out a week's worth of dinners. Sunday is always pizza and game night at our house and Ian and I make the pizza dough from scratch. I looked up a new gluten-free pizza dough to try and wrote down all the ingredients needed. The rest of the week was a wild card and I concentrated on the gluten-free vegetarian cookbook first to get meal ideas out of.

Sunday
Cornmeal Pizza Crust - This tasted like pizza sitting on cornbread. Yuck! Not at all what we are used to and everyone agreed I will need to go back to the drawing board on finding a new pizza dough recipe. Fortunately I made an awesome salad to go with this and it saved Jeff & I from hunger that night.

Monday
Tacos and Burritos - No recipe needed for a fun, festive meal. Taco-seasoned chicken, rice, beans, cheese, lettuce, tomatoes, salsa, chips -- need I say more?

Tuesday
Spaghetti Squash Primavera - I never ate spaghetti squash before, much less cooked with one. This took me over 1.5 hours to make (not including the 1 hour bake time the squash needed in the oven first). Oh my! I do find it fascinating how the spaghetti squash does a really good job of impersonating real spaghetti. This recipe was chock-full of fresh vegetables and very tasty. I liked it. Jeff didn't. And as much as Jeff hates to waste food, he couldn't even finish what was on his plate and had to turn to foraging in the refrigerator to eat that night.

Wednesday
Zucchini Risotto Pie with Rosemary and Marinara Sauce - Even though it is billed as a 'main dish', I do not believe it had enough umph to be considered the entree. I think this recipe would make a stellar side dish. It was very tasty and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Jeff did finish eating it for dinner, but turned-down the opportunity to take leftovers for lunch the next day (this is my true test for knowing how much he liked the dish). I would make this again, but only when time is not a factor (it was time consuming) and as a great, tasty side the next time we have company for dinner.

Thursday
Five-Ingredient Potato Lasagna - I have to be honest, I got excited when I saw the title to this recipe. I LOVE POTATOES! All kinds (fried, baked, sweet, boiled, etc). There isn't a potato I met I didn't like. Now this recipe was a breeze to prepare, but it didn't set like a lasagna is supposed to. I gave it the 10 minutes it asked for at the end and still it was very soupy and had an extremely runny consistency. I brought it to the table and gave Jeff and I each a portion. Immediately Ian said he wasn't going try that. Jeff took one look at his plate and agreed with him that he wouldn't have to take the obligatory bite we make him try. (side note: Ian is on one heckuva chicken nugget run and this is what he has for dinner each night. We do make him try one bite of whatever it is we are having. Samantha has a little of everything and is already proven to be more adventurous). I personally have no desire to make this dish again, but I was pleasantly taken aback when Jeff said he would put the rest in Tupperware containers and take it for lunch. Wow.

Friday
Pasta with pesto sauce, pine nuts and broccoli with a fresh baked loaf of gluten-free bread - this dinner is something I used to make before in my pre-celiac days. It is a winner with the whole family and even Ian will eat it with us. All I had to do was get gluten-free pasta in its place. Baking gluten-free bread is new territory for me and it required me to manually program my bread machine for this recipe. I was taking a huge leap of faith that it really would be necessary to cut out the knead 2, rise 2 and rise 3 cycles from baking this loaf. The end result didn't look like any loaf I've made before. It was small and compact looking and the color seemed off. The gluten-free pasta taste was pleasantly masked by the pesto sauce. Overall, I'd say this dish was a big success. Jeff even mentioned that he really liked the bread. I am not sure I am such a convert yet.

Lessons learned - I need to find simpler recipes. While it is good to try new things, it might be best to limit myself to one or two per week. It was a little overwhelming going to Wegman's getting the ingredients for 6 nights of dinners. I do want to point out that we haven't eaten this healthy for these many nights in a row EVER! All of the dinners were heavy on fresh vegetables and spices. In fact, there were so many vegetables used, that I didn't know what kind of sides to put with some of this stuff. I still have yet to walk away from this week with a new recipe I am dying to make again. My adventures with Celiac continues...