Corned Beef and Cabbage - Hold the Rye

It feels good to eat a traditional, Americanized St. Patrick's Day meal! Normally my mom would make corned beef, I'd ignore the cabbage and make toasted rye bread and beef sandwiches. This year, I was on my own to recreate our family's annual dish.

At the grocery store, I carefully read the ingredients and got stumped with "flavorings." Technically, barley or malt could be snuck in without being declared. I kept reading the package because I was really craving corned beef and lo-and-behold, the last two words on the package in the bottom corner were "Gluten free." Maybe my calls to Safeway/Dominick's asking them to label gluten free products as such were actually being heard? I purchased my always gluten and dairy free veggies (red potatoes, cabbage, and carrots) and headed home to prepare my feast!

I followed the package directions for cooking the corned beef on the stovetop in my Dutch oven. When it was done and was cooling on a plate underneath a piece of foil, I added washed and halved red potatoes and peeled and cut carrots to the water, brought to a boil, and then simmered for almost 10 minutes. Then I added the cut cabbage for a few more minutes unitl everything was cooked and then drained the vegetables.

Despite my awesome knife skills with bell peppers, garlic, and onions, my meat cutting skills leave something to be desired still. I cut the corned beef a little too thick so it was rather tough. I forgot that one of the best parts of my mom's corned beef was always how thin they were sliced. (My sister, it turns out, had the same problem I had when cutting corned beef. Maybe we should have paid better attention to our mom's preparation and presentation of food as we were growing up?)

This was an easy meal to cook and all of the important meal elements were safe to eat! Happy St. Patrick's Day everyone!

BLT

I’m fairly certain I was accidentally glutenized (super trace amounts) earlier this week. I haven’t been feeling right, some of my classic symptoms were appearing and then today I became an emotional mess. One minute I want to scream and be angry at the world and the next I want to bawl and be held (this is a major improvement from when I was on gluten – then I only wanted to do the later.) I had a bad day at work because of this, so I treated myself to steak tacos at Chipotle and then after work went to the newly rebuilt Dominick’s. Earlier in the day, I was promising myself some delicious overpriced gluten-free item. And then I realized I didn’t want a brownie or (non dairy) ice cream: I wanted real food. And bacon.

Once in the store, I realized I did not have my casein and gluten free shopping guide. The panic started to set in (see above for further description of “hot (emotional) mess.” But then I realized that I could just call Safeway (the Dominick’s brand) because their number is saved in my cell phone. I am happy to report that their Thick Sliced Hickory Smoked Bacon IS gluten free. (And every time I call, I’m going to ask if their products could be labeled gluten free in the future. The customer service representative took down my “formal complaint” and submitted my request. The more people who do this, the better!)

After acquiring the B, L, and the T for my sandwich, I went in search for overpriced gluten-free bread. I had very little luck – there was only one brand of sandwich bread and I was craving a roll. In the end, I went back to the clearly labeled gluten free yellow corn tortillas. My brilliant idea for a sandwich was not as I envisioned. But there was bacon so it was still tasty. My time in the grocery store finding the bacon and bread was greater than the time it took me to prepare my delicious dinner! Next time I have a craving for a BLT, I'm going to make sure to have rolls in the freezer - or make them myself! The sandwich looks a little funny when the tomatoes are thicker than the bread...the lettuce too for that matter...

Tai Nam Food Market and My Asian Dinner

This morning, I continued reading "Cleaving" by Julie Powell (of "Julie and Julia" fame), which got me thinking: where is MY nearest butcher? The last time I was at a butcher was with my mom in suburbia when I was really young (ten?) to get meat for our family party. There have to be butchers in Chicago, especially some in my neighborhood, right?

So I turned to yelp.

There's quite a few butchers in Chicago and I am excited to go to a place that is exclusively a butcher (when I know exactly what I want to make before arriving - going to a butcher doesn't strike me as a I'll-decide-when-I-get-there kind of deal.) But today, I was intrigued by an Asian grocery store that I always see at the Argyle Red Line stop: Tai Nam Food Market. The yelp reviews were overwhelmingly positive and mentioned that there is a butcher, so I grabbed my shopping bag and headed there. I always forget just how close Argyle is to where I live - it seems like a whole different world - but is a two or three minute train ride. In the store, I was one of five non-Asians. I wandered up and down every aisle perusing the products. My eyes lit up when I saw their wide variety of rice noodles. I knew to be careful when buying non-American products because of allergen declaration differences (or lack of) in other countries, but I was excited to see so many noodles saying "Ingredients: Rice Flour." There were also a good number of "Ingredients: Wheat Flour" noodles, so I reassured myself that my choices were safe. I bought a few different varieties including dried tapioca slices, rice macaroni in twist and elbow varieties, and yellow rice noodles. The most expensive one was $1.25!!! Talk about a savings - I have only ever seen gf pasta for $2.00 on a super sale, it is normally +$3.00 a box or bag! I bought one of a few different varieties to make sure that I do not get sick from them before stocking up.

I bought some fresh produce and headed over to the butcher section of the store. I grabbed a chicken in a bag and as soon as I lifted it up, I saw the chicken staring back at me. No thanks. I don't like my meat to still have a face I can see. I instead got .75 pounds of pork tenderloin for $1.81 and decided I would have to stop somewhere else for a whole chicken because when I want a whole chicken, I do not really want A Whole Chicken.

Proud of myself for saving so much money by shopping at this grocery store, I detoured to their cookware section. (This is a HUGE store.) They had a really nice selection of plates, soup bowls, rice bowls and soup spoons. So I bought two of a few different things. I splurged. But the prices were right and I love the design. Besides, I am cooking a lot more Asian dishes, so I should have the appropriate dishware, right? This was the part of my shopping trip where a really sweet elderly lady came up to me and asked if I knew how to use chopsticks. I let her know that I did and she proudly told me that her grandchildren ("Who are American!") already knew how to! Seriously, did my whiteness stick out that badly? It was a really pleasant encounter - this lady probably thinks that I know nothing about Asian cooking. I'll put myself as an advanced beginner. ;-)

I headed home and began cooking my three-course dinner: appetizer, soup and main dish. All of the recipes came from "400 Thai and Chinese Delicious Recipes for Healthy Living." This was a Borders bargain section find for $7.99 (the price tag is still on it.) It's a great book with a wide variety of recipes, but my main problem with the book is that healthy living means low fat/calories (which is true for most Asian dishes). So I need to figure out ways to sneak extra calories into some of these dishes because they are really tasty and easy to cook.

I began with the Crunchy Summer Rolls using round rice papers (the ingredient that started this whole dinner.) I shredded some lettuce, julienned some carrots (my knife skills got better with each one), cooked my cubed pork tenderloin and washed some bean sprouts. I was planning on also adding mint and coriander leaves, but the flavor was a little too overwhelming for me. Rolling the wrappers was really easy after I figured out the best way to soak the rice papers. Rather than having 2-3 soak at a time, soak them individually. They really only need 30-60 seconds to soak before they are pliable and ready to use. Every time I took one out of the water to roll, I added a dry one to my bowl. Once I made a few, I placed a damp paper towel over my rolls, wrapped the plate in saran wrap and stuck them in the fridge and started the next dish.

Sometimes when I'm cooking nowadays, I choose a recipe and am about to start cooking and then really read the recipe and get stumped. I've never worked with lemon grass (or even recall eating it) before, but I found some on my shopping trip and was about to rinse them off when I realized I had no idea how to make my lemon grass "lightly bruised," let alone which parts were edible. Some quick Internet searching later, I was able to resume cooking. The soup took over three hours to make - the inital simmering takes two hours. I made a more Americanized version of the soup (sans coriander, fish sauce, and chilies) but the lemon grass still gave it a really rich texture. This was a really great tasting soup and I foresee making Chicken Rice Soup with Lemon Grass more in the future. I think I ended up with six generous servings - I love frozen leftovers!

The last thing I cooked was Chicken with Mushrooms. When I was telling my mom about the dinner I was making, she responded with "But you don't eat mushrooms." I said that "I do now." Granted, I used probably a quarter of a cup of mushrooms with three chicken breasts... This was really easy to make - it was a simple stir fry with a sherry, soy sauce and sugar mixture with chicken broth (scooped directly out of the stock pot that was sitting inches away - you don't get much fresher than that!).

Overall, I had a great dinner with recipes that I can use again - probably on their own next time because I had a LOT of food leftover! (Not to mention the amount of dishes!)

You May Have Won Round One, Miss Betty Crocker...

...but I'm not going down without a fight!

So there were two things wrong with my Betty Crocker Gluten Free chocolate chip cookies last time:
- There was a light dusting of flour on my hand mixer. That needs to be cleaned thoroughly before I bake again. My first incident of cross contamination occurred in my gf home. Go me.
- I don't know all the baking secrets yet. Some tricks I've seen so far including putting the pans in the freezer, refrigerating the dough, adding extra ingredients, among others.

And since Betty's gf mixes are only $3.69 on sale at Dominick's today (beating out Jewel's regular $4.99), I'm going to try this again. I also bought a cake mix. For good measure.

I was feeling rather urban this morning. With my returned high energy level, I decided to ride my bike to the grocery store. I only needed strawberries, raspberries, powder sugar and cocoa powder, but left with some cake mixes, pasta, Rice Chex. At the Dominick's just north of Thorndale and Broadway, there really isn't a gf section. Their produce section is always huge and amazing, however. I went down the pasta aisle and lo and behold they carried gf pasta...on sale. It's a really small selection (I only noticed two options) but they had a Gluten-Free Item tag - similar to the sale tags they use to catch your eye. So this store will be good for me for some of the basic items that are already gluten and lactose free, but their selection of gf/lactose-free items is still small and I do not know what brands work the best for me yet, so I still need a larger variety. I also needed to buy hoisin sauce, but there was only one option and it contained wheat. I think I need to head south a little bit to the Argyle neighborhood for a wide variety of Asian options.

Soup - a success!

My chicken noodle soup is a success! I was debating between rice or noodles, but have decided that I have a lot of rice in my diet so need to switch up some things. With soup, I personally believe that noodles should be small and in a cool shape. Normally, I perfer small stars, but since I haven't found any gf (gluten-free) options, I went with a bag filled with children friendly shapes - like dinosaurs, bunnies, frogs, cars, trucks and more!

I slowly brought to a boil 3 cups of last night's chicken broth, 3 cut-up carrots, 3 cut-up celery stalks, about 6 cups of water, a bay leaf, and some salt and a few dashes of dried parsley flakes. Then when the carrots were softened a bit, I added Tinkyada's brown rice pasta. I boiled that for a few minutes and then let simmer for about 25 minutes before poritioning out bowls of soup.

In all, I had 6 full-meal size servings of soup. I placed three servings in zip-lock containers and put them in the freezer for future meals. I've had good luck before with freezing soup with traditional noodles. I think the gf noodles will hold up well - I'll keep the blog world posted on the noodles' freezer success.

A little bit about Tinkyada noodles - I've tried a few different styles of noodles from them and have been really happy. You boil the noodles for 1-2 minutes and then let them simmer for 20. And their packaging boasts that they are "not mushy." I would hope so! To me, they taste a lot like regularly noodles - just a little bit softer - but that could always be due to cooking times. They are currently on sale at Jewel for $3.39 a bag (save 40 cents!) in their organic foods aisle. These were the first gf noodles I tried when doing my expermient and I was really happy to get off to such a great start.

The Great Purge

Once I realized that I had to be gluten free (as well as lactose free), I began what shall be referred to as The Great Purge.


Every label was read. I even checked the labels of my cans of vegetables. Just to be safe. I learned a lot about not assuming a food's ingredients this past year. I would take a can of soup to work as an "emergency lunch" for days when I was too lazy to cook or pull something out of the freezer. I was about to open the soup when I noticed milk was an ingredient in vegetable soup. Frustrated, I handed the soup to one of my co-workers and had to go buy a new lunch.


Systematically, I read EVERYTHING. I knew that my gluten free days could be approaching, so I went a few weeks without restocking my dwindling groceries. Everything with gluten went on an end table. I was hoping it would only be a few things - the cookies, crackers, and noodles. I was surprised that some of my stir-fry sauces and Campbell's condensed soup contain wheat.


My greatest find was a box of Rice Chex - clearly labeled "Gluten-Free" that was sitting on top of my refrigerator. Back in November, I bought the cereal with every intention of making a batch of puppy chow but then my energy level sank and I was cooking only to eat to survive - not eat to enjoy. So I grabbed the box of cereal and was thankful to have a crunchy snack already at my fingertips.


So what was I to do with all this food that made me violently ill? I invited my gluten-loving friend to come over and help himself. I still have some gluten food in my freezer - frozen chocolate chip cookies ready for the oven, (nondairy) ice cream sandwiches, breaded chicken, and probably 3 pounds of my delicious homemade meatballs with breadcrumbs. Now when he comes over, he has a ready supply of food so I can make my (expensive) food last longer.




With bare cabinets and a recently reorganized fridge and freezer, I set out to restock my pantry. I cheated by going to the suburbs. I really wanted this blog to showcase how great and easy to find everything is in Chicago, but the cheaper prices and lower taxes are worth it. My first full gluten-free shopping trip took over an hour and a half. My mom and I kept reading labels and putting things back on the shelf. We strictly shopped for non-perishable items on Saturday. Our focus was on the cereal, rice, Asian, and gluten-free aisles. Yes, there was an entire section dedicated organic, gluten-free, and other specialty food items! Thank you, Woodman's!! My birthday is at the end of this month, so my biggest concern was having delicious baked goods - like brownies and chocolate cake. I bought mixes and will be crossing my fingers that the food is delicious and worth the price! Today, finished my shopping spree with a few other missed specialty items, like unflavored gelatin and cornstarch, and lots of fruits, veggies, and meat. Grand total was 101 items for $253.41. (I was expecting to spend $250.00 - I'm good!) The cheapest item was two bulbs of garlic for $0.55 and my most expensive item was Xanthum Gum for $12.89. All the speciality flours, egg replacers, and mixes hijacked a normally inexpensive trip. (On average, I was spending under $75.00 at the grocery store to maintain my pantry.)


And so I begin cooking lactose and gluten free in Chicago! I bought a 10-quart pot and an 8" chef's knife (which I don't think will fit in my apartment...) as well. Let the cooking begin!

Oh, and there's more food that isn't pictured - both phots are of my non-perishables only. Almost a dozen pounds of meat and plenty of fruits and vegetables are being saved from the summer heat in my refrigerator. And the juices and sodas I bought? Not that exciting.