A Flour By Any Other Name
tales from a gluten-free kitchen
Category Archives: nut-free
Tuna and White Bean Salad
I made this tuna salad today for a potluck picnic lunch. The weather was beautiful and the salad was perfect. I made it nice and lemony and it was a hit. The lemon and the arugula are such a good contrast to the beans and the tuna.
I mostly followed the recipe; besides adding extra lemon juice (I used the juice of two lemons), I also soaked my chopped onion in cold water to mellow it before draining it and mixing it in, and I added a third can of tuna.
Since I don’t have leftovers from this batch, I think I will have to make it again soon just for me.
Salted Dates with Mini Eggs
This is my new creation–delicious Medjool dates stuffed with mini eggs and dusted with salt.
In the kitchen in my office, we have a counter where treats collect. One day, we had both mini eggs and dates, so I felt I had to stuff the dates with mini eggs. I pitted the dates and was busy stuffing mini eggs inside them when a colleague walking through suggested adding salt. Brilliant.
So the result is this delicious bite that features the creamy sweetness of the dates, milk chocolate with a candy crunch, and salt to tamp down the sweetness and boost the intensity of the dates’ other notes.
I like too that it is appropriate for Easter, Ramadan and Passover, all at once. Quite a happy accident.
Cardamom Cake
Yesterday, I was reading a blog post that offered advice on how to improve your life. The first step involved a little bit of introspection. One of the things you were supposed to determine was what single biggest thing would bring you joy, professionally or personally. I imagine that the author intended the reader to consider a longer timeframe than I did, but when I read that, I decided that the single biggest thing that would bring me joy at that moment was to make a cake, right then and there. So I made this.
And bring joy it did. It combines two of my favourite things–cardamom and cake.
This is a lovely, simple cake. It calls for a whole tablespoon of ground cardamom and melted butter. I baked mine in an 8-inch pan to help give it more height, so it took a little longer to bake. I chose not to put any sugar on top at all, leaving it naked. If you too are a cardamom fan, you should give it a try. This is an excellent breakfast cake (and an excellent end of the day cake, too).
Spicy Taco Salad
I made tacos last weekend, using a boxed kit. It was all very tasty, but those taco shells are so tiny. So confining. I kept breaking them with my overly ambitious and optimistic attempts to fill them. I eventually gave up and just made piles of the filling.
Continue readingFried Plantains
I was on vacation in the Caribbean recently and had a ton of delicious food while I was there. One of my fondest memories is of dinner at a rib shack that included your choice of any three sides with an order of ribs. I chose coleslaw, beans and rice, and plantains. Ever since, I have been thinking about eating plantains again.
Continue readingFondue on Demand
I have a weakness for the cheese sections of food stores. I find myself gravitating towards them, whether I need cheese or not. I’m currently not allowing myself to buy any more cheese until I work through some of what I have in my fridge.
Continue readingRadish and Cheese Spread (with Fries)
When I was a kid, I loved a sandwich spread my mom used to make: grated radishes and cheddar cheese, with a bit of mayo to hold it together. I ate it as a sandwich filling, on toast and on crackers.
Now that I avoid bread products, I had been trying to come up with new ways to eat it. I think it would be lovely on a bed of lightly dressed greens. And it might be quite good blended with grated cabbage.
Continue readingFried Onions, Pickled Eggplant and Banana Peppers with Cheese on French Fries
Some time ago, I bought a large jar of pickled eggplant. I like eggplant and was curious what the pickled version would be like. I had no idea how to use it, though, so I googled it. Of course, most of the answers involved bread products (sandwiches, crusty bread). And while I do use bought bread products occasionally, I try not to eat them too frequently.
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A Flour By Any Other Name 