Spicy Garlic Chickpea Salad with Lemony Vinaigrette

My work week is always jam packed; I work long days and when I'm at work, I'm lucky if I can take my breaks (and people think librarians only read books...). The food I take to work needs to be quick to make, easy to eat, and delicious, which is not always easy to do.

This chickpea "salad" is perfect and meets all of the above requirements! It also makes perfect leftovers as the flavors meld together and get better over time.

I love that you just throw everything into the bowl and dive in. That's my kind of eating!

Spicy Garlic Chickpea Salad with Fennel and Roasted Tomatoes

Extra-virgin olive oil
Two 15 oz. can of chickpeas (drained and rinsed)
4 crushed garlic cloves
1/2 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
2 pints cherry tomatoes
Rosemary and thyme to taste
1 cup brown rice
Jarred pepperoncini
Small bulb of fennel
Shredded Parmesan
Fresh parsley

Cook 1 cup of rice as directed on package and set aside. In a medium saute pan, add chickpeas, garlic, and red pepper flakes. Saute for 6-8 minutes or until chickpeas start to blister. Season with salt and pepper; set aside.

Meanwhile, pre-heat oven to 450 degrees. Toss cherry tomatoes with dried rosemary and thyme and olive oil. Roast until they're blistered and beginning to burst open; about 20 minutes.

Put some rice in a bowl and ladle about 1/3 cup of the chickpea mixture into bowl. Add tomatoes and pepperoncini (to taste). Shave about 4-5 pieces of fennel from the bulb (the white part) and add to the bowl. Add Parmesan, parsley, and lemony vinaigrette. Mix to combine and chow down!

Lemon vinaigrette recipe can be found here.
Recipe adapted from bon appetit magazine.

This recipe is super healthy, gluten-free, and can be made vegan and dairy-free (just omit the Parmesan cheese)!

C'est La Vie

I had to really wrack my brain to find a topic for today's Blog Every Day in May challenge; we're supposed to write about our "lot" in life and what we're doing to improve it.

As I sat down to think about it, I realized that, despite facing challenges that come with life in general, I have very little to complain about or blame for anything in my life. I'm so thankful for that.

I've always had family and friends who loved me, I found someone to love and marry and be with for the rest of my life, and I have been successful in other areas of my life. I guess if I had to write about something, it would be about my health. It hasn't been an easy journey for me, but it's definitely something I'm figuring out and working to improve!

When I was 14 I became incredibly sick. I had no idea what was going on and it was really affecting my ability to function. After multiple doctor visits, I was diagnosed with IBS. As of right now, there is no cure and no method of prevention since the medical community doesn't even know what causes the symptoms. Even though that's the case, some doctors believe that certain foods can exacerbate the symptoms. So, I had to make many changes to my diet and continue to monitor which foods seemed to make me feel sick.

Over the next several years I was able to manage my way around it, only getting sick maybe one week out of every six months. But most recently, last year, I became more sick than I'd ever been before. I checked in to the hospital, was put on fluids because I was seriously dehydrated and malnourished (because a common reaction to the symptoms is to not eat because all it does is make you even more sick) and they ran some tests on me, including a CT scan. Long story short, my condition, due to its chronic nature, had developed into something a little more serious- ulcerative colitis. For the rest of 2012, I had to go to extensive doctors visits, exams, and had a minor procedure done to determine the severity of my condition.

Since there is no cure for it, my doctor only had one recommendation- medication. I am not the type of person who runs to get prescriptions every time I have the flu or  a cold so I told my doctor I would do more research about the particular drug I was being prescribed. During my research I found that it is and immune system suppressant, seeing as my body believes it has a contaminate that it's trying to get rid of, when in fact it doesn't. It's common in other auto-immune disorders. Basically the drug would cause my immune system to function at a very low level. This is incredibly risky because I would be susceptible to other germs and bacteria which can cause other sicknesses. I called my doctor to ask whether it was absolutely necessary for me to take medication and she admitted that it wasn't absolutely necessary. It's just the usual next step with patients like me. I then felt free to ask about alternative solutions to handling the symptoms and she recommended several diets, one of them being the elimination of gluten.

As is the usual reaction to someone who is eliminating gluten, you are upset, angry, and anxious about what you can eat. Everything has gluten in it!! You shed a fear tears because now you can't eat donuts anymore (a huge vice of mine) and cake is off limits. Well, that's what I thought anyway. It really helped that I already had someone close to me who was gluten-free (my mother-in-law) so she helped me find brands of g-free bread that didn't taste like cardboard (Goodbye Gluten and Udi's are the best). After several months of doing my own research and embracing new foods, I realized how little I was giving up and how actually toxic our everyday wheat is. I went gluten-free officially in November 2012 and honestly haven't looked back.

All in all, my health has caused some roadblocks in the past, but removing food from my diet that was harmful to me has drastically helped improve my health and the way I feel each day!


Here are some of my favorite sources for gluten-free food creativity if you are or are considering removing gluten from your diet. I know that these blogs and sources really helped me so I wanted to share that with anyone who may also need them.

Gluten-Free Girl and the Chef - Her knowledge about the gluten-free diet is so extensive. She has amazing videos where she walks up and down each aisle of the grocery store and points out which products to avoid and which are safe. I learned so much here.
Silvana's Kitchen - Silvana's website has incredible recipes for gluten-free pastries, desserts, etc.
Gluten-Free Girl - This is my gluten-free Pinterest board with recipes, more sources, and information about the gluten-free diet.
My Five Day Gluten-Free Meal Plan
Betty Crocker Gluten-Free Cookbook - I was given this for my birthday. It's a great cookbook that is perfect for g-free beginners! It includes recipes for fried chicken, chicken pot pie, pizza, muffins, pancakes, etc. All you have to do is buy the Bisquick g-free mixture and you're good to go. It's the best book for the newbie.

Coconut Ginger Soup

Ever since going gluten-free, I have had trouble finding soups that don't contain gluten fillers. This is especially difficult because the kinds of soups I most prefer are bisques, thicker soups usually made by pureeing the ingredients together. I had the place all to myself last night and decided that I'd make my own gluten-free soup, one that I could repeat and love!

One of my favorite cuisines are Indian and Thai, both of which tend to use a lot of coconut milk in their food. Needless to say, I've become obsessed with this stuff. I almost always have a can or two in my kitchen at any given time. 

But it's been a while since I made a good soup. The last soup I attempted to make was an Indian mulligatawny soup with lentils (and also coconut milk). It did not turn out well. Also, my hubby doesn't prefer to have soup for dinner (or lunch, really) because he doesn't find them substantial enough. As a result, I really don't make soup too often. But since I'm trying to curb the type of snack foods I eat, I picked up a few ingredients to make myself a soup snack during the week. This recipe was a success.

Coconut Ginger Soup

Adapted from Gloriously Gluten-Free Cookbook

Makes about 8 servings

Ingredients:

1 cup sliced mushrooms

2 cups loosely packed spinach leaves

2 tablespoons grated ginger

1 tbs oil

3 cups vegetable stock

2 14 oz. cans coconut milk

1/2 tablespoon cornstarch

3 tablespoons brown sugar

Cayenne pepper to taste

Salt and pepper to taste

Heat oil in a large pot over medium high heat. Add spinach, mushrooms, and ginger and cook while stirring, until the spinach begins to wilt, about 2 minutes. 

Add 2 1/2 cups of the broth to pot and stir well. Bring to a boil and add the coconut milk and cayenne pepper. Cook, stirring, about 3 to 4 minutes. 

In a small bowl, combine the last 1/2 cup of broth with cornstarch and stir until smooth. Pour the mixture into the soup and stir well. Add the brown sugar. Cook until desired thickness is reached, about 10 to 15 minutes. Add salt and pepper to taste. Serve hot with cilantro as a garnish. 

What's In My Grocery Cart?

I recently shared my five-day gluten-free meal plan to give you a peek into what a typical week looks like in terms of meals and snacks for someone on a gluten-free diet. I've gotten quite a bit of feedback from friends, family, and readers about whether or not the gluten-free diet is too expensive, how do we keep costs down, and the usual question, "if you can't eat gluten, what else is there to eat?" 

To be honest, I find that last question odd. In recent years, the American diet has become so centered around bread and refined wheat products that the average person can't imagine maintaining a diet that excludes bread and wheat. Our addiction to highly processed starches/wheat—doughnuts, white breads, cookies, crackers, chips, and other unhealthy snacks—has led to a gluten overload. It's now estimated that 50% of American have some form of a gluten intolerance. How can we be surprised by this? The wheat grains that we find in our breads are almost always processed and refined. In other words, any real substance has been removed- it's no longer natural! The next time you buy bread, do yourself a favor and read the number one ingredient on the list; it usually reads "enriched wheat flour" which is something of a misnomer.  (If you want some basic information on that, The Hoax of Enriched Wheat Flour is a good place to start.)

When I politely tell someone that I have to pass on the potato casserole because I know it contains a gluten filler (usually flour thickener or cream of chicken/mushroom soup), I get the look of pity; people even think I'm foolish for removing wheat and grains from my diet. I just have to shrug it off and move on. After almost ten years of dealing with pain and some of the worst health symptoms I could have imagined, my body forced me to feed it different foods. The place I'm at today is a result of my personal reaction to certain foods, not because of a snobbish desire to be the healthiest in the land; I share this information because I want others who may be experiencing the same symptoms I had to know that they can help themselves beyond medication or incessant doctor visits where you're poked and prodded like cattle. I've been there... 

Since I've had to monitor my food intake more closely, I usually plan meals at the beginning of each week, usually on a Sunday. My hubby and I do a big grocery trip where we stock up on the necessaries and replenish things like almond milk, bread, and produce. This usually gets us through until the next Sunday without requiring that we go to another store to get things during the week. That's what way we're able to maintain a decent grocery budget; another way is by reducing the amount of snack food we purchase. We don't like to keep too much in our pantry, mostly because we just don't have the space, but because we prefer to use up most of our food before we return to the store again. This takes care of the snacking solution. So let's go! Here's a peek into our grocery cart.

Produce- Vegetables

We recently started shopping at a local grocery store called Woodman's; I love their produce section- it's vast, has great variety, and they are almost never out of something I need.  I've broken our produce into two parts: vegetables and fruit. Here's what we got for vegetable produce:

- Iceberg lettuce (this isn't typical- usually I get cabbage or spinach, but I needed this for a recipe)

- Roma tomatoes

- Cauliflower

- Carrots 

- Mushrooms (two boxes)

- Green pepper

- Red peppers 

- Ginger

- Parsley (I always buy cilantro too, but I didn't need any this trip)

- Zucchini (they had an amazing sale- 59 cents per pound... I stocked up) 

Not pictured: potatoes and red onions. 

And here's our fruit produce:

- Oranges (2 bags)

- Bananas

- Lemons (I put them in my water and use them for skincare)

- Strawberries (two boxes)

Meat and Dairy

- Boneless skinless chicken breasts (I buy the four pound bag. We were buying two bags and soon found that buying one large bag was less expensive). 

- Butter

- Sour Cream

- Mozzarella shredded cheese

- Stonyfield Organic yogurt (this stuff is amazing: it is chock full of probiotics and live cultures that your gut desperately needs)

Some other items that we tend to buy often are ground beef, goat cheese, and another type of cheese to snack on, usually a local cheddar or havarti cheese. 

Cereals/Breads

- Gluten-free Cinnamon Chex Mix
- Udi's Gluten-free Vanilla granola
- Cheerios
- Sunbelt Bakery Granola

The Chex Mix is pretty much regular Chex, just prepared in a factory that doesn't also process their wheat Chex, therefore making it certified gluten-free. Udi's makes amazing granola- it's filling and absolutely delicious. The Cheerios and Sunbelt Bakery granola are for Luis. 

- Pepperidge Farm Ancient Grains whole wheat bread (for Luis)

- Goodbye Gluten bread

- Udi's gluten-free bread in Cinnamon Raisin

- Mission White Corn tortillas

Since Luis still prefers to eat regular bread, we found an option that we felt was the best nutrient-wise. He gets the Ancient Grain bread from Pepperidge Farm, which is free of enriched flours and in addition to wheat grain, it features grains that are ancient grains. Teff, amaranth, and sorghum are all ancient grains that represent some of the oldest grains consumed by humans. Not only are these unprocessed, they may prevent cancer and other diseases; they are also grains that are naturally gluten-free! 

If you are on the gluten-free diet, Udi's is by far the best bread option out there. It's tasty and there are many different varieties of bread to purchase. Goodbye gluten is a bread I buy when I want the best. I have to drive to a store in Vernon Hills to purchase this bread (about a half hour from where I live), as they don't sell it at Woodman's. It's totally worth it though. 

Snacks and Frozen Food

- Tribe Hummus
- Triscuit Crackeked Pepper & Olive Oil crackers
- Kashi Garlic Pesto pita chips
- Glutino Gluten free Crackers

Naturally, I only eat the Glutino crackers (which are great by the way!)

We try to keep down the amount of frozen food that we purchase, limiting ourselves to frozen fruit/veggies, etc. 

- Ore Ida Zesty Twirls frozen fries

- Dole Mixed Berries frozen fruit

- Unsweetened Red Raspberries

- Van's Gluten-free blueberry waffles

Frozen fries are a hidden source of gluten for those with a gluten intolerance. Ore Ida is one of the only brands that don't use flour as a coating on their fries.

Juices/Beverages

- Dole Pineapple Orange Banana juice
- Silk PureAlmond milk
- Lime and lemon juice

We like Dole's juice because they don't add extra sugar and there is no high fructose corn syrup present in the juice.

Grocery- Part 1

- McCormick Cumin seeds

- Barney Buttter Organic Almond Butter

- S&W Black beans

- College Inn chicken broth

- Sriracha sauce

- Roland Marsala cooking wine

- Spice Supreme whole cloves

- Dried tarragon

With each canned item you'll see, we buy about two for each. Also, if you haven't had almond butter, try it! It's delicious.

Grocery Part 2

- Barilla Marinara

- R.W. Knudsen Organic Apple Butter

- SueBee Clover Honey

- Hunt's Tomato sauce

- Shur Fine Tomato Paste 

- Eillie's Cashew halves and pieces

- Roland Artichoke hearts

- Aroy-D Coconut milk

Again, canned goods are usually purchased in pairs. I also bought pinto beans, which I forgot to picture.

Other items that we normally purchase are paper goods, such as toilet paper and paper towels, dish soap, sponges, and personal items like body wash, etc. 

There are still some different things I'd like to try, such as purchasing beans dry and in bulk instead of canned. As you can see, being gluten free, I still have a very normal diet with a ton of options in terms of meals and snacks. A common misconception is that you have to remove so much from your diet by going gluten-free, and I don't believe that to be true. If anything, I've added more food to my diet since then by embracing foods that are naturally gluten free.

I'd love to hear about your grocery trips! What can't you live without? How do you approach grocery shopping? 

My Five Day Gluten-Free Meal Plan

Ever since I started eating gluten-free this past November, I've had to be much more conscious about the food I eat. Not because I'm counting calories or hoping to lose weight, but because I feel better when I omit certain foods. Naturally, gluten and wheat are two foods/ingredients that I have found to have negative effects on my overall health and well being. 

I have an intense love of cooking, so when I made the decision to cut gluten from my diet, I knew that some adjustments would be necessary. I accepted the challenge! But I soon realized that it wasn't nearly as difficult as I expected. It also required me to meal plan for the week ahead.

I know that meal-planning can be difficult, especially if you are new to eating gluten-free. I thought I'd share my 5 day meal plan! I have found that planning ahead keeps us on track and organized, both with our budget and staying healthy.

This week's gluten-free meal plan:

Monday: 

• Breakfast: Strawberries with goat cheese and honey
• Lunch: Spinach salad with tomatoes, banana peppers, and red onion with balsamic vinaigrette
• Snacks: Honey banana smoothie // cocoa roasted almonds (I buy Emerald brand)
• Dinner: Jerk chicken with pineapple salsa and coconut rice

 

Tuesday:

• Breakfast: Gluten-free banana nut muffins (I use Pamela's baking mix)
• Lunch: Hummus and avocado tacos 
• Snacks: Snyder's gluten-free pretzels with hummus // Honeycrisp apples and honey
• Dinner: G-free pasta with sausage, spinach, mushrooms, and asparagus in Cabernet-Garlic sauce

Wednesday:  

• Breakfast: Scrambled eggs with spinach and Parmesan cheese
• Lunch: Puerto Rican rice and beans
• Snacks: Snickerdoodle Chex mix (sugar, cinnamon, chocolate chex cereal, popped popcorn, butter)
• Dinner: Chicken with avocado-cilantro cream, fresh mango, and jasmine rice

Thursday:

• Breakfast: Chocolate Chex cereal with almond milk
• Lunch: Spinach and artichoke grilled cheese
• Snacks: Tostones (fried plantains)
• Dinner: Butter chicken with cabbage and peas

Friday:

• Breakfast: Smoothie (frozen raspberries, strawberries, greek yogurt, coconut water)
• Lunch: Leftovers from previous dinner
• Snacks: Ore-Ida zesty fries // banana popsicles 
• Dinner: Roasted veggie and black bean rice bowls 

 

Happy planning!

 

How to Make Kheer (Indian Rice Pudding)

In case you didn't read yesterday's post, Luis and I spent our weekend in Florida for a wedding. We didn't have much time to explore, but were able to slip out Saturday morning and hit up some of the shops and eat. We noticed that there were a ton of Indian restaurants along the main road and made the decision to try one called Green Chili Indian Bistro.

While the website might not suggest fine dining, we finely dined. The server persuaded us to partake of the featured buffet. Let it be known, that I eschew buffets. I hate them. But as we sat down, the scent of curry, butter, cilantro and ginger told me that maybe I should try the dishes simmering in their golden serving pots. So we went with the buffet.

It was the best decision on my life. Alright, I am over-exaggerating, but in terms of culinary experiences, then yes, it was a good decision. Luis ordered an Indian beer and we filled multiple plates full of incredibly flavored dishes. They served butter chicken, which are cubes of chicken simmered in butter, marinated, and served in a creamy tomato sauce; Aloo Bengun, potatoes and eggplant cooked in a zesty sauce; Chana Masala, which is chickpeas cooked in a tomato sauce with ginger and onions; and my favorite was a dish called Bund Gobi and Matar, which is essentially cabbage and peas simmered in garam masala and curry spices.

But what finished off the meal perfectly was the kheer, or Indian-style rice pudding that they served in tiny bowls. I may or may not have gone up for five or more servings... It was a snow white dessert that had a hint of rose water. I was stunned. The minute I got home, I began to search for the recipe. I found one today and immediately got cooking. I based my recipe off of Manjula's Kitchen recipe. I did alter a few things based on what I had in my kitchen. 

Kheer (Rice Pudding) 

Ingredients:

1 teaspoon of butter

1/4 cup rice (you can use any kind of white colored rice for this)

3 cups milk (I used almond milk)

1/4 cup sugar

Generous pinch of saffron

A pinch of cardamom (or allspice)

Crushed almonds (optional) 

Directions:

Wash the rice until the water is clear. I used a strainer and watched until the rinsing water was clear. Melt butter over medium heat. Add rice and saute for about 2 minutes. 

Add the milk and stir to coat. Cook until rice is tender, stirring often as the milk will sit on the bottom of the pan. Continue cooking until milk becomes creamy and reduces to about half of its volume. 

Add sugar, cardamom (or allspice), saffron and let simmer for another few minutes, covered with the lid. 

Turn off the heat and let the rice sit in the sauce. It will thicken as it cools. If the sauce isn't creamy enough, simply simmer the rice covered another time. Serve warm or chilled with the chopped almonds as a garnish.

Makes about two servings. 

This recipe is gluten-free, and can be made vegan and dairy-free, provided you use almond or coconut milk and a different oil for the initial step.