Category Archives: gluten-free food

Whole Food Plant-Based foods that are gluten-free

Bean Salad

beansSummer! Who wants to cook? Not me!

Much of our summer food is cold – salads, chilled soups and sandwiches. Mostly I prepare the the salads and soups early in the morning and put it in the refrigerator to chill for four our five hours. Not only are they cold, but the flavors have had time to meld. (more…)

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Mexican Rice

rice and beans
Most Mexican restaurant entree’s include rice and beans. The rice is a quintessential side dish which uses tomatoes and various herbs (garlic, cumin, cilantro) to lightly season the rice. Sometime, however, the rice includes jalapeno and can be quite spicy.

In our house Mexican rice is a more robust dish. We use herbs and spices liberally and it is much more than a side dish. We use it for breakfast rice and eggs, we add black or pinto beans and use it as an entree, we stuff it into green peppers and have been known to just sit down and eat it all by its self.

My grandkids asked me for my recipe recently and I realized I had never written down. I promised to do it. So Lauren and Kaitlyn, this is for you! (more…)

Posted in additive-free food, diary-free food, gluten-free food, Mexican, plant based diet, rice, Whole Food Plant-Based nutrition | Leave a comment

Energy Cookies

ECOOKIESLITTLEvery now and then your body screams at you — “I need fuel”. Something more than a handful of nuts or a piece of fruit. It wants something solid and chewy. Which is why energy bars were created in the first place.

Unfortunately, commercial energy bars are almost always filled with strange ingredients, sugar and preservatives.

My solution, of course, is to make my own.  I have tried all kinds of things. I wanted a basic recipe that could be adapted to various food plans and tastes.  So with out further ado, here is my latest attempt. (more…)

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Vanishing Pesto

basilLast week the weather was alternatively sunny and humid or rainy and even more humid. The herbs really love it and the basil has grown like mad. By Saturday it was starting to bolt and take over the garden.

I was down to use it or lose it time. I waded through the mud, out to the garden and started cutting. Brought in all the cuttings, stripped the leaves and the bolted flowers. Ended up with 8 cups of washed and tightly packed leaves and bolted flowers. (more…)

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Amy’s Kitchen – Healthy Prepared Vegan and Gluten Free Food

We are packing away. It is amazing how much junk you can accumulate in a couple of years. The hardest part is making decisions – what to do about those little but useful items. For example all the special use kitchen items, the myriad little items hidden away in cabinets and drawers or the box of hooks, picture hangers and rug grippers. None of them are particularly expensive or irreplaceable. It just cost money and time to replace them. To keep or not to keep? My rule of thumb is that if I haven’t used it since we moved here 2 years ago, out it goes either for a yard sale or donation. But there are still a lot of “iffy” items. This part drives me nuts!! Which means all I want to do is eat! amy tamaleThat is the long way of saying that we are either too busy or too tired to think much about cooking. Terrible, when you a chronically hungry (something called stress eating). Interestingly, this time out, I am finding it important to not eat junk. So, last Thursday we took a little trip to the local health food store to see if we could find something prepared that would work. (more…)

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Gluten Free, Sugar Free Vegan (or not) Coffee Cake

coffee cakeI have been on a breakfast kick and trying new things. I have this little piece of me that every now and then craves have something sweet and a little gooey.

Here is my coffee cake cheat. . . I’m not sure it is exactly healthy but it tastes great and using nuts and chia seeds adds some food value in the way of protein. Eggs work best for this, but as noted you can use applesauce for a real vegan treat. (more…)

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Vegan French Toast

french toastFrench toast has always been a favorite breakfast food, but the eggs more or less made it a non-starter. Lately we have been testing alternatives and here is my current favorite.

The best thing about this particular recipe is that it slightly sweet and toasts up to a wonderful golden brown. I promise you won’t miss the eggs at all! (more…)

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Cherry Preserves

cherryLast week when cleaning out the freezer we found a big bag of organic pitted cherries. We bought them at Costco intending to use them in smoothies, but somehow that didn’t happened. They were starting to get freezer burned so we needed to come up with a way to use them quickly.

Cherry pie? How about cherry ice cream,cobbler, compote, tart, chutney or some sort of sauce? After all our excess in New Orleans desert didn’t sound even remotely interesting, I am not a big chutney fan and sauce without a purpose seems like a waste of energy. (more…)

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Lentil Loaf

After all the food in New Orleans I was ready for some “plain” food. The simple food of my childhood. . .

I scrounged around the kitchen and came up with lentils and rice and I was in business! It took about 10 minutes to assemble the loaf and 60 minutes to bake it. I threw a couple of potatoes in the oven with it. When it was time to eat I steamed some broccoli and made a quick salad.

Funny how something so simple tastes so good!

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Wretched Excess

excessWe are home!  We had a wonderful time! And yet are glad to be home: be it ever so humble and all that. . .

We had fabulous ethnic food.  Particularly Middle-Eastern and Vietnamese. The problem in those cases had to do with quantity. Evidently I (conveniently) left my “full button” at home and suddenly felt it absolutely necessary to consume every single morsel on my plate.

It has been a long time since I went to bed at night feeling “stuffed”! But that was almost a nightly occurrence.

Posted in Breakfast, diary-free food, gluten-free food, Middle Eastern Food, sugar-free food, Whole Food Plant-Based nutrition | Tagged , , | Leave a comment