Gluten Free Eating

For several months now I've been unmotivated to write about cooking. The almond cookies need new packaging, I've stepped away from the almond business and my son has now taken over it entirely, plus my oven quit working so there have been no baking experiments.

Today I was reading a blog about someone who has celiac and it gave me the idea to write more about what I do for my family. I also have celiac which means I cannot use gluten from wheat or oats. Now some people may not have an intolerance to oats but I do. Celiac destroys the small intestine over time and is linked to cancer so it is much easier to just do without the gluten.

In addition to leaving out gluten I also try to prepare low fat and mostly vegetarian meals. My dad suffered a major hear attack at the age of 53 so I'm always conscious of eating to save my family members lives.

Now my love for cooking has not diminished while living without an oven, just the preparations have been modified. So I will start writing about the meals I cook and include the recopies.

Yesterday I was so hungry for Beef Bourguignon but had already put a pot of beans on the stove. I did need to buy a couple of things so went to Von's where I prefer the Ranchers Reserve Beef when I can't get grass fed. I always look at the clearance items as they are marked way down and there was the Rancher's Reserve stew beef that needed to be sold by that day so was marked down 30%, this was on top of being on sale. I picked up 3 packages, put 2 in the freezer and one for tonight's dinner.

Since I don't have an oven I dug out my 35 year old crock pot, found the recipe book for it and looked up the recipe in Julia Child's “Mastering the Art of French Cooking”. I compared the recipes and have modified the recipe to be gluten free and lower fat as follows:

Chris's Beef Bourguignon

Olive Oil

1 # lean, and good quality stew beef,

2 carrots sliced

1 onion sliced
1 large hand-full of white mushrooms and 1 large hand-full of Crimi mushrooms

3 cloves of garlic chopped

1 sm can of tomato paste

1 tsp thyme

red wine, I used Kenwood Red Table Wine as it was open already

a little water

Saute your stew beef in a little olive oil, just to brown then add it to your crock pot. Add a little more olive oil if necessary and saute your carrots and onion and after a bit throw in the mushrooms then add to the crock pot. Deglaze your skillet with some red wine, about ¼ C or a little less. Mix your paste, thyme and garlic together in a bowl and then add to your skillet mixing with the wine. You may add water, about ½ of the can of paste in order to make a thick sauce. I added about ½ C or so of wine to the crock pot then added the paste mixture. Cook on high for 4 hours and serve over some potatoes or rice.