Husband's Birthday....

Tomorrow is 1/11/11 - and also my husband's birthday!

He wants me to make him dinner & I'm struggling to figure out what to make! I have to work the entire day, so that limits cooking time. Unless I pop something in the slow cooker in the morning, although I don't love leaving the slow cooker on when I'm not there (I know that's what their purpose is, but I usually use it on Sunday).... Liz suggested Smitten Kitchen's short ribs, which is a great call actually - he loves those! But I will definitely need to leave work early to get dinner ready by 7:30 or 8....

Or I could do an old favorite - Pork Tenderloin. This dish never disappoints - I do a simple marinade of soy sauce (gf of course) fresh ginger, evoo, salt, pepper, and sometimes a dash of Worcestershire....

OR I could do a turkey meatloaf, which really doesn't sound that exciting - but he was just talking about the Barefoot version that I make that is really yummy.

Hmmmm..... i'm thinkin' those ribs might be it.

on another note - I started Biggest Loser at work, and I vowed this weekend to make healthier meals & buy better snacks for a while, but tomorrow will be a pass ;) No skimping on a birthday!

Let's just order a pizza...

...Words I haven't said in a LONG time. "Let's just order a pizza". Those gluten-free eaters out there know what I'm talkin' about. I mean, GF pizza is out there, but it's usually a drive away, or something special to go out of your way for, or something you just whip up at home. But get delivered?! SOOOO nice.

My husband recently did some googling and found out that Gregory's in Reading, MA has gluten free pizza with crust courtesy of Strawberry Moon!

We got back from our vacation and had almost no food in the house, and just called up & ordered a pizza for dinner. So great! Their sauce is excellent, and we got ours half pepperoni and extra cheese. The crust has a great taste, and a good crunch on the outside (although a tad chewy, but still really good). Yuuummmm:

Look at that pizza grease! haha... anyway. I love that more & more places are popping up with gluten free options. I usually just make pizza at home when my husband orders one with my fave Udi's pizza crusts -- but he actually likes this so much that we can just split it!

I like to get my own though because this makes EXCELLENT cold pizza the next day!

Twenty Eleven

Hello all and a happy belated new year.... I hope everyone's holidays were wonderful and relaxing. Mine was! Sadly, I was snowed out of MY family christmas, so we'll be doing that this weekend, but we had a great time with my husbands family and got away to Mont Tremblant in Canada for the New Year which was fantastic!

A few highlights in pictures:

It's become a tradition to have eggs benedict on Christmas morning and I LOVE IT. I make the hollandaise sauce in either my blender or in my food processor – it's so easy, and so indulgent. I put extra lemon...Perfect for a holiday morning - it's also a big mess.

As a lighter treat we also had little bowls of fresh berries.

We hung around the house & watched A Christmas Story and had a really relaxing break. Then, it was off to Canada! Mont Tremblant is a beautiful ski town with a cute little village at the base of the mountain with shops and restaurants, and lots of activities. We stayed right in the village so we could hit the slopes early, and our room had a kitchen which was excellent, so we made quite a few meals in our room which saved $, and were definitely GF. The weather was weird, it was super cold, then warmed up & a lot of fog rolled in which was pretty rough skiing, but our second morning it was SO gorgeous because the peak of the mountain was in the sun above the clouds, check it out:

Amazing right!!! It was so fun.

We also had a small "Poutinere" across from our hotel, and had to check it out one day, look at all the different varietes of poutine:


For those who don't know - Poutine is basically fries with gravy and cheese or cheese curds & various toppings. I used to LOVE this treat, at the diner at home we just called it 'gravy cheese fries' - but Poutine is so much nicer.... Sadly, I didn't have any (no gravy for me!) - but I did have some excellent fries plain at another place with white vinegar - yum.

New Years was pretty cool, the had some fun skiing demonstrations, then some awesome fireworks at midnight:
I didn't take that picture - I was over at the base of the mountain, but this pic is awesome.

I have a pretty big back-log of posts I need to get up - so hopefully I'll be posting more often!

The Common Man

**UPDATE: The Common Man restaurants DO have a printed gluten free menu - just ask your server, and yes! they have Redbridge!


If any of you live in New Hampshire, I'm pretty sure you've heard of the Common Man restaurants. I love them. Especially in the winter. It's so cozy in there. There's always a huge fire roaring and I love the atmosphere (there are a few of them in NH, and they're converted barns).

Anyway - I was waiting for my husband last night while he was at a meeting and he dropped me off at the Common Man Windham because I had to do a few hours of work & needed wi-fi. Got a great little table in the bar overlooking the fire, ordered a glass of wine & got to work.


On a whim I asked if they had Redbridge - which THEY DID. So then I got one of those! I wish I had asked first, oh well. Then I got an order of their homemade potato chips - YUM. I don't think they have an actual printed gluten free menu, but when I'm there I usually get a steak & baked potato so I'm usually good, but next time I will definitely ask.

I so love it there.

Actually - the Common Man Inn up in Plymouth, NH is where we got engaged :)

Gluten Free Shepherd's Pie.

It's been coooooold lately here in the northeast and all I want to eat is comfort food. I hadn't made Shepherd's Pie, um, ever? --- so I decided to go for it. I quickly found one of Rachel Ray's 30 minute meal recipes here -- and let me tell you, this is GOOD.

I made a few modifications to the recipe - but the way this recipe is set up is quick & easy and it really tastes delicious. I almost doubled the amount of mashed potatoes on top because they're my favorite. I also added some celery and finished off the top with a little cheese, nixed the parsley and did not include an egg in the potatoes. I also cooked the carrot/onion/celery a little bit longer so it would soften a bit more.

Have I ever mentioned how much me & my husband eat? Evidence:

Sandwich while working...

Oh Udi's. You're so great, and you really are living up to your ad campaign, "We're Bringing Sandwich Back" - because for me, you really are. Ooh, and did you all enter to win Udi's bread for a year?!?! If not, do so here.

Side story --- I work in a pretty big ad agency and sit close to the catering women who organize all of our fabulous parties/events/meetings. They now know I'm gluten free because DAILY they come around with extra sandwiches, muffins, donuts, cookies, etc from meetings and I say NO every time –– unless it's chips, or ice cream - the latter is pretty rare though. They finally asked and I explained i was GF.

Anyway - they had a request for a meeting last week with someone who was GF, and I was all over it - I picked up a few bags of UDI's for them to have out at the meeting, and they did a meat & cheese platter, fruit, chips, etc to have out, along with regular bread in a separate basket to make your own sandwich. Apparently it was a big hit (OBVI) but I would have loved to have been in that lunch meeting & seen that woman's face when Udi's bread was in front of her!

Thanksgiving

I PIGGED OUT on Thanksgiving. I am not lying, here is the evidence (my plate):

I know, it was a lot of food. And I had seconds a few hours later. yikes. Anyway ---- We went for the traditional Thanksgiving this year. Nothing too fancy or out of the ordinary, just the classics. It was awesome. Mashed potatoes, green beans amandine, TURKEY of course, we made gluten free gravy with Better Batter all purpose flour mix, mashed sweeet potatoes with marshmallows on top (which we left under the broiler just a half a minute too long, so it was a little burnt - but delicious), and of course - STUFFING.

UDI's GF STUFFING.

Seriously - pre-gluten free days I could've cared less about stuffing. Weird right? Same goes for bread baskets on the dinner table and even pizza. Pre-GF, those were not things I cared about, and then, sure enough, I can't have 'em, and I want them!

Here's how we made our stuffing:

One loaf of Udi's GF bread cut into cubes & toasted in the oven.


We chopped up some fresh sage, and some thyme:


With a generous helping of butter, onion & celery:


Added the toasted bread, into the AMAZING-smelling mixture, with some chicken broth. Side note: did you know Progresso chix broth is gluten free? I didn't till I looked at the box!


Here it is after being well mixed (YUUUM):


And after we warmed it in the oven before serving... I'm seriously drooling looking at all the pictures again. I'm definitely making stuffing again soon, not just this once-a-year business.


My sister & I divvied up the leftovers -- I tried to make a lot so it would last us at least a few days -- and mine were gone by the Tuesday after. It was a lot of good eating, I could barely eat the gluten free pumpkin pie that I bought (which wasn't great anyway).

You'd think after a day of massive eating, I'd go super healthy & detox for a few days after, yeah, I don't think so. The next morning we broke out the GF Bisquick: