Gluten Freestyling With Lisa

The great thing about families is the way everyone pulls together when your hurt. Every weekend our family gathers on Friday and Saturday for dinner, games, and movies. My broken arm might have stopped me from cooking, but it didn't my family from gathering for our special time together.

Lisa, is twelve years and can show you how easy it is to cook gluten free family meals. She of course received a lot of coaching from mom. On Friday Lisa simply made sloppy joes using gluten free ketchup and spices. She then made a simple salad. Twelve is a little young to be doing deep fat frying, so big brother Jared cooked up the French fries.

For Saturday's meal, Lisa first put on a pot of rice to boil. She then chopped vegetables for a roasted vegetables dish. We were going to roast them part of the way in the microwave and then finish in the conventional oven, but once things got busy with the distraction of her older siblings and nephew showing up it, we forgot to move the dish to the oven. So, we needed to just cook them in the microwave to have them done on time. Lisa topped off the meal with steak and gravy. She did a good job. Her cooking was so delicious I think I might be fired. There were no leftovers.

The amounts in this recipe is all to taste and mood. What I give here is what Lisa choose. My daughter-in-law makes this same dish with fresh onions, the steak in it and uses rutabagas instead of celery.

Roasted Vegetables

1 tsp dried chopped Onions

3 small cloves Garlic

2 chopped Parsnips

2 stalks chopped celery

6 skinny Carrots chopped

Roast in conventional oven at 350° for an hour or until vegetable are tender. For microwave, cook on high for 10 minutes, stir, and finish by cooking for 5 minutes more.

Variation: Toss with a tablespoon of olive oil or butter and some spices before roasting.

Steak and Gravy

This is usually done with leftover steak, but since there wouldn't be enough we started out by browning some fresh steak.

1 and ½ pounds of chopped, browned steak. Stir in 2 – 3 tablespoons potato flour. Pour over this enough gluten free broth to more than cover the steak. Simmer on Medium heat until desired thickness. Serve over potatoes or rice.

For my vegetarian needs I tossed some tofu with low sodium Tamari, which is a gluten free soy sauce. I find it both at the health food store and the local grocery store. I tossed the tofu with my roasted vegetables.