Having decided to go gluten free for 2 weeks I wasn’t so concerned about breakfast. There are plenty of gluten free cereals on the market and with a great health food shop around the corner I can even get some gluten free oats for porridge. I figured I wouldn’t miss toast too much (having already abandoned my real butter for a soy alternative due to heartburn a few months ago) and at least there’s no gluten in coffee!
Dinner I wasn’t so concerned about either. I mean I made a whole cookbook of gluten free alternatives for dinner! Potatoes and rice are staples and rice noodles are my preference for Asian dishes. I already eat a ton of vegetables and I love corn tortillas when I have Mexican, and we finally have a good brand in the UK! Also I thought it would be a good excuse to really give those gluten free Italian pastas a test run (more on that later).
But lunch without sandwiches? Not even so much for me as I work from home and am a bit more of a snacker (think carrot sticks and bananas all day long). But I’m always making my partner a sandwich to take to the office. Sometimes he has leftovers but more often than not it’s a sandwich. We gave it a go with some gluten free bread yesterday, it looked remarkably like bread but he says tasted of nothing. Which I must say is better than some gluten free breads I’ve tried before where I wished they tasted less. He said he would eat it again but maybe with more filling, more flavours, more moisture – this one was a pretty simple spicy cheese, cucumber & seeded mustard. We’ll see how the hummus version goes down later in the week.
For today I made us some millet, quinoa & roasted vegetables with seeds, nuts & dried fruit and then threw in a bit of tamari, black pepper & chilli powder. Yummy!
Just follow the directions to cook the millet and/or quinoa. For the vegetables put your oven on 140 celcius or 280 farenheit and cut up your preferred veggies. I used beetroot, butternut squash, red onion & green pepper – just throw them in a pan with a little splash of sesame oil and roast for about an hour and a half. Once it’s all cooled I mix them together with poppy, sesame, sunflower, pumpkin & linseed (a mixture I keep in a jar to use in all sorts of dishes). I also added some cashews and dried cranberries. Great hot, cold or in between!