Because I feel like procrastinating...

...I'm blogging about more fun, cheap, tasty gluten-free adventures! I've discovered a few tricks to eating inexpensively and quickly: 1) shop at ethnic grocery stores (I LOVE the produce at a few Indian markets in the area) and 2) make ethnic food! I've been having Indian and Indonesian the last few weeks, but rice and beans á la México, la Republica Dominicana, o Cuba are super bien as well!

Tonight I made chana masala (no pictures, unfortunately), an Indian dish of chickpeas with a ginger/garlic/onion/tomato/chili paste and some fun spices. Here's the recipe if you're interested. It was super spicy but delicious! And it only took about 20 minutes to put together (longer to cook because the chickpeas needed softening up - I used dried beans I'd soaked overnight instead of canned). Served with basmati rice. Yum yum yum! :)

Last week, I made an Indonesian dish a friend of mine from Brandeis taught me to make. It uses the same ginger/garlic/onion/tomato/chili paste for a base; then you fry it in veggie oil and add uncooked, unpeeled shrimp (leaving the peel on preserves some of the flavor) and some sugar snap peas (my addition - not in the original recipe!). Again, super fast, relatively cheap, and delicious served over jasmine rice! :) :) :) Here's a photo for you:


Also yummy is a sort of Indian stir fry. I'm not sure how authentic it is, but it sure is tasty! Start with mustard seeds and cumin seeds (about a teaspoon of each) in hot oil, add ginger, garlic and onion (lots of onion!) and cook until soft. Next, add some stir-fry veggies, like carrots, broccoli, green/red/orange/yellow bell pepper, or any other veggie you like. Start with the harder veggies and end with the softer ones. Add some cumin powder (about 1-2 teaspoons), tumeric powder (about a tsp), and some shredded, unsweetened coconut. Serve over warm basmati rice! We ate this with some dahl and chema (other Indian dishes I'll have to blog about later) for protein; for a faster/simpler meal, I'll fry an egg or two.

And, finally, when you really want to eat cheaply, quickly, and well, find a roommate who loves to make delicious food (and knows how to cook gluten-free!) and bum off her once and awhile! :) Mine made a chicken/tomato/vegetable dish with fried polenta a few weeks ago...and it was absolutely delicious! Then, she dragged out a Trader Joe's gluten-free brownie mix, which we doctored with coconut oil, chocolate chips, pecans, shredded coconut, and some cardamom and cinnamon. Talk about heavenly brownies! And a fantastic roommate. :) Here are the photos:

Chicken something or other. Delicious. :)

Absolutely Heavenly Brownies (TM).