Crockpot Beans and Rice with Kale

Ingredients:
1 cup black beans (or whatever kind you have)
1 cup uncooked rice
1 onion, coarsely chopped
1 small tin of diced green chilies (optional)
4 pieces of bacon, cut into small pieces (optional - leave out if you're feeding vegetarians!)
4 cups chicken or veggie broth (again, don't use chicken broth for vegetarians)
1 tablespoon white wine vinegar
2 tablespoons brown sugar
1-3 cloves garlic, minced
1-3 tsp chili powder
salt and pepper to taste
1 large bunch kale, ripped into approximately 1-inch pieces

Put everything in the crockpot except for the kale. Cook on high for 1 hour, then turn to low and simmer all day until the liquid is absorbed, adding water or more broth if it's looking dry before the beans and rice are cooked. Stir in kale 20-30 minutes before serving and let it until it wilts a bit. Makes kind of a lot, but it freezes well.

Blue Cheese and Pear Salad

It's been kind of hot this week, and that makes me want to eat salad. Leave out any of the ingredients that you don't like.

Ingredients:
Romaine lettuce or baby spinach
Crumbled blue cheese
Red grapes, cut in half
A couple of pears, cut into chunks about the same size as the grape halves
Chopped walnuts
Raspberry or balsamic vinaigrette (read the ingredients to make sure, but most are gluten-free)

Mix everything together and enjoy not turning your oven on! You can add pieces of chicken or tofu if you want to make this a bit more substantial.

Chocolate Chickpea Cake

It's Wednesday, kids. Let's make some cake. This is a recipe my mom found somewhere and I've modified it a bit.

Ingredients

1/2 cups of chocolate (I use dark chocolate, but it's okay to use milk chocolate if you don't like dark chocolate. Obviously, it will not be dairy-free if you use milk chocolate.)
1 19oz can of chickpeas, drained and rinsed
4 eggs
3/4 cup brown sugar (you can use white sugar, but brown sugar tastes so much better)
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Preheat the oven to 350 F. Melt the chocolate over low heat in a saucepan (you can also use a microwave, if you have one. I don't.). Find some way to liquefy the chickpeas and eggs. You can use a food processor if you have one, but I do not, so I just put a little bit at a time in my magic bullet and blend it. Mix in the chocolate and other ingredients. Pour into a greased 9 inch cake pan and bake for 40 minutes, until a knife inserted into the center comes out clean. Let it rest in the pan for 10 minutes before transferring it to a plate. You can also make this recipe into cupcakes, just decrease the cooking time a bit (more like 20-30 minutes).

Banana Raspberry Pudding

Just a little thing I invented with some fruit that needed to be eaten.

2 bananas
1 cup raspberries
3-4 egg whites

Mix everything in a mixer until it is fluffy and pink (takes about 10 minutes, maybe a bit less). Pour into 4-6 individual ramekins (don't fill them up too much or they will explode). Set the ramekins on a cookie sheet or a cake pan. Bake at 325F for about 10 minutes, until they puff up a bit and the edges turn slightly golden.

My Frequently Asked Questions

I try to keep this blog mainly about recipes and food, but since May is Celiac Disease Awareness Month, I thought I would do a couple of non-recipe posts. Today I'm going to tell you the answers to the questions I get asked fairly regularly when people first notice that I don't eat the same things everyone else is eating. I'm answering the questions the same way I do in conversation, so don't look at this as any kind of nutritional or medical advice (and don't look at anything on this blog as nutritional or medical advice, actually, because I am not qualified to give either and will never be qualified to give either to people on the internet), but this is just more of a "how I deal with social situations" kind of post. So these aren't super science-y answers, just what I would say in a social situation. (If you want some science, I recommend reading "Celiac Disease: A Hidden Epidemic by Dr. Peter Green.) Have any more questions for me? Leave them in the comments!

1. Why don't you eat (wheat/bread/flour/gluten/those donuts that I brought/etc)?
I have a medical condition called celiac disease that makes me unable to eat wheat, barley, and rye and things made from them. I get very sick if I eat them. It's kind of like an allergy but it's a little different.

2. What do you eat? (My favorite version of this was followed up by, "That must be awful! I would die if I couldn't eat bread!" Actually, don't feel bad for me - I feel bad for you that your life is so awful that eating bread is the only pleasure you have left!)
Anything that's not wheat, barley, or rye! I can eat rice and quinoa and other grains. Mostly I eat fruits and vegetables and meat and cheese and eggs, things like that. I cook most of my own food and it's not at all hard to cook things I can eat. It's sometimes hard to go to a restaurant, but it's getting easier all the time as people become more aware of celiac disease.

3. What happens to you when you eat (wheat/bread/flour/gluten/those donuts that I brought)?
I can get very sick. Bad intestinal stuff happens. Most people are grossed out by even that much and change the subject after that, but some people are actually just legitimately curious and like to talk about that sort of thing, so if they are I'm more than happy to give details.

4. Have you tried eating fermented wheat products/ezekiel bread? My friend/relative has gluten problems, but they can eat those things because all the gluten ferments out of them!
That's good that it works with your friend, but I'm guessing your friend probably has some other kind of gluten intolerance rather than actually celiac disease, which is what I have. I unfortunately cannot eat that stuff (okay, I don't actually think it's unfortunate, but I'm trying to be nice because they're trying to be helpful).

5. Doesn't all grain have some kind of gluten in it? Why do you eat corn and rice? (Variation: Why are you eating carbs? I thought you were on a low carb diet.)
It's true that all grains have storage proteins that are generically called "gluten", but experiments have shown that it's the specific glutens in wheat, barley, rye (and maybe oats for some people) that affect people with celiac disease. And it's not carbs that are the problem, it's gluten. Interestingly, when I was a vegetarian, people would freak out when I was eating peanut butter or legumes because they thought being a vegetarian meant you couldn't eat any protein. (I was a vegetarian for 6 years or so, mainly because I thought meat and eggs and dairy were what was making me so sick, and it did make me feel a bit better because most of what I ate just coincidentally didn't have gluten in it - at least until I got to college and all there was to eat was iceberg lettuce and pasta and I got so anemic that I tried to donate blood and the lady checking my iron got this horrified look on her face and told me I should go see a doctor. So I eventually stopped being a vegetarian.)

6. Why can't you eat just a little bit? Surely a little bit won't hurt you! Can't you just cheat? (Or can't you just pick the croutons off the salad/eat the pie filling and not the crust?)
It will. Really, no one wishes more than me that I could just pick the croutons off the salad like a normal person or take a day off and eat a croissant, but it has the potential to make me really sick. And it's the kind of really sick that takes a long to get back to normal afterwards.

7. Do you worry about cross-contamination?
Yes and no. There are certain brands and restaurants that I really trust even though they have to have cross-contamination disclaimers (and I'm not going to name names right now, because that's a decision people have to make for themselves and I don't want anyone thinking a place is absolutely safe because I mentioned it on here). But I won't eat things that have crumbs all over them or pick the filling out of the pie or anything like that. I have a certain level of risk that I have decided I'm comfortable with. I could decide that I'm not eating anything unless it came out of my own kitchen, but I choose to go out and take risks sometimes. I'm careful, but it's always a risk. Will I get sick from eating out? I have (ended up in the ER once, although there's a chance that it was food poisoning and not gluten), and probably will again. But it doesn't happen often, and it would probably happen even if I was more paranoid than I am. I talk to waiters and if I feel like a place is unsafe to eat at, I don't eat anything.

8. I think I might have celiac disease! What should I do?
You should see your doctor and get tested. Don't just stop eating gluten and see if you feel better. The problem with that is that a lot of people feel better when they stop eating gluten. Not because a gluten free diet is inherently healthier for everyone, but a lot of the junk food you were eating before is off-limits and the gluten free versions are expensive and taste like cardboard, at least at first (you do eventually forget what the real stuff tastes like and things like gluten free doorstops bagels become a fun novelty). But a lot of people stop eating gluten, and then instead of Lucky Charms for breakfast, they're having fruit and yogurt. Instead of grabbing a 2-week old sandwich out of a vending machine for lunch, they bring a salad from home. You get the idea. So of course a lot of people feel better. But you don't know if you've actually solved the problem or not. There was a woman in a Facebook group I was on who thought she might have celiac disease and just stopped eating gluten, and she felt sort of better but not really, and started to get sicker and sicker and eventually found out that what she actually had was a hiatus hernia - after about 18 months of wondering whether or not the gluten free diet had solved her problem. It's a lot faster and easier to just get tested. It's a simple blood test, and if that's positive, you have an endoscopy to confirm it (basically they stick a camera down into your small intestine and take some biopsies to confirm that you have celiac disease).

9. Is getting an endoscopy as horrifying as I think it sounds?
Not even a little bit. You are sedated and you don't remember much, but your friend who drove you home afterwards will have a great story to tell about how stoned you were.

Sandwiches in a Bell Pepper

Sandwiches in a Bell Pepper

Okay, this is more of an idea than a recipe, really. I'm going to get some more baking recipes on here soon (some egg-free, dairy-free breads and things, and even naan), but today we're sticking with something simple. This is a good thing to bring for lunch, and it's a bit less messy than a lettuce wrap if you're going for bread alternatives. Simply cut a bell pepper in half (any color, but I like the red ones), and fill with your favorite sandwich fillings. Lettuce, tomatoes, cheese, meat, egg salad, tuna salad, hummus, sprouts, onions, pickles, whatever you can think of. Even peanut butter is good (well, I think it is, at least. In my family we like peanut butter and tomato sandwiches - you really should try it!). You can even think outside of the traditional sandwich fillings and use leftover rice and beans or quinoa or stir-fry. Anything you can eat cold you can put in a bell pepper and call a sandwich. It's a good portable lunch. Not that there's anything wrong with bread, and there are good gluten-free breads that you can make or buy, but they're expensive and not always all that healthy and it's nice to have options.

Lentil Soup

This is quick and easy and very basic, but good.

Ingredients:
Red lentils
Chopped onion
Chopped celery
Homemade broth (or store-bought, or even just water)
Salt and pepper to taste

Combine all ingredients in a large pot, bring to boil, and simmer for 20-30 minutes until the lentils are cooked.

Homemade Broth

This is so easy, and so much cheaper than buying gluten free broth. I keep a large ziplock bag in my freezer full of vegetable scraps and bones from chicken and things like that. When it gets full, I make broth.

Ingredients:
Assorted vegetable and/or meat scraps
Water
A bit of salt and pepper to taste (optional)

Put the vegetable/meat scraps in the biggest saucepan you have and fill with water. Bring to a boil, cover, and simmer over medium-low heat for at least 5 hours. Add water if the water is disappearing. When it's done, strain out the vegetable/meat scraps, and use in recipes. You can freeze it in ice cube trays or in small ziplock bags so that you can just take small amounts out of the freezer to add to recipes when needed.

Fruit and Yogurt Smoothie

Another thing I eat for breakfast.

Ingredients:
1 banana, broken into chunks
1/2 cup of any frozen fruit
1/2 cup of yogurt
1/4 cup of water

Blend everything in a blender (I use a Magic Bullet) and enjoy!