Adventures in Food!

When you can't cook with wheat flour any more, what the heck do you cook?

That was my initial reaction in January when Bill found out he had an intolerance to wheat gluten. It turns out, there's a heck of a lot you can cook, and it's all tasty & pretty darned healthy to boot! We ordered ourselves one of the local CSA (community supported agriculture) boxes, and every Monday I collect our box filled with organic fruits & veggies picked that morning. Then the fun begins: "What do I do with 2 pounds of fava beans?", or "What can I do with bok choy?", or "Eee gads - how are we going to eat 2 whole heads of cabbage before we get our next box?" This week alone we received 1 fennel bulb, 1 head of cabbage, 1 pound fingerling potatoes, 1 pint strawberries, 1/2 pint golden raspberries, a head of celery, 2 summer squashes, 1 pint cherry tomatoes, basil, parsley, 10 kiwi fruit, and 1 bunch red chard. The CSA box makes cooking fun, but definitely keeps us on our toes!

One of my recent kitchen experiments was whipping up a batch of "humitas", which are similar to tamales; very tasty, but quite a lot of work. First, I cooked potatoes & quinoa, then mashed them together with spices:

Then I sautéed zucchini, onions, black olives, and walnuts in oil & spices:

I soaked corn husks in water, then wrapped 2 scoops of the potato filling and 1 scoop of the zucchini mix into the husks, and tied them up:

Steamed them:

And then we got to eat them!

Thank goodness they were tasty. I would have been pretty ticked off, after spending all that time, if they'd been inedible! And I made enough for several dinners, and one yummy breakfast: