Food cooked with love

Yesterday Mike and I took the opportunity of us both being off on the same day, for once, to cook together or as Mike calls it ‘at the same time’.  The night before I had gone through several recipe books that I have had for awhile and marked the recipes I thought sounded delicious. We then both went through and picked out a few we already had the ingredients for and cooked our little hearts out.

Mike’s  first attempt was a recipe from Incredibly Easy Gluten Free Recipes. We purchased this on discount several months ago from Barnes and Nobel and I personally want to try every recipe!  The recipe was titled ‘Spicy Roasted Chickpeas’ and was just that: Chickpeas, chili power, ground red pepper and other spices mixed together and roasred. Mike has a tendency to not read recipes all the way through before adding ingredients which in most cases is not a good thing. This recipe calls for two ingredients (ground red peppper and chili poweder_ to be sprinkled on part way through cooking however he added them at the end. I gave a huff and a puff about it but he told me to trust him, good thing I did because the final result was delicious! The chickpeas were slightly crunchy and perfectly spiced. When I tried the recipe again today (yes we ate them all in one day!) I tried the recipe as is and they definitely did not come out as well.  If you ever get the chance to cook from this book I suggest adding all ingredients at once for this recipe. Mike loves me and loves cooking but he is too used to managing to allow for constructive criticism at this point. At the same time I have to have trust in his decisions. We’re working on it! I love feel catered to and eating AMAZING FOOD.
My attempt while he was cooking the ‘Spicy Roasted Chickpeas’ was from The No Gluten Cookbook. Since I’ve been eating a lot of salads lately and have always been a crouton fan, and missing them greatly lately, I choose to make ‘Fresh Gluten-Free Croutons’. I tried my luck with these by using Katz’ Gluten Free Challah bread. This bread also happens to be the first and only gluten free bread I have tried since being on the diet. I have been weary of bread thinking I would be disappointed with it and cry over the loss of a simple meal, however Katz’ Challah bread was great! It also worked well as bread for croutons. The only issue, and on going issue, is that our stove is not only electric but is also dinosaur age. I have never used an electric stove and it is very inconsistent so I tend to over cook things, such as these croutons. They were still great, crunch and garlicy, just like I like my croutons!
In the evening Mike cooked me ‘Flourless Fried Chicken Tenders’, also from Incredibly Easy Gluten Free Recipes. He deep fried them in corn oil to cut down on fat and trasfat and improvised on the dipping sauce by created a dipping sauce for them which was 1 part mayo, 1 part sour cream and Adobe Seasoning. He also made some sushi rice and 1/3 a package of Trader Joe’s mixed  frozen peppers (less than 2 dollars for a 2 pound bag!). Yummy AND Filling!
All of the food was fantastic, so much so that I totally forgot to even take photos to share here! I need to remember to get in the habit of doing that. When we were out shopping in the evening Mike also got me:
Boy have I missed Oreos. While I personally think that gluten free cookies are too crumbly and dry for my taste these were good. They tasted exactly like Oreos but the cookie part itself could do with being a bit thicker. They were an AMAZING TREAT!
I hope I can keep on savoring the rest!
It was so nice to spend time with Mike as well as work on broadening my cooking skills and food choice together. I cannot wait to do it again!
Celtic Celiac @ http://celtic-celiac.blogspot.com/