Quick & Simple Dinner

Sorry, no pictures tonight. It's been months since I've posted a new blog entry, so I figured I'd post my "What's for dinner" (well, what was for dinner) for the night because it was pretty tasty. But it's an afterthought, and I didn't take pictures. And now it's all gone.

We basically had steak, quinoa, and green beans for dinner. The boys are gone for the weekend, so this is a meal for 2.5 people (me, the husband, and the toddler).

I started with the quinoa, and my handy dandy rice cooker. I placed the following ingredients in the rice cooker:

3/4 c. quinoa
8 baby carrots, thinly sliced into rounds
1 tbsp minced garlic
1/4 tsp ground cumin
2 tbsp chopped fresh oregano
A shake of dried cilantro
2 tbsp salsa (from a jar; check ingredients as, surprisingly, not all salsa is gluten or dairy free)
1 1/2 c. water

In hindsight I should have added salt and pepper, too. For some reason I tend to forget that. Salt can be added later, to taste, but I hate uncooked pepper so I did without.

I then put my steamer basket on top of the rice cooker and filled it with frozen green beans. I have found that Costco carries a giant bag of frozen green beans that are actually just about as good as fresh green beans. It's been an amazing discovery. No one in my family ever liked frozen green beans before, and now we eat them for several meals per week. But I digress. I put the quinoa and other ingredients in the bottom part of the rice cooker, and the beans in the steamer, set the cooker to the regular "white rice" setting, and let it go.

My husband simply grilled a pair of sirloin steaks on the gas bbq outside.

And there you have it: Dinner. Super simple. I took a slice of steak and ran it through the food processor for the toddler, who doesn't have any molars yet, but she ate the green beans and quinoa as they were.

Gluten Free with Dee Giveaway

I apologize for not updating my blog lately. Life with an infant makes it surprisingly difficult to document and photograph my cooking! Of course I do continue to make GFCF meals for the family (almost) every day. Last night we had pancakes, eggs, and sausage. Unfortunately, none of us really liked the pancakes; they were adapted to be dairy-free and it didn't really work very well. I am sorely missing the Trader Joe's Gluten Free Dairy Free pancake mix, which has been discontinued. Pamela's comes highly recommended, but contains dairy. I've been trying and trying to make pancakes from scratch, but haven't had any real luck. I made so me last week that my husband and kids liked, but I was unimpressed with them. I'm still looking for the right recipe.

There is another mix out there that I haven't tried yet -- Namaste Foods makes a gluten and dairy free pancake and waffle mix. And what's really cool is that Dee of Gluten Free with Dee is having a Namaste Foods giveaway on his blog right now! Go sign up!

And yes, this IS a shameless plug for Dee so I can enter into his giveaway! But seriously, it's a good blog and worth following. Unlike mine has been recently.