Never planned on making a cooking blog (I’m way too lazy to imitate the cooking bloggers I’ve seen, which is take a picture of every single ingredient and at every step of a recipe, so they end up with 47 lovingly arranged pictures even when it’s a recipe for toast). But I’ve always loved to cook and write. And fifteen years or so ago I got so tired of feeling awfully tired, bloated ‘n’ brain-fogged now & then that I looked to dietary triggers. A friend gave me a huge bag of apples off his tree, and one of the things I made was an apple cake (carrot cake recipe with grated apples instead O’ the carrots). It was magnifique, and I ended up totally pigging out on it…ate the whole frigging sheet cake that night. Awoke the next morning feeling like the Michelin Man who’d gotten stuffed full of lard, only dumber. Realized that often happened after I went nuts with starchy things.
So I cut out starches. All starches. Rice. Potatoes. Wheat. Corn (not totally a starch, I know, but figured tortilla chips are sorta like a starch). Every starch: No noodles, chips, bread, crackers, gravy, fried foods, etc etc, any of that stuff. For SIX MONTHS. Six long months. Lost weight, darn near went insane for the lack of chips & salsa –celery with salsa just ain’t the same, even if it does have a lotta crunch.
So corn was the first to come back —had to have those chips. Waited a month before introducing the next starch; during the month I had almost no Lardo Michelin Man days. Rice came next, no probs. Another month; wheat. Wham! It took 2-14 days after ingesting, but wheat or anything with ANY gluten did it. What a pain it was in the days before anyone had ever heard of “gluten free” other than the very few who’d been diagnosed as celiac, & they usually figured it out themselves & it took an average of 14 years. This was even before the Atkins Diet really got going (remember it?). There were no pre-made GF products, no flours, zip, nada, zilch. And of course I had to walk 5 miles in the snow to the grocery, uphill both ways.
Really though, it has gotten a lot easier for those of us I call “gluten mutants.” But I’ve never found a pre-made GF green enchilada sauce that didn’t have gluten & tasted good, & all the recipes I’ve tried were sort of a pain in the neck to one degree or another. This stuff can also easily be made without dairy of any kind (had to ditch cow milk 5 years ago, tho I did find I can tolerate goat or sheep milk ok…thank heavens it’s possible to get good goat cheddar, goat yogurt (if you can find it), and there’s even one dairy that makes great goat mozzarella…but only one; the others range from blah to toxic waste (I can’t decide whether or not to name the good go-mozz maker; I just found some after it being almost completely unavailable for about 2 years, even online…don’t wanna create a stampede & not be able to get any more for me).
Anyhow. The sauce. I tend to approach cooking as a creative enterprise & throw things together without measuring, unless I’m baking. Baking is chemistry; cooking is art. I’ll just tell how to make it, but don’t have precise amounts…I can probably figure it out if (A) anyone actually reads this & (B) wants amounts. I’m describing it as I made it; if dairy isn’t an issue, just use regular butter or whatever cow/cowlike product you prefer.
Ingredients
DF butter-like substance*
Potato starch/potato flour (same thing)**
Beef bouillon
good Salsa Verde (I love Herdez)
dash each garlic powder, cumin, turmeric, salt
Make a roux with the butteroid & potato starch. Add bouillon & green salsa, toss in seasonings as it thickens. Slosh onto & enchiladas, bake, snarf. I’d include a pic of the chicken enchiladas I just made, but would have to lower the camera into my belly, & that plays hell with digital cameras. Not to mention that the photo wouldn’t be too appetizing.
Bon appetit, folks!
Coming soon: my reaction to my doc informing me, just this morning, that [somebody] is going to convince “them” to ban all opioid pain medicines because [according to somebody else] 80% of opioid prescriptions are being diverted for illegal use (he wasn’t real clear on the who/what/where/how of this). (A) I seriously doubt the 80% figure. (B) I am not able to completely discount this…concept… that doesn’t even qualify as a rumor, because I know there are a lot of people out there who’re devoutly against opioids for anyone, whether they’re using them to get high or simply to try & live a relatively functional life amid constant, excruciating pain. I use the term “devoutly” intentionally, because many of them approach the topic in a truly messianic, religious fashion, and persevere in their quest because it literally is a crusade. Some believe it’s good for the soul of the sufferers to suffer. Like the folks† who fought mightily against allowing women to use any type of anesthesia (when ether & such came about) or pain relief when giving birth on the grounds that God decreed that Woman should suffer because of that original evil witch Eve & the whole snake/apple thing. I mean, what if poor Eve was just trying to help Adam to get his Five-A-Day, keep him healthy & regular? Talk about a bad rap.
But that’s later. Now it’s bed time, after I walk the Eskimo (that’s American Eskimo dog, lest anyone think I’m not only politically incorrect but have imprisoned an Inuit).
*I find Earth Balance brand Vegan (gold package) the best; use stick form for cooking.
**or tapioca starch or a GF flour mix, like Bob’s Red Mill all-purp or his pizza crust mix
†how much ya wanna bet they were all men?
ecanarensis 