Gone Gluten Free: GF Tortilla Soup...

It's now officially cold here in north-central Texas. Time for chicken soup--TexMex style...Oh and Gluten Free too!

1. Assemble the ingredients: we'll

need a can of chunk white chicken; two cups of chicken broth (stock is fine); a can of Rotel (I used a generic here); three cubes of Pop&Cook brand Cilantro; half a tea spoon of sea salt; I also grabbed the Mrs. Dash for rounding out the flavor (watch this stuff...I nearly burnt The Fabulous Feathermaye's mouth out...this one contains both black pepper and cayenne); Bird's Eye blend (bell peppers, celery, onion blend); an avocado; and of course, a few gluten free tortilla chips (here I'm using some leftover 'South of the Border' brand, which is all corn and totally gluten free.

2. Let's get started: mix canned chicken, rotel, cilantro, salt, Mrs. Dash and veggies in your pot.  Bring to boil and simmer for 10-15 minutes.  I find that it's done when the celery is relatively tender--you be the judge--this is a quicky recipe, so you don't need to go all OCD here... 

3. While the soup's cooking: crunch

best way to cube an avocado
just toss them over the chips

your tortilla chips into your bowl and then cube your avocado...Drop those cubes right on top of the chips.
When the soup's ready, ladle it right over your chips and avocado cubes.  I like to toss a couple of slices of Jack Cheese along side, or even over the top if you want it all melty-like.

*Note* I made this one twice in the last couple of weeks. The first one I took care with the

amount of spice. The Fabulous Feathermaye loved it! She raved about it on facebook.  This last one, I wasn't as careful; I used regular rotel (instead of mild) and found out that the Mrs. Dash I liberally shook into the pot contained the aforementioned cayanne & black pepper.  She was not amused...

I'll used caution from now on with my ingredients,

and not just to make sure they are all Gluten Free, but the correct amount of spice/heat as well.  Otherwise, I'm standing in the three foot flame.  That will burn anyone's ass.  But, that's another blog altogether...

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Gone Gluten Free: Hotdoggin it or: Yes, you can have all the bread you want...

We buy our Gluten Free Bread and
Buns in bulk, it comes to us
like this...

...As long as it's gluten free, of course.  All kidding aside, giving up bread is what most of us think of when we even entertain the idea of going gluten free.

And don't even start on pasta!  But, you can

Great pasta! Cooks easily and we
really don't notice any taste difference

have that too... It's all available in gluten free form, and although the choices are not, so-to-speak, what you've developed a PROGRAMMED taste for over the course of your life; those choices are getting better all the time; they're even more available as well!

The Fabulous Feathermaye and Yours Truly have found a lot of places that offer up gluten free product lines.  In fact, most of the Walmarts have a constantly growing section of GF products, everything from cookies to cake mixes and pasta, right down to snack crackers and breakfast bars.  All of it is pretty good, too.

Schar Sub Rolls

What one must get their pallet ready for is the difference between the regular, doughy, glutenous texture of bread and the not-so-doughy, typically

crumbly texture of most varieties of GF bread products.  

What we've discovered, and actually enjoy--quite frankly--

is that toasting your GF bread gives back that familiar texture, especially on sandwiches, burgers and hotdogs.

That's right, I said hotdogs!  Although, we steer away from the norm there as well.

 Instead of those cheap packages of dogs, usually ten to a pack--when those glutenous buns come by the eights, go figure--we like to grab the local sausage offering.

Now, you should understand, we live in Texas. Sausage out here is second only to football. Enough said?  Okay,

Bum Phillips Blue Ribbon...
R.I.P. Bum

I'll elaborate a bit then...

Go down the grocery aisle in a big Texas-sized supermarket and you'll notice they have more brands of sausage than you can keep up with.  No...I have not tried them all...yet.

Bum Phillips (R.I.P.) and Earl Campbell and Nolan Ryan and many other sports celebrities have their own brands of sausage, as well as dozens of smaller, usually ranch produced, offerings, not to mention all the Tex-Mex sorts that add in heat, peppers etc.

Who wants Oscar Meyer when Earl's links are gleaming up at you, just a few feet away?

Personally, I enjoy mine with spicy brown mustard, a little chili and cheese and some good ole sweet, Carolina-style slaw (out here they make it the same way, except they add in jalapenos and cilantro--damn good too!)

Now, we add all that into a toasted, gluten free bun and... Sorry y'all, I had to pause and wipe up the drool here.

Anyway, you get the idea, right?  

I'm here to testify: a person can give up glutenous bread and pasta without going into withdrawal pains--this really isn't heroin, after all.

Right now, as I write this blog, I have a pot of my famous spaghetti sauce going, loaded with all the good stuff (most of the good stuff IS GLUTEN FREE after all) and this pasta that I can guarantee you'll not be able to tell is gluten free.

It's easy to fix too!  Boil two minutes, put the

lid on, and let it stand for 16-18 minutes and presto: you're ready to chow down.

Feathermaye and I like to order most of the bread products on line; we are members with Amazon Prime as well as Vita-Cost and can not only save a few bucks buying it, but we get free shipping on just about all of it.

Coming in the next Gone Gluten Free:
Wait till you see what this stuff is
all about!  OMG!

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Gone Gluten Free: Spices you gotta try!

Not too long ago, The Fabulous Feathermaye and

Yours Truly came across a really cool product while grocery shopping...Gluten Free, of course!

 Gluten free living just got easier!  These spices from Pop & Cook

remove all the hassle.   We found them in the frozen food section and jumped on the wagon.

Garlic, crushed and ready to use!  Just pop a cube or two into your next masterpiece.  We couldn't wait to make a big pot of spaghetti.

Feathermaye quickly discovered the wonders of adding chopped basil to a good

many of her Gluten Free creations.  Like all Pop & Cook products, she pops a basil cube into the crock pot. 

And, you just can't go Authentic Mexican without adding in the chillies and cilantro!  

Folks, it's hard to beat fresh...But I'm here to tell you that this is a close as you get without your own garden.

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