Tuesdays at High Level Diner - Edmonton

I had been to the High Level Diner before.  They have been able to feed me, can't remember what it ended up being though I remember only one option.  I was so excited when I went to Edmonton one random Tuesday and found that they had a special on - Fish and Chips! In a dedicated gluten free fryer!  I had not had fish and chips in years.  It was soo scrumptious and I can't wait to be in Edmonton on a Tuesday night again.

Oh and to top it off I had a gluten free beer!

Chiantis - Edmonton

Most people hear my allergies and rule out italian food, I had as well.  I used to eat wheat pasta with tomoatoe sauce and cheese all the time.  It was my go-to food.  With my restrictions with wheat/gluten, cheese, tomatoe, dairy and onion I thought I would not be able to go out for italian again.

When my wonderful friend and manager at Chiantis and I were looking to go out for food we were having difficulty thinking of a place.  She mentioned that she could feed me at her work.  And that renewed my love affair with italian food.

She orders me wonderful things like gluten-free pasta with hot oil or lemon oil sauce and fresh vegetables.

Garlic and olive oil with hot pepper flakes

 

Peppered Salmon with pasta with a lemon olive oil sauce

His and hers Nachos

Nachos are a great snack food.   I love that it is easy to find gluten free tortilla chips.  Also it's super quick to put them together.  I keep telling people that my "cheese" melts and works great, here was the perfect opportunity to demonstrate that.  It didn't contrast real cheese and Daiya quite as well as it could have as the Daiya was frozen and the cheese was not.  The good thing about Daiya is that the oils don't separate out and the nachos are less greasy. (By the way the Daiya is on the left in case you couldn't tell)

Topping that I use are red peppers, avocados and sometimes hot peppers, ham and cucumbers.  My favourite Daiya cheese to use is the pepperjack.

Shrimp Pasta

I had just gone shopping and needed something quick.

I boiled some water with the juice of nearly 1/2 a lemon. I then added a touch of olive oil and boiled the shrimp until just pink. I get the uncooked, deveined, tails removed.

I then put in a few tbsp of olive oil and a dash of sesame oil in a pan with chili flakes and a piece of lemongrass some cumin and turmeric. Heated those then added one stem of chard, one sliced mushroom and one diced radish. After they had cooked a bit I added the pulp of the lemon and 1/4 red pepper and the chard green. After those cooked I placed them aside and heated up a few more tbsp of olive oil with chili flakes and the last bit of lemon juice at the end. Next time I will put the lemon on after so it doesn't splatter.

Jubilations

So last night I had the pleasure of going to Jubilations dinner theatre.  We saw the Big Boom Theory.  I have to say the acting and the vocals were so awesome.  The songs that were picked matched the plot perfectly and the actors were even in character during the songs.  My favourite is when Lenard sang a backstreet boys song with backup vocals by Sheldon and Howard, complete with choreography that was amazing.  (It kinda helped that he was pretty hot.)  I also loved noticing that Howard kept changing his belt buckle, that was an awesome touch.  But to get down to why I'm writing ... the food!

The food was awesome!  They were able to accommodate my allergies with no trouble at all.  I called the afternoon before and they were very good about taking all the information.  When I got there the waitress was expecting me.  I had soup!  I usually only expect to get the main course and perhaps a salad.  They made me a special soup.  From what we could figure out it was pumpkin with turnip and perhaps some carrot.  For spices I believe there was nutmeg and coriander and perhaps cumin.  Delicious.  Then I also got salad with a balsamic dressing.  I had a choice of entre!  I could have the beef, the chicken or the tuna steak.  I chose the prime rib.  It was cooked to a beautiful medium.  It had gravy and horseradish.  It also had carrot, snap pea, red pepper and baby potatoes to accompany it.  Then to top it off I got desert as well!  I even had a choice!  I could choose fruit cup or apple pie.  I went for the pie.  It was sweet.

So, on the allergy friendly side Jubilations is very highly recommended.  On the entertainment side, also well recommended.  Even recommended for eye candy, though the actor was not overshadowing my date ;)

http://www.jubilations.ca/jubilations/cal_whatis.html

Gound beef at Mom's house

I remember as a child that we had ground beef all the time.  I'm not joking.  We would eat ground beef in pasta sauce on spaghetti.  We would have ground beef with tomatoe soup on macaroni - we would call this one More.  I would usually eat More with a stick of celery as a spoon, the spoon would gradually get shorter as I ate.  I would use about 3 spoons for a meal ;).  Mom would make homemade hamburgers using some stone ground oats and using this lovely tupperwear hamburger press.  She would also make frikedella, a Danish meatball. That recipe usually had oats, some onion and a bunch of other items that would make it not so appealing to me.  Tacos!  We would also have tacos with ground beef.  My sister and I got really good at cooking ground beef and breaking up the chunks as we stirred.  It was also a talent at cooking it from frozen without ending up with a giant block of meat that was burn on the outside and frozen on the inside.  The trick with that was to let it just turn colour, flip it, and then scrape the cooked bits off with the edge of the spatula.  Repeat about 10 times until the frozen bit was so small that you could break it into little bits with the edge of the spatula.  Make sure to keep breaking up the other bits as they were cooking or you'd end up with big lumps.

When I was staying with my parent's last fall Mom and I made a few meals using the standard block of frozen ground beef. 

Episode 1 - ground beef, bragg's soy seasoning (or maybe it was balsamic vinegar), frozen broccoli, and red peppers in one pan.  Thickened with a bit of corn starch.  On some of my favourite flat rice noodles from the Asian section of Superstore.

Episode 2 - Ground beef, chopped celery, perhaps some spices (not sure what she used) on a bed of spaghetti squash.  The parents had the beef mixed with tomatoe sauce.

 

Ground beef has many possibilities.  Don't forget meatballs and meatloaf!

Simple meals

Meals don't have to be complicated.  They can be simply 1 starch, 1 veg and 1 meat.  Yummy.

Here are some examples from my last year:

 

Beef, carrots from mom's garden, asparagus on a bed of spinach

(I don't see rice although I'm sure it was there, knowing me)

Pork, yam, asparagus

Quinoa, stirfry veg, salmon. 

Likely have bragg's soy seasoning on the stir fry.

 

Sticky rice (cooked with apple juice and cinnamon), white fish (salt, dill and lemon baked in foil), roasted red peppers and zucchini (using olive oil and salt) on a bed of spinach. 

Yah this last one was a bit fancier though still only 1 rice cooker and 1 tray in the oven.

 

Now this one IS easy - leftover BBQ pork, 1 can of baby corn, leftover quinoa.  Boom.  Dinner.