WIAW 47 – A New Year

So, it’s January, a New Year.

It’s funny – I was never that into the New Year’s Day stuff. The year started for me in September – the school year, the beginning of the theatre season, the time everything in New York City gathers itself together after the slow summer and begins again…  But then I worked in retail promotions, and found myself with two beginnings – September, when the season began, and January, when I picked the rest of my life back up.

These days, my retail work is not as intense, but I still have some feeling that January is a time to review schedules and make plans. And of course, everyone around me is talking about that, which just encourages it.

So. 2014 was the year I went gluten free, which has been taking some of my attention. As I have said, most of my cooking has not changed – but the things that have…  The recipes that I am finding out there are usually trying to make a product that tastes like something made from white flour – white bread, cake like Grandma’s, and so on. But that’s not what I eat… I’m seriously starting to think that we need to find a way to introduce brown rice flour and millet flour to the rest of the community – whole grains that taste more like white flour than whole wheat flour does might be very welcome to many – but meanwhile, it all tastes very bland to me, since I actually like whole wheat – and a good sour rye, and barley in my soup…

So, while everyone else chases down the latest recipe for “light” gluten free bread, I seem to be buried in McGee’s On Food and Cooking and charts showing ratios of protein, starch, and fiber, and traditional ethnic recipes for gluten free grains that work with them, not against them. (Maybe I’ll get better results if I treat rice like rice, not like defective wheat? There are bready things…  and they aren’t all flat breads, though most are.) And that’s eating much more of my time and attention than you’d expect… with not much by way of immediate results (though I certainly hope it will pay off in the long run.)

Anyhow… Speaking of traditional ways of cooking grains, I really like using tortillas for breakfast. One of these days I’ll make good fresh homemade tortillas, which everyone assures me are so much better – but right now, I’m just glad to have something inexpensive and convenient that I can keep on hand, and fix quickly.

A friend was happily talking about having Breakfast Egg Burritos – which is essentially what I’m doing, it’s just that I’m not wrapping them… They’re not particularly pretty on the plate, so I thought this time I’d show them in process, instead – I just heat the beans, sometimes adding a bit of seasoning, mush them a bit when they get warm, then poach my eggs right in the beans. (Cover the pan so they cook quickly and evenly…) Microwave the corn tortillas, put the beans and eggs over them – and bingo – done.

Lunch was soup – of course… Cabbage, potato, cooked chicken in homemade chicken broth (aka bone broth, for those into that – but I made it for flavor long before it was the Hot New Thing.) Certainly some kind of bread, but I didn’t get it  in the picture, and I’m a bit vague… muffins? Rice cakes?

I had Plans for dinner… I was looking at an Indian recipe for rice roti, and I had chicken. I was just going to make a simple curry  – and then, just as I was starting, I was walloped by a really bad Classic Migraine with Aura. Well, I can function to some degree at least though Common Migraines, which I get more often – but these knock me flat. But I realized – I’d just written up the very basic chicken recipe we often eat. So I pointed Rich at that, and the chicken, and some precooked (aka leftover) vegetables, and told him to make dinner… and he did. Usually when he cooks he needs questions answered – how big should I chop the onion, how long should I cook it, etc. – but the post answered them for him. I went to bed, and 2 hours later, when I could get up again (and needed to eat) there was food. And he even took pictures!

That wasn’t deliberate – I’d have been just fine without that – but it was nice to know someone really could look at the post and cook a meal…

As always with these posts, joining Jenn