Gouda Grilled Cheese Sandwich, Gluten-Free

2014-3-9

Gluten-Free, Gouda Grilled Cheese

People are wildly mistaken in assuming that the gluten-free diet has to be hum-drum and boring. In fact, soon, I will post some photographs of other foods I have been making lately, just to show you how good it can be.

For now, I will stay on topic. I am still working on perfecting my own version of grilled cheese. But, for now, this is a hit at my house, with all four children.

Ingredients:

•  Udi's gluten-free (as well as wheat, dairy, soy, and nut free) white sandwich bread - fresh (not frozen)
• organic butter, thin slices from the stick
• shredded cheese
• Gouda cheese, sliced thinly
• olive oil

Directions:

• Pour some olive oil in a non-stick pan and turn the stove on to low-medium heat. While the pan is heating up, prepare the bread for making grilled cheese, by putting 3-4 thin slices of butter on each piece of bread, adding a next layer of shredded cheese, and then topping one of the (two) slices used to make a sandwich with slices of Gouda cheese. Once the pan is heated, place the pieces of bread in the pan until the cheese is melted.
• Once the cheese has begun to melt (I didn't wait until every strand was melted), I combined two slices of bread into a sandwich.

•  Wait 20-30 sec and flip the sandwich over, and the grilled cheese is ready to serve.

 Well, I guess this isn't technically a 'grilled' cheese sandwich. But, it is the same idea, and I can call it whatever I want, right?!

Today, I had mine with fresh strawberries and mango.

The children and I were satisfied. And, I am not even a fan of sandwiches. In fact, I have a distaste for most anything that involves sandwiches or placing food between two slices of bread.

Kimchi Fried Rice

2014-2-26

Kimchi Fried Rice

Today, dipping my fingers into first-time ventures took me in the direction of making kimchi fried rice. I must confess that my one major short-cut was that I did not make the kimchi, from scratch or on my own; I bought it from a Korean grocery store.

Ingredients:

• fried rice
• 1/2 sweet onion, sliced very thinly
• egg(s)
• kimchi juice
• kimchi, sliced very thinly

Directions:

• make fried rice - this time, I used frozen peas, carrots, corn; egg; Applegate organic (gluten-free) uncured beef hot dogs
• bring kimchi to a boil in a sauce pan - I don't know that this is a necessary step, but I used kimchi juice that had been sitting around for a bit (in the refrigerator), long after the kimchi had been consumed, and I felt better killing any unfriendly germs that might have gathered
• fry thinly sliced sweet onion, with some olive oil, in a pan until nearly transparent. then add kimchi.
• add kimchi and onion to fried rice.
• in a clean pan, cook an egg sunny side-up. i like the yoke a bit runny. i made sure the whites of the egg were cooked well by cooking by flipping over the egg to make sure both sides of the whites were cooked (and not transparent). whilst cooking the egg, I drizzled freshly grounded rainbow peppercorns and freshly grounded garlic sea salt.
• to finish, I put the kimchi fried rice, adding the egg sunny side-up on top.

I don't have any clue whether my version of kimchi fried rice matches authentic versions of Korean kimchi fried rice (I'll be sure to have some of my Korean friends taste test my dish at some point), but one of friends and my 2 year old twins could not eat enough of it! The twins asked for seconds, thirds; I lost track of when they stopped asking for more. Wait, they didn't stop wanting more; I had to stop them from getting more.

I am delighted my dish was such a hit. The popularity of the dish alone made my day.