Exploring Lettuce wraps

Exploring Lettuce wraps

One of the greatest inventions ( in my opinion ) to the gluten free dieter is a lettuce wrap. Since I learned this fantastic trick I have even had some of my gluten eating co-workers addicted to the things.
The idea is simple, instead of bread you use a crisp lettuce leaf to wrap a variety of fillings, I use them with hot or cold fillings but they are especially good for lunchmeat on these up coming spring days when a hot lunch just doesn’t hit the spot like a good old fashion sandwich.
I took this technique from the book Living Gluen Free for dummies.
What to do:
~Take a whole head of lettuce, ice-burg or similar variety, and cut only the stem , leaving the head in
tact.
~Emerse the entire head of lettuce in ice water, let sit for about an hour or two.
~ take the head out of water and place on a plate, cover with a damp paper towel and set in the refrigerator for another hour or two.
~gently tear the whole leaves off individually, after sitting in the fridge the leaves should be crisp and some what separated making it easy to tear off.
Fill with ingredients of your choice.
I keep the remaining lettuce in the fridge with a damp paper towel to keep the leaves crisp, then just separate as needed.

Cold cut sandwich on a lettuce wrap.
Its been hard for me to find lunch meat in the grocery store that did not have ingredients that were ok with my diet, lactic acid is one of the main ingredient I find. Gluten can also be found in some lunch meats that are highly seasoned, also gluten can be found in a lot of chicken stock so be sure to check carefully.
My sandwich consisted of turkey , avocado, mayonnaise ( made from canola oil not soy) tomatoes, and alfalfa sprouts.
Wrap all ingredients in the lettuce as though it were a tortilla. And enjoy!!

Pasta with shrimp, sundried tomatoes and peas

Pasta with shrimp, sundried tomatoes and peas

My friend Jessica gave me a recipe for chicken with sundried tomatoes and garlic ( YUM!!!)but when I went to cook it something very different came out . I think it was cause I didn’t have any chicken and I had a taste for peas. The end result though was for sure inspired by Jessica.
This is kind of a menagerie of ingredients, one doesn’t really stand out more than the other so I don’t really know what to call it but I hope you like it.

Ingredients :
~ Quinoa pasta ( or any gluten free pasta) I buy from Strack and Van Til
~ shrimp
~ Extra Virgin Olive Oil
~ Garlic
~ Canned peas
~ (dry) Sun Dried Tomatoes

Just a few easy steps
Cook quinoa pasta ( or any gluten free pasta)
Heat olive oil and sauté the garlic, once the garlic is fragrant add the sun dried tomatoes.
I used dry tomatoes not the marinated ones so I let them sauté with the garlic for probably about 10-15 minutes to soften them up a little.
Add shrimp and peas and cook till shrimp is pink all the way through.
When the shrimp is finished the peas will have mashed a bit, toss all ingredients with pasta.
Sweet simple and to the point. In total it takes about 20 min with prep and cooking so its an easy dish to throw together if you’r not really up for anything elaborate. The mix of flavors and textures lends a nice flavor, and the mashed peas makes a paste like texture so no extra sauce or oil is needed, keeping the fat content low.
Grean peas are a very good source of protein, ¾ of a cup has more protein than one egg. Canned peas tend to have added salt and sugar so the healthier choice would be to use frozen or fresh.
Hope you enjoy!