Gluten-Free Turkey Meatballs + Asian Style Noodles

Gluten-free turkey meatballs with fresh herbs, ginger and lime.

I've discovered Ancient Harvest Gluten-Free Quinoa Pasta and I love the texture and flavor. This is the least starchy gluten-free noodle I've found. And the best part is (perhaps due to the higher protein content of quinoa flour?) it stands up to pan tossing for brilliant stir-fries. However any gluten-free noodle or spaghetti you prefer will work (as long as you keep it a tad al dente).

Shake up your recipe routine with ginger-lime turkey meatballs.

READ MORE and get the recipe ...

Gluten-Free Turkey Meatloaf with Pecan Crust

Gluten-free turkey meatloaf with sun-dried tomatoes and pecan crust.

A Turn Toward the New

The morning was cool and bright. It was going to be one of those quintessential Cape Cod autumn days. A day tourists swoon over. Worthy of a post card with The weather is sublime- wish you were here scrawled in black gel cursive between sips of a Hot Chocolate Sparrow latte. The sky was a cake bowl of cobalt blue with that particular pink edge to it that only painters notice, the blush that softened the tree line at the north end of the West Barnstable marsh gentling the heavy greens of the pines and oaks into a bluish, almost violet gray.

She brushed her teeth with fennel toothpaste and spit into the low slung sink, pausing to breathe. A long inhale to slow her heart. The cottage was pin drop quiet. The boys had climbed the rubber lined steps into the school bus hours ago, peanut butter and honey sandwiches bagged, milk money in their pockets. She had waved from the street and watched them navigate the bus aisle in shadow, avoiding her maternal gaze, not turning to wave back. Too risky, she understood.

The walk back up the curve of road to the rental she had found last spring felt different this morning. Not because of the air and its September clarity that sharpened the asters and the Queen Anne's Lace with impossible precision- though she felt a kinship with the acute focus the turning of the seasons always brings. That sense of realignment, a perennial return to purpose. Ironically, she always felt as if fall was the season of new beginnings. Not spring.

Fall was the season she woke up, as if from a dream.

Today was the first day of a plein air painting workshop. A post-divorce return to premarital roots, when she painted for the love of it- not the pragmatic bill-paying need of it. Painting for an income (however necessary it may be) is dangerous business. Courting the marketplace changes your work. A self consciousness slithers in and infiltrates your choices. The observer becomes observed. Judged. Rewarded for meeting expectations.

She had always been more than willing to please. To notice the cues and needs of others. It was more than habit. It was ingrained in her bones. She had an uncanny knack for it. And she hated it about herself. She hated her automatic willingness to anticipate and acquiesce. Sometimes she would hear her own words hang in the air and for a quantum, split second wonder who had just spoken. There were entire days lost to living outside herself, hovering above her left shoulder, just beyond reach.

Stepping into the tiny sunlit kitchen she stood still for a moment, tempted by the cluttered breakfast table. The sticky bowls and spoons. The allure of distraction. The comfort of routine. But it didn't take. She snatched her car keys off a hook and grabbed a canvas bag of painting gear by the door, turned the knob with her free hand and opened it wide. Three minutes later she made a right at the empty bus stop, and accelerated east down Old King's Highway.

To be continued...


READ MORE and get the recipe ...

Gluten-Free Turkey Soup Recipe

An easy, homemade turkey soup simmered in a Crock Pot. 

A Cure to Slurp

A certain soup slurping and prickly individual (we won't name names, to protect the innocent) has been feeling under the weather for so long now the sensation is in danger of becoming a habit. Yes, the tree pollen onslaught continues. Blessed by a wet winter, Southern California trees are celebrating with copious amounts of pollen, and who can blame them? 

Hence, your intrepid gluten-free goddess has been up to no good, stumbling and mumbling around her freshly painted apartment in a Snuffleupagus stupor, thick-nosed and unable to string two coherent sentences together, never mind invent a new recipe for her lovely and devoted readers (that would be, You). Ears and sinuses filled with unspeakable things do not a creative, exhuberant cook make.

This is when a Slow Cooker can save your life.

And, yes. A Neti Pot, too [this borderline woo-woo apparatus once scared the delicate Princess and the Pea pants off me, I admit; but now we are well acquainted and are certain to be BFFL. I mean, when you can conjure instant relief without expensive (and apparently short term memory killing) antihistamines, you gotta give it a go, right?].

So here's what I have been living on- in between setting up a studio and getting up close and personal with my new pal, Neti. A simple homemade turkey soup that is chock full of garlic and cozy, soothing vegetables to ease the transition from winter into spring. May it bring you some relief if  and when your own local deciduous fellows get a wee bit rambunctious with their annual pollen fest.

READ MORE and get the recipe ...

Karina's New Mexican Stew with Ground Turkey + Green Chiles

Dust off the slow cooker.

Looking for a simple but truly fabulous slow cooker stew recipe to warm you up? Here is one my all time faves. A New Mexican style stew with budget-friendly ground turkey spiked with roasted green chiles, lime, and cilantro. Butternut squash and potatoes round out the spicier flavors. Make it as mild or as spicy as your taste buds prefer. It's perfect comfort food for any time of year. We serve it with my favorite gluten-free corn muffin recipe.

Need more slow cooker inspiration? Check out the tasty gluten-free cookbook Make it Fast, Cook it Slow by fellow food blogger Stephanie O'Dea.


READ MORE and get the recipe ...

Gluten-Free Turkey & Sweet Potato Enchiladas

Gluten-free turkey and sweet potato enchiladas.

Enchiladas, Family Style 

This Friday is just like any other out here in the New Mexico hinterland. There were big-eared rabbits eating breakfast (nibbling spare tufts of grass). A chickadee or two in the junipers. Pink light on the distant mesas. And as far as I know, no scary crush of shoppers at the Espanola Walmart. At least I haven't heard any sirens off in the distance. Truth be told I haven't budged from my casita (and I have no plans to). Nope. It's just another day here, call it what you want. Black Friday is quiet as an empty nest. So I thought I'd share a recipe for leftover turkey and sweet potatoes- a surprisingly tasty combo.

As always, make it as mild or as spicy as your little heart desires.

READ MORE and get the recipe ...

Cozy Autumn Rice Bake

Tasty rice casserole with turkey, cranberries, mushrooms and olives.

Here's a cozy autumn casserole recipe with crumbled organic turkey, mushrooms, black olives and tart cranberries. Vegetarians can change out the turkey with gluten-free tempeh, cooked black beans, chick peas, or white kidney beans.

From time to time I become a flexitarian goddess and cook with organic, free-range turkey, beef or buffalo. I chose organic free range turkey for the protein in this family style layered dish, but organic free-range chicken or beef, or even gluten-free tempeh would also work beautifully.

The recipe is an improv, so the measurements are close approximations, but most of you readers are creative cooks who do your own thing and toss together your own improvisations, anyway, right? 

You're my kind of people. 

You can handle it.

READ MORE and get the recipe ...

Gluten-Free Chicken + Turkey Recipes

Gluten-Free Chicken + Turkey Recipes

Here is my collection of gluten-free chicken and turkey recipes. Family favorites are the Sour Cream Chicken Enchiladas and the Easy Chicken and Balsamic Peppers. And the newest recipe is this fabulous pecan crusted Turkey Meatloaf with Sun-Dried Tomatoes.

Alex's Favorite Baked Chicken Mediterranean

Balsamic Roasted Pepper Chicken

Brown Sugar Turkey Meatloaf

Chicken and Artichoke Enchilada Bake (New Mexican Style)

Chicken Chili with White Beans, Sweet Potato and Lime

Chicken "Shepherd's Pie"

Curried Apple Chicken Stir-Fry with Brown Rice

Garlic Chicken Lasagna

Holiday Turkey Enchiladas

Jazzed Up Turkey Tetrazzini

Lime Chicken (Soft) Tacos

Kale Soup with Chicken Sausage and Sweet Potato

Peanut Broccoli Chicken Stir-Fry

Pineapple Salsa Chicken Enchiladas

New Mexican Stew with Ground Turkey and Green Chiles

Roasted Corn Chowder with Chicken + Cilantro

Rustic Chicken Soup for Body and Soul

Santa Fe Chicken Chili

Sour Cream Chicken Enchiladas

Turkey + Sweet Potato Enchiladas

Turkey Meatballs with Asian Stir-fry Noodles 

Turkey Meatloaf with Sun-Dried Tomatoes and Pecan Crust

Turkey Nachos

Turkey Soup

Gluten-Free Maple Apple Breakfast Sausage

Things I Lost in the Fall

Truth is often messy. It's complicated. Hard to blog about. Because truth- the whole of it- doesn't always dovetail into a post about rhubarb or biscuit dough. It isn't shiny and pastel sprinkled or predigested for your consumption. What I'm feeling lately is raw and no doubt undercooked, and I'm not even sure I understand it. So, what, exactly, is it?

Things I lost in the fall.

Besides the ability to straddle, to jog up the patio steps, to sway to Iris Dement while stirring onions, to heft groceries from the back seat, lug heavy Mexican chairs over into the sun, to reach the top edge of a five-foot canvas and lay down a swath of color, walk back, step forward, add more paint, back up, mix color (do this for hours). Or even just sit on the floor. Cross my legs. Curl up in a chair with a book.

To stand for more than ten minutes without assistance (in other words, cane).

But it's more than these things, even. More than the physical struggle back to a modified semblance of wholeness. It's the acidic sensation of sliding backwards in time, losing ground you worked so hard to get to, to claim as your own. The foothold that didn't come easy to a questioning hyper-vigilant child. A cultivated center of pure confidence. The belief in I am here. Entitlement.

The right to take up floorspace and wall space, to carve out time, spend money on materials. Make mistakes, explore, discover. Play. To start over somewhere new and unfamiliar. The right to disappoint someone else. To confuse them. To place someone else's needs next to your own- instead of in front of your own.

More was broken than a hip.

And ten months later, I am still mending. Not just knitting marrow and stretching fifty-year old muscles that knot and resist. There are invisibles I have lost.

And I am no longer bold enough, or naive enough, to simply assume I'll get them back.
 

READ MORE and get the recipe ...

Gluten-Free Stuffed Peppers with Ground Turkey

Peppers. Gorgeous.

Stuff a Pepper

How to stuff a pepper? Let me count the ways. Tonight's recipe is easy on the gluten-free budget- with a ground turkey filling. Spice it up with chipotle or make it Italian style with basil and oregano. It's all good.

This week has been sunny, cloudy, wet and windy here in the desert. All mixed up. Spring is definitely in the air. Flocks of cranes and geese echo their cocktail party conversation off the walls of Black Mesa, flying north. I hear them as I type. They are a noisy gaggle.

We're still lighting fires in the kiva at night. And still craving comfort food. I had three gorgeous bell peppers on hand- yellow, orange and green. I knew what had to be done. I poured myself a glass of sparkling cider.

It was time to stuff a vegetable.

READ MORE and get the recipe ...

A Trio of Tasty Turkey Recipes- Gluten-Free

Here are three delicious ways to use up leftover gluten-free turkey. One retro classic, Tetrazzini style, with brown rice noodles. One fabulous southwestern style enchilada recipe that has leftover turkey flirting with sweet potatoes. And last but always fabulous, our easy family favorite- turkey nachos with jalapenos and blue corn chips.

Gluten-free turkey tetrazzini- a retro classic, updated.

READ MORE and get the recipe ...