As someone diagnosed with celiac disease, I don't find it a difficult diet to follow, since I'm pretty used to quickie meals with meat and salad or veggies. I enjoyed a Dagwood-type sandwich once-in-awhile but it's not something I really miss. I don't miss pasta at all. Chicken wings and beer - that's another matter.
But every now and then you get a craving for carbs and quinoa just doesn't cut it.
I used to be crazy about a frozen Presidents Choice Mexican lasagna that was available from Loblaws but I haven't seen one for years. The other day while I was trying to decide what boring thing to have for dinner when all I wanted was somebody to make it for me, I had a brainstorm. I had a bag of Masa Harina corn flour and made up a batch of small tortillas - took maybe 15 minutes. Put a layer of medium spicy salsa on the bottom of my square 9" pan, a layer of tortillas, had no hamburger so shredded up a leftover chicken breast as the next layer, sprinkled taco seasoning over the chicken, more salsa, shredded cheese, another layer of tortillas, salsa and lots of cheese. 20 minutes in the oven and it was to die for.
I don't often cook anymore because a) I don't need to b) no counter space which is annoying when you try to do creative cooking and c) I hate to do dishes. This dish was typical of what I will cook now - something experimental, creative, easy and quick. I don't like cooking the same thing twice because then you're following a recipe and that makes it work instead of play, but this was so good I had to try it again. This one was a real quickie, with store-bought brown rice tortillas, Frito-Lay salsa, lean ground beef and a mix of shredded blend and mozzarella cheese. A definite success, slightly second-best but still pretty darned good. The chicken is better than the hamburg which surprised me.
If anybody reading this blog needs gluten free cooking and likes the taste of Mexi-Cana, this is really a tasty dish. Probably not low in calories with all that cheese but frankly, my dear...
Oh yeah, the only prep dish is a frying pan for either the tortillas or the hamburg - bonus!
Growing up in Southern California, what I do is similar..and, have to say, that's more or less SoCal soul food...:)
ReplyDeleteGoodness, you're fast! What do you have, a bell that goes off when somebody posts?
DeleteYeah, what we call Mexican is kinda like the Canadian version of Chinese food. You can probably get the real Hunan or Schezwan out in BC but it doesn't involve pineapple chicken balls LOL. But if you use the word "tortilla" it can be officially Mexican here.