In the spring, I planted some herbs I’ve never grown before.  Tarragon was one of them.  I don’t think I’ve eaten much tarragon at all.  I was really curious how fresh tarragon would taste and what I could do with it.  Being that my mountain of laundry is getting smaller, I decided tonight was the night to try it!

Here is the tarragon growing in my garden.

And just picked.

Tarragon is commonly used in French cooking.  If you’ve had anything with a bearnaise sauce, then you’ve had tarragon.  I wasn’t so sure I would like it.  It smells and tastes a little like licorice or anise.  I’m not a fan of licorice.

I had no clue what to use it in.  So I looked for a recipe on the internet.  I came upon McCormick’s website with not only information on tarragon, but a recipe for shrimp salad.  I had all the ingredients on hand so I decided to try it.  You can find the recipe here.

This recipe had a sauce made with sour cream, mayonnaise, tarragon, lemon juice and Old Bay Seasoning.  I was skepitcal, but I have to tell you I really liked it.  Somehow the flavor of the tarragon, together with the lemon complimented each other.  The Old Bay gave it an added zing.  It was so easy to throw together too.  I just happened to have a bag of frozen cooked shrimp.  I usually have raw frozen because I like the flavor better when I cook it myself.  But having the already cooked, it took me minutes to make this dinner.  And on a warm summer evening, this light meal hit the spot.

Now I can’t wait to try more things with it.  Please send me your favorite way to use this herb.  I would love to learn different ways to use it.

On to another product review.  I did really well shopping the other day as far as finding new things.  I love to try new gluten free things.  You never know when you will find something you really like.

Glutino has come out with new cracker flavors.  I was so surprised to see a cheddar flavor and a multi grain.

Well, too bad for me, I really like the cheddar.  This could be a problem.  It took me months to work my way out of a Chebe addiction.  Anyone who has read my blog in detail knows how I loved Cheez-it’s.  These are not Cheez-it’s and not even close.  But, for a gluten free cheese cracker, they are the best I’ve had so far and it’s just been long enough that I totally forget what a real Cheez-it taste like anyway.  They are crispy and have a light cheddar flavor.  This is something I could sit and mindlessly pop in my mouth while watching tv.  Confession, I did that last night.  Let’s hope the store constantly runs out of them.

I don’t like the multi grain as well.  They are ok.  They have fennel seed in them.  There’s that licorice flavor again.  It was good in the tarragon but in a cracker, not so much.  In all fairness, I tried it plain.  It might be better with some cheese on it to off set the fennel seed flavor.  Don’t take my word on it.  Try some.  You might really like that flavor in a cracker! And I will try them with some cheese.  They might grow on me.

What I did like about both crackers is, it seems to me they have changed their formula a little.  The cracker shape was a little thinner and crisper.  There were not very many broken ones either.  For those of you who have not bought Glutino in the past, there are usually a lot of broken crackers in the box.  If you’ve tried them, let me know how you liked them!

We’re home.  It’s bittersweet.  I love Del Mar.   I miss it when I leave.  But, I love home too.  I missed my bath tub!

It’s so crazy coming home from a two week trip.  I have worked my way through a mountain of laundry.  I made a major trip to the grocery store.  Before leaving, we used up most everything in the house.  Now there is the issue of the dirty house.  Eventually, I will be all caught up.

The last week we were in Del Mar, we ate out a little more and I just got to busy to post.  We went to places I knew I could trust.  I love The Chart house right on the beach.  We went there one night and watched it get dark.  It was cloudy so we couldn’t watch the sun set.  The food is wonderful there.  I had a crab stack thingy.  No crab stack here.  Real crab meat with avocado and mango.  Yum.

Another night we went to an Italian place and we got pizza.  Yes, I said pizza.  I found out about this place online at Gluten Free San Diego.  It’s called Borelli’s Italian located in Encintas.  Apparently the man who owns this restaurant has a neighbor with celiac disease.  His neighbor helped him make a gluten free crust.  Oh, it was wonderful!  Kati and I really wanted to go back before we left but ran out of time.

I had the greek pizza

Kati had the white pizza (just cheese, tomatoes and spinach I think?)

It was so good.  If you are ever near Encinitas, you must go there!

We also had mexican a couple times.  The great thing about mexican in California is grilled fish tacos.  Geeze, I love them.  And they are so dag gone healthy!  Win, win.

I’m really glad I got to cook in the room a lot.  It really made things easier.  Especially with lunch and breakfast.  The hotel served a complimentary breakfast.  I would toast my gluten free bagel in my toaster oven in my room and walk down to the breakfast area with everyone else.  I could get cream cheese there and also a boiled egg, fresh fruit, juice and coffee.

If you travel, I think the toaster oven is the handiest thing ever.  I spent $30.00 on it.  The hotel is keeping it for me along with my dog crate until we return next year (we’ve been staying there for 8 years so they do things like this), but even it they weren’t, it was worth the $30.00 to have it there for that long.  Heck, you could spend that on one breakfast out for the family.

Yesterday, when I did my food shopping, I went to our local Meijer’s.  They have a pretty nice gluten free section in the dry goods.  I noticed a new pizza crust and decided to give it a try.  What’s nice is it’s already cooked and ready to go.  You can keep it on the shelf in the pantry.  No refrigeration necessary.  Today I made pizza for lunch.   I really liked it.  The crust was light and crispy but did not taste like Styrofoam.  It had flavor!  If you like a chewy crust you probably wouldn’t like it.  I like my crust crispy.

It’s made by Rustic Crust.

You can read about it here.  They make it in a gluten free facility.  I am so paranoid now after the bread mishap a couple weeks ago!  Reading every label carefully.

Here is the pizza I made with it.

Ewww.  Kind of blurry.  You get two 8 inch crusts in each bag.  I will buy them again.  I think they would be great to keep in the cupboard for a quick lunch or dinner.

It’s good to be home!

I can’t believe we’ve been here a week already!  Yesterday I hung out with the band at the fair.  I took a sandwich made on chebe bread for lunch and some fresh cherries.  Since it was the weekend, there were good crowds there.

We decided it was time to go out for dinner.  We went to Bully’s in Del Mar.  They have great steaks there.  All their meat is hormone and anitbiotic free.  One of the guys that works there has a sister with celiac.  They seem to understand how to serve a gluten free customer there.

Today, the girls wanted to go shopping again.  We came back to the hotel room for lunch.  I had made a batch of chebe buns a couple days ago.  For lunch, we made pizza in the toaster oven with them.  It was yummy.

When dinner time came, I had some chicken that I marinaded in olive oil, lime juice and garlic powder.  It was cooked in my trusty skillet while I had some potatoes baking in the oven.  We had a simple lettuce and tomato salad for the vegetable.

After dinner I had a sweet craving.  Earlier in the week I had purchase a box of Gluten Free Pantry chocolate chip cookie mix.  I used my skillet as a mixing bowl and baked some in the toaster oven.  It is truely amazing how much one can do with so little things!

Best of all, was the view I had while doing all of this.  I love San Diego.

Most of these posts I make while traveling are not going to be very wordy or well written. I am just to tired at the end of the day to think much. But I do want to post what we are eating in hopes it will help someone else when they get ready to travel.

This morning we took Grace (the dog child) shopping. There are some really cute dog shops around here. She got a new harness and some toys picked out for those left at home.

Lunch was a letwich. That’s my new name for a lettuce sandwich. Or as Ed in the band calls it, a sam-itch. Anyway, I made a letwich.

After lunch the girls and I walked down the street to the Del Mar Farmer’s market. They have it every Saturday. They had everything from flowers to fresh fish. We got some really nice fruit and some home grown tomatoes.

And, they had Italian ice!

We got cherry.

Oh yeah, it was good.

Dinner was pesto chicken (made in the toaster oven), pre-cooked rice from Trader Joe’s, frozen green beans, tomatoes from the farmers market and some fresh fruit.

Yummmm

My heart medicine Or, as my husband calls it, soda pop. It’s another band thing. Bandisums (stuff the band makes up). When we get together we all come up with weird stuff to call things. But he doesn’t pronounce it like soda pop, he says sew dee pop. For those of you I have totally confused….it’s just a glass of wine. In my traveling plastic wine glass!

Steve has gone off to a baseball game.  I’m not a big baseball fan.  I’m having dinner in the hotel.  I’m glad.  It’s quiet and nice to not have to be anywhere.  Just us girls.

It was the perfect day today.  We drove up to Encinitas.  We took the 101 scenic highway and the view is just beautiful.  Along the way we stopped to shop here and there.  We found a Trader Joe’s and Henry’s.  Both have a nice selection of gluten free food.

For dinner tonight, I made a bowl of cucumbers, feta and artichoke hearts.

Also, a grilled cheese, chips and some fruit

This time, the bread was gluten free!

I found a treat at Trader Joe’s.  Gluten Free frozen peanut butter cookie dough.

Six of them fit perfectly on the tray that came with the toaster oven.

They were pretty good!

Wow, I knew this, really I did!  Or I thought I did.  Just because a product is wheat free, does not make it gluten free.  I’m blaming it on jet lag.

For those of you who did not read the post below, I went shopping the other night and bought a “wheat free” bread.  Mind you, I had been up since 3:00am our time and it was 8:00pm our time when I was doing the shopping.  I was pretty much brain dead.  But I should have know this.  For some reason I thought kamut was gluten free too.

Right after I posted a picture of the bread, both Food Goody and Cassandra told me it was not gluten free.  Thank you so much for looking out for me!  I had not felt good all day and I kept telling everyone it must be the 3rd day blahs.  It was the 3rd day of our trip.  It was the bread.

I feel ok today.  And the bread is in the trash.  Some products can be so misleading.  You really must look for it to say, gluten free on the label.  Lesson learned.

Today I went to Henry’s and bought 3 bags of Chebe.  We’ll make that in our toaster oven.  I know that’s gluten free!

I’ve been trying to post for two days, but the internet in our room hasn’t been working right. I even had a post all written out that somehow got lost. Blah! But we’re here and the weather is beautiful! Who could ask for more.

The band has gotten in two days worth of shows so far. The first day we got here I found out we did not have an oven in our room after all. After getting settled in our room, we headed off to Red Robin for some dinner. They do not have a gluten free menu, but had a binder with all the allergy information in it so I could make a good choice.

Then it was off to Jimbo’s natural food market and Von’s for some groceries. Jimbo’s had some fresh gluten free baked goods in their bakery. Oh how I wish we had this at home!

We stopped at Long’s Drug store and I found a small toaster oven. Here’s our kitchen and the toaster oven.

Miss Kati making some breakfast….

Edit….I had a picture of some bread I bought thinking it was gluten free.  It was wheat free, not gluten free.  It contained Kamut.  I thought that was ok.  It is NOT.  Hopefully some of you will learn from my mistake too.  Yuk.

Last night I made dinner in our room. The oven fit four potatoes perfectly and did a great job at baking them. After they were done, I put some fresh asparagus on the tray that came with the oven and roasted it. I cooked the salmon in my skillet with a little olive oil, dried rosemary, salt and pepper. It really tasted good to have a safe meal!

Off for a nap now. Stay tuned for more cooking adventures in San Diego!

Tomorrow, we will be in San Diego.  I have been packing for 3 days!  I am really getting excited.

I just found out our hotel room should have an oven with a two burner stove.  I previously thought it would just have the stove.  There will be a lot more things we can cook with an oven!  I also got on Amazon.com and ordered a $13.00 toaster.  I have had it delivered to the hotel.  Last year I bought toast bags and that cost me $15.00.  We used them so much they got holes in them.  This year it made more sense to just get a toaster.   Kati loves her bagels.

We will have a 3 hour layover tomorrow.  I am packing our lunch in our bento boxes to ensure we will have something safe to eat.  I am making us some chebe sandwiches.  Our flight leaves at 7:00 am.  We will be leaving our house very early in the morning.  We are traveling with about 15 people.  With that many people and that much luggage and large instruments, we have to get there earlier than most people would to check in.

I have all my food ready to be assembled in the morning.  We are making veggie sandwiches.  My chebe is baked, cooled and sliced.  I chopped some green peppers, onions, and cucumbers for our sandwiches.  I also have hummus and goat cheese ready so I can quickly assemble them and put them in the bentos.  I have also boiled and peeled some eggs.  I have bagged edemame in the freezer that I can pull out and put around the bentos to keep them cold.  And, my mom gave me a couple gluten free brownies :)  Thanks mom!

I have also packed my stainless steel skillet.  I worried that the hotel might have a non-stick skillet.  Hopefully most of you know not to cook in a non-stick skillet that has had gluten cooked in it before.  Somehow it holds on to the gluten.  Same thing with wooden utensils.  So to be safe, I will have my own skillet.  I also am taking dried garlic, rosemary, salt and pepper.  I can buy everything else I need there.

We are taking one of our dogs with us.  Grace is the lucky one.  She is the one who likes to go places.  We have a flight bag that she has to be in.  She goes with us right on the plane and sits under the seat in front of us.  She knew when we got the bag out she was going to get to go.  She has been sitting by it for days!  I finally had to put it back in the closet to get her mind off of it!  Silly girl.  Last year she didn’t get to go and I think she wants to make sure she doesn’t miss out this time.

Pray for good flights for us and maybe I’ll have some pictures next post!

So check this out, Kate over at Gobsmacked has decided to have a BBQ! I thought this sounded like a fun idea.  So why not sign up!

I had a really hard time thinking what to bring because so many of the letters were taken.  Then I noticed that the letter E was free.  So I am making Eggs, the deviled kind!  I love deviled eggs.  Whenever there is a holiday on my husband’s side of the family, my sister-in-law always makes deviled eggs.  The best part of the holiday is sneaking in the kitchen before dinner and snitching some of those eggs!

I have a handy Pampered Chef decorator I use to put the yellow in.  It looks pretty that way.  This recipe was given to my sister-in-law by my mother-in-law.  I don’t know where it came from but they think it is a family recipe.

The weird thing is, it calls for 8 eggs.  I have always thought this was strange since eggs come in a dozen.  I always make a dozen.  Then my mom gave me her old Tupperware deviled egg holder thingy, and can you believe it, it only holds 8 eggs!  Is there some unwritten law I don’t know about that you are supposed to make only 8 eggs at a time?  Weird.  Really weird.  I’m still making 12 just to buck the system.

Our family’s deviled eggs

8 hard boiled eggs

1/2 cup mayonnaise (I use slightly less)

2 T. vinegar ( I use 1 teaspoon )

2 teaspoons mustard

1 teaspoon pickle relish (of this, I use more!)

pinch of sugar

Cut eggs in half and remove the yolk.  Add ingredients and beat with beaters until smooth.  Either spoons into where you removed the yolk from or pipe it in with a decorator bag.  Sprinkle the tops with paprika.

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I took some of those eggs with me to Danville, Kentucky this last weekend.  I had so much fun deciding what food to take with me.

We left about mid-morning on Friday.  We had Derick, our trombone player with us.  At noon, we stopped at Arby’s and the guys went in to get their lunch.  I got in my cooler and made a sandwich.  One of my readers gave the tip of making Chebe buns for sandwich bread.  I had tried them a long time ago as buns, but was not too sure about them.  I love them just plain as rolls, but as buns they were a little chewy.

So, last week before the trip I bought some more.  I bought the frozen already prepared as I knew I would be short on time.  I baked them one night and we made sandwiches right away with them.  They were chewy again because they were hot.  I had two left over which I saved at room temp in a Ziplock bag.  The next day I made more sandwiches with them at room temperature and they were perfect!  The trick is to bake them, and let them cool completely before making anything with them. I had been eating them hot and that made them chewy.

So in the car I had a Ziplock full of Chebe buns.  I made a sandwich with goat cheese, salami, ham and lettuce on the Chebe bun.  I also enjoyed some of those deviled eggs and fresh blueberries.  I think the guys were a little jealous

That night, the band was to perform at the Charlie’s restaurant.  Everyone was to eat dinner there before the gig at O’Charlies.  So at our room just before we left, I turned on my electric skillet (another great idea from a reader), and I stir fried some steak, mushrooms, onions, broccoli, and garlic in my skillet.  I loaded it up in my single bento box.  When we got to O’ Charlie’s, I ordered a baked potato and simply put my steak and veggies on top of it.  So easy and so good!

The next day for breakfast we ate cold hard boiled eggs and I brought some blueberry muffins I had made at home (I used the recipe on the Pamela’s pancake and baking mix).  We had to do a parade at 11:00 and then a show at 12:30.  After the show, our band buddy had a lunch waiting for us.  Knowing it would not be a safe lunch for me, I had packed my other bento box with all kinds of goodies.  I got the ideas for this lunch from another reader.  I packed dolmas, artichoke hearts, hummus, olives, salami and crackers.  I took along some gluten free lemon cookies too because I knew our band buddies would give everyone cookies.  It was a really yummy lunch.  Everyone kept asking me what I had!

The last show of the day was at 4:00.  So by dinner time, the band had done their part and it was time to relax.  The band festival is a free weekend for the entire community.  It is at the local college.  They set up a huge stage and there are bands playing back to back up until 11:00 at night.

The evening was beautiful as the temperature dropped to a very comfortable level.  We found a place for our lawn chairs to camp out all evening.  I had packed for myself another Chebe sandwich.   I had some quinoa salad with goat cheese crumbles, tomatoe, onions, parsley, olive oil, and some lime juice.  It tasted really good with my sandwich.  I didn’t get any food pictures on Saturday because I filled the card on my camera!

Sunday we traveled back home.  We ate some more muffins in the morning and I packed another sandwich for on the way home.  All in all it worked out really well.  Some other things I had on hand that I didn’t use was single serving cans of tuna and chicken.  I bought packets of mayonnaise at Sam’s club.  They are so handy because you don’t have to worry with keeping them cold.

I think having a couple bento boxes is very helpful as well.  There are many website devoted to how to pack them.  I am not fancy in that way at all.  What I like is that they stack and are small enough to take along places.  I have a bag that also does a really nice job at keeping things hot.  I don’t think it works as well keeping thing cold.  But when I have made stir fries and then put my food in it to take to a restaurant, it is pretty hot even an hour later.

Here are the two I have.  One is what I call a single and the other is a stackable one.  There is a little band that holds it together.  And then the bag to hold it.  I bought mine on ebay.  They are very handy to have.

If any of you have any tips for what to take on an airplane that I can legally pack in my bento, comment away!  With all these restrictions, it’s hard to figure out what they will let you take.

It won’t be too long and we will be leaving for San Diego.  I am really looking forward to it.  I will pack my bento with  some healthy food for the flight.  Unlike last year, when I took mostly junk food and was craving real food.

While staying there, we have asked for a room with a small kitchen so I can do some cooking.  We will be eating out some.  I find it’s much easier to eat out there than it is in the mid west.  But, I will still be making a good bit of my food in the hotel room.

Here is some of the group during one of their performances.

During the parade.

Having lunch that the band buddy made.

Goofing off in the break room.

Thank you everyone who helped me out with ideas.  It was a great trip and I can’t wait till the next one!

I’m sure you all have heard about the flooding in Indiana.  Our neighborhood was very close to a lot of it.  The back part of the neighborhood we live in was flooded shut and the fire department was making rescues in a boat all day long.  

Our home is okay except for the fact our sump pump had a heart attack at trying to keep up and left us for sump pump heaven.  By the time we found out, the basement had already flooded a couple inches.   I had some new recipes I was planning on posting Saturday night but instead we spent the weekend dragging wet carpet out of the basement and cutting away wet dry wall.  It’s a mess, but we are very fortunate.  Many people here have lost their homes.  My heart breaks for them.

The insurance company sent out a couple guys with dryers and de-humidifiers.  It’s drying up down there.  Hopefully it won’t take too long to put it back together.  

The day of the flood, Kati was preparing to go to kids camp.  Not as a kid, but as an adult counselor.  She has been so excited about this.  And then we realized, what is she going to eat?  I’m sure there are many of you out there is this situation right now.  Thankfully, Kati is old enough to watch out for herself.  I can’t imagine having an eight year old who needs to go to camp and worrying about them.  

I set off for the grocery last week with one goal in mind.  Find all the shelf stable, gluten-free food I could find.  This is what I came up with….

Peanut butter

Single serving cans of :

• tuna
• chicken
• salmon

Canned refried beans

Eden brand canned beans and rice

Amy’s bean soup

Thai kitchen noodles (and chop sticks)

Minute rice ready to serve rice cups

Fruit cups

Pudding

Glutino crackers

corn chips

candy (this is most important!)

Powdered Miso soup

I think there was more she took.  I was going to make a list to post everything she took, but the flood happened.  I also got her a loaf of Glutino frozen bread and some bagels.  Hopefully she remembered to put them in the freezer when she got there.  I also made a batch of blueberry muffins for her to freeze.  I also sent her own mayonnaise with her name on it to keep in the fridge.  She was very happy and excited to have her boxes of food when she left.  

After my last post, I have so many good ideas of what to take on our weekend trip.  The hard part is deciding what ones I will try!  I can’t wait to see what works good and post about it when we get back. Thanks everyone for so many great ideas.   We will be in Danville, Kentucky at the Great American Brass Band Festival.  Hopefully, the weather will be good.  I don’t like traveling in storms and heaven knows Indiana doesn’t need any more rain!