Here’s an easy and tasty take on fish tacos for those of us who don’t really love most fish.  Langostinos are kind of like really small lobsters and Trader’s has them in the frozen section all of the time.  This goes together quickly and the slaw really makes it awesome!

Langostinos

• 3/4  bag defrosted TJ’s langostino tails
• 1/2 cup TJ’s Salsa Especial Mild
• 1 tablespoon TJ’s Fat Free Sour Cream
• 1/4 cup white wine
• 1 tablespoon butter

Cabbage Slaw

The post Langostino Soft Tacos first appeared on Gluten Free @ Trader Joes.

Gluten Free Coconut Chicken Strips

Well hello again blog! I was on a bit of hiatus, and then we moved to Brazil for a few months and alas there was no Trader Joe’s!  Nothing even close.  I did end up making quite a few interesting meals with our Betty Crocker Easy Bake Oven and hot plate.  One real bonus is that all of the food has gluten or non gluten labels.  A little over zealous perhaps, but better safe than sorry!

Now that I’m back to my daily trips to Trader Joe’s I figured it’s time to add some recipes to the blog.  So here’s a new one using the recently introduced Baker Josef’s Gluten Free All Purpose Flour and TJ’s Organic Virgin Coconut Oil and TJ’s Shredded Coconut.

Ingredients:

• Boneless Skinless Thin Sliced Chicken Breasts
• 1 egg
• Baker Josef’s Gluten Free All Purpose Flour
• TJ’s Organic Virgin Coconut Oil
• TJ’s Shredded Coconut
• Everyday Seasoning
• Dipping sauce – Trader Joe’s Sweet Chili Sauce (Shani likes to mix a little Ranch in as well)

Heat the oil in a pan over medium heat.  Slice the chicken into strips and season.  In a bowl, whisk the egg.  In another bowl put the flour and in a third bowl the shredded coconut.  For each slice of chicken, dredge first in the gluten free flour, then in the egg and then roll it around in the shredded coconut.  Set each piece aside until you are ready to cook.  Once the oil is hot, add the chicken strips and cook for about 6 minutes, turning frequently.  Enjoy with your favorite dipping sauce.

What’s your favorite way to use shredded coconut?

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Ingredients Used:

• 2 tbsp. Olive oil
• 1 tsp. Trader Joe’s Toasted Sesame Oil
• 1 package Trader Joe’s Asian Vegetables with Beijing Style Soy Sauce – Sauce is NOT used, discard as it has wheat
• 1 cup Trader Joe’s Broccoli Florets
• 1 cup Trader Joe’s Petite Peas
• 2 cups thawed and diced Trader Joe’s Just Grilled Chicken Strips
• 2 cups thawed Trader Joe’s Large Cooked Shrimp
• 1 packet Trader Joe’s Fresh Rice Noodles
• Trader Joe’s Sweet Chili Sauce to taste (not very spicy, more sweet)
• San J Gluten Free Tamari to taste

Heat the oils in a wok or large pan over high heat.  Also bring a pot of water to boil for the noodles.  Follow the directions for the noodles that are printed on the package.  (They boil for about 2 minutes, then drain and rinse with cold water.)  Once the oil is hot, stir fry the veggies and add the broccoli and peas.  About 5 minutes should be fine.  Add the tamari and chili sauce and stir.  Add the shrimp and diced chicken.   Mix well and then add the noodles.  Turn off the heat and let the flavors all mix.  Serve in a bowl. (Korean Noodle Bowl, remember?)  Enjoy!

Any real Koreans out there with authentic bowl recipes? Please share!

The post Gluten Free Korean Style Shrimp and Chicken Bowl first appeared on Gluten Free @ Trader Joes.

I recently found myself with some extra almond meal and decided to see if making pancakes was an option.  Some quick Googling and a trip to About.com and I had some basic recipes to try out.

Ingredients Used for Pancakes:

• 1 cup Trader Joe’s Just Almond Meal
• 2 eggs
• 1/4 cup water
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 tablespoon simple syrup

Ingredients Used for Berry Medley Syrup:

• 1/2 cup simple syrup
• 1 cup Trader Joe’s Fancy  Berry Medley

Ingredients Used for Simple Syrup:

• 1/2 cup Trader Joe’s Organic Sugar
• 1/2 cup water

Once I had committed to this plan, I realized I was out of maple syrup, thus the berry syrup was born.  I saw a link at one of the About.com pages that was the inspiration, and to be honest, any of the frozen berries would make a great syrup for these pancakes.

To make the simple syrup, just combine the water and sugar in a sauce pan and bring to a boil.  I swiped a tablespoon of this for the pancake batter and then added the berries and dropped the temperature.

For the pancakes, combine all of the ingredients and whisk.  Heat a non-stick pan over medium and pour the batter in.  I made two at a time in the size pan I was using.  These pancakes don’t bubble as much to tell you when it’s time to flip them, so I was constantly checking to make sure I wasn’t burning them.

Pretty simple.  They turned out great, though are a little more dense than a regular pancake.  We will definitely be having these again.  I may try and thin out the batter with some almond milk and try these as crepes as well.  The berry syrup is awesome.  We had some really nice California White peaches on the side to round out this breakfast, yum!

What’s your favorite pancake topping?

The post Gluten Free Almond Meal Pancakes and Berry Medley Syrup first appeared on Gluten Free @ Trader Joes.

Recently Shani and I were on a long layover in Chicago and I had the opportunity to have a Vienna Beef style hot dog and man was it good!  I probably hadn’t had one since high school and had forgotten how good these hot dogs are. Then I was reading an issue of Sunset Magazine and they had some very interesting toppings for the hot dogs featured, piquing my culinary interests.  There are so many creative ways to top a hot dog!  And as it turns out, according to the Vienna Beef site, July is National Hot Dog month. So here we have a gourmet gluten free chicken hot dog (actually a sausage, but who’s keeping track?) just in time for the 4th of July!

Ingredients Used:

• Udi’s Gluten Free Soft and Delicious Classic Hot Dog Buns
• Trader Joe’s Smoked, Apple Chardonnay Chicken Sausage – any hot dog or sausage will do!
• Trader Joe’s Uncured Turkey Bacon
• Trader Joe’s Reduced Fat Mayonnaise
• Diced Roma Tomatoes
• Caramelized Red Onion
• Trader Joe’s TJ’s Bold & Smoky Kansas City Style Barbecue Sauce
• Trader Joe’s Deli Style Spicy Brown Mustard
• Trader Joe’s Quattro Formaggio

Inspired by the June 2012 issue of Sunset magazine, I decided to make my own gluten free and beef free version of The Cowboy hotdog.  Now that Trader Joe’s is carrying the Udi brand of gluten free bread products, this task became a whole lot easier!

To start, I sliced some red onion and caramelized it.  While that was going on, I diced some Roma tomatoes and put the chicken sausages into the toaster oven on broil.  I like a little crispness on the hotdog buns, so I toasted them up as well.  We always have cooked turkey bacon in the fridge, so I diced up some of that too.  Obviously, if you don’t have any cooked bacon on hand, you will need to cook up some bacon first.

Once the onions are caramelized and the sausage is done, put some mayo, mustard and bbq sauce on the bun, add the sausage and top with onion, tomato, bacon and quattro formaggio.  Enjoy!

What are your favorite ways to top a dog?

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This is a fun and easy breakfast!  It’s also pretty quick, which makes it ideal for those mornings when you’re feeling a bit lazy but want something different.

Ingredients Used:

• 4 Eggs
• 2 pieces Trader Joe’s Uncured Turkey Bacon (cooked)
• 1/2 Trader Joe’s Brown Rice Tortilla
• Pinch of Quattro Formaggio Cheese
• Trader Joe’s Everyday Seasoning
• Salt
• Garlic powder
• Trader Joe’s Extra Virgin Olive Oil Spray

I have a nifty little egg poacher which makes this super easy.  I suppose that if you don’t have this cool pan you can always do it the old fashioned way, but why would you want to do that when you can use an awesome kitchen gadget! (And I’ll admit, I have zero experience doing it the old fashioned way)

First I take the cups out of the pan and slightly spray  them with the olive oil spray to facilitate the eggs sliding out of the cups when they are done. Fill the bottom of the pan with water and bring to a boil. After I crack an egg into one of the cups, I season with some garlic powder, Everyday seasoning and grind a little salt from my salt mill all on top of the egg.

At this point, I cut a tortilla into 1/4ths and place it into the toaster over.  Toast to your taste, careful though, these guys burn pretty quickly!  Next, put the cups into the pan and put the lid on.  Depending on how runny you like your eggs, cook from between 3 to 8 minutes.  Shani and I like ours more well done, so I usually start checking the middles at about 6 minutes.  When the eggs are almost done, add a pinch of cheese to each egg and let that melt.

I like to cut the bacon into thinner strips.  Take a 1/4th of the toasted tortilla, add bacon and eggs.  Presto! You’re done.  If I wasn’t trying to look like an Athleta Girl, Trader Joe’s has a nice pre-made Hollandaise sauce you could add.  You could also make your own, but I’ll save that for another day.

What’s your favorite quick way to make eggs?

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I’m going with the “Picture is worth 1000 words” on this one.  What you may not be able to make out clearly is the “Yum Yum” Shani also added to the bag.

I will leave you with this quote from a famous blue monster – “C is for cookie, that’s good enough for me!” And good enough for Shani too!

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I’ve been on what I like to call the “Athleta Girl” diet for the past month which involves a lot of salad and not much in the way of new recipes for this site.  If you aren’t familiar with the Athleta brand or the girls in the catalog, let’s just say that they are all extremely fit and seem to live an active lifestyle.

One of the tricks of this diet is to cut out a few pictures from the catalog and stick them on the fridge.  Every time I start to make something or grab a snack, I have to ask myself if the girls approve.  It’s kind of silly, but it really does work.

Another trick is to find really tasty snacks that aren’t very calorically dense.  In this quest I stumbled upon a chip and a dip that make a great appetizer and are actually pretty good for you too!

Ingredients Used:

• Trader Joe’s Baked Lentil Chips – Sea Salt & Black Pepper
• Trader Joe’s Reduced Guilt Spinach & Kale Greek Yogurt Dip

That’s it! A serving of the Lentil Chips is about 22 chips for total calories of 120, 2.5 grams of fat and 4 grams of protein.  2 tbsp of the dip has 30 calories and 2.5 grams of fat and 1 gram of protein.

If you want to be extra healthy, skip the chips and use baby carrots instead!

What’s your favorite gluten free snack?

The post A New Gluten Free Snack! first appeared on Gluten Free @ Trader Joes.

Somewhere on the internet I stumbled onto this recipe, and if I can ever find that site again, I’ll edit this and add a link giving credit where credit is due!  The version that I have here is somewhat modified in that the original called for using rotisserie chicken breast and I used Just Grilled Chicken Strips.  Shani has had a problem with rotisserie chicken making her ill in the past so we avoid that (like many, many, many other things ;)).

Ingredients Used:

• Trader Joe’s Extra Virgin Italian Olive Oil Spray
• 1 cup chopped red onion
• 1 tsp. Trader Joe’s Crushed Garlic
• 1 container Trader Joe’s Organic Low Sodium Chicken Broth
• 1 pint water
• 1/4 cup uncooked white rice
• 1 can white beans, rinsed and drained
• 3 cups defrosted and chopped Just Grilled Chicken Strips (bite sized pieces)
• 1/2 cup coarsely chopped fresh cilantro
• 1/2 teaspoon black pepper
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup chopped tomato
• 1 diced and peeled avocado
• 1 tablespoon fresh lime juice
• lime wedges

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