Gluten-Free Pizza Flatbread with Roasted Vegetables

An easy gluten-free pizza flatbread topped with roasted veggies.

I've been offering up picnic food recipes this week because we're eating easy picnic style here in the final countdown phase of leaving for our summer adventure in Los Angeles. Only four remaining stacks of books to box, a tilting fence of wet paintings to frame, and the all important decision of which t-shirts, pots and kitchen power tools to pack stand in the way of our coffee fueled departure early next week.

I am reminded of the opening scene of A Walk on the Moon where Pearl and Lilian Kantrowitz are cramming the family car with colanders and tablecloths and onions and potato peelers. Kitchen stuff for their summer cabin in the Catskills. Such a production this is. Planning ahead for gluten-free snacks on the road (chocolate cupcakes are a must, and popcorn) and an easy microwavable supper for the hotel in Arizona (I'm thinking I'll freeze some of my favorite Mac and Cheese). We still don't have a rental lined up. And the storms knocked out our Internet this week. I'm lucky to be on at all tonight.

So yours truly has been running out of steam by cocktail hour, whipped not only by the attention-to-detail process of organizing two lives and shedding old stuff, but by the monsoon season thunderstorms growling across the Chama River in the afternoons, sending wind and rain and howling coyotes up the mesa. And knocking out our web access.

So forgive me if I have not responded to a comment or a question. I haven't been on-line much. Or participated on Twitter. I've been a total social network slacker stranded out here in the wilds. Cooking up flatbreads and Buckwheat Chocolate Chip Cookies between rinsing out empty shampoo bottles. Thinking of you.

Hoping you're having a wonderful week!

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Easy Champagne Vinegar Red Potato Salad

No mayo in this classic potato salad. Nope. Nada. Zip.

For those of you looking for a mayo-free potato salad recipe, here's an easy, tasty picnic style salad seasoned with Champagne vinegar and tarragon. I plan on making potato salad several times this week. Picnic food- that's perfect for packing. Sorry for the alliteration. I blame excitement. Life is getting interesting again. We're living sans furniture now- except for a bed, desk and rug. The casita feels empty in a good way. Clean and spacious. Inviting possibility.

Let's hope potential buyers feel the same way.

As for me, I'll be at the Santa Monica Farmer's Market a week from Wednesday (expect pictures). We don't know where we're staying yet. But if Craig's List is any indication, choices will be numerous. Until then?

Dinner will be picnic style.

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Savory Vegetable Pancakes

I love savory pancakes- shredded veggies add so much flavor.

Savory or sweet? That is my question today- not to indulge in the duality of either/or and divide the pancake universe into opposing sensibilities or anything, but if push comes to shove (and I'm four square against shoving, honestly) the naked truth is I'm more of a savory, salty, golden crunchy pancake lover than a soft, sweet and sticky with maple syrup craver.

Maybe it's because I love pancakes for supper.

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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.

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Spaghetti Squash New Mexican with Black Beans + Lime

Cumin and chili roasted spaghetti squash ready for black beans and lime

 

This is not your typical spaghetti squash recipe. Rather than using the squash as a mere substitute for pasta with red sauce, this recipe combines strands of spaghetti squash with Southwestern-inspired ingredients such as black beans, lime juice, tomatoes and roasted corn.

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