Since being diagnosed with Celiac Disease and making awareness of it my pursuit, I have been blessed with many opportunities and amazing experiences involving the gluten-free community. One of the highlights has been the honor of reviewing a gluten-free cookbook. A beautiful woman named Gretchen Brown who is the author and creator of a popular gluten-free website,
Kumquat blog, decided to fulfill a dream of hers by writing a cookbook.
Gretchen is a
registered dietitian and, unlike most in her profession, she has been blessed
enough to spend most of her career in a kitchen as opposed to a
hospital. Her husband is military like mine and believe it or not, her sister Laura was my teacher in eighth grade. Laura was one of my favorites and we have kept in touch all these years. Laura told me about Gretchen's health struggles and how she did an elimination diet and found that after she stopped eating gluten her body felt like new. When Laura heard I was diagnosed with Celiac Disease and was gluten-free too, she connected Gretchen and I so we could talk about our new lifestyle.
Gretchen believes that those of us who eat gluten-free still deserve to eat food that makes us sing, awaken and delight our sense and brings back old memories. So, she put all of her heart into recreating and discovering recipes that fit this description. All of her hard work will be published in a book next month and in honor of that, I wanted to share one of her recipes.
Pork Tacos with Avocado & Tomato Salsa
- 1/2 cup chopped onion
- 2 teaspoons olive oil
- 1 pound pork tenderloin, trimmed and coarsely chopped
- 2 teaspoons chili powder
- 1 teaspoon dried oregano
- 1 teaspoon garlic powder
- 1/2 teaspoon dried thyme
- 1/2 teaspoon paprika
- 3/4 teaspoon salt, divided (I omitted this)
- 1/2 teaspoon of black pepper, divided
- 1/4 cup water
- 1/2 cup chopped avocado
- 1/2 cup chopped tomatoes
- 1/4 cup red onion (I don't really like red onion so I cut this amount in half)
- 1/4 cup chopped cilantro
- 8 corn tortillas
- Optional: sour cream, for serving
Cook the onion in pre-heated oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat for 2 minutes. Add the pork to the pan; sprinkle the pork with chili powder, oregano, garlic powder, thyme, paprika, 1/2 teaspoon salt, and 1/4 teaspoon pepper. Cook for 4 minutes, stirring occasionally, until browned. Stir in the water; scrape brown bits from the bottom of the pan and cook for an additional 2 minutes or until most of the liquid has evaporated.
Meanwhile, combine the avocado, tomatoes, 1/4cup red onion, cilantro, remaining salt, and remaining pepper in a small bowl.
Warm tortillas according to package directions. Spoon the pork mixture evenly into each tortilla. Top each evenly with the avocado mixture and sour cream.
ENJOY! Serves 8
The warmth and juiciness of the green beans combined with the sweet and spicy crunch of the pumpkin seeds to make a flavor that had my mouth feeling like the angels were singing hallelujah inside it! Maybe I was just hungry from all the cooking or maybe the dreamy smell of the roasted pumpkin still hung in the air but, this is definitely a dish I will continue to make during the fall and into the winter!
