Gluten-Free Shepherd's Pie Two Ways

Cooking light- gluten-free shepherd's pie with lovely gravy, two ways.

A spring rain is rolling through Los Angeles, interrupting a fine, damp mist with sudden bursts of stinging wet drops. The skies are steel gray, gloomy and low. It's the kind of day that calls for comfort in the form of food. Something baked in a crock. Something hot and old fashioned. Something with mashed potatoes. Creamy buttercream gold mashed potatoes.

A savory pie, I said out loud, standing at the kitchen sink, listening to the staccato of rain drumming the mail truck parked just outside the window.

Don't tease me, said my husband, looking up from his latest screenplay.

I wouldn't joke about a thing like pie, I assured him. Seriously. No chance. I'm thinking a shepherd's pie. But not the usual shepherd's pie. No beef. No onion. No peas.

Please, he said. No peas.


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Gluten-Free Vegetarian Lasagna

Gluten-free lasagna - my favorite Italian comfort food.

This a hearty vegetarian lasagna recipe spiked with a touch of hot pepper heat and unexpected dots of sweetness from the golden raisins. And the best part? It tastes even better the next day. So plan ahead.

It is wild and windy here by the mesa. Spring has sprung. The skies are thick with sheets of rain, gray and pitted with bursts of hail that hammer our flat casita roof then disappear beyond the mesa as quickly as it came. Low churning clouds obscure the distant peaks of the Jemez. The young jack rabbits are hiding. Even the ravens are tucked away from sight today.

We have been kindling fires in the kiva to warm us. And I have been conjuring comfort. In the form of vegetarian lasagna.

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Vegetarian Enchiladas Griegos with Spinach + Feta

Rain clouds above the mesa, toward Abiquiu.

Today is our anniversary. It is raining here in the high desert. Cloud cover blankets the mesa in a soft dove gray that is flirting with lavender. We married in this weather twelve years ago, sprinting through Cape Cod wind and mist to reach the antique door of our local Justice of the Peace without getting wet, the four of us stepping over the threshold to become a family.

Me and my three men- my love and my two sons.

I look at the photographs taken by the Justice's husband, our single witness. We are so young, all of us. Arms linking. There is palpable tenderness.

The boys are now men. They stand taller than my five-foot-eight. My husband and I, well. We are wiser. And weathered. And we remain expectant. This has been a year of enormous change.

We have sold most of our belongings (except books and paintings) and moved west. From the eastern shore to the high desert. From what was predictable and safe to what is unknown. What is possible. What might be.

After thirteen years together we are still exploring, still traveling, still on our way to somewhere. We are painting less and writing more. We are listening to each other with deeper affection, having shed many old expectations. We have come through a lot this year, on many levels. And so have our sons. Their own lives have not stood still. They too have faced changes and embraced risk.

I look out the window of my studio and exhale. I say a silent prayer for twelve more years. And twelve more years.

And twelve more years.

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Vegetarian Green Chile Recipe

Fresh roasted Hatch green chiles.

Steve brought home two more bags of fresh roasted green chiles, still warm. Hot and spicy Hatch chiles are my favorite. The fragrance is smoky, sweet and spicy all at once. I wish Blogger provided smell-a-vision. I got cookin' and whipped up a vegetarian version of my New Mexico green chile.

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Vegetarian Stir-Fry Bliss

Retro veg yum.

This is a post about old school bliss- an easy  budget-friendly stir-fry for a weeknight. The recipe stems from my art school past. Why do I bring this up? Because last night we waxed nostalgic.

Over olives, a wedge of Parmesan, and a bottle of Chianti, Steve and I talked about our unencumbered days at art school. The late nights painting. The crazed friends. Midnight movies at the Rialto. Jean Luc Godard. Truffaut. Fellini. 

And the loft parties- the drama of almost meeting Warhol (he never showed up; he was famous for it).

We talked about all that longing and envy and art student poverty mingling in a passionate virtual eddy of sensing we were a part of something big, a tidal push toward consciousness, toward peace and equality.

Sounds almost quaint, doesn't it?

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