If you’ve been following my food posts, you know that I’m a vegetarian married to a carnivore. It’s been so fun to figure out what to make for dinner that will fill him up but also work for me. Minimal modification is key to not feel burned out, at least for me haha!

The other night we had some friends over for dinner, and I had the added and exciting challenge of making a gluten-free dinner with minor amounts of dairy and zero legumes. I know that gluten-free people are the new social pariahs with their restrictive diets, and I completely feel for them. As a vegetarian, people think I’m some sort of hippie + attention seeker + difficult woman + extreme dieter + picky eater + tree hugger. Truth is, I grew up in a vegetarian home, so I never had the taste for it. But I still feel for the gluten-free folks because there are many common questions we’re both asked, such as:

“Oh wow, you don’t eat gluten/meat. So what do you even eat?!”

“Is fish gluten/meat?”

“But you’re skinny already!”

“That must be so hard. I just eat anything and everything.”

“You are missing out on so much!”

And that’s just naming a few. As a vegetarian, I grew up h8ing salads. Why? Because that was the obvious choice. Oh we’ve got a vegetarian; let’s give her some salad, aka a few leaves of lettuce, some cheese, and a few croutons and call it a day. NO, NO, NOOO. THAT IS NOT A SALAD, PEOPLE. I’m thankful for the rise in vegetarian dishes, and I am slowly seeing the same pattern with gluten-free recipes.

K, back to the food. My task was set: I needed to make a vegetarian, light-on-dairy plate for myself and three carnivore, light-on-dairy plates that were also gluten-free.

Salad essentials:

-spinach
-avocado
-mushrooms
-potatoes
-bell peppers (I like orange peppers in salads)
-grapes (both green and red)
-homemade pesto (just mix all the ingredients in the picture)

Salad to-do:

1. Boil the small potatoes. Let them cool off to the side.
2. Wash all the veggies.
3. Slice the peppers, mushrooms, avocados, potatoes, and grapes.
4. Roast the potatoes in a pan until crispy. Add in the mushrooms when the potatoes have just a little bit left to cook because mushrooms cook really quickly.
5. Lay out the spinach on the plate. Followed by everything you sliced. This completes the cold section.
6. Add the hot potatoes and mushrooms on top. This completes the hot section.
7. For dressing, add a teaspoon of the homemade pesto.
8. Sprinkle as much parmesan on top as you want.
9. Enjoy!

Meat essentials:

-chicken breasts
-bacon strips
-salt and pepper

Meat to-do:

1. Wash the chicken and put it in a bowl of room temperature water for twenty minutes. (This is if the chicken was in the fridge beforehand, not if it was in the freezer.)
2. Pound the chicken breasts with a mallet so they are all as flat as can be, and then season them with salt and pepper.
3. Put a few drops of olive oil in your medium-sized pan and get it hot.
4. Place the chicken breasts onto the hot pan and cook for a minute on each side. Season with salt and pepper as you go.
5. Once the chicken breasts are crispy on the outside, wrap each one in bacon, with the ends of the bacon under the chicken breasts. Place all the chicken breasts in a tray.
6. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees F. Place the bacon-wrapped chicken breasts in the oven for ten minutes.
7. Once cooked, slice into the breast to make sure it is completely white inside. If not, put it in the oven for a few minutes longer. You want the chicken to be tender and juicy, so it’s better to undercook initially and keep cooking than to go too far in the beginning and overcook it right away.
8. Sprinkle as much parmesan on top as you want
9. Enjoy!

Let me know how this works for you!

Cheers,