- Hi, I'm Erica.
I am a personal chef,
otherwise known as a professional meal prepper.
And today I'm going to be doing a gluten free meal prep.
I have clients who avoid it,
so I'm very well versed in what is and is not gluten free.
So I'm gonna jump right in.
I've got my typical setup.
If you've seen other videos, you know what I always do
is have my stabilized cutting board,
my sharp knife, my scrap bowl, a towel here, towel here,
and I'm good to go.
So here are the items I received in my grocery order.
Here are the items that I pulled out of my own pantry
that I'm going to use today.
And so I wanna talk a little bit about the menu.
I'm about to cut into this onion,
I'm gonna be using it for a millet pilaf.
I also have a tamari and brown sugar glazed carrot
on the menu for this week.
A pasta bake.
I'm also doing a cold green bean salad,
a chicken and broccoli dish.
Finally, I'm gonna be doing a really delicious,
simple blueberry crumble, which is a huge crowd pleaser,
regardless if you're gluten free or not.
I'm really excited, let's get cooking.
A very simple way to de stem kale,
(kale ripping)
lift a tab off each of the bottom part of the stem,
wrap your fingers around it, and pull.
And then you end up with the stem separate from the leaf.
Here I have my onions and I'm gonna get them nice
and brown for my millet pilaf.
The definition of a pilaf is really just a grain
that you toast before you cook it in simmering water.
So I'm getting ready to cook my pasta.
I'm using this Jovial Foods brand.
I'm gonna cook it even less than al dente.
So cook time here says 12 minutes,
I'll probably cook it 10, 11 at the very most.
I always under cook gluten free pasta,
just because it tends to go very gummy.
Gluten free pasta in particular can be really sticky.
So if you don't stir it,
you risk the pasta sticking together.
Once it is boiling and doing that rolling boil,
the water does the job of stirring it for you
so it can be left alone at that point.
There's a good example of what multitasking looks like.
What I have going on right now are,
my onions going from my millet, this is my pan,
I'm heating it for my chicken dish.
I have my pasta hiding underneath the kale
that is going to be included in the pasta bake.
And then I also have my green beans.
So I've got a lot going on,
but it's all pretty hands off.
And I'm just keeping track of when everything
needs to come off.
All right,
so I've got some nicely starting to caramelize onions
in here for my millet pilaf.
I've also got a little bit of chopped garlic,
and I'm going to add the millet now.
Which this part is what makes it a pilaf.
I'm doing a millet pilaf instead of a rice pilaf.
Millet is a great gluten free grain.
Other examples of good gluten free grains
are obviously rice, buckwheat, quinoa, and amaranth,
it's really great in porridges.
If you double check the label,
oats can also be gluten free.
I'm just going to stir for between two to five minutes.
And then once that's done,
I'm going to add the water,
and cook it just as I would rice.
It does have a kind of couscousey texture.
Couscous is actually pasta, so it is not gluten free,
but this is a good sub for it.
What I'm doing here is really lightly toasting
some slivered almonds for my green bean salad.
Can see some spots are actually getting dark already.
So I'm gonna stop, take it off the heat,
and not burn these guys.
They're gonna add really nice crunch
that you might get from like a crouton typically.
But here I'm gonna use this nut,
which is a naturally gluten free option.
I'm also topping my ziti style
pasta dish with some bread crumbs.
And these are actually homemade bread crumbs.
It's like picking your favorite loaf of savory tasting
gluten free bread, letting it get stale, or toasting it,
and then using a food processor to grind it up into crumbs.
All right,
I'm getting ready to assemble my pasta bake.
It's so simple, and I'm making it even easier
on myself by using a jarred sauce.
I'm just gonna take my gluten free pasta,
which I slightly under did.
I also blanched the kale in the same water with it.
Now I'm just gonna pour in as much sauce
as it takes for it to be very well coated.
It's also going to get some cheese, and the bread crumbs,
and then we'll go into the oven.
So it's a really hands off dish,
and I love it as a gluten free pasta option
because having it baked really hides
if you do have a textural change.
It's a great option for hiding the fact
that it's gluten free.
Okay, I'm getting ready to put this crumble together.
What I have here are just some blueberries,
I have some zest of one lemon in there,
a little tiny bit of sugar, some cornstarch,
which is gonna thicken it up,
and is a great way to avoid using all purpose flour.
You can also use arrowroot powder,
which is always gluten free.
For the topping what I have here
are gluten free rolled oats.
I have brown sugar in here,
a stick of butter, salt,
and tiny bit more corn starch.
And then I used just some white rice flour in here.
What I'm gonna do is just top the blueberries
with the crumble.
I'm gonna be sure to leave some of the edge exposed,
just because it'll be pretty and allow
for some nice caramelization on the blueberries.
And it's gonna bake in the oven at 350
until the crest is golden,
which usually takes between 30 and 40 minutes.
All right, I've got a very hot pan here,
And then some chicken breast here.
It's coated in cornstarch and salt.
The sauce I'm using is really simple.
It's tamari,
which is a gluten free substitute for soy sauce.
Some tamari's are not gluten free,
so be sure to check your labels.
And then it also has maple syrup, garlic, ginger,
and a tiny bit of toasted sesame oil.
So what I'm gonna do is get the chicken cooking.
Once it's browned, I'm gonna add the broccoli in,
and then I'm gonna get the sauce in.
And because the chicken has corn starch on it,
and the sauce actually has a little bit in it as well,
it's gonna thicken right up.
Chicken and broccoli dish, almost done.
You can see the sauce is a nice thick consistency.
That's just the cornstarch, and like I said earlier,
you can definitely sub it in arrowroot powder
if you're very concerned about gluten.
If not, just make sure that the package says gluten free.
Here we have our gluten free meal prep.
We have three or four servings of this millet pilaf,
that's very similar to a couscous dish.
Maybe six to eight servings of this gluten free
baked ziti style dish.
It has kale for added nutrients.
We have this green bean salad
with toasted almonds and apricots
for a little bit of gluten free crunch.
We've got our blueberry crumble.
I used a sweet rice flour instead of a regular flour
with some oats to make my crumble topping.
We have our delicious chicken and broccoli stir fry dish.
I used tamari here instead of soy sauce.
And then I've got my tamari and brown sugar glazed carrots.
So a lot of the items in this meal prep
were naturally gluten free.
So if you think about all of the veggies
in this prep, like the kale, the green beans,
the broccoli, and the carrots,
those are all gluten free,
you don't need to worry about that,
same thing with the millet.
There are only a few items in this specific prep
that you're going to specifically
want to source gluten free.
So just make sure that you're looking out for gluten free
labeling on things like that.
That is it for me.
I hope you have found it informative,
and had some fun cooking along with me as well.
If you wanna follow along with me more,
you can check me out on Instagram at fresh.erica.
You can find my blog fresherica.com
where you will also find a lot of gluten free recipes.
Thank you again for coming along, and happy cooking.
(relaxing music)