The Gluten-Free Homemaker

Welcome to What’s for Dinner Wednesday (gluten-free style). At the end of my recipe you will find links to other blogs with gluten-free dinner ideas. We would love for you to join by adding your link. If you have not participated before, please read the guidelines here.

Today I’m going to give you a glimpse into an area of food ignorance for me. Peppers. That’s right. I don’t like them and therefore don’t know much about them. When I grew up, the only peppers I remember being in the house were green bell peppers, which my mom liked, but I hated. We never ate Mexican food.

Having never liked spicy hot food, it’s not surprising that my family doesn’t like it either. We like Mexican food, but we always go for mild sauces. Generally, I don’t cook with peppers, but I have learned to occasionally eat and cook with red bell peppers. They are definitely better than the green ones! Now here comes the ignorance part.

I had some thin steaks that needed to be used so I cut them into strips and made a fajita type mix. I added sautéed onions, a can of diced tomatoes, chili powder, garlic powder, and cumin. I thought red bell pepper would go well with this, but I didn’t have any. I did have a bottle of crushed red pepper though! Without looking at the picture on the bottle or the directions, I dumped at least a tablespoon into the beef mixture.

Some of you are laughing now! It was too hot for our tastes, but since that was the only food fixed for dinner, we ate it. I didn’t have any tortillas, so I served it over rice. There were leftovers that night (I can’t imagine why) that no one wanted to eat the next day. Being one to not waste food, I ate the leftovers for lunch and had some tortilla chips with it to help get the spice out of my mouth.

If we were able to eat this dinner, then I’m sure it was just right for many of you. After dinner I took another look at the crushed red pepper bottle and realized the pepper on the picture was not a bell pepper! The bottle also said “Use a dash to 1/8 tsp. in most recipes for 4 servings unless very hot food is desired.”

Aside from the pepper mistake, it was a good meal and would have been great without all the spice. Next time, I’ll buy a red bell pepper.

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Labels: What's for Dinner Wednesday

# posted by Linda @ 4/14/2009