Building The Love Shack

After recently finding out that I am lactose intolerant and gluten intolerant, I had to look at cooking for everyone. It seemed completely unfair to subject my husband, family and our friends to having to eat this new kind of way.

With only a few days into my new cooking, I discovered that my new way of eating was not a punishment suffered by all, but instead a rejoicing of new foods and flavors.  This new way of eating had an added benefit, I feel good for the first time in a long time. I might also add that my skin, hair and eyes are glowing.

So with that in mind, I set off to take apart the family favorites and make them eatable for all.

The next step was to also make them Cottage Friendly Foods.

 

When people think of Cottage Friendly Foods, they think of the barbaque. The barbaque is not the only place  to cook at the cottage. The cottage has four cooking seasons. Those include the barbaque, the stove stop, the crock pot and the oven.

Depending on your plans for the day and the weather, you could be out on the boat, hiking a trail or snow shoeing.  Cooking at the cottages needs to reflect all seasons.

This recipe is low fat, low sodium, lactose free and gluten free.

This first thing I did, was to is to use only fresh ingredients.

 

 

 

For those who can eat wheat products you can use regular pasta, for those of who can not, I used gluten free pasta.

Interesting fact:  People who are lactose intolerant, may be able to eat aged cheeses. The aging factor naturally illuminates lactose in aged cheese, allowing some people to eat Parmesan, Swiss and Aged Cheddar. Being new to this diet, I have not adventured down that road yet, but did include for those who can.

 

                                                         Muscles Marinara 

 

Ingredients

 

2 lbs of fresh muscles

1/4 tsp  sea salt

1/4 tsp ground black pepper

3 fresh garlic cloves

3 bay leafs

2 tbsp  olive oil

1 can or jar 765 ml or 28 oz of  diced tomatoes

1 can or jar 765 ml or 28 oz of  crushed tomatoes

1  onion

1/4 cup of chopped large leafed parsley

1/4 cup grated Parmesan Cheeses

linguine or gluten free linguine

 

Place in a large sauce pan, both cans of tomatoes. Add, bay-leafs, parsley, salt and black pepper, and place on low heat.When choosing your sauce pan, make sure you choose a large enough pan to be able to add all your muscles.

Prepare onion and garlic by dicing onion and chopping garlic into small pieces.  Pre-heat  the frying pan to medium heat.

When pan reaches desired temperature, add olive oil, onion and garlic. Saute until onions are transparent and garlic is golden in color. Do not brown onion or garlic. Add to sauce.

Allow to simmer over heat for 45 minutes, or in slow cooker, on low heat, for up to 6 hours. Stirring occasionally.

If using a slow cooker for sauce, you will need to transfer to the stove when adding muscles.

While sauce is cooking, rinse muscle in cool water. Remove dirt and seaweed attached to the outside of muscles. Do not soaking muscles in tap water as the chlorine in the water will kill the muscles.

Discard any muscles that have cracks or broken shells, or any muscle that you have not watched open as you are cleaning them. Muscle do have a tendency to open when water in near and this is normal, they should also re-close. Muscles should be closed when using them for freshness.

Prepare linguine as package instructions.

Turn sauce temperature up to a low bubbling simmer, but do not turn up to high, to prevent burning of the sauce.

Add muscles into the sauce and cover for 10 minutes, stirring occasion to keep temperature even in the pan. Once muscle have opened, remove from the heat.

Place linguine in bowels, add sauce and muscle to top. Serve Parmesan Cheese on the side.

A nice red wine, side salad and bread, makes this a complete meal.

This dish serves 4  for a main course meal or can be serves as an appetizer.

If serving as an appetizer, skip the linguine and place the sauce and muscles in bowels and serve with bread, fresh or gluten free. It now serves 6.

Unfortunately as this time I have no picture of the finished product, as it was devoured before I could get the camera out.

 

Cooking Tip:

To decrease the amount of oil you use in a recipe, heat the pan first, then add the oil. The oil will quickly spread in pan making less oil necessary, decreasing fat count in food and still giving the same flavor.