{Today’s Lunchbox} Pizza and Chili and Spaghetti

Sort of… actually the chili is definitely chili, but the spaghetti is spaghetti squash and the pizza is a wedge of spicy Cinque – have you tried Cinqe?

  

It is a gluten-free vegan chickpea pancake but the chickpeas are so finely milled that the final chickpea pancake is actually more like a custardy dense frittata. It is totally addictive and perfect for lunchboxes. In this lunchbox, I topped it with my favorite tomato paste. I am loving Cinque. So far I have had it topped with garlicky tomato sauce, chili, tuscan kale sauteed in lots of garlic with anchovies (I know, weird, but delicious) and also curried lentils.  Everything has been wonderful with it.  It seems to serve the function of both bread and frittata for me.  So far I have only tried tried the spicy version, with crushed red peppers and it definitely packs heat.  I also want to try to the Traditional version as it is a completely blank canvas and only contains the finely milled chickpeas (and perhaps make a sweet version with it) and I do want to try the third version, Rosemary. I cannot recommend the product enough.  I should note that I bake it a bit differently than the instruction, which suggest venting the oven for the last few minutes of cooking – since I cannot open the oven door partially, I cut a few minutes off the baking time and let it rest longer outside the oven.  I am going to send this review to The Gluten-Free Homemaker’s Gluten-Free Wednesday for Wednesday December 7.  For her roundup today, I actually submitted my Cinnamon Chipotle Chocolate Ice Cream.  

• Spicy Cinque with tomato paste 
• Leftover black bean chili with chard and butternut squash from Amy at Simply Sugar & Gluten Free.  I have adopted Amy for this month’s Adopt a Gluten Free Blogger and this chili was the first recipe I tried – it is fantastic!
• Baked unseasoned spaghetti squash
• Hummus to top the chili and also eat as a snack
• An all vegetable smoothie – raw spinach and chard with cooked butternut squash, almond milk, a heaping teaspoon pumpkin pie spice, Sunwarrior vanilla powder and ground flaxseeds.  I put just a couple of cubes of ice in it as it is way too cold and rainy for an ice cold smoothie.  As usual, I had a 16oz smoothie for breakfast and packed the second half for a snack during the day.