{Today’s Lunchbox} Adopt a Gluten-Free Blogger: Alta of Tasty Eats at Home

It is disturbingly late on Thursday night and I am a couple of days behind on the lunchbox posts.  To make it up for you, this post combines a lunchbox with my usual Adopt a Gluten-Free Blogger post (an event created and often hosted by Sea of Book of Yum, though this month Zoe of Z’s Cup of Tea is hosting) – you see, when I decided to adopt Alta of Tasty Eats At Home, I wanted to showcase her recipes are part of a lunchbox. Alta’s recipes are gluten-free and dairy-free and showcase lots of seasonal ingredients. I also love Alta’s blog because it has equal parts quick and intricate recipes. As someone who often is short on time, but also likes complicated cooking endeavors, I like seeing both spectrums in other blogs too.  Finally, the quick recipes always seem to lend themselves well to leftovers, which are perfect for my lunchboxes.  I was way overdue to try Alta’s recipes.

Above you see a lunchbox that has Alta’s Zucchini and Sundried Tomato Casserole in the bottom right corner.  Totally unrelated to Alta’s awesome recipe, the lunchbox above also captures how much I miss iced lattes this week and last week and the week before – it contains an attempt at a mocha smoothie with cacao nibs, a quinoa and spinach skillet with fava beans inspired by Alta’s Morrocan Inspired Vegan Quinoa Skillet, and some white bean dip. 

My initial plan had been to make the Alta’s Zucchini and Sundried Tomato Casserole, her Moroccan Inspired Vegan Quinoa Skillet and her Squash and Chard Casserole and combine the three in a lunchbox of deliciousness.  Logistically that did not work out so well, so I made them separately over the course of a couple of weeks.  Alta loves Swiss chard, a vegetable with which I ordinarily have a complicated relationship.  Sometimes I love it, but sometimes I only find it ok.  Seeing as Alta loves Swiss chard and grows her own, I decided to make two Swiss Chard recipes from her blog to start with.

Moroccan Inspired Vegan Quinoa Skillet:

I followed the recipe exactly, except that I used just a tablespoon of olive oil and skipped the raisins and added a smidge of agave instead for sweetness.  It was warming and the interplay of spices, Swiss chard and white beans worked beautifully. 

Squash and Chard Casserole :

I made this recipe as is, but used just a tablespoon of olive oil and pepper jack Daiya instead of cheddar Daiya. Yum. I took Alta’s advice and ate the leftovers for breakfast, which is why it never made it into a lunchbox.  I loved the casserole so much I of course had to make a similar recipe Alta created soon after:

Zucchini and Sundried Tomato Casserole:

My husband does not like Daiya vegan cheese, so his side on the left just has the almond flour topping, which, whether it includes Daiya or not,  is a really lovely idea to give flavor and texture to a casserole without dairy or grains.  I used just one tablespoon olive oil to start the recipe, and used olive oil instead of ghee for the crumb topping. Spectacular.  I had it with some quinoa and sauteed portobellos and loved every bite:

Do check out Alta’s recipes. There are so many more recipes her blog that I cannot wait to try.

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