Gluten-free week - day 7

We're nearing the end of this experiment and I already find myself missing it. Sure, making bread is great, especially when the bread maker makes it so easy and the loaf comes out so disarmingly fluffy and great-smelling. But I also like the challenge of doing without, of finding new things to eat, foods that we Westerners have never seen but that peoples around the world have been eating all their lives.

So I am getting nostalgic. And on this note, yesterday I took to making dishes from around the world. We started the day in Mexico, by lunch we were in India and by dinner we had arrived in Ghana. There's inspiration everywhere, and I'm definitely one to take a recipe, strip it of bells and whistles and make something quick and tasty. It may not be genuinely ethnic food by the time I'm done with it, but at least we're open to The New, right?

Avocado-chocolate pudding topped with shredded coconut. This pudding is ready in five minutes: 1 avocado, some honey, some cocoa, vanilla extract and almond milk, blended well. The best version I make is with carob powder instead of cocoa and agave instead of honey. I must have made this pudding a thousand times and I'd never get bored of it.

Palak paneer with brown rice. The green stuff came from a box from Trader Joe's, but it's made in India without mysterious ingredients and it's the most satisfying quick-meal I know.

Inspired from the Red-Red dish from Ghana, black-eyed peas and tomatoes stew with sauteed bananas. This was legendary. The stew and bananas complement each other so well! I can't imagine anyone not liking this.

Something about frying bananas in butter is SO irresistible (plus, this makes me remember Southern food so fondly).

Recipe for avocado-chocolate pudding and black-eyed peas stew with sauteed bananas.