Baked sesame firm tofu?

I was cooking for a family member with these needs for a while. Some of his favorite hits were:

- peanut-sesame noodles, warm or cold, with gluten-free rice noodles*? I had to tweak my sauce, which usually includes gluten-containing soy sauce and hoisin sauce; I found that grinding whole peanuts and whole sesame seeds with some dark sesame oil, ginger, garlic, and lime juice worked well. Top with vegetables of your choice (I like broccoli, julienned carrots, asparagus, green beans, whatever) and maybe a protein: tofu is what we always have with it, but if you felt like it, you could top it with shrimp or chicken. Neither one will take long to sear in a pan, and especially the shrimp would give nice visual cues that it's ready, in case you're nervous about it.

- frittata a la anything you have in the fridge. No milk, no cheese. It sounds like it would be too lean, but it's quite nice without the dairy. You can serve it with rice and a side of your favorite vegetable.

- mezze plate: hummus, baba ghanoush, crudités, gluten-free bread or crackers*. I especially like this in warm weather, but on cool nights, I heat up the hummus and baba ghanoush a little, make a dent in the top, and fill it with a tart dressing. This makes it feel more like a meal.

Playing off that, a favorite hearty salad: baby greens or spinach topped with a mound of warm hummus, strewn with roasted vegetables (peppers, onions, potatoes, carrots) and raw vegetables (cucumbers, slivered carrots) with a generous spoonful of dressing over the hummus as described above.

* check that they're made in a gluten-free facility.

Ikkyu2 is gluten-intolerant and I'm not great with dairy. We tend to eat a lot of meat, but meat-free favorites include:

This warm spinach and quinoa salad is yummy, and you could use radishes or maybe roasted red peppers instead of grape tomatoes. (Quinoa is gluten-free.)

If you're in a place where it's still feels wintry, then Mark Bittman's Autumn Millet Bake might be good, substituting quinoa for millet (millet has gluten).

Carrot soup with spinach chiffonade, where you could either skip the yogurt or just stir it into yours.

Oh, and I've found that Lee and Perrins worcestershire sauce (the American version is gluten-free, some of the other versions are not, so check) is a pretty good substitute for soy sauce in stir-fries, if that's something you'd be confident with. You can also use some Tamari sauces (but check, because some of them have wheat).

As occhi's examples suggest, soup and/or a hearty salad may be your best bet... but you'll either want to make your own vinegar-free dressing (with lemon juice, for example) or buy a gluten-free brand or ask your friend if they have a favorite dressing.

Oh, and a couple of things I do when someone has food restrictions, especially gluten-free needs:

- I don't use canned beans, but rather cook dried beans. Some canned beans have gluten in the, uh, canning goop.

- I am extra careful washing my pots and pans, cutting boards, countertop, and utensils, and to wipe down the cabinets around the stove in case there's any flour hanging around from my last bread-baking day. Cross-contamination can be a big problem.

- I keep the bottles or jars from any packaged food (things like pickles or condiments) so they can look it over for any ingredients they're sensitive to. I tend to stick to fresh foods, whole foods, or home-processed foods (e.g., home-roasted peppers, not bottled), only because I'm not confident that I can identify gluten-containing processed or fermented foods. If I do use any processed foods, I keep them separate from the other elements of the meal (e.g., store-bought roasted peppers in a separate dish, not strewn over the salad or nestled up against the main dish).

A cursory search suggests that my caution about vinegar (except malt vinegar) is waaaaay outdated! Vinegar it up!

Yep, vinegars are fine. Definitely stay away from as much pre-packaged/pre-prepared foods as possible, though, because gluten hides in all sorts of weirdly named ingredients that you're unlikely to guess unless you go shopping with a printed-out list, which is dispiriting and overwhelming.

Another thought is that you can probably do a risotto and skip the parmesan and butter at the end, and use olive oil as a base. It's the right season for Asparagus Risotto, which is one of my favorite things ever.

A note on the grains, too -- if your guest is *super* sensitive to cross-contamination, stay away from the bulk bins. People sometimes use the scoopers from the flour in the rice bin, or the flour falls into other bins, etc. Pre-packaged grains (like Bob's Red Mill) are safer. (I ignore this, though, for cooking at home, because ikkyu2's not *that* sensitive to gluten; people's sensitivity definitely varies.)

Also, remember that plain ol' dish soap does get rid of gluten, so while you definitely should clean your utensils and cutting boards and counters, you don't have to stress too much about super-duper-sterilizing everything.

These are excellent ideas, thank you!

This is fun! One more idea, because OMG am I craving:

- Cobb salad, which you can make with gluten-free bacon and without the blue cheese. I don't eat blue cheese, and I always find the flavors plenty bold with it. If you don't eat bacon, you might make a similar chopped salad with marinated beans or tofu or or roasted cubes of sweet potato or some other substitution.) Mmmm, Cobb salad.

This is fun! One more idea, because OMG am I craving

Seriously. I just went out and bought stuff for asparagus risotto, because searching for online recipes made me crave it like a ridiculous cravey thing.

I have a vegan, gluten-intolerant coworker, and she just brought a veggie Shepard's pie to a potluck. Lentils layered with swiss chard, and mashed potatoes on the top. It was a little bland, but not bad. You could make it better by cooking the lentils with at least onions or garlic or both and a bay leaf.

Well, I had a sausage calzone and suddenly my body was like "Cobb salad? Pfffffft! MORE CALZONE. NOW."

But WHOA Stewriffic, that vegan shepherd's pie sounds great! I make something like it with mushrooms and plenty of onion, but never thought to put chard in, too.

I made this for friends with the same dietary needs the other day: Salmon with Coriander (cilantro), lime, chilli and ginger garlic rice. Very nommy.

Yeah I was going to suggest anything salmon. Honestly, it's the fish you can't fail with, so easy to just scare a little in the pan, tastes great.