Did you have any great gluten free experiences this weekend? Mine seemed full of them…

As if my friends and I can’t get enough of each other, or eating, we not only had our German Potluck this past Saturday but also got together Sunday to make Gluten Free Empanadas. Now, Empanadas are typically made from corn flour, so in and of themselves they should be gluten free, but I specifically say gluten free here because of two things:

1. We knew the ingredients of the corn flour we were using (which was simply: corn flour), and the packing was labeled gluten free with no cross contamination statement.
2. We were making them at home, so obviously our ‘fryer’ wasn’t cross contaminated by gluten containing items.

It was a fun evening. We made the dough, and through some trail and error (and probably the fact only one of us is even remotely ‘Spanish’) realized we needed more dough per empanada then the package called for. After making the dough rounds we each added our own hand selected ingredients which included: rice, ground beef, onions, jalapenos, chilis in adobo sauce, cheddar cheese, sour cream, chipotle mayo, black beans, smoked gouda, and a black bean and sweet potato taco filling. The sweet potato and black bean filling is one of my lazy go to recipes for delicious filling for tacos or quesadillas. The recipe can be found here.  We also made dessert ones, which contained chocolate chips and fluff.

What topped off the whole evening though was that my friend went to the effort to set her table with table cloth, cloth napkins, margarita glasses, candles, and chalkboard paper hearts for the seating card. The whole night was fantastic, colorful, and happy.

We finished the night roasting marshmallows over the candles, with our ingenious roasting contraptions (which at time self turned!).