Go Ahead Honey, It’s Gluten Free-Arepas

If my mother were still alive, she would probably warn me about meeting people on the Internet and then traveling across country to meet up with them twice. Scary? How about my fear of BART? After living in Southern California for 9 years and feeling a few earthquakes, especially one New Year’s Day when the living room couch started moving and the floor sort of rolls and undulates, not really shakes. I didn’t relish the thought of a subway car doing that underground. But I ignored that fear and my Internet friend assured me and the rest of a group of fearless bloggers who had also traveled to meet strangers from the online gluten-free community that a tasty gluten-free meal was at the end of the BART ride.

and stopping at alleys for photo opportunities of graffiti,

and food trucks,

and more graffiti.

The menu was not scary at all. Well, pronouncing the dishes was a little intimidating, but my friend helpfully corrected all my mispronunciations.

My friend is known not only for her ability to navigate big, scary cities and finding gluten-free restaurants, but for her love of pork. Here’s her arepa and some empanandas.

I ordered the black beans in my arepa.

I meant to buy some of the P.A.N. flour to make the arepas, but forgot as I contemplated another trip on the BART back to the BlogHer Food conference hotel. Imagine my surprise when I found it at my local Kroger in the ethnic foods aisle. But it had this scary label on it.

I had one last EZ Gluten test kit from my Sami’s Bakery glutening experience, so I used it to take the scary out of the P.A.N. flour. Now, I had heard from several people who use this flour that they had no problems, but I didn’t like that ‘traces of wheat and oats’ disclaimer. I am happy to report that it tested negative for gluten and so I proceed to the scariest part. Trying to make arepas. How could the corn flour, salt and water make a cake that got crispy on the outside, but puffed up and got moist and tender on the inside and could be opened up like a pita for stuffing? Scary.

The stuffing was going to be beef and beans and I used the slow cooker and a Laura’s Lean roast I had stashed in the freezer for emergencies. Fighting a cold and wanting an easy filling for my arepas seemed like an emergency, so into the slow cooker it went with spicy Rotel tomatoes and beans, some roasted cumin and a frozen portion of my homegrown tomatoes that had been blasted into sauce with the Vitamix last month. That cooked on low for about 5 hours and then I made my arepas. I watched this video to get my courage up and then read his blog post and then his follow-up blog post for more instructions. The best arepas were the ones that were made when the dough felt like fluffy almost mashed potatoes, not a thick pizza crust-like dough. The fluffier dough puffed up and cooked more quickly and I just used a very lightly oiled griddle.