Just skip the 1/4tsp of garlic powder, it shouldn’t suffer for that. Odd tip, I found the marsala wine in the baking isle of the grocery store of all places.
There are some Indian dishes without them. I’ve had good results making things from a book called The Art of Indian Vegetarian Cooking. No onions or garlic are used in any of the recipes and there are plenty without beans.
Do you know if this is some specific allergy or a general food sensitivity? I am sensitive to fructans, which are a FODMAP in all of those foods, except the green parts of an alium (garlic, scallion, onion, leek). I take an enyzme called Fodzyme which helps me digest fructan rich foods when I can’t avoid it.
Oatmeal. Not exactly date night, but it's hot and healthy.
Get large flake oats, not the instant stuff.
Boil 1 cup of water in a small pot.
Decrease heat to mid-low.
Add 1/2 cup oats. Stir only once.
Cook for 10 minutes,
let cool for 10 minutes,
eat for 10 minutes.
You'll want to watch it closely for a minute or two after you add the oats to make sure it doesn't boil over. If it looks like its going to boil over just remove the pot from the heat till it calms down, and decrease the heat a little maybe, every oven is diff. It still needs to simmer though.
You can season it with whatever you want after cooking it: maple syrup, milk, oat milk, brown sugar, chocolate chips, raisins or other dried fruits (if you do raisins add them to the water before the oatmeal), cinammon, apples... etc.
Maybe a small pinch of salt.
Vegetable sushi, no soy sauce though its made with garlic
Cut cucumber in long quarters
Make 2 cups dry rice
Mix together 1/4 cup brown sugar and 1/2 cup unseasoned rice vinegar
Add the mixture to the rice after it finishes cooking and while it's still hot
Mix it in until it starts to get sticky
Get a small cup of room temp water
Take seaweed sheets and spread the rice thinly across it, leave ~2 cm at the end unriced (for sealing)
Lay the cucumber across the rice and roll it up, doing the uncovered end last. Use the water to moisten the 2cm stretch so that it sticks to the roll and seals it closed.
Cover and refrigerate them until they cool, cut and eat
You can top with toasted sesame seeds for added flavor.
Candied ginger is also nice.
Matchsticked carrots marinated in sugar and vinegar too.
You can get creative with the vegetable.
I like my wasabi in soy sauce so I won't suggest it.
Edit:
I should also mention that different rice will have different results. Cal-rose rice works well. Basmati rice not well.
So possibly try some Romanian cabbage rolls https://www.jocooks.com/recipes/sarmale/ Substitute onions with green onions since you said green onions are fine however you can also remove them if you wish as they just go into a mix of the beef
There are some communities that feel garlic or regular onions are too strong, and substitute the white of leeks. It does affect the resulting taste, but if your wife tolerates them, it’s an option.
My own suggestions for recipes would include some classic Slavic dishes where onions aren’t essential. These do exist, 😁 particularly ones that mix sweet, sour and savoury flavours. e.g., Crepes/nalasnyky filled with farmers’ cheese and butter or cream, traditionally served with sour cherry or strawberry preserves on top, are a favourite. For a savoury version, try these nalasnyky with dill in the cheese filling.
Spaghetti carbonara is always a winner. A lot of people make it with garlic but traditionally it's just guanciale (or pancetta or bacon depending on what's available for you), eggs, cheese, and noodles. It's the Italian bacon egg and cheese. There are plenty of good recipes but whichever one you choose, the key to getting the emulsification right is to mix the cheese and eggs together cold and then add them to the pasta heat off while stirring quickly. Add the leftover water from boiling the pasta in small amounts until you get the consistency you want. The sauce should be creamy, not thin or chunky.
You can sub beans with chickpeas in almost any beans-based recipe and they work really well.
Garlic is mostly used as a seasoning, so it’s fine to simply not use it. Depending on the recipe you could sub it with ginger, cumin, pepper sauce, or green onions. (Note: use the green onions as garnish.)
Onion depends a lot on the role in the dish. If it’s just adding a bit of flavour, treat it like garlic - not use it, or sub it with another seasoning. If you’re using it as a veg you’re better off replacing it with another chunkier veg, depending on the dish bell peppers might do the trick.
Anyway. Here’s something that I often prepare, I’ll adapt the recipe to avoid onions and garlic. It’s one pot as long as the chickpeas are already cooked (I bulk cook 1kg of them and freeze each time); if starting with dry chickpeas please take that into account.
250g random bits of pork, diced. Leftover porkchops? Bacon? Sausages? Yes.
already cooked chickpeas. Amount is eyeballed but ~250g of dry chickpeas.
1 cup of white, long grain rice
1 yellow or red bell pepper; or half green pepper (it tastes strong). Diced small.
random broth or plain water
seasoning: brown sugar, paprika, salt, grated ginger, curry powder, and acid (vinegar or lime juice)
[garnish] green onions
some veg oil
Rub brown sugar, paprika, and salt on the diced pork (go easy on this if it’s bacon). Then use the veg oil to brown it on the outside, on high fire. Make sure to brown it well, the sugar isn’t there for sweetness, but for a caramel taste.
Wash the rice and add it to the pot, alongside the ginger. Let it “fry” a bit in the oil alongside the pork.
Add already cooked chickpeas (including their cooking water), the bell pepper, curry powder, and the acid. Add broth/water as you deem necessary, and correct the salt. Low fire, keep it barely simmering, until the rice is cooked.
When the rice is cooked, garnish it with green onions and enjoy.
Vermicelli bowls. Chopped romaine, then add vermicelli noodles, sliced cucumber, cilantro, and cut up chicken thighs on top. The chicken thighs are marinated in fish sauce, soy sauce, lemongrass, and optional sugar.
Turkey burgers. 1lb of ground turkey, 1tbsp of ketchup, 1tbsp of soy sauce, 1/3 cup of shredded cheese, 1 cut up green onion. Mix and form into patties. Once hers are separate, you can add garlic powder to yours.
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