Once you start reading ingredient lists on food packaging, you begin to see how gluten is in an amazing number of processed foods. Gluten Free City’s Market Square contains our reviews of all types of food, whether it is marked “Gluten-Free” or not. We will also talk about the places where you can buy tasty food that won’t hurt you, from the local health food store to your nearby supermarket to the myriad to online stores that cater to the GF community.
The gluten free pizza mentioned (From http://www.breakingupwithcaptaincrunch.blogspot.com)
I will go grab a bag this weekend and go once again unto the cheese filled breach.
Thanks for the inspiration and, quite probably, the best name for a gluten free blog!
Let’s Dish is a cooking show on the Live Well Network, a “lifestyle” channel. It is only available in about 60% of the U.S., but most of the shows appear to be on the website. Some good stuff there.
This episode, Gluten Free Recipes, has four segments. The embedded episode above is the full show.
Here are links to the individual segments and recipes.
Segment 1
Gluten-Free Mushroom Crepe Tortes
Segment 2
Gluten-Free Asian Noodle Salad with Sauteed Shrimp
UPDATE: In the video, he simply says “Soy Sauce” and, as you might already know, Soy Sauce is made with gluten. The recipe on the page, however, indicated that a gluten-free soy sauce should be used. Sorry I didn’t notice that sooner.
Segment 3
Gluten-Free Chicken Tortilla Soup
Segment 4
Gluten-Free Chocolate Peanut Butter Cookies
Can’t wait to try out the Mushroom Crepe Torte. That just looks tasty!
Ricky Nelson fans, please forgive me for that title.
I have been going through a bit of a bad luck patch regarding eating in restaurants that aren’t 100% gluten free. This is very problematic when I travel. Recently, Kim and I decided to experiment with me not eating out during a two day cross country trip. Basically, I would need lunch, dinner and snacks for day one and all meals/snacks for day two. Now, technically, I have done this before, but I basically ate food in bar form (larabars, kind bars, pure bars, etc.) for two days. You survive, but two days of fruit and nuts when you aren’t hiking really isn’t that great.
5.8 cups of grass fed beef and jasmine rice
We decided to go with a beef and rice dish along with a course of sweet potatoes and chicken breast. These would be divided up as my five meals and for snacks, I took peeled hard boiled eggs and carrots. Kim got these great 5.8 Cup Sterilite containers
Travel food: beef, rice, chicken, sweet potatoes, eggs, carrots
REI Medium Lunch Cooler
Our cat acted as the foreman on this project. Here he is checking the fit of the first container.
Packed with ice and ready to close
This is certainly not the easiest way to travel, but if you plan ahead, you can guarantee a “gluten free” (and “bar-free”) trip. No suspect salads, no trying to explain your dietary needs while 20 hungry travelers impatiently stand behind you. Doing this has allowed me to have a lot less stress while on the road. Sure, the rental car often smells funny and the TSA guy is always too “handsy”, but not having to worry about eating is bliss.
Note: There are links in this post to Amazon.com and REI.com. The Amazon links are affiliate links (which means I get a small percentage when you buy the linked item), the REI ones are not. I am trying this out to see if there is anything to this. I will do my best to disclose when I do this in the future.
Last week, I wrote about supporting gluten free small businesses. Well, the cookies have arrived from Mile End Bakery, and we couldn’t be happier. Seriously, these are some fine cookies. Kim was quoted saying:
“These are the best ginger cookies I have ever eaten.”
You will note that the third picture shows the box opening and only five cookies on the top layer. That first cookie disappeared quickly. Two more were soon eaten. It took some self control, but we did close the box and are saving the rest of the dozen for another day. Moderating sugar intake sucks sometimes, but we gotta do it.
Mallory and Anya made the process of ordering easy. They used the communication tools provided by Etsy to keep us up to date on the process, letting us know that the order was received and that they had been sent. The box was well padded and included a note.
Frankly, there are larger companies that aren’t able to deliver this well.
The cookies themselves are really, really good. They use “real butter, real sugar and the freshest eggs” and it shows. The flour mix they use was indistinguishable from “real” flour.
We look forward to trying more of their gluten free creations in the future.
Note: These cookies were bought and paid for by us. We did not receive any promotional consideration to write this review.
Extra Note: This does not mean that we aren’t open to free food. We like that, too.
When a product that you need does not exist, you can either live without it or make it yourself. When it comes to prepared food that is gluten free, there didn’t used to be a lot of choices. If you read the stories of people who have had celiac disease for years, you will see that a lot of them ended up making the food they needed. Several of them are very active in the Gluten Free Community, online and off. Whether it is the book by Jules Shepard, The First Year: Celiac Disease and Living Gluten Free, that helps people get through the tough transition time of eating gluten free (and which spawned an entire Gluten Free product line) or the myriad of recipes offered by Shirley at Gluten Free Easily and Karina at Gluten Free Goddess, those of us who are just at the beginnings of our journey have a much easier time than they did because of their work.
The quality of prepared food has also gotten better. Breads are less grainy and don’t taste like cardboard. Of course, mass produced food requires ingredient shortcuts and substitutions. I lived on these substitutes for the first six months of being gluten free. They were tasty and I rarely got glutened. I also didn’t lose any weight or acheive lasting health gains until I moved over to eating mostly freshly cooked food.
I often struggle with finding prepared food that doesn’t contain ingredients I don’t want to eat. I couldn’t eat dairy for a while and I don’t want to eat soy. It makes travel and emergency “I am about to crash” eating fun. It also makes it hard to indulge every once in a while. I made myself sick recently just from worrying about what I could and could not eat. I lightened up a little, had some chocolate and felt better. My position now is eat well and have some gluten free treats every now and then. I finally understand why there are so many GF dessert recipes out there!
There are two new companies that I have taken an interest in that are producing food that would seem to match my need for good quality food I can actually eat.
We recently backed a company called “Squarebar” that is making a Gluten/Dairy/Soy free nutrition bar. We can’t afford much, but we backed them through Kickstarter. This allowed us to make a small contribution to a clearly stated goal. If you read our twitter feed, you have seen us tweet about them a few times. We will be doing it some more as their minimum funding deadline nears. Please check them out and consider adding your support. Even $8 or $20 would be much appreciated. I hope they raise their goal amount. I can’t wait to try one.
We also ordered some Gluten Free Ginger Cookies from Mile End Bakery tonight. Founded by two friends, Mallory and Anya, they produce Gluten Free and “Regular” cookies. Another Gluten Free Blog (Anya’s site) is one of the first places we linked to here and I was able to read her posts about experimenting with flours and deciding to “go pro.” It felt very good to support a community member that I have communicated with and I am sure the cookies will be fantastic.
Please take a look at Squarebar and think about hitting up Mallory and Anya for some cookies. You will get some food made by people who understand what you need and help them start their businesses. You really can’t go wrong.
I am sure there are other small companies producing quality eats for gluten free people. Please let us know in the comments.
This is a must see lecture by Stephan Guyenet. He explains how we got so large and unhealthy in 16 minutes. You can read more about this at his site, Whole Health Source.
Thanks to @balancedbites for tweeting this video today.
Visiting relatives brought the Namaste Foods Gluten Free Spice Cake Mix to our house and baked it for us. It serves as a great distraction for me against the piles of cookies and gingerbread house I can’t eat.
This product is made in a dedicated facility and contains no wheat, gluten, soy, corn, potato, dairy, casein, peanuts or tree nuts.
Eating something where the chances of cross contamination are virtually non-existent is always comforting.
My sister-in-law used applesauce instead of oil, but otherwise followed the directions on the bag. This is a very tasty cake. It is very dense and holds together really well. The only warning I can give is that I ate 1/3 of the entire cake last night. This was a lot more sugar than I usually eat, so it was good while eating it, but I learned that I shouldn’t eat that much in one sitting. This mornings “dose” of spice cake was a bit smaller. After microwaving for about 15 seconds, it tasted great. I would rate this as dangerously good.
If you are looking for a good and easy cake mix, try this. This mix was purchased at Henry’s, but is also available at Whole Foods and many other natural food stores across the country.
Other GF bloggers who reviewed Namaste Foods Gluten Free Spice Cake Mix:
Gluten Free Driggs/Teton Valley – an amazingly fluffy, moist spice cake, that has great flavor and texture.
Digestible Diaries – adds carrots to the mix for carrot cake!
D’s Gluten Free With Me – made a birthday cake with this mix.
Wheatless Foodie – documented the entire cooking process.
Grrlbake – would make it again.
Note: We are trying out this format to allow you to see other reviews to help inform your decision. If you don’t want your review linked here, please let us know and it will be removed.
Essential Root Vegetable Cookbook (front)
Essential Root Vegetable Cookbook (back)
For some, eating gluten free can mean eating a lot more root vegetables than you could have ever imagined. Many of our home cooked meals come with a side of sweet potatoes/potatoes/carrots/parsnips/etc. I found this in a used bookstore last week and it looks like Kim may give some of these recipes a try. They aren’t designed as GF recipes, so if you find a copy of this book, read the ingredients carefully. We will keep you posted if we end up making anything from here.
Have you had any great used cookbook finds?
But I eated it.
Lemon Dream Gluten Free Cookie packaging. Not Pictured: Delicious Cookie.
This cookie, from Alternative Baking Company, was so good. It held together well and had great mouthfeel. I was a little shocked that it didn’t just fall apart on me. It is a soft cookie, but, as I keep saying, held up until the end like a “real” cookie.
I would totally eat this again. And again.
Ingredient list for delicious cookie
