Category Archives: Life

Going to Someone Else’s Thanksgiving While Gluten-Free

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there is more to thanksgiving than food

Are there any holidays more centered around food than Thanksgiving in America? Every holiday seems to have some sort of traditional food associated with it, but we all know Thanksgiving is all about the feast. Having a disease that is controlled solely by limiting the consumption of certain foods can make Thanksgiving pretty difficult to fully enjoy. It doesn’t help that a lot of traditional Thanksgiving dishes (stuffing, gravy, pie…) are made with wheat. There are a lot of really great recipes out there for gluten-free Thanksgiving dishes, but those only really solve the problem for gluten-intolerant folks if they are hosting the dinner or are somehow willing/able to cook the entire meal themselves. As a twenty-something with family in the area, I have so far only been a guest to Thanksgiving meals. In light of this, I think I am fairly qualified to offer some advice to those of us who are not cooking Thanksgiving dinner, but still would like to enjoy the holiday.

Try to lose the attachment to the food part of Thanksgiving. I don’t want to delve into a lot of boring thankfulness clichés, but there is more to Thanksgiving than just the food. Yes, people can go on and on about what they are most excited to eat, how they are fasting and exercising in anticipation of the meal, pinning or compiling recipes, and even making timelines (that start three weeks ahead of time!) to make sure all of that food gets cooked. That is a lot of frenzy. And it is easy to get caught up in it. But what about hanging out with the younger kids, if there are any, at your party? Or catching up with relatives? Maybe your group goes for a fall walk or plays football or makes some sort of craft? If you don’t, maybe this could be the year that you start a non food-centric tradition?

Bring something. I have made gluten-free pumpkin pie and brought it to a Thanksgiving before. This might be tacky, but I’ve also brought my own gluten-free gravy. I would check with your host first to make sure they are okay with it, but most likely they will be glad of it. Especially because they may already be feeling guilty about the lack of gluten-free options for you and others at their party. If money is an issue, vegetable sides are usually pretty cheap to make. Try to bring something that requires minimal additional preparation or can be covered while it is heating, because space in the kitchen will probably be limited, and also there will likely be lots of gluten flying around that you wouldn’t want to end up in your food.

If it’s appropriate, ask your host about what ingredients are in certain dishes. This one is a little touchy, because you don’t want your host to feel like you are guilt-tripping them for not feeding you. But if there is a quiet moment, ask them nicely if they would mind telling you the ingredients of a few things that you think have a good shot at being gluten-free. Remember though, that they are not running a dedicated kitchen and so will likely not be paying attention to cross-contamination from spoons, sieves, drips, or splashes.

And try to remember:

Thanksgiving is not the only day of the year for eating. The thing is, there is no sort of magical cooking force-field around this day that only allows certain foods to be prepared on it. If you are really, really sad about missing out on one of your favorite foods at Thanksgiving, you can make you own gluten-free version of it the next day.

Happy celebrating!

Ruebens the Right (and Gluten-Free!) Way

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Sometimes it is really fun to spend a lot of effort making a fancy version of something that is usually very simple. That is what I decided to do after I saw this at my local PCC:

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ImageGluten-free bread that tastes like rye bread, made by Wheatless in Seattle! I immediately hatched a plan to make elaborate Ruebens. I needed a real slab of corned beef:

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That beauty needed to be cooked, covered and surrounded by water in the oven, for about 2 1/2 hours. While it was cooking I sauteed Sauerkraut to dry it out, and I sliced some Swiss cheese. I also picked up some Thousand Island dressing by Annie’s.

ImageI of course buttered the bread slices before making them into sandwiches to get that lovely golden color when they cooked. Also, only in the past few years have I made sure to always use softened butter for this sort of thing. Life is too short to try to spread cold, hard butter (Especially since many gluten-free breads are more crumbly that their gluten-containing counterparts)! And, of course, a fancy sandwich is only complete with a big, crunchy pickle spear. I made these pickles myself (so of course they were a little spicy and garlicky)! Image

ImageOh man these turned out well. The “rye” bread had that distinctive slightly sour, dill-esque taste that adds a little kick to a Rueben, and it had very good texture as well. Unfortunately, the price is a little high for my budget, so I don’t think I will be making this bread a regular part of my menus, but it was fun to put so much effort into a simple sandwich!

Happy 4th!

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Happy independence day to everyone in the US! I hope your holiday was as good as mine was.

A festive, gluten-free cupcake from Cupcake Royale in Ballard.

Sunglasses were actually required today! While the rest of the country has been wilting in heat waves, we Seattleites have been suffering through rain, cold, and clouds. The weather decided to play nice for the holiday though! Luckily for us this year was a leap year, otherwise today would have been yesterday, during which we had lots of rain!

By happy accident, this photo turned out with lots of little hearts! Much love to America, and to all of you! Happy 4th!

Manini’s Gluten-Free Pasta Review

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manini's gluten-fre pasta with pesto and sundried tomatoes

The boyfriend and I were craving pasta somethin’ fierce the other day, so we headed over to the trusty local Central Market to find some things to throw together in a carb-y pile of delicious. We were so pleasantly surprised to see Manini’s Gluten-Free pasta in the refrigerated gourmet Italian section! Apparently we really are lucky, as their website states that their fresh line of pasta is only available in select grocery stores in the Northwest at this time. Sometimes (OK, usually) I really do love living here!

manini's gluten-free pasta in container

There were several flavors available, such as lemon-thyme, or the roasted garlic that we decided to try. There were also little flat squares for making homemade ravioli, lasagna noodles, spaghetti, and tri-colored rigatoni.

We got some pesto and sun-dried tomatoes from the olive bar section (Central Market really is an awesome grocery store), grabbed a good-looking (on sale, of course) bottle of wine, some cured meat and cheeses from the cuttings basket, and hurried home to toss together our Italian Feast.

This pasta cooks really fast. I kept checking it to make sure I didn’t over-cook it. The package said to cook it for about three minutes in salted water with olive oil in it. I think I cooked it for about 4 minutes, but I think I like my pasta a bit more cooked than most people do. While the water was coming to a boil, I arranged the cheese and meat (coppa, my favorite!) on a plate. While pasta was boiling, I warmed the pesto and sun-dried tomatoes in a little pan. Then, I drained the pasta, tossed the sauce in, then put it on two plates and crushed some black pepper and scattered some crushed red pepper over the tops. A basil leaf garnish, and we were ready for some back deck fine dining!

This pasta has that delicious, fresh home-made pasta texture that I remember my parents making with one of those pasta cranks that seemed to be really popular in the nineties (any one else know what I’m talking about? I used to love turning that thing for them when I was little!). It really elevated the sauce to something special. I don’t think I would choose the roasted garlic flavor again for pesto, though. It made the overall taste thick and heavy, and it was a bit of a relief whenever I came across a sun-dried tomato. I would certainly use this pasta again, but with a light, chunky tomato or marinara-style sauce. All told, this meal took a maximum of fifteen minutes to make, and it was SO tasty. Of course, eating outside makes everything taste better!

Happy Eating!

Cheesefest! or, Washington Artisan Cheesemakers Festival

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Image from their Facebook page here.

I am going to Cheesefest in Seattle on Saturday! I am SO excited. There will be a whole gaggle of local cheesemakers there, as well as local cider and wine (beer, too, but obviously that is not of much interest to me!)

I am going to bring these crackers with me, because cheese is often served with crackers, flatbread, or bread, and it is unlikely that it will be gluten-free (also, I find it wise to have some sort of starch on hand when alcohol is present). I’ll put them in an easily accessible container so I’m not conspicuously getting out a giant box of crackers all the time. And if a particular cheesemaker is serving their cheese samples without any bread at all, I’ll just eat it the way they served it. I want to respect their vision for their cheese! And one more thing: if there is a cheese that is being dipped/cut into and then spread onto bread or crackers, I will stay away! Or, if they aren’t too busy, I will explain my intolerance and (nicely!) ask if they have a fresh one that hasn’t been opened or contaminated yet.

Can you tell I love cheese? Because I do. Hope to see you there (tickets are going fast!) and watch out for my recap!

Spring is here!

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the first sprout of spring

I know the “official” start of spring was a little while ago, but up here in cold, rainy Seattle it takes a good sunny warm day (Like today! Hooray!) for me to really feel like spring is on the way. That little guy up above is the very first sprout from the seeds I planted a few days ago. I love my little garden so much. I think of my little plants as little babies or pets. Which is suppose is kind of morbid because I end up eating them, ha! But in the meantime I love caring for them, checking on them, and watching them grow! It gives me such a feeling of accomplishment to see the results of something I’ve done shooting up from the soil.

Happy spring!

Gluten Free Beer // Rainy City Ales

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The other day I had the pleasure of interviewing two bright young men of the newly-named Rainy City Ales in Ballard. They are a startup gluten-free brewery, specializing in innovative  ways of making gluten-free beers. The company consists of Ryan, who has a background in chemistry, and Justin, who majored in international business and foreign languages. It’s a pretty dynamic pairing, with Justin having the “crazy” ideas and Ryan using his scientific knowledge to determine whether they will work. They each work full time at their day jobs while developing their business and recipes. They have been brewing beer for several years, but they have only recently decided to start moving towards sharing their talents with the public.

I learned a lot about brewing from this interview- these guys really know their stuff! Most beers on the gluten-free market are very heavy on sorghum and buckwheat. According to Justin, “We don’t do that at all. We use a little bit of sorghum, but mostly we use sweet potatoes.” The magic of sweet potatoes is the enzyme beta-amylase, which is only present in barley and sweet potatoes. Barley, of course, is not gluten free, and so they use sweet potatoes as their base starch. This enzyme is necessary for the breakdown of starches, which is part of the brewing process. For depth of flavor, they use grains- which at this point are roasted lentils and millet. Since they process all of their own ingredients, they can taste their products at each stage as they go along, and adjust accordingly.

Neither of these two gentlemen are gluten-free, but some of their friends are.  As Justin put it, they started brewing gluten-free beer “when we tried out what they had to deal with, especially with beer- because we love beer- we’ve gotten it down so that we actually like the beer we make better than most beer that you can buy, gluten-free or not.” Being able to consume gluten allows them to compare more accurately whether a gluten-free beer tastes like its gluten-containing counterpart. In fact, their goal is to eventually have their beer sold in stores, in the “regular” beer section. They want to make “great beer that happens to be gluten-free.”

According to them, the current gluten-free beer market is very homogenous, and also low-alcohol.That is what they are trying to change. Their current beers contain about 6% alcohol, as opposed to the typical 3%. Using separate ingredients allows for a lot more variation in recipes, so they can make many different types of beer.

I was there on the first day a batch was ready, so they tasted it first to make sure it was carbonated enough. It was, and so we proceeded to drink it. It was pretty tasty. It is very, very light in color, due to its nontraditional ingredients (which is part of the reason they have begun roasting their grains, as I mentioned above). The taste, however, was stronger than the color suggested. It was certainly much  better than any other gluten-free beer I had tried. If you are looking for a good-tasting, small business-produced beer, I definitely recommend Rainy City Ales!

At this point, they are making about 15 gallons of beer per week. They are scaling up very quickly, but (as of our interview) they are not an official business. The suggested donation per 6-pack (sold in re-used bottles) is $10, and if the bottles are not returned for the next go-round, it is $12. They also have 18oz bottles available. These guys are super friendly and willing to let people taste their beer. Oh, and all of their major ingredients are sourced from within 150 miles of Seattle, if not from western Washington! If you want to find out what their latest batches are and when they are ready, you can follow them on twitter at @RainyCityAles, where they announce most of their availability. You can also “like” them on Facebook.

Happy drinking!

Baking Bread // Gluten Free Bread Mix: Gluten Free Pantry by Glutino

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I baked some bread! I seriously love this mix.

It’s by Glutino, but their baking mix line is sold under the heading of Gluten Free Pantry.

I decided to line my bread pan with parchment paper, because I share baking equipment with people who are not gluten-free. I always feel a little worried about getting items that are used to cook foods that are gluten-heavy all the way clean. This eliminated that worry.

Once you mix it according to the directions on the back of the box, this dough will seem kind of wet. Don’t worry, it will turn out great!

I spoon it into my bread pan. It’s kind of rough at first.

I get my fingers wet with water over and over (I bring my bread pan over to the sink for this part) and smooth out the dough. The water helps to keep the dough from sticking to my fingers. Then it goes into a warm place to rise.

All risen! Then into the preheated oven to bake.

See how pretty the top is? I love that cracked, homemade look.

An added benefit of the parchment paper is the ease with which the loaf comes out of the pan. I didn’t have to do any pre-greasing, either!

This bread slices really well.

On a recent trip to the farmer’s market in Ballard I bought this honey butter (they use raw honey!) from Golden Glen Creamery. The stall had the cutest little girl at it, working with her father. She had some great recommendations on which cheeses to try, and she is learning to make change. Stop by and say hi!

I also got this trufflestack cheese from Mt. Townsend Creamery. This flavor is limited edition, so hurry up if you want to try it! I’m almost sad that I tried this. It is one of the best cheeses I have ever had. It’s creamy, flavorful, and just the right amount of saltiness. I don’t know what I’ll do when they don’t stock it anymore!

I couldn’t decide what I wanted to try out first on my freshly baked bread, so I took a thick slice and I topped it with both.

This was such a wonderful mid-afternoon snack! This bread is so versatile. It is also great with jam, as a sandwich, or with butter and cinnamon sugar on it.

How do you like to eat your gluten-free bread?

Gluten-free Lemon Meringue Pie

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One of the best parts of winter is the abundant supply of flavorful, fresh citrus. I had a few Meyer lemons from my CSA lying around, as well as an abundant supply of eggs, so I made a lemon meringue pie! This was my first attempt. I used this recipe by Alton Brown from www.foodnetwork.com for the filling and topping, and the recipe on the Bob’s Red Mill Rice flour package for the pie crust. Overall, it turned out pretty well. Here are my notes:

1. The pie crust recipe needed a little more liquid than the recipe called for. My mother taught me to always use ice water in pie crust. I had read somewhere that vodka or vinegar are good to use in pie crusts (something to do with the acid I think), so I poured about a tablespoon of vodka over three ice cubes, swirled it until it was ice-cold, and added it to the mixture. More like bartending than baking! If you keep your vodka in the freezer this step would be even easier.

2. This pie crust is really crumbly. If you can afford it, I would say use a gluten-free pastry flour blend. The rice flour is a little cheaper though, so I circumvent the rolling-out difficulties by not doing it at all. I grab handfuls of the crumbly dough mixture, squeeze it in my fist, and then press it into my pie dish in sections with my fingertips. No one can see the weird crater-like texture once the filling is in it!

3. One of my favorite cooking secrets is to use room-temperature egg whites to make meringues. This will give you those coveted stiff, shiny peaks every time! It was even easier to do with this recipe because the filling is made with egg yolks. When I separated the eggs, I put the whites in a liquid measuring cup, and put that on my stove-top while my pie crust was baking to bring them to room temperature a little faster.

And there you have it. Happy eating!