Gluten Free on the Eastside

February 18, 2013March 3, 2013 kristenannLeave a comment

The other day my friend told me about a vegetarian Thai restaurant she and her husband had found in Bellevue that had a lot of gluten-free options which were clearly marked, and many vegan items too. I looked up the place and it was the same restaurant I used to go to in Seattle when I was still at UW and I was so excited I talked my husband into ordering take-out that very evening and drove through a blinding rain to pick it up. When I was at UW we English teachers would usually celebrate the end of the quarter at Araya’s Place, and meat eaters loved it just as much as the vegetarians in the group even though it is strictly flesh-free. The freshness of the produce plus the enlightened awareness of food intolerances makes the place truly a stand out in a world of Thai places on every other block. I had no idea that they had opened up shop in Bellevue, and apparently they have only been here on the Eastside since May 2012. The best thing is, long ago our favorite noodle soup place closed in Fremont, and we have been in search of one ever since. Araya’s soup, finally, ended our search, and it isn’t as far as Fremont. (Though we love Fremont, we usually stay on our side of the bridge.) Another reason we no longer have to go to Fremont, is Flying Apron opened up shop in Redmond~ though that was a good two years ago I think, or maybe even more, I still feel incredibly lucky whenever I go there. For my son’s recent birthday I ordered a cake from there and it surpassed all expectations. It was chocolate cake with vanilla icing, completely gluten, dairy and egg free, and oh my gosh, I don’t know if it’s because I so rarely eat cake, but I thought it the best dessert I’d ever put into my mouth. The rest of the family seemed very impressed too and there wasn’t much left on the plates afterward so I can assume their smiles and thumbs-ups were due to full, happy mouths. So, I guess we’ll only be heading to Fremont when we need our troll fix, since the Eastside now has our soup and baked goods covered, because no one can replicate the troll. Ever.

children · gluten free · Gluten free eating · gluten free food · gluten free foods · gluten free lifestyle · gluten intolerance · gluten intolerant

School Lunch

February 2, 2013 kristenannLeave a comment

My sons normally bring their lunches to school, unless they are having waffles and then my oldest buys his lunch, therefore I don’t normally read the menu that comes home monthly except to mark the waffle days. (Usually every Wednesday.) For lack of better reading material with my coffee this morning I actually read February’s offerings, and was struck by the little key at the bottom that reads: “**Contains Wheat” and another symbol to show what contains dairy. I went back through the menu and realized every item had a double asterisks by it~ every single thing offered contains wheat. They do have a salad bar each day so I assume a gluten-free child could live off that if they didn’t bring their lunch, but I have a hard time imagining an elementary student getting much from it. It makes me sad for the free/reduced lunch kids who might have food intolerances, and the kids who just want to buy their lunches like their friends do but can’t because they never have good options. But the real thing that I think this says is that we are a wheat nation~ people generally have no idea how much wheat they take in on a daily basis but it is so easy to eat it at every meal. I lived on wheat before realizing I had a problem with it, which I don’t think is a coincidence. A bit more variety in my diet might have saved me some headaches, fatigue, and stomach issues. I love the schools that have gardens on their property and use the food in the schools. Imagine basing lunch menus on what is growing outside the window, what is in season and fresh and healthy, then adding in the other things, such as grains and beans, and dairy. Oh and meat if you like, I always forget that. There is an organization promoting school gardens called The Edible Schoolyard Project and they are very worth checking out. Last year I asked the principal at my sons’ school if we could plant a garden and he said he was thinking about a greenhouse after the school’s construction was finished. That’d work too, but ideally I think both would be best.

ancient wheat · celiac disease · gluten free · Gluten free eating · gluten free foods · gluten free lifestyle · gluten intolerance · gluten intolerance diagnosis · gluten intolerant

Sourdough the Answer for Gluten Intolerance?

January 17, 2013March 18, 2014 kristenannLeave a comment

A couple of days ago I was sitting in a doctor’s office when I spotted a Whole Living magazine which was a welcome diversion. I don’t often see those lying around so I was happily surprised, yet far more surprised by what I actually read. There was an article about a baker making sourdough bread with regular wheat that apparently gluten intolerant people can eat. The story goes on to explain about the starter and yeast and other things, but the gist of it was that at least one Santa Monica baker has a technique that has gluten intolerant people lining up for miles around, and it also talks about ancient wheat varieties versus the modern ones. Here’s the article so you can read it too, and join me in my plan to move to Santa Monica, or at least find out more about this technique. It sounds like at least a lot more people are thinking about this epidemic in gluten intolerance and trying to do something about it. (Yay!) The bummer for me though is the fact I was not tested for Celiac Disease when diagnosed with gluten intolerance. I just asked the doctor (whose office I was in reading the above article) about getting tested now and she said I would have to go on a gluten diet again before being able to get an accurate answer. That bites! I didn’t even ask how long I’d have to eat gluten (and feel rotten) because my immediate thought was about the feeling rotten part. She said as long as I don’t know I just have to stay off gluten entirely and forever~ which makes these ancient wheats and sourdough starter prospects bittersweet. It makes me wish I’d demanded to be tested way back when the first GI doctor I saw told me it didn’t matter because whether I was a celiac or just gluten intolerant all I could do either way was stay away from wheat, and that I didn’t look like a celiac b/c they are normally blonde and pale. (That still cracks me up.) At the time I wanted to know for certain because I thought it important for my kids since it is a hereditary disease, but I let him talk me out of sticking a long scope down my throat into my small intestine. Honestly, it didn’t take long for him to convince me that was unnecessary. Oh well. I guess I can always try these new things and see how I feel which sounds a lot easier than eating a bunch of gluten just in order to take a test. Looks like the Santa Monica farmer’s market is now on my “must go to” list now.

gluten free foods · vegan · vegetarian

Polenta with White Bean and Garlic Sauce~ Gluten Free and Vegan

July 11, 2012June 10, 2017 kristenannLeave a comment

The other I was walking and apparently quite hungry because I thought up a recipe I couldn’t wait to try out. Yesterday I was able to start it, but since I haven’t been to the grocery for a few days I am somewhat hampered by what I have on hand. What I did have on hand was Bob’s Red Mill corn grits which I made into rosemary infused polenta, with cannellini bean and garlic sauce/paste and some veggies on top. The polenta was easy~ I followed a mixture of directions and added rosemary (minced, and from my front yard) while it was cooking on the stove top. It was only about a T and I should have added more rosemary and/or some other herbs to the 2C water/1 C cornmeal because it was blander than I like. I didn’t add butter like a lot of the recipes recommend, which might have added a bit more taste also, so perhaps next time. I then sauteed in a pan olive oil, onions, rosemary, garlic and at the last couple of minutes, a can of cannellini beans including about half the water that was in the can. This all went directly into the food processor to make a thick sauce, to which I added about a cup of basil leaves from my back yard. I actually wanted to make a full on pesto to add a layer to this dish, but I didn’t have enough basil so did it this way instead.

Those two items went into the fridge overnight, then in the morning when I put the sauce on the polenta it looked like this:

Next the chopped red peppers, artichoke hearts, and onions went on top with Mediterranean salt, black pepper, basil and oregano:

I cooked it in the oven at 350 for about 20 minutes, and then broiled it for another 10 to get the top browned a little. It was a good hearty dish, especially served on a bed of spinach, but next time I will add a lot more herbs because it lacked flavor. The real reason I’m posting about it is that you can do this kind of thing with just about any sauce, bean, and/or veggie available and it is a great gluten free dish. I suppose you could add meat too if you wanted. Next time I will do either pesto or red sauce and add the whole beans on top with the veggies. Or I might do a refried bean version and some Mexican cheeses. The options are endless~ just be sure to have plenty of herbs on hand to make the polenta really shine and not just a carrier for the other ingredients.

gluten free foods

Gluten Free Gingerbread Cookies (Egg free too!)

December 24, 2011September 23, 2012 kristenann1 Comment

These were easy and turned out quite well, despite the fact the only cookie cutters I found in our supply drawer were an ornament and a moose/reindeer. (It looks kind of, but not completely like either animal.) I looked at a regular recipe from Cooks.com, then changed it into gluten free and added a bit more spice. Here’s the finished recipe:
1/2 C. butter
3/4 C. molasses
2 T. sugar
1.5 C gf oat flour
.5 C brown rice flour plus extra for rolling the dough out
3/4 t. xantham gum
1 t. baking soda
3/4 t. salt
1 t. cinnamon
3/4 t. ginger
1 individual sized applesauce (or less, but at least 1 T.)
3/4 t. vanilla
pinch of both cloves and nutmeg (more on the nutmeg, less on the cloves.)

Cream the butter, molasses, and sugar. Add the applesauce, then the dry ingredients. Let it sit in fridge for at least 2 hours, then roll out the dough on brown rice flour and cut into shapes. Bake at 350 (on parchment paper lined cookie sheets) for about 10 minutes.

food · gluten free · gluten free food · gluten free foods · gluten free symptoms · gluten free travel · gluten intolerance · gluten intolerance diagnosis · gluten intolerance symptoms · gluten intolerant

Pineapple Juice

August 19, 2011November 18, 2017 kristenann1 Comment

While living in Prague my spectacular flatmate and I talked about everything under the sun, but really, the majority of the time, by a significant amount I’d say, we talked about food. Usually it was what we’d be eating if we were home right now, or in some other city, or what we ate at such and such restaurant, and what we would like to cook if only we could find the ingredients in these tiny little grocery stores. Because of that, I know far more about the frozen foods in Canada’s fine stores than any American should, and she probably will make a pilgrimage to a certain dark coffeehouse in a bad corner of Cincinnati one day. At the time we were both pescatarians in a city that is more red meat and potatoes than Texas. Needless to say, our options were limited. We lived on bread and cheese and surprise, surprise, I got horribly sick for months. At that time I was not aware of my gluten intolerance, but my natural foods background let me know it was something diet related. I started steaming broccoli for breakfast and living off Uncle Ben’s minute brown rice. And pineapple juice. Prague didn’t have much in the way of juices, but it had the best pineapple juice ever~ we drank it daily out of the same kind of box we later in the day would drink our ‘fine’ wines. The juice sections in Prague grocery stores at the time amounted to about half of an end cap. My flatmate went to Berlin over the holidays and all I remember from her trip was that the juice sections there were whole aisles, just like here. Anyway, at Trader Joe’s last night I saw they have a new pineapple juice in the cold section and I just had to try it. The ones in glass that sit on the shelf have never lived up to Prague’s standards so I have cautious hopes for this one. It isn’t organic so I won’t get it often, but in homage to my lovely friend and our days in Prague I’m going to down a glass and then throw together a sopsky’s salad, hold the fried cheese, please.

baking · food · Food allergies · food allergy blogs · food sensitivities · gf foods · gluten free · Gluten free eating · gluten free foods · gluten intolerant

Gluten Free biscuits

November 15, 2010November 18, 2017 kristenannLeave a comment

Saturday I made gluten free biscuits from the Flying Apron Cookbook replacing the berries with 1 teaspoon of ground cinnamon. As much as I love the berries, we were running low on them and my son has been drinking smoothies in the mornings lately so I saved them for him. Mothers are always sacrificing! But the cinnamon is delicious actually, so it was a good experiment. I’ve been daydreaming of what goodies I am going to make my gluten intolerant friends for Christmas. It is so nice to know other gluten intolerant people with whom to share food! It can be so lonely when you are the one and only at a meal, party, or any other gathering where food and drinks are served. Since I have never really liked meat, I was always the odd one at meals as a child, so honestly by now I should be used to it, but it still bums me out. In fact, Thanksgiving has long been my least favorite holiday, considering I’ve never liked any of that kind of Turkey-ish food, and for last few years I’ve known I can’t eat the bread-ish food (unless I make it). This year I am determined to make it a festive inclusive meal, and since we are hosting that should be relatively easy. I’m putting together the menu this week and I’ll post what I come up with. Really there are such great ideas floating around I’m sure I’ll have more than enough ideas to keep me busy!