The other day I had the rare opportunity to wake up in downtown Seattle and look around for a breakfast place. It happened to be mother’s day so it was busier than usual, but we found a place to sit and eat some breakfast foods, which honestly were nothing special. I didn’t mind the mediocre hash browns though because I had a mission for the day to find this gluten-free bakery near Pike Place Market that I had read about called Coffee & Specialty Bakery. It is a tiny little hole in the wall which we walked right by at first and we had to backtrack to find it. I’m so glad we did. It smelled like a real bakery in there and I bought the boys and myself croissants, something we haven’t had in ages. I didn’t ask if they were dairy free but they sure didn’t taste it, so I’m guessing they were made with butter, but it was worth every bite. I have no idea what flours they use but if I hadn’t known it was from a gluten-free bakery I would have sworn it was a traditional croissant. The reviews of the place speak a lot to the friendliness of the owners and it’s all true. If my sons had been with me I’m quite sure they would have been compelled to hug them because they were both so sweet and smiley. I’ll definitely be heading back there any time I am in Seattle from now on.
Tag: Food
Gluten-free Ramen
At this point in the year I’m pretty much souped out. Not eating it, just making it. So, I’m quite excited to have found this gluten-free ramen that takes all of 4 minutes to make and tastes seriously good. The one I like is by Lotus Foods and has a miso base and I’m pretty sure when my oldest tries it, he’s going to be hooked too because he loves miso, and noodles, and especially fast prep. Try it out yourself on a day when your missing dorm cooking, or more likely, just want some fast soup on a chilly Spring day:
Nut-free, Dairy-free ‘nutella’
Back in the glorious days of my sons eating nuts and dairy, my oldest loved nutella on dinner rolls as a snack or lunch item. I decided to look for homemade nutella recipes online to see if there was something I could convert and oh my, there are scores of nutella fans out there, making homemade versions, making dairy free versions, making nut free versions~ I mean if you are looking to make your own nutella, by no means should you stop your quest here. There are hundreds of recipes out there, and most start with the raw seeds or nuts and are truly from scratch. After reading more than a few variations, I decided I didn’t want to go to the store a second time today to get the ingredients I lacked, so I’d just try a quicker, not-so-from-scratch way of making a chocolaty, nutty flavored spread. The sunflower butter I’d bought to replace my son’s peanut butter cravings never really satisfied him, so I grabbed that, the half bar of baking chocolate I had left over from something else, and a teaspoon of vanilla extract.
I melted the 2 oz of unsweetened baking bar on low heat while scooping 1/2 C of the sunbutter into the food processor. I added the 1 t of vanilla extract, and then the melted chocolate and processed until smooth, which didn’t take long. I really wanted to avoid the confectioner’s sugar most recipes called for in my research, but when I tasted the blend I knew it needed some sweetening, so I added 1 T honey and blended again. That was better.
My son tried it on a Maninis dinner roll when he got home from school and gave it a thumbs-up. (His mouth was full after all.) I will probably play around with this recipe a bit more, but for a quick fix, this works well.
Broccoli and Tofu
You can’t really ever go wrong with tofu and broccoli, at least in my oldest son’s opinion. His favorite way to eat that healthy combination used to be wrapped in a spelt tortilla with garlic sauce. He even wrote an essay about that dish in third grade when asked about his favorite thing to eat, but sadly, he can’t eat spelt anymore and corn tortillas are just not the same. They are great for soft tacos, quesadillas, and ‘beandillas’, (a quesadilla made with refried beans instead of cheese) but corn tortillas just do not complement the broccoli and tofu like the spelt did. He missed that dish terribly, along with countless others, once his gluten intolerance was discovered, but now he’s found a new favorite way to enjoy broccoli and tofu. Here’s the recipe:
Ingredients:
1 package brown rice fusilli
½ yellow onion
2 crushed cloves of garlic
3-4 cups broccoli, cut into bite size pieces
1 package extra firm tofu, drained and wrapped in paper towels to get out extra water
Approx. 2 T. olive oil (1 for the stir fry and 1 for the pot of pasta)
1 T. balsamic vinegar (or to taste)
1 T. gluten free Tamari
Dried basil and oregano to taste
Salt and pepper to taste
For this dish, I start the water boiling for the pasta as I begin the cutting up process. Pour in at least one tablespoon of the olive oil in a large pan, and then add the onions, cooking until translucent. Next the garlic should be added in, with the broccoli following. Pour the vinegar over the broccoli while stirring the veggies. Add the tofu then cover the tofu with the tamari. While cooking, stir in the herbs, salt, and pepper, and cook until the broccoli is bright green and the tofu is warm throughout with a bit of browning. Meanwhile, make the fusilli according to the package directions, and when all is done combine into approximately 4 bowls. This is one pasta dish that doesn’t require parmesan, but feel free to add it if you prefer, or if you like just drizzle on a bit more olive oil. For my son and I, we do not add anything but our forks.
Gluten-free Sourdough Bread cont.
Well, there it is. The first gluten-free sourdough bread we made. After stirring the ever-funkier starter for several days complete with cabbage leaves and apple skin, my son was not feeling too confident about actually trying the bread. To be honest, neither was I. I really had no idea if the starter we’d made was going to work because it wasn’t ever as bubbly as I expected it to be, but we both were pleasantly surprised. The bread is pretty good!
As you can see from this picture, it did not rise much though. I am guessing as the starter sits for a few more days there will be more yeast activity, and we will try again on Wednesday to make another loaf. My son thought the bread was more than “pretty good” incidentally, probably because he helped make it and felt ownership in it. That loaf is a blend of teff flour, millet, brown rice and tapioca and he pointed out that the hard crust tasted like cereal and he was right~ it really did. Next time I might do less teff and try gluten-free oat flour for a lighter loaf~ more trials to come!
Gluten-Free Sourdough Starter
My son needed a science project and I needed a reason to try to make the sourdough starter recipe I’ve been eyeing for months, so we decided to work together and see what happens. The recipe we are using is from Jennifer Katzinger’s Gluten-Free & Vegan Bread. I’ve wanted to make sourdough starter for a long time now, ever since I read about it being a more easily digested bread than other types with single strands of yeast, but the recipes I read always seemed too complex and involved too much planning. Once I read Katzinger’s version which was already gluten-free I started thinking I could do it. Except I didn’t. There was still that planning part that got in my way, until my son’s science fair came up and I thought, we could do this~ we have a week and a half, plenty of time to get the starter going and then to try to bake with it a couple of times, with enough time even for a failure or two. We will actually use the starter later today for the first time, but actually making the mother was easier than I expected, so in case you are feeling daunted by the idea yourself I thought I’d share the steps so far. First, get a gallon size glass jar and put in 1C teff flour and 1C water.
Stir well.
Then add two purple cabbage leaves and the skin of half an apple.
Mix well again and then let it sit in a warm spot for 12 hours before stirring and adding more teff and water. After 48 hours (with 12 hours in between stirrings and adding more flour and water) it should be bubbling with yeast activity.
It is then time to take out the cabbage leaves and apple skin and put it in the fridge. It is ready to be used.
Now it’s time to test if this has worked. There is starter resting on my kitchen counter right now warming up with fresh teff and water for 4 hours and hopefully creating some yeasty activity. Crossing my fingers that we will have fresh sourdough bread by tonight. We’ll see!
Some New Gluten Free Finds
I don’t know how long I’ve been overlooking this bread, but I have a feeling it’s pretty new to the scene, but boy has it made a splash. I’d say about half the time I go searching for it, there’s none to be found:
This is Olivia’s Super Free Baguette and that picture is from their site: http://oliviasuperfree.com/home.html. I’ve been making garlic bread with the baguettes~ olive oil, Tuscan salts, garlic, 425 degrees for 10 minutes, and it turns out really lovely. I can imagine making a big sub sandwich with these too. The texture is great, the flavor is good, and the lightness makes it easy to use in meals (as opposed to being so heavy that all you can do with it is slice and eat it.) The kids whole-heartily approved.
The other bread I’ve found lately is Flying Apron’s new white bread which tastes even better than their old one and they are actually finally making enough that you have a decent chance to buy one on white bread days, (bonus!), which at the Redmond location are Tuesdays and Thursdays.
This is a hearty loaf made with quinoa, oat, and I think sorghum flour though I could be wrong about that last one. It has the whole grain goodness of stand-out healthy grains which is so rare in a gluten-free loaf. I love this bread but surprisingly, my sons are not full-on excited about it, though my oldest adores the white rolls made from the same ingredients~ go figure. I think they have gotten so use to the fluffy lightness of gluten-free breads that this denser loaf seems strange to them, like a child who’s been eating regular white bread suddenly tasting a whole wheat loaf~ not exactly the same thing. That’s fine for now because it means more for me! I’ve been making veggie sandwiches with this bread~ one side gets hummus spread on it, the other gets avocado, and in between goes spinach and lettuce, tomatoes, red peppers and whatever else I can find. I haven’t had a fulfilling sandwich like that in so many years I can’t even begin to remember~ until last week that is, at which time I started having them almost every day. Seriously, if you are in the Seattle area and haven’t tried this loaf because you aren’t in the habit of buying a ‘white’ bread~ this loaf will surprise you.
Those two breads above are also vegan, soy, and nut free~ it can be done!
The last product is a granola bar from KIND. These are not the same bars that have been around for a long time, they are different~ flatter and wider for one thing, but the best part is at least one flavor, the oats and honey, is nut free.
This pic is from their website.
Trying to find a gluten-free, dairy-free protein bar that doesn’t have any nuts in it, especially almonds, is extraordinarily difficult. We eat some bars from Nugo and Enjoy Life Foods, but having a new one to throw into backpacks for snack time is extremely welcome at this point.
If you have any new gluten-free favorites, let me know~ I’d love to hear about them.
Food Funkiness
It seems like everyday I read a new article about some nasty thing regularly found in our food. Yesterday’s article talked about nasty food additives found at fast food places. (Shocking, right? Not really but it was a nice article with a picture that I was able to share with my son who was thoroughly disgusted.) The article I read today gave advice on avoiding GE foods. I know we are a country known for innovation and ingenuity, but can’t we all just agree to let food be food? Is it really that crazy of a concept? People have been growing and eating food for quite a while now and it seems like they’ve managed pretty well so far without poly-this and dimethyl-that. Just reading about those things makes me want to go outside and dig in my garden.
Brain on Gluten cont.~ News from Living Without Magazine
| Neurologic Effects of Celiac Disease |
| A study featured at the International Celiac Disease Symposium looked at neurological dysfunction in celiac disease. More than half of the study’s 73 participants—newly diagnosed adults at a celiac clinic in the U.K.—had neurological symptoms. These included frequent and intractable headaches, balance problems and sensory symptoms. White matter abnormalities were spotted in the brain scans of a number of these participants and some had TG6 antibodies. (TG6 antibodies have been linked to neurological dysfunction in celiac disease.) Findings suggest that neurological dysfunction is common in newly diagnosed celiacs, write researchers. |
| A U.S. study, also featured at ICDS, found that neurocognitive effects like brain fog are common after exposure to gluten in those with celiac disease and non-celiac gluten sensitivity alike. A whopping 89 percent of celiacs and 95 percent of those with non-celiac gluten sensitivity reported experiencing neurocognitive effects due to gluten, specifically, difficulty concentrating, forgetfulness, grogginess, detachment and mental confusion. Symptoms often began 30 minutes to an hour after gluten exposure and lasted several days. Results were based on a preliminary online survey completed by 1,143 individuals with celiac disease and 253 with non-celiac gluten sensitivity. More work is planned.
This is the exact article I found in my email box this morning from Living Without. Fascinating. |
Why Organic?
This little girl explains why to eat organic in visual terms that anyone can understand.
What’s good for the earth is good for the human…
spice of life blog 