Gluten free and vegan on Top Chef

A friend of mine just emailed me that Zooey Deschanel was a guest on Top Chef last night. She is gluten free, vegan and soy free. Here's a link to the episode on Zap2it.com: Top Chef Episode

Obviously, Bravo is on channel 61 on my cable provider so you'll have to change over to yours. As of right now the episode is on another seven times in the next two weeks.

Enjoy!

Fast Food Review - Chipolte Mexican Grill

I ate for the first time in a Chipolte Mexican Grill this weekend and loved it! I had previously visited their website and knew that most of their menu items were gluten and dairy free. When I got to the counter, I mentioned my dietary restrictions and the counter person handed me a small white card which listed all of their menu items and all of the allergens (both wheat AND gluten were listed). Only the flour tortillas and soft flour tacos contained gluten and only their two obvious dairy items (sour cream and cheese) contained dairy.

The store is set up like a Boston Market where everything is laid out infront of you at the counter. You have a choice of bowl, salad, crispy taco and (if not a celiac) soft tacos and buritos. Add to that your choice of meats (chicken, beef, pork), beans (black or pinto) and rice, as well as sides of chips and three different salsas or guacamole. Overall, it was a little spicy but excellent.

I'll definitely be going back.

Fast Food Review - Chick-fil-A

I recently learned that Chick-fil-A has a gluten free menu. I used to eat at Chick-fil-A quite a bit before realizing I had Celiac disease and truth be told was still occasionally cheating with their french fries. I checked their website and found their Gluten Free list (click on Nutrition & Health on the left side and then look for "Gluten Info" on the top menu bar on the resulting page).

As expected, their chargrilled chicken was gluten free (without the bun of course) and two of their salads are as well (the Chargrilled Chicken Garden Salad and Chargrill Chicken & Fruit Salad). What I was really excited to see was that their Waffle Potato Fries are GF too. Now of course, there are issues of cross contamination so I emailed them to ask about that.

It turns out that all of the breaded and fried chicken at Chick-fil-A is cooked in some sort of covered pressure fryer. The Waffle Fries are the only item fried in their Waffle Fry Fryer! Not willing to take corporate's word for it, I stopped by a Chick-fil-A in a mall on my way home and confirmed with the local store that this is indeed the case!

Ah, happy days, I can eat fast food french fries again! At least at Chick-fil-A that is.

My Favorite Celiac Holiday is this Week!

My favorite Celiac holiday is this week - Passover! Technically, my holiday is the day after Passover when supermarkets mark down all of their Passover products. I must warn you however, that Passover does not require that products be gluten free and can be made (and often are) from Matzo meal which most certainly contains wheat gluten. Due to religious restrictions (which I don't pretend to know) most Passover foods are dairy free which is a big bonus for me.

Every year, I stock up on Shabtai cookies and cakes, Geffen GF noodles and cookies, dark chocolate peppermint patties, potato starch, and other candies, cookies and cakes. I've even found a brand of gluten and dairy free blintzes (but they're hard to find). Last year, I didn't run out of all of these assorted items until over the summer sometime.

My advice is to check out some supermarkets before Wednesday and see which (if any) in your area are carrying Passover products. Even though Passover doesn't end this year until April 15th, I find most supermarkets start their markdowns the day after Passover starts (this year it starts at sundown on April 8th). Again, I want to stress that not everything that is for Passover will be Gluten Free. You need to look for a label of "Gluten Free". It seems that a lot of Gluten Free foods are also labeled "Non-Gebrokts" but I can't be 100% sure that that is a direct translation of Gluten Free. (It looks like everything gluten free is non-gebrokts but not everything non-gebrokts is necessarily gluten free!)

Happy shopping!

Product Review - Garbo Toast Bread

Garbo attended (and gave out samples) at a support group meeting last fall. I was amazed at how good their bread was even untoasted. On occasion, "Livin' Gluten Free" a local sandwich shop has their Sun Bread but I was excited to find that my neighborhood Kings Super Market is carrying their Toast Bread and Sport Bread.

The Toast Bread is great. It browns up nicely in the toaster and the taste reminds me of the homemade loaves of yeast bread my grandmother used to bake at Easter. I do however see why they call it 'Toast' bread. It unfortunately does not have the durability to be sandwich bread.

I don't really eat enough toast to justify the extra trip to Kings (it's local, but not a store I usually shop in). I'll just toast a slice of sandwich bread instead. It won't be as good as Garbo's but it will do.

If you can't find Garbo's Toast Bread locally, you can purchase it online here: Garbo Toast Bread.

Mom's Turkey Cutlets - gluten free/dairy free

I've been on a kick to duplicate everything that Mom used to make growing up, only this time gluten and dairy free. Some were easy (spaghetti and meatballs) as her sauce and meatballs are already gf/df and gf pasta is easy to come by. Others, such as steak and handcut french fries, were already gluten and dairy free. Others took a little work.

One of my favorites was Turkey Cutlets with a side of Fettuccine Alfredo. This was also the first thing I learn how to make when I learned how to cook (of course back then it contained gluten). I'm going to split out the two recipes for those who are looking for one or the other but they really are best together!

Mom's Turkey Cutlets

Ingredients:
1 pound Turkey Cutlets
1 egg
1/2 cup GF bread crumbs
1/4 cup olive oil
1 cup water
2 tsp gf chicken bullion

Add egg to a shallow pan and beat with a fork or whisk.

Add bread crumbs to another pan.

Dip each cutlet first in the egg and then in the bread crumbs to coat.

Heat oil is a frying pan over medium heat. Add cutlets and brown on each side (about 3 minutes a side). Don't worry if they don't all fit at once; fry them in batches.

Return all cutlets to the pan and add water and bullion. Bring to a boil and then lower heat and simmer covered for 30 minutes (or more) until tender. Note: if not fully covered by the water, rotate them (top to bottom) at least once during this simmer.

Serve covered with the juice from the pan and a side of Fettuccine Alfredo and enjoy!

Serves 4.

Fettuccini Alfredo - gluten free/dairy free/vegan

Growing up Mom used to make Fettuccine Alfredo as an accompaniment to her Turkey Cutlets. I've broken out the recipes into separate posts for benefit of those looking for one or the other.

Please note, this recipe is for 8oz of pasta however, some GF brands come in 12oz or 16oz. In that case, the recipe easily scales up (by half for 12oz and double for 16oz).

Fettuccine Alfredo

Ingredients:
8oz Gluten Free Fettuccine
1 cup rice milk
2 Tbsp GF flour
3 Tbsp Vegan Parmesan Cheese
3 Tbsp olive oil

Cook the pasta according to the manufacturer's directions. Meanwhile in a sauce pan, heat the olive oil over medium heat. Add the flour and stir until it starts to brown. Add vegan Parmesan and rice milk while continuing to stir. Allow to thicken stirring occasionally. If it finishes thickening before the pasta is done, remove from heat until pasta is done (you'll need to reheat it once the pasta is ready). Drain the pasta and cover with sauce.

Makes 3-4 side dish servings.

Product Review - Organic Bistro Frozen Meals

A little while ago I noticed a link for Organic Bistro appearing in the Adsense ads on this site. Since Adsense doesn't allow me to click on my own ads, I typed Organic Bistro into google and checked out their website. Everything about these meals sounded great: gluten free, dairy free, all natural, etc, until I got to the part about where they were on sale and realized they weren't available here in NJ! Since I don't like to order food online (I prefer to support the local stores that carry GF/DF) I figured I would just have to wait until they were available here in New Jersey. Well, thanks to Whole Foods, I didn't have to wait long!

On my last shopping trip to Whole Foods, I noticed two varieties of Organic Bistro meals in their freezer case and bought both. The price is pretty reasonable especially when compared to other gluten free frozen meals on the market. I ate the Ginger Chicken (see photo at right) over the weekend and the Chicken Citron (see photo below on left) last night. The Ginger Chicken had green beans, carrots, snap peas, edamame and brown rice while the Chicken Citron had spinach, edamame, sun dried tomatoes, carrots and quinoa.

The meals are organic and contain multiple vegetables and whole grains. Best of all, their entire line is both dairy and gluten free! I think the meals will take some getting used to as my palette adjusts from what it remembers of frozen meals packed with salt, refined sugar, white rice, unpronounceable additives, and/or refined flours. I am certainly a fan of the convenience as well as the nutrition packed into each meal.

I've been trying to eat more fruits and vegetables but when grabbing something quick (read: microwaved in a couple of minutes) that can be hard to do. I think these meals will be a nice addition to the nights I don't have time to cook.

Update: I ran to Whole Foods tonight and they now have what appears to be the entire line! Since I have such a small freezer I'll have to try these one or two at a time. Up next are the Jamaican Shrimp Cakes.

Bread Crumbs - Gluten and Dairy Free

Just a quick recipe for gluten/dairy free bread crumbs today.

Growing up, Mom kept a large ziplock bag full of stale leftover italian bread pieces in a cabinet over the stove. She'd use these pieces whenever she needed to make stuffing or breadcrumbs. I'd been doing the same with gluten free bread for the same reasons with limited success. The main problem with doing this is that any bread with rice in it will dry out to a point that you can't cut it. Cubing it for stuffing is impossible (bordering on dangerous) and even when making bread crumbs my magic bullet leaves a couple of un-crumbed chunks behind. I would either recommend drying fresh GF/DF bread or cubing the bread before letting it go stale and storing it in the bag!

Ingredients
4-6 slices of dried out Gluten Free bread (dried, not stale)
1 tsp of dried parsley, crushed
1/2 tsp of dried basil, crushed
1/4 tsp of dried oregano, crushed

If you need to dry out the bread, just put on a cookie sheet in the oven at 300 degrees for 15-20 minutes turning once, halfway through.

Add bread to food processor, blender or magic bullet and blend until the coarseness you'd like. Empty crumbs and herbs into a mixing bowl and stir until well blended.

Depending on the size of your GF/DF bread slices this should yield 1 - 1.5 cups of bread crumbs.

Manicotti - gluten-free/dairy-free/vegan

Success!!!! My Gluten Free/Dairy Free Manicotti were a huge success on Christmas day! I used a flour blend mix by Annalise Roberts but I would think you can use any you like. Her blend recipe is available on her website here. The recipe for my GF/DF Manicotti is as follows:

Ingredients - shell

1 cup gluten free flour
1 1/4 cup water
9 tbs whipped silken tofu (or three eggs)
1/2 tsp xantham gum

Ingredients - filling

1 package silken tofu (16oz)
1 tbsp Vegan parmasean
1 tsp dried basil
1/2 tsp garlic powder
1 egg (optional, if making vegan leave out and do not adjust)

Ingredients - other
1/2 cup of tomato sauce (I don't eat a lot of tomato so you might need/like more.)
cooking spray (as needed)

For the shells: Add the flour and xantham gum to a large mixing bowl. Add the whipped tofu (or beaten eggs) and water then stir until blended smooth. The batter should be runny and if it is not, then add a little more water until it is.

Heat a small 5" frying pan over medium heat (oil if not a non-stick pan). Add a small amount of batter to the pan and quickly tilt the pan so the batter evenly covers the entire bottom of the pan in a thin layer. Cook about 2 minutes until the top of the batter is dry, then flip carefully using a small spatula and cook the other side. Set aside to cool and repeat until you are out of batter. (Note: it may be helpful to place the finished shells on wax paper so they don't stick together.)

For the filling: Combine all of the filling ingredients in a mixing bowl and stir (I use a spoon) until combined and resembling ricotta. Do not over stir or the mixture will turn into goo.

To assemble: Spray a baking pan with cooking spray or coat the bottom with tomato sauce.

Hold a cooled shell in the palm of one hand and with the other hand spoon about 3 tablespoons of filling lengthwise across the center of the shell. (I used the serving spoon that came with my flatware - it appears to be the right size for me.) Flip one side and then the other over the filling until you have a mixture filled tube. Flip the tube over (so the folds are on the bottom) and place carefully into the baking pan. Repeat with the remaining shells and filling.

Cover the manicotti with your favorite tomato sauce. (Since I avoid too much tomato, I sort of just brush them with sauce.)

Bake uncovered at 350 degrees for 45 minutes. (Option: if you want, you could cover with shredded vegan mozzerella cheese after baking and broil until the cheese is melted. Watch carefully while broiling as the cheese will quickly burn and blacken if left in too long!)

This recipe makes approximately 10 manicotti but is easily scaled up.

Don't worry if the first couple of shells are disasters, they take a little practice before you get the exact right amount of batter in the pan and get the hang of tilting to spread the batter.