Welcome to EAT: No Wheat No Worries. An open discussion of Gluten Intolerance Issues.
Sunday, August 1, 2010 will be a great day! The Silly Yaks (celiacs Yahoo group) will be having an outing at Kennywood (www.kennywood.com). Sponsored by No Wheat, No Worries and Better Batter Gluten Free Flour, we hope you can join us. For more information, e-mail chandramh@aol.com. Fun, rides, and gluten free goodies!
Well, my cure for the summertime blues is our upcoming Gluten-Free Outing to Kennywood Park, near Pittsburgh PA, August 1st 2010! E-mail chandramh@aol.com for info and such.
Meanwhile, I’ve been so busy I’ve lost track of time. My latest project isn’t food related, being an all adult Theatre On Ice ensemble — but it hasn’t stopped me from cooking and eating fabulous gluten free food!
Back in mid-May, we did a weekend road trip to Baltimore to try the gluten free crab cakes at Camden Yard. Pricey but YUM! After the game, we ended up at the Irish pub on the waterfront, where there was very little GF to eat (nachos with grilled chicken because the beef had gluten — the cheese sauce was GF) but plenty of imported Irish whiskey. Tullamore Dew, woohoo!
We’ve been enjoying the Redbridge beer at Progressive Field, regardless of how the Indians are doing. Awesome Friday night fireworks, too. I spoke with a couple of the operations and food/beverage guys the other day, and they are considering doing a dedicated french-fry stand, keep your fingers crossed!
More places to eat in Cleveland: Xocalo on East 4th, Mexican fusion with a good handful of GF items; The Harp, in the West Shoreway area, GF menu is also vegetarian but they can add chicken, fish, shrimp, or beef; Luxe, 6605 Detroit Ave in the Gordon Square Arts District, does not have a printed GF menu but will make you something FABULOUS — we had a saffron bouillabasse with two kinds of fish, shrimp, scallops and mussels, it was UNBELIEVABLE. Don’t limit yourself to the chain restaurants, there is amazing food out there at the independents. If in doubt, call first, then go and enjoy yourself!
For Mo’s birthday, we did a trip to Cincinnati to see the Indians play the Reds (they lost). Great trip, though — nice fireworks show and we got to see the International Space Station go by overhead. The next day, we found a superb Chinese restaurant on Route 42 just north of Sharonville. Mo promised to blog about that, so I’ll leave it to her. We went to King’s Island for the late afternoon and evening — not much gluten free there, but I found Skyline Chili had fries with chili and cheese, no gluten ingredients and I didn’t get sick, so at least I didn’t go hungry. Then we got blueberry ice cream, tasty and different, to end the evening. Oh, and on the way to Cincinnati we stopped in Columbus for lunch at Quaker Steak & Lube. They have a GF menu and a dedicated fryer. Yay!
July 4th, cookout at Mo’s. As usual, I made way too much and not everyone showed up to eat so we have mega-leftovers. BBQ chicken and ribs, Hebrew National hot dogs and juicy all-beef burgers. Grandma’s brand potato salad and cole slaw, Bush’s baked beans, corn on the cob with cilantro butter and a garnish of Mexican style cheese. And ALL the trimmings! Then watermelon and Red, White, and Blue Shortcake for dessert!
To make Red, White, and Blue Shortcake, mix a Bob’s Red Mill GF Vanilla Cake mix according to package directions. Spray two 9″ square foil pans with cooking spray and put the batter in, smoothing it into the corners. Bake at 325F for 25 minutes or until a toothpick inserted near the center comes out clean. Cool to room temperature. Shortly before serving, spread about 1/2″ of Cool Whip on top and then top with sliced strawberries and whole blueberries in any design that makes you happy. Put 9 dollops of Cool Whip on top of each cake, decorate with blueberries and a whole strawberry on each dollop, cut into 9 squares and serve. Makes a total of 18 servings. Enjoy!!!
Sunday, August 1, 2010 will be a great day! The Silly Yaks (celiacs Yahoo group) will be having an outing at Kennywood (www.kennywood.com). Sponsored by No Wheat, No Worries and Better Batter Gluten Free Flour, we hope you can join us. For more information, e-mail chandramh@aol.com. Fun, rides, and gluten free goodies!
This is what I ended up with after my poor angel food cake died. The devil made me do it!
…literally. Onto the floor. Straight out of the pan.
I made an angel food cake from scratch. The instructions say after baking to turn the pan upside down onto a metal funnel (which I don’t own) or a bottle, to cool. It wouldn’t fit on the first bottle I tried, so I went for a smaller-necked bottle (Bard’s beer! LOL!). I turned the pan upside down. The cake fell out, knocked the bottle off the counter, and went splat on the floor.
I threw out the cake, washed the pan, and drank the beer.
So sad… I don’t have any more egg whites in the carton, and not enough whole eggs to try again.
Decided to try Betty Crocker chocolate cake mix in my “cream canoe” pan to make chocolate Twinkies. They’re baking now. 
In the midst of baking for a fundraiser tonight (dessert for 100 people!) I found I had mistakenly mixed up a batch of chocolate cake batter that I didn’t need (what I needed was chocolate with cinnamon and cayenne, and I had forgotten to add them). So I quickly made a dozen cupcakes and then, while I was waiting for the cupcakes I really needed to get done, I decided to fill and frost these a la Hostess.
Aren’t they cute?
Here’s what I used to make them:
The cake is Bob’s Red Mill gluten free chocolate cake mix. I’m very fond of this mix, it makes great moist cupcakes and is very economical compared to some other gluten free mixes. Just don’t taste the raw batter because it has bean flour in it. The bean taste goes away when you cook it.
For the filling and white squiggle I used Betty Crocker Whipped Cream frosting. The Chocolate frosting is also from Betty Crocker. Both kinds say Gluten Free right on the can.
The tool I used for filling and squiggles is a cheap Chinese decorating thing that I got for under $2.00 at a craft store. Not great but it did the job. It came with a filling tip, long and with a pointy end for poking the hole in the cupcake. It also came with several decorating tips, including the small hole for the squiggle.
When filling the cupcake, each one only takes a small amount of filling. There’s not a whole lot of room in there.
The chocolate frosting, I melted in the microwave until it was semi-runny and then spooned on to get that flat shiny look. (It also helped fill in the hole from sticking the filling in.) Then a few minutes later added the white squiggle.
Very yummy! And everything but the ecologically-unfriendly plastic packaging!
Two Eat N Park restaurants in two days. Do you know how peculiar that feels, when I generally don’t set foot in a restaurant unless a) I’m traveling, b) it’s a VERY special occasion, or c) Mo drags me (or talks me into it).
Well, yesterday some time during the work day I decided I was going to offer The Other Half (no, not Mo — my hubby!) the opportunity to go out to dinner for a change. Normally he eats whatever I feel like cooking, or whatever I suggest he heat up for himself if I’m not eating with him. But this week I forced him, kicking and screaming, to eat a dinner of kielbasa and kraut, with Conte’s pierogies. The kielbasa and pierogies he has no problem with… the kraut is another story. So, anyway, having foisted that on him earlier in the week, I felt he deserved a dinner out.
So we went to Eat N Park in Parma. I’d been kind of wanting to try their GF rolls. They are listed on the menu as a sandwich roll, so I ordered one with a burger.
As a note — the menu has the back page devoted to several different dietary issues, including gluten intolerance. It is very concise and lists the available GF items, advising that the fryer is shared so that no fried foods are GF.
I had salad from the salad bar. Most salad items at Eat N Park are gluten free, including all of the dressings. I really like how they segregate the bready-type items at one end away from the vegetable selections and dressings. They do have gluten items such as pasta salad, but I don’t miss it and it is kept far enough from the veggies and olives and things, that it would take a massive effort for someone to share the utensils back and forth. Of the soup selections, only the chili is GF but it is available every day and is fresh and tasty if a little salty. Sorry, no GF soups for the vegetarians.
My burger arrived while I was finishing my salad, so I let it sit for a few minutes, then cut it in half — it was huge, dripping with cheese and bacon and BBQ sauce. First bite. I chewed, swallowed. Examined the bun VERY closely. Honest — I could not tell it was gluten free. That bun was so good, it was hard to take its gluten-freedom on blind faith. (I brought half the burger home as leftovers which I ate for lunch today. Cold, I could tell the bun was GF. But it was still good.)
Today, visiting the Streetsboro location with Mo, I ordered an entree (liver and onions, with baked potato, if anyone cares) along with salad bar. I asked for a GF roll by itself with butter (the entree comes with rolls for the gluten eaters, why not for me?) and said it was OK if there was an additional charge for the roll (there wasn’t).
As a roll with butter, it was very very good. I could tell it was GF this time, but it was GOOD. I bought half a dozen to bring home ($8.99, so $1.50 a roll, which is a pretty typical price for this sort of product).
The rolls are from French Meadow Bakery. They are kept frozen and microwaved before serving (10 seconds in the super industrial microwave, recommended 15-20 at home).
I highly recommend a visit to Eat N Park. As the menu says, let your server know you are ordering gluten free so the correct measures can be taken to avoid cross contact with gluten items. Bon Appetit!
Fried perch, calamari, onion rings, and hush puppies!
I woke up this morning with a migraine. I went back to bed until 3:00 p.m. and still had the migraine. Finally, I took some narcotics and got moving, because I’d promised to do a Fish Fry for dinner, and I had people counting on me.
OK… so I chopped the onions and celery and potatoes and bacon, and started the pot of New England -style clam chowder. Actually, it’s Seafood Chowder, because I added some crabmeat and shrimp along with the clams.
Having gotten the soup going, I mixed up the cole slaw (bagged slaw mix with Marzetti slaw dressing) and got it into the fridge so I could start playing with hot oil.
I had bought some frozen calamari at Marc’s, so I got that out and put it in cool water to thaw. I sliced a sweet onion to make onion rings, then started oil heating while I rinsed and cut up the calamari.
Fried calamari is very simple. I dredged the wet pieces in Zatarain’s Fish Fry (which is gluten free but does have MSG in it; if you happen to be sensitive to MSG, you can season some plain corn flour with salt, pepper, and a little onion and garlic powder, and add cayenne if you like it spicy) and dropped into hot oil to fry. It took four batches to get it all fried. I drained on paper towels and put on a baking sheet in the oven at about 300F to keep hot.
For my next trick, I made hush puppy dough and set it aside to stiffen while I made the fish.
I had bought 2-1/2 pounds of perch. Perch is my favorite fish to fry, but I didn’t realize how much fish that was. It turned out to be 16 good sized pieces, or 8 generous servings. So since only 4 of us were eating, I now have some left in my freezer. It freezes well after cooking and reheats to a crispy finish in the oven.
The beer batter is from a recipe I found on Recipezaar. I use Better Batter flour in place of the all-purpose flour the recipe calls for, and whatever gluten free beer I happen to have on hand. The Better Batter flour continues to thicken as it sits, so I thin down the batter with water as needed. I dredged the fish in plain corn flour and then dunked in batter, transferred to my cast iron pan of hot oil, and turned once while frying. The beer batter puffs up beautifully while cooking. Drain on paper towels. I kept the fish warm alongside the calamari while I kept on frying.
When I ran out of fish, I made onion rings until I ran out of batter. The trick is to be sure the onion pieces are dry before dipping in batter, that way the batter sticks.
Finally, I made the hush puppies and fried them up. While they were frying, I added the clams, shrimp, and cream to the soup and heated it through.
Happy tummies all around!
Gluten-Free Hamantaschen
Yesterday was the Jewish holiday of Purim. Maybe you’ve heard the saying about Jewish holidays — they have a theme: “They tried to kill us, we survived, let’s eat!” Well, if ever a holiday really deserved that description, it’s Purim. This holiday is based on the Book of Esther (and if you don’t know the story, you can find a pretty good synopsis on Wikipedia).
The traditional Purim food is a pastry called Hamantaschen. It’s triangular, because the villain, Haman, purportedly wore a triangular hat. So we get to eat his hat. Oy vay.
Anyway, there are basically two kinds of Hamantaschen. The kind I grew up with is made with a sweet yeast dough and the traditional fillings are poppy seed, prune paste, apricot, cherry, and sometimes sweet cheese (like a cheese Danish). The more modern Hamantaschen have a cookie type dough and are typically filled with strawberry or grape jam, or chocolate chips.
Anyway, I tried my hand at a sweet eggy yeast dough, and it turned out pretty darn good. My batch of dough made 18 nice big pastries, about 6″ on a side. I did 6 each of poppy seed, apricot, and cherry, and I took some pictures for you!
My mother, bless her heart, sent me a link for Gluten Free Matzo.
GlutenFreeMatzo.com
On Saturday, February 20, 2010, Tommy’s Pizza & Chicken in North Ridgeville, Ohio (the far west suburbs of Cleveland) hosted a Gluten-Free buffet with three seatings — 1:00 p.m., 4:00 p.m., and 6:30 p.m.
I made reservations for my party of five for the 6:30 seating. We arrived just about 6:00 and were greeted at the door by representatives of the Northeast Ohio Celiac Support Group. They asked us to sign in and also write our information on slips of paper for a door prize drawing (none of us won anything). We were seated at a booth and I stood around and talked to people while the place filled up.
Kim from 1-2-3 Gluten Free was there with all the currently available mixes and samples of baked goods. Yum, Yum! (We have a number of 1-2-3 Gluten Free products featured in our web store — check them out!)
The buffet price was $14.99 for age 10 and up (there was a discount for young children, but since I had no young children in my group I’m not sure what the reduced price was) and included non-alcoholic beverages. Alcoholic beverages were available, including gluten-free beer, at the regular prices. The regular menu was also available for those who didn’t want to partake of the buffet.
The buffet featured a full salad bar, pizza topped about 6 or 8 different ways, fried chicken, jo-jo potatoes, wing dings (2 flavors) and dessert pizza. It was all delicious. The fried chicken was especially fabulous — my gluten-eating compatriots said it was better than KFC.
Mo and I told the owner how impressed we were, and he gave us a kitchen tour. The pizza crust and chicken breading are both made by Domata gluten free flour company, and shipped ready-to-use in 25 lb. bags. (I have to note here, that I have been on the Domata website this afternoon and it’s giving me a hard time about placing an order — says my billing address doesn’t match my credit card billing address. This would be news to the banks that send me bills every month! I have contacted the company and we’ll see what they say.)
All in all, I would say the event was a huge success — sold out, and the food was awesome. I hear they will be doing it again in a couple months, and I’ll be there!
