The Gluten Bigot: May 2013

Friday, May 31, 2013

Las Vegas - Sin City Minus the Gluten

Since getting married there, my husband and I have gone to Vegas for our anniversary every year. This year we stayed at the Wynn, which a bit far up the strip  but a phenomenal hotel with many options. I thought I would do a round up not only of the places we went this time, but also the Gluten Free Vegas places on the Strip we have visited on our past trips.

North End of the Strip
Brunch @ Society Cafe
  • The Buffet at the Wynn: Usually I avoid buffets but gave this one a go. One of the executive chefs actually walked around to explain what was safe/gluten free.
  • Society Cafe: My favorite for breakfast this trip! Located in the Wynn Encore it has no dedicated menu, but they are really helpful, the omelette is safe, they had really good gluten free toast, and are allergy aware.
  • Red Velvet Cafe: Gluten free pizza in the Fashion Show mall. It was okay. My smoothie was fantastic (and dairy free too!).
  • Wynn room service: very accommodating and helpful when we ordered.
Mid-Strip
Steak Bearnaise @ Mon Ami Gabi 
  • Mon Ami Gabi: My favorite place in Vegas! In the Paris Hotel, it has a gluten free menu for lunch/dinner, amazing gluten free french toast for brunch. I highly recommend the onion soup.
  • China Poblano: In the Cosmopolitan has a gluten free menu and casual vibe.
  • PF Chang's: I dislike chains, but PF Chang's a good gluten free menu (and massive wait times in Vegas)
  • Tasti D Lite: Because I love it.
  • Cosmopolitan room service: We stay last year and they were very accommodating when we ordered room service.
South Strip
  • Red Square: Mandalay Bay, we actually had our wedding  dinner here. Excellent gluten free menu, have the creme brulee. 
  • Border Grill: Mandalay Bay, GF friendly Mexican. Nice for lunch when spending the day at the pool.
  • Burger Bar: Mandalay Bay, GF friendly, no buns when I went but yummy burger patty.
  • Verandah: Mandalay Bay, gluten Free Menu including pancakes for breakfast. Win.
  • Yogurt Inn: Was completely obsessed when we stayed at Mandalay Bay.
  • Nine Fine Irishman: New York New York, gluten free menu and beer, I really love their shephard's pie.
Airport
  • The new terminal has a Carl's Jr where the fries, (non-malted) shakes, and bunless burgers (for the most part) are safe. They have an allergen menu. Personally I like the grease at the end of my trip. Otherwise, find a Starbucks if you can, this airport has limited options otherwise in my experience. 
 Do you have any gluten free Sin City favorites? What places do you make sure you go when in Vegas?


French Onion Soup at Mon Ami Gabi
French Toast at Mon Ami Gabi
Dessert at The Buffet @ the Wynn



Thursday, May 30, 2013

Gluten Free Anniversary!

My handsome husband and I last
weekend in Vegas.
Two years ago I was lucky enough to get hitched to the man of my dreams. I am fortunate to have married my best friend (who also happens to be my soul mate), and that he puts up with me. When we started dating he scoffed at gluten free food, but to help keep me healthy he refrains from gluten 95% of the time around and tolerates my gluten free kitchen - it doesn't hurt that I make him gluten free treats on the regular! 

We celebrated last weekend in Vegas (post is coming!) and will be celebrating again tomorrow night at Beauty & Essex, who I just found out have a gluten free menu!

For reals being married to a gluten bigot, and this one in particular, is not always a walk in the park - so a big thank you to my hubby for the last 2 years, and I look forward to 100 more!

Thursday, May 23, 2013

My Husband Cooks - Gluten Free Poutine

Last week I had one of those little meltdowns. The kind where you have too many things you need to accomplish so all those life things you have to do, like cooking food, really start to get to you. In mine and my husband's history, I have been the one to cook. I met my husband because we lived in the same building, and he quickly became my best friend. I moved shortly thereafter, and to continue hanging out everyday as we did he came over after work everyday for dinner (he worked a few blocks away), which I made. 

Now years later, and married, I know he is not a cook. But in my state of exhaustion last week, I declared I needed help. He said he would cook the next day. And I was very excited  the next day when walking home I rang him to see what we were doing for dinner because we had discussed going out, that he was making dinner. This is the third time since I have known him that he has actually prepared dinner.

And when I got home it all made sense. His lovely sister had shipped some gluten free poutine sauce she found, and we had bought cheese curds. My man was making poutine! He was nice enough to photograph it for my blog as well. I cannot tell you about the method, but the poutine sauce (and poutine) were really good. If you live in Canada, you may be able to find this (my in-laws live in Quebec). 

The most difficult thing to find next was the curd cheese. However, my husband discovered Saxelby Cheesemonger sells curd cheese from upstate. The curd wasn't as fresh by the time we ate it, but it certainly was adequate.

I just wanted to finish up with a shout out to my awesome husband. He made me not only one of his favorite things, but one of mine, and gave me a lovely evening after a very long day.


Wednesday, May 22, 2013

Cupcake vs. Cupcake vs. Cupcake! Part III


This was actually stop two on the quest to determine who sells the best gluten free cupcake in Lower Manhattan was Tulu's. Tulu's has cupcakes, bread, cookies, and other baked treats.

Everything in the case at Tulu's looks three things: professional, beautiful, and delicious! We have been here many times prior, but of course in the name of science we needed to have a cupcake that day for immediate comparison. We had the cupcake of the day, a lemon butter cream with a raspberry on top on vanilla cake, and it was delightful. Tulu's makes amazing icing and the cake itself is quite lovely. I also picked up a half loaf of bread as they sell it fresh and I hadn't tried it before. I enjoyed that subsequently.

Their flavor of the day cupcakes always get me, but I will not their red velvet and the vanilla cake with chocolate icing are my two 'reliable' there. 

Husband rating: 9/10
My rating: 9.5/10 - and for me the winner.

Do you know of any bakeries in Manhattan? Where should I go as I expand my journey to find the best cupcake?

Tuesday, May 21, 2013

Cupcake vs. Cupcake vs Cupcake - Part II

Ah, Babycakes. Now a multi-city bakery with a cookbook out, this is one I have been to many times but strangely I had never tried their cupcakes. I did already know their donuts to be incredible though. 

Babycakes has a win on variety, there just seemed to be lots of interesting choices. Instead of having standard options, they have more decadent and random options - my husband and I opted to have two cupcakes instead of splitting one here because we wanted to try both the Black Forest and the Banana Chocolate. And can I just give Babycakes props on those two flavors off the bat? Just typing them my mouth is watering.

The cupcakes here also look very homemade and have that special feeling, like when a friend gives you a cupcake. And the cupcakes themselves were very good. Icing was good. The cake was moist and the texture was good. My main complaint is the cake is quite tall (high?) so I had a had time biting into it. I did not look refined at all eating these bad boys, but the were delish. 

Husband rating: 8/10
My rating: 8.5/10



Monday, May 20, 2013

Cupcake vs. Cupcake vs. Cupcake! Part I


This may have just been a ploy to eat cupcakes for lunch, but I decided to go on a mission to find the best cupcake in the East Village / Lower East Side. There are now three gluten free bakeries near each other in this area so I thought I would pit them against each other. First up is the newest bakery, Jennifer's Way Bakery

Personally I love the name (ps: my name is Jennifer as well). It is just around the corner from Tomkins Bagels for any interested parties. The bakery itself is really cute and feels very homey which I loved, and all of their breads and treats look homemade as well. I felt like it gave the products a certain feeling of preciousness. My husband was along with me on this journey, There were only two cupcakes options when we went in, we decided to  have the devils food (which was vegan) cupcake and a cookie each. The cupcake itself was really good, flavorful and had a good texture, but was a bit dense and I wasn't in love with the icing. 

My rating: 7/10. 
Husband's rating: 6.5/10 

I'd like to come back for the breads to give them a sample. I'd also like to try a non-vegan cupcake as maybe the icing would be better? 

Sunday, May 19, 2013

Hangover Sunday - Gluten Free Bagels in the East Village!

The best words I could have seen the other day was "gluten free bagel" together. A bagel with creamcheese and a coffee and I am ready to conquer the world! So I was really excited when doing some periodic gluten free searching that Tompkin's Bagels came up on Yelp as having gluten free bagels.

First good sign: the queue was insane. You can watch the normal bagels being made as there are windows to see what's going on in the kitchen. I don't know if they make the GF bagels there, I am guessing not as they have other GF treats available which they get from another source from what I have read.   

Anyways, the bagel. I had the GF with plain cream cheese although I kicked myself immediately for not ordering the bacon cream cheese. The bagel looks like an Udi's bagel. So close that literally it could be. It was decent for a gluten free bagel (I haven't had one I would say is really good ever). Not heavy, the crust was slightly crispy. And copious amounts of cream cheese. Yum!

I also could not resist the gluten free chocolate peanut butter cookie, which my husband 
so kindly shared with me. It was one of the best cookies I've ever eaten. Seriously. Go and eat one right now if you can. 



Friday, May 17, 2013

Simple Gluten Free Lemon Tart Recipe

When I made meringues I had some egg yolks which I did not want to put to waste, so I did an internet to search to figure out something to do with them. I found a Martha Stewart recipe for lemon curd and decide to make it:

  • 3 large egg yolks
  • Zest of 1/2 lemon
  • 1/4 cup lemon juice
  • 6 tablespoons orangic raw cane sugar
  • 4 tablespoons unsalted butter
Basically, put everything into a small sauce pan except the butter and over a medium heat, stir. When it thickens turn off the heat and drop the butter in one quarter (tablespoon) at a time. Over with plastic wrap so the wrap touches the top of the lemon curd and refrigerate. It's good for a few days.

I decided to make tarts with it. For the crust I mixed about 1/4 almond meal with 1/4-ish corn meal and 2 tbsp of coconut oil and pressed into mini pie/tart shells and baked for about 5 minutes at 350. It was the result I was expecting to see, but I topped with the lemon curd and fresh slice strawberries and the result was delicious.  




Thursday, May 16, 2013

Where to Book a Table - Gluten Free Spot in Tribeca

One of the funny things I find, no matter where you live, is that people tend not to venture too far from where I live. It is certainly true for me - why leave Hell's Kitchen when there are so many convenient options? I'm trying to shake that, and TriBeCa is a neighborhood I really hadn't spent any time in so I decided to find somewhere to dine on a Saturday night there.

I found Mehtaphor. While they do not have a dedicated gluten free menu (though their naturally GF items are noted here), they are very gluten free friendly.We were given both the normal and vegetarian menu. Our server advised almost anything could be made gluten free, there were only a few items which could not be. My husband and I ended up ordering the walnut salad with guacamole sorbet and chicken satay, and I ordered the banana lead tofu fritters for myself. 

The salad arrived first. It was really nice although I was not a massive fan of the guacamole sorbet (frozen guacamole is a bit icy in texture). Other than that it was a nice refreshing salad. I just ended up waiting for the guacamole to somewhat melt before eating it, or avoided having any of it. 

Next my tofu arrived. I was a bit concerned when it was first delivered because the onion fritters (ie
onion rings) on top - so we actually had them double check that they were completely gluten free and happily they were. The tofu was really good, the sauce on top was simply divine, probably one of the nicest flavors I have encountered. And the onion fritters were good. Not as crispy as I would have expected but I was still very happy to eat them.
After the tofu I was quite full, but our chicken satay arrived and like I trooper I had my share. Once again, one of the better satays I have had. The sauce was really good, and had a good kick to it. 

I was also very interested in dessert that night. We inquired into the status of the sundae, and our server was able to confirm it was GF after asking in the back. The sundae was very good as well. I mean, I am always happy when I have ice cream. 

I would certainly go again to Mehtaphor again if in the area, and definitely will bring vegetarian friends there (they had an equal sized menu). The decor was nice and the seating was comfy. I will note it got to be very loud. We were also privy to each word said at the table next to us - which of course can be mildly entertaining but also incredibly annoying.

Wednesday, May 15, 2013

Chickpea Bread

I happen to have had a bag of garfava bean flour which has been sitting in my pantry for a bit too long without being opened, so I did a search on what could be made with it and found this awesome website. On there I decided to try making the Chickpea Farinata Bread as it sounded yummy and looked delicious. For my version, I used:
  • 1 cup warm water
  • 1 cup chickpea flour
  • a few cranks of my Pink Himalayan Sea Salt
  • a few cranks of black pepper
  • 1/5 tsp cumin
  • 2 tbsp olive oil
  • Dill and paprika for dusting (optional)
Preheat oven to 450. Really easy to make from there: combine all ingredients into a bowl and mix together well. Pour into a 8x8 or 9x9 pan (or pie pan like I did), and dust  with dill and paprika. Bake about 15 minutes and let sit a few minutes in the pan before removing and slicing up. Good in the fridge for one day, after that I recommend freezing.




Tuesday, May 14, 2013

Easy Gluten Free Banana Quinoa Flake Muffins


A few weeks ago I bought quinoa flakes with it in mind I would make an apple crumble. However, I decided I wanted some muffins - they're just so easy to grab for breakfast. There was actually a recipe on the side of the box I used with a few tweaks (you can find the original here).
  • 1/4 cup white rice flour
  • 1/4 cup millet flour
  • 1/2 cup  Quinoa Flakes
  • 2 tsp baking powder
  • 1 tsp baking soda
  • A few cracks of Pink Himayalan Sea Salt 
  • 2 ripe bananas
  • 2 tbsp organic honey
  • 2 eggs 
  • Cinnamon for dusting
Preheat your oven to 400F. I started by mixing the dry ingredients together in a bowl. In a small bowl I mashed the two bananas using a fork. I added the honey and eggs into the mashed bananas and gave it a good mix. Then everything when into a bowl together and I mixed until the dry ingredients were well incorporated with the wet. Then it was into a greased muffin pan - I used a 1/4 scoop to do the transfer and yielded 12. Before putting into the oven I dusted the topic with cinnamon both to enhance flavor and because cinnamon is a good blood sugar stabilizer. That brought me to baking! Mine were done in about 15 minutes, but the original said 20-25 (my oven is crazy). 

Have you ever made a recipe from a box?

Monday, May 13, 2013

Parisian Inspired Meringues

On my recent trip, I fell in love again with meringue. They are so simple, yet to elegant and delicious. And naturally gluten free. Since I had never made them myself I thought I would give it a try. I found a recipe on the Joy of Baking to work from. I used:
  • 3 large egg whites 
  • 1/4 tsp cream of tartar
  • 3/4 cup organic raw cane sugar
  • 1/4 teaspoon lavender extract
  • 8 drops blue food color
  • 6 drops red food color
  • carob powder for dusting.
Preheat oven to 200F. Cover your largest baking sheet with a piece of parchment paper. Beat egg whites for a minute, then add cream of tartar and continue to beat until soft peaks form. Add sugar a bit at a time and beat hard until firm peaks form. Add lavendar extract (or whatever extract you would like) and food color (optional). Mix again until extract and food color is well incorporated. 

Put meringue batter into a pastry bag (I finally invested in one), ziploc bag, or use spoons.
Pipe or drop onto baking sheet. Dust with carob powder. Bake 1.5-2 hours. Let cool before you try them (they won't be the right texture until they are cooled, trust me on this one, I couldn't wait and tried right away). Then enjoy!

Mine have stored nicely for a week. 

What flavor of meringue do you like best?


Sunday, May 12, 2013

Gluten Free Hangover Food - Shake Shack

I seem to be on a burger kick lately... luckily said kick brought me to Shake Shack (finally). I've been wanting to try it for ages, however I am often put off by the queue. The beautiful weather last weekend finally brought me there for a burger and fries.

Sadly they do not have gluten free buns, but they do have the lettuce option, which is how mine was served. When ordering without the bun they automatically asked if I was gluten free and I said yes and they kept my food all safe. Even without the bun, my cheeseburger was amazing.

I also really loved their fried (yay gluten free). I was even really bad as they had mayo out - I heart mayo and chips! For my shake I had the caramel and it was really nice. 

I will certainly go again, hopefully when the queue is lesser (the one on the Upper West Side usually isn't too crazy).

Saturday, May 11, 2013

Gluten Free Pancakes from a Box

It's Saturday! My favorite thing about the weekend is brunch - be in made at home or out. On a lazy Saturday a couple weeks ago I finally opened up my box of Purely Elizabeth gluten free pancake mix -  sometimes I am just too lazy to make them from scratch. 

The ready mix is just so easy to make. The box makes 2 batches. All ingredients are listed on the side of the box - just assemble in a mixing bowl and whisk together. 

While cooking
The batter will look as pictured left. Scoop 1/4 cup at a time into a preheated frying pan. I cooked two at a time. It yielded 6 pancakes, and I served with maple syrup. 

The result was pretty good. They are a bit dense as gluten free food can be, but based on the ease to make them I will certainly repurchase this mix down the road. 

The end result!


Friday, May 10, 2013

Gluten Free Cookies in Hell's Kitchen


Yesterday I wrote about making cookies based on a craving. But what do you do when you have a wicked cookie craving and don't want to make a whole batch (or, let's be real, buy a whole package). If you live in Hell's Kitchen I have a solution for you - Schmackary's!

Conveniently located next to Five Napkin - I mean Times Square - I have walked by here way too many times and been a little bit spiteful about the fact I could not eat a normal cookie. But delightfully, I discovered a couple of weeks ago that they have a couple of gluten free options. My husband remembered this little tidbit after we had dinner the other night, so we went to try.

I had the Sweet Corn, and I expected it to be a crunchy mediocre gluten free cookie. However, I was very wrong in my assumption as it was actually really good! I had never had a sweet corn cookie before and this one easily made me a fan. 

So don't feel left out! Go and enjoy a Schmackary's gluten free cookie!

Thursday, May 9, 2013

Super Easy Gluten Free Peanut Butter Cookies

Do you ever get motivation to make something based on a random craving? Maybe that I how you found my blog in the first place. Recently, I randomly wanted peanut butter cookies so bad. I have a favorite recipe in a cookbook that, after ripping my apartment apart as I could not find it, I realized I forgot in Vancouver during my last trip (Note to Mom: Please bring it when you come to visit). 

I had tried different recipes before, so some googling I decided to give the recipe I found on The Wannabe Chef a go I highly recommend checking out this website, he has several mouth watering variations - I will post mine here. I used:
  • 1 cup creamy peanut butter 
  • 1 large egg
  • 1/2 cup organic cane sugar
  • 1/4 cup white chocolate chips
  • 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1/4 cup white chocolate chips.
Preheat your oven to 350F. This recipe is so easy - just put all the ingredients into a bowl and mix. I added the chocolate chips after everything was mixed, but there are no rules here. I just used my rubber spatula so I would have less to clean up (so amazing for the lazy baker in me). 

D
Seriously amazing gadget - love!
The favorite part of this for me was using my new cookie scoop. I had my eye on this little kitchen gadget for what seemed like forever, I was just really too cheap to shell our the $13 for it (note: You can find basically the same thing for about a fiver in TJ Maxx). I finally splashed out on it - and was so glad I did. Getting the dough into ball form and onto the baking sheet was so much more efficient and I am completely in love with the scooper.

Getting back to our cookie steps though, using a normal spoon or fancy-pantsy cookie scoop, drop onto a cookie sheet and press lightly on top with a fork for classic peanut butter cookie grooves. Bake 15-20 minutes then cool on wire rack. Then enjoy! 


Do you have a favorite peanut butter cookie recipe? What is your favorite thing to add in?

Wednesday, May 8, 2013

Can I Be Glutened From Kissing?

I can remember way back before my husband and I were married, and in fact when we were living in different cities/timezones/countries, and he was visiting me. We went out for a drink, I had some sort of cocktail and he a beer. As the evening got on I realized I had been glutened - but how!? I hadn't eaten anything, had a drink I always drank, so what was up?

Oh snap - it was the kissing!

Another one of the fun things to add to the life of a gluten intolerant/celiac - if your partner is not gluten free, what they have had to eat and drink will have to be a concern. I am a lucky girl, my husband is gluten free around me 99% of the time. I also joke if he has had gluten out he will need to 'wash his mouth out' - a good teeth brushing / mouthwash / rinsing to make sure his mouth is no longer contaminated. 

If your partner gluten free? If not, do you kiss them after gluten or is there a gluten-no-kissy rule?

Tuesday, May 7, 2013

Comfort Food For When Hayfever Kicks Your Butt

Beautiful tree/allergy maker
Apparently pollen counts have been quite high for New York. I was informed this while a completely runny-nose-sore-throat-puffy-face conversations. Happy to know it is just my raging hayfever for which even Aerius seems to be nothing against this year. 

As a rule, I do not miss work. I have colleagues and clients who expect me to be there, so I always will be unless I am actually unable to get out of bed (in which case I will likely work from home and still meet all commitments). Last week, I was feeling really rough with allergies, and decided to make the trek into office anyway. I was ache-y and cranky, and it was a bit rainy so I wanted something really comforting. And then I remembered - Hale & Hearty in Grand Central (my office is across the street). 

I loved that they posted their menu online, including clearly marking gluten free options, and I was able to arrive already knowing what I wanted and not having to interrogate anyone. This was actually my first trip to Hale and Hearty (despite there being one across from work and one near my flat), and the service was really good - I was in the sandwich queue (there was two queue - whaaaa!?) and a staff member brought me to the right side when taking pre-orders and just took my order so I didn't have to re-queue (soooo nice, especially since standing up was quite a chore with the way I was feeling). I had the smoked turkey corn chowder, and it was seriously amazing. I can't believe I'd never ventured over for it previously - and certainly will again!


So if in Manhattan, and you are feeling a soup day - I highly suggest! 

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