Oh, Bob... I had such high hopes for us...

Yesterday marked my first attempt at using a gluten-free mix for my pizza dough.  As I mentioned in my last post, calzones are a tradition in my husband's family.  My father-in-law is a wizard... those beautiful creations are tailored to each member of the family and stuffed with ricotta, cheese, meat, and usually two kinds of olives.  They make me happy.  As does the two bottles of red wine we typically kill in the process of eating them.

So, I wanted to participate without giving in to gluten.  I was instructed to test out mixes and recipes before our trip to Spokane in December.  Naturally, I put it off.  When dieting, it's not the best idea to go on a pizza quest.  There's a free tip from your health and fitness expert, Kara.

Yesterday at Whole Foods I was armed with the pizza crust recipe from a certain Gluten Free Goddess.  Her picture of her pizza looked so tasty, I knew it would be the one to make my calzone dreams come true.  The first thing I needed was some xanthan gum.  Then a bit of sorghum flour, millet flour, and tapioca starch. No problem, this is Whole Foods, right?  WRONG. My shock at seeing the lack of sorghum flour AND millet flour was surpassed tenfold by the following...

Xanthan gum was 15 dollars per package!

What the hell is xanthan anyway?  Now, I know you only bake with a tablespoon or so at times, but this was still shocking to me.  Add that to the cost of all of the other flours and you've got yourself a thirty dollar pizza- at least!

So, I went for a mix instead.  I contemplated the Namaste brand after seeing positive reviews (I love technology and I love my smart phone), but frowned at the higher price.  Bob's Red Mill seemed like a close second and for only five bucks I was willing to give it a shot.

Just add egg, oil and water?  No problem.  Smooth onto a greased cookie sheet?  Bigger problem.

Pizza making really destroys the kitchen.  All the chopping, shredding of cheeses, sauteeing of mushrooms and zucchini to tender deliciousness... then add in a dishwasher hubby with a headcold and your tiny apartment kitchen is a disaster.  I considered calling FEMA.  But, I tredged on- using the only surface I could to set the cookie sheets on... the oven.  So, gluten is the wonderful protein that makes bread products all elastic and chewy and crusty all at the same time.  Spreading gluten-free dough is like working with a sticky biscuit batter.  I'm pretty sure there is no way to get it to a uniform thickness.  From reading online blogs, I expected this to be difficult.  I didn't expect the heat from the pre-heated oven to begin cooking the bottom of my crust.  

Oy.  

So, I sweated, I swore, and I busted out a pizza...

Chicken breast, spinach, sundried tomatoes, feta, mushrooms, zucchini, and mozzarella.

And it wasn't too shabby!  The edges weren't great... and it certainly wasn't real pizza (I'm a snob), but it was much better than a certain polenta abomination that graced my table when I first went gluten-free.  My husband swears that he liked it and- since he is sick and generally whiny/truthful in those instances- I'm going to believe him.

Then, there was the calzone.  Since gluten-free pizza dough is not, in fact, a dough... it was a bit difficult to form into shape and then fold over.  The results were less than pretty:

Yikes.

The calzone was okay- but I think that the dough really needed the pre-cooking step before adding toppings.  Compared to the pizza, the calzone was a bit more gummy in areas and dry in others.  No bueno.  My filling, however was tasty.  Whenever you have the opportunity to combine sundried tomatoes, cream cheese, and feta I think you should take it.  You won't be disappointed.

So, Bob, I don't think you and I are going to have a long-term pizza relationship.  In a pinch, you would do if I feel the need for a homemade slice, but I'm not giving up on prepacked mixes yet.  And eventually I'll just rip the bandaid off and stock my gluten-free pantry with all the fancy flours (and gums?) required.  But, for this Christmas I'll enjoy the treat of a gluten-y calzone.  If you can't treat yourself during the holidays, when can you?

What's your biggest splurge item in terms of kitchen food?  Personally, I was hoping mine would be some nice truffle oil...

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WFD? Deliciousness

Ugh, blurry. 

This week I was focusing on the usual- gluten-free and delicious.  This week may be a teensy bit more indulgent than usual, as you can see.  Steak.  Carbs.  An avocado curry that will certainly have me on the elliptical until it's time to do make the shrimp fra diavolo- where I will eat more carbs.

Speaking of carbs...After cooking tonight I plan to post my results of Bob's Red Mill Pizza Crust Mix as soon as possible.  With our Christmas trip coming up I've been anxiously awaiting the struggles of being gluten-free for the holidays.  I'm mostly thinking about my father-in-law's delicious calzones and my mother-in-laws amazing Christmas morning breakfast- which typically includes both monkey bread AND orange-coconut rolls.  *swoons*

And now, something important: This Christmas will be without a very special family member.  The magnet in the upper left corner is representative of my in-law's family cat, Schmily (See how much I love you), who was put to sleep last week.  She was ornery, she was pretty, and she generally didn't like people.  But, she was family.  We love family even when they bite.  Rest in peace, Schmily.

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Leftover Turkey Pho

Despite only having a 10 pound turkey, we were left with a sizable amount of leftovers.  In years past I would boil down my turkey carcass to make some homemade stock for turkey noodle soup.  Now, because I haven't found any gluten-free egg noodles, and because I'm missing being in college, I decided to go a more Asian direction with my soup this year...
On the Sacramento State campus, near the library, exists this wonderful little restaurant called Saigon Bay.  They introduced me to avocado smoothies, tofu spring rolls with peanut dipping sauce, and noodle soup with options of throwing in bean sprouts, jalapenos, lime wedges, hoisin, and sriracha.  Especially in these gray fall/winter months in Sacramento, that soup really hit the spot.
I decided to pursue making my own replication of that soup.  Now, I would alternate between shrimp and flank steak for my protein, but with all the leftovers it seemed a good time to use up my dark turkey meat (white is for sammiches and tonight's curry).
I used this recipe from Kevin's (hey, that's my husband's name) Closet Cooking as a base for my experiment. When I boiled down the carcass I already had ginger, shallots, and onions in there so I left that step out.  I think the best change I made is that I threw in a bag of dried shiitake mushrooms during my second stock process (after skimming out the solids and the top layer of fat).  This- combined with the ingredients of the star anise, cloves, and cinnamon- made for a very umami experience.  I would suggest starting low with the fish sauce and sugar altering to your tastes.
The result was a very delicious, warming pho. Topped with the rooster sauce and Dynasty hoisin (gluten-free) and a hearty heap of bean sprouts (super healthy!) it was satisfying and light after the previous day of gluttony.  The only change I would make in the future was to use thinner rice noodles.
Kevin (my husband, not the blogger) found this to be a great way to use the leftovers.  I'm happy that we have some leftover stock for the upcoming cold and flu season for a second round of pho- comforting, and the sriracha is great for the sinuses.  We happily slurped down the remainders of the pot for lunch today.
To conclude, I think a new leftover turkey tradition has been born.

Do you have any traditions in regards to your Turkey Day leftovers?  Any of them slightly unusual?

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Wfdw- Turkey Edition

Pardon the dark pic...

I hope everyone had a great day yesterday and celebrated with loved ones. Today makes the beginning of me trying to cram all of my thanksgiving leftovers into new recipes. Lunch was a delicious turkey sandwich on Against The Grain baguette with avocado, tomato, havarti, and spicy mustard.

(Source- Celiacs in the House)

This bread was chewy and delicious.  It had a bit too many air bubbles that made me wonder what I was paying for, but I cannot argue with that sandwich... Mmmmm....  I also used it for garlic bread.
Now, dinner recipes are a bit more difficult since I've yet to find gluten free noodles that can stand up to a soup. Tonight, turkey pho-which will hopefully help me forget that I'm eating turkey. Sunday, I'm throwing leftover turkey AND leftover sweet potatoes in rich curry sauce. Barbecue sauce will mask the flavor in our final turkey meal. Anything leftover from our ten pound turkey at that point will be thrown in the freezer (hopefully for future pho).

Happy leftovers, everyone!

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The Grand Experiment!

So, I'm a scientific person.  Just because you take one intervention and you see a change, doesn't imply direct causation.  This is what I was thinking with how amazing I had been feeling lately.  Yes, I had gone gluten-free... but was this why I was feeling great?  What happens if I eat a bit of wheat?

And so came the grand experiment!  We were heading off for the Hornets' homecoming game on Saturday- Sacramento State University versus Eastern Washington University.  Here is what I ate throughout the day:

A delicious McChicken.  Burgers you can have lettuce wrapped, or even with a GF bun, but with a McChicken there's still the spicy, moist, breaded chicken patty. It was a fantastic indulgence.  Did I mention it's only a buck?  That's value, my friends.

This was my meal during the game.  Tri tip sandwich with plenty of barbecue sauce.  It came with a side of beans and potato salad that I didn't really eat.  I enjoyed the smoky goodness of the meat most of all.

This wasn't exactly the highlight of my gluten indulgence, but it was night to not have to ration and savor each drop, like I do with my sorghum beer.

The result?  It't not really super dramatic. Minimal digestive distress, no humongous lupus flare.  The only thing I really noticed was that the following morning (Sunday) I was cranky, lethargic, and cranky (it needed to be said twice, I was a bit of a bitch to Kevin).  It wasn't until I got on my bike that I really noticed a big difference.  Weeks past, my knees moved easily as I pedaled- and typically I could go for at least an hour. But after wheatie-funsies on Saturday, I just couldn't really get moving, it just felt tight and forced.  Needless to say, I did not burn many calories.

So, am I actually gluten-intolerant?  Probably not.  But I feel much healthier when I'm leaving it out of my diet, and I still haven't had a flare since I started.  I think the best thing is that I know I won't die if I cave into my McChicken craving every once in awhile.  I'll just have to expect that I won't be rocking it in the motivation department afterwards.

Perhaps all of us would benefit from cutting back on wheat, though.  Maybe you would have more energy, bounce out of bed a bit faster, increase your time on the treadmill.  Wheat may not even be what's dragging you down- what about sweets, processed foods, or red meat?

Food for thought.  Happy Monday, everyone!  Being off the gluten again, I got in a walk, pilates at PT, 30 minutes on the elliptical, and a bit of the P90X Core Synergistics video (just enough to know I won't be able to hack it).

Any thoughts on possible changes to your lifestyle?

Teeny-tiny GF sammich!

Behold!
I know the picture sucks.  I ate lunch at close to 2 pm.  Since I had pilates this morning and then ran a bunch of errands, I was starving.  Hence, the shaky picture.  I was literally moving forward to devour it as I was taking the shot.  Sorry, everyone.
One of those errands was running to this wonderful place: Azna Gluten Free Bakery in Cameron Park, California.  Kinda a random place for a shop like this, but worth a short drive.  I picked up one of the "Sweet Noni" loaves of bread, which includes these ingredients:

*Azna Dry Blend (Rice Flour, Pinto Bean Flour, Modified Tapioca Starch, Cornstarch, Guar Gum, Xanathan Gum,Leavening, Sea Salt) Stabilized Rice Bran, Sorghum Flour, Organic Sucanot,Organic Hemp Milk, Organic Palm Oil Organic Hemp Seeds, Roasted Flaxseed, Buckwheat,Yeast, 100% Pure Organic Noni Juice, Agave’Nectar, Evaporated Cane Juice*

Holy wow, that's a lot of stuff, including some stuff I had never heard of before.  The result?  It tastes like a Honey Wheat Bread.  The loaf is really tiny, and apparently I'm supposed to keep it frozen until it's time to eat it.  It was still a bit crumbly, but much better than the rice bread.  I toasted it, topped it with stone ground mustard, turkey, pepperjack, pickles, and tomato.  Super tasty.

Now, for what I didn't like... That loaf of bread cost me twelve bucks! Now, I expected the bread at this place to be slightly more expensive than the bland rice loaves from the grocery store- I did not expect double the price.  Don't tell Kevin.

This makes me all the more ready to purchase this bad boy:

Click to purchase :)... hint.

I also want a bread machine.  And a food scale.

I really can't justify the prices of the breads in the store- even six bucks is crazy for the small, tasteless things readily available.  And, with the opening of Whole Foods in Folsom, I should be able to find all the ingredients (Sorghum Flour?) in one spot rather than traveling from Bel Air to the Natural Foods store to Trader Joe's.  It gets old.

Happy present shopping, everyone!  I'm about to go enjoy my other purchase from Azna's, a (vegan) vanilla cupcake.

Whose finger is that?

The frosting I was dripping off, I swear.

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Gluten-free beer!

Probably one of the biggest things I miss about gluten is beer and wings on Sundays while watching football. Thankfully, I discovered this at my local grocery store. It tastes pretty decent, but was pricey at 7.49 for a six-pack. I'll savor one each Sunday. :)

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Wfdw short week!

Here's the plan for this short week, although I have to do some rearranging- today is National Taco day! I hope you're all celebrating! And, of course, all this deliciousness is sans wheat.

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Gluten-Free Traveling

Ugh, I am so happy to be home!

For over the past week Kevin and I have been on the road.  We traveled down to San Diego to catch one of our favorite bands, TV on the Radio- give them a listen below.  We stayed with my best friend since third grade, Cassie.

Much fun and much alcohol was had by all.

There was also Muddy Buddies and mediocre gluten-free pizza.

But pizza nonetheless!

From San Diego we traveled up Highways 1 and 101.  We passed through all the tiny rich towns with lots of expensive cars.We drove along the ocean for most of the journey up until about Portland.  We went on an AWESOME dune buggy ride near Coos Bay, scoped out the Tillamook Cheese Factory and the Blue Heron wine tasting and cheese place.  It was a wonderful trip- just me and the hubby (and the booboo).  We ended up in our hometown of Spokane, Washington in time to celebrate my nephew's third birthday.  I'll post more on the trip later- this part is about the food.

Kevin and I knew that if I could survive a roadtrip on the gluten-free diet I could probably rock it long term.  It was difficult, to say the least.

For car snacks I mostly stuck potato chips and tortilla chips.  Not super healthy, I know, but when you're traveling you want the delicious salty stuff.  At one point we bought some beef jerky, only to realize it was flavored with soy sauce.  Frownie face.

Breakfasts got easier after the first day.  I discovered, happily, that Odwalla bars are gluten-free!

 

This one tastes like a rice krispy treat!

We would stop by a grocery store in the morning, pick up a couple bananas, some yogurt, and some of those bars.  Yum!

Lunch was another issue- especially in the smaller towns.  McDonald's was great for salads. I learned that Carl's Jr., home of the charbroiled chicken salad (yum!) seasons their grilled chicken.  This is not unusual practice.  KFC makes a delicious grilled chicken, but they do the same darn thing.  So, I ate a lot of lettuce wrapped burgers.  This wasn't an issue at Carl's, home of the low-carb six dollar burger.

It looks delicious, but I got sick of it eventually.  Other places didn't get the concept of a lettuce wrap so much.
"You mean, like put lettuce around the bun?"
No... instead of a bun, you wrap it in lettuce leaves.
"Oh, so the chicken snack wrap".
No, not the wrap either, just lettuce. 
"So, on a bed of lettuce?"
Well, no, not really, you still make it like a sandwich.
"Oh, I got it".
There were quite a few disappointing lunches.  None of the non-Carl's places got it right.  The example above is a McDonald's, when I ordered a grilled chicken sandwich.  It arrived on the bed of lettuce, with all the fixin's.  It was close, at least!  Burger King didn't do so great.  They stated that their lettuce was shredded, so they couldn't do a wrap (it wasn't that shredded).  So, I was greeted with a Whopper patty sitting atop a mound of lettuce.  The kicker on that one is they didn't give me any condiments.  It was a dry, flavorless experience.  To make matters worse, they also messed up my side salad order.  I cried during that lunch.
Dinners were easier since we were settled in for the night.  One evening we had mediocre Chinese food, another, a rotisserie chicken from Safeway (verified gluten-free).  One amazing night we indulged in some Thai food (Thank you, Portland!).  On our last night (and drive home) I encountered a very friendly Subway employee who gave me all the ingredients for a turkey sammich, but charged me only as "double meat" on my hubby's order.  Assembling all that Subway fresh veggie goodness on my crumbly, bland rice bread was a bit disappointing, but at least it wasn't another salad!
So, here is my list for gluten-free friendly traveling:

• Carl's Jr. (Low Carb burgers)
• McDonald's- Their salads are pretty good, and I rounded my meal off with a sweet tea and apple slices.  I was pretty happy.
• Wendy's- After squinting over their little allergen chart I figured out that their grilled chicken is gluten free.  I put one of those on a large Caesar salad.  They also have the chili and the baked potatoes for options.
• Taco Time- Taco Bell uses flour on their meat (and everything else).  I didn't get to try anything, but if you stick to corn shells and grilled meats you should be good.
• Grocery Stores- why not just pick up an apple, some deli meats, and some Blue Diamond Nut Thins?
• Chinese/Thai/Sushi- Just watch out for soy sauce and don't get anything that's breaded and deep-fried.

I think the toughest parts about this were that for lunch we wanted to save money.  This almost always translates into fast food.  And, when you're driving through tiny towns along the coast, there isn't always a ton of options.  You can get hangry in that amount of time.  Just make sure that you've married a guy who can make you laugh through your tears... some joke about flame-broiling the Burger King restaurant... I don't remember.  :)
So, I made it!  And, the crazy thing is that I feel amazing.  Normally the week of a roadtrip/traveling return rivals my period week for how shitty I feel.  I have almost NO stiffness.  I'm cautiously optimistic!

Gluten-free pasta!

No brand to mention here! I used my madeline slicer (purchased over a year ago and never used) to thinly slice carrots, yellow squash, zucchini, and some weird third squash that was on sale. I also sliced my thumb...approximately 2 minutes after the hubs told me to use the safety deal on the slicer. I look forward to using the sharp blades to make some homemade sweet potato chips!
Steam everything until it's as soft as you like (or too soft, if you're busy drinking wine and can't be bothered to watch it). Drain excess water, top with delicious meat sauce, and a silly amount of good parmesan.
Enjoy!

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Gluten-free cookies!

Throughout the process of this training it came out that the wonderful trainer is also a gluten-free eater. Today was someone's birthday and she brought in those delicious grocery store bakery cookies. After just four days of this torture, I was pretty bummed. Then she pulls these nomnoms out! They taste just like chips-ahoy. Yum! The brand is Pamela's, and apparently they have other yummy treats as well. Enjoy!

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Gluten-free (and a bit lonely!)

It's day two of my gluten-free eating and day two of training. I'm again sitting by myself in the training room, but also taking the time to enjoy the quiet and sit with my thoughts. Today's salad is very similar to yesterdays, with some small changes and additions. I added some sliced mushrooms, a second type of olive, and shredded mozzarella. I really need to stop by the store...bagged mozzarella just can't compete with feta or goat cheese in a salad. Snacks for today will include rice crackers and homemade spinach dip, grapes, and a coconut cream pie Larabar. I even resisted a presenter's homemade cookies! I'm rocking this!
How are you being good today?

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