Tag Archives: Gluten-free

The best gluten free in Detroit

Posted on July 22, 2011 | 11 comments

Whenever I go home, it’s always an adventure trying to find something to eat.  Luckily my family is amazing and always has something special for me at family gatherings, like gluten free rice krispy treats, brownies, or fresh fruits and veggies.  They’ve also managed to rework some of our old family recipes to eliminate the gluten in them: like swapping out the cream of chicken soup in Party Potatoes for a can of gluten free cream of mushroom.  Some family recipes happen to be gluten free already too – like this winner from my grandma’s cookbook for NACHO PIE!

Doesn’t that sound healthy, fresh, and light?  Well, not at all.  But I’m sure it’s dang delicious.

Now of course you’d need gf versions of all of the ingredients (usually I substitute slow cooker chili seasoning for the taco seasoning, since gf packets are hard to find).

Back to the point of this post though.  Even though Detroit is still behind the pack as far as gluten free restaurants, there are some that are emerging and some great non-gf restaurants that are very accommodating.

I’m trying to keep this list to Detroit proper, with a couple additions in outlying areas.  And also not including Buddy’s Pizza, because their gf pizza should not be promoted.

Atlas Global Bistro (Menu) $$$$

3111 Woodward Ave
Detroit, MI 48201

Great reviews on this place, and their menu has a ton of fresh seafood, salads, and fancy words.  The paella and Jamaican jerk grilled shrimp sound right up my alley.

Cottage Inn Pizza  (Menu) $$

19222 Mack Ave (this location has gf pizza)
Grosse Pointe, MI 48236

Cottage Inn thin crust pizza used to be my favorite pizza ever.  We would eat it backstage at dance recitals, and some people may have even eaten half of one savagely in the car while driving.  They carry gf pizza at some of their locations – check this map to find out where.

Greengos

Last time I was home I tried to go to Greengos, but they are closed on Mondays (?) 😦  Oh, Grosse Pointe.  There is basically no information on their website, but the menu in the window looked really fresh and they have some great yelp reviews.

Mudgie’s Deli (Menu)

1300 Porter St
Detroit MI 48226

For 75 cents extra you can have gluten free bread substituted on your sandwich.  Most of the ingredients are homemade, plus they have Better-Made potato chips, ice cream from Calder’s Dairy, Sander’s hot fudge, Michigan berries, and lots of other local ingredients, which I <3.  If I went there I would totally get the Sorry Charlie – Mudgie-made albacore tuna salad, Dill Havarti cheese, cucumber, tomato and mixed greens, served with a side of honey mustard dressing.

Rumi’s Passion

41120 5 Mile Rd
Plymouth, MI 48170

Even though this bakery is in Plymouth, I must include it because they have gluten free bumpy cake cupcakes.  Say WHAT?  If you don’t know what bumpy cake is, it’s a Sander’s delicacy.

There also are, like, NO recipes online for a gluten free version.  So I may have to work on that 😉

Other than that, I sometimes get the nachos at Shore’s Inn, thai food at Sy Thai, soup at the Sprout House, and omelettes and bananas and cream at the Original Pancake House.

This post is making me home sick 🙂

In conclusion, Detroit hustles harder.

Do you know of any other Detroit gluten free hot spots? Suggestions and additions are welcome.   I know it’s difficult to find information on anything gluten free in Michigan 🙂

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New Cascadia Bakery – Portland

Posted on July 21, 2011 | 1 comment

I have so many posts to make from my trips that I don’t even know where to begin.  But, I suppose the most impressive place that I went should go first.

After a thrilling trip to the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry, where I kicked some butt in old school video games, I headed to the one spot in Portland that was a must-go gluten free place…

New Cascadia Traditional ” The Gluten Free Artisans”

What a pretentious fitting name.

We had just missed sandwich time, which they serve until 3pm, so that was disappointing.

But they had so many other choices that I had to try a few things, one for now and one for later.

For now = asiago bagel with cream cheese.

When was the last time that you could order one bagel from a store, and have them make it for you the way you like?  For me, probably about six years.

It was definitely a great bagel, but I think I may have lost my bagel lust somewhere along the way.  It just doesn’t do the same thing it did for me in high school when I got a bagel with butter on it nearly every day after school (oh the shame).

For later =this amazing pizza with asparagus, mushrooms, blue cheese, and hazelnuts.

Yeah – who knew about the deliciousness of hazelnuts on a pizza?

I ate this for dinner, and then as a snack, and then as another dinner.  I could have eaten the whole thing in one sitting though, but it was really rich, so I managed to hold off.

The only thing lacking at New Cascadia was the customer service.  The girl behind the counter looked like she wanted to kill me every time I asked a question, and heaven forbid I ask for my bagel toasted.  But luckily their food made up for it.   I could have spent $100 on food here easily – blueberry pie, fresh bread, scones, cookies – you name it, they had it.

New Cascadia Traditional

1700 SE 6th Avenue at SE Market (two blocks South of Hawthorne).

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Buddy’s Pizza – Detroit

Posted on July 11, 2011 | 7 comments

I figured while I’m home would be a good time to post about Buddy’s gluten free pizza in Detroit (the location I went to is the one in Grosse Pointe on Moross and Mack Ave).

Buddy’s used to be my favorite pizza as a kid.  Their square crust pizza was a must at birthdays and had this amazing slightly-sweet tomato sauce and chewy crust with little pieces of almost-burnt cheese on it.  Ah to wax nostalgic on my gluten-filled and fancy-free days.

So when I heard that Buddy’s started making gluten free pizza, I was stoked.  I figured that they would try to make it as close to their regular version as possible, and couldn’t wait to try it. Plus I haven’t heard of anywhere else making gf pizza in Michigan.

So my friend and I arrive and order our pizza with green peppers and mushrooms, and sit down to wait the 15 minutes they say it will take to make special.  Fifteen minutes later, they come to tell us that the crust stuck to the aluminum foil that it was baking on (?) …and they used the wrong kind of cheese (?)…so they are going to have to remake it.  Obviously gluten free pizzas aren’t requested very often.  They were very sweet and offered us free drinks and a Greek salad while we waited for Pizza #2, so we sat back and waited some more.

Eventually the much-anticipated Pizza #2 made its debut.

This picture actually looks better than it looked in real life, if that’s possible.  It was pretty small, with thin crust, and had the look of those little pizzas they used to put in school lunches.

And it kind of tasted that way too…

It’s not that it was totally inedible.  But not something that I would order again, and definitely not as good as I can make at home.

Now I will defend Detroit until the day I die for a thousand reasons, but gluten free pizza is not yet one of them.

Maybe next time!

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Coast to coast

Posted on July 7, 2011 | 1 comment

This is what I’ll be doing for the next week and a half.  Expect lots of gluten free traveling posts when I return 🙂


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Fourth of July Strawberry Pretzel Jello Destiny

Posted on July 4, 2011 | 1 comment

Now, I don’t believe in fate or destiny in the strictest sense of the word.  But there are sometimes when coincidences happen that seem too big to just be random.

For awhile now I’ve noticed that my post on my grandma’s rainbow jello salad is one of my most popular posts, and thought that I should post on something else jello-related.  People all over the web are apparently just dying to spend 24 hours making an artistic jello casserole.  So I was thinking about my other favorite jello dish, that my aunt used to make as a dessert for family gatherings – Strawberry Pretzel Jello “Salad”.

It’s this weird concoction of a pretzel crust (like a graham cracker crust but with a touch more salt), then a cream cheese and Cool Whip center, and a strawberry Jello topping.  It all comes together to be a surprisingly good layered dessert, and kind of a throwback to the jello-mold days of old.

Now here comes the coincidence.  Did anyone see the recipe from the winner of Rudi’s Gluten Free Bakery Contest?  It’s a layered dish with Rudi’s bread and ginger snaps as the base of the crust, a sweet goat cheese filling, and a sweet strawberry topping.  That looks exactly the same as the Strawberry Pretzel Jello “Salad”!

Rudi's Gluten Free Bakery Winning Dish

So I obviously am now destined to make this strangely addicting dish again, and luckily I have a get-together today that I can bring it to!  I modified this recipe slightly to make it healthier and gluten free, of course.  I also halved it, since I 1) don’t own a 9×13 pan, and 2) didn’t want to carry a giant pan on the mile walk to the party.

Strawberry Pretzel Jello Salad – Gluten Free Version

1/2 cup crushed Glutino gluten free pretzels

1/2 cup crushed Trader Joe’s gluten free ginger snaps

1 tsp. sugar

4 oz. Neufchatel cheese (could also substitute cream cheese, I was trying something new)

1/4 cup sugar

4 oz. Cool Whip

1/2 package strawberry jello

1 cup boiling water

1/2 package frozen strawberries (I substituted some fresh strawberries)

Mix first three ingredients and press in bottom of a 8×8 pan. Bake at 350 degrees (metal pan) or 325 degrees (glass pan) 8 minutes. Let cool completely.

Beat 1/4 cup sugar and cheese. Fold in Cool Whip. Spread over pretzels (at this point I transferred to a tupperware container for easy traveling).

Mix Jello and water until dissolved. Add strawberries. Stir into Jello, then set aside for 10 minutes.

Pour over cheese mixture (it will look too liquidy, but it will set up). Chill.

I’ll add a picture of it plated later, but for now it’s getting packed up and ready to party!

I also encourage you to test the Cool whip to ensure it’s thawed properly by dipping a few in as the crust bakes 🙂

I should have added blueberries to this to make it a true red/white/blue dessert.  But I think it looks pretty patriotic as it is 🙂 Happy Fourth of July!

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Breaking News: Most people on a gluten free diet kind of think it sucks

Posted on July 3, 2011 | 1 comment

I was reading this article on jacksonville.com by Mark Basch (The Gluten Free Glutton) about how “43 percent of people on a gluten-free diet rated their satisfaction as ‘poor’ or ‘very poor,’ with 35 percent rating it as ‘average.'” So that’s 78% of people on a gf diet that kind of think it sucks.

How sad is that?

Then I got to thinking about how I would rate my satisfaction with my diet.  And I think I’d say “above average”.  Or maybe “average”?  It’s such a weird question.

On the one hand, I still get to eat things like this massive Thanksgiving sandwich from Terri Vegetarian in NYC.  And I’m very satisfied.

But on the other, sometimes I have to buy the one gluten free veggie burger in the grocery store, which ends up tasting dry and looking like a dirt patty, and I have to slather it with hummus to make it edible.  Then? Not so satisfied.

How would you rate your satisfaction with your gluten free diet?

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Redemption for Sticky Fingers Bakery – Cookie Win

Posted on June 29, 2011 | Leave a comment

After a less than impressive trip to Sticky Fingers Bakery for a cupcake, I decided to give them another shot this weekend.  This time I had a laser focus on getting a chocolate chip cookie.

When I got there, however, there were none to be found in the case.  Only those darned dry cupcakes.   But then I asked the nice girl there if they had any, and she quickly retrieved one from the back room (not sure why they weren’t out…)

So I forked over my $2.25 and headed out to peruse the farmers market. Nothing like looking at rows and rows of vegetables while eating something made of 80% sugar and butter 😉

This cookie provided redemption for any wrong that Sticky Fingers could have done in the past.  It was more crispy than I usually like my cookies (which is just a bit more baked than straight-up dough), but the flavor was great.  Chock-full of brown sugar and so buttery it immediately greased up the brown paper bag (yum?).  Plus it reminded me of those giant bakery cookies that are sold at Panera or Starbucks that I usually drool over.

I ate a big chunk off, and saved the rest for when I had coffee in hand later, for the dunkability factor.

Now I will give Sticky Fingers my stamp of approval.  Steer away from the cupcakes, but crash head on into the cookies.

Sticky Fingers Bakery

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Cake Batter Blondies – Gluten Free

Posted on June 26, 2011 | 1 comment

The other day I was perusing Girl Meets Life, since I have a total girl crush on Gracie, when I came upon this amazing recipe for cake batter blondies.  I also happen to have an almost-full container of rainbow sprinkles that I’ve been looking for a use for from back when I found out that Carvel’s sprinkles weren’t gluten free. (They now are, according to their website – so good for you, Carvel!)

Ingredients:

  • 1 box gluten free yellow cake mix (I tried Betty Crocker’s)
  • 1/4 cup oil (I used extra light tasting olive oil)
  • 1 egg
  • 1/3 – 1/2 cup milk (I used almond milk)
  • 1/4 cup rainbow sprinkles
  • 1/2 cup white chocolate chips

Directions: Combine the first four ingredients in a large bowl. Add the milk slowly – you want the batter to remain as dense as possible.

Then mix in the rainbow sprinkles and white chocolate chips. Bake for 30 minutes at 350 degrees.

The fun part

Pull them out just when the edges are starting to turn brown, and cool for about 20 minutes.

These weren’t as gooey as Gracie’s were, or at least how they looked, which might have to do with the gf batter mix.  But they were still outrageously good.  I’m going to have to try to resist eating all of them before I bring them in for my coworkers tomorrow.

Maybe I should make some tweaks to these and submit them to Betty Crocker’s Baker’s Challenge gluten free recipe contest… hmm

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Cocomama Quinoa Cereal

Posted on June 24, 2011 | 1 comment

Before I moved to DC, I splurged on a bunch of non-perishables from G-Free NYC, including a packet of Cocomama Quinoa Cereal.  In the days when I was moving in, convenience was paramount for meals.  So this was a great option, as you basically just tear open the packet, nuke it, and squish it into a bowl.  I got the Banana Cinnamon (with a hint of Maple) variety.  But they also have Orange Cranberry, Honey Almond, and Wild Blueberry to choose from.

Now, whoever was the photographer for the pictures on their website must be a regular Ansel Adams, because mine did not end up looking anything like theirs.

Their pic:

My pic:

Mine looks about five shades darker, and I also just squirted it out right from the package, so it doesn’t have that nice fluffy-looking texture.

As far as how this stuff tastes – it is VERY rich.  It must be the coconut milk and maple syrup, but it sticks in your mouth and gut like peanut butter.  You’ve got to have a big tall glass of cold milk on hand to have with this.

I do like that they have found a way to make quinoa into a sweet dish, since I haven’t seen that done successfully.  They use simple ingredients, and have also kept the consumer in mind by making it extremely easy to prepare.  For those mornings when you don’t feel like dirtying dishes or doing prep work, these are a great solution.

Buy Cocomama products ($20 for a six pack of pouches)

Visit their awesome website

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Whole Foods BBQ Tofu

Posted on June 23, 2011 | Leave a comment

The Whole Foods hot and cold self serve bars are one of my favorite places on earth.  You can mix and try new things without fully committing to a whole dish, plus they clearly list all ingredients so you can be sure that everything you’re putting in your bowl/container is safe.

This week a new item made its debut in the cold bar – BBQ tofu.

I keep tabs on pretty much every new item that comes on the line, but a lot of them have soy sauce or another grain in it, or just taste weird (ie. their green chile tofu).  This, however, is ammmmmazing.

It’s basically hunks of a really firm tofu covered in a thick barbeque-ish sauce.  containing onions, tomatoes, agave syrup, apple cider vinegar, tamari, bbq flavor (?), sesame oil and spices.

I think it’s got that umami thing going on.

It might not look very pretty…

But it sure does taste great.

If you see this at your local Whole Foods, don’t be afraid to load up on it.  It might up the weight of your meal, but so worth it.

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