Tag Archives: Gluten-free

Cafe Habana

Posted on April 11, 2010 | Leave a comment

After work on Friday, Nick and I went to Cafe Habana down in Soho.  We went here primarily for the grilled Mexican-style corn – coated in creamy mayo, rolled in cojita cheese, and sprinkled with chili powder:

Grilled Mexican Style Corn

 

The corn met all of my expectations, and at $4.25 for two pieces, it’s a great cheap eat to share.  

Since we saved on the appetizer, we splurged on some drinks.  A Mojito for me and a Pacifico for Nick: 

Ahh...refreshing

 

The brownish color of the Mojito is due to the face that they use brown sugar instead of white.  So good I had two. 

For dinner I had the Camarones al Ajillo with black beans and yellow rice: 

Spicy shrimp

 

And Nick had the gluten-filled Cuban sandwich and fries:

He says, “It was alright.”  I wouldn’t know, but it doesn’t seem like I was missing much.  One point for the non-gluten eaters of the world. 

The quick-and-dirty: 

  • Great people watching at this joint.  Many mustache sightings. 
  • Fairly cheap dinner for two – if I wouldn’t have gotten two $8 Mojitos we probably could have gotten out of there for about $35. 
  • They also have a couple of other entrees and appetizers that appear to be gluten-free and vegetarian (Sopesitos and a masa boat stuffed with goat cheese, beans, and sun-dried tomatoes)
  • Get here early if you don’t want to wait. 
  • My recommendation = get a Mojito and some corn and move on for dinner. 

To visit Cafe Habana – 17 Prince Street, New York, NY.  (RW to Prince Street or the 6 to Spring Street)

Buenas suerte.

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Paying Homage to Rainbow Jello – Naturally Gluten Free

Posted on April 5, 2010 | 4 comments

For Easter weekend, I went home to Michigan to celebrate and eat with my wonderful, loud family.  One of our Easter traditions is the Jello Ribbon Salad.  My grandmother made this salad every year to perfection, and I don’t think that any of us appreciated the labor that goes into it until this year, when we had to fend for ourselves.  My cousin graciously offered to make the dish this year, and I think that she’ll pass the torch to me for next year.  Considering this takes about 48 hours and almost constant monitoring to make, it is definitely a labor of love.

This is one of those 1950s hold overs that’s reminiscent of women wearing aprons, men with crew cuts, and kids hula-hooping in the backyard.  If you have idle hands, or want to make a crowd-pleaser dessert – take a stab at it!

Update (7/2011) – This is the original recipe from my grandma’s cookbook.

Happy (belated) Easter, and may your family traditions live long and prosper 🙂

Rainbow Jello salad

Rainbow Jello Salad:

5 (3 oz. each) pkgs. Jello, any 5 different flavors
5 c. boiling water
10 tbsp. ice water
10 tbsp. sour cream

Dissolve one package Jello in 1 cup boiling water.  Pour 1/2 cup into bowl and add 2 tablespoons ice water.  Chill until set in ring mold or pretty glass serving dish (we use a glass brownie pan).  Blend 2 tablespoons sour cream in remaining Jello and pour over gelatin in mold.  Chill until set, about 20 minutes.  Repeat with each flavor of gelatin remaining.  Pour into mold until ribbon is completed.

Time: about 48 hours.

Serve with a big dollop of whipped cream.

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Cheese Rocks and Rolls

Posted on March 28, 2010 | 1 comment

 

Big Booty Bread Co. on 23rd St.

 

Friday over lunch I walked over to Big Booty Bread Company in Chelsea.  I don’t know why, but they don’t really advertise themselves as a go-to gluten-free spot – but they have one of my favorite finds in the city.  Their cheese rocks and cheese rolls are masterful – so chewy, satisfying, and hearty that you can’t tell the difference between their rolls and an artisan one.  

Cheese rocks, rolls, and corn pancakes

Big Booty Dictionary:

Cheese rocks (lower left of display): light in color, really moist on the inside, perfect to dip in soup or make into a burger bun

Cheese rolls (to the right of the rocks): more eggy dough, sweet, with a big air pocket on the inside, warm and slathered with butter is the best way to eat (if you can get it home without eating it on the subway, like someone I may know…)

Corn pancakes: like arepas, but no filling.  They have a plain and cheese variety, and both are great.  Like an ultimate cheesy breadstick.  I’m currently plotting to buy a couple of these and dip them in ranch dressing.

So what did we do with them?

My boyfriend, Nick, made his cheese rock into a bun for his bacon jalapeno cheeseburger.  We picked up some McClure’s spicy pickles at Sweet Afton in Astoria, and put those on the side.

Nick's bacon cheeseburger and McClure's pickles

I had my cheese roll with egg salad the next day for lunch (no pickles for me, they’re far too spicy).

Two egg whites, one yolk

Please excuse the dying house plant in the background.  

Big Booty Bread Co. is at 261 West 23rd Street, between 7th and 8th Ave.

Cheese rocks and rolls are $1.75, and they have a large selection of breads and cupcakes for your gluten-eating friends.  (I also saw they have homemade meringue, but didn’t ask if it’s gluten-free…).  

Beware: I came here around noon and they were almost out of cheese rolls, so try to come in early in the day.

Rock and roll, baby.

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Match-up: Primal Strips vs. Stonewall’s Vegan Jerky

Posted on March 24, 2010 | 13 comments

I know what you’re thinking – there is more than one type of vegan “beef” jerky?  Yes.

And you’re actually recommending them as something I should eat?  Yes.  (If you are vegetarian, but still enjoy salty protein-filled meat-imitating snacks) 

But Anna, whatever jerky should I choose?  

No worries, I’m here to help.  DING DING DING – let the match up begin!

First up: Primal Strips

Texas BBQ and Hickory Smoked are Gluten Free - note the handy icon in the upper right of the package

 

Buy me. 

Primal Strips are truly amazing.  A feat of food engineering.  I don’t understand how those food scientists could make soy taste and feel so much like dehydrated meat. Seeing as I haven’t eaten meat in about four years, this is about as primal as my eating gets.  These strips are only 80-90 calories each, and pack about 10-12 grams of protein each.  They’re also almost fat free, and have no cholesterol.  They’re perfect for a mid-afternoon snack (and even give that guilty-pleasure salt satisfaction, without eating a bag of chips).  These are super chewy, fun to eat, and have a ton of meat-ish, BBQ flavor.  

I’ve been eating Primal Strips for a few months now, so when I saw that the store across from my office started carrying them I was super excited.  They also started carrying Stonewall’s Jerquee.  So I thought – what’s better than one kind of vegan gf jerky than TWO KINDS?  Pretty much nothing.  

So I picked up a package of Stonewall’s Jerquee and started snacking.  This jerky is in little nuggets rather than a strip.  

Nuggets

 

These, however, were not the primal experience I was seeking.  With such pleasant olde time wild west mascot, you’d think that the product would live up to the packaging.  (They also have about 12 different flavors, which was exciting to me).  However, the package of Teriyaki jerquee that I had tasted like dog food.  It had a grainy texture, unpleasant dog food/stale smell, and left my mouth drier than Cheetos and cardboard combined.  I forced myself to eat about half the package (it cost $2.99 so I couldn’t bring myself to just chuck it).  But then I had to give up, drink some water, and throw them out.  

*Sidenote – what’s with the spelling of jerquee?  Makes my skin crawl just typing it. 

Heavyweight Champion = PRIMAL STRIPS!

So, if the thought of vegan jerky doesn’t repulse you – go get some!  They’re available at Whole Foods (near the register at my store). 

Don’t get Stonewalls Jerquee.  Unless you run out of dog food.

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Love in the form of pizza:

Posted on March 23, 2010 | 2 comments

My boyfriend and I have our one year anniversary today.  I can see nothing more fitting to post:

Sharing is caring

His and hers pizza.

His = turkey bacon, red pepper, and red onion

Hers/mine = veggie burger crumbles and broccoli

What can keep me happy during March Madness?  Pizza!  Pizza!  We’ve perfected this Sunday meal, and nothing makes me happier than sprinkling parmesan on a slice and winding down the weekend with my man.  I think it also exemplifies the amount of compromise he has made for me since we started dating – no calling up Papa John’s and ordering delivery for us.  Living with someone with Celiacs takes planning, patience, and understanding.  It means going to three stores to get the ingredients to make dinner.  It means carrying around gluten free soy sauce in your pocket all night so I can eat sushi.  And it means enduring a lot of awkward moments with waiters at restaurants.  Hopefully homemade pizza makes up for it a bit. (thanks babe 🙂 )

Now back to the ‘za – I think this pizza beats the socks off of Papa John’s.

We made this one with Bob’s Red Mill pizza crust mix:

Bob's Red Mill Pizza Mix

Buy me here.

And Ragu Light tomato and basil sauce (no sugar, just tomatoes and spices):

Follow the directions on the package, slap on sauce, add some mozzarella and cheddar cheese, drop on toppings – bake and enjoy.

I like this mix because the crust gets crispy, and the yeast makes the dough puff up like the real thing.  It’s not delivery! It’s Bob’s Red Mill!

However, we are bigger fans of the Namaste Foods mix.  This one makes really thin crust pizza, and comes with Italian herbs already mixed in (which I could also do myself with other mixes, but I’m far too forgetful).

Namaste quick-and-dirty:

  • You can also use this mix to make some bangin’ breadsticks (just spoon the dough into a breadstick-shaped blob instead of a pizza-shaped blob).
  • The Namaste mix is really chewy (makes you want to pull it apart and dip it in something chewy).
  • Plus, you just have to add a little bit of oil and water (no yeast like in Bob’s).  I think that yeast is scary, time-consuming, and smelly.
  • Namaste’s thin crust means less extraneous carbs, so you can eat 3-4 pieces instead of 1-2.

So – I choose Namaste!

Buy me here.

For both of these mixes we only make half of the bag, since we really only need one pizza for the two of us.  For the breadsticks we usually use 1/3 or 1/4 of the recipe.

So, make some love pizza.  Share it with whoever deals with your gluten-freeness and give them a big smooch for it.

Namaste.

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Staple: gluten free veggie burgers

Posted on March 22, 2010 | 2 comments

So, I’m not even going to attempt to do a thorough review of all of the gluten free veggie burgers out there (because there are only about three, and I only buy one).  But I wanted to introduce a staple of my diet, as it’s probably going to be included in many of my recipes/reviews.

You can find a great full review here though!

Book of Yum GF Veggie Burger Review

The problem with most vegetarian “meat” products is that they are loaded with wheat gluten.  The titans Boca Burger and Gardenburger don’t have a single lousy product that I can eat (so long vegetarian “bacon” and “sausage”).  Mostly the wheat gluten is used as a filler so the companies don’t have to put in as much expensive soy protein isolate.

That said, I still need my protein, and I don’t want to eat fish every day.  So I eat a LOT of these veggie burgers from Franklin Farms:

I use these burgers in…oh…pretty much everything.  They have 90 calories and 14 grams of protein! For any veggie protein source, that is a lot of bang for your buck.  (More nutrition facts)  Do I sound like a spokeswoman yet?  No?  Ok, how about this?  These are all the things you can do with these magical discs:

  • Crumble them up and put them: in chili, on top of pizza, in soup, on top of a salad, stuffed in a pepper, mixed with rice or quinoa, in spaghetti sauce, in tacos, or anywhere you might use ground beef.
  • Eat them whole with mustard and cheese melted on top.
  • Or mush them into balls, fry em up in a pan, and make meatballs!

Franklin Farms also has two other varieties, but I wouldn’t recommend them (but to each her own, try if you’d like).  You can find these in the refrigerated (not frozen) section of your grocery store.

Order them online here:  Food Service Direct

*only has the portabella and original burgers, but I’ll keep searching for somewhere to order the chili bean online

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Babycakes, oh my Babycakes

Posted on March 21, 2010 | Leave a comment

Yesterday was a positively glorious day to live in New York City.  I’d been planning on going back to Babycakes for quite some time, so it seemed like the perfect day to make the trek down to the (lowest of the) Lower East Side to get me something sweet.

We got off the train at Prince Street, pushed through the crowds in Soho, made our way through the outskirts of Chinatown, and eventually came to the shining sugary Mecca of gluten free bakeries: Babycakes!

The Taj Mahal

*Sidenote daydream on bakeries: they are probably my favorite place on earth.  The smell of sweet saccharine goodness, the aesthetic beauty of all of the goodies lined up in their little rows according to type and color, the wax paper that they use to pick everything up with, the little samples that they put out on the counter so you don’t strangle someone while you’re waiting.  It’s amazing, and I purposely avoid bakeries now for the very same reasons.  No use torturing myself in a place that I can’t eat anything…but Babycakes is different.

Holey Moley

I CAN EAT IT ALL!!! NOM NOM NOM NOM

Now came the difficult part – choosing what to get.  They had a variety of cupcakes (pumpkin, carrot, red velvet, vanilla chocolate), brownies, frosted ginger bread, frosted banana chocolate-chip bread, a variety of cookies, and a variety of donuts.

Originally I had my eye on a chocolate dip donut (a rare find in the GF world), but then the guy in front of me ordered the frosted banana chocolate-chip cake and I wanted that too.  But, he took the last piece [jerk].

So I ended up with the caramel chocolate crunch donut instead:

Caramel chocolate crunch donut

**Deep breath out**  IT WAS SO GOOD.

It was so moist, gooeyness overflowing from all over it.  It had this chocolate drizzle on top, and just melted in my mouth with every bite.  The only regret I had was not getting a tall glass of milk to go with it.

I haven’t eaten a donut in THREE YEARS.  THIS WAS AWESOME.

And I got the wax paper that I love…and I licked it clean right in the middle of the street.

The quick-and-dirty:

  • It is pricey ($4-5 for anything).  But worth every penny.
  • It is deep into Manhattan.  But worth the walk.
  • I’ve read mixed reviews from gluten-eaters, but it is certain to be a treat for anyone with Celiac.

To get some yumminess yourself – 248 Broome Street, between Orchard and Ludlow.  Or order from www.babycakesnyc.com.

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