Currently Eating

Sunday breakfast: cheesy scrambled eggs, jelly toast (Udi's), and strawberries.

For fluffy (vs creamy) eggs, add a little bit of water before you whisk.

The Melting Pot

Last night I went to The Melting Pot. I heard of it years ago and have been wanting to go, but for some reason I never went until now. And I had so much fun! And I didn't leave hungry!

I did not go anticipating a blog post, so there are no pictures. You should just go and see for yourself.

We went for happy hour to celebrate Missy's birthday, and sat in the bar area for fondue. She, being awesome, had checked it out beforehand and said there was a GF menu. (It's right on the website)

Right after we ordered, I inquired about the gluten content. Our waiter said he could make both the cheese and chocolate fondue gluten free. I was happy that he even knew what I was talking about.

They made the fondue right at our table, and starting by pouring in a type of (my guess) cornstarch slurry and beer. Um, beer? (slightly panicked) Excuse me, was that beer? The waiter just laughed and said it was cool; he wasn't going to poison me. It was some kind of gluten free beer. AWESOME!

By the way, the waiters there were really friendly and personable, not like some places where they dryly ask you what you want to eat and that's about it.

Then they brought out plates of dippings; vegetables and fruits and breads and chips. He handed me a tray of fruits and veggies before they got contaminated. We had two pots and were originally going to keep one gluten free and the other one glutened, but I ended up taking a small bowl of fondue for myself and letting everyone gluten to their hearts desire. Next time I will try to bring some Udi's bread or crackers to dip.

And THEN. The dessert. We ordered the disarrono chocolate fondue. It came with an assortment of fruits and brownies, cheesecake, pound cake, and marshmallows. We were given two plates- one gluten and one gluten free. I love how conscious they were of cross contamination.

Let me tell you about this particular chocolate fondue. It's brought out and flambeed, which was really cool. The first bite I chose was a marshmallow dipped in heaven. Now, I generally don't exaggerate just for the sake of exaggeration, but I literally said, "Oh my God" out loud. It was amazing.  At one point Akhtar looked at me, ready to dip a marshmallow, and said excitedly, "This is going to be so awesome!!" It was that good. I just can't begin to tell you how good it was.

Overall a great experience and good company. I'm definitely going back.

Crockpot Chicken Cacciatore

Chicken cacciatore is a super easy dish that ends up tasting like you spent hours cooking it.

It's kind of like a spaghetti sauce with chicken. Kind of. At least this version is.

I love to use my crock pot for this dish, and I either use chicken breasts or a cornish hen, because a real chicken is too big to fit in my little crock pot. I don't brown the chicken before tossing it into the crock pot, because I hate doing extra dishes. It tastes great without it, but feel free to add this step.

Also. This does not make a large amount of food, since I'm just cooking for one person.

Ingredients:

1 clove of garlic, minced
1/2 green bell pepper, chopped
4 fresh basil leaves, picked fresh from your herb garden. Don't have one? Start one. It will change your life ...cooking... life.
1 tsp dried (or fresh!) oregano (My oregano didn't grow so I used dried)
2 chicken breasts or 1 frozen cornish hen
salt and pepper
1 can of diced tomatoes
Most chicken cacciatore recipes call for mushrooms, but I don't like them so I don't use them. I love being able to do that.

My crock pot directions are all the same: Toss everything into the crock pot the night before, put it in the fridge overnight, and set it on low when you leave for work in the morning. I can't stress this enough: Don't forget to plug it in and turn it on!

When you come home hungry, it will be ready. If you've cooked a whole bird, fish it out and remove the bones.

Serve over rice or pasta, or not.

Around town

So I recently discovered that I do not have to go hungry in Galveston!

Tried a couple new places this weekend.

I will start at the beginning.

About a month ago, my friend who lives in north Houston happened to drive by Mary's Gluten Free Bakery and told me about it. So, like everything else, I made a mental bookmark until I was in that part of town. BTW, my friends are kickass for noticing stuff like that.

I was at the airport Friday picking up my Marine on pre-deployment leave [had to put that in there- so proud!] when I realized that Mary's was close by. So Mr. Awesome found it on his smartphone and we found our way over to the bakery. Deliciousness followed.

Talk about every single thing being absolutely wonderful. The carrot cake was BY FAR the best I'd ever tasted. The lemon squares were tart and smooth. The cookies were amazing. I left with a large bag of goodies and a satisfied sweet tooth. I should note they don't have fresh-baked bread, which would be just heaven. Maybe one day...

Also, in anticipation of being hungry at some point in Galveston, I researched on the internet and called a few places that were deemed "gluten friendly." I ended up finding 4 and was overjoyed.

Joe's Crab Shack- have a gluten free menu

Olympia Grill- have a gluten free menu

Courtyard Cafe- don't have a gluten free menu because their menu changes, but she assured me that they have something gluten free every day. You pretty much just walk in and say, "What have you got?" and they feed you. I really want to try this place.

Mario's- We ended up eating here. They offer gluten free pizza and pasta. When I got there, I noticed that on the menu there is a little area that advertises gluten free pasta and pizza. So, I asked the waiter how I go about ordering something gluten free- do you just order a regular pasta dish and ask to substitute gf past or what?

He had no idea. Uh, okay.

So he went to go ask and came back with a half-assed explanation and said he really didn't know and shrugged. Uh, okay. I figured at that point I'd just order plain pasta and sauce, and hope the kitchen knew what he was talking about.

Then Mr. Awesome jumped in and told him to go find out exactly how to order it. And he did. And you pretty much just order any pasta dish (besides stuff that's pre-made like lasagna or ravioli) and you get gf penne instead. I could handle that.

So my order came and I was slightly nervous about whether or not it was gluten free. (Un?) fortunately, I could tell right away, just by the way the pasta looked. It was slightly overcooked, as it's easy to do with gf pasta, but it tasted fine and the rest of the dish (some kind of shrimp tomato thing) was really tasty. I was happy to have something besides salad in a restaurant.

GF media

I would like to thank this month's Good Housekeeping. They have a great short article about how trying a gluten free diet to lose weight is not the best idea.

After all these celebrity diets and stuff, people are becoming familiar with the phrase "gluten free," but not necessarily in the correct ways.

I get really tired of people hearing that I don't eat gluten and saying, "Oh THAT's why you're skinny- you don't eat gluten. I want to try that diet."

It's frustrating to say the least.

So yay for finally putting some good info out there!

Pizza for dinner, ice cream sandwiches for dessert

Yesterday was a great day for my belly, thanks to tips from gluten free in the 713.

After we worked up a hunger shopping at IKEA, my buddy and I headed over to Pink's pizza.
When you walk in, you can see the entire kitchen and it's kinda neat. I asked the guy at the counter how they prevent contamination of the gluten free pizza. His response? "Well, if you have Celiac we don't recommend that you eat the gluten free pizza."

My heart fell!
I asked him why even make gluten free pizza at all if Celiacs can't eat it and he said something about intolerances. Still, I pressed on. I asked if they use separate pans and he said: they did, that the crust comes pre-made and they use separate everything, but it's clear to see that there's flour flying around everywhere.

I told him I'd chance it and would like to order a gluten free pizza.

And then I got to watch him make it. The only significant source of contamination that I could see is that they use the same ladle for the sauce as the regular pizzas.

But I was starving and I ate it anyway. It was heaven. The crust itself was okay- it was a thin crust, a tad gummy. But the toppings completely made up for it. Oh my gosh. I don't know what the secret is, but it was amazing. And I haven't had any belly problems either. I'm not sure if I'd go back knowing that there are possible contamination issues.

Afterwards, we headed down the street to Kroger to see if I could find some gluten free ice cream sandwiches, something I've been trying to track down for years.

And I found them!

Julie's GF ice cream sandwiches. And they were amazing. SO GOOD.
They'd better be- I paid about $8 for a box of 4! A splurge, but worth it. Plus, I've gotten used to paying ridiculous amounts of money for gluten free fare.

P.S. I found these at Whole Foods for $4-something. 

French Meadow Bakery

Part of eating gluten free is trying new products. All the time. You never know when you're going to find the best bread or pasta or whatever it is that you miss. Some turn out to be awesome, and some turn out to be bad.

My boss mentioned the other day that she saw some gluten free items at the local grocery store.

Of course, I headed over to check them out. I was so excited when I saw a freezer display with some gluten free products from French Meadow Bakery.

There were some sweets like brownies, muffins, and cookies, but I was interested in the harder-to-make-myself products like bread and... flour tortillas!

I was super excited to try them out, especially the tortillas, because I was planning to make some pinwheels at my sister's upcoming bridal shower. And how sweet would it be to make some gluten free ones??

Well, I took a few tortillas out to thaw and went about finishing some errands. What I came back to was tortillas that had thawed, but had mysteriously curled up and hardened. When I tried to roll them up, they cracked and sprang back out into the curled-up shape. Determined, I made a wrap anyway and tried to eat it.
Tried. The tortilla was so hard that I couldn't take a decent bite without tearing apart a huge chunk, destroying the integrity of the wrap, and chewing for a good few minutes. I tried thawing them in the microwave, heating them up a little after they thawed at room temperature, etc etc. Nothing changed the texture and inedible-ness. I was very bummed and also annoyed that I paid 4 bucks for a product that advertised "soft and delicious" on the packaging. They were neither.

The bread was nothing to write home about, either. Just your standard kinda dry and crumbly gluten free bread. Good thing I still have Udi's!

So yes, I was very disappointed with these products, but at least now I know! And you do too. I always try to post the stuff I don't like along with the stuff I do like, because there have been plenty of times that I've wondered about a product and read a review on someone else's blog and either been relieved that I didn't waste my money, or been excited to try it.

I don't know if I got a bad batch or something, but my advice is don't waste your money!