Gluten Free Fall Recipes

Fall is officially here, and with it comes a plethora of beautiful and delicious seasonal foods. Not only that, but colder evenings give reason to eat warm, nourishing meals. Here are some tasty and very fall-like recipes that are sure to leave you satisfied. Let us know which ones you try, and which ones you like best!

Butternut squash risotto

Mexican Casserole with roasted corn and peppers

Gluten free pretzel bites

Gluten free mac and cheese

Quinoa crusted baked onion rings with spicy dipping sauce

Iced Coffee Experimenters

EaterPDX has some good recommendations on where you can find some unique iced coffee drinks to cool you during the summer months.

GOOD COFFEE — You have two beautiful locations to chose from, and two icy ways to enjoy your caffeine. In addition to straight-up summertime cold brew using lighter single-origin coffees, you can go with a seasonal coffee soda made with cold brew spiked with syrups from bartender favorite Commissary. (4747 SE Division St. and 1150 SE 12th Ave., Portland)

BARISTA — This iconic Portland chainlet has branched out from the usual cold brew with its refreshingly tart “coffee shrub.”  The coffee is spiked with balsamic vinegar, fizzed up with tonic water, and sweetened with a touch of simple syrup and maple syrup. (Multiple locations in Portland.)

CUP AND BAR — This brand-new cafe from Trailhead Coffee and Ranger Chocolate loves to put ingenious takes on classic cocktails. The “Cold Fashioned” mixes up cold-brew coffee with bitters and fennel simple syrup on the rocks with an orange and cherry garnish. The Cardamint Julep combines cardamom simple syrup with cold brew, fresh mint and a pint full of crushed ice. And if your tastes lean more decadent, they do ice-creamy cold brew floats. (118 NE MLK Blvd., Portland)

LUC LAC — Concentrated and rich, Vietnamese coffee is like delicious rocket fuel, and at this downtown Vietnamese restaurant, they take the slow-brewed Courier Coffee, carbonate it in house, put it on tap and add smoked salt and orange zest for the Ca Phe Cola. (835 S.W. 2nd Ave, Portland)

GlutenFreePDX is Back, and Better Than Ever!

Let’s just say that hibernation can take it’s toll. For the past several months, GlutenFreePDX was on hiatus, or a kind of deep sleep. Things got a little outta whack. Well, regardless of reasons, GlutenFreePDX is back, and better than ever. We’ve completely overhauled the site, cleaned up the cobwebs, and done a lot of updating and fact-checking to get our listings back in good working order. While we still have a lot of work to do, we are pleased to say we are back in business.

Since 2008, GlutenFreePDX has been a dining guide, a place for people to find quick, at-a-glance listings for places to eat and drink gluten free. While that remains our core focus, the world has woken up to the reality of a gluten-free lifestyle, and so we are expanding to cover all aspects, not just food.

 

Thank you for your support, and we look forward to the year ahead!

Gluten Free Food Allergy Fest Coming to Portland

We’re lucky to have a great selection of Gluten Free foods these days, and meeting up with fellow GF eaters to find new recipes and products is a great way to make the most of your specialty diet.

Coming to Portland September 6-7, the Gluten-Free Food Allergy Fest will feature tons of great food on display, vendors, baking demos and much more.

Sponsored by Living Without magazine, the event should be a lot of fun. Click here to get more information.

WHEN

September 6-7, 2014
Saturday: 10am to 4pm
Sunday: 10am to 4pm

WHERE

Holiday Inn Portland Airport Hotel

8439 NE Columbia Blvd
Portland, OR 97220

 

Fresh Air Does Gluten Free

For those of us that listen to Fresh Air on NPR, it was a joy to hear Terri Gross interview food experts about gluten-free cooking and baking.

Terri interviewed Jack Bishop and Julia Collin Davison of America’s Test Kitchen. They spent the last few years testing recipes and brands to find the best. It’s a great, informative show.
Click here to listen to the full story. 

 

On common problems with gluten-free foods

Collin Davison: Gluten is kind of magical, and so when you take it out of the equation, you’re left with flours that can’t absorb liquid as well, they can’t absorb fat as well and they can’t trap those air bubbles that are really crucial for baked goods. So you wind up with things that are … very dense and squat; they’re often greasy and they crumble apart. They don’t have the binding structure of gluten.

On the best store-bought gluten-free flour

Collin Davison: The one that we found worked best universally — and that means in cookies, in bread dough, in biscuits, in muffins — was King Arthur Flour gluten-free blend. And it is very much like, actually, our recipe for gluten-free flour blend in that it uses two types of rice flours — white and brown — and it also uses two types of starches, which is potato and tapioca. And those four ingredients, we found, were really the magic key to finding a blend that worked almost as good as a wheat flour.

Here is one of the recipes from the book, for classic chocolate chip cookies.

Chocolate Chip Cookies

• 8 ounces (13/4 cups) ATK Gluten-Free Flour Blend
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 3/4 teaspoon xanthan gum
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 8 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
• 5 1/4 ounces (3/4 cup packed) light brown sugar
• 2 1/3 ounces (1/3 cup) granulated sugar
• 1 large egg
• 2 tablespoons milk
• 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
• 7 1/2 ounces (11/4 cups) semisweet chocolate chips

1. Whisk flour blend, baking soda, xanthan gum, and salt together in medium bowl; set aside. Whisk melted butter, brown sugar, and granulated sugar together in large bowl until well combined and smooth. Whisk in egg, milk, and vanilla and continue to whisk until smooth. Stir in flour mixture with rubber spatula and mix until soft, homogeneous dough forms. Fold in chocolate chips. Cover bowl with plastic wrap and let dough rest for 30 minutes. (Dough will be sticky and soft.)

2. Adjust oven rack to middle position and heat oven to 350 degrees. Line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper. Using 2 soupspoons and working with about 11/2 tablespoons of dough at a time, portion dough and space 2 inches apart on prepared sheets. Bake cookies, 1 sheet at a time, until golden brown and edges have begun to set but centers are still soft, 11 to 13 minutes, rotating sheet halfway through baking.

3. Let cookies cool on sheet for 5 minutes, then transfer to wire rack. Serve warm or at room temperature. (Cookies are best eaten on day they are baked, but they can be cooled and placed immediately in airtight container and stored at room temperature for up to 1 day.)

Did JFK Have Celiac?

Via Irish Central, an article that talks about what we’ve suspected for years. That President John F. Kennedy most likely had undiagnosed Celiac disease.

Green wrote, “John F. Kennedy’s long-standing medical problems started in childhood. In Kennedy’s adolescence, gastrointestinal symptoms, weight and growth problems as well as fatigue were described. Later in life, he suffered from abdominal pain, diarrhea, weight loss, osteoporosis, migraine and Addison’s disease. Chronic back problems, due to osteoporosis, resulted in several operations and required medications for chronic pain.

Green says that by the standards of the time Kennedy was extensively assessed. ”He was extensively evaluated in major medical centers including the Mayo Clinic and hospitals in Boston, New Haven and New York. Among the multiple diagnoses were ulcers, colitis, spastic colitis, irritable bowel syndrome, and food allergies. His medications included corticosteroids, antispasmotics, Metamucil and Lomotil.

While there are many medical records on JFK’s many health ailments, he was never put on a strict food elimination diet, something that might have shown that he suffered from a food-related illness.

It’s very interesting to consider the President of the United States having an undiagnosed health condition, considering he received the best medical care in the world at the time. But it shows the relative ignorance toward Celiac disease at the time.

Omission’s Roots

It’s no surprise that we’re fond of Omission beer, Portland’s own gluten-free beer.

Here’s a little behind-the-scenes video that shows a bit about the making of the beer, the story behind it, and the process. This video was made before the addition of their awesome IPA. I love the fact that the Widmer CEO has Celiac.

GlutenFree PDX on Instagram!

If you didn’t know it before, now you do: GlutenFreePDX is posting on Instagram, and we’d love to see you there.  We post our everyday finds and delicious encounters, as well as random fun. Follow us and we’ll return the favor!

What’s Your Favorite Gluten-Free Thanksgiving Recipe?

With Thanksgiving fast upon us, we’re sure many of you are readying your menus, and every year we see people being super creative in their gluten-free cooking. This year, we’d love to hear what you’re cooking for your family! Whether it’s an old family recipe that you’ve tweaked to make GF, or a brand new invention, we look forward to hearing what you have in store.

We’d love to feature some of the best recipes on our blog, so send over your ideas this week!

Thanks for visiting, and Happy Thanksgiving!

-GlutenFreePDX

Review: Skout Organic Trailbars

We don’t do enough food reviews, and we should! We get to try tasty and usually local products, and these days, there are so many choices that finding something gluten-free that you really love is somewhat daunting.  Anyhow, we were sent a package of Skout Organic Trailbars, and they were actually tasty enough to warrant a review.

To start with, we find many of the energy bars available to be dry and crumbly, and thankfully the Skout bars were moist and chewy, with bright fruit flavors shining through. In addition, the bars are organic, nutritious and non-GMO, which makes you feel completely guilt-free eating them. Not that someone would have an ounce of guilt eating anything out on a trail, but let’s say you’re sitting in traffic – now you needn’t feel bad about devouring a whole bar, they’re packed with ingredients like organic dates, almonds, GF oats and whole fruit.

The bars come in five flavors, including chocolate + peanut butter, apple + cinnamon, cherry vanilla, blueberry almond and chocolate + coconut. Our favorite so far is the apple + cinnamon, which is sweet and tart, and makes us eager to head deep into the wilderness.

Skout bars are proudly made in Portland, Oregon, and are the creation of Jason, Tony and Denny Pastega. From their press kit:

The idea for the company emerged when Jason was unable to find tasty and truly healthy energy bars to take along on his outdoor activities. As he examined various types of energy and nutrition bars, he began to notice that many of them contained high-fructose corn syrup or excess sugar and featured long lists of artificial ingredients. He wanted an energy bar that was nutritious, organic and all natural. So in 2008, Jason put his favorite organic ingredients into a kitchen mixer and spread his first bars with a rolling pin. Six months later, Skout Organic Trailbars were born.

Scout, Jason’s beloved yellow Labrador, was the inspiration for the company name. He adopted Scout when she was six years old, and the pair spent seven years exploring Oregon’s beaches, trails and rivers together before she passed away in 2011.

We definitely recommend trying Skout bars when you’re heading on a hike and need some tasty and energy packed food to get you there.