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The Dish

The Dish is a collection of restaurant reviews from the main Glutastic.com web site. If you are interested in having your restaurant reviewed or have a suggestion for a local restaurant, feel free to send any suggestions to caitlin@glutastic.com.

Sunday’s
December 3rd, 2009 | caitlin | Categories: The Dish, Uncategorized 2 Comments »

Sunday’s in my world are full of poncho’s, cheering, taunting, money won and lost and sometimes, just sometimes, there is a group hug.

Why are my Sunday’s so fantastic? Because we have football Sunday’s! JAM!

Every Sunday, Fiance and I head over to my parents house where we do laundry, eat lots of food, and watch 5 different channels full of football. The best is when rival teams play and everyone gets out their team poncho and trash talks the opponent. Poor Fiance loves the Seahawks – he takes the brunt of the trash talking.

The end of football season usually sucks. We tend to just sit there and stare at each other. Nectar Desserts and my favourite server in the whole world have come to our rescue.  They have Sunday Tea Parties. Oh yes family, you read that right, we’re going to start having Tea Parties when football season is over.

For $30/person you can go and have tea, bon bons, macrons, mini pavlovas and so much more. They even have GF scones and house made preserves. We are so making reservations and they are all going to LOVE IT.

Since I wont be able to make it until the end of the season, I highly recommend that you guys go and try it and then tell me how wonderful it is. The more positive things I can tell the family about it, the more likely they are to come with me!

Please mention when you make a reservation that you are a celiac, it will help them make sure that they have the scones etc that you will want. And please tell them that Scrumptious (aka Keegan) is the server of your dreams. He really is that fantastic and I think his boss needs to know it!

Thanks for the heads up Scrumptious! And happy tea partying to you all.

Making a List and Checking it Twice.
November 25th, 2009 | caitlin | Categories: The Dish 3 Comments »

Christmas is exactly a month away. That’s really not a lot of time to prepare for the awesomeness that is the Christmas Holiday. I’m a Holidork, and it’s kind of a big deal event to me.

One of the most important parts is making sure that I have suitable GF replacements for my former gluten filled holiday favourites. Last year my focus was on Nanaimo Bars. Now that, that problem has been solved by our fantastic friends at GF Patisserie; it’s time to focus on the next big item: Land of Nod Buns.

Wait; hold on, now that I say that, I should really double check that Nanaimo Bars are still on the list at GF Patisserie. GF Patisserie, if you’re reading this, your Nanaimo Bars are the beginning and end of my world. I love them and you so very very much. (Does sucking up usually help the desperate?!)

Okay since that’s covered; let’s move on to the Land of Nod Buns. If you’ve never heard of them before, you’ve never lived. Here is the gluten filled version of the recipe. These are the highlight of every Christmas breakfast. Elbows are thrown, glares are given and no one will ever politely give the last piece to a family member. Darwin rules our breakfast table – actually, Darwin rules our entire family dynamic.

So why am I telling you this? Because I need your superior skills to get me out of a jam. You see, Darwin has played a really cruel joke on me. On the one hand, I was graced with the art of logic and sarcasm. These are skills that will never fail you in the academic and commerce worlds. However, if it came down to a deserted island scenario I would lose. It would be game over, because I have ZERO culinary skills. I would starve to death. So, now I lean on my far superior readers to bail me out. I NEED gluten free Land of Nod Buns this year. This is a NEED people, not a want. That makes it that much more important to my survival.

That being said, I lay down a challenge at your feet. The reader who can provide me with the most accurate and user friendly GF Land of Nod Bun recipe will win not only my love and eternal affection, but also a fantastic prize.

So here are the challenge details should you choose to take it:

• All recipes need to be received by email (caitlin@glutasic.com) by December 15^th.
• All ingredients need to be readily available. (Fiancé and I are getting married on the 19^th, so I don’t have time to run all over the city looking for random goods)
• It must taste as close to the original as humanly possible.
• Using pre-baked bread to replace the frozen bread dough is not an option. These buns come out of the oven piping hot with a crust on the outside and squishy white bread on the inside. A bread pudding type substitute won’t work.
• Lactose Free submissions will be given extra points for effort. I’d rather avoid the unfortunate circumstance of having dairy with that many people in the room!

I think that’s all the rules I’ve got. But I reserve the right to add some later if need be. Once a winner is decided, I will post the recipe for all of you, and a wonderful prize will be sent to them. And by wonderful, I mean SUPER FANTASTIC.

Thank you in advance to all you wonderful people that are going to help me out with this.

HAPPY HOLIDAY’S!

More Butter Less Tart
November 4th, 2009 | caitlin | Categories: The Dish, Uncategorized 4 Comments »

Butter Tarts Rule.

My mother’s butter tarts kick your mothers butter tarts in the butt. So much so, that I have friends that request my mom make them butter tarts and mail them across the country. Oh yes, they are that good.

You can only imagine my delight when I came across these little wonders. Yup total excitement.

I found these at Co-Op and could barely contain it. Not only is Lakeview Bakery a local company, but they understand the importance of the butter tart.

So what did I think?

Ha, like you didn’t know I was about to tell you.

Well…let me begin with spreading some love. Lakeview Bakery is great.  As one of the early adopters of gluten free baking in Calgary, I have nothing but love for their efforts. I would also like to spread some love for the filling. Very, very tasty. Just sugary enough that your teeth hurt (as they should with a butter tart) and just enough raisins that you feel like you’ve made the healthy choice without feeling like you need to go hug a tree and call it organic.

Okay, so, now for the less than love part of this post. I can’t hide it. The tart was not good. I found it dry, thick and it left an odd after taste in my mouth. I tried heating it up, I tried adding soy milk, I tried my best to love it. But I couldn’t. If they could perfect the tart shell, I would worship at the butter tart alter.

I’m going to digress here:

You know what would be FANTASTIC…if someone could create gluten free tart shells that I could fill myself then pass off as homemade. That would be FANTASTIC.

Apple Delight
August 28th, 2009 | caitlin | Categories: The Basket, The Dish, Uncategorized No Comments »

I’ve posted about Simple Simon before, click here for a refresher. Simon and I are friends – even if he doesn’t know about it! Simon makes my life easy, and anything that makes life a little easier is a good thing in my world.

One of the ways Simon makes my life easier is that he makes little GF desserts. They come perfectly portioned, and easy to heat up – open lid, microwave, eat. Three simple steps.

Recently I tried the Apple Delight. I can say that it was a delight to eat. (Wow, the grumbles that just reverberated through the internet world at my horrible humor – I heard you!) Anyhow, it was like eating a store bought apple pie in a cup. I say that because it had that perfect level of apples, Cinnamon, and sugar that store bought pies have. There is something about it that you don’t get from home made. That being said, I am NOT knocking home made pie, that stuff is awesome, it’s also completely out of my league. So for the rest of us, there is Simple Simon.

I will say this, Simon skimps on the crumble topping. MORE TOPPING PLEASE! Maybe if I yell at him on the internet with my threatening caps lock he will make some with more topping. Is this considered cyber bullying? If it is, well then it’s worth it for MORE CRUMBLE TOPPING.

My New Friend
August 19th, 2009 | caitlin | Categories: The Basket, The Dish, Uncategorized 2 Comments »

I have a new friend. And I think he’s kind of nifty.

My new friends name is Simon and he’s a simple man. A simple man that makes some damn good pies! And now some damn good meals.

Simple Simon Pies operates out of the Calgary Farmers Market. Simple Simon Pie’s are well known for their myriad of pies – everything from chicken and steak to taco pie and tourtiere. And now I hope they will become well known for their variety of GF meals. Looking through their menu I have noticed a few things that will soon be on the dinner table. In particular,  Moroccan Chick Pea Stew, “Mock Chicken” in Teriyaki Sauce and Spicy Sicilian Chicken.

Is your mouth watering?

There’s more…

They also make GF desserts!

I recently tried the Lemon Delight. The tiny little dish packed a big punch. It was like a lemon bomb for your taste buds. Served chilled or warm, the Lemon Delight is a great treat for any night of the week. There is one thing I need to caution you on – the Lemon Delight is very sweet; close to being overly sweet.

Side Note: Since changing over to a GF diet, I have lost my sweet tooth. I guess it’s just another thing that has been taken away from me. First it was squishy white bread, and now it’s my can of frosting and a spoon. Feel bad for me please, it’s rough!

Please stay tuned as there are more Simple Simon Meals that need to be tested. I’ll let you know what I think of them as they come up in the dinner rotation.

Who knew?
June 17th, 2009 | caitlin | Categories: The Basket, The Dish, Uncategorized 2 Comments »

Who knew that Corn Grits and Polenta are the same thing? Seriously, who knew? I sure didn’t.

Is my anti-domestic goddess showing?

Meh, it’s no surprise that I have no idea what I’m doing in the kitchen. I clean one like no one’s business, but cooking in it – that’s a whole other story!

Anyhow, like I said in my last post, Bob’s Red Mill has rolled out a new line of Gluten Free Corn Products. And who am I to ignore a good GF product just because I don’t know what to do with it! So, in comes Fiance and BCFF. Last night, we all got together and made dinner with this new found wonder called Corn Grits/Polenta.

We made Polenta Stuffed Peppers. And they were great. The recipe is a little intimating when you have no idea what the difference between simmer and boil is – but we made it through. And they turned out great.

You will notice that the recipe calls for lots of cheese and no meat. This was not going to work in our house. So we substituted the cheese with the lactose free variety, and we also added ground beef. You can take away Fiance’s gluten and even his lactose, but there is no taking away his protein. I think he’d leave me if I announced I was a vegetarian!

Verdict: Yummy. Try it. Love it.

Now my next adventure is to figure out how to make those grits recipes that I always see on shows like: Diners, Drive-In’s & Dives, and Rachel Ray. I think the first step is knowing that grits are also referred to as polenta!

Bueno Galleta
June 15th, 2009 | caitlin | Categories: The Basket, The Dish, Uncategorized No Comments »

Bob’s Red Mill has done it again – they’ve rolled out some new great GF corn products. And one of those new products is GF Corn Flour.

So, how does one talk about corn flour? Saying things like: “It’s a nice yellow colour”, “It has a very nice flour’esq consistency”, and “The label is really cool”, really don’t help you out any. So in the spirit of the occasion, I decided to bake with it!

Side Bar

Life has been way to busy to even think about baking, so I’ve been siting on this for a little while.  My apologies. You can thank Fiance for this resurgence in baking news – I believe he asked: “Are you going to do anything for dinner tonight, or should I pick up McDonald’s on my way home…AGAIN?” I took that as a sign that he may feel a little neglected…cookie night it is!

Anyhow. I decided to try going straight to the source, and bake Brazillian Corn Cookies as suggested by the test kitchen at Bob’s Red Mill.

Verdict: Bueno Galleta – Good Cookie!

I thought that the corn flour might make them taste a little…’corn like’. Yes, I just said that. I was pleasantly surprised by the fact that they were really more ‘cookie like’ then ‘corn like’. Yes, I said it again. They are sweet, but not sugary. They crumble, because they should. And the best part about them is that they are not only good on their own – they would be great in combination with everything from fruit to ice cream and Nutella.

Note: The recipe calls for Evaporated Cane Sugar. Don’t let the horrible smell of it turn you off.  It’s damn tasty when cooked.

More Nectar Less Chocolate
June 1st, 2009 | caitlin | Categories: The Dish, Uncategorized 2 Comments »

I’ve blogged about this place before, and I am going to do it again?

Why?

Because a great place deserves a little  more attention.

To steal from a line from a review written about Nectar Desserts – Nectar Desserts is Raising the Chocolate Bar.

Actually, it doesn’t just raise the Chocolate Bar – it takes the Chocolate Bar out back, beats it with a stick and asks it who’s boss!

When going head to head with other dessert bars in Calgary, Nectar Desserts obliterates the competition.

Why?

Because they have class, style, service, and amazing GF options. You can eat in, you can take out, you can do both in the same night.

The staff is so knowledgeable and helpful. They know what they are talking about and that only helps instill a sense of trust and security when ordering and eating. My notable favourite is a server that I will call “Scrumptious”. I choose to call him that for a number of reasons: 1. I don’t like to publish names. 2. He’s the cutesiest morsel of awesome – it’s okay Fiance, I think you’re a cute morsel of awesome as well. 3. His recommendation from the menu was so scrumptious that I had to hold back my desire to squeal with excitement.

No matter who you’re server is, I can guarantee that you will be impressed. They all know their stuff and they all truly care about your health. Going to Nectar is like a hug for your stomach, and a hug for your soul.

My recommendations are:

• Nectar Macarons
• Pavlova
• GF Chocolate Cake
• Fiance loves the: Chocolate Experience.

**Please remember to mention your dietary restrictions. They will need to modify the desserts slightly to accomodate you. They won’t mind, and they will take you very seriously; so feel free to just sit down and ask them what they recommend today for a celiac in need of dessert**

Now that’s a Burger.
May 6th, 2009 | caitlin | Categories: The Basket, The Dish, Uncategorized 8 Comments »

Hamburger’s are kind of awesome.

A staple of most people’s diets; the burger provides a quick and easy way to feed the family and not feel guilty about it. Burgers, when done right, can be a very well balanced meal: Meat = patty, Grains = bun, Dairy = cheese, Fruit and Vegetables = Ketchup.

Here is where this can go very wrong for a Celiac – the bun and the patty binding. Let me talk about the bun first. I’ve tried a couple bun options. Celimix makes a boxed bun mix that you can make at home. It was okay, very heavy and soaks up ketchup and mustard like those little sponge pocket guys on TV. It’s also labour intensive, and involves things like yeast and oil mixing. Totally way too much work for me!

Kinnikinnick Products also makes a hamburger bun. It comes pre-made and frozen. The buns are okay. Like the Celimix buns, they are really heavy, and when they thaw out they tend to crumble. Not the best scenario for hamburgers. (Note: As I write this, I am learning that Kinnikinnick has heard peoples complaints about their buns and have reformulated the recipe. I look forward to seeing what they roll out and if they improvements are just as they say.)

I knew that I had to keep looking. Okay wasn’t going to be good enough, there had to be better. And there is. GF Patisserie to the rescue again. They make a great hamburger bun. It’s light and fluffy, holds together and has a great crust. Fiance thinks that they are just as good as ‘normal’ buns, so now we don’t bother buying two different types – it’s all gluten free all the time. My only complaint, if you can call it that, is that the buns are small. This is okay when you mix your own patties because you can tailor make them to size, but when you buy the pre-made burgers the buns tend to be a little small.

And let’s talk about the patties. Binding patties can be difficult. Adding too much egg can make them a little slimy, and using rice crackers leaves them a little dry and crunchy. Your best bet is to use GF bread crumbs. I have found that if you save the ends of your GF loaves and dry them out, you have the perfect binding agent for burgers, meat loaves etc.

If you’re at all like me, you think that mixing your own burger patties is still too much work. Ideally, you’d be able to buy the pre-made burgers and just pull out a few at a time so that you are not committed to eating 8 patties or trying to find a way to reinvent them as left overs. Superstore to the rescue. Superstore now sells pre-made GF sirloin burgers that are to die for. They are not the cheapest, but wow they are worth it. So juicy, very thick and easy to BBQ. Yummy, yum, yum is all I can say about it.

Burgers are possible, and you don’t have to settle for just okay. Trust me, once you find your winning combination, your gluten eating friends will be jelous of you, jelous of the great hamburger you’re eating.

And just incase you don’t believe me – here is a picture of my hamburger wonder!

Cake and Coffee
April 21st, 2009 | caitlin | Categories: The Dish, Uncategorized 2 Comments »

Word on the street is that Starbucks will soon be offering GF cake.  Rumor has it that it is an Orange Valentia Cake with Almonds. Not sure how I feel about that – I don’t like orange anything. The people in my life can attest to this. If you want to make me squirm, squeal and run out the room in terror – place a Terry’s Chocolate Orange within 100 meters of me. WRONG.

Anyhow, according to the rumor, these GF cakes will be kept in the pastry case and will be labeled Gluten Free. Um, here’s one issue I might be a little leery of – cross contamination. Having the GF cake amongst all the other flaky pastries, the serving utensils not being cleaned and used on everything. Just something to think about.

So where did I hear this rumor? At Gluten Free Living.

No word yet on when the Canadian launch of this cake will be. But at the rate Starbucks moves, I bet it won’t be long.