Tuesday, October 11, 2011

Baker Street cafe

Someone told me about a new cafe-style restaurant with gluten free baked goods: The Baker Street Cafe. I went there thinking I could just buy the goods. I'm told they might go that way in the future - selling their loaves to the public. I didn't have time to sit and try out anything. Later !

Baker Street Cafe
(613) 761-7171
385 Richmond Rd
Ottawa, ON K2A

Saturday, March 26, 2011

Sugar Bush

We went to Fulton's pancake house and sugar bush today - they serve gluten-free pancakes! They have a dedicated grill at the back, and make them on demand. They had the ingredients list for the beans and it seemed gluten-free to me (the sausages weren't). Nice installation with lots of stuff to keep the kids busy (slides, face painting). We recommend it!

http://www.fultons.ca/

Friday, March 25, 2011

Spices

"We" did some research this week on spices - we were looking particularly at ground spices such as ginger, cinnamon, and nutmeg. We found the following info by contacting the manufacturers:

- No-name brand spices: these are made on lines that also see gluten on them. So not guaranteed gluten-free.

-McCormick's: (from their website, under "contact us")
"None of our single ingredient spices and herbs contain gluten. In addition, all of our extracts, including Pure Vanilla, are gluten-free. Some of our products do contain gluten. When WHEAT is the source, it will always be called out within the ingredient statement, and listed in bold.
We do not maintain a list of gluten-free products, as our formulas change from time to time."

We found the McCormick spices at Superstore.

Saturday, January 31, 2009

Bread crumbs and shopping

(Updated March 2011)


For a while I had problems locating gluten-free bread crumbs. I use them mainly for roasted fish. Sesame seeds also work for fish, but that's a little different. For other uses, I found that corn meal is a good substitute. I think I used to find them at Loblaws (schar brand, www.schaer.com), but no more. I also used to find them at Rainbow Foods, but not consistently.

Nowadays I go to the Natural food pantry to get my crumbs. Recently, they've come out with their house brand of gluten-free products line that includes bread crumbs, breads and baked goodies. Also graham cracker crumbs and pie crusts. In addition, they also have a good selection of frozen breads etc., pasta, soup stocks, breakfast cereals and cookies. I just discovered O'doughs flaxseed buns, and they are yummy! My other favourite I can find there are Glutino's English muffins.



Natural Food Pantry

205 Richmond Rd
Ottawa, ON, K1Z 6W4
613-728-1255
442 Hazeldean Road
Kanata, ON, K2L 1V2
613-836-3669
2277 Riverside Drive (Billings Bridge shopping centre)
Ottawa, ON, K1H 7X6
613-737-9330
http://naturalfoodpantry.ca


Rainbow foods

1487 Richmond Rd.

 Ottawa ON K2B 6R9

613-726-9200

www.rainbowfoods.net


La Boite a Grains (in Gatineau) carries a good selection of GF flours. You can get a 10% discount if you buy a small crate's worth. Also the place where I get the GF beer (La Messagere). They now have a red version!




www.laboiteagrains.com (2 locations in Gatineau)



And as I mentioned, the Loblaws is another place to go for GF products. They are well stocked in breakfast cereals, pasta,  soup stocks, soy sauce, and flours. No Glutino brown rice flour though. But there might be some from Bob's Red Mill brand, the products of which I'm discovering (the "Mighty tasty hot cereal" is not bad!).


Loblaws (superstore)

190 Richmond Road

Ottawa ON K1Z 6W6

613-722-5890

www.superstore.ca

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Monday, August 04, 2008

More pasta

La Dolce Vita on Preston now has a gluten-free pasta menu, in addition to the pizzas. Tried the lasagna. Not bad!

Sunday, January 07, 2007

Eating out (pasta!)

Caffe Ventuno is *the* place to go and have gluten-free pasta. Staying home and making yourself spaghetti is all fine and well, but there is no substitute for going to an italian place and having those great sauces with it.

Caffe Ventuno (in Nicastro's)
1355 Wellington St. W, (613) 729-9121

Wednesday, November 02, 2005

Breakfasts

So you've got a coeliac friend who's coming over for breakfast. Gosh, every kind of breakfast food you know is made of wheat. What to do?

In a pinch, fruit and plain yoghurt (and maple syrup, say) will do fine, provided the yoghurt is one of those I mentioned. But you can do better.

Toast

Toast is easy. Toast is actually the instance where gluten-free bread makes the best impression of being real bread. So you need to have gluten-free bread handy (or the Glutino bagels, they're excellent), and a clean toaster. I mention this because you shouldn't serve wheat crumbs with the toast. Check the butter too.

Cereal

Cereal is trickier. Most regular brand cereal, and that includes Rice Crispies and Corn flakes, contain wheat. That's right, you probably have nothing in the house that will do. Fortunately, there is now a large selection of Gluten-free breakfast cereals, hot and cold, available at health food stores and Loblaws.

Oatmeal? Oatmeal is the subject of hot debate. Oats are not supposed to contain gluten, but it seems it is difficult to obtain pure oats, since usually wheat and oats are rotating crops, that is they are grown in the same fields and hence you may find wheat in your oats. At least that's what I hear. I just avoid them.

A substitute to oatmeal is quinoa. You can get "quinoa flakes" (available in health food stores) that serves pretty much the same function as instant oatmeal. I think I now prefer cooking up whole quinoa (like rice, twice the amount of water than quinoa) and dressing it up copiously with fried apples and bananas and cream and sugar. Recipe to follow.

Pancakes

Here is another application where a rice flour mix can do a very decent job at replacing wheat flour. I use the same flour mix for everything, it's the one I've given below. I haven't tried waffles, but I don't see why it wouldn't work. Obviously you need separate pans if you're going to make gluten-full pancakes for yourself.

Eggs and bacon

If the gluten-free market were big enough, you'd see a label saying that eggs and bacon are "naturally gluten free". Of course you can serve those! As for peameal bacon, I don't know. Who makes that peameal anyway? Just get ordinary bacon.