Gluten-free pasta

As a kid, I grew up with my mom trying different whole-grain or wheat-free kinds of pasta every few months.  I remember that corn pasta was utterly disgusting, rice pasta was mush, spelt and kamut pasta were tolerable, whole-wheat macaroni was tolerable, and white pasta was the world's biggest treat.  (I'd request white pasta for my birthday every year).  So when I suddenly found myself needing to find wheat-free pasta, I was pretty upset.  All the alternatives were terrible, I thought!  As I've discovered over the past few nears, not necessarily.  So I thought I'd pass along some suggestions for those trying to eat pasta wheat- or gluten-free.

• Rice noodles: I started out with Asian-style rice noodles, which I used even pre-allergies to make pad thai, or as a base for curry when I was too lazy to make rice.  I wouldn't recommend these noodles for Italian-style pasta recipes (they do not have nearly enough structual integrety to stand up to heavy sauces, and the flavour is very different).  But I do recommend trying some Asian-inspired noodle dishes, because they're very tasty =D

• Soba Noodles: Soba noodles are a Japanese noodle made in part or completely with buckwheat flour.  (Some soba noodle brands are pure buckwheat, but some cut with wheat flour, so check ingredient labels!)  For years soba noodles were my solution to all things pasta. They are delicious for stir-fries, or just to eat straight with some sesame oil and soy sauce as a high-carb comfort food.  They are also similar-ish in appearance to spaghetti and I used to use them as my catch-all pasta replacement. They don't taste exactly the same, but they were passable.  Now that I've discovered some better pasta substitutes, I tend to reserve soba noodles for more Japanese- and Chinese-influenced dishes, but I still keep them around and thoroughly enjoy them

• Rice pasta: Several companies make Western-style pastas out of rice flour, to very mixed results.  I know many people have had terrible experiences with rice pasta that falls apart upon cooking or turns to mush; I certainly had many such experiences as a child.  However, I am happy to report there is now a good alternative: Tinkyada Brown Rice pasta!  They make penne, fusilli, shells, elbow pasta (i.e. macaroni), and a really fun kids' mix that's all different shapes.  (I dare you to try and eat pasta shaped like sailboats and bunny rabbits and not have a good time).  I've found Tinkyada pasta at Save-on-Foods, and much cheaper at specialty stores (Greens on Broadway at Maple, Dollar Groceries on Commercial at 6th, and Tim's Fresh Produce on Broadway at Macdonald all carry it for $3.50-$4.00/lb; Dollar Groceries even sell it in bulk).  I'd be shocked if Capers & Choices didn't also carry it.  Unfortunately neither Costco nor Superstore stock it - SuperStore has a different brand of (white) rice pasta that I've never tried.  The pasta is whole-grain and rice, but holds up to overcooking very well and yet isn't tough.  Wheat-eating friends have really enjoyed it, and I'd say it's as good an equivalent to white pasta as whole-wheat pasta is.  And it's so easy to cook!  It takes longer than regular pasta, but the cooking strategy is to boil water, add the pasta, and then take it off the heat and cover - the residual heat in the water will cook it in <20 minutes.  I haven't yet managed to overcook it, which is something I'm usually very good at (I have made so many recipes with pasty, over-boiled soba noodles before...)  There isn't a spaghetti/linguine alternative I've managed to find yet, but I'm perfectly happy with fusilli or penne (it's what my family eats anyways); and I can't imagine a better alternative to wheat pasta.

•   If you can eat spelt or kamut, both have been made into very decent pastas.  I personally prefer the brown rice for shaped pasta (like penne), but for people who really want long noodles like spaghetti, both spelt and kamut brands have very good alternatives to offer.

Happy pasta-making!

"Banana and Pancakes are Pretty Much the Greatest Thing Ever"

Better rise than I expected!

So spoke my friend from Manitoba who's visiting for several days and was hanging out in the kitchen while I made my latest batch of gluten-free, vegan pancakes.  I'm not entirely sure I agree (I am a huge fan of strawberry and/or apple pancakes as well), but I think they're definitely in the top 10.

I've gone through many iterations of trying to make pancakes I could eat.  First I wanted them dairy-free; then vegan; finally, vegan gluten-free.  I've used some very weird substitutions that led to some very weird-tasting pancakes, but I think I've finally arrived on a recipe that works!

(I should also add that these pancakes passed my critical test for awesomeness: roommate approval.  None of my roommates have crazy food restrictions, so when they eat a gluten-free vegan anything and proclaim it delicious, I know that it's truly good, and not just a pale imitation of out-of-reach delicacies).

Brownie sagas!

Brown rice banana brownies!

One day earlier this summer I went into Capers because I had a couple of hours and wanted to chill out over a coffee.  As I was ordering my mocha (decaf with almond milk!), I noticed that Capers carried vegan spelt brownies*.  I was over the moon!  A real, cake-y, chewy, brownie I could eat!  Now, a brownie + a mocha ended up being way too much chocolate, but it didn't matter, I was inspired - if Capers could do it, so could I!  It was time to try making brownies!

*(Note for those of you who want to try the store-bought version - Capers in Kits no longer sells them, but Whole Foods on Cambie has them in their bakery)

My intentions were great, and I set off googling recipes for spelt brownies, which I could then vegan-ize.  The results: a lot of failures.  This baking endeavor, more than any other, reminded me that allergen-free baking really is an experiment, and often it can go very, very wrong.  Why so disastrous?  The answer: no eggs.  Brownies rely so much more on eggs than flour for their chewy texture - most recipes call for two eggs but only 1/2 cup of flour.  Sometimes, vegan substitutes just don't work, as I quickly proved.

Cookie Shenanigans!

Brown rice flour cookies!

Last week was a week of crazy baking.  A couple of weeks ago, I decided that I wanted to learn how to make wheat- and gluten-free cookies.  Since giving up wheat, I'd primarily restricted my baking to cakes & muffins, but I was starting to crave a good cookie.  So I went on a googling spree.  After finding a surprising number of good recipes, I made a short list, and on Monday last week I went shopping.  And Wednesday I started baking.  Well, by Friday, the cookies were all gone, so what was I to do to make more?  So many cookies...by Saturday I definitely had a headache from eating cookies in place of real food.  But, both recipes turned out pretty well, so I thought I'd pass them along.  (Both recipes contain almond butter, by the way, so anyone with nut allergies may want to pass up on this post - sorry!)  See below for spelt-flour super-energizing cookies, and my first stab at a (pretty much) gluten-free chocolate chip cookie (seen above)

Gluten-Free Baking: Wherefore and Why

There is so much I could say on this topic, and in fact I've been putting off writing this post for two days because the scope of information is so vast it's intimidating.  So, ultimately, I've opted to split this into two posts: the why, and the how. Later on I will follow up with some more concrete science info to back up my assertions & descriptions, but right now I just wanted to touch on the surface of the issue a bit.

So: gluten-free baking.  Why bother?  It's certainly a major challenge: gluten provides the elasticity and binding that most of us take for granted when baking with flour.  It's a double challenge if, like me, you're attempting gluten-free AND vegan baking, because the other food ingredient that traditionally provides elasticity and binding in baked goods is eggs, and I can't eat those either.  But gluten intolerance is becoming a bigger and bigger issue in society today.  For example, when I used to volunteer at a theatre festival selling ice cream, I was frequently asked which  ice cream products were gluten-free.  People were always excited when they realized I actually knew the answer.  And while I now am trying to follow a gluten-free (or at least gluten-low) diet myself, I actually started learning about gluten-free baking so I could bake for gluten-intolerant friends.  So I'm guessing most readers probably know someone in their life who have issues with wheat or gluten.  But before one can go about accommodating these restrictions, it's important to know what exactly your (or your friend's) sensitivity is.

Vegan Baking: A How-To

The first major baking-limiting allergies I discovered were dairy and eggs.  While I wasn't primarily motivated by ethics, the end result of these limitations was that I dived head-first into vegan baking.  Even now, as I'm venturing into wheat- and gluten- free baking, the same rules to vegan-izing recipes still apply.  So I thought I'd start out this blog by summarizing the easiest how-to's of vegan baking.  I don't claim originality for any of these ideas, and they can be found all over the internet; but a summary is never harmful and this way I have somewhere I can link when I reference substitutions in future.

My first approach when baking anything vegan is to search for a tried-and-true vegan recipe.  But, if I find an incredible recipe that still has milk or eggs, or if  I really want to make one of the recipes I grew up making as a kid, I know I can always turn to one of the many available substitutes.