Gluten-free pizza party video

We came we ate it was delicious.  I went along with the North Texas GIG to taste the new gluten-free pizza at Uno Chicago Grill in Fort Worth.  Check out my video about the experience!

Gluten-Free cooking classes at Market Street

This is courtesy of the North Texas Gluten Intolerance Group's Betty Barfield:

Sun. Feb. 8th, 1:00–3:00p.m. Market Street Cooking School, 5605 Colleyville Blvd, Colleyville Gluten-Free Brunch Classics: Chef Claudia Pillow will demonstrate gluten-free classic brunch favorites everyone will love: Irish Soda Bread, Crumb Cake, Apple Cider Donuts, Breakfast Crepes, and Buckwheat Waffles. These recipes will sure to find a place on your morning table. Call reservations at 817 577-5047. $29.00 per person.

Sun. Feb. 15th, 1:00-3:00p.m. Market Street Cooking School, 6250 W. Eldorado Pkwy, McKinney Gluten-Free Goes Italian: Enjoy Italian once again with this gluten-free meal prepared by Jennifer Cinquepalmi, author of The Complete Book of Gluten-Free Cooking. The menu includes Veal Parmesan, Sicilian Salad, Vegetable Soup Mediterranean, Pizza, and Easy Freezy Sorbet. $29.00 per person. Call 972-548-5167 for reservations.

Sun. Feb. 22nd, 1:00-3:00p.m. Market Street Cooking School, 5605 Colleyville Blvd, Colleyville Gluten-Free Cakes: Learn the secrets of great gluten-free cakes from Jennifer Cinquepalmi, author of The Complete Book of Gluten-Free Cooking. We will prepare cheesecake, Homemade Chocolate Birthday Cake, Apple Dapple Cake, Sour Cream Coffee Cake, Chocolate Pecan Torte, and decorating tips and ideas for special occasion cakes. Register by calling 817-577-5047.

Sat. Mar. 28th, 11a.m.-1:00pm. Market Street Cooking School, 5605 Colleyville Blvd, Colleyville Gluten-Free Vegetarian Favorites: Classically trained chef, Claudia Pillow, will demonstrate gluten-free vegetarian dishes that are not only simple, but delicious enough to please the meat eater in all of us: Pesto Brie Pizza, Spinach Goat Cheese Pie, Roasted Ratatouille with White Bean Salad, Multigrain Sandwich Bread, and Angel Food Cake. Call reservations at 817 577-5047. $29.00 per person.

Sun. Mar. 29th, 1-3:00p.m. Market Street Cooking School, 6250 W. Eldorado Pkwy, McKinney Easy Gluten-free Recipes: Join us to learn new recipes your entire family will enjoy eating, and you will en-joy preparing, time and time again. Jennifer Cinquepalmi, author of The Complete Book of Gluten-Free Cooking will show us how easy it is to prepare Chicken Tetrazzini, Stir-Fried Green Beans, Big Batch Granola, Strawberry Pie, and Spanish Coffee Cake. Gluten-free Graham Crackers will also be demonstrated for the pie crust. $29.00 per person. Call 972-548-5167 for reservations.

Gluten-Free precautions at Uno Chicago Bar & Grill

Yesterday I spoke with a manager at the Fort Worth Uno Chicago Bar & Grill.  He said several interesting things about their new Gluten-Free pizza crust:

• They also serve Redbridge Beer - which is GF
  
• The crust is made in a gluten-free kitchen which is off site
  
• The crusts are brought into the restaurant in  a completely sealed container and are stored far away from any of the flour crusts.
  
• There are usually plenty of crusts on hand, but if you're driving a long way, you might want to call ahead and make sure they have some in stock.
  
• The crusts come individually wrapped with their own pans.
  
• They only use clean tools to prepare the pizzas.
  
• They use separate gluten-free toppings - cheese and pepperoni only at this time. They are working on a way to keep all of their toppings free of cross contamination, but they haven't figured it out yet.
  

Countdown to Gluten-Free Pizza Party!

The Gluten-Free pizza party at Pizzeria Uno Chicago Bar & Grill is this Thursday at 7PM at Uno's, 300 Houston Street, Fort Worth, 76102.  Click here for more information. I'm going this afternoon to speak with a couple of the managers to find out what kind of precautions they've taken against cross-contamination.  I'll write more tomorrow about what they said!  

Cherry Cordial Hershey's Kisses are gluten free

I swear I'm not obsessed with candy, but there's this candy bucket in the newsroom and when new and interesting looking specimens show up, I can't help but want to try them.  

Anyway, Hershey's has a limited edition dark chocolate cherry cordial kiss out right now that is absolutely divine.  I double checked the ingredients again today and it looks safe.  No, I restrained myself and didn't by the bag.  After the Reese's hearts incident (the devouring of at least half the bag of the GF hearts) I've sworn off buying candy even for photographic purposes.

Starbucks considering Gluten-Free food items

Starbucks wants to know what you'd like to be Gluten Free and on what terms!  Click here to comment now.  I saw this tasty tidbit on The Celiac Husband - a really fun blog to check out.

Gluten-Free Pizza Party in Downtown Fort Worth

It's really happening, Uno Chicago Grill is working with the North Texas Gluten Intolerance Group to throw a Gluten-Free pizza party.  Below is the information if you would like to attend.

Please respond if you are interested in meeting for a night out at Uno's Chicago Grill for a gluten free get-together. The manager would need to know in advance how many GF pizza crusts he would need to have on hand if it's a large group.

If you can meet on Thursday, January 29 at 7PM at Uno's, 300 Houston Street, Fort Worth, 76102, please let me know. If there is enough interest, I will make the reservation. He only keeps about 20 GF pizza crusts on hand and would have to order more if our group is larger than 20 people.

Let me know right away please.

Betty.Barfield@aa.com

Betty Barfield
President, North Texas Gluten Intolerance Group
817-967-2804 w 817-929-9227 c

Uno Chicago Grill about to offer Gluten-Free Pizza at all locations

Food writer Amy Culbertson from the Fort Worth Star-Telegram just passed this golden tidbit along to me. Uno is about to launch a cheese and pepperoni Gluten-Free Pizza line nationwide!!! So exciting in Fort Worth where we don't have anything like this. Garlic Jim's never happened. I don't know when yet, but I plan to call the store on Monday and find out if they have a timeline in mind. Here's a link to the article talking about their plans.

Reese's hearts and gluten revised

After a commenter asked me what exact ingredient was in the Reese's Peanut Butter Hearts had gluten, I went back to the store to look.  To my surprise, the Red, individually packaged, paper-wrapped Reese's Peanut Butter Hearts do not appear to have any gluten in them.

There are actually two different heart-shaped Reese's candies on the market right now.  The ones that had "wheat flour" listed as an ingredient were the Peanut Butter Filled Hearts, which are individually wrapped in foil.  Yikes!  

I apologize for any confusion.  So, Paper-wrapped Peanut Butter Hearts are OK, foil-wrapped Peanut Butter Filled Hearts are bad!

Celiac survival guide by Jules E. Dowler Shepard worth a look

My only criticism of this book is its unwieldy title A Patient-Expert Walks you Through Everything You Need to Learn and Do The First Year Celiac Disease and Living Gluten-Free by Jules E. Dowler Shepard.  You can buy this book here on Amazon.com. 

This is a great book for anyone who has just found out they will be gluten-free for the rest of their lives and its still good for an experienced Celiac.  

It discusses coping methods, why you shouldn't cheat and how to live a fairly normal life and take control of your health.  There are some recipes which seem straightforward and use a minimum of specialty ingredients.

Glutino - Spinach and Feta Pizza is delicious

Glutino, which makes a variety of cookies and frozen foods actually worth eating has a Spinach and Feta Pizza that is absolutely scrumptious. I cook all of my frozen pizzas on a pizza stone, so they always come out fairly tasty. This single-serving pizza keeps you honest at about 430 calories. Which is better than getting one of the bigger ones and "accidentally" eating tomorrow's lunch as well. The spinach and feta combo was quite tasty and worth a try. Look for it in the frozen foods section of a specialty store near you!

Gluten-Free, lattice-crust pie idea

This picture by Star-Telegram photographer Joyce Marshall is of a fully-glutinous, lattice-crust pie, but I now have a plan thanks to local chef and founder of the Culinary School of Fort Woth Judie Byrd for a Gluten-Free version. I hope to try this out on a linzer torte that I plan to bake for Valentine's Day, but I thought I'd pass the tip on ahead of time for the rest of you guys.

1. Lay strips of dough across the top of the pie like in a traditional lattice crust.
   
2. Lay strips of dough going the opposite way on top of the first strips instead of trying to weave them.
   
3. Lay another layer of strips in the same direction of the first layer.  This creates an optical illusion that the strips have been woven.
   

Alternatively, you could try a lattice-crust cutter but I'm not sure how successful that would be with GF dough.

Reese's peanut butter Filled hearts have gluten

I've mentioned before that I sometimes grab candy and eat it without thinking, but I'm getting better at this.  I narrowly avoided an encounter with a red-foil-covered Lindt ball that had some malted flavoring in it and yesterday I was dismayed to see the Reese's peanut butter filled hearts for Valentine's Day contain gluten.  So sad!  Still, better safe than sorry.

Nature's Path Gluten Free cereals

There was a recent report circulating that some of Nature's Path EnviroKidz cereals are not gluten free.  This is completely true.  I called their corporate office yesterday and found out that the entire EnviroKidz line was never supposed to be gluten free.  Certain of the products are and are appropriately labelled.

 The confusion came from Celiacs thinking that everything with the EnviroKidz label was gluten free and not realizing that kamut, one of the ingredients in some of the EnviroKidz cereals is a type of wheat.

I was most concerned that there had been some contamination issue, so I called to make sure my precious Nature's Path Organic Cornflakes were still safe - they are.  I eat them every morning, so it would be really upsetting if they had been glutened!

The company spokeswoman I talked to said they will be changing their packaging on products containing kamut and labeling the ingredient as "kamut - wheat" to avoid confusion in the future.

New Starbucks drinks Apple Chai Infusion and Berry Chai Infusion are gluten free

Thanks to my ever-patient barista, I concluded that Starbucks' new line of fruit infused chai teas seem gluten free.  I tried the Apple Chai Infusion yesterday and it was quite scrumptious.  They told me the Berry Chai Infusion was sweeter, but I read the ingredients and it looked safe as well.

Sublime in '09

Sublime Bakery has released their new Gluten-Free lineup for 2009.  Click here to download a PDF of their current menu.  They've done away with their cafe items and are focusing on baked goods.  If you have something specific in mind, please, call ahead to make sure they have it.  (817) 570-9630 They do all their GF baking in the morning when the machines are clean, so when they run out for the day, that's it.

Sublime Bakery
5512 Bellaire Dr South at Bryant Irvin
Fort Worth, TX 76109

Cafe Express - gourmet, gluten-free and fast

My friend suggested we eat at Cafe Express the other day and I readily agreed.  I'd forgotten how much I enjoyed their simple yet tasty food. I ordered my favorite, a piece of grilled chicken with pesto and a plain baked potato, but there are many gluten-free options available including a caesar salad, greek salad and lots more.

You control the condiments and most of their soups and dressings are made from scratch, so they can tell you exactly what's in everything.  Whenever I've had questions, they've done their best to answer them and I've never gotten sick there.  Click here to check out their menu.  They have several locations in the area including one at Mockingbird Station in Dallas and on at Southlake Town Square.