Eating Out Gluten and Dairy Free in Hawaii

So one of the things that is most difficult about being gluten free is dining out.  And as that is one of my favorite things to do while socializing with friends.  My friend Jen has been gluten free for the last few months and we go out for dinner a lot so I've already had some experience dealing with and looking for gluten free food at restaurants but it can be kind of frustrating.  Add in being dairy free and things get a lot more complicated.  I ended up eating out quite a bit this weekend so here's a summary of the places I went, what I ordered and how my experiences were.  There is not a lot of info out there about gluten free food in Hawaii, so hopefully this might be helpful to others.

Zippys
Went and saw Argo with my parents and afterwards we went to Zippys for dinner.  I consulted with the waitress and we figured that pretty much the only thing that didn't have gluten in any form (including soy sauce was the new york steak.  Okay, that's fine, I love meat.  But side dishes were difficult because the french fries were fried in shared fryer and all their other potato based sides had milk or butter.  So I had white rice and corn.  Woo, thrilling.  The steak was not that good either, but what can you expect from an $11 steak from Zippys.  They gave me A-1 sauce which I slathered everything in, to give it some flavor.  So yeah, that was filling but not super satisfying.

Paina Cafe
This month is National Novel Writing Month (NaNoRiMo) and I am currently in the midst of writing a novel.  I have a writing group that I started meeting with last year during NaNoWriMo and we meet on Saturdays at Paina Cafe.  When I am there I always get the same thing for lunch, the steak plate.  It comes with steak skewers, rice, salad and potato salad.  Typically I get the ranch dressing but I got balsalmic instead.  It also comes with some garlic aioli sauce for the meat.  Typically a garlic aioli is made of mayonnaise, garlic and spices so I figured it was okay.  I asked the dude at the counter to check the ingredient list for me twice and he never got around to doing it.  I decided to risk it.  I didn't feel anything after eating it so that's good.  It wasn't that much anyway.  Skipped the potato salad since I wasn't quite sure what was in it and the people working there don't appear to be that bright.

The Counter
I have found that it is good to do some research before you go into a restaurant for dinner if you are gluten/dairy free.  I went to the Counter's website and saw that they had a gluten free bun.  I had never seen that on the menu there so I figured I would give them a call the morning before we were planning on going.  I talked to a guy who was super friendly.  They indeed had a gluten free bun and he even checked to make sure that there was no dairy in the bun.  He also told me that their fries were fried in a separate fryer so they were safe from gluten.  HOORAY!!!!  Their bun was actually pretty decent and I opted for bacon since I couldn't have cheese and it was pretty good.  I am happy to find one restaurant that I can eat at relatively easily if I am gluten free.  Here is my tasty burger below.

Macaroni Grill

So typically chain restaurants do a pretty good job of having at least some gluten free options.  Probably because that is more common on the mainland than here.  Though I haven't tried to go into a really local place and try to get something gluten free.  I know that will happen at some point soon and it may be a lot more difficult.  So i went to Macaroni Grill's website  and saw that they also carried gluten free pasta.  Sweet!  But when I went there the next day it turns out that one did not.  Lame.  The waiter there seemed rather clueless about gluten free food and brought me this big book with allergen information that was super hard to figure out.  Unfortunately with no dairy my choices were limited to like plain salad and some of the meat dishes.  Kind of frustrating because I didn't really want to pay for a $20 lunch entree.  I ended up going with a chicken dish.  The veggies that came with it had breadcrumbs on them so I had to opt for some other grilled veggies.  Instead of butter everything was cooked with lemon oil.  It was good, but I was still kind of hungry afterwards since I had just done Zumba and didn't have a real breakfast.  The giant loaf of bread at the table was not helping either.  

So there you have it.  I think of all the places I visited the Counter won hands down.  Paina Cafe was good too because I didn't have to deviate too much from what I normally order.  Le sigh.  I could really go for some pizza right now.  

Gluten Free Cooking Wins and Fails

So I've been hacking and coughing for about four days (gross I know) and I probably should have called in sick to school on Monday and didn't.  So on Tuesday night when I was continuing to cough through Obama's re-election I decided to call in sick for Wednesday so I didn't infect all my students further.  After I got a good night of sleep I had some time to do some gluten free cooking.  With uh, a variety of interesting results.

I love kraft mac and cheese.  I know its terribly unhealthy for you but I can't help myself.  Actually I love anything that you can slather in cheese.  Which makes this dairy free business even more difficult. So I bought this at whole foods in hopes of maybe getting something that might slightly resemble mac and cheese.

This tasted like doodoo.  Okay, that may make me sound like a four year old but that is the best way I can describe it.   I took a bite, and then another, and then I dumped that crap down the garbage disposal.  It was that bad.  The taste was just...off.  It didn't taste anything like cheese and what was worst was it had this really strange, gritty, texture.  I try not to waste food but there was no way I could eat a bowl of this stuff.   One reason why it was so bad may have been the fact that I used soy milk which is kind of sweet, but still, I don't think that would have made it flat out nasty.  Oh well, you live and learn.  I can't wait till I can go back to dairy and I can at least make my own mac and cheese if I can't eat the kraft stuff.

After that disappointment I ate a chicken breast with some gluten free teriyaki sauce.  Much better.  Then I broke out the gluten free cake mix!  Sometimes for dessert I will make a cake either from scratch or a box and then I will have pieces of that for dessert sans frosting.  Makes it at least a little bit healthier.  So I used this cake mix to try and duplicate that.  

So this recipe said I could use either milk or milk substitute or water for liquid.  After the soy milk in the mac and cheese I was not sure that I wanted to go with the soy milk again.  So I split the batter in half and made one with soy milk and one with milk.  After baking and comparing the two I didn't find much of a difference so that was good.  

How did they come out?  Well they were a little denser than a normal cupcake.  They tasted pretty good, actually not as sweet as a normal cupcake which could be a good thing.  Warm out of the oven they were pretty good, although later on at room temperature they were not as awesome.  Not bad though, and with some homemade frosting (because apparently store bought frosting has gluten) they would be pretty good.  

So one win and one lose in gluten free cooking.  Guess I will need to get used to that.

Day 2

Just finished Day #2 of being gluten and dairy free.  What is making this way worse is the fact that I have a massive cold.  I was feeling okay this morning but when I started teaching and talking I turned into a hot coughing mess.  If I had know how I would have felt later in the day I would have stayed home. ugh.  Luckily we get tomorrow off and I can sleep in.  So, on to some more gluten/dairy free food.

So for dinner both last night and tonight I made chili and cornbread.  The chili was pretty simple:  ground beef, tomatoes and beans with some cumin, chili powder and garlic powder.  Not very spicy since that is not quite my thing.  I had bought a gluten free cornbread mix but I had to prepare it so it would be dairy free.

I got some earth balance vegan spread sticks (or something like that).  I melted a stick of it and used it in the cornbread in place of the normal butter.  It looked pretty similar to normal butter and melted just like it, maybe it would turn out okay.

The cornbread and chili went very well together.  I was pleasantly surprised at how good the cornbread turned out.  It tasted just like the normal kind although it was a little grittier.  I would definitely use this cornbread mix again, especially when I can go back to the normal dairy.

Other meals this week not so exiting.  Breakfast was some gluten free toast with vegan butter spread and some applesauce.  Meh, will write about gluten free bread later.  Lunch was a cooked chicken thight, some salad and an apple.  Will need to figure out some better school lunches because I feel I am going to get very sick of salad.

I went to a write-in for Nanowrimo and it was kind of frustrating that I couldn't get a pastry or a frappachino but i got a lemonade ice tea which was good.  I had the munchies when I got home so I ate the equivelent of gluten free ramen, woohoo.  It was okay, although I think my sodium levels in my body spiked after eating it.  Maybe only half of the seasoning packet next time.

Day 1: Gluten Free/Dairy Free

So today was the first day on my gluten/dairy free diet.  Started off with some applesauce and passion fruit juice.  During weekends I am not a huge breakfast eater so this wasn't too big a deal.

For lunch I did a rice pasta with just some basic tomato sauce from Target.  I've already been doing some experimenting with gluten free pasta and unfortunately this one was not one of the better ones.  It claimed that it would stay al dente, even with overcooking, that was definitely not true even though I only cooked it the minimal time.  In fact the little spiral shapes started straightening out.  The pasta was extremely slimy, even after rinsing it.  Plus water got caught inside the little tubes which made my pasta sauce runny, blegh.  The taste was fine though.  I might use these noodles in a soup where the texture and water content would be better masked, not so much for Italian style pasta.

Spent a couple hours after lunch doing work but I got a craving for something sweet.  I had bought a box of Kinni Kritters Chocolate Animal Crackers which are gluten and dairy free.  I opened them up and had a handful  They were pretty good, at first they tasted pretty similar to chocolate teddy grams, maybe a little less sweet.  They are a little dry and powdery though when you are finished eating them, but overall a pretty good substitute for the real thing.  I would definitely buy them again when I just feel a need for some processed children's cookies :-)

Going gluten and dairy free for two weeks starting tomorrow.  So in celebration I went on a gluten and dairy binge at Buca Di Beppo with my friend Jen tonight.  Here is me and a fabulous pizza.  And Jen's thumb, hahahaha.  

Ugh.  It's not so much giving up the gluten that is the problem, but the dairy is going to be a real stickler.  Slathering stuff in butter and cheese can make just about anything tasty, but I can't do that for the next two week.  Boooo.

Well I will be blogging about my various gluten and dairy free adventures over the next two weeks.  Hopefully that will distract me a little bit.  

For the last couple of years I have been battling hypothyroidism.  Started off about two years ago when I would literally be falling asleep at my desk by the last period of the school day and then go home and collapse in bed for several hours.  Got my thyroid tested and turned out I had hypothyroidism (which runs in my family).

Since then they've been fussing with my medication with various levels of success.  During the last go around the endocrinologist wanted to test me for celiac disease because it can affect how you absorb nutrients and medication.  So got the test done and of course, my thyroid is perfect, but the celiac test came back positive.  Great.......

After finding a new general practitioner and having a long discussion with her I will be embarking on a two week long gluten and dairy free diet.  Yes, two weeks is not that long but I have a feeling this gluten free business will be permanent.  So I might as well blog about this adventure because I love wheat....and I don't wanna say goodbye to it.  So might as well have an outlet for this as I go along the process.  And maybe fill a niche, because there is not a lot of gluten free information that is Hawaii specific.

So starting Sunday November 4, it is gluten and dairy free time!!  Let's see how this goes.