My Big Fat Italian-Food-Filled Weekend

Weekends are heavenly.

This weekend consisted mostly of a reading marathon. 

{Pause to push glasses up on nose.} 

After weeks of not being able to get into The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, I got finally got sucked into the story and couldn't put it down. Couple that with multiple glasses of wine, afternoon naps, an action movie at an air-conditioned theatre (holy crap it's hot), and a short trip to the pool, and you have one lazy, relaxing weekend.

Saturday night we engaged in one of our most favorite pastimes - eating pizza. Luckily, there's a great local-ish place about 10 minutes from our house that has gluten-free pizza is BYOB...AND we just happened to have a previously purchased Groupon for. Score! 

We each got a pizza, not because we each needed a whole pizza, but because I'm stingy and like to have leftovers to eat later. Hey - it's not very often I get gluten-free pizza made FOR me! My pizza was topped with pesto, artichoke hearts, roasted chicken, tomatoes and mushrooms.

Yeah. It was good.

I pretty much had to go straight to bed when we got home. I ate entirely too much of it. I don't care - it was worth it.

This morning, after a cup of coffee and a small breakfast, The Hubby and I went to the grocery store to beat the crowds (and the heat). There is nothing I love more than looking into my refrigerator after a trip to the grocery store (especially during the summer) and seeing a drawer full of fresh produce and protein. 

Fresh shrimp was on sale, as were cherry tomatoes, so we decided on a light pasta dish for dinner tonight. As an extra special treat, The Hubby cooked while I attempted to keep our kitchen cool with this:

No, I'm not being dramatic. Yes, it was (is) that hot. 

Did I mention it was 108º today?

Onward.

Shrimp pan-seared with olive oil and garlic (and salt & pepper).

Pan-seared shrimp removed from pan. Hot pan de-glazed with white wine.

Addition of burst cherry tomatoes, salt & pepper, more wine, butter, and more olive oil.

Shrimp added back in to pan sauce, then tossed with freshly cooked pasta.

Fresh basil added at the end.

Hear that? I hear angels singing. 

I think I could eat pizza and pasta for every meal. It's so easy to make both healthy and still satisfying in a way that nothing else is. 

Add some wine...and you have heaven. 

-K

Pizza! Pizza! - Part 1

We've been trying out a TON of gluten-free pizza lately - I'm excited to share it all with you! More posts to come...


Thank goodness for Twitter. 

Without it, I would have never found out that my absolute favorite pre-Celiac pizza chain was working on a gluten-free pizza. 

It also would have taken me MUCH longer to figure out that the store five seconds from my house had started serving it.

I can't even begin to describe to you how happy this makes me.

In an attempt to explain, let me give you a little history on my love for Mellow Mushroom. The Hubby and I bought our house in 2007 and had to completely re-learn our surroundings. The first thing you find when you move? A grocery store. One one of our first drives between our house and the nearest grocery store (Albertson's, which is now a shiny new super-awesome Kroger that sells Kinnickinnick among tons of other gluten-free goodies), we noticed this funky-looking place called Mellow Mushroom, and the name of the place rang a bell - some guys at work had raved about the pizza, and the name (unsurprisingly) stuck with me.

We went once not long after that and fell in love with it. The best pizza I've EVER had. Beautifully hand-tossed, perfectly chewy, browned to perfection crust with every topping you can imagine available. Great beer selection, laid-back vibe. Our kind of place.

Fast forward a few months into early 2008. The Hubby and I, after much anticipation, started the dreaded but necessary process of remodeling our kitchen. This meant a new routine of microwaveable meals, take out, and eating out at restaurants...and because of its proximity to our house, we ended up visiting Mellow Mushroom at least once a week for several months. 

Ironically enough, it was during one of these visits that I finally decided to see a specialist about my stomach troubles that had been rapidly increasing in frequency. I got halfway through my first piece of pizza before literally doubling over with the worst stomach pain I've ever felt. Come to find out, they put EXTRA gluten in their pizza crust  (no I'm not kidding) to make it taste as good as it does. That was the last time we went for pizza at Mellow Mushroom.

Until now.

The Hubby follows our local Mellow Mushroom on Twitter. One Saturday afternoon a few weeks ago, he saw their announcement that they were (finally!) serving gluten-free pizza, and we were waiting for a table there a few hours later. 


Here's where the cool stuff starts. I asked for a drink menu while we were waiting at the bar, and noticed that gluten-free beverages were labeled as such. I treated myself to a Strongbow cider - and it was awesome. First time I'd tried one, and I definitely had a second one to wash down my pizza.


Once we were seated, I mentioned right away to our server that I would need to order gluten-free and asked if there was a separate menu. She sat down in the booth beside me and showed me this:

It's a blurry iPhone picture (sorry!), but it's a listing of the ingredients of their gluten-free pizza crust (bean flour, rice flour, tapioca flour and starch, xantham gum, salt, yeast, egg, cider vinegar, sugar, canola oil, and calcium-something-or-other that I'm assuming is a preservative or binder), as well as all of the toppings that they have that are gluten-free. See that "Certified Gluten-Free" bit in the lower right-hand corner? Sweet.


So...I ordered my Strongbow along with my very own pizza (only comes in one size like most of the gluten-free pizzas I've had...good excuse to get one all to myself) topped with mozzarella, ricotta, tomato, and spinach. 

Sorry - this picture was a total afterthought. I had downed an entire piece and was reaching for a second before The Hubby reminded me that you guys might want to see what it looked like.

I have to say, the experience was great. The staff is well-trained and take cross-contamination issues seriously. After ordering ricotta for my pizza, our server came to double-check that I had indeed seen it on the list of approved ingredients, as the cooks wanted to verify. The best part? The pizza was GOOD. Not the best gluten-free pizza I've ever had, but (hear me out!) definitely not anywhere near being bad, and we will absolutely be going back...soon. 

The crust was different than any I've had - the outer crust (my favorite part) was light and airy with a good crunchy outside and chewy interior...things that you don't find often in gluten-free breads. I'm convinced it was the tapioca flour that made the difference.

My usual routine is to eat around half of my pizza, then take the rest home for later. This pizza was awesome reheated in the toaster oven.  I'm excited to see if the pizza improves as the cooks get used to this whole gluten-free thing.

I was so excited about our whole experience that I sent an email to their corporate office thanking them as soon as we got home. This is the response that I got back from the "Ambassador of Fun" from our local store:

Dear Kelly,

We are so glad you enjoyed your Gluten-Free experience with us! We just recently started offering Gluten-Free pizza and it's great to already receive such positive feed back. We want you to enjoy yourself to the fullest (literally!) each and every time you come in to Mellow Mushroom. We understand that it can be very difficult for someone with Celiac Disease to sit down at a restaurant and eat a pizza with confidence, it is a pleasure, a priority, and a great compliment for us. Thank you so much for taking the time to e-mail us and please let me know the next time you come in to dine at Mellow Mushroom! 

Another nugget of interest: our server told us that it had taken Mellow Mushroom longer than expected to offer gluten-free pizza because the first few recipes they came up with tasted like cardboard and did not hold up to their standards. I'm glad they took their time!


Mellow Mushroom currently has stores in the following states:


Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, Ohio, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and Virginia.

Weekend Warrior

It has been SO amazing to have two weekends in a row where The Hubby and I had absolutely no commitments. Don't get me wrong, I love seeing friends and and going places and doing fun things, but there's just something so sweet about laying around guilt-free. The past three years I was in school, so there was always a looming guilt cloud hovering above my head every time I wanted to be lazy. There were always articles to be read, papers to write, research to be done, and homework to finish. Even between semesters, I was constantly aware that I should probably be doing something productive like cleaning out closets (still needs to be done, but it will be there tomorrow) while I had the time before school started up again. No more! Doing whatever the hell I want to is so incredibly freeing.

This weekend, The Hubby and I perfected the art of doing nothing...except in the food department.

Friday night, we tried out a new local chain of pizza cafes, Palio's Pizza. Apparently these have been around for a few years, but the one in our area recently opened. It's literally 5 minutes from our house, and they offer gluten-free pizza! One of my friends visited there last week and told me about it immediately, probably because they have this sign all over their restaurant:

The place itself is nothing fancy; it's sandwiched between Starbucks and a yogurt cafe in a generic-looking shopping center, and I probably would have driven right past it had it not come recommended. Inside, you order at a counter, take a number, and wait for your pizza to be delivered to your table. (Side note: one great thing about being gluten-free while The Hubby isn't: I usually get my very own pizza. Yesssss.) It's also BYOB, which is an added bonus! The pizza is cheaper than the gluten-free pizzas at national chains (Uno and Boston's), and they don't charge extra for the special crust. It was crispy and chewy, full of flavor, and absolutely delicious. Mine was the "Classic" - roasted chicken, garlic, tomato, basil, and mozzarella. I refuse to take pictures of my food while sitting in a restaurant, but I took a quick pic with my phone yesterday afternoon as I was about to devour the leftovers.

See? Amazing. I can't wait to go back.

After annihilating my leftover pizza and watching some college baseball with The Hubby, I decided to bake. As I mentioned in this previous post, Gluten Free Pantry sent me some awesome samples, and I wanted to try the Chocolate Chip Cookie and Cake Mix next. Feeling a little snazzy, I decided to make both cupcakes and cake balls out of the mix. Yum yum yum. I'll post details about both in a future post, a review of the product in general. Until then, here's a little sneak peek (shown iced with a little bit of Cherrybrook Kitchen Allergy-Free Vanilla Frosting):

Sunday morning, The Hubby and I both woke up with nasty colds. I hate it when we're both sick at the same time. It took me a while to get up and moving, but after a cup of coffee I decided I was going to make myself an omelet. Sounds innocent enough...except for the fact that the last time I tried to make an omelet it ended up as a scramble. I had some leftover (cooked) gluten-free chicken sausage from Memorial Day weekend that I chopped up and threw in...

...as well as some pre-shredded cheddar cheese and half of a tomato that happened to be living in my fridge. The end result was enormous (I had so much 'stuff' I wanted to put in it that I used three eggs), but surprisingly tasty!

Sidenote: Please disregard the darkness of this picture. I promise the outside wasn't burned. I just bought a new camera (finally splurged on the DSLR) and the two of us (as in me and the camera) are having issues. I'm taking a class next weekend, so hopefully picture quality will improve!

On another note, I may or may not have eaten a total of four cake balls yesterday. 

All in all, a great, lazy weekend (other than the colds). 

Until next time,

Kelly

Product Review: Gluten Free Pantry French Bread & Pizza Mix

About a month ago (maybe a smidge longer...the past few months have whizzed right by), I was contacted by a representative of Glutino/Ian's Foods/Gluten Free Pantry about whether or not I had any interest in receiving and reviewing a few of their products. I didn't even have to think about it! I'm always interested in trying new things in my search for easy, delicious, gluten-free staples.

I received a glorious package with the following inside:

• Gluten Free Pantry French Bread and Pizza Mix
• Gluten Free Pantry Chocolate Chip Cookie and Cake Mix
• Glutino Breakfast Bars in Strawberry and Cherry
• Ian's Gluten-Free Animal Cookies

The Hubby and I decided to try the French Bread and Pizza Mix first. We've tried several times to make gluten-free pizza at home, either with a mix or a pre-made frozen crust, all with mediocre results. Either the crust was too dry, didn't cook correctly, or just plain tasted like cardboard and/or glue. However, with this mix, THIS is what we ended up with:

That is beauty if I've ever seen it. 

The last dough we tried required rolling out...and it was REALLY FREAKING HARD. 

However, the Gluten-Free Pantry mix created dough that did not have to be rolled out and was spreadable - especially after we (and by "we" I mean The Hubby because I had no brain function left after my thesis...and he's awesome) figured out that if greasing a spatula or other spreading utensil made smearing the dough onto the pizza pan more like working with a thick icing rather than dough. The mix makes enough for two large round pizzas - we used half and froze the rest. (I'll update later with how it turns out after freezing.)

With this mix, you just throw your stuff on and bake! No pre-baking required...although we decided that we might try that next time to see if that changes the consistency at all.

We chose turkey sausage, tomato, and onion. YUM! The outer crust baked up nicely, browned, and was just crispy enough, while the crust under the "stuff" was chewy. The flavor? The most reminiscent of a gluten-filled pizza dough that I've made at home yet! Even better? It tastes like "real" pizza when cold (rather than a mouth full of cotton balls and sawdust like other crusts I've tried) and reheats beautifully in the toaster oven.

Uhh...anyone craving pizza?

Kelly