Today was one of those days where I consumed anything and everything. When it came time to have some dessert, I headed over to Crushcakes and got a gluten-free red velvet cupcake. I am not a frequent cupcake eater, but the frosting on this cupcake may have changed that for me. Yum.
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Working up an Appetite on Segways
15 Jul
One of my favorite things to do is to be a tourist in my own town. So, this morning, a friend and I spent about two hours exploring Santa Barbara on a Segway while learning a few interesting things along the way. All of this exploring made us quite hungry… especially after passing some of our favorite eateries. After we were done, we headed over to Boathouse to grab some lunch. I had the Blackened Shrimp Quesadilla which was served with caesar salad and grilled onions.
This seemed like a huge portion for one person. It was really good though and I loved that it was served on corn tortillas! Be sure to ask for your caesar salad to be made without croutons as it typically comes with them.
Friday Night at Petros
14 Jul
One of the best things about going to dinner with another Celiac is that you can share dishes! On Friday night, a Celiac friend and I went to Petros. We started with the Shrimp Sagnaki which I loved. It consisted of shrimp with a tomato basil feta cheese sauce. This sauce had the perfect amount of heat to it… I found myself eating just the sauce after all of the shrimp had been eaten! For my main dish, I had the fish of the day which was Sappara.
I chose to have this grilled with olive oil and lemon juice. It came with a generous portion of the Petros Horiatiki Salad.
One of the things I love about eating Greek food is that it is so easy to be healthy! This was the perfect summer meal.
Autism Family Night at the Santa Barbara Zoo
12 Jul
Tonight was Autism Family Night at the Santa Barbara Zoo. To support those families that whose lives have been affected by autism, the Zoo’s Ridley-Tree House Restaurant served up a limited menu that featured gluten-free and dairy-free items. I ended up getting the Grilled Veggie Stir-fry which was served over rice. The only alteration I had to make to the dish was to omit the mushrooms since they had been prepared with soy sauce. This was fine by me since I am not a huge fan of mushrooms! It would be wonderful if the Zoo would place GF friendly dishes on their permanent menu for those who have to avoid gluten.
The First Guest Post: Keste Pizza
9 JulNote: I have a very supportive group of people in my life that I am lucky to call “family”. It is impossible for me to try every GF friendly restaurant that I would like to, so sometimes it is nice to send my family to try these places on my behalf! So without further ado, the post below is from my wonderful father who loves trying new restaurants even more than me!
Tonight I fulfilled a promise I made to my daughter and went to Keste Pizza on Bleecker Street in New York City. This was a return trip for me and the object was to taste their Gluten Free Pizza. Keste has had many rave reviews for their pizza, including being called “one of America’s 10 Best Pizza Parlors” and the “Most authentic Pizza Pie in New York”. Since 2010 he has been building upon this reputation by adding Gluten Free pizzas to the menu.
We started the meal with the Rustica salad which is made with a spring mix, prosciutto di parma, artichokes, gaeta olives, lemon and extra virgin olive oil. It was the perfect light start to a wonderful meal. All of the salads seem to come with bread so you need to request that none is added to the plate. We ordered two pizzas so that we could taste the Gluten Free one against the regular pie. The menu has a special section for the Gluten Free pizzas (see picture) and we chose the Margherita, tomato sauce, homemade mozzarella, pecorino romano, basil and extra virgin olive oil. Keste Gluten Free pizzas are all made with Caputo gluten-free flour (a combination of rice starch, cornstarch, potato starch, soy flour, and sugar) and cooked in a specially designated electric oven.
The regular pizza had a wonderful charred look to it. The blistered dough managed to be light while maintaining a satisfying elasticity and chew. And the Gluten Free pizza? It appeared thinner but had that same wonderful charred look (see picture) as the original. When biting into the crust the taste profile was very similar to that of the original, although, perhaps a bit denser. But absolutely satisfying. The other ingredients just added to the overall experience.
Even if the Gluten Free pizza was all that was served here, I would return again for this tasty crust. This is the first one that gives the Gluten Free eater the opportunity to have a truly Neapolitan style Pizza. This is obviously the work of a master pizzaiolo.
Quinoa for Breakfast
7 Jul
The other morning, I tried the Red Quinoa “Oatmeal” for breakfast at Scarlett Begonia. It had toasted almonds, apricots, maple syrup, house made ricotta and steamed milk. Other than substituting almond milk for the steamed milk, I didn’t need to make any substitutions!
Night at the Ranch
4 Jul
The other night, we had dinner at Stonehouse, located at the San Ysidro Ranch. I started with the special soup which was a lobster curry soup. I also enjoyed some gluten-free bread! Yes, that is right. I was offered some GF bread.
I ordered the Grilled Washugyu American Kobe Beef Striploin without the blue cheese. It was incredibly tender. For dessert, we shared the chocolate souffle which was ridiculously good.
Is that one delicious looking dessert or what?
True Food Kitchen
30 Jun
We went down to Santa Monica to do some furniture shopping for the day. After working up an appetite, we found a place called True Food Kitchen which is also known as my new favorite restaurant. I started with the Cucumber Refresher which was incredibly refreshing. I then had the gluten-free sundried tomato and corn pizza. It had poblanos, goat cheese and a kale pesto. This was unbelievably delicious. Every day since I had this pizza I have found myself daydreaming about it. It was that good. My husband ordered the mediterranean salad.
It had cucumber, olives, cherry tomatoes, quinoa, feta, marcona almonds and a lemon oregano vinaigrette. This was also really good.
Ventana Grill
30 Jun
Summer to me means that it is time to take fun day trips to new places. I had always wanted to go to the sand dunes in Pismo Beach, so this week we headed up there. We rented our buggy and then made our way to the actual dunes. It was quite terrifying not knowing what was on the other side of a dune. After working up an appetite, we headed to Ventana Grill, where I was presented with a gluten-free menu.
I ended up getting the Ventana chopped salad which said it had chicken, romaine hearts, granny smith apples, roma tomatoes, roasted poblanos, caramelized corn, red onions, cotija, cilantro and a cumin dijon dressing. When I received it though, there were tortilla chips on top of it.
I asked our waiter and he assured me that they were GF, but I was still a bit wary since they weren’t on the GF menu. At least we had a beautiful view from our table to ease my food anxiety!
Lazy Acres Sandwich
29 Jun
It was one of those perfect Santa Barbara days where the weather is practically begging you to have a picnic. We went to Lazy Acres to get some sandwiches, cheese and crackers and made our way to Shoreline Park. I ordered their turkey sandwich on the GF multigrain bread. I LOVE that they now have an option for us GF people that are craving a sandwich on the Mesa. However, my bread crumbled to pieces as I ate it. Hopefully with time, they will find a bread that stays together long enough to enjoy the whole thing!
gluten-free in sb 