Gluten Free Vancouver

gluten free on the street: mom's grilled cheese truck

gluten free vancouver — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 06:33:46 +0000

photo credit: mom's grilled cheese truckGluten free bread options have been popping up in more and more Vancouver restaurants and cafés recently, including at Mom’s Grilled Cheese Truck!

Mom’s Grilled Cheese Truck is known for its deluxe toppings and classic homestyle creations and this is one of the big reasons there is almost always a buzzing crowd at the truck. While the truck is not dedicated gluten free, owner and operator Cindy Hamilton offers Udi's gluten free sandwich bread and takes several precautions to reduce the risk of cross contamination including prepping and grilling the gluten free grilled cheese in a separate dedicated pan. As anyone with celiac disease knows there are never any guarantees, so please use your judgement in determining whether this truck is safe for you. If it is, ensure you let the staff know that you have a gluten allergy and they will make you feel right at home.

Even though the truck offers deluxe toppings and add-ons such as chili and marinara sauce, we recommend you stick to Mom’s Classic grilled cheese and plain add-ons like red onion or tomato. The gluten free Classic grilled cheese is $6.25 and comes with your choice of cheddar cheese, havarti, pepper jack, or lactose free provolone. Daiya vegan cheese is also available for an extra 0.75 cents. All sandwiches come with a dill pickle on a bed of plain Hardbite potato chips which do not have any gluten containing ingredients. Try their homemade ginger tea made with fresh ginger and natural brown sugar.

Mom’s Grilled Cheese Truck is located at the south west corner of West Georgia and Howe at the Vancouver Art Gallery and is open Monday to Friday from 9:00 – 5:30. Like most trucks, check Mom’s facebook page for any daily schedule changes.

Mom's Grilled Cheese Truck is also participating in the first Street Food City event as part of Dine Out Vancouver from January 24-26. Street Food City will be held at the north plaza of the Vancouver Art Gallery from 11:00 – 3:00.

See you there!

Robyn + Andrea

gluten free on the street: the juice truck

gluten free vancouver — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 04:16:31 +0000

photo credit: gluten free vancouver

Have you been looking for a healthy, all gluten free, dairy free, good-for-you food truck? Then look no further, The Juice Truck is all of this and more! They serve cold pressed juices, smoothies, juice shots, soup, hot chocolate, and some desserts.

Their menu items include The Green, a cold pressed juice made with cucumber pressed with green kale, parsley, celery and lime; The Avocado Pineapple, a smoothie made with avocado blended with pineapple, coconut water, lime, vanilla and agave; and The Raw Chai Brownie, a dessert made with dates, raw cacao powder, hazelnut, coconut oil, ground flax seed, maple syrup, vanilla and chai spices. The other day I picked up the Carrot Apple juice and the Creamy Tomato soup and it was the perfect lunch!

The Juice Truck is owned and operated by two well-traveled guys named Zach and Ryan, who got their juice truck inspiration while traveling through Nepal. It was here they noticed the locals drinking a nutritious juice made from Seabuckthorn berries, and the idea came to life. In their own words, the concept for their business is simple...

Good juice creates, health, happiness, and energy. That is why we source the best local produce, and support organic farming practices. Our mission is to encourage- through our products and our brand – the health of our community, our people, and our land.

When Zach and Ryan initially created their juice menu, the ingredients they chose to use were naturally gluten free, but they decided to stick to this theme and keep the truck free of gluten entirely. They use 100% coconut milk as well as homemade almond milk for their smoothies, which is simply made with almond, cinnamon, vanilla and agave. Their soups are always gluten and dairy free with no noodles added!

The bold and simple visual branding of the Juice Truck is also something we love. Zach and Ryan enlisted local company Glasfurd & Walker to put together a strong identity that is distinguished yet playful, which we feel matches Ryan and Zach perfectly; they take juice seriously, yet they are young and very charismatic. The Juice Truck has become a visual and nourishing fixture in the heart of Gastown.

The Juice Truck is located at the corner of Abbott and Water Streets, and they are open from 11:30am to 5:30pm. The Juice Truck's full menu is available on their website, and the soup and other daily specials are listed on their facebook page. It's a good idea to check their facebook page for unexpected closures.

The Juice Truck will also be participating in the first Street Food City event as part of Dine Out Vancouver from January 24-26. Street Food City will be held at the north plaza of the Vancouver Art Gallery from 11:00 – 3:00. The Juice Truck will be there on two days only, the 25th and 26th.

Our last installment in our three part series on gluten free food trucks will be on Mom's Grilled Cheese truck that offers Udi's gluten free bread! Stay tuned!

Andrea + Robyn

Note: The Juice Truck offers wheat grass juice shots which is an ingredient that has much debate in the celiac community about its gluten free status. According to celiac.ca, wheat grass doesn't contain any gluten protein and it is usually harvested before any gluten containing seeds develop. We recommend that our readers use their own personal discretion when deciding whether or not to consume wheat grass.

gluten free on the street: off the wagon tacos

gluten free vancouver — Sun, 22 Jan 2012 07:31:29 +0000

photo credit: off the wagon

The taco revolution has hit Vancouver’s food truck scene in various forms since the City of Vancouver began its street food pilot program in 2010, but Off the Wagon is our favorite traveling taco trailer because the truck is entirely gluten free!

All tacos are gluten and dairy free and are made with soft corn tortillas topped with homemade roasted tomato salsa, avocado sauce, and freshly chopped onion and cilantro. There is always a vegan taco option, including my favorite black bean and yam! Off the Wagon also has either pulled pork or beef brisket on the menu, and all meats and eggs are sourced from local farmers and are hormone free.

For the winter season, the truck operates from Wednesday through Saturday and can be found at Dunlevy and Railway on Wednesdays from 11:30 – 2:00, the corner of Robson and Howe on Thursdays and Fridays from 11:30 – 2:30, and Saturdays (excluding the last of each month) you can find Off the Wagon at the Vancouver Farmers Market at Nat Bailey Stadium from 10:00 – 2:00. Off the Wagon has a great facebook page and this is where the owners Dana Whaley and Jenn Willoughby update their daily truck schedule with any changes, so we recommend you check in on their page often!

Dana and Jenn decided to start a food truck after they traveled through Mexico together in 2009 and found the best food was always on the street or at the local markets. They also both enjoy being able to serve everyone at the truck and accommodate those with dietary restrictions, which was their primary motive for keeping their taco wagon gluten and dairy free. Thanks Dana and Jenn!

Off the Wagon will also be participating in the first Street Food City event as part of Dine Out Vancouver from January 24-26. Street Food City will be held at the north plaza of the Vancouver Art Gallery from 11:00 – 3:00.

We will be featuring two more street trucks, The Juice Truck and Mom's Grilled Cheese Truck, in our three part series on gluten free food trucks in Vancouver! Stay tuned!

Robyn + Andrea

facebook roundup!

gluten free vancouver — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 04:50:23 +0000

photo credit: gluten free on a shoestringWe celebrated an exciting milestone at the close of 2011...our Facebook page reached over 500 subscribers! Our Facebook page is fun way for us to interact with our readers by posting interesting gluten free news articles and events, recipes, cool new blogs we have discovered, and a little bit about what we are up to! Here are a few recent highlights from our Gluten Free Vancouver page!

If you like making your own jam, this is a fantastic recipe from Green Kitchen Stories, one of our new favorite vegetarian recipe blogs.
We found the cutest cream wafer cookies from Gluten Free on a Shoestring through the Better Better page, they look too pretty to eat!
This is a great article about Holy Crap and the success of this popular gluten free cereal brand.
There was a very interesting article in the Vancouver Sun recently about how 'wheat goes against the grain' and how wheat is linked to various health issues.
Novel Eats is an excellent vegan blog we discovered recently, read one of their articles about how to detect mystery ingredients in processed foods.

We sincerely hope you enjoy the content we post on our page, and we always welcome new followers!

Robyn + Andrea

let's make it gluten free: 'chipits' chocolate chip cookies

gluten free vancouver — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 19:56:47 +0000

photo credit: gluten free vancouver

How did I spend New Year's Eve? Making chocolate chip cookies with my three year old daughter Pilar! I wanted to find a simple recipe, and I was craving the warm and chewy taste of the chocolate chip cookies I remember growing up. We always used to make chocolate chip cookies with Chipits chocolate chips, and used the recipe right on the bag, it was so simple! So to keep things simple this time around, I searched online for the Chipits recipe and modified it slightly to make my own warm and chewy—gluten free—chocolate chip cookies!

You can find the recipe here, and really the only subsitutions I made were for the all purpose flour (obviously) and the chocolate chips. I always keep a bag of Bob's Red Mill gluten free all purpose baking flour on hand in my kitchen, as well as Enjoy Life Foods' semi-sweet mini chocolate chips, you never know when a chocolate craving might strike! I often add these chocolate chips to our home-made trail mixes. I also didn't add any nuts to our cookies, which the recipe calls for, it's up to you if you want them or not.

So with all our ingredients on hand, Pilar and I got our first batch out of the oven in no time. They were soft, and chewy, and chocolatey, just as I remembered them. Nothing beats fresh homemade cookies, that are easy to make, and don't require a lot of ingredients. They don't even taste gluten free. In fact, these cookies were quickly eaten by the non-celiacs in our family!

Bob's gluten free all purpose flour is a blend of garbanzo bean flour, potato starch, tapioca flour, white sorghum flour, and fava bean flour. It is high in iron and fiber. I have tried in the past to make complex gluten free baking flour mixes like this from various sites and books, but I always ended up with left over flours and starches, and spent a lot more money because they doesn't all get used equally. Bob's really saves time, and it's a great product, you can read all the positive customer reviews here.

One thing that I didn't notice was that on the back of the package, Bob's recommends adding xanthan gum to the flour mix, and has recommended quantities depending on what you are baking and how much flour you are using. I didn't do this the first time I made these cookies, and they still turned out great, and were actually chewier. I added the xanthan gum the second time, and the cookies still turned out great, if only slightly less chewy. So don't worry if you don't have xanthan gum in your cupboard, it's not necessary for these chocolate chip cookies!

Enjoy, and make sure you save some for yourself! Andrea.

Note: If you are curious about vanilla extract and which ones are gluten free, Gluten-Free Girl wrote a thorough post on the subject here. If in doubt, go for one that's pure with no artifical ingredients. You can also make your own with your preferred alcohol if you are highly sensitive to a particular alcohol, such as grain-based vodka. In which case make sure you buy potato-based vodka for example. I think I'll be making my own from now on too, thanks Novel Eats!