The Gluten Free Pop-up market kicks of Celiac Awareness Month on May 1st

The Gluten Free Garage is a pop-up farmer’s market event with a gluten-free twist that kicks off Celiac Awareness Month on May 1st at Artscape Wychwood Barns.  

It offers one-stop shopping for local and artisanal gluten-free food, creates awareness about this pain-in-the-gut disease, and proves that gluten-free food can be super tasty. This foodie event is built for people with celiac and gluten intolerance but everyone on the gluten-free spectrum will want to indulge.

The event was founded by Toronto mom RonniLyn Pustil - mom of a 10-year-old daughter who was diagnosed with celiac disease in 2009. RonniLyn’s  family life forever changed when her daughter Lily was diagnosed with celiac disease at age 3. To ensure that her daughter (and the rest of her family, since they made their entire house gluten free to ensure no mistakes or cross-contamination would happen at home) would have delicious food to eat, she combed the city in search of fresh gluten-free food that was made locally. Eventually, she came up with the idea for the Gluten Free Garage to share her finds with others who are gluten free and to create awareness about the disease.

This year’s 5^th pop-up features more than 60 local and artisanal vendors handpicked to showcase the city’s tastiest gluten-free eats and drinks—from pastries to pasta to pirogies. Highlights include fresh food prepared onsite, food trucks, beer and cider sampling, free tote bags (for the first 1,000 guests), and five awesome guest speakers speaking to different aspects of living gluten free.

I went to this event last year and even though I don't have celiac disease I found it interesting and went with a friend who is diabetic who found some of the items interesting for him

To get you started they have provided a recipe for Mac & Cheese and Chocolate Chip Cookies, which I know is something that people miss when they have to switch to gluten free foods.

Mac & Cheese

Serves 2 to 4 people.

 It’s ideal for a weeknight meal: the sauce is a snap to make, and if you’re in a real rush, you don’t even need to bake it. 

Throw in some chopped greens like kale or broccoli, or add a smoky kick with a little bit of chopped chipotle. 

INGREDIENTS

8 ounces brown rice elbow pasta

2 tablespoons Earth Balance Buttery Sticks 

1¼ cups coconut milk beverage

6 tablespoons nutritional yeast flakes

1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice

2 teaspoons Dijon mustard

1½ teaspoons onion powder

1½ teaspoons garlic powder

1 teaspoon sea salt

Ground black pepper

1 tablespoon arrowroot starch

1 cup Daiya mozzarella-style shreds

1 15-oz can puréed butternut squash (or 1½ cups roasted and puréed squash)

½ cup gluten-free bread crumbs

½ to 1 teaspoon paprika

Preheat the oven to 400°F. Bring a large pot of salted water to boil. Add the pasta and cook according to the package directions.

In a medium saucepan over medium-high heat, melt 1 tablespoon butter. Add the milk, nutritional yeast, lemon juice, mustard, onion powder, garlic powder, salt, and pepper. Whisk briskly to combine. Slowly whisk in the arrowroot starch. 

Simmer until the sauce begins to thicken, about 5 minutes. Add the mozzarella shreds and slowly whisk until melted, about 5 minutes. Add the squash and whisk until everything is combined and heated through. Add the cooked pasta to the sauce, stirring gently to combine. Season to taste.

Pour the mixture into an ovenproof baking dish—either a 9-inch (round) glass pie plate or a 9- × 9-inch square dish works well.

In a saucepan, melt the remaining butter. Add the bread crumbs and toss to coat well, then sprinkle evenly over the pasta. Top with a sprinkling of paprika. Bake for 15 minutes or until the sauce begins to bubble. Serve hot with a side salad and ketchup or hot sauce.

and: 

Chocolate Chip Cookies

Makes 18 cookies

INGREDIENTS

2½ cups brown rice flour

½ cup potato starch

2 tablespoons arrowroot starch

1 teaspoon gluten-free baking powder

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon xanthan gum

1 teaspoon sea salt

¾ cup + 1 tablespoon organic sugar

¾ cup agave nectar

1⁄3 cup melted coconut oil

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1 teaspoon organic blackstrap molasses

2⁄3 cup vegan semi-sweet chocolate chips

Preheat the oven to 325°F. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper. 

In a large bowl, sift together the flour, both starches, baking powder, baking soda, xanthan gum, and salt. Whisk to combine. 

In a medium bowl, whisk together the sugar, agave nectar, oil, vanilla, and molasses. 

Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and mix well using a spatula. Fold in the chocolate chips until evenly distributed. 

Using your hands, roll the dough into golf-ball-size pieces and place on the prepared baking sheets. Press down to flatten each ball to about ¼ inch thick and 2½ inches in diameter, being mindful to keep them spaced about 1 inch apart. 

Bake for 12 to 15 minutes, until golden. Let sit on the baking sheets for at least 20 minutes, to firm up. Transfer to a cooling rack to cool completely, or eat them all right away.

There are lot's of products to sample and also talks by experts in the field.

I am hoping to go and try lots of stuff again this year.  see ya there.

The Gluten Free Garage at Wychwood Barns - Event

Wychwood Barns

There seems to be a trend for a lot of people to be switching to Gluten Free foods lately when they aren't even gluten intolerant.  Why? Well because they have heard that people lose weight when they go gluten free.   Well this is true when you are diagnosed with celiac disease and you give up gluten free food then you will lose weight but there is no real proof that it's beneficial to you to go gluten free if you don't have any related health issues.   While I do believe we aren't eating what we did over 30 years ago when it comes to wheat based products because of the new farming technologies that have stripped the land of the soil benefits that would produce a full healthful benefit in the wheat we used to grow that doesn't seem to exist anymore unless you are getting it from a small organic farm.

Joy McCarthy Joyous Health

I have a friend that has been gluten free for years but this by no means makes her more healthy it just means she gets really sick when she eats wheat products.   I have another baker friend who was advised by her nutritionist to eliminate gluten products and she has seen results in weight loss and feeling better when she doesn't consume gluten products.  And there is a third friend who has diabetes and wants to switch to a higher protein and low sugar based bread and eliminate more white based foods that spike his blood sugar.  He is on a mission to find a bread that he can eat every day.   We made an attempt to make a recipe found in the Wheat Belly book but it was a horrible substitute for bread.  He said it was better when toasted but if I had to eat it I would give up bread altogether.   I myself don't have a gluten intolerance but I know that it's in my best interest to investigate healthy and tasty products and I feel like it's information that might be helpful to the people that read this blog.   While I am not a certified nutritionist or healthcare provider I did work in a hospital for 14 years and saw a lot of the effects of what happens to people that struggle with pain and health issues.  I learned a lot while working in the hospital because at the time I decided to lose weight by going to weight watchers and used the information available at the hospital to learn some things and then over the years I have been open to learning about diet related issues from either books or from some of the documentaries I have watched.

In the never ending quest to find better foods and to see if I could find products that would help my friends I decided to go to the GLUTEN FREE GARAGE event that was held at Wychwood Barns this past sunday.   I brought my friend who is in search for bread with me to see if he could find some things.  

We tried many samples but unfortunately there weren't any samples of bread for him to try but there were a lot of crackers.  It's easy to make a cracker taste good because you can use flax seeds and dried herbs to make a crispy cracker.  It's a lot harder to make a light and tasty bread that rises without the gluten.   He did find a vendor that sold various flours and had a multi grain bread mix which my friend bought to try out.  He paid $5 for the package and will get 2 loaves from that.  We will see how they turn out as soon as he tries it.

The other thing that I have tried in the past that was never very good was Pasta.  I'm a purist and just prefer the taste of regular pasta, but I must say that I was impressed with the taste of Ital Pasta's penne in tomato sauce that they sampled at the event.  It just tasted good.  A pleasant surprise.  They were also sampling polenta which I suppose a lot of people use to instead of some other things.  That was tasty as well.

There were many bakery products but I didn't try much of them,  I only tried the samples.

One thing I must say is that there are companies trying to cash in on the gluten free trend where they really shouldn't be marketing it that way because the products have probably always been gluten free like the use of corn in products and say a tomato sauce that doesn't have a flour or cornstarch thickener.

You need to be careful still when buying some products because they may increase the fats or sugars to make the products taste better when they take out the gluten.   It's the same as yoghurt, when it says zero fat it has increased the sugar content for flavour.

At the event there was also Tonica Kombucha which I have written about before and there were other Kombucha and smoothie drinks.  There were dips and spreads, and falafels which are probably normally gluten free as well.  

But I have to say that most of the food I sampled tasted very good.   There was only a couple of things that I tried that I didn't love but I suppose there are people that get used to some of the products when it's the only thing they can eat.

I sat in on one demo with the owner of Bunner's Bakery which just opened a location in Kensington Market.   She made a really tasty granola and a breakfast waffle that would be a great breakfast substitute item.  She had a beautiful cookbook on display and a large booth where my other friend tried a cinnamon bun and said you couldn't tell that it wasn't gluten free.

So all in all I would say the event was very successful and I am sure it helped a lot of people find products in one place instead of searching all over town.  It enabled them to sample before buying a lot of the products so it would save them a lot of time and money which is always a good thing these days.

And for me I learned a few new products that I can recommend to my gluten struggling friends and I know that if I have a dinner party that there are options out there that will accommodate people's ever changing diets.

for more info about the show and the vendors check out the website www.glutenfreegarage.ca