West Seattle and GF Products

Great Harvest Bread Company - OMG...I literally started drooling over their selection of gluten-free breads.  I bought their Brown Rice Sunflower Seed GF bread - yummy!  They also have GF non-dairy and non-egg breads and the customer service is fantastic.  I asked if they could slice my bread but they couldn't because their bread slicer is mainly for the non GF breads.  Next time I'm there I'll buy the bread knives they sell as my friend bought one and it cut really nicely - with the texture of GF breads, it's best to have a sharp knife that will cut smoothly.  The link above is to their menu which includes GF cupcakes and granola and cookies and they also have mixes so you can take them home and bake fresh biscuits, cookies and brownies.


Then there's The Beer Junction. I asked if they had gluten-free beer and the answer, "Yes, thirteen varieties" - oh yeah.  I'm a social drinker and my beer of choice is usually Guinness and not being able to drink this delicious beer has been the lowest point of my gluten-free existence.  I had already tried Bard's GF beer and it's pretty good and currently what I have at home.  At The Beer Junction, I selected St. Peter's Sorgham Beer - mostly because it came in a very pretty green bottle.  It was a pricier beer at $6.95 for one bottle but worth it. 

Cupcake Royale has recently started selling gluten-free cupcakes and I'm hoping one of these days they'll make my favorite lavender cupcake GF but for now they seem to have two options: salted caramel and vanilla.  As with the Great Harvest Bread Company, note that these are not gluten free only establishments so there may be cross contamination.

Also within walking distance is a local chain grocery store, QFC, which sells many gluten free products so I could basically do all my shopping in one location.  And, within a five minute drive there's PCC which also sells tasty GF products made from local GF establishments like Flying Apron and Ener-G Foods - there's more but I can't remember them off the top of my head right now. 

Lastly, I highly suggest taking the time to visit the Salvadorean Bakery & Restaurant in White Center just a few minutes outside of West Seattle.  Their desserts are out of this world - I miss eating their walnut fudge cookie, their fruit filled empanadas, and their flan...oh their flan!    I was tickled pink when I saw that they are now selling gluten-free cookies.  The cookies are in their own containers separated from the other pastries and there is a note on the label indicating that they are baked in a facility that also processes wheat products.   Simple rice and corn flour cookies: one dipped in chocolate and the other drizzled with vanilla.  Very yummy with coffee in the morning.

Babycakes - GF Vegan Recipes

I had a wonderful pre-wedding lunch today with a few of my girlfriends and one of their presents included this cookbook,  Babycakes Covers the Classic Gluten-Free Vegan Recipes from Donuts to Snickerdoodles by Erin McKenna.  They chose this book as the author doesn't use refined sugars and they thought it was the perfect combination of gluten-free for me and low sugar index for my fiance who has Type II Diabetes.  Thank you ladies!

I couldn't wait to get home to scan through the book but I couldn't just scan because the recipes (and pictures) are so amazing, and I read the book front to back - even the acknowledgements.  Most of the recipes call for unsweetened applesauce and if I weren't tired, I'd head to the grocery store. 

I might have seen the author's first cookbook, but I was too overwhelmed with learning about how to cook gluten-free meals that I ignored all the dessert books.  I like the idea of not having to rely on eggs to make desserts because we don't buy eggs as often anymore.   We raise three hens and there are days when we run out and wait for the girls to provide for us.  I do keep flax meal on hand and that's used in the recipes as an egg substitute. 

One of the recipes I want to try is a simple sugar-sweetened chocolate dipping sauce that uses just vegan GF chocolate chips, refined coconut oil and salt as a topping for our favorite black bean brownie recipe.  Instead of adding dark chocolate chips to the brownie, I'll just top with the sauce.

Hopefully my next post will include a recipe from this cookbook - I can't decide between the Nilla Wafers and Oatmeal Cookie...or snickerdoodles...or....