Gluten Free Feeds

I read this recipe two weeks ago in the Glutino e-newsletter. I have two big bags of Glutino pretzels at home. After some recent oral surgery, I won't be able to eat them for a while so I might try...

Don't just settle into living a boring gluten-free life. Let's talk gluten-free fun... food, restaurants, recipes, and more

This is Redfish Lake located at the base of the Sawtooth Mountains in central Idaho. I just spent several days there enjoying the slow pace of camp life. The days were long and the western, starlit nights, cool and crisp. I loved it, and having spent time there as a child, it was a nostalgic trip back.

This post won’t be recipe-oriented, although I’ll include one at the end. It will be more of a contemplative ramble on fish, nutrition and ecosystems. All have to do with health, both ours and that of the environment. We are inseparably linked.

When I camped at Redfish Lake as a little girl, there were “red fish” in the lake, lots of them. Idaho’s Stanley basin (and Redfish Lake) is the spawning destination of Snake River sockeye salmon. These wild salmon hatch from eggs and make the epic voyage from freshwater mountain lakes and streams to the distant reaches of the Pacific Rim. They do this in the spring as young fish, migrating downriver to the Pacific Ocean to spend 2 to 5 years in the ocean growing strong and large enough to endure the journey back home to the lake or river where their life began. The sockeye salmon from Redfish Lake must travel almost 1000 miles gaining over 6,000 feet in elevation to return to their spawning grounds where they provide life for the next generation and then die.

How amazing and beautiful is that? The power of nature. It brings tears to my eyes.

Okay, I don’t want to make this an environmental rant, but before the many dams were built in the Pacific northwest, millions of salmon returned each year to spawn. Redfish Lake was full of red fish, the brilliantly colored sockeye salmon. Now, how do they migrate past massive dams, reservoirs and industrial blockades? Most don’t, and it impacts so many different ecosystems that it’s impossible to measure the consequences.

Back when the salmon migration was uninterrupted by damming the rivers, millions of pounds of high-quality nutrients were “delivered” to the plants, animals and people of the Pacific Northwest. A recent study * documented 137 species that benefit from the ocean-origin nutrients these salmon provide to the environment. Eagles and other raptors, bears, wolves, coyotes, insects, aquatic species, and many plants all thrive on these nutrients. Minerals from the ocean have even been detected in the leaves at the tops of trees. For centuries, the indigenous people of the northwest were sustained by the salmon and their connection between land and sea. Rapid industrialization has changed all that.

Thankfully there are people working to restore the rivers and the wild salmon. Snake River salmon were listed as an endangered species in 1991 and although recovery efforts are underway, it’s been a slow process.

Below is a photo I took of a print by Douglas S. Young and Richard D. Alsager. It tells the story of the sockeye salmon and Redfish Lake. I bought the print for my fly-fishing-guide son who studied fish biology and river restoration at the University of Montana. He and his fiancée will be married next summer on the shores of Redfish Lake.

In 1991, four sockeye salmon returned to Redfish Lake in the Stanley Basin, their ancestral spawning grounds. This journey of over 900 miles is the longest anadromous fish run in the lower 48 states. Over the past few decades Idaho has seen sockeye numbers plummet from tens of thousands to just the three males and one female sockeye in 1991. These four fish were trapped and utilized as important genetic contributors for future sockeye to be spawned and released in Idaho. The four fish that returned in 1991 exemplify the power, strength, and resolve that is so prevalent and unique to Idaho’s anadromous fish.

This limited edition print was produced in order for Idaho’s sockeye to come to life artistically. The original piece of work was done by actually painting the fish and pressing them on paper. The areas vacant of paint were then filled in with various colored pencils and pens. We felt that if this fish was to leave this earth forever, that at least an artistic record of the actual fish would be left behind as a reminder to you of how beautiful they were.

— Artwork and narration by Douglas S. Young and Richard D. Alsager

I believe that a deeper understanding and appreciation of where our food comes from brings with it greater health, both physically and spiritually. You won’t be eating any Snake River sockeye salmon, but if you enjoy the rich nourishment and delicate taste of wild Alaskan salmon, express some gratitude for the fish and admiration for its strength before taking your first bite.

If you choose to eat fish, according to the Monterey Bay Aquarium Seafood Watch, wild-caught Alaskan sockeye salmon is a sustainable choice. Check here for a detailed guide to fish conservation and the best seafood choices.

* The above study information came directly from the Save Our Wild Salmon website (almost word for word).

how to roast wild Alaskan sockeye salmon
(full of nourishing fats and healthy protein)
what you do
I see no reason to mess with this, just cook it as it is and enjoy the rich, deep flavor of the fish.
Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Place tin foil on a cookie sheet and lightly grease with olive oil. Carefully rinse and pat dry the salmon filet (any size). Pour a little olive oil in your hands and rub it on the entire fish. Place fish skin side down on the baking sheet. Sprinkle with a little sea salt and freshly ground pepper. Place in oven and cook for 10 to 20 minutes depending on thickness. Remove when fish flakes easily with a fork. Serve with lemon slices. Keep it simple. Appreciate the fish and enjoy!

My guy Fairbanks (Alaskan Malamute), doing some fishing at Redfish Lake. No luck.

Peace, love and river conservation.
Melissa
P.S. After writing this post, I ran across this wonderful blog (Idaho River Reflections), with an eloquent story (and gorgeous photographs) about the plight of the salmon. Please check it out.

Blueberry smoothie- dairy-free and gluten-free chill. Wilting from the heat? I've got a deep blue chill for you. Dairy-free. Easy as pie. Cool as a blueberry. I'm emancipating this recipe from the archive depths because it's just too luscious to get lost in 2007, never to be slurped again. What does a brave and spunky vegan girl do when she is suddenly famished and her Crowded House whistling husband is scrambling up some free-range eggs and cheese for brunch? I'll tell what you do. You reach for your power tools. You haul out the Vita-Mix and thank your twinkling stars you have a bag of organic frozen blueberries in the freezer. You grab the carton of organic almond milk. You dip into the Nutribiotic vanilla rice protein powder. You smile slyly. You...

Read more- and get the recipe!- at http://glutenfreegoddess.blogspot.com © 2005-2010 All rights reserved.

Yummy dairy-free banana smoothie with hemp milk. It's been a week of bland soft foods. I've dubbed this week the No Pointy Foods Diet. Mashed potatoes. Creamy rice. Squash puree. No nuts, seeds, or chips. No crunch. No snap. No spices. Talk about not sexy. Suddenly, I'm the Goddess of Bland. Slurping tiny bites of baby food. Lucky for me, bananas are doable. Especially if they're frozen and whipped into a frothy silky smoothie. Frozen bananas are the closest thing to ice cream next to, well. Ice cream. When frozen, their soft and tender fruit turns into smooth and creamy vegan goodness. This makes the little lovelies perfect for dairy-free shakes and smoothies. So when I'm ready to shake things up I grab a frozen banana. Some ice cold apricot nectar and...

Read more- and get the recipe!- at http://glutenfreegoddess.blogspot.com © 2005-2010 All rights reserved.

Crunchy cool slaw with a light peanut dressing. It's almost the end of July. How has your summer been? Moonlit and sultry? All Popsicles and kiddie pool? Or just plain flat out busy as a bee? If it's been busy, Sugar, I can relate. Here in our tiny corner of the world we've been too crazy to cook much. We've been living on salads and smoothies. We're apartment hunting. Spending hours in the car navigating the neighborhoods of West Hollywood, searching for the perfect place. Or rather, the quasi-perfect place because perfection is unattainable. I know this. I do. But I still (naively) make a top ten priority list. If I find a unit with a window over the kitchen sink (high on my list) there's inevitably no dishwasher. If I tour one with a dishwasher, there's...

Read more- and get the recipe!- at http://glutenfreegoddess.blogspot.com © 2005-2010 All rights reserved.

Cook It Up Summer! Make it fresh, fast and light. These gluten-free recipes celebrate the abundance of local ingredients and garden-glorious taste. Fresh herbs, salads worthy produce, guacamole, hummus, pesto and stir-fries make for fabulous easy meals and picnic style get-togethers. Strawberries, blueberries and peaches inspire cobblers, cakes and ice creams. Eating gluten-free couldn't be simpler. Or more fabulous. appetizers + bites Baked Grape Tomatoes with Basil and Cornbread Crumbs Curry Ranch Dip Hummus Tahini with Spiced Olive Oil Joey's Kicked Up Rockin' Guac with Tomatillos Our Favorite Basil Pesto Roasted Eggplant Tapenade Roasted Red Pepper Hummus Roasted Yellow Tomato Salsa Savory Grain-Free Crackers Vegan Basil Mint Parsley...

Read more- and get the recipe!- at http://glutenfreegoddess.blogspot.com © 2005-2010 All rights reserved.

I was lucky enough to get a sample pack of the Triumph Dining Gluten-Free Dining Cards a few years ago. They have come in handy both locally and internationally. The only thing I worry about is...

Don't just settle into living a boring gluten-free life. Let's talk gluten-free fun... food, restaurants, recipes, and more

Have you ever watched something and thought to yourself: "Ah-well, then it's going to be just fine," with a big sigh of relief? That's how I felt after watching this very well done documentary on living well with celiac disease. The film's director, Susan Cohen, also recently celebrated her 10 year anniversary of living Continue reading

Review of Generation Gluten Free-the Documentary is a post from: Gluten Free Fitness Nutrition and Wellness with a celiac spin Thanks for subscribing! Be sure to check out Gluten Free and Fit 101 for lots of great info to get you started.

I have been a bit out of touch this past week, as I have a started a new job in "real life."  It's going to be very rewarding I think, although doubtless hard work, and of course a learning curve.  That has kept me quite busy and away from GFF. Luckily, there were lots of great articles posted this week that I can share with you. [caption id="attachment_1385" Continue reading

Weekend Roundup! Gluten Free/Nutrition Goodies of the Week is a post from: Gluten Free Fitness Nutrition and Wellness with a celiac spin Thanks for subscribing! Be sure to check out Gluten Free and Fit 101 for lots of great info to get you started.

Actually it's the naturally gluten free veggie of the summer. Actually, all veggies are naturally gluten free.  (That is, in their natural state, and barring any preparation styles using gluten, of course.) Score! Zucchini is an incredibly prolific vegetable in the summer.  Around here, it's everywhere-which is great, because it's local, in season, tasty, and less expensive than some other veggie counterparts.  It's also an incredibly versatile Continue reading

Zucchini-The Naturally Gluten Free Veggie of the Day and Not Really Recipe Fail is a post from: Gluten Free Fitness Nutrition and Wellness with a celiac spin Thanks for subscribing! Be sure to check out Gluten Free and Fit 101 for lots of great info to get you started.

There was a metric ton of great stuff posted up this week. If you follow GFF on Twitter or Facebook, you'll somtimes see me post up an article I think is worth a look.  Sometimes it's about celiac disease and research, sometimes it's an awesome looking gluten free recipe, sometimes it's solid information from the fitness aspect of things, sometimes it's really geekazoid biochemistry stuff Continue reading

Saturday Round Up-Gluten Free and Nutrition Goodies of the Week is a post from: Gluten Free Fitness Nutrition and Wellness with a celiac spin Thanks for subscribing! Be sure to check out Gluten Free and Fit 101 for lots of great info to get you started.

If you are on the GFF Facebook or Twitter, you may have heard me complaining. Last week I twisted my ankle and fell, giving myself a grade two ankle sprain.  I heard and felt the dreaded “pop” as I fell.  Luckily, I landed softly in the hedge.  Jeff was home to help me up, so I headed back inside, rinsed off my travel coffee mug, grabbed Continue reading

10 Tips for Healing as a Crazy (me, not you) Gluten Free Injured Athlete is a post from: Gluten Free Fitness Nutrition and Wellness with a celiac spin Thanks for subscribing! Be sure to check out Gluten Free and Fit 101 for lots of great info to get you started.

I’ve been struggling mightily with this one. Seriously, I just deleted a couple pages I’d already written, and then decided that was very stupid. Here’s the thing.  I’ve said before that living healthfully and gluten free is a lifestyle, not a “diet.” I just hate the connotations that come along with the word diet.  There’s so many wacky “diets” out there.  And for some reason, whenever something Continue reading

The Paleo Diet for Celiacs? is a post from: Gluten Free Fitness Nutrition and Wellness with a celiac spin Thanks for subscribing! Be sure to check out Gluten Free and Fit 101 for lots of great info to get you started.

Think Products has been one busy company. They make the gluten free snack products ThinkThin protein bars, ThinkThin dessert bars, and ThinkThin bites. I reviewed a few flavors of the Think Thin protein bars last year.  Click here to read the reviews of the Brownie Crunch, Chunky Peanut Butter, Chocolate Mudslide, and White Chocolate chip flavors. Continue reading

Think Thin Bars Review-Redux is a post from: Gluten Free Fitness Nutrition and Wellness with a celiac spin Thanks for subscribing! Be sure to check out Gluten Free and Fit 101 for lots of great info to get you started.

What does our brain have to do with eating, anyway? Well, as it turns out, quite a bit. If you have struggled at all with eating or weight issues, you’ve no doubt heard that people eat “mindlessly” or that eating is often used to deal with emotional issues that may have nothing to do with hunger. Even if you have NOT struggled with eating, you’ve likely heard Continue reading

Intuitive Eating-you Eat Therefore you Think? Getting your Mind into your Food is a post from: Gluten Free Fitness Nutrition and Wellness with a celiac spin Thanks for subscribing! Be sure to check out Gluten Free and Fit 101 for lots of great info to get you started.

What do you mean it’s too hard to make them taste good? It’s really not hard if you keep an open mind and take advantage of what is available. I am very lucky to have a nearby market where they feature locally grown and mostly organic produce.  I stop by there on the weekend and pick up whatever looks and smells good to me. Last weekend Continue reading

What do you Mean You Don’t Like Veggies? is a post from: Gluten Free Fitness Nutrition and Wellness with a celiac spin Thanks for subscribing! Be sure to check out Gluten Free and Fit 101 for lots of great info to get you started.

Peter Bronski is undertaking a mission that many of us can only imagine. Pete is the author of No Gluten, No Problem, as well as Artisanal Gluten-Free Cooking with his wife Kelli.  I  profiled Pete as a gluten free athlete last year. He is training for the Virgil Crest Ultra Race-which is a Continue reading

Support Peter Bronski and the NFCA is a post from: Gluten Free Fitness Nutrition and Wellness with a celiac spin Thanks for subscribing! Be sure to check out Gluten Free and Fit 101 for lots of great info to get you started.

Baking gluten-free without sugar: substitutions and tips. An increasing number of comments and questions have revolved around sugar as a sweetener and how to substitute it in gluten-free baking. I thought the subject sweet enough to deserve its own post. As we know it in its common, refined form here in the United States, (the average American eats 143 pounds of sugar per year) sugar is usually derived from the cereal grain known as sugar cane or the cultivated plant beta vulgaris also known as the sugar beet. Both options are high on the glycemic index and refined to remove any nutrients or minerals that might have been residing in the cane or beet's natural state. In the cane refining process the syrup remaining after the refining process is called...

Read more- and get the recipe!- at http://glutenfreegoddess.blogspot.com © 2005-2010 All rights reserved.

Holton Farms is a CSA (community supported agriculture) truck that has recently started delivering to Manhattan, Brooklyn, and Queens. I heard about the truck coming to my neighborhood in Astoria on...

Don't just settle into living a boring gluten-free life. Let's talk gluten-free fun... food, restaurants, recipes, and more

Pamela's Products Launches Single-serve Packs of Pamela's Baking & Pancake Mix and Microwavable Chocolate Brownie Mix Just in Time for Back top School Pamela's offers read-to-eat gluten-free snacks,...

Don't just settle into living a boring gluten-free life. Let's talk gluten-free fun... food, restaurants, recipes, and more