Gluten Free Honeymoon Iowa to California

Walking salad

The best leftovers ever!!

After our wedding we decided to rent a car in Iowa City and drive back home to San Francisco through the Badlands, Yellowstone Park, Oregon and everywhere else in between. We gave ourselves a week to drive what added up to 3060 miles. It was a beautiful drive and we had a lot of fun even if John did promise me that we’d see a lot of buffalo and we only ended up seeing 3 or 4!

Seven days of roadtripping through the midwest, the plains and the west coast, the plan was to spend the night in interesting little towns that we discovered en route. Interesting little towns aren’t exactly known for their great selection of gluten free restaurants so I was going to have to come prepared.We packed the leftover lasagna, salad and cake from our wedding. This would be dinner for the first two nights of the trip. We also packed a cool box with corn tortillas, ham, yoghurt, milk, drinks and packed lots of Chex, rice cakes, raisins and gluten free cereal bars. We also had a huge bag of leftover jelly beans for nibbling. We would pick up fresh fruit on the road as we always do.

Beautiful scenery...

Mount Rushmore

John is a big fan of Walking Tacos. Only in the past few years did I learn what these are. For anyone who doesn’t know a Walking Taco is basically a taco in  bag. It involves a bag of chips topped with a combination of chilli, salsa, cheese and jalapeños plus anything else you like in a taco.

After explaining this my Walking Salad may sound a little boring but it’s something I started making for lunch on this trip and it’s the perfect on the go snack for coeliacs. Popping into a local supermarket on the road can be a great way to pick up fresh gluten free snacks but even with a store full of groceries it’s difficult to find gluten free meals to eat on the go. Most gluten free meals are things you will need a stove for and almost all pre-made dishes are gluten filled things such as pasta salads and sandwiches. This is when I came up with the idea of a Walking Salad. I would buy a bag of spinach or mixed salad, some gluten free deli meat, cherry tomatoes and some kind of tasty gluten free vinagrette. Mix it all together and you have a tasty on the go lunch. To make it a little more interesting and filling you could add peppers and canned tuna or fresh shrimp.

My best friend and I has stopped in a lovely little town 6 years ago on our crazy long bus trip from Seattle to Chiacago and then onto Toronto. It was by accident that we ended up in Livingston, Montana but we adored it and my memory of the town remained vivid. John and I returned for a night on this road trip and it was just as lovely as I remembered. What’s more, as we drove into town one of the first signs we saw was for ‘Gluten Free Pizza and Pancakes’. Livingston was welcoming back the gluten free traveller. How unfortunate that the bar was closed and so I couldn’t try their gluten free delights. 🙁

Livingston, Montana

I survived on breakfast cereal, walking salads, corn tortillas, cereal bars, fruit and leftovers from the wedding. That is until we reached Portland Oregon, a city of many gluten free options, and it was here that friends took us out for some amazing gluten free fish and chips!

Hawthorne Fish House can be found at 4343 SE Hawthorne Blvd.  Everything on the menu can be made gluten free and sounds amazing. Two sections on the menu to watch out for however are the tacos and sandwiches as they are made in the same place as their glutenous counterparts. Personally I wouldn’t take the risk with these items but this isn’t the case with their fish and chips. All fish and chips are 100% gluten free because the fish is flash fried using brown rice flour and nothing gluten containing is fried in the same area meaning no issues of cross contamination. Their Chile -Fried Catfish was amazing, especially with jalepeno tartar for dipping!

Gluten Free Chile Fried Catfish!

Awe-some!

Another great road trip filled with laughter and amazing scenery! Oh and

Yummy, yummy jelly beans!

as we couldn’t help ourselves from eating every square inch of our wonderful wedding cake, we thought we’d change it up and keep a jar of jelly beans to nibble together on our first Anniversary! 🙂