Posts Tagged ‘Food’

Trader Joe’s GF English muffins

This morning I decided to bite the bullet the try the GF english muffins Husband bought me the other day from Trader Joe’s. I don’t have anything against english muffins excepting the gluten free calorie count and it took me a while to wrestle myself into trying them.

Was I ever glad I did! I can’t remember the last time I had an english muffin and these weren’t muffins in the crumpety-Thomas’s sense but solid, scored muffins which did NOT crumble in my toaster, went great with peanut butter and jam and let me say again did NOT crumble!

I don’t have much to complain about here. They’re nice, solid looking baked goods with good colour, good taste, good weight (not too light, not too heavy) and were 210 calories for a whole muffin, so 2 halves. They’d be great for homemade Egg McMuffins or even under country gravy or hey, why not red beans and rice? Love um. love um, love um :)

Tasty Factor: yum! Hold up excellently in a toaster and don’t get soggy under jam.

Poopy Factor: they are a tad heavy but already scored so that’s a plus.

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Trader Joe’s GF Ginger Snaps

Husband and I were over near the Children’s Home the other day for an adoption class and had some time to kill before it started so we went to Trader Joe’s by Bakery Square. Before I forget, make sure you check out the bathrooms next time you’re in there- SO COOL!!

But back to my topic. Husband gets way more excited about GF stuff than I do-mainly I don’t buy any ‘GF’ grains or breads, I stick to naturally GF items such as corn or rice to begin with. He talked me into getting a few things and one of those things was a bag of their GF Ginger Snaps.

Let the raving start here. I’ve never been a huge fan of ginger snaps or gingerbread for that matter and I like my bikkies crispy, not chewy. But hands down to Trader Joe’s Ginger Snaps. For one, 1.99 a bag wasn’t bad at all. For two, there’s 5 to a serving at 140 calories so that’s awesome because so often GF foods are much higher in calories than their gluten-y counterparts. And for thre, they have just the right bite, just the right sweetness, just the right outer crunch and inner softness and they even look like ‘real’ bikkies. Get yourself over to Trader Joe’s and get a bag and make sure you don’t spare the tea.

Tasty Factor: delicious.

Poopy Factor: Husband claims byvirtue of not having gluten, they’re just poopy anyway. Which means he has to insult them because I didn’t offer him any.

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Check out the current Giant Ea…

Check out the current Giant Eagle circular for GF products- it’s celiac awareness week. http://www.gianteagle.com/save/gluten-free

Via @gizmodo, these nifty lego…

Via @gizmodo, these nifty lego lunchboxes are gluten free and nostaligic too! http://www.curiosite.com/product/lego-lunchbox.html

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I just entered to win tickets to the Kraft FIGHT HUNGER BOWL! You can too at http://www.HuddleToFightHunger.com. No purchase necessary.

Mrs. Leeper’s GF Pasta

I had never heard of Mrs. Leeper’s and must admit my intense fear of gluten free pastas (I’m a pierogie hater too.  Eat that, Pittsburgh). I had seen them nestling in far away corners of grocery stores and whole foods markets and I let them go their way and me go mine. Then Husband decided to treat me on vacation and I thought, well why the heck not? It won’t kill you to at least taste it.

So I brought home a bouncing bag of Alphabets pasta and gave it a try with regular old Ragu. One word to the wise- just like you want to pay attention to the cooking times with wheat pasta, most definitely pay attention to the cooking time for Mrs. Leeper’s. The Alphabet pasta is rice-based and only takes right around 4 minutes to cook in boiling water. Just under and it’s nearly crunchy; just over and you get a big congealed mess. Now some might like the big congealed mess and personally I like it a tad on the crunchy side but right at 4 minutes brings it out just right.
And just right it is! I’ve been scared all this time for nothing. The texture is just right- firm but not hard, soft but not squishy. The taste is as akin to pasta as anything you’d want and it wasn’t insanely expensive which is another plus for this product. There are other products in the Mrs. Leeper’s line which aren’t available in our neighbourhood store but I imagine they’re leading the way in GF pastas.
Tasty Factor: tastes pretty much like the real thing and holds shape after cooking.
Poopy Factor: cook it too long and even Oliver wouldn’t be asking for any more, sir.
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Three Sisters bread mix: oh my…

Three Sisters bread mix: oh my gosh and it was actually easy to make, no bread machine required. I LUV U, I LUV U, I LUV U!!!!

Sisters Three GF bread mix

I spent a weekend with my best friend recently whose 2 boys are autistic and she herself has multiple food allergies. The younger son is presently on a restricted diet with includes no gluten so she’s well versed in alternate diets. Before I came she excitedly told me she’d found a really good GF bread mix and her mother was whipping up a loaf in my honour. I can’t tell you how exciting this was. GF sandwich bread? A real peanut butter sandwich for little old me? YEEHAW!

Now seriously I’ve never been brave enough to try GF bread so I don’t have much to compare this to but Sisters Three Gluten Free white bread mix IS the schnizzle. Soft on the inside, crusty on the outside, sliceable and actually white coloured, I was in bread heaven. Seriously. The outside was crusty, which I didn’t actually love but gave some texture to my PB sammie and I have no complaints.

Lucky for me, when I returned home I found a bag of the mix tucked into my duffel and as I don;t have a full loaf pan, I thought I’d be swift and make ‘scones‘ by dropping the mix onto a greased baking sheet. While this turned out ‘okaaaaaaaaaay,’ I probably would have preferred anther PB sammie in the longrun. Like I said, they’re okay but I’d recommend baking it as a loaf in a pan. Then again, my best friend’s mother can turn out just about anything better than me so it may have just been that!  I’m also not sure where my friend got this mix but I’m guessing the Punxsutawney Wal-Mart which has a surprisingly large selection of GF items in its own aisle. On this subject I say to Pittsburgh AGAIN, get with it already and stock more. If you stock it, we will buy.

Taste Factor: Excellent! Good texture, good taste, keeps well.  The non-GF’ers loved it too.

Poopy Factor: I didn’t really like the crust on it and the mix uses Crisco which made my internal calorie counter have a stroke.

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I was just accepted as an offi…

I was just accepted as an official Neutrogena UltraSheer Sunblock reviewer! You could qualify by taking the survey: http://bit.ly/bHAsFr

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