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Mrs. Leeper’s GF Pasta

September 1st, 2010

R Quayle

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.

Posted in Uncategorized

Tags: Boiling, cooking, Food, Gluten-free diet, Mrs. Leepers, Noodle, Pasta, pittsburgh, Shopping, Wheat

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Sisters Three GF bread mix

June 21st, 2010

R Quayle

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.

Posted in Uncategorized

Tags: autism, Bread, bread mix, Food, Food allergy, Gluten, Gluten-free diet, sisters three, Special Diets, Wal-Mart, White bread

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GF Heart Thrive bars- go or no?

April 9th, 2010

R Quayle

heart thrive bar I was in Shadyside on Saturday with Husband to gawk at the line of people outside the Apple store waiting for the iPad (we’re on the list for the 3G release and I hope I’m not expected to camp out for that, but it is very sweet and you can play with one at BestBuy). In the meantime we had time to kill and nothing was open on Walnut street so we mosied on down to Coffee Tree Roasters to get some joe.

I have to say that we were a little disappointed to see that CTR is even more pricey than Husband’s love affair with Starbuck’s but they did have some tasty gluten free treats I decided to try. That’s not to knock Starbuck’s on this item either- though I’ve only encountered ONE GF baked good in a Starbuck’s case ONE time, they do sell a variety of prepackaged fruit chews, bars and cookies now that are GF and in some cases lactose free. But back to the Coffee Tree.

The Heart Thrives packages sitting up on top of the baked goods case caught my eye and Husband got me one to snack on. Well, actually it got put in the fridge for 5 days and then I cracked it open to split for my breakfast. What are they? ‘Sun cakes’ and heart shaped little goodies that look somewhat like suet or at least something our local birds would be fanatic about. They are gluten free, diary free, vegan and have no GMO. Sounds tasty….

I opted for the apple variety and I can say that on the go they’re a good option. Now they say they’re gluten free but the main ingredient is oats so if you’d like to call the company (Healthy Baking Company 1-800-830-0309) to make sure there’s no cross contamination, go for it but I didn’t have any issues with them.

The verdict? Well their website is pretty crappy which never gives me a whole lot of confidence in a product but the stuff isn’t bad. Not very tasty really- it’s kind of like a bar of oatmeal and I detest oatmeal but it does keep you full longer and I cheer for anything that can claim that and pull it off. I generally eat a light yoghurt and an orange with my breakfast so one of the apple cakes was the perfect accompaniment for these. If you like yoghurt (or honey or lite syrup/jam), try a little on top of your bar and eat it with a fork but if you’re going to grab and go it’s not bad, just make sure you’ve got a drink with it!

P.s. I hear that WholeFoods carries the Heart Thrive bars too And if you order through the parent company’s site you can get free bars with your first order. I’m for that!

Posted in Uncategorized

Tags: Apple, Baking, Cookie, Food, Gluten-free diet, heart thrive, Shopping, Special Diets, Starbuck, sun cakes

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Eat n Park, the place for GF smiles

December 15th, 2009

R Quayle

      Yesterday was my birthday (31! that’s right!) and I was craving some chinese but Husband had other plans and took me to Eat n Park on the Waterfront. I don’t have any complaints about Eat n Park but to me it’s just a run of the mill restaurant with American food and while I always find something satisfactory, I’d never say I was wowed by the cuisine. I guess I think of it more as the malt shop the teens run to after games and shows rather than my type of place.
          However, Husband heard through the grapevine that Eat n Park has joined the gluten free nation and had some offerings, namely the gluten free hamburger bun. And, being the awesome guy that he is always on the lookout for GF stuff (he recently called up a closed store and cajoled them into opening up to get me bags of flour, lol), he rightly chose Eat n Park.
        So I was impressed last night with dinner. Not the offerings particularly, but the menu and organization, which counts for a lot. I’ve tended to avoid eating out, particularly with friends because unless I’ve downloaded the menu beforehand, it takes me way too long to read ingredients and suss out what’s ok and I just shrug and ask for the salad bar.
          Eat n Park has made this simple for every diet. The back of their menu has a complete list of what’s low-cal, sugar-free, senior-portioned, celiac-friendly and anything else you can think of in easy to read sections. This even includes calorie counts for many items. Now, in the interest of time I ended up with the salad bar anyway, which I was glad to see is stocked with local produce when available. Way to go Eat n Park.
         I was curious about calories in a particular offering and hit up the website because the printed menu doesn’t give this for all items. The online menu is much like the printed version with separate, easy access tabs but it features a nifty little calorie/nutritional counter that allows you to substitute allergen-free foods, etc in the recipe and recalculate nutrition. Very cool, try it out here.
         My only suggestions to Eat n Park would be to somehow integrate this into the restaurant so you can tally up at the table itself. Also, why no GF Smiley cookies yet? I would think when doing GF one would automatically convert their signature piece as an offering. Well, here’s hoping cos I was surely hankering for one after passing boxes upon boxes in the front hallway. One other tiny whine- I couldn’t find the hamburger with the gluten free bun on the menu, even in the celiac section so I was a little betrayed by that. Perhaps it was only offered in certain locations or maybe I should just put my glasses on. Either way, good birthday dinner. Thanks E N P!

Posted in Uncategorized

Tags: Cuisine of the United States, eat n park, Food, Gluten-free diet, pittsburgh restaurants, smiley cookies, Special Diets

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Rose’s Happy Accident Tea Biscuits

November 27th, 2009

R Quayle

Firstly, let me apologise for the long wait between posts but Husband and I went to Niagara Falls last month and broke the camera while there, so I’ve felt like without the photo accompaniment, my posts were best left saved for the holidays when I knew I’d be a busy bee in the kitchen. The camera has not yet been fixed, however, so bear with me.

This was my first gluten-free Thanksgiving and I thought instantly of my home cuisine of the south (which is a complete lie- the words ‘gluten-free’ are like ‘fat-free‘, ‘low-cal’ or ‘diet’: these do not exist in the southern vocabulary and certainly not in any reference to cooking, bebe). However, I figured if I stuck to some simple standards I’d be okay and not have to do a lot of screwing around with substitutions and this bore true- it was a pretty straightforward deal and I’ll be posting my recipes in the coming days so others can use them for their holidays. My one caveat was the pie, however. I was going to attempt a gluten free, not a zillion calories pecan pie.

This was my first time making GF pie crust, something I’ve dreaded since the doc told me to cut the gluten out. I had looked at several recipes and settled for this one onCooks.com from Libby’s Pumpkin, substituting the flours it calls for with a ready mixed flour from Bob’s Red Mill. Of course there is a story with this and of course the stove went wonky and half the pie bubbled over and congealed in a petrified state on the bottom, but I only used half the crust. The other half I hopefully rolled out and added a little sugar to to cut and bake and hopefully have some sort of biscuit-y thing for breakfast. Actually, I do’t know what the heck I was thinking but it turned out really well.

Here is my variation of this recipe and the ‘accidents’ that turned it into a really excellent tea biscuit!

Rose’s Variation- Happy Accident Tea Biscuits
1 1/2 c. pre-mixed GF flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 c cold margarine, cut into small pieces (I froze it first and then cut it)
1 large egg, beaten
2 tbs red wine vinegar
3 to 4 tablespoons ice water (I didn’t end up using this at all)
Gram flour to dust
4-5 tbs caster sugar

Sift the flour, salt and sugar into a bowl and cut the margarine pieces into the flour with 2 knives. In a separate bowl beat the egg and vinegar and make a well in the middle of the flour. Pour in the egg/vinegar and mix inward from the outside of the bowl until mixed, using ice water if needed to mix completely. Use hands if necessary until a soft dough forms. Divide dough in half. Dust a surface with a generous amount of gram flour and place a piece of waxed paper over the 1st ball of dough. Roll out the dough underneath the waxed paper to about 1/4″ thick or more if you prefer and cut in rounds with a biscuit cutter. Repeat with second ball of dough.
Bake on sheets lined with parchment paper on 350F for 10-15 minutes, checking after 10. Biscuits are done when bottoms are golden-brown. Remove and cool on the sheet 5 minutes before removing. These have a nice solid texture and slightly sweet flavour and the gram flour toasts a little on the bottom which is really quite nice!

Tasty Factor: thumbs up- we thought the accident of my putting in too much vinegar for the recipe and the wrong kind would really mess this up but it came out pretty well.
Poopy Factor: None for the biscuits. The crust took a bit too long to bake as opposed to the pie filling but we think this was due to the type of pan used.

Posted in Uncategorized

Tags: Bob's Red Mill, cooking, Cooks.com, Flour, Food, Gluten-free diet, Home, Libbys Pumpkin, Niagara Falls, Special Diets, Sugar, suthern food, Thanksgiving

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GF breakfast cereal- in any way appealing yet?

September 18th, 2009

R Quayle

Cheerios cereal I was never a Cheerios fan growing up; the aftertaste in my mouth just wasn’t that appealing. then Honey-Nut Cheerios came out and I thought, sure, give it a try. Nope. Sweetening up the aftertaste didn’t really do it for me.

Now I have noticed in the last couple of years Cheerios keeps on broadening their line and trying to catch everyone from toddlers on up with their little O’s of goodness. You can get fruity O’s, frosted O’s, clustered O’s, banana O’s, O’s that look like FruitLoops, yoghurty-covered O’s, multigrain O’s and breakfast bar O’s. You can find those adorable little O-shaped snacky containers at the end of store aisles to haul your O’s around in the car. However, Cheerios hasn’t decided to cash in on the gluten free crowd yet. Is there wheat in Cheerios? Have a look at the box: wheat flour.

Now why do I even bother to write about this? Like I said, never a big fan of Cheerios. But I was sent some of those sample boxes of Honey Nut Cheerios (our postman must think I’m a cheerio addict) and they gave me 4- $1 off coupons for any kind of Cheerio I’d want. That’s nothing to sneeze at. I’ve noticed in this economy (and face it, cereal is like $5 a box if you want anything worth munching on) manufacturers are giving up less and less coupons and those you get, you have to buy 2 of. And that’s a freaking rip. But you can’t sit there and look at cute little boxes of Cheerios and not want some.

And I did. Suddenly and really bloody badly did I want a bowl of Cheerios. So I looked into cereals that are gluten free. I’m a cereal-popcorn fan in that respect: I like it when I like it and when I like it, I like it a LOT.

Unfortunately back in the day when my doctor said, put some more grain in your diet, just eat cerea;, I found out that grain/fibre/whole/goodness meant it tastes like crap. Think about it: FiberOne, WholeGrain Cheerios, Raisin Bran, Bran…Bran…Bran… It’s flat, unsugared and the colour of, well, poop. Then we have the organic/good for you versions that try to name their products something fun, funny or ecologically clever for basically the same poopy-coloured cereal that tastes even a little more like cardboard. (And, Quinoa Flakes? Really??)

When I went gluten-free I just dropped cereal for 10 months. Who needs cereal? Then I found a box of Corn Chex. Corn Chex, to my knowledge has never had wheat in it but they feel the need to trumpet this on their shiny new boxes. Whatever. It’s not the best cereal in the world. It’s bland, its not sweet and at least its not the crappy wheaty whole grain goodness colour. The one thing Corn Chex has it crunch and it holds its crunch in milk or recipes. Hallelujah.

Are there other options out there for GF’ers that don’t completely suck? Well, GlutenFreePost sings the praises of Nature’s Path’s Whole O’s and OnlySometimesClever gives us a whole list of GF cereals from your run of the mill manufacturers like General Mills and the like. Notable mentions here including Dora Stars, Little Einsteins Fruity Stars and Mickey Mouse Clubhouse Berry Crunch, Cocoa Puffs and Trix. I may have to try the Cocoa Puffs next but other than that, I’m grown up enough to be sticking to the Corn Chex when I get a yen.

As for you, Cheerios: keep up!

Posted in Uncategorized

Tags: Cereal, Cheerios, Chex, fruit loops, General Mills, gluten free cereals, Gluten-free diet, Honey Nut Cheerios, Raisin Bran, Wheat

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GF a cure-all for Autism? Jury’s still out

September 10th, 2009

R Quayle

One of my godsons has Asperger’s syndrome. He’s 9 years old, just got his yellow belt in karate and can tell you every answer to just about every game show quiz on current television.

My other godson has Autism on the opposite end. He’s 5 years old, goes to school with the help of his helper dog and has recently started talking in sentences. The 5 year old also has multiple other health problems but he, like his brother, loves Nickelodeon and ice cream and looking at books like every little boy.

Their mother, my best friend, ran the suggestion of a gluten free diet for them after it had been mentioned to her several times by a group of women she keeps up with online. She has looked into it and is hesitant on several levels and I think should be rightly so.

Just off the cuff, my humble opinion is certainly we’re all free to try what we want with our own kids but at least ask a doctor first. If you feel like they’re giving you a brush off on something you feel strongly about, then for heaven’s sakes find someone else. That said, the debate about GF and autism rages on. Autism Web reports that results are mixed and some groups like Defeat Autism Now! are looking more at the scientific proof that children with autism have digestive and absorption problems to begin with.

So what did I tell her? If it works, go with it but not because all the other mummys are doing it. With kids, unless everyone in the household is going to go gluten free (and sheesh, I’m 30 years old and it sucks that other people can eat their biscuits and crackers right in front of me), then I just can’t see it being reinforced for very long. I know my best friend and she’s about as likely to give that stuff up as my husband is.

Other points against would be that the food substitutes are expensive and cooking gluten free is time consuming. My friend is a wonderful cook but time isn’t always on her side. Since her kids don’t really have a lot of food problems, she’d probably be better off having a doctor do some rule out tests before throwing the cookies out the window. And from my perspective what’s the biggest caveat of gluten free? Well what do we eat gluten the most in? Convenience foods. If you’ve got kids you know all those little debbie cakes you’ve put in their lunches and donuts you’ve let them grab at the gas station on the way to practise and cookies they probably ate too many of because dinner was late.

If you’ve got kids with autism you’ve already had to make lifestyle adjustments. Not overnight changes but serious adjustments. Living gluten free is another one. It’s learning to cook differently and pay attention to labels in a way you didn’t previously. If your child has digestive problems by all means try it out. But if not, it just might not be for you and rest assured, you’re still doing everything you can for your kid by just eating healthy.

Posted in Uncategorized

Tags: Allergen-Free, Allergy, aspergers syndrome, autism, Food, Gluten, gluten free, Gluten-free diet, Shopping, Special Diets

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Panera to close in Squirrel Hill-soon!

August 20th, 2009

R Quayle

Via Foodburgh on Twitter: Panera Bread on Murray Avenue in Squirrel Hill will be closing at the end of this month, which is….next week! Apparently they did not renew their lease. While Panera is like a little box of hell for gluten-free coniseurres, they were showing some promise with the additon of some GF items on the menu (which you can find at glutenfreeceliacweb.com).

Oh well, more business for Gluuteny.

Posted in Uncategorized

Tags: Food, Gluten-free diet, Home, Panera Bread, Shopping, Special Diets, Squirrel Hill, Twitter

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Living Without’s Best Chocolate Chip Cookies

August 16th, 2009

R Quayle

I went into this recipe with some trepidation, dear readers, because I am a self-confessed cookie butcherer. Bear in mind I haven’t eaten a cookie, gluten free or otherwise in months and back in the day when I baked the tasty little buggers I nearly always burnt them to a crisp. I can make a 9 layered Doberge cake with no problem and pies from scratch but Lord help me if cookies don’t just hate me. But we all have to try try and try again so I grabbed the Best Chocolate Chip Cookie recipe from the June/July issue of Living Without and got to town.

This recipe calls for either quinoa flakes or GF oats. I am not a celiac patient so since I already had a drum of oats in the pantry I didn’t go buy GF specified oats. I’ll trust you’ll know yourself as to whether or not to risk it. The good thing which came out of this was that my dear husband discovered that oatmeal does not come from a paper envelope and in fact it is I, not the Quaker Elves, who puts the raisins and maple syrup and whatnot in his bowl.

Let me admit that I learned a lot with this recipe and am going to share my mistakes with you. I do not own a blender or food processor at the moment so it took a heck of a lot longer to get through this recipe than it would have had I had such a thing on my counter. As it is, I do have a mortar and pestle and so crushed the oats in little batches. The only difference I can ascertain is that my cookies came out more like oatmeal raisin cookies in texture rather than soft Tollhouse-like biscuits. That’s all right though; I like crunchy cookies better.

For heaven’s sake follow the directions. I’m not particularly good at that and I’m the substitution queen because frankly I never read the whole recipe before I start to see if I’ve got all the ingredients. I am slowly learning to get it together!

This is not a difficult recipe for anyone to master. There aren’t a ton of ingredients but I will caution you to pay attention to the amount of xanthan gum used. I used a blended GF flour which called for a lot less gum than the recipe itself called for so I went with the package directions.

The finished product here has 110 calories per cookie but a word of caution to those avoiding sugar: this recipe calls for quite a lot of sugar.

Since I didn’t use a blender to grind up my oats, the batter here is probably a lot more lumpy than what it should be. With all that sugar the actual dough doesn’t taste all that sweet so there wasn’t a whole lot of bowl-licking. Which is probably best for everyone’s hips anyway, lol.

HowStuffWorks advises to always chill your batter but the recipe didn’t call for this. As I’ve never made GF cookies before I decided to cook 1/2 of the dough and chill 1/2 of the dough for 1 1/2 hours before baking. The unchilled dough didn’t seem as thick as the recipe indicated it would be but again this might have to do with the oats’ consistency.

Now here’s the unchilled batter all ready to get baked into yummy yummy cookies. This is where I must reiterate to follow directions. I made these on a Saturday morning in my jimjams and wasn’t about to get dressed and get the parchment paper I should have been using on the cookie sheet. So this first batch was made with a cooking spray-coated dark sheet.

And apparently these cookies very much need the parchment paper to be a success. The edges burned right to the sheet and the middles didn’t cook.When I scraped them off I saved the edges to crumble up over ice cream.

Okay, just to be fair I adjusted the oven a little. I can’t really adjust the racks very much so the first batch I had baked on the bottom rack. This one I moved to the top rack and while they still didn’t rock like the magazine photo, at least I got them out in whole chunks from the baking sheet.

It was about this time that I dragged my butt out to the convenience mart and got a roll of waxed paper to try and save the rest of the batch so I wouldn’t waste the $5 blended flour I’d tried out in it. And no, I did not include photos in this post of the absolute wreck I made of the kitchen when I dropped an egg on the floor and burst open the bag of $5 flour all over the sink.

Ahhh-success! Here’s what I did differently: used the waxed paper like the recipe indicated to, chilled the dough 1 1/2 hours and dropped smaller portions of dough onto the sheet. These came out lovely and didn’t stick to anything; their texture was chewy and just the right blend of dough and chip.

Tasty Factor: even done wrong these are tasty cookies and would probably be even better using a blender

Poopy factor: Husband (a self-admitted gluten free hater just on principle) says: Not bad when you follow the directions (read: as good as he’s going to admit to.)