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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

Comments

Mrs. Leeper makes a mean bowl of alphabet soup

August 1st, 2010

R Quayle

Hubby is always steering me to the gluten free shelf in any new store we try and I’m always a little resistant (okay, a lot resistant) because I’m not keen on spending twice and three times as much for pasta or cookies or whatever it is, rarely do they live up to the promise of tasting just as good and frankly they’re loaded with calories.

I realise that nothing has the same yummy texture as wheat in baking else America as a nation wouldn’t be so fixated with it but still I tend to think if it’s not exactly the same, I don’t want it. Then we stumbled into the grocer at Farmer’s Inn, our favourite cooking supply store outside of Cook Forest Park and this time I let him talk me into trying the pastas there. We spent an arm and a leg but I figured since we never buy this stuff, it was ok.

Fast forward four months. Yes, that’s how long it took me to work up to cooking some of my pasta. I was attempting to try Mrs. Leeper’s Rice Alphabets at $3.19 for 12 oz. (that’s actually not too bad considering it’s gluten free AND organic). I admit, though I love rice noodles in soups and stir fries and I’m a big consumer of rice in itself, there’s something that just disgusts me about the concept of rice spaghetti so this was an act of bravery ladies and gentlemen.

The lowdown? Mrs. Leeper is an all around nice gal. This pasta holds its shape, cooks to a texture virtually identical to its wheat counterpart and has no funky aftertaste. I give it all my thumbs up for taste, texture and ease. My only complaint is the calorie content- 1/3 cup dry clocks in at a steep 200 calories so don’t overload.

Tasty Factor: this has proven to me that GF can do pasta

Poopy Factor: it’s only going to be saved for holidays with calories like that.