Putting in a good word for ... Applebees!

I was down in SEK, visiting my family for a couple of weeks this month.  There isn't a lot to do in my hometown, and when I say that, people seem to want to compare it to far bigger cities.  (Hint:  18,000 > 120,000).  It's a college town where the university, school system, and hospital are probably the primary employers in the area. 

Notice I said "area" and not "my town."  Because unless you want to drive an hour or more (nearest "big" city is 2-3 hours by car), my hometown is ... it.  And basically we have some restaurants, theaters, bars, and a bowling alley.  Fun times.

One thing we do have is a small Applebees.  We also have a small Chili's.  That's about it, but we do have them.  I looked at the gf menu options for both and saw that Chili's was a lot of "no bread, bun, or sauce" options.  Applebees, on the other hand, had a mountain of sides and a nice handful of fairly complete meals.

Of course:   YMMV and cross contamination, etc. etc.

We asked for the allergen menu even though I'd printed the gluten page and brought it with me.  The hostess wasn't sure they had one.  We were seated, and within a few minutes a gal I presume was the manager came by with a stack of pages.   She checked that my page was up to date and seemed relieved that she didn't have to dig through the stack.

I got a NY strip, which comes with garlic mashed potatoes (yummmmm) and veggies.  Everything was good and I had no reaction.  The manager came by again to make sure everything was okay, and I took half my food home for later.

I went back a couple of times.  I had queso blanco and then sizzling chicken and cheese.  Both were tasty and didn't affect me except to make me full and happy. 

It was really nice to not play the "no gravy, no bread, no seasoning" game.  Although the list is still small, it's large compared to Chili's and full of flavor.  I've never been a fan of stripping all the flavor from food and going out only to pay $20 for flavorless steak and steamed broccoli.  So this is quite nice.  I felt like a normal person!

To bad we have no Appamublebees here.  :(

Again, ymmv.

You can find their allergen menu on their website, or just google "applebees allergen menu."

I apologize if the name is supposed to have an apostrophe.  I ... don't care enough to check.

Lucy's Cinnamon Thins

Right before I threw the box out ...

 First I'd like to ask why the cookie is called "Cinnamon Thin" when there are obviously several cookies in a box.  Shouldn't they be "Cinnamon Thins?"  For the purpose of this article, I will call them "Thins."  I really have a hard time calling a plural object by a singular name. 



There are a million brands of gluten free packaged cookies on the market these days.  Or at least, it feels like a million, doesn't it?  And so many of them are absolutely horrible.

They're too gritty, too dry, too weirdly chewy, taste like raisins, too sweet, not sweet enough, and so on.  I've had one brand absolutely wow me (Wow Baking).  A couple are fairly edible.  The rest have been disappointing and a big waste of money.

I like cinnamon, so when I saw these cookies on sale for $3.99 at Safeway, I was thrilled.  It was an opportunity to try a cookie that would normally cost at least a dollar more.  I've wasted so much money looking for a good cookie that I really really really wished that these would be good.

But they LOOK so nice, don't they?  A+ for pretty cookie.

I don't think they were awful, really.  They were just too sweet.  Really, really sweet.  I prefer a cookie to be a bit more buttery and subtle, but this was ... painfully sweet.  There wasn't enough cinnamon flavor, and there wasn't enough of any specific flavor, really.  At least they might have been really good sugar cookies if not for the sickening sweetness.

I had Lucy's chocolate chip cookies once in the past and I remember being pretty underwhelmed by them.  I would be pretty hesitant to give Lucy another shot in the future.

Each cookie is pretty diet-worthy at only 40ish calories.

Contains soy, soy, soy, soy, dairy, eggs and nuts.  (Seriously, there is a LOT of soy in there.) 

Betty Crocker Gluten Free Brownie Mix

The way I see it, there are different levels of convenience when it comes to baked goods.
1.  The pre-packaged baked good
2.  The refrigerated/frozen baked good
3.  Pre-packaged mix
4.  Making your own from scratch

The pro to pre-packaged mix is that it's convenient, but you still have a certain amount of flexibility in how you cook it.  If you don't like using butter, you can use margarine.  If you want to add chocolate chips, you can do that.  If you want to use egg replacer, that option is available to you.

There are several pre-packaged baking mixes on the market right now for gluten free customers to choose from.  Betty Crocker is, as far as I know, the only mainstream company to wade into this strange, unfamiliar territory.  The plus side to a mainstream company producing gluten free baking mix?  PRICE.  Not only is it cheaper than other mixes available, but because it's Betty Crocker it's often available in ordinary supermarkets (where other brands usually are not) and it may even be on sale!

(I bought this one on sale.  Whoo!  Sale!)

These brownies are pretty simple to make.  They only require half a stick of melted butter and two eggs.  Mix mix mix mix mix, spread into a pan or something, bake around 30 minutes, cool, eat.  Not only is that easy, it's the kind of easy you can do with kids or in your spare time.  (I like a good Tollhouse, but waiting for the butter to get soft, creaming it with x, adding y, adding z, etc. etc. is just a pain in the butt.) 

The four I didn't eat.

I don't have a traditional kitchen situation in my ... er ... house.  I have one of those electric skillets with a little wire rack in it.  I tried baking these before in the skillet and they were dry on bottom and undercooked on top.  It ... was not good.

This time I baked them in these little silicone baking cups.  I bought them ages ago (on sale in the supermarket ... impulse buy) and never used them.  It took quite a while to bake in the skillet (I had to pump it up to 400º) but they did eventually bake, and in the end I had six very large brownies.

I ate two.  One box is 2400 calories, so ... do the math there.

This is my third time using this mix.  As you can see, I liked it enough to buy it twice (it was on sale so I bought two boxes the second time).  The reason I like it is that it's a gluten free product but it tastes like a regular, glutenful brownie.  That is a big deal.  It isn't dry, it isn't bitter, it isn't gritty or grainy.  It's a chocolatey, moist, chewy brownie that tastes exactly like a brownie should.  So enjoy!  Add nuts, marshmallows, icing, whatever!  I once baked them with coconut shavings and almond slivers, just because I had them on hand.  Why not?

I paid $5.50 on sale at Don Quijote, and I've seen it on sale for a similar price at Safeway.  You probably don't live on an island, so you can probably get a better price.

The ingredients are:  Sugar, semi-sweet chocolate chips, cocoa, rice flour, potato starch, corn starch, xantham gum, and salt.  It contains soy (in the chocolate chips).  There are sixteen servings in the box (ha ha, yeah right), and each serving is 150 calories and 5g of fat (prepared).  If you like your food to have nutrition in it (I do), there's a little iron in the mix and it ends up with some vit A and protein when you're all done.

Other varieties available are white cake, chocolate cake, and chocolate chip cookies.

Good Nuze!

I was poking around the big Safeway in the Kapahulu general area region street district and lo!  They have a whole, tiny GF section!  I was so surprised!

At first I noticed the Gluten Free Cafe snack bars.  Then I realized they were near some gluten free granola bars.  Then I realized there was Glutenfreeda oatmeal above that and some Schar cheese bites below ... as well as pastas, macaroni and cheese, cookies, and so on.  All in a happy, teensy little section! 

I'm always thrilled when the supermarkets start stocking more GF stuff.  Foodland has been stocking a lot more of it lately as well, although Safeway is way cheaper.  I feel far more comfortable paying $5.50 for Udi's bread than the 7.00+ that other stores ask.  I think the next best price is usually at Vim and Vigor, although I'm sour on then after the WAY WAY WAY expired Tasty Bite.  (Yes, I ate it.  No, I didn't die.  It was still fine.  Just ... about ... 8 months expired or so, which is sad for a product with an 18 month shelf life.)

My birthday is in about a month and I'm trying to decide what I want to do for that.  Whatever I eat must be smothered in rainbow chip frosting.  I have been longing for rainbow chip frosting for years and years.  I might just buy a jar of it and eat that instead of a cake.  :D :D :D

Bell & Evans Gluten Free Chicken Tenders

http://www.bellandevans.com/glutenfree

I stumbled upon these products at the local Whole Foods.  At first I was put off by the $9 price tag (me hates the expensive foodz) but I was eager to try them since I was dying for some chicken strips.  I had tried the Ian's strips in the past, which were a bit bland and also teensyweensy.  I hoped these would be more adult sized.

In my box there were seven strips.  Four were smaller and three were fairly large.  I'm sure you could eat them all in a serving if you were super hungry, but I found that eating the smaller and then the larger worked well for me.

The chicken strips reminded me of Applebee's.  I always liked those chicken strips because they were flat and thin and soft, so I think that's what really made me think of Applebee's.  The Bell & Evans strips are very thin and flat and not difficult to eat at all.  The chicken is moist and chickeny, and the breading is ... well, it's just sort of there.  It didn't taste like nothing, but it didn't have oodles of flavor.

All-in-all, I would call it a pretty good experience.  Except for the price.  Ha ha ha.

The strips are considered "gluten free" but are made in a facility that processes wheat.  So, eat at your own risk.  They do state on their website, "Our processing plant is monitored sensitive to less than 10 parts per million during production."  If you're super-duper-pooper sensitive, you might want to stay away.  I had no problem with them.  You might also want to avoid these if you can't handle corn, soy, or egg.

Their chicken is also raised without hormones or antibiotics, so you can feel secure knowing that it's basically just chicken in your chicken.  The ingredients list is pretty simple, which is always a bonus. 

A box claims to be 3 servings with 210 calories per serving.  Not bad at all, if you bake them.  They're also a good source of protein. 

Blah blah blah ...

The thing for me about chicken tenders is that making them is such a PITA.  You have to buy the chicken and all the ingredients for breading.  You have to buy oil.  You have to bread your chicken and then fry it, and get oil everywhere and then have your kitchen smell like oil forever, and then if you're single like I am, you have too much chicken around for eons.  No fun.  This is a great, simple solution.  And to be honest, probably costs as much per serving (if I assume 2 servings in a box) as some of those McDonald's chicken strips. 

The only thing missing was a basket and some french fries.  Man, I wish there were a good place to get fries near my house ...

Good for you! Bad for you!

I had a horrible time trying to find a coconut today.  You would think in freakin' Hawaii you could find coconuts, right?  I went to two Foodland stores and the only coconuts they had were fairly young and mostly moldy.  MOLDY.  I like mature coconut, and ... well ... non-moldy ones, too.  I went to both the Ala Moana location and the S. Beretania location.  Lots of young, moldy coconuts.

But I was pretty surprised to see they had both upped their GF selections!  The Ala Moana location had Tinkyada pasta, several Ener-G breads, and more than one variety of the Mi-Del gluten free cookies.  (Usually everyone just carries the ginger snaps.)  On previous visits they've just basically had Nut Thins and Tasty Bite curries, and that's been roughly the extent of their gluten free food selection.  So this was a big surprise!

Then when I went to the S. Beretania location, I noticed they had Rudi's and Udi's breads!  Wow! 

Wow ... wow ... WOW WTF THAT PRICE OH MY GOLLY GOSH.

See, it's all fine and great and good to carry what are considered two of the best GF breads, but ... geez.  Try to be a little more Safeway, a little less Whole Foods.

You see, Safeway recently has been carrying the Udi's and SOMETIMES Rudi's breads as well.  At Safeway the Udi's only runs about $5.50, and for a while was on sale for 4.50.  Rudi's is roughly $7.  At Foodland, Udi's was about $7.70 and Rudi's was a dollar more.  That's roughly what both brands cost at Whole Foods, which is a store known for its insanely high prices. 

I was so thrilled that Safeway got these breads, since the prices end up being so low.  I'm a little annoyed that Foodland is going more the WF route.  It isn't even very competitive, since most stores that aren't WF charge $6.60-7ish.  Rudi's at least has its scarcity on its side.  But Udi's is at almost every single Safeway, Whole Foods, Vim & Vigor, and Kokua.  Honestly, if you want to be competitive, you should try to be competitive. 

Speaking of Vim & Vigor, I used to enjoy shopping there, but I just discovered that a food product I purchased there expired last August.  Crap, I wasn't even in Hawaii last August.  And this product supposedly has an 18 month shelf life, so I wonder how long it sat in there.  (I ate it and haven't died yet.  Retort curry probably doesn't go bad.) 

You know what I really wish we had in Hawaii (other than coconuts, ha ha ha)?  Schar breads.  I really want to try those.  I want a baguette!  I wonder if I'll ever find one anywhere.

Glutino Vanilla Wafer Cookies

I bought these in the hopes that they would be something Kit-Kat-ish to fill that void that was previously filled by ... Kit-Kats.

I ate a couple on the way home, despite the horrid 50mph gusts ... and the rain ... and my umbrella being shoved in my face.  I managed to actually get two of these cookies into my mouth without them flying away!  And they were ... nothing special.

I'm not sure why they tasted like nothing.  I expected them to be more like those little wafer cookies you could get in the "select your own cookie bins" in the supermarket when I was younger.  Those kind of peach-colored vanilla wafers that had no coating but were oddly citrusy and delicious.  I thought this might be the chocolate-covered version, and I was wrong.  So, so wrong.

I took them home and put them in the fridge.  I was sure they wouldn't last outside the fridge, since it gets into the 80s during the day and that's a bad climate for chocolate. 

The second time I ate them, they were a bit better than the first.  Not flavorless as before, but kind of pleasantly sweet.

The last time I ate them, they had that interesting tang and the vanilla was actually detectable in the cookie. 

So I'm not sure what to say about these.  Open them, stick them in the fridge, and wait a week??  Honestly, I don't like buying foods with such complicated directions.  I might try another flavor in the future to see if it's any better straight out of the box, but maybe not.

I think the price was $4-5 or so for 16 wafer cookies.  Glutino sells larger "candy bar" wafers, but I chose these since a serving was 4 and I could choose to only have a little sugar or a lot rather than having so much thrust upon me at once in one of the larger bars.  Like most Glutino products, these lack nutrition.  They must have had something, since I actually bothered to buy them!

As an aside ...

Ants prefer Rudi's to Udi's 10000:1.

I never had ants attack my Udi's bread.  This morning I found a swarm of ants all over the inside of my bag of Rudi's.  Yuck.  Glad I got it on sale with a coupon to boot. 

Never had ants in my Udi's bread.  Must be that evaporated cane juice.  Does Udi's have that?  I know Udi's isn't SWEET at any rate.  Still, I was disappointed to throw out most of a loaf, especially since it's such a pain in the ass to find the stuff.

Rudi & Udi: Why You Got the Same Name?

I've been a pretty dedicated Udi-eater these past few months.  Safeway recently started selling their bread for a good price, so I was going there to get my bread rather than the few other shops that have it on hand most of the time (Vim & Vigor, Kokua, and Whole Foods generally have it in stock).  Paying $5.50 was way way WAY better than the $7+ the other shops charged.  It made me feel like a human being again.  Almost.

Then they printed off a coupon for me to use.  The coupons I got were, oddly, not for anything I'd actually bought but for KINDS of the things I had bought.  So there I was with Sargento cheese and Udi's gf bread, and I had coupons for Kraft cheese and Rudi's gf bread.  Since the coupon was for $2 off, I thought it might be worth it to try out Rudi and see if he (or she, I guess) was any better than Udi.

Conte's Frozen Pizza: Florentine and Margherita

http://www.contespasta.com/specialty.htm#

Frozen pizza is something I enjoy eating sometimes.  I do make a lot of pizzas, but I don't like always having cheese and sauce and toppings on hand.  Sometimes I just want to pop a pizza in the oven and enjoy. 

I tried Amy's frozen cheese pizza.  The cheese was all right, though there wasn't much of it, but the crust was too gritty and slightly bitter, like brown rice. 

I tried Glutino and it was "okay," but not super.  Kind of like a really cheap frozen pizza, except it cost $8.

I went to Whole Foods and spied a different variety of pizza that looked actually delicious.  Conte's makes some pasta items that also look interesting, but with my limited kitchen resources, I haven't been able to try them. 

The first pizza I took home was the Mushroom Florentine.  It was $11 and as one person I ate it in two servings, which means $5.50 apiece.  Not bad.  The size isn't huge, but probably comparable to Amy's.  I would guess 10" since it fits in my 11" skillet. 

I don't think I let this one cook enough, because it had almost no flavor.  It's hard to cook in a little skillet, so the crust wasn't singed enough.  When I re-heated the other half, keeping it on the bottom of the skillet rather than on the rack, it tasted much better.  But what I think was still lacking in this case was a clear ... sauce.  If it had had sauce in it, I think I would have liked it more.  There was just nothing salty or flavorful enough to pop out and enhance the flavors.  I'm not sure what it "needs," but the somewhat flavorless crust and cheese and mushrooms together just kind of melded into one big ball of bland. 

Given that, I thought the Margherita flavor would be better. 

It cost the same and was the same size as the Florentine pizza.  Margherita is a traditional flavor of pizza, with tomato and basil.  (It's supposed to be like the Italian flag.)  The picture shows giant tomato bits on top that almost could mislead you into thinking that the pizza has pepperoni on it.  Actually, when I opened the pizza I expected to see tomato.  No, it was just cheese.

This time I let it cook more than I did the last time.  It definitely made the crust tastier.  It needs to brown/singe just a tad on the bottom, in my opinion.  Basil is just an interesting flavor, and the pizza is quite basil-y.  This one was, in my opinion, better tasting than the other just because it had enough "different" flavors for them to stand out.

You'll also be glad to know that these pizzas do NOT have an overabundance of sauce (something traditional frozen pizzas often have) and have plenty of cheese. 

My big, giant complaint about these pizzas is ... the box.  When I was trying to pick one out, the boxes all felt weak and encased in ice,  I picked one that didn't have any ice on it, but by the time I got home (about 30 minutes) the box had basically ... melted.  It was soaked and torn and misshapen.  The same thing happened with the next pizza.  I feel like for all that the pizzas are pretty good, the packaging is made out of ... paper.  I buy a lot of frozen foods and sometimes wait 40 or 50 minutes or even an hour to get home.  I don't have a freezer and store everything in the coldest part of my mini fridge, or cook it as soon as I get home, so the thawing isn't a huge deal.  But oftentimes I get home 40 minutes later or whatever, and the food is STILL TOTALLY FROZEN.  And the boxes are holding up fine. 

So I don't understand why the boxes in this case just disintegrate.  It's peculiar. 

Food For Life English Muffins

One thing I wish I could still eat is the simple and tasty Egg McMuffin.  Think about it:  Of all the fast foods you can buy, an Egg McMuffin is probably the healthiest and most real items you can get at a mainstream fast food restaurant.  You know what's in it.  You can't hide much.  It's an English muffin, a slice of Canadian bacon, an egg, and cheese.  Fake cheese, okay.  But cheese.

I have tried to mimic this with some success.  I had some rice buns in Japan that were good enough for mimicking English muffins.  I could use one of those microwave egg poachers and then ordinary sliced ham to make a replica that was delicious enough.  But what I really wished I had was an actual English muffin.  *sigh*

I saw these in the store long ago but had no desire to buy them.  I finally bought a pack ($6.09) with the hope that I could make some attempt at mcmuffining.

The first time I ate one of these muffins, I actually opted for jam and butter.  They are already somewhat split and need to be cut the rest of the way and toasted.  I was apprehensive because the muffin literally felt like drying cement as I was putting the knife through it.  It was dense and heavy, and I worried that it wouldn't turn out very well.

But actually, after two rounds of toasting (real English muffins are also persnickety like this) it was crunchy on the outside, soft on the inside, somewhat dense, and tasted ... like an English muffin.

I later tried it as a sandwich, and it worked quite well.  Sometimes the muffins aren't split in a very symmetrical fashion, so you end up with a tiny lid and a big, heavy bottom.  This is sort of a problem, but not a huge one.  Overall I think they satisfy a need that we all have for living a normal life, including enjoying the various types of breads we enjoyed before and make a very good substitute.

Fast Food: Whole Foods Cheddar Biscuits

I tried once to make the gf version of the Red Lobster cheddar biscuits.  Ohhhh fail.  Fail fail fail.  It was cheddar starch soup.  I couldn't get xanthan gum in Japan and thought if I just put a bit more starch in there it would be nice and firm.  It ended up being a pretty tasty cracker at first, then I put it in a brownie pan and made some kind of cheesy cornbread. 

I wondered if the cheddar biscuits at Whole Foods would be anything like the Red Lobster biscuits of my dreams.

Well ... not quite.  They're undoubtedly good.  I put it in the oven for 10 minutes and it browned a little bit and was quite good in the texture department (except right in the center).  However, I couldn't get over the feeling that it tasted like ... soup.  It's a cheddar biscuit full of chives!  Chives!  Like soup!  So mostly I tasted bread and chives and not enough cheddar or anything else. 

Pretty good.  $10 worth of good for 8 biscuits?  Well ... I don't know about that.  But pretty good. 

Evol Fire Grilled Steak Bowl

http://evolfoods.com/bowls/

Today at Whole Foods I spied these bowls, and despite the $6 pricetag I picked up the fire grilled steak.  I've been needing beef lately.  NEEDING. 

Anyway, I prepared it in the oven and mixed it all up when it was finished.  It contains corn, peppers, beans, rice, steak, and some mixture of lime and cilantro.  There's also some cheese on top. 

The first thing I thought when I saw the contents all mixed up was, "Wow!  There's a lot of steak in this!"  I had thought the three or four pieces I saw on top were IT, but there was literally enough that you could have a piece of steak in every bite.

The flavor was good, and nothing tasted off or unnatural.  The cilantro and lime flavor was reminiscent of the grilled steak tacos at Taco Bell, which I miss immensely. 

If I had to make a complaint about it, it's that it's a bit small.  I couldn't imagine eating JUST that for a meal.  It could stand to be ... I don't know ... 1/3 larger, or maybe have more beans or something filling.  That said, it's really tasty, beefy, balanced (protein, starch, veggies, and cheese!) and I wouldn't mind trying one of the other varieties in the store ... whenever I win the lottery.  (Why can't any mainstream dinners be truly gf??  I can't afford $6-7 per meal.)

Amy's Rice Mac & Cheese

I often think about how much I used to enjoy the rich, creamy taste of Stouffer's macaroni and cheese.  I think by far, their mac and cheese is the absolute best.  It's cheddary and fantastic, with extra flavor added by the parts that get slightly burned in the oven.  Yum. 

Yes, I think about it and dream, for I can never have it again.  And I wondered, "Isn't there a gluten free mac and cheese that is comparable to Stouffer's??"

There is.  Almost.

I bought Amy's Rice Mac for $5.50 at the store (ouch, seriously, ouch) and took it home to eat it almost immediately.  It didn't burn quite as I had hoped it would (a little brown on top is always pretty tasty), but it was bubbly and cheesy, and I stirred it up well before taking a first bite. 

The pasta was firm, not mushy.  After my experience with Glutino's pasta falling apart in the cooking process, it was kind of surprising.  (Although I did bake this and microwaved Glutino.)  The cheese was almost like Stouffer's.  It was somewhere between that and Swanson.  (Those two would be my absolute favorites.) 

At first I thought there wasn't enough food in the tray, but as I got to the last few bites, I realized it was pretty much a perfect amount, as long as you don't inhale it all at once.  One package is 400 calories, so it's a pretty good size for a meal.

Amy's also makes a version with ordinary pasta and a version with soy "cheese."  I can't speak for soy, but I imagine if you are not on the gluten-free pathway, you could enjoy the regular variety very easily.  Or heck, enjoy the rice version, although I think it costs at least a dollar or two more than the other variety, and that totally sucks.  As a poor college student I really hate looking at two products (one gf, one not) and seeing that the gf one costs twice as much.  Makes me wonder if it REALLY does or if the stores are screwing with me because they think gf is some kind of wacky health fad.

(Yes, there are people who think it's a wacky health fad.)

Pamela's NY Style Cheesecake

I've been aching for some good cheesecake for a while.  Cheesecake is one of those things that wouldn't really contain gluten if not for the crust (although some recipes include flour), but it's really hard to find one that both does not have crust and does not contain that pesky flour.

What Pamela brings us here is a cheesecake that not only has a crust, but is completely gluten free.  There are several varieties, but the one at my local store was the NY style cheesecake in the miniature size.  One 3 inch cake?  Almost $7.  OUCH.

But I've been really sick recently and reasoned that I deserved a little sweet, creamy happiness.  I bought a single cake hoping to make it last a few days.  Or two.  I think I can do two.

The first thing I noticed was the lovely flavor of rich, creamy cheesecake.  My second bite included some of the crust, which was an interesting ginger snap flavor that didn't overpower the cheesecake itself.  In fact, it complemented it quite well.  It's an absolutely super cake.  I can't really say anything bad about it except for the fact that it cost almost as much as my loaf of Udi's.  I can justify the bread with the fact that there's about 14 slices in there, but one cake at almost $7 is hard to justify as a broke college student, especially when I'm basically forced to pay more for food or else suffer the consequences.  :/

Gluten Free Cafe - Chicken Noodle Soup

Of all the foods I think I missed, soup was near the top of the list.  Just about every commercially available soup has some sort of noodle or gluteny thickener in it.  Progresso has a few varieties of soup that they label as gluten-free (clam chowder, mushroom, and some kind of chicken/corn chowder) and which are pretty good.  But sometimes you want one of those less fatty soups.  You want a toasty cheese sandwich and a bowl of vegetable soup. 

You want some freakin' chicken noodle.

I bought this at a local store.  It cost a bit, as cans will when you're halfway across an ocean.  I'd had the mushroom variety when I was living in Japan, so I trusted it to not be awful. 

It isn't awful. 

I'm not sure if I love it, though.  My first impression was that the broth has a very distinctly celery-ish flavor.  I'm not sure that anything but celery should ever taste like celery (I am anti-celery in soups).  The soup does include celery and carrot, as well as noodles and the rare piece of chicken (just like Campbell's!).  The chicken doesn't taste so awesome (just like Campbell's!) and the noodles won't stay on my spoon.  I'm kind of sure the noodles don't even have a flavor.  Maybe the broth is just too strong. 

It isn't ... horrible.  I ate the whole can.  I just think it's a bit too seasoned for my tastes.

One can is about two servings.  One serving will give you 90 calories, 760 mg of sodium, 2g of fiber, 4g of protein, 30% of your vitamin A, and 25% of both calcium and iron. 

Sweet!  I just got 50% of my iron!

What's Wrong With Gluten-Free Products

I find Glutino is the worst at this, but it's a common enough problem.

Glutino Breakfast Bars - Strawberry

I remember when Nutri-Grain bars were kind of a new thing, and I remember trying them for the first time.  Oh, they were soft and delicious and supposedly nutritious.  They had rich, sweet fruit filling surrounded by a very moist, whole grain outer shell that had just the right amount of a whole grain bitterness to offset the almost too-sweet filling.

I imagine that that's what Glutino was trying to recreate with their Gluten Free Breakfast Bars.  If I were grading their effort, I think I would give them a D.  Maybe a D+.

I looked at the box in Whole Foods and saw what appeared to be a Nutri-Grain bar, only gluten-free.  I opened the box to find 5 foil-wrapped bars (still looking good).  Then I tried the first bar ...

The outer part was somewhat dense, which is kind of to be expected in a gluten-free product.  But not only was it dense, it was bitter and had a very unpleasant sort of cardboardy flavor.  It wasn't stale, no.  It just tasted the way it smells when you shove your head into a cardboard box and inhale. 

The inner part wasn't much better.  It was far too sweet, which I could either chalk up to the fructose or the raisin paste in the ingredients.  Or both.  It wasn't tangy at all, the way strawberry should be.

As for nutrition (as you know, I'm big on things HAVING nutrition), these do contain something.  Not quite enough of something to warrant wanting to eat these over say, a Kind Bar, but definitely a little something.  You get 160 calories per bar (comparable to Nutri-Grain) and 3 grams of both fiber and protein.  There's also a little calcium (2%) and iron (4%). 

I have to say this really put me off of potentially trying any other flavors.  Glutino has been really hit or miss with me so far.  I haven't given up on them yet, of course.  But I'm certainly getting a little annoyed.  I would like to try their candybars, except I'd get more nutrition from a Nutrageous.  No, I'm serious. 

Anyway, did you notice you get FIVE bars in a box?  Who puts FIVE bars in a box?  Six just seems so standard that five makes you think you got ripped off. 

Cookie Monster: Mi-Del chocolate chip (GF)

Easy GF Pizza Pocket

If you like pizza but hate buying crusts (or hate crust) this is for you:

What do you need?
1 Food For Life brown rice tortilla
Ragu pizza sauce
Hormel pepperoni (and/or your favorite toppings)
Your favorite cheese

Spread as much sauce as you prefer around the full surface of the tortilla, and place in a large frying pan or skillet with a non-stick surface.  (Do not turn on the heat yet!)

Spread the pepperoni and/or other toppings on one half of the saucy tortilla. 

Spread cheese on the other half. 

Heat until cheese is melted.  This may require a lid to speed things up and ensure even and thorough heating. 

When the cheese is melted, use a spatula to fold the cheesy side over the topping side.  Do NOT try the reverse, as toppings will be flying everywhere!  Cheese on top, toppings on bottom!  (I know this sounds like it doesn't make sense, but trust me--toppings are bottomings.)

Continue to brown on either side if you prefer a crispy "crust."

Remove from heat and let it cool a bit before enjoying your quesadilla-style pizza pocket!  Yum!

Cookie Monster: Pamela's Ginger Cookies (with sliced almonds)

Recently I have become a cookie monster.  All I want are some delicious cookies to call my own, and which are pretty tasty.  And not giant cookies that are soft and delicious, but something small and bite-sized to snack on.

This is a little difficult.  I really liked the Mi-Del ginger snaps, but I wanted to try some other cookies and was hoping I could find a soft cookie (I prefer soft cookies) that was also good but small.  (The WOW cookies are awesome, but expensive at the store I found them at, and one cookie is two servings!)

I saw a few varieties of Pamela's cookies at the store I was in, and since I enjoy ginger cookies, I decided to buy them.  I tapped the plastic part of the package and was sure that these were soft cookies before buying them, although I was pretty careful not to actually dent the cookie ... just in case, you know?

I tried them almost as soon as I got home.  They were pleasantly soft and very dark brown, with lots of sliced almonds.  The problem was that the molasses flavor was very overwhelming.  They were quite bitter as a result.  I kept thinking they would be better with some cream cheese frosting, but as they were they were just not pleasant to eat.  Kind of like taking medicine.

If you like a bitter, dark molasses and ginger cookie, then these are for you.  But if you prefer something sweeter, I'd still have to go with Mi-Del or the big, soft WOW cookies. 

Udi's Gluten Free Foods: White Sandiwch Bread

Bread is such a wonderful, versatile thing.  When I lived in Japan, a lot of people said to me, "Why don't you just eat rice?"  But there's not a whole lot you can do with rice, especially the sticky Japanese rice (I kept looking for long grain for crock pot meals, but couldn't find it).  You can put it in a bowl and put something on it.  You can make an onigiri.  Onigiri require a lot of preparation, since you have to make the rice and form it into balls with something.  (I didn't have a rice cooker.)  Just eating something on rice, more often than not, requires heating.  At work we generally did not have a microwave, and I'm not a fan of the "soggy, cold bento."

But bread!  Pop it in the toaster and make toast.  Or make a sandwich.  Or put a little peanut butter on it.  And there are lots of hot and cold options.  Because of the lack of a microwave, all I really wanted was a nice, cold sandwich to stick in my bag and eat at work.  But all the bread I had required toasting or otherwise heating it to make it not be like munching on a big, rubbery, dry slice of crumbliness.

And then there was Udi.

I saw this when I was in Vim & Vigor, a health food/supplement shop in the Ala Moana Center between Foodland and the post office.  I had missed it the first time I looked for it, but once I found it I was surprised that it had a pretty decent selection of gluten free foods, such as cereal, bread, cookies, biscotti, and a few frozen items.  They had the Food For Life bread, some Kinnikinnick, and then Udi's.

I had already gotten tired of Ener-G, so I thought I would give another brand a try.  Udi's claimed I did not need to refrigerate or freeze the bread, which was HUGELY appealing.  So basically I would just need to take it home, let it thaw, and eat it.

The first test was the end piece.  It wasn't even really a piece.  It was a strip of crust that they left on there for some reason.  It was interesting because it tasted like something I'd eaten before.  I wasn't sure what, and it took me a short while to figure it out.  But I did a test with some peanut butter and found that it was a tiny bit dry (yeah, well, whatever) but otherwise very good and the most normal bread I've had so far.  Not mushy like the breads I had in Japan, not crumbly like the Gluten Free Pantry mix, not rubbery and dense like the Ener-G breads.  It was just good.

It occurred to me later what it tasted like.  In Japan I could get some "baguettes" that were sold in convenience stores or supermarkets and were really cheap.  Not very high quality or baguette-like, but if I wanted a sandwich at midnight and didn't want the fluffy, shortening-ful squares of white pillow-bread, they did the trick.  That's what the Udi's bread tastes like.  Cheap, fake baguettes.  Which isn't a bad thing.  Cheap, fake baguettes have their place in the world.  And they are real bread, which is a great thing to taste like.