Friday, April 29, 2011

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

Thursday, April 14, 2011

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 ...

Tuesday, April 12, 2011

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.

Sunday, April 3, 2011

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!