Monthly Archives: April 2009

Seattle-based Fantazimo delivers $5 lunches for school children in the surrounding area, and according to an article by NWSource, you can order those lunches gluten-free. The lunches are made by Gretchen’s Shoe Box Express which does not show any gluten-free options on its website. To receive a gluten-free lunch you must contact Fantazimo directly at info AT fantazimo DOT com.

All Fantazimo lunches come with:

• Entrée, sandwich
• Vegetable (i.e. carrot sticks)
• Fruit (i.e. apples, grapes)
• Protein (i.e. cheese)
• Bottled Water

You contact them by 4 p.m. the previous day if you want a lunch for the following day. The lunches are delivered to the school, not your home. There isn’t a very large variety in the sandwiches served (the same 5 sandwiches are served pretty much every week), so the chances of much variety in GF lunches is low. However, this is a uniquely convenient opportunity for people with celiac children, useful on days when you can’t personally make lunch for your child.

In a new development that’s sure to excite gluten-free bakers everywhere, General Mills (which makes many GF cereals) has come out with a line of gluten-free Betty Crocker mixes. A Gluten Free Guide posts their letter to her about the details of each product. Available for consumption are Betty Crocker Gluten Free Yellow Cake Mix, Betty Crocker Gluten Free Devil’s Food Cake Mix, Betty Crocker Gluten Free Chocolate Chunk Brownies, and Betty Crocker Gluten Free Chocolate Chip Cookie Mix. The products will begin national distribution this June.

The women at Kill.The.Gluten have already managed to get their hands on the mixes and have some great reviews on their site. The verdict: the brownie (pictured above) and the devil’s food cake were awesome, perfect, and taste just like the original. The chocolate chip cookies were great except that the chocolate chips were too small—easily fixable by adding extra chocolate chips. Yellow cake is last to be made, so tune back into their blog for the results.

At Northern Kentucky University, the food service provider now offers Moo Moo’s Vegetarian Cuisine, which allows students several gluten-free options as well. Some GF foods served include sweet potato wild rice balls, poblano chick patties, sweet and spicy curry tofu, samosa salad, black bean burger, raw almond pichana, and noodle-less vegetable lasagna.

Moo Moo’s is in 11 states and currently growing (Illinois, Wisconsin, Michigan, Missouri, Kentucky, Ohio, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Rhode Island). Started by a Detroit native and vegetarian Michelle Rastelli, Moo Moo’s creates meals both for home delivery, for take out, for specialty markets, for catering, and for food service at places of business and universities. Rastelli took classes in nutrition and tries to design each meal to have “a careful balance of nutrients.” In Detroit, Moo Moo’s Organic Bistro several times won an award for best restaurant for vegetarians.

I hope that many other universities pick up the idea of serving gluten-free foods to the students. Using Moo Moo’s organic fare seems to go far beyond the call of duty. Congratulations to Northern Kentucky University for being on the cutting edge!

Kudos to the Gluten-Free Optimist for her investigative reporting! As long as I can remember, my mother has used Vaseline products to moisturize her hands. It never occured to me to wonder what ingredients went into such a ubiquitous household product. According to customer service representatives the Optimist spoke with over the telephone, all Vaseline products except for Total Moisture Lotion are gluten-free, including (according their website) Vaseline Lip Therapy. Unless you get itchy, burning rashes (dermatitis herpetiformis) from skin products with gluten, the only way that the gluten in these products can affect you is if you accidentally ingest them. For example, if you rub your hands with lotion and then later while making food you lick your fingers, you’ve ingested a little bit of whatever was in your lotion. I like to squeeze lotion from bottles onto the back of one of my hands and use the back of my other hand to rub it in, thereby leaving my palms lotion-free. Just to be safe, though, it’s best to only use products that are gluten-free, and now you can add Vaseline to the list.

To do your own investigative reporting, call Vaseline at 1-800-457-7084 Monday to Friday, 8.30AM – 6.00PM EST.

My husband’s annual birthday food is gluten free peach cobbler. Sweet, intensely tangy glowing fruit nestles against warm chewy moons of baked dough—it’s a culinary miracle, in my opinion. If cobbler is your favorite dessert as well, I have a treat for you: the luscious inventions (and photographs) of our very own gluten-free blogging community.

• Peach Cobbler (pictured above) by Gluten Free Mommy has a dough that consists of sorghum, almond meal, cornstarch, rice flour, millet, xantham gum, and baking powder.
• Karina’s Kitchen serves up fresh Vegan Blueberry Cobbler with sorghum flour, xantham or guar gum, baking powder, and baking soda.
• At It’s Just Not Dinner Without Cat Hair, I found a delightfully textured Cherry Almond Cobbler with almond meal, sweet rice flour, tapioca flour, baking powder, and xantham gum.
• Gluten Free Adventures presents Apple Cranberry Cobbler with the gluten-free flour of your choice.
• For Thanksgiving at the home of Ginger Lemon Girl, Cranberry Cobbler was served with a dough made from rice flour.

Ingredients like sorghum flour, almond meal, and the different gums might be harder to find. The Grocery Guide lists brands that sell harder-to-find gluten-free baking ingredients.

Which gluten free cobbler are you going to try?