Monthly Archives: January 2010

Until I read about GFL Food’s gluten-free pita bread on Erin’s blog, Gluten-Free Fun, I had no idea that such a product existed. Kim’s review on Gluten Free is Life sealed the deal. I had to get my hands on this pita bread! Remembering my favorite sandwich at My Friend’s Place (a sandwich shop in the Atlanta area), a mini tuna pita melt, I knew exactly what I’d be making if I was lucky enough to get to sample this product.

Like most gluten-free bread products, the pita bread from GFL Foods needs to be kept frozen. The instructions say to defrost one pita at a time in the microwave for 30-40 seconds. Not following the instructions might result in a crumbly experience. Once the pita cooled down a bit, I split it in half. I was making two different half pita sandwiches. I filled one with lettuce and tuna fish salad. For the tuna, I did something a little different. I didn’t use mayo but used Trader Joe’s black olive tapenade spread instead. I also added a few minced capers and a tiny bit of spicy brown mustard. We had something similar in Key West once and it was the best tuna salad we’d ever had. Mine isn’t nearly as good as that was, but it’s pretty tasty none-the-less. For the other half pita, I spread a thin layer of Peachtree Pimento cheese spread inside.

So far the pita bread looked, felt and smelled like “real” pita bread. Obviously, the real test is the actual taste (and texture in our house). If something has a great taste with a less than appealing texture, it’s not a keeper for us. Life is too short to eat bad or sub par tasting food, period. I’ll go without any day before I’ll eat something that’s not worth my hard earned money. OK – so how was this gluten-free pita bread from GFL Foods? In a word – wonderful! Actually, that does not do it justice – truly wonderful is more like it. In addition to being gluten-free, this pita bread is also dairy free, cholesterol free, trans fat free and preservative free. They can be purchased online and at several stores in the Northeast U.S. Check the GFL Foods website for details.

Sometimes when we taste things that we haven’t been able to enjoy for a while, we are taken aback with the emotions that come rushing to the surface. Why does food have this affect on us – or some of us anyway? It’s because we have attachments to memories that involved food. When I was a student many years ago, I could afford to enjoy lunch out at very few places. One of those places was My Friends Place. Their mini pita was a part of my life for over 15 years. And then one day it wasn’t anymore, due to my need to eat gluten-free.

Yesterday, I enjoyed a delicious pita bread sandwich that reminded me of the ones I’d loved for so many years. While I still can’t have the pita bread at My Friends Place, I can finally have it at home. More than that, this pita bread is something I’d be proud to serve gluten eaters, which is saying a lot. The last thing I ever want to do is help perpetuate the myth that gluten-free food is tasteless or bad tasting. With the GFL Foods pita bread, there are no worries there. This weekend I’ll be picking up some egg and tuna salad from My Friends Place to recreate my favorite pita sandwich ever and I can hardly wait!

Special thanks to Erin for this exciting news about gluten-free pita and to GFL Foods for making such excellent pita bread. Thanks also to Rami for my tasting samples!

To celebrate the launch of our new gluten free grocery guide iPhone App, we’re giving away 10 free copies to our blog readers. To enter the contest, just add a comment at the end of this post. (Of course, you’ll need to be an iPhone user to actually use the app…) We’ll choose winners next Friday and announce them right here, so enter soon and stay tuned!

The new App is the iPhone version of our popular gluten free grocery guide. Like the print edition, it lists over 30,000 gluten free foods, making it the largest gluten free product listing available anywhere. We worked with one of the best iPhone developers in the business to build a very fast, powerful App that’s really easy to use.

To learn more, visit the grocery guide app page at Apple’s App Store (the link will open up the iTunes Store on your computer).

UPDATE: This contest has ended. Winners were announced here. Thank you for all who entered!

Someone at Jules Gluten Free sent me a five pound bag of flour a while back.  I’ve made several different things with the great flour blend, including this amazing pumpkin bread. Also, I’ve made brunch cake, fried onions, fried chicken fingers, pie crust and crab bisque. Everything turned out exceptionally well except the pie crust. I’m not sure if I did something wrong but the pie crust was the only thing that didn’t turn out spectacularly.

When I saw Shirley’s recipe on Gluten-Free Easily, for garlic cheddar biscuits, I knew I had to try them with the flour from Jules. As we are not big chain restaurant lovers, we rarely went to Red Lobster when I ate gluten. The few times we did go the only thing of note there to me were the awesome garlic cheddar biscuits. Yesterday was my four year anniversary of being gluten-free. What better way to celebrate the anniversary than with garlic cheese biscuits? We had Roasted Red Pepper soup with chicken for dinner and a salad. The soup mix from Frontier Soups was delicious but the clear star of the meal was the biscuits, made from Shirley’s recipe.

I can’t thank Shirley enough for posting this excellent recipe. I was actually out of xanthan gum and was concerned that the biscuits would not work, but I took my chances and everything turned out fine. I added an extra tablespoon of cornstarch to the dry ingredients. This does not take the place of xanthan gum but Shirley’s flour mixture has a lot of cornstarch in it so I didn’t think it could hurt. Since I used the Jules flour, there was less cornstarch in my mix. The biscuits mixed up fairly easy with a sturdy bamboo spoon.  Per Shirley’s recipe notes, I planned to incorporate some of the minced garlic I used into the batter itself. However, I completely forgot so I just brushed the butter and garlic mixture on the hot biscuits when they came out of the oven. Oh, just the smell alone is killer!

My plan was to make only half a batch of biscuits, but I decided it would be a good experiment to freeze some of them for later. Some gluten-free things do great when frozen and thawed and some are inedible. When I know how these turn out I’ll comment below. So, these incredible biscuits from Shirley tasted pretty much like I remember the ones from Red Lobster tasting, though admittedly it’s been probably five years since I’ve had those. My tastes are not really calibrated for gluten foods these days. Either way the biscuits were perfectly fluffy, flavorful and simply perfect tasting! Score another win for Jules Gluten-Free Flour.

It’s a good thing that I didn’t make half a batch since the gluten eater in the house had EIGHT of these biscuits. He also said they were better than the ones at Red Lobster. Now I’m very excited to try the Jules flour for buttermilk biscuits! Jules flour is available in some stores and can be purchased directly from the company. I bought a 15 cup snap top storage container at Target to keep the flour fresh. It’s been stored in that container in the pantry for about eight weeks and it’s still perfectly fine. Red Lobster impressed us, so if you feel confident enough to try another chain restaurant, the Restaurant Guide lists 120 national and regional chains with gluten-free options.

Special thanks to Shirley from Gluten-Free Easily for this excellent recipe. Your biscuits really made this a special gluten-free anniversary!

Recently, I discovered an easy and delicious way to make gluten-free mac-n-cheese. We’ve always loved tuna casserole during the winter, but we haven’t had it in four years, aside from the Mrs. Leepers boxed dinner. Though we do enjoy that meal, it’s not the same as the Kraft mac-n-cheese version we used to make. Sometimes you just want an old favorite and luckily, many such dishes can be made gluten-free with a little tweaking.

Our tuna casserole recipe calls for prepared mac-n-cheese. We use Andean Dream quinoa/rice pasta and Kraft Cheesy Topping to make mac-n-cheese that pretty much mimics the Kraft version. Amy’s and Glutino brands sell frozen gluten-free mac-n-cheese and the Annie’s, Trader Joe’s and Mrs. Leepers product lines all offer gluten-free mac-n-cheese boxed dinners. Use whatever gluten-free mac-n-cheese you prefer.

For this batch of mac-n-cheese, I used a heaping tablespoon of the Kraft Cheesy Topping. It takes about 15 minutes to make the pasta dish and two minutes to mix in the soup and tuna. To save time, I’d thickened the soup the previous day. It takes about half an hour to thicken non condensed soup to the desired consistency for casseroles. We use Walnut Acres Portebello Mushroom soup but it’s not that easy to find. Healthy Choice makes a gluten-free cream of mushroom soup and Progresso’s Creamy Mushroom soup is now labeled gluten-free. This dish isn’t the healthiest around but serving sauteed asparagus as a side dish ups the health factor of the meal. If desired, you can add veggies directly into the casserole. Since the cooking time is so short, the veggies or add-ins need to be cooked beforehand.

To say we were impressed with this remade version of our old standby casserole is quite an understatement. It was at least as good as the gluten version we used to enjoy. The only difference was the absence of French’s fried onions and we were surprised that we didn’t really miss them. It’s always fun to figure out a way to convert gluten dishes into something safe and delicious to enjoy. It might take a while and some things might not turn out great the first (or second or even third) time around. But eventually most anything can be made deliciously gluten-free. It just takes practice and patience.

Gluten-free Tuna Casserole

Ingredients:

• 4 cups prepared gluten-free mac-n-cheese
• 1 family sized pouch of tuna (packed in water)
• 1 can of gluten-free mushroom soup (I used the Walnut Acres brand thickened with cornstarch/water mixture *Progresso Creamy Mushroom is now labeled gluten-free)
• 1/4 to 1/2 cup skim milk (depending on creamy your mac-n-cheese is)

Instructions:

Once mac-n-cheese is prepared, stir in tuna and thickened mushroom soup. Pour mixture into lightly greased baking dish and bake at 350 degrees for approximately 30 minutes – or until bubbly hot. ENJOY!

Variations:

Use cooked diced chicken instead of tuna. Use gluten-free potato sticks or potato chips flavored with onion powder for extra flavor. Use cream of celery soup instead of mushroom soup. Mix homemade gluten-free fried onions into the casserole and use some to top the casserole. Always make sure to choose gluten-free products for all ingredients.

Recently, we received some sample packs of gluten-free cookies from Lucy’s Cookies. The way this company came into being is really interesting. Dr. Lucy Gibney’s son had multiple allergies and she wanted to create something safe for him to enjoy, that was good enough for other kids to enjoy as well. She accomplished her goal, no doubt!

Due to overloading on carbs during the holidays, this reviewer took a while to sample all four flavors of cookies. Not being the biggest cookie lover in the world, the gluten eater (who never passes on a cookie) in the house was employed to help test taste each cookie flavor. First up was the “Sugar Cookie” from Lucy’s. The cookies were light and crispy and though we are not big sugar cookie fans generally speaking, these had a great taste and texture.

Up next were the “Choco Chip” cookies. These were very good and will be a nice replacement cookie for a brand that recently changed ingredients. The other brand now has an aftertaste that I don’t care for. Again, the cookies from Lucy’s were light and the chocolate chips added a nice contrast to the crispy texture. The “Oatmeal” cookies were quite delightful with a lovely flavor. The company uses gluten-free oats to make the cookies so these treats offer an easy way to include oats in our diet. It offers those of us that can tolerate gluten-free oats that option, at least. I’m always looking to add safe oats to my diet, usually through hot cereal or oatmeal raisin cookies. Like the rest of the Lucy’s cookies we’d tasted, the Oatmeal cookies were light and crispy.

Last but not least, the “Cinnamon Thin” cookies were my favorite of the bunch! In fact, I decided not to share any of the cookies in the sample bag with the gluten eater in the house. He is not a fan of cinnamon cookies anyway. The Lucy’s “Cinnamon Thin” cookies are the exact type of cookie I like to enjoy with afternoon tea. The flavor was absolutely perfect. Like all the other flavors, there was a light crispy texture to this cookie, which is quite nice with hot tea.

Lucy’s Cookies are now available at about 6000 Starbucks locations. In fact, the cookie company had to ramp up production in order to supply the massive coffee house chain with enough cookies for their new “healthy snacks” program. Starbucks sells the snack size bag of cookies and retail grocery and health food stores sell the larger boxes of Lucy’s cookies. To find the products near you, check the website store locator. It’s doubtful that gluten eaters who want a healthy snack at Starbucks would mind that these treats don’t contain gluten. They are tasty enough for everyone to enjoy!

In addition to being gluten-free, the cookie are free of dairy, nuts, tree nuts, casein and eggs.  Special thanks to Lucy’s Cookies for our sample packs of cookies!

There is some good news to report regarding the gluten-free options at Starbucks. Sorry – I’m not announcing that the company is introducing another gluten-free pastry. Many of us have been hoping that Starbucks would come up with something to replace the delicious Valencia Orange gluten-free cake. The release of the new cake last spring was big news in our community and when Starbucks announced the cancellation of the cake via Twitter, it didn’t go over too well. There was a petition to bring back the cake started on this blog. It seems like Starbucks listened, but needed to do what made sense for the company dollar wise, which is only fair to them. All of the gluten-free items they chose to offer have a very long shelf life. This should lead to less waste and less profit loss. Let’s face it, Starbucks has been hit pretty hard by the current economic climate and a lot of baristas were put out of work over the last two years.

When the company finally announced their new gluten-free offerings – a second round if you will – I tried to look at the bright side of things. Many people want to buy snacks like KIND bars, Food Should Taste Good chips or Lucy’s Cookies to enjoy with their lattes at Starbucks. For people that always have dried fruit, bars and other snacks in their cars, there isn’t a draw to purchase the new items at Starbucks. For the full Starbucks gluten-free product list, check out Gluten-Free Philly’s post. There are nut free and dairy free options this time around.

Most of the gluten-free snacks that Starbucks is bringing in are very popular with the gluten-free crowd. Though I’ve not sampled everything, I personally very much enjoy the KIND bars, Food Should Taste Good chips and Lucy’s Cookies.  Starbucks explained after the discontinuation of the Valencia Orange cake that gluten-free consumers wanted something more healthy than cake to eat. That is not true for everyone, to say the least. In these difficult economic times, it’s tough to rationalize spending more on a KIND bar at Starbucks than the ones packed in our car storage compartment at all times.

The latest news from Starbucks is great for everyone that does want to be able to buy something to eat at the coffee house. It’s smart business for a large company like Starbucks to accommodate gluten-free, vegan and organic minded consumers with these new food options. According to the Restaurant Guide, 120 other chain restaurants already have gluten-free options. Many people will enjoy these products from Starbucks and that is certainly good news. Having something is better than nothing is the motto of some people. For those of you who are excited by the Starbucks gluten-free news – ENJOY!

Gluten-free Apple Fries

When the press release from Burger King about their new “Gluten Sensitive List” came out last week, it would seem like good news for the gluten-free community. However, things are not always as simple as they seem. The list includes French fries which are only gluten-free if cooked in dedicated fryers. I decided to check with my local Burger King about the issue because when large companies send out mandates to their franchisees, it only means something if the locations do as they are told. The Burger King near me stated they did have a dedicated fryer for French fries, but they did not seem to know what gluten was. This is to be expected in a fast food restaurant, of course. Wendy’s and Steak-N-Shake both have gluten-free chili I’ve never spoken to anyone at either chain who had a clue about what gluten was.

In addition to French fries, some meats, cheese, egg dishes, veggies, sauces, beverages, fruit and condiments are on the Burger King “Gluten Sensitive List“. Possibly having another safe place for gluten-free fries is a very big deal.  Always one wanting to know what the real deal is, I decided to give the the fries at Burger King (that has a dedicated fryer) a try. While my husband enjoyed his shake I ate almost the entire medium container of fries. The fries, at least in the batch I ate, didn’t cause me any problems. This is not to say that all fries at Burger King should be assumed to be safe.

Even at locations with dedicated fryers mistakes can be made simply by someone throwing chicken tenders or onion rings into the wrong fryer. This can happen at any place that has a dedicated fryer, of course. Everyone should do what works for them when it comes to dining out. Some people never eat and some rarely do so.  Others like me eat out often and do so successfully because we learned the many things one needs to know in order to dine out safely. People are always telling me how much they love our Restaurant Guide because it lists so many gluten-free restaurants. That part is great but for me personally, the most important part of the guide is the information about how we, gluten-free consumers, have to know what to ask about and discuss with restaurant staff. Most importantly it explains that we have to be our own advocate when choosing to dine out.

People who prefer to skip the fries at Burger King can enjoy the apple fries which are just apples cut up to look like fries. What a great idea for kids of all ages! Amy over at Gluten-Free Living has some comments about the new Burger King “Gluten Sensitive List” which is worth reading. The post also provides some interesting details about the McDonald’s French fry issue.

UPDATE: Burger King’s corporate office sent me the following information to explain their new gluten sensitive list:

The Gluten Sensitive List is meant to be a guide for our guests with gluten sensitivity, providing foods and ingredients on the BURGER KING® restaurant menu in the U.S. that do not contain wheat, barley, oats or rye. The Gluten Sensitive List is not intended for people with severe gluten intolerance.

The information on the Gluten Sensitive List is based on suppliers’ ingredient lists and is as complete as possible at the time of publication (December 2009). However, actual gluten content of these foods and ingredients may vary, depending upon the supplier, product handling, and each restaurant’s food preparation practices.

[Burger King Corp., its franchisees, and employees, do not assume responsibility for a person's sensitivity or allergy to any food item provided in our restaurants.  Please always consult your healthcare practitioner for questions regarding your diet.  We encourage anyone with food sensitivities, allergies or special dietary needs to communicate any specific food handling requirements to the server or restaurant manager and to check www.bk.com on a regular basis to obtain the most up to date information about our food before you order.]

After reading that information, it doesn’t seem clear why the company decided to go to the trouble to create the list in the first place. But if you feel like skipping Burger King, there’s still good news, because the Restaurant Guide has gluten-free options from 120 national and regional chain restaurants.

While shopping at our mainstream grocery store here (Publix) I came across the Kraft Macaroni & Cheese Cheese Topping. Since Kraft always lists gluten in all forms in their ingredient labels, I carefully read the ingredients and sure enough – no gluten was listed. The container says to sprinkle the topping on fish sticks, potato chips, baked potatoes, chicken nuggets, hot popcorn and vegetables. It also suggests stirring the topping into chili, soup, rice, scrambled eggs, grits and mashed potatoes.

The product does not say to use the topping for pasta, but that is the only thing I was interested in it  for. Obviously, the average consumer would just buy the Mac-n-Cheese dinner kit instead of using this topping to make mac-n-cheese. Not being an average consumer, I threw the container into the basket and hoped for the best.

About two years ago, someone told me about this topping and said they used it to make gluten-free mac-n-cheese but the ingredients back then included MSG. Though MSG is gluten-free, I avoid it for other reasons. I’m not sure if other ingredients in the product have changed but for sure no MSG is listed on the label now. It’s so exciting to see both gluten and in many cases MSG disappearing from food labels these days!

Our standard macaroni pasta these days is the Andean Dream brand. The pasta is pretty much the texture of wheat pasta and the taste is also excellent. We have found it to be the only pasta that is edible cold and use it in pasta salad. Others report that corn pasta works for pasta salad, but a close second to Andean Dream for us (for cold pasta) is the Ancient Harvest quinoa/corn blend.

I was flying blind making mac-n-cheese with the Kraft Cheese Topping since I had no idea how much of the powder to add to the pasta. After draining the cooked macaroni, I added a few tablespoons of milk and two tablespoons of butter. Then I shook a little Cheese Topping into the pan and mixed it all up. It wasn’t really orange enough looking so I added a little more powder. I set the pasta aside while I finished cooking pan seared chicken. After thinking that I might have added a little too much milk to the mac-n-cheese, it ended up being the perfect consistency. The terrific news is that the taste of the dish was pretty close to the regular Kraft mac-n-cheese dinner. Both the gluten eater in the house and I thought a little more Cheese Topping would have made the pasta perfect, but it was very good as served.

One of the reasons I was wary about adding too much of the Kraft cheesy type powder to the pasta was that it has a LOT of sodium in it. If the dish was too salty, it would still pass my taste test but the gluten eater in the house would not like it. For whatever reason, the powder isn’t very salty tasting, regardless of the sodium content. I could have added a third more powder to the dish and it would have been just fine.

The next day I took the left overs and heated them up and added about a teaspoon of the Cheese Topping. It was just like the mac-n-cheese of my youth – perfect! We will be using this to great mac-n-cheese for the occasional side dish and to make our Tuna casserole from now on. Mrs. Leepers gluten-free mac-n-cheese dinner is pretty good but the gluten eater thought it was way too salty so that led to this latest experiment for easy mac-n-cheese.

If you have a gluten-free pasta you like and find the Kraft Cheese Topping in your store, make sure and give this easy dish a try. That is of course, if you used to enjoy the Kraft Mac-n-Cheese dinner when you ate gluten. If not, then this dish isn’t for  you because it pretty much taste like the version made from the famous dark blue box!

Gluten can be found in the most surprising places. When I heard that some hot dogs contained wheat, I thought the idea of that was simply ridiculous. Eventually I picked up a pack of Nathan’s hot dogs after my celiac diagnosis and saw the word wheat clearly listed on the package. About two years ago a Nathan’s shop opened up around the corner from us. By then, I had forgotten if their hot dogs contained gluten but a quick call to the company confirmed they were indeed not gluten-free. They don’t have gluten-free buns anyway but it might have been possible to get a safe dog - sans the bun – if the franks were gluten-free.

We prefer turkey dogs to beef or pork franks and don’t have a problem finding gluten-free turkey dogs. Still, it would be nice to have a Nathan’s dog every once in a while, as they are pretty tasty as hot dogs go. Well, now those that like Nathan’s hot dogs can enjoy them again! In the fall of 2009, the company began processing gluten-free hot dogs. There are still some gluten containing products in the stores so for now you need to check the package. If it’s a new package, you’ll see Gluten Free right on the front. See the post from Adventures of a Gluten Free Mom here with photos!

There was no other source of gluten in Nathan’s dogs before except for wheat. If you find a package with wheat listed in the ingredients, then those will have to sell out before the gluten-free items will be stocked. It’s not exactly hot dog season (in most areas) so by the time people get ready to fire up their grills in the spring, they should be able to find gluten-free hot dogs from Nathan’s. Wouldn’t it be GREAT if Udi’s had gluten-free hot dog buns by then? Talk about exciting!

It seems like every week there is a new item we find out about that no longer contains gluten ingredients but did in the past. Companies don’t often make waves with the news to the mainstream shoppers because they don’t want people to stop buying something just because it’s now gluten-free. We are still a minority market so companies have to be careful to keep their existing customers while adding the gluten-free set to their customer base.

For one, I’d like to thank Nathan’s for seeing the change in the market place and being smart enough to take advantage of it. With approximately 1 in 10 shoppers buying gluten-free food for someone in their household these days, we’ll likely see many more companies taking notice of our growing buying power. There are already eighteen companies that produce gluten-free hot dogs and franks in the Grocery Guide. If you used to enjoy Nathan’s hot dogs in your gluten eating days and are excited to try them again – please leave a comment below so the company will know how much we appreciate their decision to remove gluten from their hot dogs.

Special thanks to the celiac listserv member, Alyssa, who first announced this great news!

We’re excited to announce that our brand new gluten free grocery guide iPhone App is now available in Apple’s App Store. To check it out, click on the link (it will open up iTunes on your computer) or go to the iTunes store and search for “Triumph Dining.”

This new App is the iPhone version of our popular gluten free grocery guide. Like the print edition, it lists over 30,000 gluten free foods, making it the largest gluten free product listing available anywhere.

And, for the iPhone version, we worked with one of the most talented iPhone developers in the business. The result is a very fast, powerful App that’s really easy to use. One of the coolest features that we haven’t seen elsewhere is the search function – it actually updates your search results real time, as you type each letter of your query, making it easier to find what you’re looking for fast.

Go check it out on your iTunes! (This link will open up your iTunes program and take you to our app page.)