Product Review: Kinni Kritters Animal Cookies

Over the holidays I visited a Good Earth store in Orem, UT. They had a huge selection of products (particularly snack products like cookies) that were safe for Barrett (no dairy, gluten, soy, egg, or yeast). I splurged and bought a lot of them and will post a review of each as I use them.

The first one we opened was the animal cookies listed in the title (http://consumer.kinnikinnick.com/index.cfm/fuseaction/products.home/productcategoryid/12) These do have soy lecithin, but Barrett doesn't seem to have a problem with the lecithin (amazingly enough). They were delicious though! I think they taste as good as any normal cookie and Barrett was so excited to be able to eat a cookie. I wish I had bought more boxes of it because it isn't available where I live at this time.

Product Review: Gluten Free Life Cookie Mix

I'm not sure if this is a real brand or not. I picked it up near the check stand at a Good Earth store in Orem, UT. My guess is that it is created by either Good Earth itself or a local distributer. There isn't really a prominent brand name on it. The ingredients are sorghum flour, organic evaporated can juice, tapioca flour, baking powder, xanthan gum, baking soda, and sea salt. You are supposed to add 1 1/2 sticks of soft butter, 1 egg and that is all. (I used Earth Balance soy free buttery spread).

This mix is terrible.

1. It smells disgusting and that is never a good sign.

2. The recommended butter/flour ratio is totally off. It was way too much liquid. I would recommend less butter and/or using half shortening and half butter.

3. It said to drop by tablespoons onto a sheet, which I did. They completely melted together to make one giant cookie.

4. They ended up being hard as rock.

5. If you could manage to chip any away to eat it did not taste very good.

6. The recipe says it can make chocolate chip cookies, snickerdoodles, or sugar cookies. What it really means is that you can put chocolate chips in it, roll it in sugar, or roll it in cinnamon sugar (although it would actually be extremely difficult to roll in anything with how runny it was).

Galaxy Nutritional Foods Vegan Rice Cheese

A friend of ours with a milk allergy made an interesting discovery the other day: rice cheese. Better yet, Vegan rice cheese. This "cheese", made by Galaxy Nutritional Foods, comes in slices like the Kraft Singles. I tried them myself and while they weren't bad, I wasn't that excited about them. It seemed more like a really soft cracker than cheese, but it would probably be alright on a sandwich or something.

The good thing is that my son really liked it. He felt so special to be able to eat cheese like his sister. He kept asking for the "cheese that doesn't make me sick". It warmed my heart to have him feel like he was included in something that the average person participates him. That alone made it worth it!

Betty Crocker Gluten-Free Chocolate Chip Cookie Mix

I just made a wonderful discovery. Recently Betty Crocker came out with a line of gluten-free products. I bought a cookie mix just to try but I didn't have high hopes. After all, the main ingredient is rice flour. Last night we had a Gluten-Intolerance Group meeting that was a Christmas sampler. I figured now would be a good time to try the cookies because if they were nasty I wouldn't be stuck with a whole box of them.

The first test of knowing if you have truly good cookies is the batter test--and it passed with flying colors! Sampling the dough made me feel like I no longer had to miss the cookie dough I so loved as a kid. In fact, I'd much rather eat the dough than make the cookies!

The next test was the cookies. They tasted awesome! A little crumbly, perhaps, and they probably won't last more than a few days, but they tasted like a real cookie--even my gluten-eating husband thought they were good! It was a pleasant surprise.

I did not try it with egg replacer this time (I used real egg) but I will add to this post when I do and let you know how it worked out.

Corn Meal Scones--gluten/dairy/egg free with Marshmallow-Honey Butter

We were looking for some new food options and experimented with this recipe. They don't look very professional but I thought they tasted really good. They have a satisfying crunch on the outer shell and are nice and chewy inside. Dip them in a little marshmallow-honey butter and you are set!

2 c corn meal
1/3 c tapioca flour
2/3 c potato flour
1/3 c sorghum flour
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp guar gum
2/3 c brown sugar
1/3 c oil
1/3 c honey
2/3 c almond milk
egg replacer for two eggs

oil for frying

Heat oil in a frying pan until you can flick a bit of flour in and make it sizzle.

Mix dry ingredients together. Slowly stir in wet ingredients.

Dough should be like a thick cookie dough--runny enough that you can "spoon" it into the frying pan. (If you can roll it into a ball in your hands it is too thick). Spoon into frying pan and cook until golden and crisp on the outside. Flip and do the same. Cool on a plate with paper towels to soak up the grease.


Marshmallow-Honey Butter

1/4 c of your favorite butter substitute (I use Earth Balance Soy Free buttery spread)
1/8 c honey
1/2 c small marshmallows

Microwave for 30 seconds and stir until smooth.

Update 2/8/10: I just tried this again and something in the batter reacted with the grease and they all fell apart. It was like trying to cook straight corn meal in hot grease. I swear I made it the exact same way but this time it didn't work. We ended up cooking them as pancakes, which didn't work that well either.

New Cereal: Cookie Crips Sprinkles!

I discovered that General Mills now makes Cookie Crisp Sprinkles, which appears to be gluten free. Wikipedia states, "In July 2009, Cookie Crisp Sprinkles were introduced. They are vanilla cookies with small sprinkles on them. The cereal is said to be gluten free." The beautiful thing about this is that I can use them as a substitution for Nilla wafers and they make great travel snacks. Even though they are loaded with sugar I feel good about the fact that they are fortified with vitamins like most breakfast cereals. In my opinion that makes them BETTER than Nilla wafers!

Sorry for those intolerant to corn--it is a corn-based cereal.