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.

Gluten/Egg/Soy/Milk Free Pumpkin Pie

Pumpkin pie is my favorite part of Thanksgiving and I wasn't about to go without just because of food allergies. Last year in a gluten-intolerance group meeting I learned how to make a delicious pie crust so I started with that:

Crust:

Donna Jo's Dream Pastry

I believe it comes from the Gluten-Free Gourmet cookbook. I'm sorry I'm not going to post the whole recipe because I don't want to be guilty of copyright infringement, but I posted a link so you can still get it. I used Ener-G egg replacer instead of the egg and it worked out just fine. I also used Earth Balance Soy-free margarine and Spectrum organics palm oil shortening in place of Crisco and butter. The crust looks pretty bad in my picture, but that's because I forgot to take pictures of the good ones before I filled them. This one is broken because I had too many "helpers" in the kitchen. It tastes delicious though!

Pie:

I decided to try four different varieties of pie to see which ones I liked the best. I went for two baked and two un-baked versions. In place of milk in all of these pies I used 2 quarts of Pacific Foods plain rice milk boiled down to about 1 quart with 1 cup of sugar added (for my own version of sweetened-condensed milk).

#1. Vanilla pudding Pumpkin Pie-unbaked:

(It is actually supposed to be Butterscotch but I didn't want to go to the store and I already had vanilla pudding). It tasted pretty good but did not set up very well. It might work better with real milk, or less milk, but I don't know. I also think the recipe calls for too much cinnamon so I'd put a little less in than it says. I don't think I'll be making it as a pie again but I'm thinking it's going to make some delicious pumpkin shakes.

#2. Unflavored gelatin Pumpkin Pie-unbaked:

I thought this one tasted fine but the texture didn't really satisfy me. Too--gelatin-y.

#3. Corn Starch Pumpkin Pie-baked:

This one was the best of all the pies. It was fairly close to normal pie in taste and texture. I still just can't get over the texture of real pie--but it was a fair substitute and a nice treat. In the future I think I will stick to this recipe.

#4. Crustless Pumpkin Pie from Karina's Kitchen-baked:

This one looked interesting so I thought I'd try it, even though I didn't really need to have four pies. Unfortunately I couldn't use what she says is her key ingredient--buckwheat--because Barrett doesn't tolerate that either. I used a mixture of sweet rice flour and sorghum instead. I have yet to taste this pie too but I'll post an evaluation as soon as I do. The batter tasted good and it looks good though.

UPDATE: This one tasted pretty good, but it's not like the "real" pumpkin pie that I crave. My kids absolutely love it though. They wouldn't eat any of the other pies but they beg for seconds and thirds of this one.

My Sister, Negative Blood Test but Testing a Gluten-Free Diet Anyway

It turns out that my sister, who swore she would never try a gluten-free diet, is giving it a try. I don't know what all of her symptoms are, I just know she has not been feeling well and the doctors tell her she is just fine. She had a blood test for Celiac, some allergy, and her thyroid and all came up perfectly normal. They just assume that means there is nothing wrong but with the way she feels I'm sure she would tell you otherwise. I was looking up information on Celiac.com and found that a lot of people who are gluten-intolerant but don't have Celiac end up with negative blood tests. And my son also had a negative test result and he is extremely sensitive to it. So she has decided to try the gluten-free diet to see if it makes a difference. I hope she doesn't have it, but at the same time it would be a relief for her to find out what's wrong and be able to find a solution to it.

UPDATE: My sister has been feeling much better on a GF diet. She did a trial for a few weeks and then ate gluten again--not a good result. Of course, real results are complicated by the fact that she is in the first trimester of pregnancy so morning sickness doesn't really help. But she was convinced enough to avoid all her favorite foods. People just don't go on a GF diet because it's fun, you know? If you really do feel better it is worth it!