Cheap, Lazy, Picky Cooks

My holy grail of gluten-free living has been to find good pizza. It was a favorite food before, and locating edible experiences of it now consumes a good part of the food lobe of my brain. And let me tell you, friends, about a fabulous ready-made pizza crust.

The brand is Kinnikinnick (www.kinnikinnick.com). This is the first and only product of theirs that I’ve found (at Whole Foods). Here’s the box:

The crust is square, and is about 8″x7″. It has a yummy corn meal spread across the bottom:

With your favorite ingredients on the frozen crust, bake it in a preheated oven at 375 degrees, for 10-15 minutes. It gives a good crunch around the edges, with a chewy texture in the middle. The taste is… well, Gabe and I both agree it’s the best frozen pizza crust we’ve ever eaten, gluten or not.

D’you like… bread?

I’ve now tried six different gluten-free sandwich breads… not counting some traumatic ones from last year, that put me off sandwich bread for ages and whose name I’ve blocked out of memory. Yes, I’ll share those as a warning, should I recall the name. But in the meantime, here are some much more pleasant reviews.

All of these loaves come pre-sliced, and are found in the freezer section. I get 2-4 loaves at a time, and store them frozen except for the “current” loaf I’m using. I got all of them at Whole Foods. And of course, all of them work better toasted than not-toasted, regardless of what quality toasting capabilities I give them.

Glutino Flax Seed Bread

Taste: Has a sweet-savory taste that can work well as a all-purpose bread. It’s slightly reminiscent of the seedy flavor of Whole Foods Seeduction bread.

Texture: It’s a bit like whole wheat, but lighter-colored, drier and with chewy-crispy seeds. It crumbles a bit easily compared to gluten bread, but is one of the sturdier gluten-free loaves I’ve found. The seeds can get messy though.

Toasted: It toasts a bit, getting crispier around the edges. It works much better toasted than the cakier loaves do. This has been my standby all-purpose loaf for months.

Glutino Fiber Bread

Taste: I found the taste bland – some whole wheat type bitterness, but without the rounded flavor of wheat.

Texture: It looks and feels a lot like whole wheat, and is similar to the flax seed without the seeds.

Toasted: It toasts about as well as the flax seed, but without the crunchy seeds to make it interesting. Though if you have any OCD tendencies, you may prefer this seedless bread to the flax seed (teh seedz, they go evreewar!).

Glutino Harvest Corn Bread

Taste: This is not ‘cornbread’ in the usual sense. There’s a very mild corn flavor that can sometimes be detected, but otherwise the taste is that of a very unobtrusive sandwich bread.

Texture: Very light, white bread-y.

Toasted: This is the best gluten-free toast I’ve ever had. If you want a light piece of old-school toast that is crunchy all the way through, this is what you want (and as a bonus, it actually turns from white to brown in the toaster). It’s done well with peanut butter, jelly and cheese on it (in separate events!), and has held up well even in thick wet sandwiches. This is my new all-purpose stand-by loaf, though I return to the flax seed occasionally for variety.

Glutino Cinnamon Raisin Bread

Taste: Cinnamon! Raisin! Nom!

Texture: Bready, very slightly crumbly, with raisins of course. This has the dense sweetbread texture I remember from gluten cinnamon raisin bread.

Toasted: Toasts a considerable amount, for GF bread. Keeps some crunch with butter melted in.

365 (Whole Foods) Prairie Bread

Taste: This loaf looked a lot like Seeduction, and I got my hopes up. But this is too many tastes, too many sweets and savories and salties all fighting each other. For bread intended to have at least one other taste added, it doesn’t work at all. I didn’t finish the loaf.

Texture: Mealy and heavy. Rather muffiny. Not terrible for a muffin, but doesn’t work as a sandwich bread texture for me.

Toasted: Doesn’t toast.

365 (Whole Foods) Sandwich Bread

Taste: Quite buttery sweet, and worked fairly well with jelly on it. I found it didn’t quite mix well on most savory sandwiches though.

Texture: This loaf’s texture reminds me a lot of pound cake, and feels about as heavy.

Toasted: Browns a bit around the edges, but doesn’t manage any real crunch.

Hi all! I’ve got two food successes to share with you.

First, my honey and I are closing in on a green bean casserole recipe that we can both make and eat — which means, of course, that it’s as simple as possible for our schedule-addled brains, and that it contains no cream of mushroom soup and no french fried onions. We have a starter recipe that we adapted from the recipes we found, and we found out Saturday night that it’s not a bad start at all… but we’ll be tinkering a bit with the spices and other ingredients before we give it our seal of approval.

Secondly, for said casserole, I found a way to make some great gluten-free breadcrumbs at no extra cost. For a while now, I’ve used Glutino’s sandwich-cut breads, found in the freezer section. I enjoy their cinnamon raisin in the morning and their flax seed for sandwiches; their fiber bread’s not bad either. I’ve gone through bags and bags of the flax seed bread, and have kept all the tiniest heels and broken slices waiting in the back of freezer, in the hopes that I could make this work. I toasted all those in the oven, chopped them up fine with a big knife, and now I’ve got a big pile of bread crumbs for assorted uses!

Coming soon: I don’t believe we’ve shared our enchilada recipe, or our jambalaya, or the fabulous new risotto we’re playing with. Also, I’m collecting reviews of gluten-free patties — anybody have an opinion to share?

Wow!  What a holiday season, and first month of the year!  It’s been flying by at light speed over here.

Let’s see, I took Gabe home for our first together-Christmas with my family. For the most part, it was wonderful. We decided to rely on wealthy family members taking us out to eat instead of managing all those dietary restrictions in one place.

Oh, and then there’s me starting up evening classes again. It doesn’t leave as much time for me to contribute to cooking, so Gabe ends up taking the bulk of that duty.

And then there’s those beginning-of-year goals related to health and food. I prefer to avoid the term ‘resolutions’, which are fraught with peril in my psyche… but I have a much better track record with goals, and there’s always room for a diet and exercise tune-up.

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So, here’s a couple food-related outcomes from all that. First, here’s an easy and nutritious dish. I am THRILLED to say that Gabe and I now have our first sandwich spread entry in our personal cookbook!!  It’s so exciting!!!  Having sandwich bread that doesn’t try to kill me opens up all kinds of new meals.

I’d been craving what I missed about tuna salad for a while, though actually making it and eating it was never as satisfying.  And straightforward egg salad gets so heavy so quickly. So Gabe and I pondered some of the usual similar combos – chickpeas, tofu – and finally settled on this tofu-egg combo recipe that sounded quite yummy.  Turns out, it really is!

(The photo shows our first try at it, when it turned out we were out of green onions. I really look forward to adding those in next time.)

Curried Tofu-Egg Salad
1 12.5 oz package firm silken tofu, pressed* and chopped/mashed**
5 hard-boiled eggs, chopped/mashed**
3 tbsp chopped green onions
4 tbsp light mayo
4 tbsp plain fat-free yogurt
Cayenne pepper to taste
1.5 tsp curry powder
4 pinches dried cilantro
Salt and pepper

Mix ingredients and enjoy on slices of toast.

*To press tofu, slice about 1/4 inch thick and place between two layers of sturdy paper towels, in between two dinner plates. Place a small weight on top (cookbook or bottle of juice) and let sit for 10-20 minutes while you prepare the other ingredients.
**The chopping vs. mashing issue is one of texture. Chop if you like chunky. Mash if you like squishing the eggs and tofu between your fingers while doing a Hulk impersonation.

(Recipe adapted from myrecipes.com, originally from Cooking Light magazine, March 1998)

Also, here’s a link for a yummy-looking, homemade and rather simple veggie broth.  My DIY spirit was invoked with this recipe that Paige sent along.  You might not know it from the number of canned ingredients we use, but we do occasionally consider our salt intake, and broth cubes can be insanely high in sodium. This is next on our list of things to try.