Gluten-free Gourmand

Have you noticed any new pastas on the shelf at your grocery store lately? I got so used to buying my previous favorite pasta, Ancient Harvest , that I didn't try anything new for a really long time.  Read my 2009 review of gluten-free pastas to see how times have changed in 5 years. Recently I found a bunch of new GF pastas at the store by brands that I already know and trust like   Glutino  and Ronzoni .  New-to-me pastas by Jovial and DeLallo are actually made in Italy! I had to try them.   These are not just brown rice flour pastas all over again - some of these are totally new flour

You may know by now that I'm into pasta. I've done several reviews now, including Ener-G White Rice Spaghetti , Tinkyada White Rice Spaghetti , Tinkyada Brown Rice Fetucini , and a round-up of the Best and Worst of Gluten-free Pasta , in which I declare my favorite gluten-free pasta to be Ancient Harvest Quinoa and Corn pasta. This is still my favorite. However, I was glad to find a new quinoa pasta to try because I was pretty sure I'd like it. I did. This is a very good pasta option, and perhaps the only quinoa pasta available for people who can't tolerate corn. The look, feel, and flavor of the Andean Dream quinoa pasta are all very neutral - even more natural than the Ancient Harvest, which tends to look a little yellow. The Andean Dream is almost semolina colored, but it may have a touch of gray to the color which I don't find overly noticeable. The flavor is surprisingly neutral without being bland. The texture is the stand-out feature of this quinoa pas...

For last week in my What's for Dinner? Wednesday post I made Pasta Carbonara on some Ener-G White Rice Spaghetti that I'd just found. I promised to write a review of that pasta, and here it is! For more ideas and recipes visit Linda at the Gluten-free Homemaker . The pasta size is more like spaghettini or thin spaghetti, which I have always liked. It's a difficult size to find gluten-free, so you can understand my excitement in finally coming across it. In addition, I've been trying to seek out more white rice pastas here in the U.S. - they have some really good ones in Italy. The only other white rice pasta I've found was the Tinkyada brand that I reviewed a while back. My very first blog post was a review of several different kinds of gluten-free pasta , but none of them was a white rice pasta. Overall, I liked the Tinkyada white rice pasta a little better, in spite of the fact that Tinkyada's pasta doesn't come in a thin spaghetti style. I foun...

Today was the Starbucks debut of the Valencia Orange Cake. I was surprised they hadn't sold out by 4 o'clock when I went there to pick up three to try. I thought my co-workers might help me taste-test them. Nate and Becca like to cook and eat - they are gourmands by my standards. I thought they might have some added input for my review since they are both gluten-eaters. I returned to work and distributed the surprise treats. Mine was unwrapped and consumed within minutes. Nate unwrapped his and took a bite. "Pretty good," he said. "Is that corn flour?" I checked the ingredients. No corn flour. "That texture might be almond flour," I theorized. Becca unwrapped her cake. "Yeah, pretty good!" she said. So there you have it. It's pretty good and we ate ours before I thought to take a picture, which means something around here because I work in a photo lab. I'm always thinking about pictures. Upon further prodding, N...

This week for What's for Dinner? Wednesday blog carnival I'm doing a simple rice recipe and a review of some battered halibut and haddock from Starfish. For more dinner ideas go see Linda at the Gluten-free Homemaker . Eric over at Starfish asked me to sample his new breaded fish products and let him know what I think. That's right - he gave me free samples, meaning that I've been bribed . In spite of this I will try to give you the most objective review I can possibly muster. After all, if someone tried to "bribe" me with inedible food I'd have something to say about that. As my fair readers may know by now, I take food very seriously. There are two sets of instructions on the box: one for cooking in the oven, one for deep-frying. I appreciated the fact that there are no microwave instructions. Who wants to eat microwaved fish? In the name of science, I should have tried it anyway, but I couldn't bring myself to it. I'm more of an...

It's been a while since I've plugged the New Cascadia Traditional Bakery . This is our local gluten-free bakery in Portland, Oregon. I go to their kiosk in Nortwest or at the farmer's market at least once a week. They come out with new products pretty regularly, and I have recently started enjoying their biscotti. These look, taste, and feel like the wheat kind, and they soften perfectly in your coffee.

I love dairy. When I was trying to figure out what my health problems stemmed from I was mortally afraid that it would be wheat or dairy, or both. I was actually relieved that it was just wheat. While there are grains galore that you can use to make muffins or scones , there is really no substitute for dairy. However, when I went off wheat I became temporarily lactose intolerant . This is common for people recovering from gastrointestinal disorders, including celiac sprue. It was in this period of secondary lactose intolerance that I discovered a dairy-free New England style clam chowder. It was only later, after reading virtually every clam chowder label out there, that I realized that this is one of the few canned clam chowders in existence that is also gluten-free. The only other one I've found is Progresso brand, but that one has MSG (which is possibly not safe for celiacs - can anyone give me a definitive answer on this?) Down to the nitty-gritty: I really like this so...

For my What's for Dinner? Wednesday blog carnival post I decided to do a dual product review/easy dinner idea: pasta with tomato sauce. I dressed mine up a bit with some sausage from New Seasons (they don't add any wheat or other fillers to their deli sausage) and some broccoli. However, this is always a go-to meal when I want something fast and satisfying. This has always been a favorite meal. For other GF dinner ideas, visit Linda at the Gluten-Free Homemaker . When I discovered Tinkyada pasta for the first time, I was pretty excited to try a new brand. They have a white rice pasta which I reviewed last month and thoroughly enjoyed. Then I realized that everyone else knew about Tinkyada pasta before I did! It's sold in most of the stores I frequent, including New Season's on NE 33rd and at Food Front on NW Thurman. (It's also widely available on the internet.) I read several blog posts about how good their brown rice pasta was, and I was eager to try it. ...

I don't exactly think of Carson City, Nevada as a gluten-free mecca. While my relatives there are very supportive of my diet and have made wonderful meals for me, when I travel back to Carson City to visit I always wonder what exactly I'm going to end up eating when I go out on the town. Well, no more! I found out by accident that Carson City has some of the best wheat-free, gluten-free bread I've ever tasted. The City Cafe Bakery at 701 S. Carson Street is the producer of this fine GF product. They make a whole host of gluten-free treats, including sandwiches, scones, and muffins. They bake the bread on-site, and they sell it by the loaf. Loaves come sliced, frozen, and unlabeled. My stepmother Penny helped me vet the bread, and she said that she tasted corn flour. I called to get the list of ingredients, and corn starch is definitely in there. The bread also contains eggs and milk. Penny noted that the bread is much lighter than most GF breads. In fact, I thi...

Now with a new addendum! Whenever I go to a grocery store in another town, I always try to peruse their gluten-free options to see if they have any products I haven't seen in Portland. Last weekend I was excited to find a gluten-free pasta I hadn't seen before called Tinkyada White Rice Pasta. I have been looking for a white rice pasta since I went to Italy last spring. They have excellent gluten-free pastas there, and all of them are made from white rice flour. I haven't been able to find one like the Italian version in Portland. Imagine my surprise when I found a white rice pasta in Carson City, Nevada! The Raley's supermarket there has an excellent health food section. The ingredients listed on the pasta are: stone ground white rice and water. The cooking instructions should be taken with a grain of salt: the package tells you to cook it for 16-17 minutes! I know GF pasta takes a bit longer to cook, but I didn't boil it for nearly that long and it came ou...

I hold fast to the belief that going gluten-free doesn't mean eating meals that a person with normal digestion would never tolerate. However, in my quest for gluten-free alternatives I have braved many a meal some would qualify as inedible. In all my days I can't think of anything I've eaten that was worse than soy pasta. Not only is soy pasta not a standard grain substitute, but it hardly deserves the label "food." The texture is so far removed from what one expects from a pasta that it is disturbing to eat. The texture is so wrong that it is useless to ruin your favorite sauce by placing it on top of this noodle product. It is experiences like eating soy pasta that might convince a gluten-free novice to give up on experimenting with new brands or substitutes. However, I personally have not considered giving up on food as a practical option. And what I must consume to live I will find a way to enjoy eating. After the soy pasta fiasco I was determined to f...