0 GF Bread Review

Our local COSTCO is selling a gluten-free bread now.  My husband bought a two pack last week.  I was skeptical about the bread because of how small it looked, how grainy and seedy it was.

 This bread is from ESSENTIAL BAKING company.  If you want to find out more about it http://essentialbaking.com/.  The price at COSTCO for a double pack is around $9.
The essential baking company has a whole line of GF breads on their site.  It is worth looking at.  You can order directly from the site.

 The kids and I found the bread to be quite tasty.  The seeds on the top fell off immediately.  The texture of the bread is that of a normal multi-grain.  The carbohydrate count is 15g per slice.  So far my daughters blood-sugars haven't reacted horribly to this bread. 

We had tuna sandwiches.  It was nice not having to make my own bread and whip this sandwich up super fast.  The claim on this bread is that it can last on your shelf in the pantry for months because of the revolutionary packaging. 

 Here is the ingredient list:   Filtered water, mixed seeds (sunflower and flax seeds), rice flour (white, brown and sweet rice), egg white, hi oleic safflower oil, tapioca flour, sugar cane fiber, granulated sugar, yeast, pear juice concentrate, plum puree (prune juice concentrate, dried plums), modified cellulose, salt, xanthan gum, baking powder (glucono delta lactone and calcium carbonate), cellulose gum, orange citrus fiber.

*Contains Egg Whites

Detail: GF Bread Review

0 Strawberry Power Powder

Q:What do you get when you leave your strawberry fruit leather in the dehydrator too long?
A: You get strawberry fruit powder! 

At first I was devastated, then angry that all my hard work making these fruit leathers had gone to waste.  I was making some granola on the counter at the same time and a brilliant idea came into my head (thank you Lord) fruit powder in the granola mix!

If you don't have a dehydrator or want to save some time I have seen fruit powder for sale CLICK HERE to see the variety of fruit powders and prices.  I also found some for sale on AMAZON CLICK HERE to see the strawberry fruit powder for sale.  To make this jar of goodness all you have to do is over-dehydrate some fruit leather then blend up the shards. 

I am just so glad that my unfortunate mistake with my strawberry fruit leathers turned out so well. The best thing about this discovery is that you can do this with any fruit.  Imagine getting lots of fruit in season and dehydrating it into fruit powder for use all year long! 

Add fruit powders to smoothie mixes, muffin or cake recipes, honey, milk, the list is endless.
Never fear, I will experiment for you, this is what I tried and this is what did and didn't work so well:

STRAWBERRY GRAIN FREE GRANOLA 

All I had to do was to add 1/4 cup of this strawberry powder to my grain free granola mix. CLICK HERE for the original recipe.  It left as slight hint of strawberry flavor but nothing big.  If you want a lot of flavor, add a lot of strawberry powder.

STRAWBERRY ALMOND MUFFINS

I substituted 1/4 cup of strawberry powder for 1/4 of the flour mixture.  The muffins turned out great but I didn't taste too much of the strawberry flavor.  It adds nutrition but not a lot of taste.  

STRAWBERRY SMOOTHIE

 

This is one of the easiest was to take advantage of the powder.  Simply add 1/4 cup to a 2-3 cup smoothie.  It will give a rich consistency to your drink, and pack in a lot of strawberry flavor.

HONEY STRAWBERRY SYRUP

 

Add 1 tablespoon of strawberry powder to 2 tablespoons honey.  This didn't work too well. My son and I liked it. You have to keep it warm and melted in order to pour it.  Who has got time for that? We put it on our pancakes and it did taste good.

 

I am sure there are lots more uses for this vitamin packed strawberry powder, let me know if you come across some good ones.
The carb count on this is about 8g for one tablespoon. There is a lot more information on this great product ZNaturalFoods.com check it out.

Detail: Strawberry Power Powder

0 PALEO Bread, Friend or Foe?

My good friend bought a loaf of PALEO bread.  She took it home and excitedly opened the package, she toasted a slice and put a dab of butter on it.  As she continued to add butter to this slice of bread she began thinking of the taste and consistency.  Here is what she came up with.


Paleo bread is is a lie.

Paleo bread is what's left over from the
cardboard factory.

Paleo bread could very well be the next eco-building material for houses.

Paleo bread could be attached to a stick and used as a ping pong paddle.

I can't believe this bread made it to a store, and that I bought it.






I want to be fair, I want another opinion.  If you have tried it before, what did you think?
Here is a link to a site with more information
http://www.julianbakery.com/paleo-bread/

Here is another review of Paleo Bread that you might find helpful.
http://paleonick.com/articles/The-Paleo-Bread-Review

Detail: PALEO Bread, Friend or Foe?

0 Gluten-Free Mama's PIE CRUST

This was the most amazing gluten-free product I have tried so far.  It not only replaces the traditional pie crust, but makes it an exceptional pie!  I have only tried it with the apple pie, but I know it would make a great pumpkin pie, or cherry pie also!  I even made POP TARTS.  I thought I was such an awesome mom when my youngest was asking me "what is a Pop Tart mom."  It makes me feel better that my kids are getting more nutrition than I did when I was younger.  Click on the links at the end of this post to see the apple pie and Pop Tarts if you want to know how I did that! 

VISIT MAMA'S WEB SITE

CLICK HERE

 The directions and ingredients are SIMPLE, thank GOD.  It is nice to have something easy once in a while.  You will need some Spectrum butter flavor shortening, 1 egg white (or 2 TBSP honey) and cold water. 

 If you have ever made pie crust from scratch before this will be just like that.  Add all the ingredients to the bowl.  Cut the shortening up into the flour with a pastry cutter.  Keep mashing until there are little pebble size pieces. 

You are going to have to roll this dough out between waxed or parchment paper to keep it from sticking to the rolling pin.  This saves a lot of time, and helps with the next step when you put the flat dough in the pie pan. 

 As you can see the dough comes together well (after a slight misjudgment on the flop into the pan.)  Make sure you oil the pan with some shortening to prevent it from sticking, you want your pie to have a bottom crust when you serve it!  The top of the pie is much easier to put on, you could even do a lattice top, this dough is very forgiving, and it tastes like "REAL PIE."  My family was remarking over and over about how this tasted like "real apple pie" I kept wondering what they thought of all the other "fake" food I had been serving them over the years. 

CHECK OUT MY Gluten-Free PPLE PIE RECIPE CLICK HERE!

CHECK OUT MY Pop Tart RECIPE

CLICK HERE!

Detail: Gluten-Free Mama's PIE CRUST

0 GF Chocolate Cake Mix (Product Review)

Sometimes you just want a chocolate cake, and sometimes you have a purpose to make a chocolate cake.  I have made four different gluten-free, dairy-free, soy-free chocolate cake mixes.  My family and I made lots of friends having these cakes around for the past month of baking!  All the mixes tasted great, and I used the same chocolate frosting mix for all of them Pamelas Dark Chocolate Frosting Mix.  When we noticed differences from one cake to the next, it was just about the cake. 

Product websites
http://www.pamelasproducts/

http://thepurepantry.com/

http://www.bobsredmill.com/

All the cakes were made in the same small cake pans.  All the cakes had chocolate frosting.

This Dark Chocolate cake mix was nice if you don't like all that sugary light chocolate taste.  It doesn't have any refined sugar!  It is going to be about 40g of carbs per slice.  This is an average carb count for the cakes (with frosting) that  I had my family taste test.  I made some adjustments to the ingredients: Add 1 cup rice milk, 3 eggs, and 1/2 cup vegetable oil. DO NOT ADD THE 1 CUP OF WATER as the instructions say, you will end up with a mushy mess.  Everyone liked this cake, and all the taste testers who weren't gluten free couldn't tell the difference.  This mix runs around $7.80 a bag. Here is a link to the web site CLICK HERE you can find this cake mix in many health food stores.

Next I made Pamela's Chocolate Cake Mix, there are lots of variations on Pamela's web site CLICK HERE TO SEE.  This cake was voted "most like a brownie" tasting.  This cake was very moist, and again the mainstream crowd didn't even know it was gluten free, when they found out they were very impressed.  I did some variations on the ingredients: Add 1 cup water, 2 eggs, and 1/2 cup oil,  DO NOT ADD ANYMORE MOISTURE or you will end up with a MESS.  I don't know why these gluten free mixes ask for so much moisture, DON'T BELIEVE THEM, always start with half the recommended milk, or water then slowly add more as needed.  This was my personal favorite.  This mix runs about $5.50. 

Bob's Red Mill Chocolate Cake Mix might be the healthiest out of this bunch, it is made with garbanzo bean flour which is lower in carbs for you diabetics out there.  It is only 24g of carbs per slice, I counted my daughters slice (with frosting) at 35g. This cake wasn't the sweetest, but was still a crowd pleaser.  I made some ingredient modifications:  Add 1/2 cup butter flavored spectrum shortening, 1 cup rice milk, 2 eggs, 2 tsp vanilla extract.  DO NOT ADD ANYMORE MOISTURE!  This cake bakes up well.  This mix is easy to find at most stores now, and it runs around $4.00 a bag, making it the most economical mix to buy.  Click here to visit the web site. 

This frosting mix is very easy to use.  I have discovered some tips on mixing it up.  DON'T add all the moisture at once.  Add only two tablespoons of water and beat the mixture in your mixer until it comes together.  You can always add more, but you can't take any water out. You can CLICK HERE to visit Pamela's site.  This mix is going to run you around $5.00 a bag.




So throw a couple of these cake and frosting mixes in your pantry, you never know when you will need to whip up a gluten, dairy, soy free cake.  These are so easy to make and taste so good.

Detail: GF Chocolate Cake Mix (Product Review)

0 Pamela's Cornbread & Muffin Mix Review

As the days get cooler and the leaves turn the colors of Fall, I want to get into the kitchen and bake up some goodies.  I don't want to spend all day rounding up the ingredients and mixing this and that to make a gluten, soy and dairy-free treat.  I am on a quest to find some GOOD GF,DF, & Soy-free mixes.  I might as well share the success and failure with you all. 

Pamela's Products Cornbread & Muffin Mix 12oz. size.
This mix is wheat and gluten-free.  I modified it to be dairy free and refined sugar free. Do NOT use the recommended amount of water for this recipe, you will end up with a sloppy mess! Cut the water in half then add a little more if needed! 

MATERIALS:
*6 TBSP honey
*1/3 cup oil
*1/2 cup water
*2 eggs

I filled about 30 mini muffin cups with this mix.

 The muffins came out very fluffy and just sweet enough. 

I cut the sugar down and didn't know if they added the sugar into the carb count for the recipe so I figure that each mini muffin is about 9g of carbs.  My Type 1 diabetic daughter seemed to handle this count just fine. 

I would give this mix a thumbs up for taste and texture.  It was super easy to put together and pretty low in carbs. 

Detail: Pamela's Cornbread & Muffin Mix Review

0 Product Review = Gluten Free Mama Mixes

As my family and I have traveled on the gluten free journey we have tried many gluten free products.  I have been amazed at the complete failure of a few mixes and recipes and been so happy at the success of others.
Today I would like to bring you two mixes by Gluten Free Mama.  These mixes are gluten and wheat free.  They do have almond flour in them so beware if you have  a nut allergy. 

Gluten Free Mama's Pancake/Waffle Mix

The mix is very easy to assemble, you only need 3 eggs and1 cup of a milk of your choice.

The one step I have never seen before was to separate the egg whites and whip them then fold them into the waffle mix at the end.

 Fold the whipped egg whites into the mix.

The waffles are light and fluffy and pretty tasteless, which is most like a white wheat waffle if you ask me.  This is a perfect replacement for a white wheat waffle! The carb count is pretty high at 21g per waffle.  It looks like you could get three batches of 8 waffles out of this mix.

PANCAKES from the same mix

 These pancakes were super easy to make.  The only things you need to add are some eggs, milk and oil.  They turn out SUPER fluffy.  The carb count is along the same lines as the waffles = 21g per pancake.  These reheat well when lightly toasted in the toaster.  They taste and behave like a typical wheat pancake!

and now for yet another mix from

GLUTEN FREE MAMA PIZZA CRUST MIX

I have been on the search for a good pizza crust mix since the day we first decided to go gluten-free.  Well I think this is it.  It behaves like a wheat dough without cracking and falling apart. 

Ingredients needed: water,milk of choice, egg, and cider vinegar.

This crust is SUPER easy to roll out!

You bake the crust in the oven until it is just about done then add the toppings.

 Top your pizza with any cheese of choice or no cheese at all.  I personally LOVE mozzarella and bacon pizza! This is one of the best pizza crusts I have tasted in a LONG TIME!  This mix wins favor in the non-gluten-free crowd.

The carb count is pretty high at 25g of carbs per slice if you make two small pizzas and divide it into 16 pieces. 

HERE IS A LINK TO GLUTEN FREE MAMA
http://www.glutenfreemama.com/

Detail: Product Review = Gluten Free Mama Mixes