2 Product Reviews – Kenzoil and Sandwich Petals

If you’re looking for an alternative to salad dressings or mayo on sandwiches, Kenzoil has a great product.   Made up of extra virgin olive oil, fresh basil, fresh garlic and spices, it’s a great items for salads, marinades, even dipping sauces. Kenzoil sent me a bottle and I am very pleased with the taste.  And get this, Kenzoil is free of:   gluten, dairy and casein, nuts, tree nuts, soy, corn, eggs, legumes, fish, shellfish, potato, rice, yeast and sugar.  So great for people with multiple (or just one!) allergies or food intelorances.  Kenzoil is also vegan, raw, and Kosher; as well as all natural, low in sodium and free of all additives and preservatives.  Sounds almost too good to be true, but it’s true!

The good folks at Kenzoil told me they currently sell the product at Whole Foods Market stores in the Midwest as well as in upscale and gourmet grocery stores in Michigan.  They also have a website with online ordering, and can ship anywhere in the US.

Kenzoil is a great sauce to use when making sandwiches on….

Sandwich Petals!  Sandwich Petals are these amazing “tortillas” (for lack of a better word).  They come in three flavors – Spinach Garlic Pesto; Chimayo Red Chile; and Agave Grain (original).  These contain 10 grains— Corn, Flax, Sesame, Buckwheat, Brown Rice, Sorghum, Millet, Quinoa, Teff, and Amaranth.  They make great “wraps” for sandwiches.  Even better, remember those recipes we used to make – taking flour tortillas and cream cheese, adding some deli meat, rolling them up and slicing for appetizers?  Sandwich Petals are PERFECT for that.   Their pricing is reasonable – one box of 36 petals is $25, and that includes free US shipping. You get one dozen of each flavor.

Sandwich Petals sent me a box back in late December, and I’ve been just a bit too busy to blog about them (my apologies, Sandwich Petals, for not writing about these until now!), but folks, these are a good product.  Easy to use.  Versatile for so many recipes.  Shelf stable.  And:

- Convenient – Dry Storage, no refrigeration needed
-  Only 21 grams of low glycemic carbs .
-  Omega 3’s heart healthy
-  High Fiber – 3 grams of fiber per petal, 12% of daily recommended intake!
- Low Glyecemic – maintain proper blood sugar levels thus promoting fat utilization
- Virtually Allergen free – Contains Zero: Dairy · Egg · Peanut · Tree nut · Shellfish · Soy · Wheat. Does contain fish (A portion of the omega 3’s from Tuna Oil).

So get online, and order some Kenzoil and Sandwich Petals.  You won’t be disappointed in either.

GFS

Gluten free donuts recipe

This recipe comes to me from my friends at Katz Gluten Free.  I’ve not tried it, but if you do, let me know what you think.  It seems easy and yummy!

Raised donuts

Dry ingredients
½ cup potato starch
½ cup corn starch
2 ½ Tbs. sugar
¼ tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. baking powder
½ tsp. xanthan gum
Pinch of salt
Combine all dry ingredients in a bag or bowl set aside.

Wet ingredients
1 egg
¼ tsp. vanilla flavoring
¼ cup oil
¼ cup water
Combine wet ingredients in a bowl, mix, add dry ingredients, and mix well. Batter will thicken
slightly; give it a minute or two.

In a medium sauce pan, heat oil and drop batter by rounded teaspoon into hot oil. Once lightly browned on both sides, remove and place on paper towels to drain. (Do not crowd may turn on its own.)

Dust with powder sugar.

GFS

The Essential Gluten Free Grocery Guide – Product Review

I swear to you, I can’t put this book down.  I left it at home the other day when I went to the store and was mad at myself.  It’s a lifesaver.

You see, this book is so aptly named “The Essential Gluten Free Grocery Guide“.  It does what each of us cannot do.  Triumph Dining publishes this book, and they spent countless hours and hours doing research to bring us a book that helps us grocery shop and find gluten free products from gravies to glazes;  from croutons to cold cuts; from salad dressings to salsas.  You get the idea.

This book is a wonderful product to keep in your car for when you go to the store, as well as a great item to give to ANYONE in your immediate circle that may cook for you.  I even took it to Florida this past month to visit my mom, as I knew we’d run into a question or two as she cooked for us, and the book was there to save the day!

The book lists 30,000 (yes, that’s not a typo, thirty thousand) items and includes a symbol summary:

- GF lines or facility with no chance of cross-c0ntamination
- Gluten Testing is performed
- Gluten Free based on review of ingredient label, as no GF list was provided to Triumph from the company
- Procedures to Mitigate Cross-Contamination are in place, although there are shared facilities or equipment
- Cross-Contamination is possible; or Made with “gluten free ingredients”, with no mention of overall status from the manufacturer

The book is divided into categories:

• Dairy & Eggs
• Beverages
• Baking Aisle
• Canned & Packaged Goods
• Cereal, Bread, Pasta, etc.
• Condiments, Sauces & Dressings
• Snacks & Convenience Foods
• Baby Food & Formula
• Frozen Foods
• Meat

I really can’t say enough about this book.  Triumph Dining sent me a complimentary review copy about a month ago and I know it makes me a geek to sit and read this and see all the wonderful products available out there for us, but it’s amazing the work these folks did for us.  I’ve been a fan of Triumph Dining cards since going gluten free, as they’ve helped me eat at places where I normally would have not tried to dine.

The book is $19.95 on Triump’s website, and it’s so worth it.

Thanks, Triumph Dining for all your hard work, as well as the review copy.

GFS

Product Review: Cereal Vit Cereals

So many of the gluten free cereals I’ve seen out there try to replicate so many of the sugar kiddie focused cereals that many of us grew up with.  Don’t get me wrong – if someone invents a gluten free version of Lucky Charms, I’m there!

What CerealVit does is they make cereals for adults.  It’s not sugary, it’s not with a cartoon character.  It’s multi-grain, gluten free and stands up in a bowl of milk!

They sent me some free samples to try, and I am impressed.  Three boxes of cereal came and over time, we’ve sampled all three.  The Coffee Flakes is great with milk.  I’m not much of a coffee drinker, but this cereal is really good.  Crunchy.  Flavorful.  Not overpowering with coffee so it doesn’t leave you with that bad morning coffee breath that drinking a cup of coffee does.

The Multi-Grain consists of organic rice and organic buckwheat flour.  Again, it’s a good hearty cereal that I enjoyed with some fresh berries on top.

The Corn Flakes are also hearty and stand up in milk, but I’ll be honest.  That’s not what I mainly used them for.  We made a gluten free shake ‘n bake with them.  We took a resealable plastic bag, crushed the flakes, added some herbs/spices and then made baked pork chops with them. And it was darn good.  I need to figure out something to do with the coffee flakes like this – some sort of dessert or main dish to use, as the coffee flakes are really good flavor.

These are a product of Italy, and are distributed by Riega Foods here in the US.

I appreciate the samples, and think these are a keeper. I’m not sure where they are sold in retail locations, so I recommend reaching out to Riega Foods directly.  They do have a form on their site you can take into your favorite store requesting these.

Coming up next, a product review of Triumph Dining’s Gluten Free Grocery Guide.  A book that I can’t put down…seriously.  It’s amazing.  I’ll post the review in the next few days.  In the meantime, stay safe and enjoy the Holiday Season.

GFS

New GF site from General Mills

General Mills has created liveglutenfreely.com to provide consumers with information on gluten-free products and gluten-free recipes.  The site lists 200 General Mills products labeled gluten-free and features kitchen-tested recipes for preparing an array of gluten-free foods.

They also created an electronic newsletter by the same name that consumers can subscribe to when they visit liveglutenfreely.com.  Gluten-free product information and gluten-free recipes will be sent directly to their inboxes.

General Mills has done so much this year in terms of gluten free awareness and making more and more products GF for us.  Please support them with your purchases.

A+, General Mills.  And thank you!

GFS

I’m thankful for my gluten free blogging buddies…

While I try extremely hard to maintain being gluten free, I admit, there are times when somehow, trace amounts of gluten get into my system.  My symptoms often range from brain fog, minor DH, gastric distress, severe fatigue, and joint pain.  I don’t realize how good I feel until I get gluttened, and get any of the symptoms, and realize how horrible my life was for so many years.

I have folks in my life that even though they say then understand what being gluten free means, I really don’t think they do.  Sorry, you know I care for each of you, but I don’t honestly believe you know what the long term severe risks are for me if I ingest gluten.  And that’s ok, as this is all part of an education process.

Thankfully, many of us have a great support system at home (The Artist, for example).  I’m also fortunate enough to have an online support system as well, only just a few clicks of a mouse away.

Over the past few years, I’ve made some great contacts with fellow gluten free bloggers.  Folks that know what being a Celiac or gluten free means.  Folks that understand that one small teeny tiny minuscule amount of gluten can cause so much severe damage to so many things internally in the short term, and puts us at so much risk for so many other health concerns including:

* Anemia
* Autoimmune disorders such as rheumatoid arthritis and systemic lupus erythematosus
* Certain types of intestinal cancer
* Dermatitis herpetiformis
* Lactose intolerance
* Neurological conditions
* Osteoporosis or osteopenia
* Thyroid disease
* Type 1 diabetes

But my blogging buddies understand.  And while I wish there was more time in the day to read each of their blogs and leave comments for them, I hope they know how thankful I am for them.  Knowing that I can shoot them a quick email to rant, rave, vent, ask for advice or just general “hi” does help me get through many, many days.

So this Thanksgiving, I am thankful for the following (and I am sure I missed a few, so I apologize!):

Ginger
Kate
Melanie
Carrie
Pete
Shirley
Kay
Tiffany

To each of you  – you’ve touched my heart in a way few others can and I truly treasure how we all support one another. Thank you.

To all of my readers – I hope you have a joyous and wonderful Thanksgiving.

GFS

Review: Minnie Beasley’s Gluten Free Almond Lace Cookies

Minnie Beasley’s sent me some of their gluten free almond lace cookies for free to review. I was hesitant to try them to be honest.  My initial reaction was “Almond Cookies”?  If it had almond flavoring in it, forget it.  Blech.  No way.  No how.

Fortunately, there was no almond flavoring in the cookies.  There was just a bunch of yumminess.  The cookies are crisp and buttery and melt in your mouth.  The bag I had contained chocolate and regular flavor.  When I went back to snack on them a week after I got the  bag, I couldn’t find it.  I thought The Artist had gone off and eaten these and didn’t leave any more for me.  When I asked him, he told me that he had seen me scarfing them down all week long and that I ate them all.  I didn’t even realize it!

These cookies are a great treat and I recommend them for a great gift giving item this Holiday.

GFS

Cookbook Review: Gluten-Free Italian by Jacqueline Mallorca

I love cookbooks.  I’ve loved them for years.  Love the photos, love the recipes.  I love dreaming of things I’d like to make but don’t have the confidence, the time or sometimes, I admit it, the patience.  In what seems like a lifetime ago, I worked for what was then the nation’s #1 mall bookstore chain in their corporate marketing department.  One of the categories I worked on was Cooking, and I got a ton of great cookbooks from the Buyer of that category.  Over the years, the cookbooks have dwindled down due to space, moves and lack of use.  But my love for them never has dwindled.

I was sent a free copy of a new gluten free cookbook recently to review.  Gluten-Free Italian, by Jacqueline Mallorca is a great book.  The sub-title of “Over 150 Irresistible Recipes without Wheat – from Crostini to Tiramisu” defines it all.  Jacqueline knows Italian cooking, and it shows in her recipes.   With beautiful photos and background info on the recipes, this cookbook is a keeper, and sure to get some good use.

I recently posted a review on another great cookbook, and I just want to remind my readers about that book. Peter and Kelli Bronski recently published Artisinal Gluten Free Cooking.   Their cookbook already has the mark of a good cookbook in my standards – it’s got food all over it.   To me, if you are cooking, and using a cookbook or recipe, there is no reason to keep it pristine.  Show it’s getting the love and attention the recipe deserves.   Some tomato sauce splatters here.  Maybe some oil stains there.  You know what I am talking about.

Anyhow, both cookbooks are great additions to any gf households, and would make excellent gifts for the upcoming Holiday season.

GFS

Gluten Free Denver from an outsider’s point of view

Last month, The Artist and I had the pleasure of meeting two Celiacs who came in from California to attend the Gluten Free Culinary Summit (which I must attend next year!).   This post is kind of a “guest” post from Sue, one of the Celiacs who researched and planned this trip for months.  Where to go?  What to do?  More importantly…WHERE TO EAT!  Their itinerary left them little time for sleep practically, as it was a busy weekend of eating and shopping.

This is what Sue wrote to me:

I wanted to share the restaurants and places we went to while in Denver – just in case some of your readers were not aware of them.  We love planning our trip to the Summit every year (it’s our third time in Denver).  Our husbands are so sweet to stay home and take care of the kids and the animals so we can enjoy a few days of being able to eat in restaurants like “normal” people and have some fun!

On Friday, we started with lunch at Fogo de Chao – their lunch is $24.50, which is a lot cheaper than their dinner, so we could afford it.  The caramelized bananas, cheese bread, mashed potatoes and fried polenta squares were delectable!  The salad bar was A+, and they kept coming to the table with carved meats (Marie is the meat eater – I enjoyed all of the wonderful side dishes!).  We stopped at Udi’s for cinnamon rolls to bring back to the Bay Area, as well as we stopped at Vitamin Cottage to buy Outside the Breadbox graham crackers and cheese crackers.  After enjoying the art galleries downtown, we had a wonderful dinner with you at Ling & Louie’s, and their Molten Chocolate Volcano dessert was so delicious!  As you and Marie know, I ate most of it!

On Saturday, we went to the Farmer’s Market at the Cherry Creek Plaza and sampled the GF Bake Shoppe’s pepperoni and BBQ chicken pizza pockets.  They so unbelievably delicious we bought some to bring back with us, as well as a tub of their frozen chocolate chip cookie dough!  These pizza pockets are great for a quick lunch or dinner!  We were staying at the Doubletree Hotel, and they were gracious enough to let us put all of our frozen goodies into their freezer.  We enjoyed walking through your Denver zoo and then had lunch at Big Papa’s BBQ.  Most everything is gluten-free on the menu, and we were so looking forward to their sweet potato casserole.  Sadly, our lunch wasn’t as good as we thought it would be.  We ordered one of their ribs/chicken entrees to share.  We didn’t like the sweet potato casserole and thought the BBQ chicken and ribs were dry.  After going to Build-A-Bear to bring a bear home to our kids, we headed to the Rio Grande for dinner to have their Nachos (I read about them on a blog).  I wanted to warn your readers that the chips they use in their Nachos have cross-contact in their fryers with floured products AND this Nachos dish is on their gluten-free menu.  We talked to the manager about how wrong this was, and he said that they talked with nurses and that it depended on how “sensitive” we were to gluten.  I guess we were sort of stunned for a few moments and he was nice enough to agree to make the chips from scratch in a pan, but we thought it better to eat elsewhere.  We headed over to Hacienda Colorado instead and shared an order of their chicken fajitas.

On Sunday, we attended the Sunday edition of the Culinary Gluten-Free Summit.  It is our fourth year attending the Summit and love their program and chefs cooking for us.  After the program ended, we headed over to Pei Wei and split their sweet and sour chicken dish.  We don’t have a Pei Wei in the Bay Area in California, so we always like to go there when we come to Denver.

Monday was quite a busy morning for us!  We shared blueberry pancakes, hash browns and bacon at Snooze, headed over to Panzano’s to pick up some freshly made g-f blueberry muffins and then to Deby’s to pick up some of her bakery chocolate cake, egg rolls and pizza rolls.  After dropping all of our goodies off at the hotel, we headed over for one last lunch at Beau Jo’s.  We always order their stuffed mushrooms and garlic cheese bread.  This year, we even bought one of their g-f sandwiches to go to enjoy on the plane coming home.

Yes, this sounds like all we did was eat, and we should have gained 10 pounds!  However, we usually split an entrée so we don’t eat as much as it sounds, and it is also a lot cheaper.

I love hearing about other’s travel experiences to Denver, and even sharing travel experiences overall when managing gluten free dining. Sue and Marie – David and I had a blast meeting you both, and dinner was great!  Let us know when you’re back in town.

GFS

Zing is good. Zang is bad.

ZING BARS REVIEW

Years ago, I had a coworker who if would describe bad food as “It had a zang to it.”.  If it was good, she’d say, “Oh it had a zing!”.  So Zing was good.  Anything with a zang we shied away from.

How fitting that the nutrition bar I sampled last week are called Zing.  Zing was kind enough to send me free of charge a sample of all five of their bars:

• Oatmeal Chocolate Chip (Wheat Free, Gluten Free) - uses Certified Gluten Free Oats!
• Chocolate Peanut Butter (Wheat Free, Gluten Free)
• Cranberry Orange (Wheat Free, Gluten Free, Dairy Free)
• Almond Blueberry (Wheat Free, Gluten Free)
• Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip (Wheat Free, Gluten Free, Dairy Free)

Here’s what the Zing brochure reads that accompanied my samples:

• Created by Nutritionists/Registered Dietians
• Optimal balance of protein, carbs and fats
• Certified wheat & gluten free
• Sweetened with low glycemic organic agave
• High protein and good source of fiber
• Healthy fat from nuts
• No trans fats or palm kernel oil
• No artificial colorings, flavors or preservatives
• No artificial sweeteners or corn syrup

So basically, the brochure is stating – these are good for us!  And not only are they good for us, they taste good.  Too often I’ve tried protein bars that have that funky “zang” to it. But Zing Bars are good tasting, packs a great amount of protein, a good amount of your dietary fiber and are great for snacks on the go.

These bars are perfect for me for work, for throwing in my backpack for my commute home on the train/bus and just for stashing in the car for a day long running around of errands and whatnot.

They are not wide spread yet in retail store locations, but you can check on their site to see if there is a store near you, or you can order online, like I will be doing!

Thanks, Zing.

GFS