Mike Says Meh|The blog of Mike Kauspedas

Gluten free deliciousness.

This is the first time I have found out one of my old staples is gluten free. I LOVE clam chowder and now I can eat it again. I don’t know if this has always been gluten free. Regardless I know what I’m having for dinner tonight!

My wife found this youtube video recently. Its a recipe from Alton Brown Good Eats for “chewy” gluten free cookies. Believe me when I say most gluten free cookies are far from chewy. But Alton brown, being the genius that he is, managed to form a recipe that produces gluten free cookies that are both delicious and chewy. Then my wife took it one step further and made them even closer to perfection, she removed the grittiness that you get with some of the flour used. I’m not exactly sure what she did, but her magic works great. The recipe as it stands is great, but there is a slight gritty graininess to the cookies.

Scroll to about 3 minutes to see the gluten free part, the first bit is peanut free. Thank god I can eat peanuts. One of the most interesting piece of info I got from the show was xanthum gum replaces gluten. I didn’t know that and always wondered why gf recipes used xanthum gum all the time. now I know. You’re supposed to let the cookies cool but I never can. They’re just too delicious.

The recipe from Food Network.

http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/alton-brown/the-chewy-gluten-free-recipe/index.html

I recently discovered a German bakery in olde town Arvada called Rheinlander which happens to make some gluten free goodies. Everything from fresh loaves of bread to decadent treats. Not only gluten free but also some sugar free stuff for those watching their girlish figure. I have been so pleased with the stuff I get from this bakery that I’ve basically made it my sole provider of gluten free goodness. Its been a long time since I have had soft fresh bread and first time I have had gf bread I thought actually tastes good.

So far I’ve tried the sourdough and banana bread. Along with that I’ve also had coffee cake which was so good the guys at work even liked it. One guy said it might be the best he’s had. I’ve also had some little cakes and other treats which were all delicious. The only thing I didn’t like but still thought was pretty good was the blueberry coffee cake and that was just because I don’t like blueberries as much as I thought.

Obviously I highly recommend this place. If you don’t have celiacs its even more worth a visit because the glutenous cakes and pastries they offer look incredible. If you do have celiacs this is a must stop no matter where you live.

http://www.rheinlanderbakery.com/

http://www.sweetdeliverance.com/

I just tried the gluten free Valencia Orange Cake from Starbucks and it was good. One of the better gf foods I have tried. It was also individually packaged to pevent cross contamination. Seriously, it was good. I wouldn’t recommend it to the lucky ones that can eat gluten, but for us freaks that can’t go grab one. Just not every day, $1.95 is kinda pricey.

Gluten Free Valencia Orange Cake

According to their blogStarbucks is going to offer gluten free Orange Valencia Cake. They even took precautions on cross contamination and its made with 7 ingredients. Unfortunately orange cake sounds disgusting. I wish they gf free scones or bear claws or something. I miss the glutens.

http://blogs.starbucks.com/blogs/customer/archive/2009/04/17/gluten-free-food-update.aspx

One of the guys I work with ate this stuff a couple weekends ago. It is seriously a wheat-meat steak. Yes, people eat pure wheat gluten. Now I completely understand eating bread and pasta, delicious foods that happen to have gluten in them. But pure gluten? Come on …

Well, its stuff for vegans that completely steer away from eating anything made from an animal. Or vegetarians as well who just don’t like meat. I like all food, including gluten. Unfortunately gluten does not like me.

But now I wonder, perhaps I’m holier than thou? I would assume so seeing as the only food I can’t eat is called Seitan, pronounced “Satan” or say-tahn.

It looks disgusting too.

I just found out rice Chex is gluten free. They actually changed an ingredient to make it so. Awesome! Chex mix, trail mix, carbs? idk about carbs. I was searching for foods with lots of carbs for cycling and stumbled across Chex from this site. www.teamglutenfree.org Yep, a team of runners/cyclists for Celiacs. I’m actually thinking about seeing what I can do. Maybe I can get a jersey and get the guys at work to donate to the gluten free cause. I don’t know, I’m still accepting the whole gluten free thing. It seems so unbelievable. How can I be allergic to soo many tasty treats?

Here is the quote from the Chex site.

Without changing the crunchy, oven-toasted flavor of Rice Chex, General Mills has replaced barley malt with molasses resulting in a Gluten Free Cereal. General Mills has taken the requisite steps to prevent cross contamination and has tested the formula based on the proposed FDA standards. Questions & comments are welcome at 1-800-328-1144.