Review – Page 4 – in thriver words

Two Birds With One Stone – Gluten-Free Birds No Less!

During a weekend grocery store run, I inadvertently killed two birds with one stone. I love it when I can use a cliché! And it’s even better when I can use that cliché to refer to serendipitous discoveries that solve two major annoyances of the gluten-free world!

If you often rely on salads as the gluten-free option on restaurant menus, you probably know how it feels to have to resort to oil and vinegar as dressing because you can’t get enough information to determine if the other available dressings are safe. I’m not sure why it seems more difficult to find out about dressing than it does about entrées, but I always feel like it’s a more laborious process.

One local restaurant’s response to an inquiry was to pull out a binder filled with plastic sheets containing handwritten dressing recipes and let me read all of them. Another took me into the kitchen and pulled gallon plastic jugs off the shelf so I could read the ingredient list. My favorite barbecue restaurant has 7 different individually packaged dressings that contain too many questionable ingredients for me feel comfortable eating them. That’s just 3 of the places I frequent. Overall, the dressing dilemma is often cumbersome.

Carrying dressing with me is also cumbersome or limited to tiny packets. That’s why I was excited to see this silicone Dressing-2-Go container. First, I think it’s cute and the tops come in multiple colors. I also like that it’s soft and has a large opening that makes it easy to fill and easy to dispense without leaving much of the dressing stuck in the container. The packaging indicates this product is BPA free, top rack dishwasher safe, and safe for use in the refrigerator, freezer, and microwave.

Because of the snap shut top, I would not throw this into my purse without first putting it in a plastic bag. With all the heavy stuff I carry, I can see it bumping against an obstacle that could press on the silicone and cause the top to leak and I’d rather be safe than sorry. Nonetheless, my salad dressing options have just increased and that is a good thing! One bird down.

The same grocery shopping trip resulted in my discovery of these .32 oz packets of xanthan gum from Hodgson Mill. Even this small packet contains about 8 servings. I hardly ever use xanthan gum in a recipe so I’ve always been annoyed at the 6 and 8 oz containers that are generally available. I don’t really know the shelf life of xanthan gum, but I’ve had about 7.5 oz of an 8 oz bag sitting in my pantry for 5 years. It’s probably time to throw it away – especially now that I have this tiny packet on hand if I should encounter a xanthan gum crisis. Old xanthan gum thrown in the trash! Two birds down.
xg packet
I think that’s enough birds for today. I’m grateful for my new discoveries, the delicious salad I had for lunch, my single working air conditioner, a 95º rather than 102º day, and the beautiful begonias blooming on my porch. I hope your day is filled with fun discoveries too!

Product websites:
http://www.evriholder.com/categories/kitchen/600-dressing-2-go
http://www.hodgsonmill.com/

Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the brands, products, or services that I have mentioned. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”

Great Snacks Can Come in Small Packages!

Being 5’1″ tall, I’ve always liked the saying “great things come in small packages”, so I’m especially pleased to find that great snacks can come in small packages as well! Of course it took getting me out of my normal environment for me to notice, but on a couple of recent trips I discovered some tiny morsels of cheesy goodness.

It started with a trip to Trader Joe’s where I bought a small mesh bag of bite sized Brie rounds individually packaged in small plastic tubs. I paired these with fresh golden cherries that I stored in the mini fridge in my hotel room. The packaging makes tiny Brie an easy-to-carry airplane snack, but these didn’t last long enough to make the return trip.

When I returned home, I took a look at the local grocery and discovered that there are small serving cheese snacks here too. Not only can I buy Brie bites, I can get fresh mozzarella in this cute little packaging.
Small package

I’m excited about this because I often need just a tiny bit of mozzarella and don’t want to have to invent ways to use the rest of a large package before it spoils. Last night, I took some fresh yellow tomatoes to a Labor Day party. They were homegrown and bursting with such flavor that I really wanted them to star as my contribution to the menu, but I also wanted them to look like a finished dish.

I sliced the tomatoes, sprinkled them with a small amount of salt, then sliced a snack package of mozzarella and placed it over the top with a few snips of fresh basil. The result was beautiful and delicious. The cheese and basil added a nice finishing touch without overpowering the tomatoes themselves.
Tomato with mozzarella

This morning, I grabbed a snack bag of cheese chunks out of the fridge to eat for breakfast. It’s the perfect size for a meal that includes the word petit, which it does when we pretend we are sophisticated and speak the 5 words of French we know with a heavy accent. Hey, sometimes we sing our every move as if we live in an opera, too. You can never overestimate the silliness that occurs in our kitchen, but I digress.
Bags of Cheese

I discovered these little bags of cheese when I was meeting my Mom for lunch the other day. She lives about 3 hours away, and I was driving through town, so we met at a health food market that serves lunch. Lucky for me, they sell cheese snacks, too. I couldn’t seem to manage to buy just one bag for the road resulting in plenty of left for un petit déjeuner treat.

Today I’m heading out to do some shopping. I’ll keep my eyes peeled for even more mini fun. Let me know below if you have a favorite snack that comes in a small package.

Happy Labor Day!

The BEST Gluten-Free Chocolate Chip Cookies in the World?

This box promised me “The best Gluten-Free Chocolate Chip Cookies in the World!” – now that’s a big promise. Of course, the way I see it, it’s also a challenge. I will take that challenge and see if these cookies live up to the hype!

Bart & Judy Greenhut’s cookies stood out on the shelves because of the retro-rustic looking packaging. I was immediately drawn to the plain paperboard box with its retro graphics. Then there were the enticements listed on the box: Best in the World, Imported Belgian Chocolate, Little Bites of Happiness, No GMO’s – and that’s just the front of the box. The top contained a warning not to consume in an environment requiring my complete attention because it could lead to personal injury.

The back of the box had a personal anecdote from Bart, Judy, and their son, Jordan. It mentioned Steve Jobs. You think reading the cereal box in the morning is entertaining? You could spend weeks on this box. It has a side full of quotes, a side full of nutritional information, and an inside filled with poetry, Bart’s life observations, and a thank-you.

Before you even get to the oxygen-barrier foil bag or the folded insert, it is clear that Bart & Judy have a much larger mission than bringing you delicious cookies. While there’s a part of me that momentarily felt they were forcing the issue a little too hard, I was drawn back in by their obvious sense of humor and dedication to putting their money where my mouth is.

According to the box insert, Bart & Judy had the courage to sell their house to buy a 100′ oven to begin baking these cookies. Inspired on a trip to Paris, they embarked on a new career at the ages when many people retire.

Having passed the age at which I’m allowed to swim at the “senior center”, I am well aware that many of us begin to question what we’ve been doing and explore our options as we age, but I know few who decide what they want and go for it full speed ahead. For this reason alone, I’d buy these cookies at $5.49 per 4.2 oz box. I admire this kind of gutsy determination.

So what do you get for $5.49 per box? 45 – 50 crunchy cookies about the size of a nickel or a quarter. They’re handmade so they all vary. The point is that they’re very small. A whole box is 480 calories. That’s 4 servings with 11 cookies per serving.

Total carbs per serving is 12.2 grams. That’s not bad for a dessert. The question is whether you can limit yourself to one serving. The cookies are delicious and not overly sweet. Of course, I followed the instructions to let them “breathe” for 10 minutes after opening the package. There’s no odd aftertaste and no weird texture, but if you like chewy cookies you will not be happy because they are CRUNCHY! I don’t know if they’re the best in the world, but they are hands-down the best packaged gluten-free cookies I’ve tried.

Celiacs are warned that while the ingredients are gluten-free, the cookies are prepared in a kitchen where other cookies containing wheat, milk, and tree nuts are also prepared. Ingredients and equipment are kept segregated, so consumption will come down to a judgment call. I tasted these two days ago and again yesterday and have suffered no ill effects.

And the content doesn’t stop with the cookies and the box. There are quotes contained in each foil bag. You can submit a quote to be included. Some inserts contain a holographic serial number that let’s you register online to receive “Fun and Thanks”. The rewards are secret other than an occasional give-away of a trip for two to Paris, but if I’m going to blindly jump on a roller coaster ride, Bart & Judy seem to be the kind of people I’d want to ride with so I have registered. We’ll see what happens.

You can check out the team, the quotes, the philosophy, and the products at www.bartsbakery.com.

Have you tried these cookies? If so, let us know what you think.