my GF lunch 05/09/11

Top Tier: Nature  Valley Granola Bar, carrot stix

Bottom Tier: navel orange, carrot stix

bowl: green salad and Sabra hummous

Mr. Quayle's lunch 05/09/11

Left: Ground turkey seasoned with Shake n Bake, tomatoes, radish, mozzarella cheese, scallions

Right: red seedless grapes,  strawberry fruit rolls

Lagniappe: flour tortillas

Mr. Quayle's lunch 05/08/11

Top tier: Strawberry Twizzlers, red seedless grapes, Chips Ahoy cookies

Bottom Tier: Lipton Cheese n Broccoli noodles w/leftover hot dog and scallions

Lagniappe: 2 buttered scones

Was I ever glad I did! I can’t remember the last time I had an english muffin and these weren’t muffins in the crumpety-Thomas’s sense but solid, scored muffins which did NOT crumble in my toaster, went great with peanut butter and jam and let me say again did NOT crumble!

I don’t have much to complain about here. They’re nice, solid looking baked goods with good colour, good taste, good weight (not too light, not too heavy) and were 210 calories for a whole muffin, so 2 halves. They’d be great for homemade Egg McMuffins or even under country gravy or hey, why not red beans and rice? Love um. love um, love um

Tasty Factor: yum! Hold up excellently in a toaster and don’t get soggy under jam.

Poopy Factor: they are a tad heavy but already scored so that’s a plus.

But back to my topic. Husband gets way more excited about GF stuff than I do-mainly I don’t buy any ‘GF’ grains or breads, I stick to naturally GF items such as corn or rice to begin with. He talked me into getting a few things and one of those things was a bag of their GF Ginger Snaps.

Let the raving start here. I’ve never been a huge fan of ginger snaps or gingerbread for that matter and I like my bikkies crispy, not chewy. But hands down to Trader Joe’s Ginger Snaps. For one, 1.99 a bag wasn’t bad at all. For two, there’s 5 to a serving at 140 calories so that’s awesome because so often GF foods are much higher in calories than their gluten-y counterparts. And for thre, they have just the right bite, just the right sweetness, just the right outer crunch and inner softness and they even look like ‘real’ bikkies. Get yourself over to Trader Joe’s and get a bag and make sure you don’t spare the tea.

Tasty Factor: delicious.

Poopy Factor: Husband claims byvirtue of not having gluten, they’re just poopy anyway. Which means he has to insult them because I didn’t offer him any.

Ingredients:

Bob’s Red Mill Biscuit Mix(+ 1/2 c butter, 6-8 tbs water)

2-3 tbs Pataks Rojan Josh paste

1/4c Pataks sweet Mango Chutney

1/4 c chopped green onions

2 tsp cumin

2 tsp garlic powder

1/2 large beefstake tomato, chopped

1/2 c shredded  mozzarella cheese

3-4 tbs olive oil

Crust: prepare crust according to the directions for pie crust on the back of the biscuit mix package. Roll out and place in a greased 9″ glass pie plate. Cook on 450F for 1 min. Remove from oven and proceed.

Pizza: drizzle the crust with half of the olive oil. Scatter over cumin and garlic salt, then evenly spread over rogan josh paste and chutney. Arrange thin slices of tomato on top and scatter over green onions. Drizzle the remaining oil and top with cheese. Bake another 10 minutes.

Tasty Factor: Great taste. Crust isn’t exactly like pizza but good enough and cuts well. The chutney balances out the spice of the curry.

Poopy Factor: It’s a little sloppy. Some sausage slices might balance it out. The dough was a little difficult to get into the pie plate.

But inevitably I started to hanker for some treats I wouldn’t normally have a lot of and one of those things was banana bread. Simple, uncomplicated, uses up the ripe nanners nobody wants to eat and oh so good with butter. So I happened to have a bunch and needed to use up my Bob’s Red Mill flour and the two just came together in harmony.

banana batter

I modified the recipe for Banana Bread on the back of my package of Gluten Free All Purpose Baking Flour:

1/3 c corn oil

2/3 c packed brown sugar

2 large eggs

2 tsp vanilla (theirs called for 1tsp)

1 c GF all purpose flour (theirs called for 1 3/4c)

3/4 c tapioca flour

2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp cinnamon (theirs called for 1 1/4 tsp)

1/2 tsp allspice

1 tsp xanthan gum

1/2 tsp salt

2 c mashed banana (theirs called for 1 1/2c)

1/2 c roasted pumpkin seeds (theirs called for 1/2 c chopped pecans or walnuts)

2 tbs flax seeds (theirs called for 1/2 c raisins)

Oven to 350F. Grease a glass loaf pan. Beat together all wet ingredients excepting the bananas. Sift dry ingredients separately and add alternately with bananas to batter. Pour in pan and bake 1 hour.

Tasty Factor: the taste is awesome and so is the texture. This was easy enough for me to do and do well. It holds up enough to actually pick up and eat.

Poopy Factor: Husband wasn’t so keen on the pumpkin seeds but hey, I had to use them up somehow.