gluten-freelicious

I adapted this banana bran muffin recipe from allrecipes.com today, and my son promptly declared them “the bestest muffins” I’ve ever made. They are, indeed, quite scrumptious! They are sweet, flavorful, and moist, and the oatmeal gives them a bit of a chewy texture. I wish the aroma that permeated the house while they were baking was edible…it alone was fantastic!

Banana Muffins

2 cups Pamela’s Baking and Pancake Mix
1 cup oat bran (I just ground one cup of Bob’s Red Mill Gluten Free Oats to a consistency somewhere between oats and oat flour.)
1 TBSP cinnamon
1/2 TSP ground nutmeg
1/4 TSP allspice
2 eggs
1 cup orange juice (I didn’t have any, so I used the juice from one large can of pineapple plus enough water to equal one cup.)
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1 cup mashed ripe bananas

In a large bowl, combine the first five ingredients. In another bowl, beat the eggs, juice, sugar, and oil. Stir into dry ingredients just until moistened. Fold in bananas. Fill greased or paper lined muffin cups almost to the top. Bake at 400 degrees F for 15-17 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. Cool for five minutes before removing from pans to wire racks. Serve warm.

When a calendar alarm went off thirty minutes before I usually wake up in the morning, I almost ignored it.  Thank goodness I didn’t!  Today is Marvelous Muffins with Dad at my son’s school, and, seeing as neither my son nor his dad can eat the gluten-ful muffins provided by the school, I needed to get baking!

My first thought was to make pumpkin muffins, but I had a cooked sweet potato in the refrigerator that begged to be used.  I’d had to substitute sweet potato for pumpkin in a recipe once before, and it was a victory in trial by error.  So, despite the fact that it added precious minutes to my dwindling preparation time, sweet potato it was.  I sliced off the skin and threw that sucker in the food processor.  (If you don’t happen to have a cooked sweet potato in the refrigerator, as I did, and time is of the essence, use one can of pumpkin instead.)

This recipe, thank goodness, is quick and easy (assuming the sweet potato is already cooked); I was able to whip up a tasty batch of muffins in a total of 45 minutes.  The muffins are moist, incredibly sweet, and, indeed, marvelous.

So.  Yum.

Sweet Potato Muffins (Adapted from Pamela’s Pumpkin Loaf Cake with Nut Topping)

Muffins:
4 TBSP butter, melted
2 eggs, large
1/2 cup sugar
1 large sweet potato, pureed or mashed to smooth consistency
1-1/3 cups Pamela’s Mix
2 tsp pumpkin pie spice
1/2 tsp salt

Topping:
2 TBSP melted butter
1/3 cup of packed brown sugar (I used raw cane sugar)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Beat together butter, sugar, egg, and sweet potato.  Add remaining muffin ingredients and mix completely.  Pour into 12 muffin cups.  Mix topping and smooth evenly over batter.  Bake for 25-30 minutes, or when toothpick inserted comes out almost clean.  ENJOY!

Annie's GF Bunny Cookies

Can I just tell you how excited I was to find a “cute” gluten-free snack for my kids?!  No, really.  I can’t quite explain the thrill I felt at discovering these little bunny shaped cookies.  Since we are now not only gluten-free but mostly all natural/organic as well, “cute” and “cool” seem to have been taken off the menu.  No more rainbow colors.  No more super heroes.  No more fun.

So…YEA!  Bunny shapes!  Does it even matter how they taste?  No!

Okay, so maybe it matters a little bit.

Annie’s Homegrown Gluten Free Cocoa & Vanilla Bunny Cookies are, according to my boys, “good!”  The chocolate cookies taste like any other chocolate cookie to me…yummy.  They remind me of chocolate Teddy Grahams, which I could eat by the handful.  The vanilla is a bit chalkier, as seems to be the case with all gluten-free vanilla cookies, but the flavor is good.

These little bunnies are cute and tasty!  How much does that rock?

Key Lime Pie Larabar

Most days of the week, most hours of the day, I would tell you that living gluten-free is not hard.  It would be a far stretch to say that it is easy, but it is not nearly as difficult as I imagined it to be.  That said, finding tasty, nutritious, minimally processed snack foods can be tough, and doing so has been my most frustrating challenge.  So, when I first discovered Larabar’s Key Lime Pie fruit and nut bars, I was in gluten-free snack heaven.

We have tried quite a few flavors of Larabar over the years, and I have liked them all well enough, but Key Lime Pie is by far my favorite.  All Larabars are made with some combination of fruit, nuts, and spices, and the list of ingredients is always pleasantly short and wholesome.  Key Lime Pie is no exception; it’s the perfect combination of dates, cashews, almonds, unsweetened coconut, and lime juice concentrate.  The smooth texture of this Larabar exceeds any other I have tried, and I love the subtle, but not overpowering, lime flavor.  No lip-puckering here.  I dare say even coconut haters will like this bar.  It’s just that good.

Larabar offers a wide variety of flavors, and there are a few I am anxious to try.  Banana Bread, Cinnamon Roll, and Ginger Snap sound especially gluten-freelicious.  What is your favorite Larabar flavor?

Glutino Pretzel Sticks

Glutino Pretzels are a gluten-free favorite in our house.

When I first saw Glutino Pretzel Twists in the grocery store, not too long after making our home gluten-free, I laughed out loud.  I thought, Gluten-free pretzels?!  Yeah, right. We hadn’t tried many gluten-free snacks at that point, at least not many edible ones, so I was highly skeptical.  I’m not sure how many times I passed them by.  I’d often pick up the bag, ponder the idea of a gluten-free pretzel, and hastily put them back on the shelf.

After a while, I grew desperate.  We’d eaten our fill of popcorn and rice cakes.  Mid-morning, my youngest son would shout, “Hungy!  Hungy!” and shake his head at everything I offered.  We needed some variety.  The next time I passed Glutino Pretzels in the store, I took the plunge, and threw a bag in my grocery cart.

I opened the bag, and, Holy Moly! They look like pretzels!  I took a bite, and, Whoa! They taste like pretzels!  They are light and crisp with a subtle butter flavor and just the right amount of salt.  They are really good!

Pretzels were a missed snack in our house.  My oldest son was thrilled; he loves Glutino Pretzels and often takes a bag to preschool for snack.  His younger brother nods enthusiastically when I offer “petsils” and shoves a frightening two or three in his mouth at a time.  I love to dip them in peanut butter.

That’s the good.  Here’s the bad.  Because they are made with palm oil, they have a higher fat content than gluten-ful pretzels.  This is not an issue for my twiggy boys, but I eat them in moderation.  Now for the ugly.  Glutino Pretzels are expensive at $6-8 a bag in our grocery stores.  I paid $8 for our first bag of pretzels, but now that I know where to find them for $6, I give the $8 bag dirty looks when I pass it by.  It’s unfortunate they are so expensive, but the price of a gluten-free diet is almost always high.

Glutino Gluten-Free Pretzels taste just like the real thing.  They make the gluten-freelicious Top 10!

It’s perfect, right?  I have my breakfast strategically placed on the table so I can take some quick shots for my post today, when a hand slips in to grab a few tasty morsels, proving just how irresistible they are.

Cinnamon Chex Cereal

Alright, maybe irresistible is a bit of a stretch, but they are downright tasty.  Cinnamon Chex is a nice blend of sinfully sweet and wholesome goodness.  The flavor is reminiscent of one of my all-time favorites, Cinnamon Toast Crunch, but with less fat, sodium, and sugar, and more protein…oh, and no gluten!

The cereal combines the now gluten-free Rice Chex and Corn Chex.  Some pieces are coated with cinnamon, while others are plain, and the ratio is just about perfect.  Beware, the gratifying crunch does not last long when milk is added.  That, however, is seldom a problem here, as bowls of Cinnamon Chex seem to empty as rapidly as they are filled.

A box of Cinnamon Chex lasts only moments in our house, because it is satisfying at any time of day.  Whether you crave a bowl of sweet cereal with milk in the morning, a dry handful or two to snack on in the afternoon, or a guiltless dessert at night, Cinnamon Chex is there.

Note: Chex now has six gluten-free cereals and a plethora of gluten-free Chex recipes.  I can’t wait to try them!