Gluten Free in the Whole Foods Stores

Gluten Free food is most easily found in health food stores. There is one store in particular I shall be reviewing today it is called....WHOLE FOODS!

Whole Foods has its own special brand of gluten free goodies. 


Their cookies and pies are still extremely delicious and sugary :) The Whole Foods brand of GF baked goods include cherry pies, molasses cookies, cupcakes, and biscuits...to name a few. Personally I highly recommend their molasses cookies along with their cherry pie. (Lovin' it!)
 Note: The Whole Foods Gluten Free Bakery actually has a testing lab AT their bakery. Samples of each finished product are tested for gluten.

Now the cookies and desserts are simply smashing but what about lunch and dinner? Each Whole Foods store differs slightly but on a whole (ha ha pun!) all their store locations have both a salad and a hot deli bar. Naturally the moment I hear Hot Deli Bar, images of pizzas, sandwiches, pastas, noodles, and chicken roast enter my mind. Whole Foods is a bit of a disappointment in this catagory however. In all the store locations I've visited, (mainly in the Seattle area) Whole Foods gluten free deli options simply were not up to par. In some store locations they serve gluten free pizza and paninis. (Paninis are fresh grilled sandwiches). I wouldn't put all your eggs in one basket however. Oftentimes Whole Foods is out of their gluten free pizzas, or they simply are not on the menu for the day. Whenever this happens to me I feel like boycotting Whole Foods. Of course I come running back as soon as their gluten free pizza is back in stock. I give their GF pizza four stars.
   Another factor to consider when visiting whole foods is the customer service. My family has found that in all the stores we've visited (several in Seattle and another in Maui) the deli customer service folks were sub-par on their knowledge of gluten free foods. They were not well informed of how to avoid cross contamination. And they did not always know whether or not their deli items were gluten free.

Rest assured however, that whichever Whole Foods store you choose to visit, at the very least there will be a large salad bar to eat from.
Check out their website to see if there is a Whole Foods Store near you.
http://www.wholefoodsmarket.com/

Gluten Free Cream Puff Recipe with Lactose Free Pastry Cream

Do you want to know a secret?
I love cream puffs. 
Do you want to hear a story?
Once upon a time there was a group of children who had a grand old time acting in a play. They had so much fun together but all that acting made them hungry. To ward of the hunger the nice Moms and Dads of these kids would bring snacks at intermission. All the kids loved snacks. Who doesn't? All the children loved it best when the parents brought cream puffs. All the kids except for one little girl. As the other children gobbled their cream puffs away in glorious bliss, this little girl watched the others with woeful eyes. Her heart nearly broke as she watched bite after bite of that beautiful dessert disappear down the other children's throats. She couldn't eat those cream puffs because she had food allergies to gluten and lactose. She didn't give up though. As she watched the other children eat those cream puffs she dreamed of the day when she would find and eat her own gluten free, lactose free cream puffs.
One day, years later, she found a recipe, tweaked it a little and voila...she had her cream puffs. I have this recipe for gluten free cream puffs posted below. These Cream Puffs are the truest definition of the word Fabulous. I filled them with pastry cream which is a type of pudding. You can also fill them with whipped cream, ice cream, or coconut cream if you choose.
 Special note I had to wash about 8 dishes by hand and 8 utensils in the dishwasher.(Just in case you care about how many dishes you have to clean)

Cream Puff Paste Recipe (makes approx. 12 largish cream puffs)
1/2 cup Water
4 T. Butter (or butter substitute)
1/2 T. Sugar
1/2 Cup SIFTED Key GF flour (recipe at bottom of blog)
3 Eggs (depending on how big your eggs are maybe 3)
1/2 tsp. vanilla

Preheat open to 400 degrees Farenheit. Put parchment paper on a pan.
Bring 3 eggs to room temperature. Beat the eggs lightly and set aside.
Boil water, butter, and sugar in a small saucepan. When the butter melts stir in the flour using a WOODEN spoon. Stir mixture over MEDIUM HEAT until the paste is oily and there is a crust on the bottom of the pot. Remove from heat.
This is what it should look like.

Now using the wooden spoon add in the eggs a little at a time. I added the eggs in increments of six, putting about 2 T. of egg into the mixture at each interval. Blend the eggs EXTRMELY well! If you don't completely mix the eggs in the mixture you could ruin the entire recipe! After you have added approxomitaely 2 1/2 eggs check the mixture. It should look something like this.

Cut a pastry bag to a diamater of about 4 cm. Spoon the paste into pastry bag and pipe onto prepared cookie sheets to about this size.

 The paste might be slightly runny, but do not worry. The paste will rise and rise and rise as it bakes like little bubbles in a lake except the cream puffs are in the oven not a lake. Anyways my point is that the cream puffs will literally PUFF UP. That is why they are called cream puffs. Bake for 22-28 min. The cream puffs should be golden and sound hollow when tapped. (Tap them gently or they will collapse). Be patient when your cream puffs are baking, if you open the oven door too soon your cream puffs could collapse.
 Drizzle your cream puffs with melted chocolate to make them look beautiful. Fill them with either whipped cream, whipped coconut cream, or ice cream. I filled my cream puffs with almond milk based pastry cream (aka vanilla pudding) The recipe is below.

Pastry Cream Recipe
3 egg yolks (room temperature)
2 Cups Lactose Free Milk (or Half n Half) or Almond Milk
1/2 cup sugar divided
5 T. Potato Starch
3 T. butter
1/2 tsp. vanilla

Tips: Make sure you don't have any egg whites mixed in with your egg yolks. The egg whites cook faster and will create lumps in your pudding.

Whisk eggs, 1/2 cup of milk, 1/4 cup of sugar and potato starch together in a medium sized steel bowl. (or any bowl just so its not plastic)
 Put  1 1/2 cups of milk in a saucepan along with 1/4 cup of sugar. Bring this to a boil over medium heat.
Next add about 1/3 of the heated milk and sugar into your egg mixture. Whisk constantly and briskly to combine. Now add the egg mixture to what is left of the milk mixture and set back on heat. Whisk briskly until the mixture thickens. Turn off heat and mix in the butter and vanilla. Allow your pastry cream to cool in the fridge before attempting to use in a recipe. 

Key Gluten Free Flour Recipe
2 cups Brown Rice Flour
2/3 cup Tapioca Flour
1/3 cup Potato Starch

Top Five Gluten Free Brands

 I have made a list. (Yipee!) of what I believe to be the top five gluten free brands overall.
I am not pretentious enough to act like I actually know what the top five gluten free brands are. But based on the gluten free food I've tasted over the years these brands have delivered delicious tasting products the most consistently.  If you don't believe me feel free to try them out yourselves. Each brand has their strengths and weaknesses. I have listed the brands in no particular order.

1. Glutino (They make wonderful cookies. Also their crackers are the best GF crackers I've ever tasted. Some of their products contain soy and corn however, which is problem for some folks.)

2. Pamela's (They have a terrific pancake flour blend. I also love their cake mixes.)

3. Gluten Free Pantry (Their mixes taste fantastic! Unfortunately they use lots of potato, corn, and tapioca starches in their flour blends, this makes their foods rather unhealthy. Still they taste terrific!)

4. Canyon Bakehouse makes delicious soft gluten fee bread. Their bread uses whole grains and is generally healthier than most GF breads out there. If you can find this bread near you I definitely recommend buying it.

5.Udi's bread is also great. Their bread makes fabulous toast. It is not as soft as Canyon Bakehouse's bread but it is still quite tasty. And while Udi's bread is not as nutritious as Canyon Bakehouse's bread, it really does taste good.

Dairy Free/Gluten Free New England Clam Chowder

        I'm sitting in the restaurant with my family gazing at the menu. My foodie heart sinks like the Titanic, as I realize the only thing I can have is a salad. I'm surrounded by beach decorations; driftwood, buoys, through the window I can see waves crashing against the sand. The perfect meal for this setting would be a bowl of clam chowder with saltine crackers. But no, cut out the crackers (I'm gluten free) and the clam chowder is also out of the question. The rich creamy soup is filled with lactose (I shudder at the word as I'm also lactose intolerant).
Has this ever happened to you? Well I'm glad to say I've finally found a delicious solution for my little dilemma. What do we do when the restaurants turn their back on us? We turn our backs on them and make the food ourselves!
Trust me folks this clam chowder is absolutely up to snuff. I originally got the recipe from foodnetwork.com  (great website!) and adapted it to make it free of lactose, dairy and gluten. If you think this recipe will disappoint you, it won't. A couple of notes before you begin.


1. Don't overcook your soup or the clams will give your soup a grayish tint. Just follow the recipe and you'll be fine.

2. The half n half gives the soup a more traditional cream color. The Almond milk on the other hand will make your soup gray tinted.
(I tried both milks and loved both results. The almond milk is definitely healthier, but the half n half looks prettier.)

3. Lastly you never want to rush yourself the first time you've tried a recipe. If this is your first time making clam chowder take your time and be thorough. (I have tried rushing recipes I've never tried before and believe me it does not work out.)

Ingredients

2 tablespoons unsalted butter (or butter substitute if your dairy free)
1 medium onion, finely diced
2 celery stalks (reserve tender leaves) trimmed, quartered lengthwise, then sliced into 1/4-inch pieces
3 tablespoons Key Gluten Free Flour (or other all purpose gluten free flour)
2 cups chicken or vegetable stock
2 (10-ounce) cans chopped clams in juice
1 cup Almond Milk or Lactose Free Half an Half
2 bay leaves
1 pound potatoes, cut into 1/2- inch cubes
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
(Optional) Fry up some bacon and add as garnish.

Key Gluten Free Flour
2 cups Brown Rice Flour
2/3 cup Tapioca Flour
1/3 cup Potato Starch

Directions

Heat the butter in a large pot over medium-high heat. Add the onion and celery and saute until softened, mixing often. Stir in the flour to distribute evenly. Add the stock, juice from 2 cans of chopped clams (reserve clams), milk, bay leaves, and potatoes and stir to combine. Bring to a simmer, stirring consistently (the mixture will thicken), then reduce the heat to medium-low and cook 20 minutes, stirring often, until the potatoes are nice and tender. Then add clams and season to taste with salt and pepper, cook until clams are just firm, another 2 minutes.