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Incredible Gluten-Free Broths

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When Dee Valdez (aka Gluten-Free Dee) represents a gluten-free product, you can bet it’s going to be a top of the line item. Dee is the person who implores us all to return bad tasting gluten-free products for a refund so that retailers will know they need to rethink their buying policies. Just because a company is big doesn’t mean their products are the best on the market. That fact became very apparent to me shortly after I began trying gluten-free replacement type foods like pizza, crackers and bagels.

Several weeks ago, a box arrived from Savory Choice. Inside the package were four small boxes of concentrated broths including chicken, beef, low sodium vegetable and low sodium chicken. There were four small pouches – or sticks – inside each small box, making the product quite environmentally friendly. There is no MSG in the concentrated broths and they are made with all natural ingredients. Each pouch makes one cup of broth when mixed with hot water.

Since I was sick with a cold the day the broths arrived, I had a cup of the Savory Choice chicken broth for lunch and I could not believe how delicious it was. Most chicken broths taste the same to me. At least they have until now. Sure, they all have a chicken flavor, but the Savory Choice concentrated broth has a very strong chicken flavor unlike other similar products. It sounds odd, but the broth was almost creamy because it was so velvety smooth.

Interestingly, the regular chicken broth contains 15 calories per cup but the low sodium version has 25. Those two flavors and the beef flavor contain 1g of fat per serving. The vegetable broth has 0g of fat and 20 calories per serving. There are a lot of recipes on the Savory Choice website, but remember to use only gluten-free ingredients if you experiment with the recipes.

It’s still relatively surprising to me that these concentrated broths taste as exceptional as they do. Whatever makes them so great is not really evident from the ingredients. Maybe it’s the simplicity of the ingredients and what is not in them that makes the products so tasty. Website excerpt:

Savory Choice® is brought to you by Savory Creations International. Founded in 2003 by a team of experts with over 30 years experience in the food industry, Savory Creations International mission is to develop, manufacture, and distribute competitively priced food products that use only the highest-quality natural flavors and ingredients.

We’re committed to delivering only “Clean Label” products that contain no chemical additives such Monosodium Glutamate (MSG), hydrolyzed vegetable proteins (HVPs), or Disodium Inosonate + Disodium Guanalate (I + G).

Savory Choice is a line of exceptional liquid broth concentrates made from natural ingredients. Developed using proprietary natural flavor technologies the result is superior taste, aroma, and overall quality.

Savory Choice products can be purchased online and orders of $25 or more qualify for free shipping. There are 4-stick and 12-stick boxes available for some of the broths. I delightedly discovered that some of the Savory Choice broths are sold at Natural Foods Warehouse in Duluth but according to this where to buy page, the concentrated broths are available at Kroger and Publix stores in GA as well.

*Special thanks to Savory Choice for my review samples and to gluten-free Dee for representing such exceptional companies!

Review: Steamer Clams from Trader Joe’s

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Most of us can appreciate food items that allow us to make easy and quick dinners. If you’re not gluten-free, there are countless items that make that possible, but for the gluten-free set, options are more limited. When I noticed that the box of Steamer Clams with garlic butter sauce in the freezer at Trader Joe’s was sporting their signature “g” symbol, I decided to buy it.

The clams are very easy to prepare. You put the frozen contents of the box into a hot pan, cover it and in about eight minutes the clams are ready. Before I started cooking the clams, I started sauteing some asparagus and boiling some Tagliatelle pasta from Schar. Because the sauce in the clam pan was so watery (and not very flavorful), I decided to mix a little pesto sauce with the cooked pasta. This last-minute decision turned out to save dinner.

All of the clams opened up during the cooking cycle and there was just a little sauce – or rather a broth – in the pan when they were ready. Clams are not my favorite type of seafood, but they’re fine to have every so often. For some reason, we have not had clams in well over a year. Even so, when I tasted the clams from Trader Joe’s, I remembered the taste of the canned clams we used to eat. Surprisingly, the canned version was better than the ones at this dinner.

The ingredients in the clams are simple and easy to pronounce. That is something I’m always looking for with prepared items. The ingredients include clams, butter, cream (milk), salt, garlic, modified cornstarch, natural butter flavor, lemon, parsley, citric acid, and spices. That sounds like something that would taste good to me. However, a blander dish of clams I’ve never had. It’s hard to believe that there was any garlic in them because they neither smelled nor tasted like that was the case.

The Schar pasta was excellent as always and it’s a good thing I’d added the pesto sauce to it before topping it with the very flavorless clams. I ate very few clams but did have a bit of extra pasta. We usually have the Schar pasta with cream or red sauce and were pleased that it was so good with very little adornment. When I say I used a little pesto sauce ­- I mean there was only a tiny bit of it.

In the past, we’ve enjoyed many prepared dinners from Trader Joe’s that are gluten-free. In fact, I think the steamer clam entree is the only one that we were not impressed even slightly with. The package says there are three 70-calorie servings in it, but it was at best two servings for us.

Is Sushi Gluten-Free?

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I realized this is a tougher question than I thought, two days ago.  The immediate response may be, sure it is, because it is mainly rice and raw fish…seems pretty safe, right?  Wrong.

Sushi seems like is should be pretty straight-forward and in some cases it can be, but in others hidden gluten can innocently be missed. The other night we went out for sushi for the first time in a while.  I am usually so up on my game when checking out if a restaurant is safe by calling ahead of time, looking up reviews, but this caught me totally by surprise.  I knew to stay away from the imitation crab, which contains gluten, and regular soy sauce, as well as some wasabi (which can sometimes contain wheat), but this was a new one to me.

I was totally looking forward to having sushi, so we get to a nice sushi restaurant that I have wanted to try for years, and as soon as we sit down, I ask if they happen to have gluten-free soy sauce.  They do – bonus, because I forgot mine. I ask if this fish has been marinated in anything, they tell me that no, it is plain fish unless we order a roll with sauce.  Great.  Next I ask about some non-sushi dishes to order as a side and ask if those sauces would be free of gluten and safe and they tell me no, everything has soy sauce.  Fair enough.  We order drinks, order our sushi, and my mouth is watering in anticipation of this meal.  Next, the server comes to our table and tells me that the sushi rice has a sauce with vinegar and wheat in it.  What???  With this new piece of information, we decided to leave, because now, I couldn’t even eat sushi, so really there was nothing to eat except maybe steamed edamame.

We decided to try another sushi place, Ru San’s, which is a local Atlanta chain of reasonably priced and unique sushi combinations.  Plus, I had remembered that I read a review on Yelp, of someone saying they were gluten-free and ate there regularly.  I decided to play it safe anyway, and called them on the ride over to confirm their rice was safe.  I would never even of thought that sushi was rice was something I needed to question, but now I know.  Ru San’s confirmed their rice was safe, so I picked up a bottle of gluten-free tamari and we were on our way.

Not only was their sushi safe (as long as you stay away from the imitation crab, tempura and any rolls that come with sauces, such as spicy tuna), they made us fried rice using our gluten-free soy sauce.  They also told me that they usually do have gluten-free soy sauce on hand, but didn’t that night.  I am glad I came prepared.

I have also heard that some places will put sesame seed mixtures on the outside of the rolls, and some of these mixtures contain wheat.  Ru San’s used plain sesame seeds, but when I looked at a bottle of sesame seed seasoning mix on the table, I saw that it contained sesame seeds, seaweed and wheat, so be sure to ask that they are not using that on your rolls.

In my pre-celiac days, I liked to start a sushi meal with miso soup and salad with ginger dressing, but now it is important to ask what ingredients go into the soup and salad dressing before ordering.

Sushi can be an easy meal to enjoy gluten-free if you know what questions to ask and where to know where there might be hidden gluten.  Be sure to ask about any seasoning in the sushi rice; any kind of seasoning on the fish; and the sauces used in some sushi rolls. And always remember to bring your own soy sauce and stay away from the imitation crab.

Review: Gluten-Free Cheese Crackers

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Cheez-It crackers were one of my favorite crackers when I was growing up. As an adult, I tended to buy gourmet type cheese straws, but if someone was serving Cheez-It crackers, I’d definitely nosh on them. After an extensive two year search, I found the best gluten-free version of a Cheez-It I’ve had to date, but the bakery that made them discontinued them. They were really fabulous and still rank number one in my book.

There are several gluten-free cheese crackers worth trying. Only two of them are items I’ve bought more than once, but everyone has different tastes. Aside from the discontinued crackers, The Grainless Baker has the best cheese crackers around. At least that’s true of the brands I’ve tried. Their Cheddar Snackers are delicious! The old version was more like a cheese straw (except for the shape) and the new version is more like a gourmet crispy cheese cracker.

Glutino makes cheese crackers which to me don’t have a very cheesy flavor. I’m a cheese snob of sorts and I think that I’m a cheese cracker snob too. Many people love the Glutino Cheese Crackers and when I tasted them, I thought I’d purchased the plain version by mistake. By contrast, the Glutino Vegetable Crackers are divine. Interestingly, they look like a cheese cracker due to the tomatoes in them.

Recently, when heading into town to meet a friend for lunch, I realized I would drive right by Return to Eden so I popped in quickly to pick up the Schar Cheese Bites. I’d heard good things about them and I enjoy many items from the Italian company. Their gluten-free pasta is divine! The small bag of Schar cheese crackers was kind of pricey, but right in line with other gluten-free cracker prices.

When I opened the Schar crackers, I noticed there were different shapes of them. I thought about how nice they would look in a serving dish for a party. If only the snack tasted as good as it looked. It was the fourth best gluten-free cheese cracker I’ve had, though it runs circles around the Glutino version. However, it was not good enough for me to buy again. There is an unpleasant aftertaste that I can’t quite finger. I’m hoping to use up the rest of the bag in a recipe that calls for cheese cracker crumbs. Otherwise, I’ll have to give them away because my husband doesn’t like crackers of any kind.

I’ve made these cheese straws before with the all-purpose flour from gluten-free Pantry and they were phenomenal. They’re a great option for a party. When only one person in the house eats crackers they are not a reasonable option to make as they do not freeze well. The Kitchen Table Bakers Cheese Crisps are absolutely superb and I’m looking forward to trying the smaller size crisps they recently released.

It’s wonderful to have so many gluten-free cheese cracker options, but for now, the gluten-free Cheez-It still eludes me. If anyone knows of another gluten-free cheese cracker (that I don’t have to make myself), I’d love to hear about it!

Review: Trader Joe’s Baked Cheese Crunchies

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When I was growing up, Cheetos were my favorite snack. We had those value packs that included various Frito-Lay products in the house at all times. As an adult, I was more likely to indulge in potato chips and onion dip than Cheetos, but when I was diagnosed with celiac I was relieved to find out that Cheetos were indeed gluten-free.

Shortly after I started eating gluten-free, I figured out (with the help of a gluten-eating friend) that MSG didn’t like me anymore. I’m sure I ate more than my fair share of the additive without issue for years. However, it’s common for people who start eating clean (consuming mostly whole foods and items made with real ingredients) to react to additives that didn’t bother them before. It was unfortunate when I found out that Cheetos had MSG in them. Eventually, a healthier version of Cheetos came out, but they were not the same as the original version for obvious reasons.

Frito-Lay Cheetos are still gluten-free and there are many Cheetos-type products on the market that are labeled gluten-free that don’t contain MSG. I’ve tried most of them and haven’t been blown away enough to purchase any of the products again. So, naturally, when I noticed the gluten-free (or ‘g’ symbol) on something that looked like Cheetos at Trader Joes, I threw the bag in the cart. It wasn’t until after I got home that I found out that the product was marked as reduced fat or something to that effect.

Not surprisingly, the Baked Cheese Crunchies were not very good. They tasted a little like low-fat Cheetos. The snack was dry and not very cheesy, despite the very Cheetos-like color. It’s a good thing that overall the snack is fairly healthy, but if something doesn’t taste good, it’s not for me. Life is too short to eat food you don’t like whether you can eat gluten or not.

I’m actually glad that the Trader Joe’s snack didn’t appeal to me. After a previous shopping trip where I’d picked up multiple bags of chip-type snacks, my husband asked if I was planning on opening a 7-Eleven store. Yes, I need another snack food like I need a hole in the head. Gluten-free chips and snacks are not hard to come by these days. Some are labeled gluten-free and some are not but either way, there is definitely something to appeal to everyone.