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Review: Rhythm Chips

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There are so many tasty gluten-free snacks on the market today, we definitely don’t lack from choice. However, many of these snacks are processed and made with refined flours where a good piece of fruit would be the healthier option.  Plain fruit, nuts and vegetables are great, but when a new snack comes out that is naturally gluten-free and made up one of the world’s healthiest vegetables, I have to try it!

The company Daily Juice, based in Austin, TX, was kind enough to send me some samples of their raw all natural Rhythm Chips, which are made out of kale.  Kale is in the same family as cabbage, collard greens and broccoli and is full of health benefits, an excellent source of vitamins and packed with fiber, but kale is not something we usually come across as much as its family members.

Rhythm Chips are raw, vegan, gluten-free, cholesterol-free and GMO-free.  They are available in Bombay Curry, Kool Ranch and Zesty Nacho.  Each flavor uses natural and raw ingredients to create the flavors, and note that some do contain nuts.

I was incredibly surprised with how tasty these were.  I have never really had much kale before or many store-bought raw veggie snacks, so I was a bit skeptical.  Since I love Indian, I tried the Bombay Curry first and when I opened the package and took a look, I must admit, my first thought was of a college party snack that is not quite legal.  Once I got past that, I was really impressed by these chips and the Bombay Curry flavor.  I am not sure it tasted necessarily like curry to me, but the combination of the ingredients (kale, zucchini, carrot, onion, coconut, lemon juice, ginger, vegan nutritional yeast, apple cider vinegar, cilantro, spices and sea salt) made it delicious and definitely my favorite of the threesome.  My second favorite was the Kool Ranch, which was interesting to me, because I am not usually a fan of ranch-flavored items, but these were yummy.  The Zesty Nacho was also incredibly good, and all three make a great snack.  My husband agreed and really liked them all, with the Kool Ranch being his favorite.

We decided these make a great nutritional snack on the go, and a nice change from the standard apple or banana. Plus, a much healthier option than standard corn chips or pretzels (even though those taste good too!)

They come in 2 oz bags, which contain two servings at 101 calories, 2g of fiber and 4g of protein per serving. The chips do break apart pretty easily so be careful not to pack them at the bottom of your bag or purse. Also important to note, each bag contains a desiccant packet to keep the chips fresh and crisp, so be sure not to eat it.

Rhythm Chips can be found at Whole Foods, as well as other speciality and local health food stores, and retail for about $5.99 a bag.  They are also available online on their web site for $29.99 for a 6-pack.

Thai Kitchen Gluten-Free Products

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While I try not to keep a lot of processed foods in the house, when I do, I often turn to Thai Kitchen. Not only are their products clearly labeled, but they have a list of all of their allergens online. On nights that I do end up using something from a box, I try to add my own fresh vegetables and a salad to round out the meal. Salads & vegetables are easy to prepare. To simplify meal time even more, I have my veggies already cleaned & ready to go in the refrigerator.

More about Thai cooking:

Beyond the flavors and health benefits, Thai cuisine is made even more enticing by the elaborate art of food presentation known as Palace Cuisine. This ancient skill, still practiced today, is a beautiful demonstration of the convergence of Thai cuisine and culture. Intricate meals are garnished with flowers and masterfully carved fruits and vegetables to create edible works of art. It’s the seemingly natural complement to the artisan-like nuances of flavor, texture, and aroma. In light contrast to Palace Cuisine is traditional home cooking. This form of cooking is equally as flavorful and robust, but served without the grandeur of Palace Cuisine. Instead, it’s served in the traditional Thai style of sharing several dishes, or in the single-dish Western style.

Some of my favorite Thai Kitchen products are the Original Pad Thai Stir-Fry Rice Noodles & Sauce, Pad Thai Noodle Cart, Coconut Milk, Red Curry Paste, and many of the Jasmine Rice dishes. If you are looking to create dishes on your own, make sure to check out the gluten-free recipes section of the Thai Kitchen website.

Thai Kitchen products can be found in many locations across the US. They can also be purchased online here or here. If you have a favorite product, using the Amazon.com option would end up being the best deal in the long run.

Used in moderation, these products can be a lifesaver on busy weeknights. I love the variety that Thai Kitchen offers in addition to being able to find their products in most mainstream grocery stores. Have you tried any of the Thai Kitchen gluten-free products? If so, which ones are your favorites.

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.