Chex Honey Nut cereal... now gluten free!

I forgot how delicious Chex cereal is... and now they have started making a version of their super tasty Chex cereal in a honey nut flavor. And can I tell you, this stuff is TASTY! It reminds me of Cheerios, only more crunchy and gluten free. It's just sweet enough (especially with almond milk) and has a surprising amount of vitamins in it: 50% of your recommended daily Iron and Folic Acid, 25% of your daily recommended Vitamin B6 and B12, and lots more you can check out here.

If you miss being able to eat Honey Nut Cheerios because you're gluten free, try this.

I do have to bookend this post with a warning... I have read online that there are some stores that are also carrying an older version of this cereal that is not gluten free. Be sure when you pick up your box that it is clearly marked on the front of the box that it is gluten free (like the picture here) otherwise you may wind up glutening yourself!


Available locally at Alberton's on Calle Real and online here!

chocolate ganache frosting... on vanilla cupcakes

I just made these cupcakes last night... I used the Pamela's Classic Vanilla cake mix and topped them off with a recipe I pulled from Epicurious.

Yum.

I didn't realize how simple it is to make a ganache (or at least the recipe I pulled!). I got a food scale for Christmas so I'm starting to put recipes together this way... it's much more precise so I feel like I'm less likely to screw up.

to make the ganache you'll need:
12 oz of heavy cream
454 grams of chocolate (dark or semi-sweet, or really, whatever you like!)

1. in a heavy saucepan, bring the heavy cream to a boil.
2. once it boils, turn the burner off and add the chocolate to the mix and allow the chocolate to rest... it will start to melt pretty quickly.
3. use a rubber spatula to gently stir the mixture together until it gets smooth (keep the burner OFF!)
4. Once smooth, transfer to a room temperature bowl and cover with Saran wrap and put the bowl in the fridge to chill. Once it takes on the consistency of a a thick, thick peanut butter, spread on your cupcakes (or cakes... or face, whatever you like.)


I used Schokinag Chocolate Chunks for this... it's my favorite chocolate chip for baking just about anything.

This is the food scale I use: I love it! Just be sure to zero the scale once you put your bowl or whatever you are using the weight the foodstuffs...

oooooooh UDI'S!

During a recent trip to Kansas, I came across a new brand of gluten free bread that is the closest thing I can remember to actual white bread... it comes from a bakery out of Boulder, CO called Udi's.

I think I'm in love.

It's soft, spongy, and LIGHT! Nothing like those heavy (ahem Food For Life ahem) rice breads I've been picking up at Trader Joe's for the last few years.

The Udi's white sandwich bread is a revelation... while I was perusing the aisles of Whole Foods in Kansas, I figured I would give the Udi's gluten free loaf a squeeze (I'm one of those people...) and I couldn't believe it. I kept squeezing the loaf over and over (I did buy the one I was squeezing!) because it felt like the white bread I remembered eating all those years ago.

I have been eating the bread right out of the bag and toasted... it's delicious both ways. Now that I'm sitting here writing about it, I'm thinking about going and grabbing a slice.

I thought I wouldn't be able to find this aside from being able to order online, but I found it on Monday at Lassen's in Goleta in the frozen section. I would suggest once you buy it frozen, that you leave it out so it can soften up. If you leave it in the refrigerator, it'll wind up tough. You can also buy it direct from Udi's here.

I'm going to head back and pick up some of the other Udi's items at Lassen's soon... I see they also make a cinnamon roll I'm going to see if they can order for me!

why I love the interwebs, pt 1

I love this website: more new math

ha ha

We're a little off topic today, but we can't help ourselves...

Google is celebrating the emergence of the barcode today... all we see is the google homepage looking a bit like a cyborg:

and then we ponder what it would really say...



OR if it was an angry cyborg:
OR if it was a fan of the Rachel Zoe Project but not so much a fan of Bing.

final verdict: TASTY!

I finally found a place carrying the newish gluten free baked goods from Betty Crocker. Using the word tickled probably doesn't do right by my reaction in the grocery aisle. I have a been a faithful mixer of gluten free flours for years now and recently, due to laziness and really, many situations where the need/want for a cookie decimates my patience, I have been turning to premixed varieties from Pamela's (always delicious, although fairly expensive). I'm pretty happy to report that I now have some new 'stuff' to add to the mix!

I bought the chocolate cake mix, the yellow cake mix, and the chocolate cookie mix. So far I've only made the chocolate chip cookies... and let me tell you-- they are tasty.

These cookies, once they come out of the oven are much more along the lines of those tasty cookies that are more redolent of a buttery mix than a cake-y one. They have a very light texture-- slightly crumbly-- with a little bit of the typical gluten free texture (although not gristly or mealy at all!) with a bit more chew to them.

All you need is an egg, a teaspoon of gluten free vanilla, and a stick of room temperature butter... it literally took me two minutes to mix and they cook in ten minutes. It's immediate cookie satisfaction. Just be sure to gently slide them off of the cookie sheet because right when they come out of the oven, they tend to break easily. I let them rest for about 3 minutes on a cooling rack.


Yum.

Available at Albertson's at 5801 Calle Real in Goleta.

garmin riding semi-gluten free?

Interesting article today in the NYtimes about Team Garmin's ride in the tour and their team chef-- Sean Fowler of El Racó d'Urús. Apparently, they are eating mostly gluten free?

Interesting.