This post is a rant and nothing but a rant – so if you’re looking for product information and witty stories about Husband then please move on to the next post.

I was hesitant at first to write this because Glutastic is the place I go to laugh about my life. But this rant isn’t about the funny, it’s about my frustration. But it’s a frustration I’m sure some of you have so I figured it wouldn’t be fair to leave this out.

This last week has been a challenging one. I’m good with challenge, I thrive in challenge, but I don’t do well with challenge brought on by the ignorance of others. And the straw that broke me this week was a GF cookie.

So here’s the deal: Husband and I live and work from home, which means 24 hours a day/ 7 days a week  in the same place. We’ve done well with the ‘togetherness’ of it all, but sometimes we loose our minds over having to be  in one place all the time. As a way to mix things up we usually go to Northside Social at least once or twice a week. It’s a really nice coffee shop/wine bar near campus. We really like it there. It’s become our office away from the office. Sometime ago they started selling GF cookies. After having a conversation or two with some the staff, I managed to teach them the ins and outs of cross contamination at the counter when serving the cookies. They were really receptive to it and I was elated.

At least, I was elated until last week when the manager of the coffee shop told me that they really don’t make an effort to avoid cross contamination in the kitchen when they make them. They call them gluten free because they don’t knowingly bake them with gluten in them but that’s as far as their care and concern really goes. True to fashion, the first thing out of my mouth was “what the hell”. In all the conversations I had with staff before this point, they never made an effort to tell me these things. Turns out that they only mean to sell them to people who have chosen to go gluten free as a lifestyle choice. Again, the first thing out of my mouth was “what the hell” – why wouldn’t they be as clear and transparent as possible about this? Why wouldn’t they care what the possible issues are with taking this less then seriously.

And then I found out – Gluten Free is a fad.

It’s a fad that is putting my health in danger.

Gluten Free has become a ‘thing’ that people are choosing not because they have to, but because it sounds like the fashionably healthy thing to do. The bonus of this: it’s increasing the market demand and it’s putting pressure on companies to produce gluten free. The Pitfall: it’s degrading the industry and turning our disease into a fad. Instead of catering to the disease, companies are catering to the fad which means that their products are dangerous to us. The fad doesn’t care about cross contamination, the fad doesn’t care if some of the products aren’t fully gluten free – the fad doesn’t care that their lifestyle choices put the rest of us in danger.

And this is where the tipping point comes for me – I now have to be wary of everything and anything labeled Gluten Free. I have to ask more questions then I use to, I have to read labels looking for things that I never thought to look for before, and worst of all, when I find out that the GF product or menu is meant for the “lifestyle people” I have to go without and the company gets to keep selling products and making money.

I’d like to send out a huge shout out to the ‘lifestyle’ people. I’d like to say thank you for taking your ‘flash in the pan’ choices and using them in ways that make my disease more dangerous to me then it ever has been before. Thank you for playing roulette with my health and thank you for saturating the market with your crap. On behalf of Celiacs everywhere, I’d like to thank you for helping breed a new generation of food providers who are willing to take chances with me so that they can sell something to you.

If you’re curious how far this issue goes, here’s an article that sheds a little light on it. Got to love this chef, because I’m sure he’s not the only one.

No related posts.

Unfortunately, neither am I.

But I do have an uncanny ability to combine foods that shouldn’t be combined into tasty gold. So with my final post of the week I am going to blow your minds with a little something I have deemed The Dynamite Flake Chocolate Cookie Explosion…

To create the Dynamite Flake Chocolate Cookie Explosion you need the following.

At least two Glutenfreeda Foods line of ‘Real Cookies’. Of course you can bake you’re own cookies to make this dessert that much more Dynamite-tastic, but for simplicity sake these pre-made cookie dough goodies make a great base.

The only thing to remember is that you have under bake the cookies. The key is to have soft cookies and not rock hard cookies. A soft cookie will be able to soak up the some of the Ice Cream and Whipping cream while not falling completely apart. Just remember people Soft cookies are the key … Soft Cookies are the key.

Then you need the following three items:

1) Gluten-Free Whipping Cream.

2) Soy Ice Cream (for those who are Lactose intolerant and I know this probably negates the Whipping Cream in item 1).

3) A bar of Cadbury’s Flake Chocolate bar (Preferably imported from Ireland as it’s assured to be Gluten Free).

Then take one of the cookies and flip it upside down, so the base of the cookie is facing up. Then add a think layer of the Soy Ice Cream and a nice decent sized circle of Whip Cream. Follow this up with half a flake chocolate bar crumbled on top.

The results should look something like this.

Then the piece de resistance is to place the second cookie on top. So it essentially makes a glorified Gluten-Free (and slightly Lactose Free) Ice Cream Sandwich. But lets not dwell on the semantics, because look at this beauty.

It’s okay to step away from you computer for a personal moment, because I know you’re mind and your taste buds have been sent to Planet Chocolaty Goodness. A place that neither Capt. Kirk or Han Solo have discovered, but one that you can easily discover by clearing out some items in your freezer.

Enjoy, thanks for letting me entertain you for the week. It truly has been emotional.

Glutastic will be back later this week.

No related posts.

For obvious reasons, the Dough Boy is no longer Freebie Five. I miss him, but can’t justify having him on the list.

But, today I’m proud to tell you all, that there is something out there that can make the yearning for the Dough Boy a little less painful. It’s Glutenfreeda Foods, Inc line of ‘Real Cookies’.

Much like the Dough Boy, these cookies come pre-made and can be baked straight from the freezer. I was hesitant at first about how these would turn out – I’ve grown skeptical about pre-made GF products. But in the spirit of Glutastic, I cleared my preconceptions and sent Fiance to the kitchen to bake them.

The first thing I noticed was the smell. Our kitchen and living room smelled of freshly baked cookies, they smelt like the kind of cookie that is normally packed with gluten. I knew these had potential! Then came the taste test, any premade dough has to pass the freezer test. Frozen cookie dough should taste just as good as it does cooked. And these tasted great frozen. That was two checks in the pro column. And then, before I knew it, they were ready. It was time to try the final product – and to thank Fiance for slaving over a hot stove all night to make me cookies.

The Verdict: Damn Tasty.

These cookies were insanely normal. There was not a hint of GF’ness about them. Yes, GF’ness is a term, just like anything ending in ‘ish’. We hoovered them and have already added the next container to the grocery list. We found these at Superstore, I heart Superstore more and more everyday!

Try them, love them, thank me later!

No related posts.

So, how does one talk about corn flour? Saying things like: “It’s a nice yellow colour”, “It has a very nice flour’esq consistency”, and “The label is really cool”, really don’t help you out any. So in the spirit of the occasion, I decided to bake with it!

Side Bar

Life has been way to busy to even think about baking, so I’ve been siting on this for a little while.  My apologies. You can thank Fiance for this resurgence in baking news – I believe he asked: “Are you going to do anything for dinner tonight, or should I pick up McDonald’s on my way home…AGAIN?” I took that as a sign that he may feel a little neglected…cookie night it is!

Anyhow. I decided to try going straight to the source, and bake Brazillian Corn Cookies as suggested by the test kitchen at Bob’s Red Mill.

Verdict: Bueno Galleta – Good Cookie!

I thought that the corn flour might make them taste a little…’corn like’. Yes, I just said that. I was pleasantly surprised by the fact that they were really more ‘cookie like’ then ‘corn like’. Yes, I said it again. They are sweet, but not sugary. They crumble, because they should. And the best part about them is that they are not only good on their own – they would be great in combination with everything from fruit to ice cream and Nutella.

Note: The recipe calls for Evaporated Cane Sugar. Don’t let the horrible smell of it turn you off.  It’s damn tasty when cooked.

No related posts.

Cookie Occasions offers gluten free! This means that our loved ones can suck up with cookie deliveries instead of flowers. (Thanks for the link DH, Fiance curses you!)

Go forth and score brownie points with a cookie delivery!

No related posts.