One of the things I miss is the convenience of frozen meals. I know they’re typically not the best nutritionally, and they often cost a lot, but on days when you just don’t feel like cooking they’re better than fast food. But they’re filled with additives that contain gluten.
While gluten-free frozen meals do exist, you can’t just run into any supermarket and pick one up. They’re usually found at specialty shops, like Portions in Guelph.
I normally eat brown rice pasta, but decided to try a new brand of corn pasta I saw on the shelves at my grocery store – San Zenone’s 100% organic corn pasta from Prairie Harvest.
Corn pasta tends to be a bit more expensive than brown rice pasta, but it tastes less “nutty” than rice pasta and doesn’t get gummy when you cook it. I actually found San Zenone tasted much like what I remember wheat pasta tasting like, so this might be a good one to try if you’re new to gluten-free pasta. I had it with some tomatoes, olives and oil, and found I didn’t need a thick sauce to help camouflage the taste.
I recently discovered that Irresistibles, one of the private brands sold in Metro and Food Basics stores, has a gluten-free, boxed macaroni and cheese – yes, a gluten-free “kraft dinner”.
Obviously, with being totally in love with all things mac & cheese, I had to try it out.
Sadly, it didn’t live up to my memories of actual Kraft Dinner. The white rice pasta had a strong flavour, and the powdered cheese sauce had barely any flavour at all. I was left eating a bowl of rice pasta that was orange.
I love macaroni and cheese. I love pasta, I love cheese, you put the two together and I’m in heaven.
I’d always made mac & cheese the traditional way, starting with a roux, adding milk, then cheese, then baking it. But once I stopped eating gluten, I had to modify that basic recipe. Which meant playing with flours. Which I don’t like to do.
I tried cornstarch, and it just didn’t work. I tried brown rice flour, which worked but tasted too nutty. I tried 17 million combinations of brown rice flour and various starches. They all tasted too nutty. It was about time to find a new flour, when I came across this recipe.