Cookie, Cookie, Cookie: Gluten Free

 

   One of my first words.. maybe even my first word was "Cookie" or something that meant that and sounded close to it :-)
   We just had the Holidays and that means get togethers and pot luck dinners! BUT this it a scary time for Celiacs! Your taking a calculated risk with each dish you sample. Some are pretty easy to figure out but others... well, that's the holidays. I've been doing really well this Christmas. As I'm eating healthier by cutting out high fructose corn syrup, MSGs, & artificial sweeteners.... I'm sure I'm breaking my diet on some stuff but the most important thing I need to avoid is Gluten. I've gone to a number of parties this year bring Gluten Free Cookies AND I didn't have to make them from scratch!
   Pillsbury makes gluten free cookie dough pre-mixed! (Brown Sugar, Rice Flour, Semisweet Chocolate Chips (sugar, chocolate liquor, cocoa butter, soy lecithin, natural flavor), Water, Palm Oil, Canola Oil, Sugar, Corn Starch, Modified Potato Starch. Contains 2% or Less of: Eggs, Modified Tapioca Starch, Salt, Baking Soda, Xanthan Gum, Natural Flavor.)  And they taste REALLY GOOD! Going gluten free I have noticed there is an unpleasant taste to things that contain gluten. It's sort of bitter.
   These cookie are also made with no artificial sweeteners. They are made with real sugar and that's something a lot of people may not understand or realize the real sugar is better for you then artificial sweeteners including high fructose corn syrup. A lot of people think sodas will make you fat because of all the sugar... what they don't realize is there isn't even real sugar in sodas!!! For the most part it is high fructose corn syrup! But lets keep this subject for another day and stick with cookies.
   On the Pillsbury site they carry several Gluten Free items and a number of Gluten-Free Recipes!
Where to buy...

    Foodchamps

    Wal-mart +Walmart.COM

Price range depending where you buy it $3.50 - $4 'ish

  With that being said they are at times hard to find much like other Gluten Free goodies. But I know they have in the past carried Pillsbury Gluten Free Dough.

   What I like to do to make them even tastier is pecans (Fisher) topping each one! Hungry yet?

Autumn in a Cup: Apple Cherry Cobbler

   Found this treat in Wal-mart +Walmart.COM  made by Old Orchard +Old Orchard Brands  . Apple Cherry Cobbler captures the sweetness and spicyness of Autumn! SO GOOD. I like drinking it with a meal. The spice (tastes like nutmeg maybe?) in it is a pleasant contrast with your meal. Today I drank some with some corn beef hash and salad. YUM :-)
They make three Limited Editions flavors. 
   Since they make three flavors we had to pick which one we wanted to try. We picked this one because the Apple Pie was flavored with cinnamon. I am very sensitive to it... well, really it's FAKE Cinnamon since you can't really find true cinnamon anymore. (a topic I should write a blog about...) so Apple Pie for me was a no.
   As for Caramel Apple, sounds good right? It had caramel color listed in it's ingredients which might not be a problem at all but caramel color made outside the US can contain Gluten. Safe then sorry... I've been so strict lately and it feels so nice!
   Apple Cherry Cobbler has a Gluten free stamp and has nothing listed that looked like I should have issues with, and I didn't!
   The ingredients listed are:
Filtered Water, Sugar, Apple Concentrate, Natural Flavors, Citric Acid, Grape Juice Concentrate, Cherry Juice Concentrate.

Yes! Sugar! Real sugar! None of that fattening high fructose corn syrup! When I cut it out of my diet my weight began to drop again! My personal belief is this is partly what makes soft drinks fatting, not the sugar. Many companies seem to be making a change back to sugar. It's healthier and just tastes better!