gluten free familyA mum's blog about gluten-free living in Australia

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As Easter approaches, most people have smartie-filled bunnies or boxes of assorted Lindt on their minds. Not me, I think about hot cross buns — or rather about hot cross bun deprivation. 

But Simply Wize has once again come to the rescue with their gluten free variety which can already be found in the freezer section at Coles supermarkets. We tried them last year and loved them!

On the topic of things soft and spongy, in the last few months we have happened upon quite a few new products that we liked and wanted to spread the word on:

Bread mixes:

As always, there are a few new brands on the break making scene — but one rather exciting development has been the appearance of Bob’s Red Mill product range in some shops locally. These are the US flour blends used in many of the popular BabyCakes recipes. Someone recently spotted them in a health food store in Marrickville Metro and we have seen a few of them in the Wholesome Natural Health Market on Broadway — so check out your local health-food retailer.

Annandale IGA also stocks a decent range of products – including bread mixes – which we plan to review soon

Bakeries:

For those who like their bread ready-baked, Balmain has seen the opening of a new gluten free bakery called Balmain Brioche. We’re looking forward to paying them a visit and will give a full report here.

The word is out that Leichardt bakery, Healthy Feast, which closed its doors last year, may also be staging a comeback in some form or other so watch this space.

Crackers:

We at GFF are on an eternal search for gluten free crackers that kids will actually eat more than a couple of times before declaring them inedible. We’ve tried these new brands with positive early feedback:

Vege Chips (Ajita’s) have expanded their range with some yummy new flavours to cheer up lunchboxes.

Fantastic, the people who make the rice crackers, have cooked up a seeded range of crackers called Goodies that have also recently hit supermarket shelves. There is a 2 grain and a 4 grain product, but our favourite is the latter thanks to its nice, crisp blend of seeds and flavour that will appeal to grownups — and hopefully some kids too.

Woolies Select Brown Rice Crackers. The kids really liked these — but as with all things wholegrain, dry and not loaded with artificial flavourings, they a strong candidate for wearing out their welcome so rotation with other crackers is still the best strategy.

A sad loss to our cracker arsenal is Freelicious. These have disappeared from the shelves in Coles. They were an absolute lunchbox staple so thankfully we have tracked them down in our local IGA  [Update:  the company says they are also still available in Woolworths, Franklins and some independent retailers.]

According to the company they have recently revamped the recipe to make them a bit sturdier so they don’t break in the box in transit. We’ve tried these out and while they are a bit darker and perhaps not quite as tasty as the originals, they do seem to hold their form better — and got thumbs up from our fussy lunchbox reviewer.  They also come in an Italian herb flavour and Freelicious has also added some Rosemary mini-bread dipping sticks to its product range which went exceptionally well with a capsicum dip last weekend.

Meaty news:

Woolies certainly continues to up the ante in the gluten free meat stakes – especially when it comes to snags.

Check out this gluten free signage that we found in a local store a few months back!

We also found these cool gluten free meatballs in the freezer section at Woolies late last year. They make for a nice, handy quick kiddie meal.

And on the topic of meat, we’ve heard that burger joints like Moo and Grill’d are getting on the gluten free bandwagon with gluten free buns. Apparently, Maccas in Finland has been offering this for years… so hopefully it’s only a matter of time.

A bit of spice:

We don’t know if this product is new, but we are absolutely loving the Maharajah’s Choice Dhal (for grownups not kids) which we’ve spotted in a number of supermarkets. It is vegetarian and free of artificial colours, flavours and preservatives and is lovely on its own with some boiled rice – or we sometimes throw it into other curries to give them a bit of a lift. (See picture above – it is sitting among the crackers)

Have you spotted any awesome new products lately? If so, let us know!

Mandy

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