Undi's Plain Bagel

I do miss a good bagel.
Before Coffee shops were all the rage in Seattle, I remember an outing when I was about 8 or 10 down to the SPOT bagel bakery. I think thu are still downtown..
The bagels were make fresh, and loaded with good stuff. The blueberry I remember had at least 20 blueberries in it. toasted lightly and lathered in cream cheese...
Yes I do miss a good bagel.

I have a recipe for them I got about 8 years ago. I tried it when I first acquired the recipe, and it made fairly good ones. But it was alot of work, and very messy. The boiling watter, the stack of dirty pans... not it was something I did not think I would eat again.

This week I tried the Undi's Plain Bagel.
They were good.
Soft, almost springy.
An excellent bread by any standard.
But not quite the Bagle I remember. Not quite the dense chewiness i would associate with the work Bagel.
Coming form Denver Co, perhaps that is their bagel standard, I guess I need a good New York style bagel...

Romios Pizza & Pasta

We got an add in our mail. Gluten free ALL over it. (Twice the price.)

I got a sandwich. It was 18inches long at least. Cost over $17. About a Doller an inch!

Bread was good. Not wonderfull. Not worth the price.
Not going back.

Udi's Blueberry muffins

No photo, I ate them.

Very good, moist, and malleable.
Yes malleable.
Anyone else ever take a muffin, and squeeze all the air out until it was a soft buttery fist full of goodness...no?...Just me then...
Well I would do that all the time.
I think It was because baked good always gave me gas and in my child mind I thought that squeezing the air out would prevent my from having gas later...Funny what logic children have...
ANYways
The muffins were good.
From baking experience I can tell they used either fresh or frozen blueberries. I know this form the whole they berries left when they shriveled up after baking. It makes the Muffins very cavernous, more like swish cheese. I like to use Dried blueberries myself, that reduces this problem. It's disappointing to bite into a muffin and find a big pocket of air...

Lable Rant and Kinnikinnick Rave

Does anyone not know that Gluten free IS wheat free!?
Or that If it's Dairy free then there should be no lactose?
I'm just curious, cause I understood eight years ago that maybe there were people out there with a wheat allergy that might not know what gluten was, but I think with the availability of the Internet and other mas media that we should all know that, the Gluten free people and the Wheat free people could have some communication.
Gluten includes wheat and the Dairy includes Lactose...
I know Just because it says "wheat free" does not mean that it is gluten free.
It is one of those All rectangles are squares but not all squares are rectangles logic problems...

Koodoes to Kinnikinnick! They have new packaging that is getting the point across.
They have a Little "Dairy Free" button shaped label and it has "lactose free" and "casein free" in smaller print right there, grouping the three.
And here is the Nut one:

Wow...Look at that. I'm so happy.

Simple, straight forward, and probably cheaper to print.  

 

Kinnikinnick Montanas Chocolate Chip Cookies

Kinnikinnick Montanas Chocolate Chip Cookies.
The packaging is better now then this image, the container look like REAL cookies, that you could find anywhere.
The taste and texture were good.
It's been ten years, but they tasted as good as the packaged chocolate chips I remember.
The ones little elves who live in treas make....Or sailors{Ahoy}

Yah, don't miss those blue bags of cookies when you have these babies!
Gluten free, dairy free, nut free!

Kinnikinnick you have done it again!

"I'm just a little black rain cloud"-Pooh

As of late I have become concerned more about my overall health.
But I'm just not sure what "healthy" for me means.

Before I was diagnosed with Celiac/Coeliac disease my pants size was 9. Not that small for an 18 year old, but I'm from Viking stock. At 128 lbs you could count my ribs thru my t-shirt. When I stood, my hip bones were the largest protrusion from my front. I was all bones. Looking back at photos you can see that I was not well. Doctors said words like "malnourished" and "deterioration" Adults thought I was anorexic, or bulimic, or both.
Yet according to the BMI, I was well witin healthy ranges.....That is CRAP.
According to the BMI I'm now Obese...That is CRAP.
Graduated High school: size 11
Graduate Jr College: Size 9
Graduate University: size 22
Wedding day: size14
Currently:size18
SO what does that mean? What IS healthy?
I don't really care what the scales say.
I'm not all that concerned with the number on the clothing.
What I am concerned about was summarized nicely by Wikipedia:
After the implementation of a gluten-free diet there can be many persisting deficiencies, which can be “due to slow or incomplete healing of the small intestine, failure to eat foods rich in needed nutrients, eating too much fiber with meals, thus binding nutrients, Helicobacter Pylori infection, small bowel bacterial overgrowth, giardia, or other infections and parasites”[39].
 Many gluten-free made products are not fortified, enriched, or have all the nutrients that the natural sources contain, thus these products are especially low in folate, iron, and fiber[citation needed]. Also, due to the fact that gluten-free products are not always available, many Gluten-Sensitive Enteropathy (GSE) patients do not consume the recommended amount of grain servings per day.
The standard gluten-free diet does not meet the recommended intake for fiber, thiamine, riboflavin, niacin, folate, iron, or calcium[citation needed]. People who change their standard gluten-free diet to implement gluten-free oats at breakfast, high fiber brown rice bread at lunch, and quinoa as a side at dinner have been found to have significant increases in protein (20.6g versus 11g), iron (18.4 mg versus 1.4 mg), calcium (182 mg verses 0 mg), and fiber (12.7g verses 5g). The B vitamin group did not have significant increases, but were still found to have improved values of thiamine, riboflavin, niacin, and folate. These dietary changes can greatly reduce a GSE patient’s risk for anemia (especially Iron Deficiency Anemia) and low blood calcium levels or poor bone health. Not only is it important to avoid gluten, but also to find more nutrient-dense, gluten-free food sources to prevent patients from other diseases due to deficiencies.
So I might not be any healthier GF then I was not GF?
A decade ago when I first scoured the Internet for Coeliac disease I found a European Medical Journal summery. It plainly stated that most patents who were diagnosed over the age of 18, and done enough damage overall, that the positive life expectancy was 50 years old. Loss of mobility by 40. Most likely cause of death being heart failure, followed by complications of autoimmune deficiencys.
That hit me at 19 years old hard.
Perhaps that has all been proven wrong?
I have not found the article since, though I have tried.
So maybe that doctor was a quack, disbarred, and discredited.
But on days like today, when I'm sick for "no reason" and my body acts like that of the baby boomers I know, I can't help but remember that article, and wonder If I've only got 10 good years left...

Oh Dairy Queen your crown has fallen

The Dairy Queen Blizzard is 25 years old.
I loved them as a Kid, but when I was 15 the DQ in our town shut down under some vary shoddy circumstances and so I have not been to one since.
Well, I was driving past one, and It was 92 degrees outside so I got myself a LARGE Midnight truffle, cause the kid behind the Counter said that it only had chocolate ice cream, truffle pieces and cocoa fudge. When I asked if their was wheat in it, he said no, and since he was about to make me one I trusted him.
Well let me tell you, there was something NOT GF in that Blizzard!

According to the Brochure, the Truffle pieces, the choco chunks, and the cocoa fudge are all wheat free.
Just wheat free. And they can't seam to tell me any more.
So one, or maybe all of them, are not GF!
Well DQ, I guess I won't be back for another decade or so...