Having a bad GF day... need recommendations!

[marensmama]

We are on week 7 of being GF.  Hayden seems to be doing quite well, sleep is improving, fatigue & rash are disappearing, reflux is...well the jury is out on that one, probably for awhile.  The rest of the family is not GF.  We have wheat bread for our toast, non-GF lunches, but all our family dinners are completely GF, as is any baking that I do for the family.

Today, I made GF blueberry muffins.  They are disgusting.  The flour mix I used was a pancake mix (what the recipe called for) but OMG they are gross.  Luckily, the girls loved them, but to me they taste like beans and blueberries.    Then for dinner I made a crockpot dish that contains stewing beef and a creamy sauce that gets poured over pasta.  DH loves these kind of comfort foods.  Anyways, the past I used was a vegetable rice pasta, and I'd had it before but it was also totally disgusting.  Made me unhappy to be GF!

I have used Tinkyada pastas, which are good but not at my reg. grocery store, so I need to make another trip to a 2nd grocery store.    One bread brand is decent, Udi's, but it's at the 3rd grocery store.  Then none of these stores have GF wraps aside from corn wraps that taste awful.  Grocery store #1 has better prices (a must for our budget!) but the meat is better at grocery store #3.  #2 is the only place in town where certain brands of GF food are sold.  And GF is not cheap!  Waaaaahhhhhhhhh!  OK, whine over.  Will take some recommendations as far as brands go, please! 

[ZacsMumme]

Hugs, we are not GF and no idea on brands but my MIL is and uses some of these recipes when needing inspiration
http://glutenfreemommy.com/recipes/

[chicagomom]

i don't know if you can get it where you are but i use King Arthur's gluten free pizza crust flour for baking muffins and they have turned out quite good.  i know, even though there are quite a few alternative products on the market now GF is TOUGH. 

[deb]

Honestly, this is one of the main reasons we so seldom use GF substitute things. Besides the increased cost, it's either the flavor (the bean taste!  ) or the texture or it not digesting well after all that (again with the beans! ) that it's rarely worthwhile. I have done some GF brownies with coconut flour that actually turned out fabulous and were DEVOURED by Josie's birthday party guests, but again coconut flour isn't inexpensive either. So much easier to just stick with the basics of meat/fish/eggs and veg and fruit. There are a fair few Paleo recipes using almond flour but that's the only nut I'm allergic to, and I can't be bothered to go and make flour out of whatever nut/seed very often, although I did it with sunflower seeds (soaked, sprouted, ground myself ) when we were on the Body Ecology Diet.

The Body Ecology Diet page has some recipes that are GF, and looking at it now I see recipes there they didn't have 6-1/2 years ago. http://bodyecology.com/recipes/recipes.php And I'm not seeing the older recipes we used (sunflower seed muffins were OK - girls tolerated them). These look pretty good!

[abbysmomma]

Cherrybrook kitchen makes an awesome pancake mix, and our fav muffin mix is judy's magic mix. To be honest, at the beginning i tried to do a lot of baking from scratch, but now the effort is so not worth the taste. So i just started to try out all the mixes and  got some good ones. For pasta, we're big fans of corn or corn/rice pasta. It does tend to clump easier (especially spaghetti) but the taste and texture is very sim to wheat. Specialty italian stores often carry this. Costco often does as well.  IMO rice pasta just isn't that great.  Oh, and betty crocker does a great gluten free cake mix (choc and vanilla). I don't know what things are available to you in your area, but hopefully one of these things are around. And yes, i too shop at many diff stores but  you learn to stock up.

Oh, and we also deal with egg, dairy, nuts and sesame, so there may be more options for you that are better tasting.

[okinawamama]

Do you use amazon? They have some gluten free foods and they ship right to your front door. I do that with some items, but it can be a higher price. We love anything by Udis! I haven't found a pasta that I like either, we mainly use rice. Have you tried quinoa at all? We love it here and use it often! Bisquick makes an excellent pancake mix that you can use in other recipes.