Unless we go to a restaurant, we cook everything we eat from scratch (except the pancakes – haha.) On the plus side, we always know what’s in the food we eat. Another plus is that our doctors get teary-eyed about how healthy our diet is (except for my chocolate habit, and, uh, the pancakes.) On the minus side, that means somebody loses about an hour every day putting together a meal. Sometimes it’s nice to have a little help from something pre-mixed.

We’d like to say that we found this product, but it actually found us. Last year sometime we went to a gluten-free fair in Portland and won a gift basket in a drawing. In the gift basket was one package of the Gluten Free Pantry Tex Mex Skillet Meal. This package then proceeded to sit around for a long time on our shelf. Later, when we decided to start this blog, I pulled it down off the shelf and told Sienna it was a great subject for a post. She seemed unenthused about the prospect. Finally one day I announced that we were going to have the mix for dinner and I discovered the reason: She thought it was going to be bad.

The ingredients: Long grain white rice, red kidney beans, sweet corn, red bell peppers, tomatoes, spices, and other fun processed food. These are all dehydrated or in “quick cook” form. The processed stuff is all things like maltodextrin from corn, hydrolyzed corn protein, autolyzed yeast extract, silicon dioxide, blah blah blah. Contains Soy (hydrolyzed soy protein.)

You take the packages, add them to boiling water, and simmer for 20 minutes or until the liquid is absorbed. Mine took longer than that, but it may be due to how long this stuff sat on the shelf. I also added in some lean ground beef. This stuff is easy to make, but if you think it’s going to be faster than throwing together a simple meal like grilled fish and veggies, then you’re going to be disappointed. On the plus side, this probably is a lot faster than a person could make the actual resulting dish, especially if you used brown rice.

It actually ends up being sort of like chili but with a lot of rice and less saucy. If I had to name the prevailing flavor, I would call it “taco flavor packet flavor.” You know, the kind of taco flavor packets you get at the store? That is the flavor. It’s also on the salty side, weighing in at 420 mg in a 110 calorie serving. I liked it. It’s good with some sour cream and a tortilla. I think the ideal way to serve it would be as a nachos dish with some guacamole. It has quite a bit of spicy burn to it, which can be good or bad depending on how you like it. Sienna agreed that the flavor was good, but it was too spicy for her tastes.

In the end, we were pleasantly surprised at how we liked the flavor of the Gluten Free Pantry Tex Mex Skillet Meal, and I liked being able to make a less-than-simple dish in about 45 minutes. At the same time, it’s really a gluten-free edition of a processed food package, and so you get the weird processed food ingredients and probably more salt than you would like. While we won’t be getting this item again, I feel like we’ll be more open to try other items by this same manufacturer.

We want to know: Have you tried any of the other products from the Gluten Free Pantry? How did you like them?

Overall rating: 3 1/2 out of 5 stars (but watch out if you don’t like spicy food.)
Price compared to “regular”: I frankly have no idea! Sorry.

The Gluten Free Pantry – Tex Mex Skillet Meal