Monthly Archive for June, 2009

Product Review: Trader Joe’s Mini Chicken Tacos

I love these Trader Joe’s Mini Chicken Tacos. One thing I don’t exactly like is their way of designating them “No Gluten Ingredients Used.” To the paranoid side of me, this means that they don’t think there’s any gluten in there, but they aren’t testing and maybe don’t really know. Is that paranoid? I should call them and find out what they really mean.

OK so let’s talk about the tacos. One thing that becomes very obvious the minute you open the package is that these babies don’t really look much like what’s on the box. The box makes it look like there’s cheese and chunks of chicken, and that the tacos were stuffed and then maybe baked by the Trader Joe’s Gluten Free elves. So here’s what the box looks like. See those hearty chunks of chicken and identifiable pieces of grated cheese?

Here’s the real thing, waiting to go into the toaster oven.

You can pull these babies open and what it really looks like is chicken and cheese stuff in there with some tomatillo salsa. Here are the ingredients:

Filling: chicken leg and breast meat, green chilies, crushed tomatillos (tomatillo, citric acid), contains 2% or less of: gelatin, modified corn starch, onions, green chili puree (green chili and citric acid), jalapenos (jalapeno peppers, salt, acetic acid, calcium chloride), chicken base (salt, maltodextrin, detrose, modified corn starch, sugar, yeast extract, dehydrated onion, corn oil, spice extractives including turmeric, natural smoke flavoring, citric acid), vinegar, salt, flavoring, water, cilantro flavor (dextrose, modified corn starch, extractives of cilantro), dehydrated bell pepper & cilantro flakes, guar gum.
Tortilla: corn flour (corn masa flour, trace of lime), water, modified potato starch.
Fried in vegetable oil (canola and/or soybean)

The ingredients confirm what my eyes see. It’s basically chicken with tomatillo salsa. Each serving contains 250 mg of sodium, which is pretty good for Trader Joe’s. Once again this is a product where we can’t really fool ourselves: It’s processed. On the plus side, they’re really fast and they’re delicious! You have to dress them up, though. We eat them with plenty of salsa and either sour cream or yogurt.

As I said at the beginning, I love these tacos. Sienna really likes them too. They are something like having awesome nachos and are fun to eat. For me, I can overlook the maltodextrin, modified corn starch, processed foodie kind of thing going on for flavor like this.

This review was done to be part of What’s for Dinner? Wednesday, hosted by Linda at Gluten-free Homemaker.

We want to know: Seems like this isn’t a great item for people who are eating gluten-free to be healthy. For someone who is gluten-free and wants to eat something delicious that’s easy to make, these Trader Joe’s Mini Chicken Tacos hit the spot. How do you feel about processed foods? How about that curious “No Gluten Ingredients Used” label? Let us know in the comments.

Times we have visited: 4 (we feel confident about our score.)
Overall rating: 4 out of 5 stars
Price compared to “regular”: Same

Here’s our central Trader Joe’s Gluten Free Product Reviews page.

Published on June 30, 2009 in Product Review. 9 Comments Tags: Cooking, Gluten-free Appetizers, Mexican Food, Trader Joes.

Product Review: Glutino Gluten Free Frozen Pizzas

Here at Gluten Free Portland Laboratories, we are always ready to sacrifice our taste-buds to help the GF cause. We are especially happy to make such sacrifices when it involves gluten-free pizza! So when I was in Whole Foods recently and spied the Glutino brand Duo Cheese Gluten Free Frozen Pizza, it was a very easy decision to make.

As you can see from the picture, these babies are $4.99. It also needs to be noted that the box is waaaay bigger than the pizza and according to the manufacturer, one pizza is one serving. A serving in this case is 420 calories. Here are the ingredients: water, mozzarella-brick cheese (pasteurized milk, cheese cultures, salt, calcium chloride, enzyme), corn starch, tapioca starch, tomatoes (tomato paste, tomatoes, tomato juice, citric acid, calcium chloride), safflower oil, onion, evaporated cane juice, green peppers, modified corn starch, egg whites, salt, guar gum, glucono-delta-lactone, yeast extract, pectin, sugar, sodium bicarbonate, sodium alginate, modified cellulose, Parmesan cheese (pasteurized milk, cheese cultures, salt, calcium chloride, enzyme, cellulose), spices, garlic.

As you can see, they contain milk and eggs. Although the ingredients are kind of on the health-food side, we can’t fool ourselves into thinking these aren’t processed when there’s more “glucono-delta-lactone” in the pizza than Parmesan Cheese. LOL. In addition the manufacturer says they may contain traces of soy. I always mention the salt content in these reviews, so I have to say these have 560 mg of salt. Here’s what they look like out of the bag.

We couldn’t just pop these in the oven without adding some toppings of our own.

Sienna added pesto, mushrooms and garlic. I added black olives and garlic.

They look pretty good huh? We were pretty excited to try them, but even with the additional items we put on these, the pizzas weren’t very good. The crusts were good and we both liked them. At the same time, they definitely taste like frozen pizzas, which is to say kind of tasteless. I think like my recent review of Trader Joe’s Gluten Free Mac and Cheese, there are probably people who really like frozen pizzas, and will appreciate a gluten free one. We were kind of underwhelmed. If we were to do it again, we would probably add our own sauce.

Since we liked the crusts, and since you can get four Glutino pizza crusts of the same size for the price of the frozen pizza, we might consider getting some crusts and making pizza with them in the future, but we probably won’t try the pre-prepared frozen pizzas again.

We want to know: I’d love to hear from some frozen pizza fans to see if these Glutino Gluten Free Pizzas compare well to the real thing. What did you think of the crusts? Let us know in the comments.

Times we have visited: once (but we feel confident about our score.)
Overall rating: 2 out of 5 stars
Price compared to “regular”: We think more expensive

Published on June 26, 2009 in Product Review. 1 Comment Tags: Cheese, Pizza, Pizza Crust.

Gluten-Free Recipe: Pesto Shrimp and Portobello on Polenta

I made this recently when we didn’t know what to have for dinner. I was really impressed with myself for making a meal on the spot with what we had on hand, because normally I can’t do that. This is a great dish that is naturally gluten-free and very satisfying.

Hold the presses! Later note: It turns out that I must have had this combo fresh in my mind after reading a nearly identical Pesto Shrimp on Polenta Portobellos recipe over at http://www.thewholegang.org.

There are four parts to the recipe: pesto, shrimp, portobello mushroom, and polenta. I’m going to let everyone out there on the Internet figure out how much to make.

I cheated because the pesto was already made. We like to make pesto and then freeze it so we always have some around. Pesto freezes really well.

The Pesto

2 1/2 cups fresh basil
1/3 cup olive oil
2 cups pine nuts
10 cloves of garlic
2/3 cup nutritional yeast flakes (or Parmesan cheese)
1 tsp salt
1 tsp black pepper (or to taste)

To make the pesto, put all of the ingredients in a food processor and then blend until it’s the consistency you want.

The Shrimp

1/4 lb per serving. More cheating here: We get the Trader Joe’s cooked shrimp. To prepare it, you thaw it out. You’re SUPPOSED to thaw it out by putting it in the fridge. I never think that far ahead and always end up putting the shrimp in a bowl of cold water and then changing the water every couple of minutes until the shrimp are thawed.

The Polenta

Follow the directions on the package – or – here is a simple recipe:

1 cup polenta
3 cups water
1 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon unsalted butter

Pour polenta into boiling water. Stir frequently for thirty minutes. Stir in butter. Spoon into a casserole dish. Let sit 10 minutes to firm up.

The Portobello and the Gluten-Free End

OK so here’s the timing of it. Start the shrimp thawing. Start the polenta. Thaw the pesto (or make it super-fast – you have a half hour.) The idea is to have the shrimp and pesto thawed by the time you put the polenta in the casserole dish.

Once the polenta is in the casserole dish, saute the portobello mushrooms (one per person, cut up into pieces) in 1/2 Tablespoon olive oil until browned. While the portobellos are cooking, throw the pesto and shrimp into a different pan and fry them up. Hopefully the portobello mushrooms and shrimp are ready at the same time.

Cut up and lay out some slabs of polenta. Then throw some of your shrimp and portobellos on the polenta.

and BAM!

You are ready to eat!

More gluten-free recipes on Gluten Free Portland dot Org.

Hopefully we’re not too late for What’s for Dinner? Wednesday, hosted by Linda at Gluten-free Homemaker.

Published on June 24, 2009 in Recipes. 8 Comments Tags: Cooking, Recipe, Sea Food, Trader Joes.

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Monthly Archive for June, 2009

Product Review: Trader Joe’s Mini Chicken Tacos

Product Review: Glutino Gluten Free Frozen Pizzas