I recently purchased Gwyneth Paltrow’s new book, “It’s All Good,” intrigued by the idea of healthier and cleaner eating. The book offers a lot of great information and recipes about eating diary-free and gluten-free. It also discusses healthier choices for fats and non-meat proteins. As someone with a sensitive stomach, I thought I might try out some of these ideas with my meals. Don’t get me wrong though, you won’t catch me eating tofu lettuce wraps any time soon/ever. Except that one time I made them for dinner at my parents’ house. I tried hard to sell them to my dad as a delightfully healthy alternative to beef tacos and he just wasn’t buying it. And neither was I. So I decided to apply my new way of thinking about eating to a fairly familiar food: pizza.
I headed to Dominos one evening a few weeks back. I went in and ordered a medium gluten-free pizza thinking that was the smallest size.
Dominos guy: “Oh we only have the gluten-free in a small.”
Me: “Ok perfect. How much will that be?”
Dominos guy: “11.99?”
Me: “Wow that seems expensive for a small…”
Dominos guy: “Well you can get a medium for 7.99!”
Me: “I thought you said the gluten-free crust only came in a small.”
Dominos guy: “Well it’s not really gluten free.”
Me: “What do you mean? Your gluten-free crust isn’t really gluten-free?”
Dominos guy: “Well if you ordered a medium it wouldn’t be. The medium is a better deal unless you need the gluten-free for health reasons.”
(DUH? Why else would I order gluten-free?)
Me: “I’ll take the small gluten-free, please.”
Verdict: The pizza was pretty terrible and expensive. I think I’ll stick to the real stuff and just eat it infrequently.
My next venture was speckled lima beans. I must admit that I usually make these with bacon grease and on this occasion I fully intended to make them that way; however, there was no bacon or bacon grease to be found in my refrigerator. Having carefully studied all of the critical pantry items for a dairy-free and gluten-free household, I had thought it was worthwhile to purchase a TUB of coconut oil at the wholesale club. Never mind that I only cook a few nights per week, I hate coconut, and I am the only one in the household that will be using the coconut oil. The 54oz tub was just the ticket.
Seeing the tub of coconut oil sitting on the counter, I decided to throw a few healthy spoonfuls in as my fat for the beans.
Boy was that a misstep.
I thought it would be a subtle taste, but no.
I threw in a halved onion and 2 cloves of garlic to try to mitigate the undesirable coconut flavor. It helped, but the coconut was still there in a big bad way. Bacon grease and coconut oil are not similar flavor profiles in case you were wondering.
Verdict: Good thing you can use this stuff as moisturizer. I’ll be smelling pretty tropical for the next 23.4 years or however long it takes me to saturate my skin with that tub of coconut oil.
Having failed miserably with savory options, I thought I might have better luck with something sweet.
Nope.
I found this recipe that sounded great for a gluten-free fudgy chocolate cake. How bad could that be?
BAD.
It looked so pretty, but underneath that icing lay a very strange tangy, cleaning solution-like aftertaste and a chewy texture much like an actual dish sponge (not to be confused with the lovely texture of sponge-cake).
It nearly ruined chocolate cake for me.
In an effort to stay positive and salvage the situation, I have been scraping off the naturally gluten-free chocolate icing and eating it by the spoonful. I now have a scalped cake in my refrigerator.
Verdict: There’s a reason people bake with wheat flour.
I’m hungry.
Y’all come back,
Sugarlump
