Remember the $50 gift card I received from the best parents in the world? No? You don’t? Why doesn’t anybody pay as much attention to the minutiae of my life as I do?
Anyway, Mom and Dad sent me a gift card (along with the infamous baking mixes) to help me restock my gluten-bare cupboards, and I put together an order in record time. When my box arrived, it was a time of great anticipation and anxiety. I’d switched out items in my cart so many times—trying to get the total as close to $50 without going over, agonizingly making my way down from $53.78 to $51.12 to $50.03 (“Come on! Can’t I get a break on the pennies?”)—that I couldn’t recall what I wound up ordering.
Here’s me opening my box:
Yes, that’s how I look on Christmas day, too. Except with even worse bedhead, if you can believe it. And yes, I took these pictures at work. Hey, you take your lunch break your way, I’ll take mine my way.
Even though I picked all of the items myself, I still felt the packing list read like the contents of an interplanetary dispatch from Mars:
Organic raw buckwheat groats
Organic amaranth grain
Flaxseed meal
Xanthan gum
GF mighty tasty hot cereal
TVP (textured veg protein)
I guess that’s what comes of being not only intestinally challenged but also a wannabe-gan.
The buckwheat groats, which I’d never seen raw before, did not look anywhere near as appealing as that buckwheat pilaf from Quintessence I had in mind when I ordered them. But, you know, I’ll make it work. You will never, ever see those pictures, though, because a) the only camera I have access to is the one on my computer at work, and b) buckwheat groats pilaf is just one of those things that tastes better than it either looks or sounds.
After taking the totally candid photo above and setting aside pesky questions like, “What the heck was I planning to do with 16 ounces of flaxseed meal?,” I moved on to more important ones like, “Are packing peanuts gluten-free?”
I sure hope so!
By the way, the nice folks at Bob’s recalculated my shipping after I placed the order and the total plummeted to $47.08. Darn! I could’ve bought the teff flour after all. Or even more flaxseed. Anyway, the total might as well have stayed where it was, because I will never, ever remember to use that $2.92 on a future order.
Are you an online/bulk orderer? Where do you buy your gluten-free Martian ingredients? And what the heck am I going to do with all that flaxseed?
Based on a Sprue Story 
You should grind up your flax seed and put it on your buckwheat groats or whatever you eat in the morning now instead of oatmeal!
Brown rice farina this week, but I’m almost out. We can enjoy the “mighty tasty” hot cereal when you visit this weekend. I’m scared.
ooooh neat! What do you put flax in? I have ours ground extra fine and mix it in our normal menu foods like turkey loaf, sauces, pancakes etc…that way our kids get the health benefits but aren’t aware to complain! 🙂
Good idea! I don’t know if the trick will work as well if I’m doing it to myself, but I can try. I usually use it in breakfast cereal or as an egg replacer when I’m feeling vegan.
Flax meal in all the things!
Wow, groats on your first order! Totally impressive 🙂 Seriously, it looks like a great batch. I’m still using the xanthan gum I bought two years ago. And I love using flax, I have the ground up version and throw it in smoothies, pancake batter, muffin mix, etc. Very curious to know how the mighty good breakfast stuff is! I love oatmeal, but really there’s only so much of it a girl can eat, you know?
-Dana
P.S. Packing peanuts are totally gluten free
I’ll let you know about the cereal! I’m a little scared based on Sarah Saturday’s comment, but fingers crossed. As long as it’s tastier than packing peanuts I guess that’s good enough for me.
Bob’s is fantastic! I actually can find a wide selection of their stuff at Big Lots (not sure if you’re familiar with that store- it’s a discount store, so it’s much cheaper). Congrats on getting a pile of awesome for your giftcard!
Also, I frequently add flax meal to the gluten-free pancakes and cookies I make. Works wonderfully 🙂
This makes two Big Lots recommendations! I don’t know if we have them in New York but I’ll have to check. 🙂
Crossing my fingers for you! They’re a surprising gluten-free gold mine 🙂
Also cheap pork rinds, which I totally live off of for salty snacks 😉
I love the Bob’s brand but I don’t order online…I just pick up a bag here and there at the grocery. Let us know what you do with that flaxseed!
Hopefully Bob’s has changed the mighty hot cereal since I was first diagnosed! My mom (who rivals your parents for “best parent”, but since she is just ONE parent, I will allow you to take the best ParentS title) bought me a few bags when I was on my way back from the hospital post-diagnoses, but I never finished even one! I only found it remotely palatable if I added a metric ton of brown sugar, and I have a very difficult time eating things that are too sweet. Needless to say, this stuff got tossed when I was leaving on my backpacking trip.
I like to cruise by glutenfreesaver.com and see what deals they have. They are kind of like groupon for celiacs & have really good deals from time to time. We actually got a box of 5 Bakery on Main granola bags delivered this morning! SO STOKED!
OH and not sure about the east coast, but we have a store here called Big Lots that always has a whole wall of Bob’s mixes for SUPER cheap! Just something to look into 🙂
Eek! Too bad to hear about the cereal, but hopefully I can struggle through it. I’ll let you know how it goes.
Thanks for the tips on glutenfreesaver.com and Big Lots, too! Where’d you go backpacking?
You may like it! My brother didn’t mind it too bad.
We backpacked in Colombia, Bolivia, Uruguay & Argentina.
OMG thinking of Argentina makes me miss their amazing gf food! I will have to jump on this restaurant-service-for-Celiacs thing soon & write about what it *should* and *can* look like– Buenos Aires is THE most celiac-friendly place I have been as of yet!
lolololol
I freeze my flax, so it keeps forever — one bag lasts me a few years. But I don’t do eggs, and it’s a good egg replacer. I get most of my Bob’s at the regular grocery, but Ocean State Job Lots (a New Englander version of Big Lots) sometimes has them cheaper, and I’ll stock up — especially on almond and sorghum flours, as those are the ones I decimate. I am still looking for teff flour, though.
I am kind of scared to know I can order Bob’s directly online. That could be dangerous.
Teff flour was SO expensive on the Bob’s site that I just decided to bag it this time (or, not bag it? I don’t know if this pun is going anywhere). Maybe grinding teff would be cheaper? Do you use Elena Amsterdam’s books for almond flour recipes?
Sounds like you need a seeds/nut grinder now, as well as a camera!
I’d love a grinder. A camera might just encourage more taking and posting of silly self-portraits, though…or lead me to pick up a food photography hobby. NO TIME!
I second flax meal as an egg replacer. I TBS per one egg, and 3 TBS of water per TBS of flax and mix and leave for 10 minutes. Makes muffins not flake apart.
Thanks for reading and for the tip, Mike! 🙂
I’m a big fan of ground flax meal in my smoothies!
I’m finding the Bob’s style to be more like flakes/crushed than fully ground, but I could see how that texture could be a good smoothie addition, too. Thanks for the tip. 🙂
I use raw buckwheat groats all the time, I love them!! You can throw them into granola dry as is,but I love to soak and drain them and put them in raw granola. You could probably do this in an oven at a really low temperature if you don’t have a dehydrator.
xo
kittee
Thanks for the tip! I don’t have a dehydrator but it’s on my ever-growing kitchen wish list. What else do you put in your raw granola?
http://kitteekake.blogspot.com/#uds-search-results
There’s a few recipes on my blog, if you click on that link above.
Oh, those look great. What I most want is to mix your Buckwheat Granola and Celine’s Peanut Butter Granola into one recipe. That sounds a bit dangerous, though. 🙂
just soak some buckwheat and make the pb granola! you probably don’t need to soak it long.
[…] 1. I had my first dinner party since going gluten-free. Hello, amaranth-polenta-stuffed peppers! Did you know amaranth is rich in, like, everything holy? Protein (including lysine), fiber, magnesium, iron, zinc, calcium, B vitamins…all that stuff veg-heads and gluten-freebies crave. I am not the first to compare it to manna. I’m eating my way through the leftovers and still have half a package left to use in another recipe. Thanks again, Mom, Dad, and Bob! […]
[…] can buy whole buckwheat groats in bulk and make them into stir-fries, burgers, breakfast cereal, risotto, and deep-fried risotto balls […]
[…] You’ve advised me on eating out, revealed your doctor horror stories, cheered me on when my results came back, shared your grocery shopping adventures, helped me write a letter to my doctor, and indulged me when I wondered whether packing peanuts have gluten. […]