Gluten-free pie crust - easy as pie

Making a traditional tasting pie crust made without gluten ingredients isn't particularly easy in my opinion.  For a ready-made crust, the Kinnikinnick product is very good, but the crusts are fairly small.  To get one regular 9" crust, you need to defrost and roll out the two KK crusts and roll them out into one large crust.  That is kind of a lot of work as well.

For the easiest gluten-free pie crust ever, the cookie crumb crust can not be beat!  For chocolate & peanut butter pie or chocolate cream pies, use gluten-free Oreo type cookies.  For lemon bars, use graham style crackers or gingersnap cookies.  For a more traditional crust, sugar cookies can be used, but you might need to add a pinch of salt to counter balance the sweetness factor.

The cookies should be crunchy - not soft - in order to make the best crust.  Cookie crust recipes are bountiful on food.com - just remember to use GLUTEN-FREE cookies if using a regular cookie crust recipe.  All the recipes I've found and used require butter so I don't know how non-dairy butter substitutes works in cookie pie crust recipes.

I recently made lemon bars using Three Bakers graham crackers for the crust and the glutenoids we served them to wanted seconds.  They don't eat gluten-free and, truth be told, might go out of their way to avoid gluten-free replacement foods.  I've also used crunchy ginger cookies from Trader Joe's and Pamela's for the lemon bar crust.  The result is always the same - most people want more than one bar and many ask for the recipe.  And isn't that why we bake to share with others in the first place?!

Udi's bagels on sale at Publix!

Sorry if the sale is already over but I was out of town over the weekend. I picked up the last pack of Udi's gluten-free bagels at the Publix we shop at last Thursday and was shocked that they were marked $4.59 (or something like that) and then rang up at $3.99 as they were on sale. I don't think I've even bought them for that little at Natural Foods Warehouse. I think Publix figured out that they can't sell something for $1.50 - $2.00 more than the health foods stores do and keep the stock moving. The Udi's bread also came down in price about $1.00 per loaf there.

Also, our Publix location brought in Glenny's Oatmeal Raisin cookies and they were on sale for $3.99 too. I usually pay around $3.50 for those at NFW, but since we were heading out of town and needed snack foods for the trip, I spent the $4 and surprised my husband with them. He is addicted to those cookies which is why I rarely buy them. He'll eat the whole box at once and he can eat gluten. They are that fabulous!        

Review: Glow Gluten Free cookies

Glow Gluten Free cookies have been available at Return to Eden for a while now, but I never picked them up. Truthfully, I've never been one to eat cookies as a snack that often. That's changed somewhat since I've been doing gluten-free product reviews, because I have cookies sent to me from time to time for that purpose. Such is the case with Glow Gluten Free cookies. I read one rave review after another about these cookies and finally decided to see what all the buzz was about.

Even though I'd seen so many glowing reviews for Glow's gluten-free goodies, I had never noticed that the ingredients included bean flours. Gosh - I never met a sweet made with such flours that I loved so when I read the ingredients on the sample boxes that arrived at my house last week, I was suddenly not so excited to try them. But of course, I had to. I'd been sent all four flavors to taste so I tried to be positive and gave one of the cookies a try.

First up was the Chocolate Chip cookie. The texture was definitely more crunchy than chewy, but the cookies are crunchy in a soft way...it's hard to explain actually. In any case, the good news is that the taste of the cookies was very good and best of all, there was NO bean flour taste to it. Whew - what a relief!

As the week progressed, we ended up getting into all four flavors of the Glow Gluten Free cookies. Here is how the rest of the flavors broke down at our house.

Snickerdoodles - excellent flavor; my second favorite flavor; my husband's least favorite.

Double Chocolate Chip - exceptional taste; my favorite of the bunch; my husband's second choice.

Ginger Snaps - exceptional texture and taste; my third choice only because I'm not a ginger snap person; my husband's favorite option (he ate four the night we opened them -  giving me one bite - and ate the last three cookies the next day at work).

If you ever watch the Rachel Ray show, you know that she has a "snack of the day" and Glow's Gluten Free cookies recently made the cut. You can watch the video clip here. According to Rachel, we're in the midst of a gluten-free movement. Hey - the more times gluten-free is mentioned on a mainstream cooking show - the better for all of us!

Glow Gluten Free cookies are all natural and free of casein, trans fats and preservative as well. You can view the impressive nutritional data here. The cookies from Glow carry GIG's trusted seal of approval. If you can't find Glow's cookies in your area, you can order them online. My favorite way to enjoy these cookies is to dunk them in hot tea or coffee. Give them a try and I bet they'll have you "glowing" too!

*Special thanks to Jill for my sample cookies and for making healthy gluten-free cookies that taste decadent!