Gluten-free muffins to the rescue!

A traditional brunch menu is typically heavy on gluten-filled options and when you're visiting in-laws for Easter, you can easily end up having to make do while hoping for the best. Meaning, hoping you don't get sick due to uninformed or misinformed staff members.

While I was fortunate and was able to find plenty of safe food to eat at Easter brunch this year, what really made me feel like it was brunch was my gluten-free muffin.  That would be the Pillsbury chocolate chip muffin I took to brunch in my purse.  Due to where I was, I could not trust the staff to take the muffin into the kitchen to heat up for me, but it didn't matter.  The muffins are delicious any way you can get them - hot with butter or plain at room temperature!

Presently, this is the only nationally distributed gluten-free muffin that offers individual wrappers for each unit.  Just grab one out of the freezer, throw in your purse (or workout bag or lunch bag) and you're good to go!

This is the perfect travel snack, though I haven't yet taken an international trip with them.  They'd be perfect to give you a boost during a long flight, but I haven't investigated how long the muffins stay fresh once they're defrosted.

I'm partial to chocolate chip muffins, but there is a blueberry muffin in this line if you prefer a more traditional breakfast option.  They are hitting Ingles stores in the ATL and are en route to Kroger stores this summer.  Hopefully, Publix won't be far behind ;)

Like most gluten-free muffins, the Pillsbury brand is stocked in your grocer's freezer.  ENJOY!

Lemon muffins from Udi's are fabulous with or without butter!

Our fave gluten-free muffins from Udi's are the Lemon Streusel ones. There is nothing wrong with the Blueberry muffins in the line, but we much prefer the Lemon version. In fact, at our house, we think the Lemon muffins are some of the best we've had in life, including all gluten versions! After not being able to find the muffins at Natural Foods Warehouse where I shop for most of my gluten-free items for many weeks, I finally found out the Duluth store had dropped the Lemon because there were not moving fast enough. I met the delightful owner of the store on the day I found out about this change. He was nice enough to have someone pick up two packs of Lemon muffins from his Alpharetta store for me.

The reason I needed the muffins was due to a last minute road trip - and because I'd not had any in almost two months. We packed some muffins in a cooler and hit the highway. I left the muffins on the counter overnight as usual. The next morning I heated up the muffins and then found out that there was no butter in the house we were at. This is a house that always has butter and where I feel comfortable opening a new stick just for me, due to cross contamination issues. The owner of the house did not buy the fake butter in the fridge - which was not Earth Balance (I've heard that was the best brand). Whatever the oddly colored spread was, it was nothing like real food so we ate our beloved muffins plain. I'm happy to report that the Udi's Lemon Streusel muffins were exquisite even without butter!

Since quitting my job last year, it's hard for me to get to R2E (where the whole Udi's line is sold) and I surely can't get to the NFW location in Alpharetta for my beloved muffins. I still have six of them left so I am set for a while. I find it odd that the Lemon muffins outsell the Blueberry - at least they do at the store we shop at. I think we must have somewhat peculiar tastes and that is certainly a hindrance at times.
 
           

   

Udi's Double Chocolate Muffins take the gluten-free cake!

By now, anyone who follows the gluten-free diet and lives in the U.S. has heard of Udi's Gluten-Free in Colorado. I guess people who are not online might have missed the news that Udi's Gluten-Free has turned the gluten-free baked goods world upside down. Think all gluten-free bread has to be heated in order to eat it - or even just to make it palatable? Wrong. Enter Udi's fantastic breads, muffins, pizza crust, granola and bagels!

I recently had the chance to try the Double Chocolate muffins and plain bagels from Udi's. Well, the muffin isn't really much like a muffin to me. It's like a fabulously decadent chocolate chip cupcake! All you need is some frosting and you've got a perfect tasting gluten-free treat for a kid's birthday party. I think all the muffins (and most of Udi's gluten-free items) are now available at Natural Foods Warehouse (both locations) and Return to Eden.      

The Udi's bagels are wonderful, quite like their white bread shaped into a bagel form. I put garlic powder and onion powder on half of an over-sized bagel before toasting to a golden brown. Then I add cream cheese and I've got a wonderful gluten-free breakfast. But the most perfect way to enjoy an Udi's bagel for me is to use it for open faced cold sandwiches. I won't be leaving  home without them ever again. My next experiment will involve making a gluten-free version of Panera's cinnamon crunch bagel...if all goes well, I'll post the instructions here later.