Gluten Free Class Report

Photo taken from Healthy Deals and Steals blog

I ended up going to the gluten free savings and sampling class last Wednesday and I'm glad I did!

Traci did a great job. She's not on a gluten free diet, but her research on it was awesome. I've been doing this for 3 1/2 years and she taught me a bunch of things I didn't know about saving money.

Here are 5 quick things I want to tell you:

1. First and foremost, go here and sign up for the free Mambo Sprouts mailer (sent 3 times a year). Or pick one up at a participating health food store. It comes with coupons, articles, and occasionally product samples.
   
   
2. Check out the recipes of the samples she had for us. They were HEAVENLY!!! I haven't gotten into the baking gluten free from scratch thing yet because it can be quite labor intensive and the results aren't always worth it, but trying the samples has got me convinced that I ought to at least try.
   
   I'm going to start with the coconut layer cake (without the frosting which is apparently hard to make). It was so good!!! And it only has a few ingredients I don't already have. I seriously still can't believe how moist and delicious it was. Same with the bread. It was yummy. Especially with the raspberry butter she brought to go on it. I don't know that I'll attempt that one for awhile. It has a bunch of flours I'll need to buy and because of that it seems a little more complicated than I'm willing to do at this point in my life. Except now that I'm thinking about it again and remembering how amazing it tasted I'm leaning a little more towards being willing to attempt. We'll see. I'll for sure let you know if I ever do. Let me know if you try it and how easy/hard it is.
   
   I also liked the quinoa chocolate chip cookies. Like the other two things, they were also quite moist (for anyone who is new to gluten free cooking, having the baked good be moist is HUGE) and tasty. The next time I crave chocolate chip cookies I'm going to try the Betty Crocker mix (can you believe I haven't tried it yet?!) and if I don't like that enough I'll use the recipe from the class.
   
   
3. If you're just looking into the gluten free diet and haven't decided whether or not you should be tested for celiac disease or if you should just stop eating gluten, get tested! I've heard both arguments on this one for awhile and kept going back and forth, but I now think you should for sure get tested. I'll explain why in an upcoming post.
   
   
4. Watch for that upcoming post. It will be about the awesome tips Traci gave us on saving money while eating gluten free.
   
   
5. Lastly, I wish there was a Sunflower Farmers Market in Davis county (that's where the class was held). I couldn't believe the great deals that were there! I bought myself some yummy blackberries and some Glutino gluten free cheese crackers for half price. I highly recommend them (the store and the crackers).

Thanks for the class, Traci!