Onion rings.

One of the sides I miss most since going gluten free is onion rings. My taste for onions bloomed fairly recently, I'd say in the last 10 years and even more so since I married my husband who LOVES them. So it seems that I had just really started enjoying a food when it was swiped out from under me. Forbidden to be eaten.

I did some reading and couldn't find any recipes that didn't call for wheat flour or beer. However I'm an avid food network fan and one day as I was watching Tyler Florence, I discovered something precious. He made onion rings that day; delicious, golden, crunchy on the outside gooey on the inside onion rings! The best part was he made them with rice flour.

I decided to try for myself, so I pulled out my favorite onion ring recipe and substituted the glutenous flour with rice flour. They came out wonderful. I may even try a beer battered onion ring some day soon as I've found some decent gluten free beer as well. So try it, it couldn't be easier. Make some onion rings to go with those lettuce wrapped burgers or tasty steaks.

Pasta!

Before I went gluten free I was a huge pasta fan. I loved it in every form... Olive Garden was my favorite, the Steak Gorgonzola Alfredo what I usually ordered. Learning that I had to go gluten free filled me with despair. I'd never eat pasta again.

I've tried many different gluten free pastas. When I first changed my diet one of the only varieties I could find was corn pasta. It was ok, certainly nothing like the good ol' glutenous pasta of my pre-gluten free days. It tended to be grainy and break up easily. The texture was nothing to write home about and it just didn't stand up to cooking well.

I tried making fresh gluten free pasta... but I've never really liked the texture of fresh pasta, I can never tell when it's cooked all the way. Needless to say, I didn't like the fresh gluten free version either.

I love rice noodles, and would use them often for stir-fry or asian dishes once I worked out the proper preparation of them, and trust me... there were many inedible batches. Rice noodles just don't taste right with spaghetti sauce though and so my search continued.

Then one day I found Tinkyada and my life has been better ever since. Finally a noodle (and so far I have yet to be dissapointed by any of the Tinkyada varieties,) that can stand up to cooking, isn't grainy, and tastes good. A noodle that I can say comes so very close to my pre-gluten free noodles I used to love. When somebody asks for a recommendation I tell them Tinkyada and that's what I'm telling you too. Try them, enjoy them... eat spaghetti again, or lasagna or ever just noodles and garlic with a little butter all so very tasty.