Category Archives: New Products

Crunch Time for Gluten-Free

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Gluten-Free Multi-Seed Crackers to crunch the time away with.

I’m not even gluten-intolerant, but when samples of Crunchmaster Multi-Seed and Multi-Grain Crackers landed in my mail, I became addicted to them.

Yes, they’re gluten-free, cholesterol-free and low in saturated fat.

But they are big on crunch.

The thin crackers are made from California brown rice flour, sesame seeds, potato starch, quinoa seeds, flax seeds, amaranth seeds, tamari soy sauce and safflower oil.

They taste almost like a sturdier, heartier Asian rice cracker. That’s not surprising when you learn that the method for making the crackers is based on the age-old Northern Japanese technique of baking rice crackers on open grills.

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River Wave Sauces Make Cooking Easier

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Grilled fish gets enlivened by a drizzle of "My Thai Gourmet Sauce.''

Even as a mostly from-scratch cook, I’ll readily admit that I’ve often doctored up jarred sauces for the sheer convenience and time savings.

But they better be darned good jarred products to begin with. Or else no amount of fiddling will help in the end.

You don’t have to worry about that with Washington state’s River Wave  Foods, a line of jarred cooking sauces and dressings that are made from fresh ingredients and are gluten-free.

Recently, I had a chance to try samples of the globally-influenced products.

The convenient jarred cooking sauces.

The Thai sauce.

“My Thai Gourmet Sauce” ($7.50 for a 6.5-ounce jar) is a heady blend of lime juice, fish sauce, sugar, garlic and enough Thai chilies to give it a real kick. I enjoyed it spooned over grilled mahi mahi for dinner.

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Can’t Miss Vanilla Shortbread Cookies and A New Sweetener

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Vanilla and European butter are all you need to make these cookies sing.

There are some people who will turn up their nose if a baked good has cardamom in it. Or raisins. Or coconut. Or even chocolate (if you can believe that).

But nobody ever shuns vanilla.

Nope, not ever.

It’s the most popular flavor for so many things because it is the pure taste of childhood memories.

Of ice cream dripping off cones on a hot summer day. Of birthday cake with candles to blow out. Of cupcakes with a mountain of frosting to get all over your face.

That’s why I guarantee nobody will turn down one of these “Vanilla Shortbread Cookies.”

The recipe is from “Bon Appetit Desserts” (Andrews McMeel) by the magazine’s former editor-in-chief, Barbara Fairchild.

European butter makes these cookies extra rich. Powdered sugar and cornstarch makes them very tender, yet nicely crumbly. With a teaspoon of vanilla extract, the dough gets rolled into logs to chill until firm. Then, slices are baked until golden on the edges.

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Outrageously Good Gourmet Marshmallows

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Strawberry marshmallows to sink your sweet tooth into.

When I was a kid, I thought marshmallows were the perfect food.

After all, they were cute, sweet, squishable, meltable and fat-free. What more could a gal want?

(OK, the fact they were still caloric obviously escaped my reasoning back then.)

Now, the inventive ones by Have it Sweet have me singing the virtues of marshmallows all over again.

Made by a husband and wife duo in Los Angeles, this small confectionary company turns out fresh, delightful marshmallows in mind-boggling flavors. Think bubblegum, cinnamon sugar. apple pie, lemon swirl, and double cocoa swirl.

Produced in small batches to order, the marshmallows are  made of all natural ingredients, including organic and sustainable ones when available. They get their hues from food-based, organic colorings.

Chocolate hazelnut swirl marshmallow (front) and fleur de sel caramel swirl marshmallow (back).

Recently, I had a chance to try some samples.

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A New Farmed Salmon

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A new farmed salmon. (Photo courtesy of Verlasso)

When it comes to deciding whether to eat farmed salmon, the choice is not always clear cut.

Sure, farmed salmon in general gets a bad rap — and deservedly so. The Environmental Defense Fund issued a health advisory for farmed salmon because of high levels of PCBs. It takes  about three or four pounds of wild feeder fish to grow one pound of farmed salmon. Waste from open-water pens pollutes surrounding ocean waters. And the farmed fish can sometimes escape, posing potential problems for wild fish populations that can be affected by their parasites or diseases.

U.S. farmed freshwater coho salmon, though, gets a “Best Choice” recommendation from the Monterey Bay Aquarium’s “Seafood Watch” guide because it is farmed in inland tanks, lessening the potential spread of disease and pollution. They also require less wild feeder fish to grow.

Some chefs also favor a Scottish salmon, marketed as Loch Duart, which is farmed in the waters off the northwest coast of Sutherland. It’s billed as a sustainable alternative, but it, too, relies on feed made of fish meal and oil.

Now, into the fray comes a new farmed salmon, this one from the waters of Patagonia, Chile.

Known as Verlasso Salmon, this new farmed Atlantic salmon just launched last summer and is starting to show up in markets nationwide. Berkeley Bowl, which started carrying it in February, is the only retailer in the Bay Area selling it so far. You can find it at the seafood counter at both of its Berkeley stores for $14.80 per pound.

What makes this farmed salmon different?

Instead of needing three or four pounds of wild feeder fish to grow one pound of farmed salmon, Verlasso has developed a process to get that down to a one-to-one ratio. How? By supplementing the fish meal  feed with a special kind of yeast that is rich in omega 3s, which salmon typically get from ingesting other fish. In the future, the company hopes to get that ratio down even more, so that the farmed salmon can be raised with little to no fish meal at all, says Scott Nichols, director of  the Delaware-based Verlasso.

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