Tuesday, April 8, 2014

Gluten Free Food Finds at the Gluten-Free Living Conference

This weekend, I attended the Gluten-Free Living Conference in Orlando.  This was my first gluten free conference, so it was a pretty amazing experience for me.  On Friday, I attended Blogger U, with classes for bloggers on how to improve and refine their blogging skills.  I had the pleasure of meeting Jules, Taylor from Gluten Away, Michael from Gluten Free Philly, Jennifer from Gluten Free Go-To Guide, Amanda from Eating Out...Without, and so many others!  Plus, I got to hang out with my friend Sarah from Gluten-Free & Dairy-Free at WDW.  


On Saturday and Sunday, I spend some time visiting the gluten free vendors.  


I think the first product I tried was Glutino Milk Chocolate Gluten Free Wafers.  I was off to a really good start.  My daughters would love these, and they would be a perfect lunch treat for them at school.  


I also really enjoyed Udi's Ancient Grain Aged Cheddar Crisps.  


I didn't think I would like Kinnikinnick's blueberry and plain bagels, because I rarely like gluten free bagels, but I was impressed by how good they were.    


I also enjoyed a piece of a grilled cheese sandwich made with Kinnikinnick White Bread.  Their representative told me that the bread has recently been reformulated.  


I loved the cheese quesadilla I sampled made with Rudi's Spinach Tortillas and Organic Valley Fancy Shredded Mild Cheddar Cheese, the cheese I use at home.  


Rudi's recently started making Ciabatta Rolls.   


I was not able to sample them, and they are not available yet in Orlando stores, but I will be keeping an eye out for them.  I love ciabatta!  


Do you love whoopie pies?  If your answer is yes, you need to check out The Piping Gourmets.  I was really impressed by the whoopie pies with chocolate cake and raspberry frosting.  All of their products are kosher & vegan, and free of gluten, GMOs, dairy, and egg.  


Raphsodic Bakery is a 100% dedicated vegan facility located on N. Mills Avenue in Orlando, a short drive from my house.  I was excited to see that they were one of the vendors at the Gluten-Free Living Conference.  I have always loved their gluten free double chocolate marzipan biscotti.  They are probably the best biscotti I have ever had, even better than the gluten-filled biscotti I used to eat PC (pre-celiac).  I also loved the cinnamon sugar and apple spice biscotti they brought to the conference.


One of my favorite vendors was Wellaby's.  I loved all of the food I sampled at their booth, including the cinnamon sugar pita chips.  


I have purchased their Cheese Ups at Chamberlin's in Winter Park before, and they were just as good as I remembered.  


I also tried Wellaby's Parmesan Sundried Tomato Crackers and their Classic Cheese Mini Crackers.  Everything was so crisp and flavorful!  


I am looking forward to trying their Grated Parmesan Mini Crackers later this week.  Wellaby's products can be purchased from amazon.  They are free from gluten, GMOs, trans fats, soy, MSG, preservatives, peanuts & tree nuts.  


My daughters and blog readers have been raving about Helwa Gluten Free Wafers.  The Enjoy is a "Kit Kat" style wafer covered in Belgian milk chocolate with a creamy chocolate filling.  The Free Time is an "aerated" style wafer coated in Belgian chocolate with a bubbly chocolate filling.  Both are imported from The Netherlands. I love that each package contains 3 individually wrapped packs that are great for portion control, keeping them fresh, and sending to school for lunch treats.  They are made with teff flour, and contain no artificial colors or flavors.  I wish I could tell you where these Helwa Gluten Free Wafers can be purchased.  I will definitely be keeping an eye out for them in local stores.  


Schar Honeygrams have been on my radar for a while.  I have heard from several other bloggers and blog readers how good they are, so I recently picked up a package from The Fresh Market.  I also brought home two sample packs from the Gluten-Free Living Conference.  I sampled some for lunch today.  I loved everything about them, especially the fact that they are so mildly sweet.


The Liz Lovely cookies I sampled at the conference really blew me away.  They are big, and soft, and amazingly delicious!  I purchased my two favorites, the Snicker Dudes and the Ginger Snapdragon.  Liz Lovely cookies are gluten free, vegan, non GMO, and Parve.  


I loved Brazi Bites so much, I stopped at Whole Foods on my way home on Sunday, and made them for dinner that night.  You can read my review here.


I loved meeting and talking to everyone from Nostalgic Cookies.  Their packaging and products are so beautiful, and their cookies are gluten free, dairy free, corn free, kosher, non GMO, and free of artificial preservatives.  


I love that inside the box, all the cookies are individually packaged.  Not only will this prevent them from getting stale, but they are great for portion control and easy to pack in school lunches.  I sampled almost all of them this morning.  Tough life, I know.  I enjoyed them all, but I think the traditional raspberry were my favorite.  You can view Nostalgic Cookies' website here


April 10, 2014 Update -- I finally had a chance to try the sample NoGii bars I brought home from the Gluten-Free Living Conference.  I really enjoyed all of them!  I think my daughters would love the NoGii Kids Chocolate Chip bars, which remind me of a rice krispie treat kicked up with some chocolate chips.  I loved the taste and texture of the Chocolate Peanut Butter Caramel Crisp Super Protein Bar and the Peanut Butter & Chocolate High Protein Bar.  The Nuts About Berries Paleo Bar was really good too.  You can view NoGii's store locator here.

For those of you that attended the Gluten-Free Living Conference, what were your favorite gluten free food finds?

















3 comments:

  1. My favorite was the Enjoy and Free Time. I will be pushing for someone to carry them in Orlando. Until them I will settle for Schar wafers.

    The other favorite was the Brazil Bites. I will be buying these from Whole Foods.

    I had a good time and learned a great deal from this Conference, can't wait until the next one.

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    1. I had a great time too and am looking forward to the next Orlando conference at Disney in November. http://www.gfinorlando.com/2014/01/gluten-free-events-in-orlando-in-2014.html

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  2. I had my wedding here and I couldn't ask for a better venue. From the helpful manager who helped us book this beautiful venue to the bartenders that poured drinks all night with a smile. This is a top notch venue.

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