Gluten-Free Bread Review (and a Bonus Herb Garden Shot!)

As I mentioned in an earlier post, when diagnosed with my food sensitivities, my doctor recommended gluten-free bread from Rose's Wheat-Free Bakery in Evanston. Rose's is such a great little bakery- they have cookies, cakes, and other treats, some of which are vegan. The day I went, they had some vegan banana bread which I almost snatched up, but I decided to just stick with some sandwich bread for this visit (but there's always next time!) They offer many different types of bread and one vegan variety which I stocked up on- the Seeded Sandwich Bread. My mom and I took home four loaves and only had them pre-slice one since we were planning on freezing the others (though slicing before freezing actually might be a better idea now that I think about it...). I must admit, when I first tried this bread, I was a little put off. It had a slight beany aftertaste which I was not expecting and the texture was like a cross between a quick bread and sandwich bread, though I suppose that's what's expected without gluten.

However, the more I ate this bread, the more I grew to like it and found the texture actually very enjoyable. Also, I found that toasting the slices before using them virtually eliminated any beany taste, which made my PB&J (or SB&J- sunflowerseed butter and jelly) sandwiched much more enjoyable. The sandwich you see above uses bread from my second loaf of bread which I sliced myself into thinner slices than they did at Rose's. I think the thinner slices work a lot better in sandwiches since I can taste the filling more than the bread that way, but the bread did get really crumbly and some slices' corners fell off. Until I can get myself a bread slicer (my mom said we used to have one! But she gave it away...), I think I'll probably let Rose's slice my loaves of bread, but who knows? What I do know is that I am very happy with this bread and am so greatful that I have such a great gluten-free, vegan-friendly bakery in my area.


And here's my little pride and joy! My herb garden from Xmas has been growing like crazy and I think I'm only a few weeks away from awesome fresh herbs. As you can see, the basil is really floursihing, but I expected this after seeing how much my little brother's basil plant grew suring the summer. The dill has been causing me problems, though. It didn't sprout after almost three weeks (they should all sproufn in two weeks or less), so I put in the new dill plant from the second set of herb containers that I got. Hopefully this plant will eventually sprout because I really like dill. I guess you'll just have to stayed tuned to find out!