What's Cooking?

Disclosure: I am participating in the Chex Gluten Free program by Mom Central Canada on behalf of General Mills.  I received a Chex gift pack and a gift card as a thank you for my participation.  The opinions on this blog are my own.

There was a time in my life when I had to watch my mom struggle with an undiagnosed auto-immune disease.  We watched her get sicker and sicker, wasting away before our eyes.  She ended up going on an elimination diet, to try to pinpoint any possible food allergies that were making her sick.  It turns out gluten was the culprit.  For several years she ate a gluten-free diet and we saw the colour come back to her cheeks and her weight go back to normal.  Eating gluten-free at the time was not easy.  There were not many gluten-free alternatives to her favourite grain-based foods.  The foods that were available were very expensive, the texture was often very dense and coarse, and things just didn't taste very good.

Nowadays, as the gluten-free diet becomes more mainstream, there are many more options available to consumers.  Gluten-free Chex is one of them.  I was fortunate to receive boxes of both varieties of Gluten-free Chex to sample.  My boxes came with a recipe book that I  read through and I immediately bookmarked a couple of recipes to try. 

I opened the corn-based Honey Nut flavour first.  It is crunchy and sweet and tasted great right out of the box.   I used some of the cereal to make Sweet and Salty Coconut Chicken fingers for supper.  I didn't use tenders, like the recipe calls for, but I found that there was plenty of coating mix for five chicken breasts that I cut into fingers.   Charlotte was happy to help with cracking the eggs in the recipe and then crunching up the cereal into crumbs.  This recipe shows that if you are living gluten-free, you don't have to give up crispy breaded chicken if that is a favourite.  (I can see this coconut topping being delicious on jumbo shrimp too.)  The house smelled SO good while the fingers were baking.  Matthew thought I was making cookies!  He also didn't come up for air until his plate was clean.  I'd say that is high praise!


The kids have been enjoying the plain Rice Chex for breakfast.  It stays nice and crispy in milk and has a bit of sweetness so you don't need to add extra sugar to your bowl.  It would make really great snack bars.


So, if you are on a gluten-free diet and want to try something new, give Gluten-free Chex a try.  Take a peek at their website and you will find out that cereal is not just for breakfast.