breakfast is served. in india

For those of you who don't follow my other blog, Where in the World Am I?, here's a summary of the last few months. We moved from Burundi in June and had the baby in August in the United States (a little girl named Sophie, who goes by Muffin in the blogosphere). Last week we moved to Hyderabad, India.

We are temporarily living in a furnished, "full-service" apartment. One of the services provided is breakfast. We have a choice of Western, which is an omelette and toast, or South Asian, which is idli (steamed rice pancakes) with savory sauces. I don't like eggs and can't eat the toast, so I get a plate of idli with fresh fruit. And I yank a little of the sweet red jelly from Mike's tray because my stomach isn't ready for savory sauces early in the morning. They don't go well with coffee.

Wait, let me be more precise here. On the weekends I get a plate of idli and fresh fruit. Because on the weekends we request breakfast at eight o'clock. But during the week we request breakfast at seven o'clock and they can't source their idli that early in the morning. So despite our protests that we have plenty of fresh fruit, Mike's Western breakfast is served with an additional plate of fruit for me. (I can't wait until our blender arrives and we can go back to making smoothies, which is an excellent way to consume all the freakin' fruit that gets hoisted upon us.)

glutino frozen pizzas

While I was home in the United States this summer and fall, my pizza addiction led me to try Glutino Duo Cheese, Pepperoni, and Three Cheese frozen pizzas. They were all decent, for frozen pizzas. I doctored them up a bit, adding extra veggies. I also found that I needed to bake them in the oven for longer than the instructions recommended in order to get an acceptably crispy crust and the crust was inconsistent. Sometimes piping hot, sometimes cool in the middle, even though I baked the pizzas the same way.

My favorite was the Three Cheese. The Pepperoni was tasty, but I preferred adding slices of Aidells Italian style sausage to the plain cheese pizzas. The Pepperoni and Three Cheese have brown rice crusts, which was a better crust. For some reason it seemed to cook to a more consistent crispiness and had a better flavor. The cheeses and sauce on all three pizzas were flavorful.

No frozen pizza, gluten-free or otherwise, is as good as a restaurant or homemade fresh pizza. On the scale of frozen pizzas, I'd put these toward the high end if you like a thin, crispy crust.

Image from Glutino.com. I was not compensated in any way for this post. Items were purchased by me for personal consumption.

against the grain frozen bagels

Whoever labeled these packages "bagels" has never actually eaten a bagel before and apparently doesn't know a single person who has, either, in order to conduct a taste test. This, sir, is no bagel. It's round and that's where the similarities between bagels and whatever this is ends.

It somehow manages to be light and airy in appearance (which is the first clue that it's not a bagel) yet chewy in an undercooked pastry dough kind of way (chewy is good in a bagel; undercooked dough is not).

They were also greasy in a pastry dough kind of way. On their own website Against the Grain admits that people have compared them to croissants. A bagel that can be mistaken for a croissant isn't a bagel.

These bagels just weren't for me.

Images from Against the Grain. I was not compensated in any way for this post. I purchased items myself for personal consumption.