I thought I made the best meatballs!!!

poontaang

Amazingly awesome show! Ann you're a natural for the camera. This may now be one of my favorite eps!! You two rocked together. …..again, a long review deserves a long comment (doubt you and anyone for that matter will read this )

Hahahahaha, thanks for the clarification on the best meatballs you've ever had….sorry that the FFM's memory slipped him FFM Mom

“Passion is our main ingredient.” I love it. That's awesome! I've been serving a gluten-free dough for about a month now. It took a long time to get everything right but now I'm getting rave reviews (they tell me it's the bee's knees ) I have a lot of friends who for various reasons opt to eat a gluten-free diet. I can understand and sympathize with those who have an intolerance to gluten (or lactose for that matter It's nice to see a product like this hitting the more main stream and it's especially nice when they make it so great. A lot of times with specialty products like this they just aren't really stomachable and that doesn't really solve the problem. Kind of like some of the products that grew out of the low-card fad…they were dry, chalky and tasted identical to saw dust….if people don't enjoy it they won't maintain that diet…and for those that don't have a choice (in the case of celiac disease) well that's just not fair to them is it?

It's nice to know that Ann won't have a bad taste in her mouth from these pizzas….only from her Sox not even making the post-season (neeneer neeneer ) Conspirie all you want but you'll than “Rally Caps” bud! *Side note* At least we're both Patriot fans!!! It'll be a fun winter….after your sad autumn.

Man, those are pricey! I know you talked about this a bit but….Ann, that's one of my biggest questions for the GF crowd…how much more do you expect to pay for a good tasting non-gluten option? What's sort of the barometer? Our pizzas are pretty darned pricey but they are paying for it because they like it (I had a $300 gluten free order the other day!)

*TIP* Place a cookie sheet on the rack below the pizza…my brother melted a Digiorno all over the oven the other day …and if you haven't seen this: http://failblog.files.wordpress.com/2008/04/fai…

Mushroom and herbs flatbread – seems like you're always “taking one for the team…” – One sir, one….you've now taken roughly 12 – 15 for the team I don't think I'd mind the “gritty”…I'm a huge texture eater.

Spinach and tomato flatbread – Wow, you're really in to that bad boy! “Fresh” out of the freezer is a tough one….I always feel weird describing a frozen item as “fresh”….only because I know it's not.

Margherita flatbread – That's no Margherita …..to their credit most places get this wrong as well. Really that's just a cheese with basil. Basil is the best though….I grow some in my “gawwden”. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_pizza

No question o' the day? Here's one for Neighbor Ann…what's your most favorite gluten-free item you've tried and what's your favorite thing you make yourself?

I will echo some of the previous sentiments here… you guys were great on camera together! It definitely made for a more informative review to have someone who has tasted a lot of the gluten free “specialty foods” out there and could therefore judge these products by comparing them to other gluten free pizzas that are available on the market.

As I don't follow a gluten-free diet, I haven't tasted very many gluten-free specialty foods (e.g. pizzas, breads, baking products, etc)… some of my friends, however, regularly buy a lot of these products; based on what they tell me, it seems that texture is the biggest issue when it comes to gluten-free breads and baked goods (including pizza dough)… as Ann mentioned, they are often too dense and tend to have a dry, gritty texture. It was nice to see that these pizzas seem to have avoided this problem, at least for the most part. The quality of the ingredients was definitely impressive; I was especially surprised while watching the two of you taste the spinach and tomato pizza… every time I've ever eaten frozen spinach (or any frozen food containing spinach), I've always been disappointed; the spinach always loses its texture and most of its flavor. I have to wonder how on earth they managed to keep that “fresh” taste and texture of the spinach in this pizza; I always thought that it must be impossible. It's almost enough to make me want to try this product; however, I will only eat pizza if I've made it myself! (As I've said before… just a preference left over from when I was a vegan.) Furthermore, I have to admit that I'm not a fan of feta cheese… it's one of the very few cheeses that I actually don't like.

Hmm, I don't think asiago belongs in a “margherita”, technically speaking… still, that one *does* look delicious, regardless of what you call it.

And of course, as I must state once again… sorry, Greg, but I *love* mushrooms… the mushroom and herb pizza was the one that looked the best to me! That one looks SO good… still, it's just a matter of personal taste (after all, as I just admitted, I can't stand feta cheese); regardless of my personal ingredient preferences, all of these Bella Monica pizzas seem to be high quality products, gluten free or not… that in itself is extremely impressive. They are on the expensive side, but compared with other gluten-free frozen foods that I've seen, the price doesn't seem that bad… and for the quality of the product, it seems to be worth it in this case. It's good to know that there are some decent tasting gluten-free options out there now, for those who need them… or even for those who don't!

Well, once again, fantastic episode… hope to see Ann back on the show sometime in the future!

Your friend did a really good job here, she should consider making a videoblog reviewing all pre-prepared (pre-prepared, I don't know if that's a real word but it describes what I'm trying to say lol) gluten-free products.