I grew up in New Jersey. I once read a statistic that over 40% of people in New Jersey have some Italian relatives. I have no idea if this is true, but I can assure you that Italian food always played a huge role in my world and I am not even slightly Italian-American.
Yes, I do know that it is my loss.
So completely giving up pasta was not even on my radar. I would make gluten-free pasta. It would be fine.
As anyone who has ever made gluten-free pasta can tell you, it is generally not fine. As a matter of fact if you boil it even a minute too long it disintegrates into a weird white, sticky mass. It looks like it would do a great job as wallpaper paste, but eating it appears out of the question. And if you do manage to actually get it cooked perfectly don’t even think about reheating it. Really, don’t do it. It will gel overnight and become inedible.
So I kept going through gluten-free pastas trying to find one that was easier to use. I found Orgran’s Buckwheat Spirals, but they were only available as spirals. Trader Joes Organic Brown Rice Pasta was super inexpensive but needed instructions that included checking for doneness every 30 seconds after the first five minutes of boiling. I thought it was way too much work for spaghetti.
Then I found BiAglut. Imported from Italy, it was great. Unfortunately it included Lupini flour which causes reactions in the peanut allergic. My son counts multiple children with nut allergies among his close friends so that sadly had to be relegated to lesser category.
Then everyone kept telling me I had to try Tinkyada. Quite honestly I avoided it because everyone told me I had to have it (I am the sort of person who never owned Ugg boots on principle) then, having plowed through corn and quinoa and all the other pastas (which shall remain nameless because I personally disliked them) I saw no reason to believe this pasta would be any different since it had the same exact ingredients as the other rice pastas…but every celiac I ran into at the grocery store swore that it was different.
So I relented and bought some. And I have to admit that they were right.
Tinkyada is hardier than the other pastas. You can cook it according to package directions. If you overcook it by a minute, it gets overcooked. It does not break down at the molecular level.
I have even made and reheated a LASAGNE with it. Yes, the holy grail of gluten-free cooking. A gluten and dairy free lasagne that can be reheated. I just had the last of it after (drum roll please) it sat in my refrigerator for a WEEK. Gluten eaters, I know this sounds trivial…but I assure you it is not.
Tinkyada is widely available but is also available at Amazon and Vitacost even in single packages at $2.30 to $2.50 a pound as of today. I have not seen it cheaper elsewhere.
The first link is to Amazon and the second is to Vitacost
http://www.amazon.com/s?ie=UTF8&keywords=tinkyada&rh=i%3Aaps%2Ck%3Atinkyada&page=1
