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Last week, I recommended Simply Gluten-free Magazine, which I found in Whole Foods (and online.)

I tried the two recipes that I mentioned in my previous email.

1.  Chocolate bowls, using water balloons as molds.  The bowls aren't as easy as they look to make.  I'm sure the one on the front cover of the magazine took many attempts to look so perfect.  But more of an issue, was the magazine never said to use plain, undecorated water balloons, and the only ones I could find had an imprinted design on the outside, which stuck to the chocolate bowls.  I tried eating the bowls that looked clean and just weren't shaped well enough for company, and quite frankly, I felt ill.  So I didn't serve them.  My company had a good laugh, though, and appreciated the effort.  I emailed the magazine editor for advice on how to make the bowls, so you don't end up eating latex, and have not heard back yet....which bothers me more than the outcome.  So if you're going to try to make these, by dipping inflated balloons in slightly cooled melted chocolate chips.....then use absolutely plain balloons.

2.  I made the spaghetti squash/artichoke heart/leek kugel.  Although my polite guest said he loved it, I found it totally bland and difficult to serve.  They should have included instructions in the recipe to make the squash strings cut up into maybe one inch pieces.  Otherwise, it's like trying to pick up a mound of spaghetti to serve several people.  There was no way to cut it into squares or pie shapes.  I had to give the guests a big spoon.  And it was just very bland.  I use spaghetti squash all the time, with olive oil and garlic or pasta sauce.  This was flavorless, despite calling for salt, pepper, and nutmeg.  It was really lacking something.

That being said, I still have used other recipes in the magazine since I saw it in the Fall, and I will subscribe to it....probably.  I'll just doctor the recipes, if they seem too bland.  What I don't like is not hearing from the editor when there was a potential to get my guests seriously ill, because of a recipe in their magazine.  She should at least, have said she'd look into it.  And now that the heavy work for Passover is over and the holiday itself is half over, I'll google chocolate bowls online and see what others say.

Lin

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