Happy Sunday!

My friend David visited a couple of weeks ago and brought me a couple of gluten-free treats from California. Among them were two boxes of gluten-free mac & cheese, which I really enjoyed! I used to treat myself to mac & cheese out of a box every once in a while when I still ate gluten, but now that is a thing of the past. It was really lovely to have an easy-to-make companion in my cupboard and to be able to eat a full (albeit not necessarily healthy) meal in about twelve minutes. I totally forgot what that is like! *wink*

This is what the box looks like. Inside you find tiny rice shells and an envelope with cheese powder for later use.

This is how you prepare the mac & cheese:

First, bring six cups of salted water to a boil. Throw the rice shells in there and boil them for about ten minutes. Once the rice shells are tender, drain them.

To prepare the cheese sauce, you pour a couple of tablespoons of milk into a pot, then you add the cheese powder. You can then add a chunk of butter, stir until the sauce is lump-free (both times I made this product, I was unable to remove all of the lumps), and then dump the rice shells. You can spice this dish up by adding some vegetable or other. I chose zucchini slices. I also added a bit of grated parmigiano for extra-cheesy-ness.

I really loved the taste of the cheese sauce and – as David pointed out – I would love it if it were sold separately. It is rich, flavorful and lush. The rice shells were divinely al dente, I would also enjoy them in a soup or with a vegetable sauce of some kind. I would definitely buy this regularly – if I only could!

Since we have no similar product on the German market (only something which – if prepared by package direction tastes quite vile – by Schneekoppe), I really wish Annie’s would consider selling their Rice Shells & Creamy White Cheddar (Gluten-free Mac & Cheese) – or any of their other products – on the German market. Or that someone who makes a living of importing US-products to Europe would consider adding this brand of gluten-free mac & cheese to their online-aisles. I would definitely buy this and I’m sure many other celiacs in Germany (particularly those of us who are desperate for convenience products) would, too!