Yesterday I tried a new thing: Burritos wrapped in brown-rice tortillas. Usually I make quesadillas, but you gotta switch it up sometimes, right? Anyway, they were really fragile by lunchtime. La Primera didn't care, but La Segunda brought hers home in a delicate state, mostly uneaten. (I ate it, though. Yum!)
Some GF products, such as brown-rice tortillas or brown-rice pasta, are very delicious. For instance, with brown-rice pasta you get the benefits of whole grains AND the chewiness of regular pasta, which whole-wheat pasta lacks. (In fact, many of my non-GF friends have switched to brown-rice pasta; it's that good.) The downside of gluten-free products is that--well, there's no gluten! Gluten holds things together even in wet conditions. GF foods don't hold up as long. Biscotti will break off when dunked in coffee. Soup noodles and pasta salads will taste good the next day, but the noodles will have broken into smaller pieces. Brown rice tortillas filled with moist ingredients will soon become fragile.
You can still make all these dishes, just adjust your strategy. Wrap burritos in parchment and instruct your diner to leave it wrapped and just fold down the paper as they go. Or instead of burritos, send quesadillas and put beans and salsa on the side. For pasta salads, boil the noodles the night before and chill them, then mix the salad in the morning. You can also add chilled noodles to individual servings of hot soup to cool the soup and warm the noodles. Those nice Vietnamese rice papers make great roll-ups, as long as the fillings are fairly dry and the dip is on the side. As for biscotti and cookies--well, just dunk carefully! GF takes a little forethought, but once you are used to it, it's a breeze!
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