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gluten_freePure Delicious: More Than 150 Delectable Allergen-Free Recipes Without Gluten, Dairy, Eggs, Soy, Peanuts, Tree Nuts, Shellfish, or Cane Sugar, by Heather Christo: If you're not a fan of other people's health problems, you'll want to skip the lengthy introduction to the Christo family's food sensitivities and trips to the emergency room. Christo also uses the term "food allergy" even when she means intolerance, which bugs me.
The cookbook, though, is gorgeous, with amazing pictures full of colorful food in pleasing arrangements. Everything looks amazing. I actually paged through all the savory recipes, which I rarely do as I'm mostly interested in the baking sections.
Baking here involves "All-purpose gluten-free flour." In the introduction, the author sings the praises of Bob's Red Mill AP GF Baking Flour, but never says if that's what she used in formulating her recipes. (Though she explicitly uses it on her blog, along with Bob's GF 1-to-1 Baking Flour.) I am not a fan of vagueness in gluten-free baking. Other ingredients include: oats, chia seeds, beet sugar, xanthan gum, sweet potato puree, aquafaba (the water from canned garbanzo beans, whipped until it resembles meringue), and coconut cream, coconut milk, and coconut oil. There's coconut milk in nearly every baked good in this book, making them inaccessible to me.
I saved several of the savory recipes, instead. Avgolemono—Greek lemon chicken soup—has always appealed to me, though this version's made without the eggs and orzo, and it's really simple, but really tasty. There's a shredded carrot salad with a vinaigrette that's simple and delicious, like coleslaw without the cabbage. The chimichurri is great. And the quinoa tabbouleh looks good, too.
Anyway. This book is beautiful. Every recipe has head notes. Measurements are in U.S. volume. There's a color photo for most recipes. The index is thorough, though not every page in this book has a page number, which is bizarre. Storage advice is rare, and, oh, there's a set of incomprehensible icons to indicate whether a recipe is vegan, quick, good for kids, handles the freezer, etc. "High in fiber" looks like wheat. "No added sugar" looks like "no cubes" but at least that makes sense. "Make ahead" looks a printer icon. Then, after some thinking, it looked like one loaf of bread stacked on top of an identical, yet slightly larger, loaf of bread. Then, much later, I shouted, "It's an armchair!!" I mean, that's my best guess. It makes more sense than a printer or a stack of bread.
You can check out Heather Christo's food blog to see what she's about. I find it a little busy. It has a bunch of personal chatter before the recipes and the photographs have so many flowers sprinkled over everything it's hard to see the food. The cookbook is really where it's at.
This review appeared on my journal in a slightly different form.
The cookbook, though, is gorgeous, with amazing pictures full of colorful food in pleasing arrangements. Everything looks amazing. I actually paged through all the savory recipes, which I rarely do as I'm mostly interested in the baking sections.
Baking here involves "All-purpose gluten-free flour." In the introduction, the author sings the praises of Bob's Red Mill AP GF Baking Flour, but never says if that's what she used in formulating her recipes. (Though she explicitly uses it on her blog, along with Bob's GF 1-to-1 Baking Flour.) I am not a fan of vagueness in gluten-free baking. Other ingredients include: oats, chia seeds, beet sugar, xanthan gum, sweet potato puree, aquafaba (the water from canned garbanzo beans, whipped until it resembles meringue), and coconut cream, coconut milk, and coconut oil. There's coconut milk in nearly every baked good in this book, making them inaccessible to me.
I saved several of the savory recipes, instead. Avgolemono—Greek lemon chicken soup—has always appealed to me, though this version's made without the eggs and orzo, and it's really simple, but really tasty. There's a shredded carrot salad with a vinaigrette that's simple and delicious, like coleslaw without the cabbage. The chimichurri is great. And the quinoa tabbouleh looks good, too.
Anyway. This book is beautiful. Every recipe has head notes. Measurements are in U.S. volume. There's a color photo for most recipes. The index is thorough, though not every page in this book has a page number, which is bizarre. Storage advice is rare, and, oh, there's a set of incomprehensible icons to indicate whether a recipe is vegan, quick, good for kids, handles the freezer, etc. "High in fiber" looks like wheat. "No added sugar" looks like "no cubes" but at least that makes sense. "Make ahead" looks a printer icon. Then, after some thinking, it looked like one loaf of bread stacked on top of an identical, yet slightly larger, loaf of bread. Then, much later, I shouted, "It's an armchair!!" I mean, that's my best guess. It makes more sense than a printer or a stack of bread.
You can check out Heather Christo's food blog to see what she's about. I find it a little busy. It has a bunch of personal chatter before the recipes and the photographs have so many flowers sprinkled over everything it's hard to see the food. The cookbook is really where it's at.
This review appeared on my journal in a slightly different form.
no subject
Date: 2020-06-15 10:30 pm (UTC)Intriguing — will check it out from our capacious library, which has resumed local lending (the trucks that shuttle books around the south central part of my state are still parked).
I adore avgolemeno, and swap cooked Jasmine rice for the orzo.
no subject
Date: 2020-06-15 10:48 pm (UTC)Still, if you just avoid that intro section, it's a very nice book.