Customer Reviews

Gluten-Free 101: Easy, Basic Dishes Without Wheat

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
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I'm delighted that I could transform my wheat intolerance into a gratifying business that helps people eat the foods they love-without the ingredients they don't want. ~Carol Fenster

Carol Fenster, Ph.D. is one of America's gluten-free experts. Her work appears on the Health Network and she enjoys developing gluten-free products for manufacturers. She also counsels patients who are allergic to gluten. Carol's journey began with a case of chronic sinusitis. When she stayed away from wheat, she finally found relief.

Celiac disease now afflicts 1:133 Americans and is now the nation's most common inherited autoimmune disorder. Celiacs have to avoid gluten because it prevents the absorption of nutrients in food. This causes a cascading problem and can lead to anemia, osteoporosis and other health problems like rashes, stomach aches and general fatigue.

When I went to the store to find a Gluten-Free Flour Blend, I found the GF Garbanzo and Fava Flour blend by Bob's Red Mill. Apparently, Carol developed a gluten-free line for Bob's Red Mill. She also gives the recipe for her Sorghum Flour blend in this book.

Today I made the most delicious Banana Muffins using Carol's recipe from page 73. It is a quick bread recipe and you can make a Banana Bread variation. I did use ¾ cup milk instead of the recommended ¼-1/3. So, if you choose to buy a premixed flour blend, you might need to slightly adapt the liquid quantities. Overall, I was very impressed with the recipe and made 24 delicious and healthy banana muffins for breakfast. I'll freeze the leftover muffins for future banana muffin cravings.

Last week, I decided to try the Basic Bread recipe in my bread machine and then sliced the bread thinly and dried it out in the oven for 20 minutes to make crackers. They are the best crackers I've ever tasted. So far, I've only found rice-based crackers at the store, so this was a wonderful solution. You will need to look for items like potato starch, Xanthan gum, guar gum, soy lecithin and cider vinegar. I used rice wine vinegar and another flour in place of the potato starch. So, these recipes can also be adapted to taste. Most of the ingredients are now readily available at your grocery store on the natural foods isle. If you can't locate these in your town, Carol gives plenty of online sources.

This book is simply fascinating because the author is so knowledgeable and even suggests that you stay away from some flours you would never suspect. Her alternative list of flours for Gluten-Free baking will also be useful when you are shopping and reading labels. If you normally use wheat as a thickener, you might want to try Agar, Arrowroot, Cornstarch or Guar Gum. There is a handy substitute list on page 23.

If you decide you are serious about the gluten-free lifestyle, you might want to go through this book and make a list of the special ingredients. Once you have rounded up about 5 main ingredients, you can easily put together a number of healthy recipes. Xanthan gum, gelatin powder, tapioca flour, potato starch, soy lecithin, guar gum, sorgum flour, tapioca flour and a choice of corn flour, almond flour or bean flour are needed for this cookbook. It is nice to know that if you are allergic to nuts, you can also use bean flour or corn flour.

Recipes I'm dreaming about trying:

Breakfast Pizza
Granola with Rice Flakes
Peanut Butter Cookies - I'll use Soy Butter
Chicken Fried Steak
Cinnamon Coffee Cake

Personally, I have a ton more energy when I stay away from wheat products, so this recipe book is helping me to adapt my lifestyle. I'm also excited about trying the Bob's Red Mill flours in my own recipes.

You may also enjoy:

Living Without - A magazine, Carol is the food editor
Wheat-Free Recipes and Menus
Special Diet Solutions
Food Allergy Field Guide
Gluten-Free Celebrations

~The Rebecca Review

This isn't only a cookbook, it's a complete resource for anyone who requires a gluten-free cookbook. If you are one of the millions of people with celiac sprue or other sensitivity to grains, this book will serve you well. The author has a very good understanding of the problems of avoiding wheat and gluten. She lists the commercial ingredients such as modified food starch, hydrolyzed vegetable protein that may be wheat in origin. She tells you how to read labels, and gives advice such as avoiding oatmeal which, though it has no gluten, may be processed in wheat facilities or have been grown with wheat and thus somewhat contaminated. The section on alternative grains like amaranth, quinoa, rice, wild rice, milo and sorghum is comprehensive.

The recipes are for everything from pizza, breadsticks, foccacia to cakes, cookies, and other foods. The breadstick recipe tells you how to extrude the breadsticks from a hole in a plastic bag--a novel method easier than rolling dough for those tasty, crunchy snacks. The recipes frequently call for a flour mix recipe included in the book that substitutes for wheat flour. Even bread machines are covered.

The book is well-written and an excellent resource for people with wheat and grain dietary restrictions. Highly recommended.

With this great cookbook, no one will ever guess that there's anything "missing" in the food. These recipes have great taste, great texture, great everything. The introductory material provides detailed information for using "new" ingredients. Many of the recipes provide alternative ingredients to help those who have multiple food sensitivities. In addition to the terrific recipes and lots of helpful hints, there are appendices with contacts, resources, and substitution information. This would be the first book I would give a newly diagnosed celiac.

Gluten-Free 101 is a wonderful resource! I would have been thrilled to find this book right after I'd been diagnosed - how reassuring, plus it contains recipes for everything I couldn't figure out how to make (pizza, meat loaf, etc).

I just love this cookbook. It has been so useful to me for lots of reasons. There is a section in it on how exactly to make gluten-free bread and bread machines. And, if you know anything about cooking/baking gluten-free you'll understand that it's not always an easy task. There are several recipes I have tried and most have been very good. Carol Fenster seems to really know her stuff. I am quite pleased with my purchase!!

This is a good book if you don't mind eating refined sugar, butter, and milk. The recipes are good if you are on a traditional American diet, but I do wish that she had at least discussed non-dairy and non-refined sugar substitutes. If you already know how to use substitutions, I would recommend this. Otherwise I would suggest getting a different how-to book and perhaps getting this one as substitute. Overall, however, this book is exactly what it says in the title - the recipes are easy and I like the easy-going writing style.

I am a mother of a 3 year with ADD/ADHD. A Chiropractor suggested a wheat free diet might help her, so I did so. I had no idea where to start. I found this cook book at the health food store and in really helped me get on the right foot learning how to cook wheat free. And let me tell you, it IS a LEARNING process if you're used to traditional cooking. This is a basic cook book with traditonal american foods. All of Carol's cookbooks are awesome, try another once you've graduated from this one.
---And yes this way of life has calmed my child down a lot!!

Highly informative with what look like good recipes.

Unable to give more info. until recipes are tried and tested.

This is a great book for people who have not cooked from scratch before and now need good recipes to make the foods they want gluten free. There's really good information on ingredients and what they do and how they taste. There's help on how to avoid gluten in packaged foods, and a good recipe for an all purpose flour that's used in almost all the recipes.
I'm a creative and experienced home cook so once I understand the ingredients I can pretty much do what I want with my own recipes. This is good for people who don't know how to begin cooking from scratch.

I am just getting started learning to cook and bake gluten-free. This book looks like it will be very helpful. It is easy to understand with basic recipes to get me started.