Cook Books

[027daisy]

Looking for a good cook book. Anyone have any recommendations??

[FooGirlsMom]

It depends on the type of cookbook you're looking for. Do you want meals - or - baking type of books with bread, desserts etc.?

FooGirlsMom

[sandsurfgirl]

As far as cooking regular meals, I just sub rice flour if something calls for flour like thickening a gravy, rice pasta if it calls for pasta, etc. I don't use gluten free cookbooks.

Now baking is a different story. However, I have found a good all purpose gluten free flour mix can be substituted in regular gluten recipes 1 for 1 and so far I've had good luck. If it's a white type of item like cupcakes I use 2 parts sweet rice flour mixed with 2 parts starch, either potato, corn, tapioca or a mixture. Then I add like 3/4 teaspoon xanthan gum and follow the recipe otherwise. I can't guarantee it will always work, but so far so good.

Annalise Roberts Gluten Free Baking book is good. I don't like her bread recipe though.

[mushroom]

Depends if you have any other intolerances other than gluten. Most cookbook (baking) authors have their own special floor mixes, and if that mix happens to contain something(s) you cannot eat then the cookbook is worthless to you until you learn enough about substitution to figure out what you can use instead, and even then there are some flours that just cannot really be substituted for satisfactorily. If you have no other intolerances, than Robin Ryberg, Carol Fenster, Bette Hagman, are reliable authors.

I have put together my own cookbook from recipes published on the forum, from recipes in our local newspapers, and from recipes googled online - a custom cookbook where there is nothing that I cannot eat because I hate going through cookbooks and saying, no, I can't make that, can't have that, that won't work, damn!!!

[WheatChef]

For regular type cookbooks any book from Heston Blumenthal is amazing although slightly tilted towards the culinary scientists out there. Alton Brown books are fun intro to the inner workings of food chemistry and food history. I recently picked up The Spice Bible and am having fun making some really nice new flavors from the recipes in it dealing with a lot of hard to find spices. If you want a thorough lesson on everything having to do with a particular type of preparation (meats/fish/vegetables/sauces) look for a James Peterson book.

[027daisy]

Thanks everyone! Sheesh theres a lot to thing about! I am more restricted than my daughter but she is gluten free and lactose intolerant. I am dairy free. Also cant have carrots, celery for myself and she cant have high fat things like butter, avocado, and coconut. That also rules out all nuts! Its very frustrating and I give up before I start. So I need to get rolling on some things!!