Cookbooks

I was one of those people that would open up the refrigerator and/or cabinet and whip up a meal.  I was pretty sans-cookbook, I would browse recipes or watch cooking shows on t.v. to get ideas but most of my cooking was done by taste.

Now baking was a different story, it requires more precise measurements.  Now without the use of flour, it became even more difficult.

We were out to lunch one day when the waitress mentioned that she cooks GF at home (for health purposes, she was not a celiac).  She had great success with The Gluten-Free Almond Flour Cookbook by Elana Amsterdam.  So we picked it up at the bookstore although you can find many of her recipes on her website.  So far, we have made scones that were moist and tasty breakfast treats, not as flaky as a normal scone, but good.  She discusses the nutritional benefit of almond flour and her recipes include grapeseed oil and agave nectar.

The other book that we have found to be good (that I have written about previously) is the Artisinal Gluten-Free Cooking by Kelli and Peter Bronski.  Their book (and other books) is based on their blog and reads as such.  Each recipe is accompanied by a story.  He is an author and she is in the food industry.  Their book is based on their flour blend of brown rice flour, potato starch and powder, sorghum flour and xanthan gum.

I have made cinnamon rolls (see the post), muffins and scones.  The scones were chocolate chip, a bit closer to a scone than the almond flour but a bit drier and grainier than a flaky scone.  Next time I am going to do a cranberry walnut scone and I think it will blend perfect with their recipe.  I used to have this at The Bakery in New Paltz, NY which ironically is where they are from - the Hudson Valley of NY.

The muffins.  These were good.  My wife whipped up an almond flour banana chocolate chip and walnut batch.  These were light, fluffy and delicious.  I used the Artisinal recipe to make blueberry muffins.  Both were great.  The blueberry have a crumble on top which not only tastes great but makes they look nice too.  The almond ones were more of the consistency of a regular flour muffin; the blueberry had a bit of a cake like consistency but both tasted great.

While there are lots of websites out there with recipes these have been the first two cookbooks that have been worthwhile.  I still cook food from scratch but both books have some great entrees if you are looking for meals.

Have fun in the kitchen and get cooking,

The Un-Gluten Guy